William Dean Howells: 27 Novels in One Volume (Illustrated). William Dean Howells
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He saw himself flying up the stairs to their attic three steps at a bound, and bursting into the room, where she sat eager and anxious, and flinging the order into her lap; and then, when she had read it with rapture at the sum, and pride in the smartness with which he had managed the whole affair, he saw himself catching her up and dancing about the floor with her. He thought how fond of her he was, and he wondered that he could ever have been cold or lukewarm.
She was standing at the window of Mrs. Nash's little reception-room when he reached the house. It was not to be as he had planned, but he threw her a kiss, glad of the impatience which would not let her wait till he could find her in their own room, and he had the precious order in his hand to dazzle her eyes as soon as he should enter. But, as he sprang into the hall, his foot struck against a trunk and some boxes.
"Hello!" he cried, "Your things have come!"
Marcia lingered within the door of the reception-room; she seemed afraid to come out. "Yes," she said, faintly; "father brought them. He has just been here."
He seemed there still, and the vision unnerved her as if Bartley and he had been confronted there in reality. Her husband had left her hardly a quarter of an hour, when a hack drove up to the door, and her father alighted. She let him in herself, before he could ring, and waited tremulously for what he should do or say. But he merely took her hand, and, stooping over, gave her the chary kiss with which he used to greet her at home when he returned from an absence.
She flung her arms around his neck. "Oh, father!"
"Well, well! There, there!" he said, and then he went into the reception-room with her; and there was nothing in his manner to betray that anything unusual had happened since they last met. He kept his hat on, as his fashion was, and he kept on his overcoat, below which the skirts of his dress-coat hung an inch or two; he looked old, and weary, and shabby.
"I can't leave Bartley, father," she began, hysterically.
"I haven't come to separate you from your husband, Marcia. What made you think so? It's your place to stay with him."
"He's out, now," she answered, in an incoherent hopefulness. "He's just gone. Will you wait and see him, father?"
"No, I guess I can't wait," said the old man. "It wouldn't do any good for us to meet now."
"Do you think he coaxed me away? He didn't. He took pity on me,—he forgave me. And I didn't mean to deceive you when I left home, father. But I couldn't help trying to see Bartley again."
"I believe you, Marcia. I understand. The thing had to be. Let me see your marriage certificate."
She ran up to her room and fetched it.
Her father read it carefully. "Yes, that is all right," he said, and returned it to her. He added, after an absent pause: "I have brought your things, Marcia. Your mother packed all she could think of."
"How is mother?" asked Marcia, as if this had first reminded her of her mother.
"She is usually well," replied her father.
"Won't you—won't you come up and see our room, father?" Marcia asked, after the interval following this feint of interest in her mother.
"No," said the old man, rising restlessly from his chair, and buttoning at his coat, which was already buttoned. "I guess I sha'n't have time. I guess I must be going."
Marcia put herself between him and the door. "Won't you let me tell you about it, father?"
"About what?"
"How—I came to go off with Bartley. I want you should know."
"I guess I know all I want to know about it, Marcia. I accept the facts. I told you how I felt. What you've done hasn't changed me toward you. I understand you better than you understand yourself; and I can't say that I'm surprised. Now I want you should make the best of it."
"You don't forgive Bartley!" she cried, passionately. "Then I don't want you should forgive me!"
"Where did you pick up this nonsense about forgiving?" said her father, knitting his shaggy brows. "A man does this thing or that, and the consequence follows. I couldn't forgive Bartley so that he could escape any consequence of what he's done; and you're not afraid I shall hurt him?"
"Stay and see him!" she pleaded. "He is so kind to me! He works night and day, and he has just gone out to sell something he has written for the papers."
"I never said he was lazy," returned her father. "Do you want any money, Marcia?"
"No, we have plenty. And Bartley is earning it all the time. I wish you would stay and see him!"
"No, I'm glad he didn't happen to be in," said the Squire. "I sha'n't wait for him to come back. It wouldn't do any good, just yet, Marcia; it would only do harm. Bartley and I haven't had time to change our minds about each other yet. But I'll say a good word for him to you. You're his wife, and it's your part to help him, not to hinder him. You can make him worse by being a fool; but you needn't be a fool. Don't worry him about other women; don't be jealous. He's your husband, now: and the worst thing you can do is to doubt him."
"I won't, father, I won't, indeed! I will be good, and I will try to be sensible. Oh, I wish Bartley could know how you feel!"
"Don't tell him from me," said her father. "And don't keep making promises and breaking them. I'll help the man in with your things."
He went out, and came in again with one end of a trunk, as if he had been giving the man a hand with it into the house at home, and she suffered him as passively as she had suffered him to do her such services all her life. Then he took her hand laxly in his, and stooped down for another chary kiss. "Good by, Marcia."
"Why, father! Are you going to leave me?" she faltered.
He smiled in melancholy irony at the bewilderment, the childish forgetfulness of all the circumstances, which her words expressed. "Oh, no! I'm going to take you with me."
His sarcasm restored her to a sense of what she had said, and she ruefully laughed at herself through her tears. "What am I talking about? Give my love to mother. When will you come again?" she asked, clinging about him almost in the old playful way.
"When you want me," said the Squire, freeing himself.
"I'll write!" she cried after him, as he went down the steps; and if there had been, at any moment, a consciousness of her cruelty to him in her heart, she lost it, when he drove away, in her anxious waiting for Bartley's return. It seemed to her that, though her father had refused to see him, his visit was of happy augury for future kindness between them, and she was proudly eager to tell Bartley what good advice her father had given her. But the sight of her husband suddenly turned these thoughts to fear. She trembled, and all that she could say was, "I know father will be all right, Bartley."
"How?" he retorted, savagely. "By the way he abused me to you? Where is he?"
"He's gone,—gone back."
"I don't care where he's gone, so he's gone. Did he come to take you home with him? Why didn't you go?—Oh, Marcia!" The brutal words had hardly escaped him when he ran to her as if he would arrest them before their sense should pierce her heart.
She thrust him back with a stiffly extended arm. "Keep away! Don't touch me!" She walked by him up the stairs without looking round at him, and he heard her close their door and lock it.
XVI
Bartley stood for a moment, and then went out and wandered aimlessly about till nightfall. He went out shocked and frightened at what he had done, and ready for any reparation. But this mood wore away, and he came back sullenly determined to let her make the advances toward reconciliation, if there was to be one. Her love had already made his peace, and