Washington Square (9 page)

C
HAPTER
16

They had of course immediately spoken of Catherine. “Did she send me a message, or—or anything?” Morris asked. He appeared to think that she might have sent him a trinket or a lock of her hair.

Mrs. Penniman was slightly embarrassed, for she had not told her niece of her intended expedition. “Not exactly a message,” she said. “I didn't ask her for one, because I was afraid to—to excite her.”

“I am afraid she is not very excitable.” And Morris gave a smile of some bitterness.

“She is better than that—she is steadfast, she is true.”

“Do you think she will hold fast, then?”

“To the death!”

“Oh, I hope it won't come to that,” said Morris.

“We must be prepared for the worst, and that is what I wish to speak to you about.”

“What do you call the worst?”

“Well,” said Mrs. Penniman, “my brother's hard, intellectual nature.”

“Oh, the devil!”

“He is impervious to pity,” Mrs. Penniman added, by way of explanation.

“Do you mean that he won't come round?”

“He will never be vanquished by argument. I have studied him. He will be vanquished only by the accomplished fact.”

“The accomplished fact?”

“He will come round afterward,” said Mrs. Penniman, with extreme significance. “He cares for nothing but facts—he must be met by facts.”

“Well,” rejoined Morris, “it is a fact that I wish to marry his daughter. I met him with that the other day, but he was not at all vanquished.”

Mrs. Penniman was silent a little, and her smile beneath the shadow of her capacious bonnet, on the edge of which her black veil was arranged curtainwise, fixed itself upon Morris's face with a still more tender brilliancy. “Marry Catherine first, and meet him afterward!” she exclaimed.

“Do you recommend that?” asked the young man, frowning heavily.

She was a little frightened, but she went on with considerable boldness. “That is the way I see it: a private marriage—a private marriage.” She repeated the phrase because she liked it.

“Do you mean that I should carry Catherine off? What do they call it—elope with her?”

“It is not a crime when you are driven to it,” said Mrs. Penniman. “My husband, as I have told you, was a distinguished clergyman—one of the most eloquent men of his day. He once married a young couple that had fled from the house of the young lady's father; he was so interested in their story. He had no hesitation, and everything came out beautifully. The father was afterward reconciled, and thought everything of the young man. Mr. Penniman married them in the evening, about seven o'clock. The church was so dark you could scarcely see, and Mr. Penniman was intensely agitated—he was so sympathetic. I don't believe he could have done it again.”

“Unfortunately, Catherine and I have not Mr. Penniman to marry us,” said Morris.

“No, but you have me!” rejoined Mrs. Penniman, expressively. “I can't perform the ceremony, but I can help you; I can watch!”

“The woman's an idiot!” thought Morris, but he was obliged to say something different. It was not, however, materially more civil. “Was it in order to tell me this that you requested I would meet you here?”

Mrs. Penniman had been conscious of a certain vagueness in her errand, and of not being able to offer him any very tangible reward for his long walk. “I thought perhaps you would like to see one who is so near to Catherine,” she observed, with considerable majesty, “and also,” she added, “that you would value an opportunity of sending her something.”

Morris extended his empty hands with a melancholy smile. “I am greatly obliged to you, but I have nothing to send.”

“Haven't you a
word
?” asked his companion, with her suggestive smile coming back.

Morris frowned again. “Tell her to hold fast,” he said, rather curtly.

“That is a good word—a noble word: It will make her happy for many days. She is very touching, very brave,” Mrs. Penniman went on, arranging her mantle and preparing to depart. While she was so engaged she had an inspiration; she found the phrase that she could boldly offer as a vindication of the step she had taken. “If you marry Catherine at all risks,” she said, “you will give my brother a proof of your being what he pretends to doubt.”

“What he pretends to doubt?”

“Don't you know what that is?” Mrs. Penniman asked, almost playfully.

“It does not concern me to know,” said Morris, grandly.

“Of course it makes you angry.”

