Chapter Chapter 14 · 第14章

HE wrote his frank letter to Mrs. Montgomery, who punctually answered it,

mentioning an hour at which he might present himself in the Second

Avenue. She lived in a neat little house of red brick, which had been

freshly painted, with the edges of the bricks very sharply marked out in

white. It has now disappeared, with its companions, to make room for a

row of structures more majestic. There were green shutters upon the

windows, without slats, but pierced with little holes, arranged in

groups; and before the house was a diminutive yard, ornamented with a

bush of mysterious character, and surrounded by a low wooden paling,

painted in the same green as the shutters. The place looked like a

magnified baby-house, and might have been taken down from a shelf in a

toy-shop. Dr. Sloper, when he went to call, said to himself, as he

glanced at the objects I have enumerated, that Mrs. Montgomery was

evidently a thrifty and self-respecting little person—the modest

proportions of her dwelling seemed to indicate that she was of small

stature—who took a virtuous satisfaction in keeping herself tidy, and had

resolved that, since she might not be splendid, she would at least be

immaculate. She received him in a little parlour, which was precisely

the parlour he had expected: a small unspeckled bower, ornamented with a

desultory foliage of tissue-paper, and with clusters of glass drops, amid

which—to carry out the analogy—the temperature of the leafy season was

maintained by means of a cast-iron stove, emitting a dry blue flame, and

smelling strongly of varnish. The walls were embellished with engravings

swathed in pink gauze, and the tables ornamented with volumes of extracts

from the poets, usually bound in black cloth stamped with florid designs

in jaundiced gilt. The Doctor had time to take cognisance of these

details, for Mrs. Montgomery, whose conduct he pronounced under the

circumstances inexcusable, kept him waiting some ten minutes before she

appeared. At last, however, she rustled in, smoothing down a stiff

poplin dress, with a little frightened flush in a gracefully-rounded

cheek.

She was a small, plump, fair woman, with a bright, clear eye, and an

extraordinary air of neatness and briskness. But these qualities were

evidently combined with an unaffected humility, and the Doctor gave her

his esteem as soon as he had looked at her. A brave little person, with

lively perceptions, and yet a disbelief in her own talent for social, as

distinguished from practical, affairs—this was his rapid mental _résumé_

of Mrs. Montgomery, who, as he saw, was flattered by what she regarded as

the honour of his visit. Mrs. Montgomery, in her little red house in the

Second Avenue, was a person for whom Dr. Sloper was one of the great men,

one of the fine gentlemen of New York; and while she fixed her agitated

eyes upon him, while she clasped her mittened hands together in her

glossy poplin lap, she had the appearance of saying to herself that he

quite answered her idea of what a distinguished guest would naturally be.

She apologised for being late; but he interrupted her.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said; “for while I sat here I had time to think

over what I wish to say to you, and to make up my mind how to begin.”

“Oh, do begin!” murmured Mrs. Montgomery.

“It is not so easy,” said the Doctor, smiling. “You will have gathered

from my letter that I wish to ask you a few questions, and you may not

find it very comfortable to answer them.”

“Yes; I have thought what I should say. It is not very easy.”

“But you must understand my situation—my state of mind. Your brother

wishes to marry my daughter, and I wish to find out what sort of a young

man he is. A good way to do so seemed to be to come and ask you; which I

have proceeded to do.”

Mrs. Montgomery evidently took the situation very seriously; she was in a

state of extreme moral concentration. She kept her pretty eyes, which

were illumined by a sort of brilliant modesty, attached to his own

countenance, and evidently paid the most earnest attention to each of his

words. Her expression indicated that she thought his idea of coming to

see her a very superior conception, but that she was really afraid to

have opinions on strange subjects.

“I am extremely glad to see you,” she said, in a tone which seemed to

admit, at the same time, that this had nothing to do with the question.

The Doctor took advantage of this admission. “I didn’t come to see you

for your pleasure; I came to make you say disagreeable things—and you

can’t like that. What sort of a gentleman is your brother?”

Mrs. Montgomery’s illuminated gaze grew vague, and began to wander. She

smiled a little, and for some time made no answer, so that the Doctor at

last became impatient. And her answer, when it came, was not

satisfactory. “It is difficult to talk about one’s brother.”

“Not when one is fond of him, and when one has plenty of good to say.”

“Yes, even then, when a good deal depends on it,” said Mrs. Montgomery.

“Nothing depends on it, for you.”

“I mean for—for—” and she hesitated.

“For your brother himself. I see!”

