William Dean Howells: 27 Novels in One Volume (Illustrated). William Dean HowellsЧитать онлайн книгу.
did indeed remember Tedham's affection for his daughter, whom I remembered as in short frocks when I last saw them together. It was before my own door in town. Tedham had driven up in a smart buggy behind a slim sorrel, and I came out, at a sign he made me through the bow-window with his whip, and saw the little maid on the seat there beside him. They were both very well dressed, though still in mourning for the child's mother, and the whole turnout was handsomely set up. Tedham was then about thirty-five, and the child looked about nine. The color of her hair was the color of his fine brown beard, which had as yet no trace of gray in it; but the light in her eyes was another light, and her smile, which was of the same shape as his, was of another quality, as she leaned across him and gave me her pretty little gloved hand with a gay laugh. "I should think you would be afraid of such a fiery sorrel dragon as that," I said, in recognition of the colt's lifting and twitching with impatience as we talked.
"Oh, I'm not afraid with papa!" she said, and she laughed again as he took her hand in one of his and covered it out of sight.
I recalled, now, looking at him there in the twilight of the woods, how happy they had both seemed that sunny afternoon in the city square, as they flashed away from my door and glanced back at me and smiled together. I went into the house and said to my wife with a formulation of the case which pleased me, "If there is anything in the world that Tedham likes better than to ride after a good horse, it is to ride after a good horse with that little girl of his." "Yes," said my wife, "but a good horse means a good deal of money; even when a little girl goes with it." "That is so," I assented, "but Tedham has made a lot lately in real estate, they say, and I don't know what better he could do with his money; or, I don't believe he does." We said no more, but we both felt, with the ardor of young parents, that it was a great virtue, a saving virtue, in Tedham to love his little girl so much; I was afterward not always sure that it was. Still, when Tedham appealed to me now in the name of his love for her, he moved my heart, if not my reason, in his favor; those old superstitions persist.
"Why, of course, you want to see her. But I couldn't tell you where she is."
"You could find out for me."
"I don't see how," I said; but I did see how, and I knew as well as he what his next approach would be. I felt strong against it, however, and I did not perceive the necessity of being short with him in a matter not involving my own security or comfort.
"I could find out where Hasketh is," he said, naming the husband of his sister-in-law; "but it would be of no use for me to go there. They wouldn't see me." He put this like a question, but I chose to let it be its own answer, and he went on. "There is no one that I can ask to act for me in the matter but you, and I ask you, March, to go to my sister-in-law for me."
I shook my head. "That I can't do, Tedham."
"Ah!" he urged, "what harm could it do you?"
"Look here, Tedham!" I said. "I don't know why you feel authorized to come to me at all. It is useless your saying that there is no one else. You know very well that the authorities, some of them—the chaplain—would go and see Mrs. Hasketh for you. He could have a great deal more influence with her than any one else could, if he felt like saying a good word for you. As far as I am concerned, you have expiated your offence fully; but I should think you yourself would see that you ought not to come to me with this request; or you ought to come to me last of all men."
"It is just because of that part of my offence which concerned you that I come to you. I knew how generous you were, and after you told me that you had no resentment—I acknowledge that it is indelicate, if you choose to look at it in that light, but a man like me can't afford to let delicacy stand in his way. I don't want to flatter you, or get you to do this thing for me on false pretences. But I thought that if you went to Mrs. Hasketh for me, she would remember that you had overlooked something, and she would be more disposed to—to—be considerate."
"I can't do it, Tedham," I returned. "It would be of no use. Besides, I don't like the errand. I'm not sure that I have any business to interfere. I am not sure that you have any right to disturb the shape that their lives have settled into. I'm sorry for you, I pity you with all my heart. But there are others to be considered as well as you. And—simply, I can't."
"How do you know," he entreated, "that my daughter wouldn't be as glad to see me as I to see her?"
"I don't know it. I don't know anything about it. That's the reason I can't have anything to do with it. I can't justify myself in meddling with what doesn't concern me, and in what I'm not sure but I should do more harm than good. I must say good-night. It's getting late, and they will be anxious about me at home." My heart smote me as I spoke the last word, which seemed a cruel recognition of Tedham's homelessness. But I held out my hand to him for parting, and braced myself against my inward weakness.
He might well have failed to see my hand. At any rate he did not take it. He turned and started to walk out of the woods by my side. We came presently to some open fields. Beyond them was the road, and after we had climbed the first wall, and found ourselves in a somewhat lighter place, he began to speak again.
"I thought," he said, "that if you had forgiven me, I could take it as a sign that I had suffered enough to satisfy everybody."
"We needn't dwell upon my share in the matter, Tedham," I answered, as kindly as I could. "That was entirely my own affair."
"You can't think," he pursued, "how much your letter was to me. It came when I was in perfect despair—in those awful first days when it seemed as if I could not bear it, and yet death itself would be no relief. Oh, they don't know how much we suffer! If they did, they would forgive us anything, everything! Your letter was the first gleam of hope I had. I don't know how you came to write it!"
"Why, of course, Tedham, I felt sorry for you—"
"Oh, did you, did you?" He began to cry, and as we hurried along over the fields, he sobbed with the wrenching, rending sobs of a man. "I knew you did, and I believe it was God himself that put it into your heart to write me that letter and take off that much of the blame from me. I said to myself that if I ever lived through it, I would try to tell you how much you had done for me. I don't blame you for refusing to do what I've asked you now. I can see how you may think it isn't best, and I thank you all the same for that letter. I've got it here." He took a letter out of his breast-pocket, and showed it to me. "It isn't the first time I've cried over it."
I did not say anything, for my heart was in my throat, and we stumbled along in silence till we climbed the last wall, and stood on the sidewalk that skirted the suburban highway. There, under the street-lamp, we stopped a moment, and it was he who now offered me his hand for parting. I took it, and we said, together, "Well, good-by," and moved in different directions. I knew very well that I should turn back, and I had not gone a hundred feet away when I faced about. He was shambling off into the dusk, a most hapless figure. "Tedham!" I called after him.
"Well?" he answered, and he halted instantly; he had evidently known what I would do as well as I had.
We reapproached each other, and when we were again under the lamp I asked, a little awkwardly, "Are you in need of money, Tedham?"
"I've got my ten years' wages with me," he said, with a lightness that must have come from his reviving hope in me. He drew his hand out of his pocket, and showed me the few dollars with which the State inhumanly turns society's outcasts back into the world again.
"Oh, that won't do." I said. "You must let me lend you something."
"Thank you," he said, with perfect simplicity. "But you know I can't tell when I shall be able to pay you."
"Oh, that's all right." I gave him a ten-dollar note which I had loose in my pocket; it was one that my wife had told me to get changed at the grocery near the station, and I had walked off to the old temple, or the old cockpit, and forgotten about it.
Tedham took the note, but he said, holding it in his hand, "I would a million times rather you would let me go home with you and see Mrs. March a moment."
"I can't do that, Tedham," I answered, not unkindly,