“I despise it,” Morris declared.

“Ah, you know what it is, then?” said Mrs. Penniman, shaking her finger at him. “He pretends that you like—you like the money.”

Morris hesitated a moment; and then, as if he spoke advisedly, “I
do
like the money!”

“Ah, but not—but not as he means it. You don't like it more than Catherine?”

He leaned his elbows on the table and buried his head in his hands. “You torture me!” he murmured. And, indeed, this was almost the effect of the poor lady's too importunate interest in his situation.

But she insisted in making her point. “If you marry her in spite of him, he will take for granted that you expect nothing of him, and are prepared to do without it; and so he will see that you are disinterested.”

Morris raised his head a little, following this argument. “And what shall I gain by that?”

“Why, that he will see that he has been wrong in thinking that you wished to get his money.”

“And seeing that I wish he would go to the deuce with it, he will leave it to a hospital. Is that what you mean?” asked Morris.

“No, I don't mean that, though that would be very grand,” Mrs. Penniman quickly added. “I mean that, having done you such an injustice, he will think it his duty, at the end, to make some amends.”

Morris shook his head, though it must be confessed he was a little struck with this idea. “Do you think he is so sentimental?”

“He is not sentimental,” said Mrs. Penniman, “but, to be perfectly fair to him, I think he has, in his own narrow way, a certain sense of duty.”

There passed through Morris Townsend's mind a rapid wonder as to what he might, even under a remote contingency, be indebted to from the action of this principle in Doctor Sloper's breast, and the inquiry exhausted itself in his sense of the ludicrous. “Your brother has no duties to me,” he said presently, “and I none to him.”

“Ah, but he has duties to Catherine.”

“Yes; but you see, on that principle Catherine has duties to him as well.”

Mrs. Penniman got up with a melancholy sigh, as if she thought him very unimaginative. “She has always performed them faithfully; and now do you think she has no duties to
you
?” Mrs. Penniman always, even in conversation, italicized her personal pronouns.

“It would sound harsh to say so. I am so grateful for her love,” Morris added.

“I will tell her you said that. And now, remember that if you need me I am there.” And Mrs. Penniman, who could think of nothing more to say, nodded vaguely in the direction of Washington Square.

Morris looked some moments at the sanded floor of the shop; he seemed to be disposed to linger a moment. At last, looking up with a certain abruptness, “It is your belief that if she marries me he will cut her off?” he asked.

Mrs. Penniman stared a little, and smiled. “Why, I have explained to you what I think would happen—that in the end it would be the best thing to do.”

“You mean that, whatever she does, in the long run she will get the money?”

“It doesn't depend upon her, but upon you. Venture to appear as disinterested as you are,” said Mrs. Penniman, ingeniously. Morris dropped his eyes on the sanded floor again, pondering this, and she pursued: “Mr. Penniman and I had nothing, and we were very happy. Catherine, moreover, has her mother's fortune, which, at the time my sister-in-law married, was considered a very handsome one.”

“Oh, don't speak of that!” said Morris; and indeed it was quite superfluous, for he had contemplated the fact in all its lights.

“Austin married a wife with money—why shouldn't you?”

“Ah, but your brother was a doctor,” Morris objected.

“Well, all young men can't be doctors.”

“I should think it an extremely loathsome profession,” said Morris, with an air of intellectual independence; then, in a moment, he went on rather inconsequently, “Do you suppose there is a will already made in Catherine's favor?”

“I suppose so—even doctors must die; and perhaps a little in mine,” Mrs. Penniman frankly added.

“And you believe he would certainly change it—as regards Catherine?”

“Yes; and then change it back again.”

“Ah, but one can't depend on that,” said Morris.

“Do you want to
depend
on it?” Mrs. Penniman asked.

Morris blushed a little. “Well, I am certainly afraid of being the cause of an injury to Catherine.”

“Ah, you must not be afraid. Be afraid of nothing, and everything will go well.”