“I mean for Miss Sloper,” said Mrs. Montgomery. The Doctor liked this;

it had the accent of sincerity. “Exactly; that’s the point. If my poor

girl should marry your brother, everything—as regards her happiness—would

depend on his being a good fellow. She is the best creature in the

world, and she could never do him a grain of injury. He, on the other

hand, if he should not be all that we desire, might make her very

miserable. That is why I want you to throw some light upon his

character, you know. Of course you are not bound to do it. My daughter,

whom you have never seen, is nothing to you; and I, possibly, am only an

indiscreet and impertinent old man. It is perfectly open to you to tell

me that my visit is in very bad taste and that I had better go about my

business. But I don’t think you will do this; because I think we shall

interest you, my poor girl and I. I am sure that if you were to see

Catherine, she would interest you very much. I don’t mean because she is

interesting in the usual sense of the word, but because you would feel

sorry for her. She is so soft, so simple-minded, she would be such an

easy victim! A bad husband would have remarkable facilities for making

her miserable; for she would have neither the intelligence nor the

resolution to get the better of him, and yet she would have an

exaggerated power of suffering. I see,” added the Doctor, with his most

insinuating, his most professional laugh, “you are already interested!”

“I have been interested from the moment he told me he was engaged,” said

Mrs. Montgomery.

“Ah! he says that—he calls it an engagement?”

“Oh, he has told me you didn’t like it.”

“Did he tell you that I don’t like _him_?”

“Yes, he told me that too. I said I couldn’t help it!” added Mrs.

Montgomery.

“Of course you can’t. But what you can do is to tell me I am right—to

give me an attestation, as it were.” And the Doctor accompanied this

remark with another professional smile.

Mrs. Montgomery, however, smiled not at all; it was obvious that she

could not take the humorous view of his appeal. “That is a good deal to

ask,” she said at last.

“There can be no doubt of that; and I must, in conscience, remind you of

the advantages a young man marrying my daughter would enjoy. She has an

income of ten thousand dollars in her own right, left her by her mother;

if she marries a husband I approve, she will come into almost twice as

much more at my death.”

Mrs. Montgomery listened in great earnestness to this splendid financial

statement; she had never heard thousands of dollars so familiarly talked

about. She flushed a little with excitement. “Your daughter will be

immensely rich,” she said softly.

“Precisely—that’s the bother of it.”

“And if Morris should marry her, he—he—” And she hesitated timidly.

“He would be master of all that money? By no means. He would be master

of the ten thousand a year that she has from her mother; but I should

leave every penny of my own fortune, earned in the laborious exercise of

my profession, to public institutions.”

Mrs. Montgomery dropped her eyes at this, and sat for some time gazing at

the straw matting which covered her floor.

“I suppose it seems to you,” said the Doctor, laughing, “that in so doing

I should play your brother a very shabby trick.”

“Not at all. That is too much money to get possession of so easily, by

marrying. I don’t think it would be right.”

“It’s right to get all one can. But in this case your brother wouldn’t

be able. If Catherine marries without my consent, she doesn’t get a

penny from my own pocket.”

“Is that certain?” asked Mrs. Montgomery, looking up.

“As certain as that I sit here!”

“Even if she should pine away?”

“Even if she should pine to a shadow, which isn’t probable.”

“Does Morris know this?”

“I shall be most happy to inform him!” the Doctor exclaimed.

Mrs. Montgomery resumed her meditations, and her visitor, who was

prepared to give time to the affair, asked himself whether, in spite of

her little conscientious air, she was not playing into her brother’s

hands. At the same time he was half ashamed of the ordeal to which he

had subjected her, and was touched by the gentleness with which she bore

it. “If she were a humbug,” he said, “she would get angry; unless she be

very deep indeed. It is not probable that she is as deep as that.”

“What makes you dislike Morris so much?” she presently asked, emerging

from her reflexions.

“I don’t dislike him in the least as a friend, as a companion. He seems

to me a charming fellow, and I should think he would be excellent

company. I dislike him, exclusively, as a son-in-law. If the only

office of a son-in-law were to dine at the paternal table, I should set a

high value upon your brother. He dines capitally. But that is a small

part of his function, which, in general, is to be a protector and

caretaker of my child, who is singularly ill-adapted to take care of

herself. It is there that he doesn’t satisfy me. I confess I have

nothing but my impression to go by; but I am in the habit of trusting my

impression. Of course you are at liberty to contradict it flat. He

strikes me as selfish and shallow.”

Mrs. Montgomery’s eyes expanded a little, and the Doctor fancied he saw

the light of admiration in them. “I wonder you have discovered he is

selfish!” she exclaimed.

“Do you think he hides it so well?”

“Very well indeed,” said Mrs. Montgomery. “And I think we are all rather

selfish,” she added quickly.

“I think so too; but I have seen people hide it better than he. You see

I am helped by a habit I have of dividing people into classes, into

types. I may easily be mistaken about your brother as an individual, but

his type is written on his whole person.”

“He is very good-looking,” said Mrs. Montgomery.

The Doctor eyed her a moment. “You women are all the same! But the type

to which your brother belongs was made to be the ruin of you, and you

were made to be its handmaids and victims. The sign of the type in

question is the determination—sometimes terrible in its quiet

intensity—to accept nothing of life but its pleasures, and to secure

these pleasures chiefly by the aid of your complaisant sex. Young men of

this class never do anything for themselves that they can get other

people to do for them, and it is the infatuation, the devotion, the

superstition of others that keeps them going. These others in

ninety-nine cases out of a hundred are women. What our young friends

chiefly insist upon is that some one else shall suffer for them; and

women do that sort of thing, as you must know, wonderfully well.” The

Doctor paused a moment, and then he added abruptly, “You have suffered

immensely for your brother!”

