A Woman's Reason. William Dean Howells

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СКАЧАТЬ don't know, Jack. I had nothing else in view. You know I had become involved before the crash came; and I couldn't get out."

      "I think you could," returned the Captain stubbornly, and he went on to show his old friend how; and the talk wandered back to the great days of the old trade, and to the merchants, the supercargoes, the captains, the mates of their youth. They talked of the historic names before their date, of Cleaveland and his voyages, of Handasyde Perkins, of Bromfield, of the great chiefs of a commerce which founded the city's prosperity, and which embraced all climes and regions. The Dutch colonies and coffee, the China trade and tea, the North-west coast and furs; the Cape, and its wines and oil; the pirates that used to harass the early adventurers; famous shipwrecks; great gains and magnificent losses; the splendor of the English nabobs and American residents at Calcutta; mutinies aboard ship; the idiosyncrasies of certain sailors; the professional merits of certain black cooks: these varied topics and interests conspired to lend a glamour to the India trade as it had been, that at last moved Captain Butler to argument in proof of the feasibility of its revival. It was the explanation of this scheme that wearied Helen. At the same time she saw that Captain Butler did not mean to go very soon, for he had already sunk the old comrade in the theorist so far as to be saying, "Well, sir," and "Why, sir," and "I tell you, sir." She got up—not without dropping her scissors from her lap, as is the custom of her sex—and gave him her hand, which he took in his left, without rising.

      "Going to bed? That's right. I shall stay a bit, yet. I want to talk with your father."

      "Talk him into taking a little rest," said Helen, looking at the Captain as she bent over her father to kiss him goodnight.

      "I shall give him all sorts of good advice," returned the Captain cheerily.

      Her father held her hand fondly till she drew an arm's-length away, and then relinquished it with a very tender "Goodnight, my dear."

      Helen did not mean to go to bed, and when she reached her own room, she sat a long time there, working at Margaret's bonnet, and overhearing now and then some such words of the Captain's as "dyes," "muslins," "ice," "teak," "gunny-bags," "shellac," "Company's choppers,"—a name of fearful note descriptive of a kind of Calcutta handkerchief once much imported. She imagined that the Captain was still talking of the India trade. Her father spoke so low that she could not make out any words of his; the sound of his voice somehow deeply touched her, his affection appealed to hers in that unintelligible murmur, as the disembodied religion of a far-heard hymn appeals to the solemnity of the listener's soul. She began to make a fantastic comparison of the qualities of her father's voice and the Captain's, to the disadvantage of the Captain's other qualities; she found that her father was of finer spirit and of gentler nature, and by a natural transition she perceived that it was a grander thing to be sitting alone in one's room with one's heart-ache than to be perhaps foolishly walking the piazza with one's accepted commonplace destiny as Marian Butler was at that moment. At this point she laughed at herself, said "Poor Marian" aloud, and recognized that her vagaries were making Captain Butler an ill return for his kindness in dropping in to chat with her father; she hoped he would not chat too long, and tire him out; and so her thoughts ran upon Robert again, and she heard no more of the talk below, till after what seemed to her, starting from it, a prolonged reverie. Then she was aware of Captain Butler's boots chirping out of the library into the hall, toward the door, with several pauses, and she caught fragments of talk again: "I had no idea it was as bad as that, Harkness— bad business, must see what can be done, weather it a few weeks longer—confoundedly straitened myself—pull you through," and faintly, "Well, goodnight, Joshua; I'll see you in the morning." There was another pause, in which she fancied Captain Butler lighting his cigar at the chimney of the study-lamp with which her father would be following him to the door; the door closed and her father went slowly back to the library, where she felt rather than heard him walking up and down. She wanted to go to him, but she would not; she wanted to call to him, but she remained silent; when at last she heard his step upon the stairs, heavily ascending, and saw the play of his lamp-light on the walls without, she stealthily turned down the gas that he might not think her awake. Half an hour later, she crept to his door, which stood a little ajar, and whispered, "Papa!"

      "What is it, Helen?" He was in bed, but his voice sounded very wakeful. "What is it, my dear!"

      "Oh, I don't know!"—she flung herself on her knees beside his bed in the dark, and put her arms about his neck—" but I feel so unhappy!"

      "About—" began her father, but she quickly interrupted.

      "No, no! About you, papa! You seem so sad and careworn, and I'm nothing but a burden and a trouble to you."

      "You are nothing but a comfort and a help to me. Poor child! You mustn't be worried by my looks. I shall be all right in the morning. Come, come!"

      "But weren't you perplexed somehow about business? Weren't you thinking about those accounts?"

      "No, my dear."

      "What were you thinking of?"

      "Well, Helen, I was thinking of your mother and your little brothers."

      "Oh !" said Helen, with the kind of recoil which the young must feel even from the dearest dead. "Do you often think of them?"

      "No, I believe, not often. Never so much as tonight, since I first lost them; the house seemed full of them then. I suppose these impressions must recur."

      "Oh, doesn't it make you feel strange?" asked Helen, cowering a little closer to him.

      "Why should it? It doesn't make me feel strange to have your face against mine."

      "No, but— O don't, don't talk of such things, or I can't endure it! Papa, papa! I love you so, it breaks my heart to have you talk in that way. How wicked I must be not to like you to think of them! But don't, tonight! I want you to think of me, and what we are going to do together, and about all our plans for next winter, and for that new house, and everything. Will you? Promise!"

      Her father pressed her cheek closer against his, and she felt the fond smile which she could not see in the dark. He gave her his promise, and then began to talk about her going down to the Butlers', which it seemed the Captain had urged further after she had bidden him goodnight. The Captain was going to stay in Boston a day or two, and Mr. Harkness thought he might run down with him at the end of' the week. Helen did not care to go, but with this in view she did not care to say so. She let her father comfort her with caressing words and touches, as when she was a child, and she frankly stayed her weakheartedness upon his love. She was ashamed, but she could not help it, nor wish to help it. As she rested her head upon his pillow she heard his watch ticking under it; in this sound all the years since she was a little girl were lost. Then his voice began to sink drowsily, as it used to do in remote times, when she had wearied him out with her troubles. He answered at random, and his talk wandered so that it made her laugh. That roused him to full consciousness of her parting kiss. "Goodnight," he said, and held her hand, and drew her down by it again, and kissed her once more.

      III.

      Helen woke the next morning with the overnight ache still at her heart: she wondered that she could have thought of leaving her father; but when she opened her shutters and let in the light, she was aware of a change that she could not help sharing. It was the wind that had changed, and was now east; the air was fresh and sparkling; the homicidal sunshine of the day before lay in the streets and on the house fronts as harmless as painted sunshine in a picture. Another day might transform all again; the tidal wave of life that the sea had sent from its deep cisterns out over the land might ebb as quickly, СКАЧАТЬ