And then Mrs. Penniman paid for her cup of tea, and Morris paid for his oyster stew, and they went out together into the dimly lighted wilderness of the Seventh Avenue. The dusk had closed in completely, and the street lamps were separated by wide intervals of a pavement in which cavities and fissures played a disproportionate part. An omnibus, emblazoned with strange pictures, went tumbling over the dislocated cobblestones.

“How will you go home?” Morris asked, following this vehicle with an interested eye. Mrs. Penniman had taken his arm.

She hesitated a moment. “I think this manner would be pleasant,” she said; and she continued to let him feel the value of his support.

So he walked with her through the devious ways of the west side of town, and through the bustle of gathering nightfall in populous streets, to the quiet precinct of Washington Square. They lingered a moment at the foot of Doctor Sloper's white marble steps, above which a spotless white door, adorned with a glittering silver plate, seemed to figure for Morris the closed portal of happiness; and then Mrs. Penniman's companion rested a melancholy eye upon a lighted window in the upper part of the house.

“That is my room—my dear little room!” Mrs. Penniman remarked.

Morris started. “Then I needn't come walking round the Square to gaze at it.”

“That's as you please. But Catherine's is behind; two noble windows on the second floor. I think you can see them from the other street.”

“I don't want to see them, ma'am.” And Morris turned his back to the house.

“I will tell her you have been
here
, at any rate,” said Mrs. Penniman, pointing to the spot where they stood, “and I will give her your message—that she is to hold fast.”

“Oh yes; of course. You know I write her all that.”

“It seems to say more when it is spoken. And remember, if you need me, that I am
there
,”and Mrs. Penniman glanced at the third floor.

On this they separated, and Morris, left to himself, stood looking at the house a moment; after which he turned away, and took a gloomy walk round the Square, on the opposite side, close to the wooden fence. Then he came back, and paused for a minute in front of Doctor Sloper's dwelling. His eyes traveled over it; they even rested on the ruddy windows of Mrs. Penniman's apartment. He thought it a devilish comfortable house.

C
HAPTER
17

Mrs. Penniman told Catherine that evening—the two ladies were sitting in the back parlor—that she had had an interview with Morris Townsend; and on receiving this news the girl started with a sense of pain. She felt angry for the moment; it was almost the first time she had ever felt angry. It seemed to her that her aunt was meddlesome; and from this came a vague apprehension that she would spoil something.

“I don't see why you should have seen him. I don't think it was right,” Catherine said.

“I was so sorry for him—it seemed to me someone ought to see him.”

“No one but I,” said Catherine, who felt as if she were making the most presumptuous speech of her life, and yet at the same time had an instinct that she was right in doing so.

“But you wouldn't, my dear,” Aunt Lavinia rejoined, “and I didn't know what might have become of him.”

“I have not seen him because my father has forbidden it,” Catherine said, very simply.

There was a simplicity in this, indeed, which fairly vexed Mrs. Penniman. “If your father forbade you to go to sleep, I suppose you would keep awake!” she commented.

Catherine looked at her. “I don't understand you. You seem to me very strange.”

“Well, my dear, you will understand me someday!” And Mrs. Penniman, who was reading the evening paper, which she perused daily from the first line to the last, resumed her occupation. She wrapped herself in silence; she was determined Catherine should ask her for an account of her interview with Morris. But Catherine was silent for so long that she almost lost patience; and she was on the point of remarking to her that she was very heartless, when the girl at last spoke.

“What did he say?” she asked.

“He said he is ready to marry you any day, in spite of everything.”

Catherine made no answer to this, and Mrs. Penniman almost lost patience again; owing to which she at last volunteered the information that Morris looked very handsome, but terribly haggard.

“Did he seem sad?” asked her niece.

“He was dark under the eyes,” said Mrs. Penniman. “So different from when I first saw him; though I am not sure that if I had seen him in this condition the first time, I should not have been even more struck with him. There is something brilliant in his very misery.”