This exclamation was abrupt, as I say, but it was also perfectly

calculated. The Doctor had been rather disappointed at not finding his

compact and comfortable little hostess surrounded in a more visible

degree by the ravages of Morris Townsend’s immorality; but he had said to

himself that this was not because the young man had spared her, but

because she had contrived to plaster up her wounds. They were aching

there, behind the varnished stove, the festooned engravings, beneath her

own neat little poplin bosom; and if he could only touch the tender spot,

she would make a movement that would betray her. The words I have just

quoted were an attempt to put his finger suddenly upon the place; and

they had some of the success that he looked for. The tears sprang for a

moment to Mrs. Montgomery’s eyes, and she indulged in a proud little jerk

of the head.

“I don’t know how you have found that out!” she exclaimed.

“By a philosophic trick—by what they call induction. You know you have

always your option of contradicting me. But kindly answer me a question.

Don’t you give your brother money? I think you ought to answer that.”

“Yes, I have given him money,” said Mrs. Montgomery.

“And you have not had much to give him?”

She was silent a moment. “If you ask me for a confession of poverty,

that is easily made. I am very poor.”

“One would never suppose it from your—your charming house,” said the

Doctor. “I learned from my sister that your income was moderate, and

your family numerous.”

“I have five children,” Mrs. Montgomery observed; “but I am happy to say

I can bring them up decently.”

“Of course you can—accomplished and devoted as you are! But your brother

has counted them over, I suppose?”

“Counted them over?”

“He knows there are five, I mean. He tells me it is he that brings them

up.”

Mrs. Montgomery stared a moment, and then quickly—“Oh yes; he teaches

them Spanish.”

The Doctor laughed out. “That must take a great deal off your hands!

Your brother also knows, of course, that you have very little money.”

“I have often told him so!” Mrs. Montgomery exclaimed, more unreservedly

than she had yet spoken. She was apparently taking some comfort in the

Doctor’s clairvoyancy.

“Which means that you have often occasion to, and that he often sponges

on you. Excuse the crudity of my language; I simply express a fact. I

don’t ask you how much of your money he has had, it is none of my

business. I have ascertained what I suspected—what I wished.” And the

Doctor got up, gently smoothing his hat. “Your brother lives on you,” he

said as he stood there.

Mrs. Montgomery quickly rose from her chair, following her visitor’s

movements with a look of fascination. But then, with a certain

inconsequence—“I have never complained of him!” she said.

“You needn’t protest—you have not betrayed him. But I advise you not to

give him any more money.”

“Don’t you see it is in my interest that he should marry a rich person?”

she asked. “If, as you say, he lives on me, I can only wish to get rid

of him, and to put obstacles in the way of his marrying is to increase my

own difficulties.”

“I wish very much you would come to me with your difficulties,” said the

Doctor. “Certainly, if I throw him back on your hands, the least I can

do is to help you to bear the burden. If you will allow me to say so,

then, I shall take the liberty of placing in your hands, for the present,

a certain fund for your brother’s support.”

Mrs. Montgomery stared; she evidently thought he was jesting; but she

presently saw that he was not, and the complication of her feelings

became painful. “It seems to me that I ought to be very much offended

with you,” she murmured.

“Because I have offered you money? That’s a superstition,” said the

Doctor. “You must let me come and see you again, and we will talk about

these things. I suppose that some of your children are girls.”

“I have two little girls,” said Mrs. Montgomery.

“Well, when they grow up, and begin to think of taking husbands, you will

see how anxious you will be about the moral character of these gentlemen.

Then you will understand this visit of mine!”

“Ah, you are not to believe that Morris’s moral character is bad!”

The Doctor looked at her a little, with folded arms. “There is something

I should greatly like—as a moral satisfaction. I should like to hear you

say—‘He is abominably selfish!’”

The words came out with the grave distinctness of his voice, and they

seemed for an instant to create, to poor Mrs. Montgomery’s troubled

vision, a material image. She gazed at it an instant, and then she

turned away. “You distress me, sir!” she exclaimed. “He is, after all,

my brother, and his talents, his talents—” On these last words her voice

quavered, and before he knew it she had burst into tears.

“His talents are first-rate!” said the Doctor. “We must find a proper

field for them!” And he assured her most respectfully of his regret at

having so greatly discomposed her. “It’s all for my poor Catherine,” he

went on. “You must know her, and you will see.”

Mrs. Montgomery brushed away her tears, and blushed at having shed them.

“I should like to know your daughter,” she answered; and then, in an

instant—“Don’t let her marry him!”

Dr. Sloper went away with the words gently humming in his ears—“Don’t let

her marry him!” They gave him the moral satisfaction of which he had

just spoken, and their value was the greater that they had evidently cost

a pang to poor little Mrs. Montgomery’s family pride.