This was, to Catherine's sense, a vivid picture, and though she disapproved, she felt herself gazing at it. “Where did you see him?” she asked, presently.

“In—in the Bowery; at a confectioner's,” said Mrs. Penniman, who had a general idea that she ought to dissemble a little.

“Whereabouts is the palce?” Catherine inquired, after another pause.

“Do you wish to go there, my dear?” said her aunt.

“Oh no.” And Catherine got up from her seat and went to the fire, where she stood looking awhile at the glowing coals.

“Why are you so dry, Catherine?” Mrs. Penniman said at last.

“So dry?”

“So cold—so irresponsive.”

The girl turned very quickly. “Did
he
say that?”

Mrs. Penniman hesitated a moment. “I will tell you what he said. He said he feared only one thing—that you would be afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Afraid of your father.”

Catherine turned back to the fire again, and then, after a pause, she said, “I
am
afraid of my father.”

Mrs. Penniman got quickly up from her chair and approached her niece. “Do you mean to give him up, then?”

Catherine for some time never moved; she kept her eyes on the coals. At last she raised her head and looked at her aunt. “Why do you push me so?” she asked.

“I don't push you. When have I spoken to you before?”

“It seems to me that you have spoken to me several times.”

“I am afraid it is necessary, then, Catherine,” said Mrs. Penniman, with a good deal of solemnity. “I am afraid you don't feel the importance”—she paused a little; Catherine was looking at her—“the importance of not disappointing that gallant young heart!” And Mrs. Penniman went back to her chair by the lamp, and, with a little jerk, picked up the evening paper again.

Catherine stood there before the fire, with her hands behind her, looking at her aunt, to whom it seemed that the girl had never had just this dark fixedness in her gaze. “I don't think you understand or that you know me,” she said.

“If I don't, it is not wonderful; you trust me so little.”

Catherine made no attempt to deny this charge, and for some time more nothing was said. But Mrs. Penniman's imagination was restless, and the evening paper failed on this occasion to enchain it.

“If you succumb to the dread of your father's wrath,” she said, “I don't know what will become of us.”

“Did
he
tell you to say these things to me?”

“He told me to use my influence.”

“You must be mistaken,” said Catherine. “He trusts me.”

“I hope he may never repent of it!” And Mrs. Penniman gave a little sharp slap to her newspaper. She knew not what to make of her niece, who had suddenly become stern and contradictious.

This tendency on Catherine's part was presently even more apparent. “You had much better not make any more appointments with Mr. Townsend,” she said. “I don't think it is right.”

Mrs. Penniman rose with considerable majesty. “My poor child, are you jealous of me?” she inquired.

“Oh, Aunt Lavinia!” murmured Catherine, blushing.

“I don't think it is your place to teach me what is right.” On this point Catherine made no concession. “It can't be right to deceive.”

“I certainly have not deceived
you
!”

“Yes; but I promised my father—”

“I have no doubt you promised your father. But I have promised him nothing.”

Catherine had to admit this, and she did so in silence. “I don't believe Mr. Townsend himself likes it,” she said, at last.

“Doesn't like meeting me?”

“Not in secret.”

“It was not in secret; the place was full of people.”

“But it was a secret place—away off in the Bowery.”

Mrs. Penniman flinched a little. “Gentlemen enjoy such things,” she remarked, presently. “I know what gentlemen like.”

“My father wouldn't like it, if he knew.”

“Pray, do you propose to inform him?” Mrs. Penniman inquired.

“No, Aunt Lavinia. But please don't do it again.”

“If I do it again you will inform him—is that what you mean? I do not share your dread of my brother; I have always known how to defend my own position. But I shall certainly never again take any step on your behalf; you are much too thankless. I knew you were not a spontaneous nature, but I believed you were firm, and I told your father that he would find you so. I am disappointed, but your father will not be.” And with this Mrs. Penniman offered her niece a brief goodnight, and withdrew to her own apartment.