April Hopes

W >> William Dean Howells >> April Hopes


It was an easy matter to see Dan and Alice together. Their engagement
came out in the usual way: it had been announced to a few of their
nearest friends, and intelligence of it soon spread from their own set
through society generally; it had been published in the Sunday papers
while it was still in the tender condition of a rumour, and had been
denied by some of their acquaintance and believed by all.

The Pasmer cousinship had been just in the performance of the duties of
blood toward Alice since the return of her family from Europe, and now
did what was proper in the circumstances. All who were connected with her
called upon her and congratulated her; they knew Dan, the younger of
them, much better than they knew her; and though he had shrunk from the
nebulous bulk of social potentiality which every young man is to that
much smaller nucleus to which definite betrothal reduces him, they could
be perfectly sincere in calling him the sweetest fellow that ever was,
and too lovely to live.

In such a matter Mr. Pasmer was naturally nothing; he could not be less
than he was at other times, but he was not more; and it was Mrs. Pasmer
who shared fully with her daughter the momentary interest which the
engagement gave Alice with all her kindred. They believed, of course,
that they recognised in it an effect of her skill in managing; they
agreed to suppose that she had got Mavering for Alice, and to ignore the
beauty and passion of youth as factors in the case. The closest of the
kindred, with the romantic delicacy of Americans in such things,
approached the question of Dan's position and prospects, and heard with
satisfaction the good accounts which Mrs. Pasmer was able to give of his
father's prosperity. There had always been more or less apprehension
among them of a time when a family subscription would be necessary for
Bob Pasmer, and in the relief which the new situation gave them some of
them tried to remember having known Dan's father in College, but it
finally came to their guessing that they must have heard John Munt speak
of him.

Mrs. Pasmer had a supreme control in the affair. She believed with the
rest--so deeply is this delusion seated--that she had made the match; but
knowing herself to have used no dishonest magic in the process, she was
able to enjoy it with a clean conscience. She grew fonder of Dan; they
understood each other; she was his refuge from Alice's ideals, and helped
him laugh off his perplexity with them. They were none the less sincere
because they were not in the least frank with each other. She let Dan
beat about the bush to his heart's content, and waited for him at the
point which she knew he was coming to, with an unconsciousness which he
knew was factitious; neither of them got tired of this, or failed freshly
to admire the other's strategy.




XL.

It cannot be pretended that Alice was quite pleased with the way her
friends took her engagement, or rather the way in which they spoke of
Dan. It seemed to her that she alone, or she chiefly, ought to feel that
sweetness and loveliness of which every one told her, as if she could not
have known it. If he was sweet and lovely to every one, how was he
different to her except in degree? Ought he not to be different in kind?
She put the case to Miss Cotton, whom it puzzled, while she assured Alice
that he was different in kind to her, though he might not seem so; the
very fact that he was different in degree proved that he was different in
kind. This logic sufficed for the moment of its expression, but it did
not prevent Alice from putting the case to Dan himself. At one of those
little times when she sat beside him alone and rearranged his necktie, or
played with his watch chain, or passed a critical hand over his cowlick,
she asked him if he did not think they ought to have an ideal in their
engagement. "What ideal?" he asked. He thought it was all solid ideal
through and through. "Oh," she said, "be more and more to each other." He
said he did not see how that could be; if there was anything more of him,
she was welcome to it, but he rather thought she had it all. She
explained that she meant being less to others; and he asked her to
explain that.

"Well, when we're anywhere together, don't you think we ought to show how
different we are to each other from what we are to any one else."

Dan laughed. "I'm afraid we do, Alice; I always supposed one ought to
hide that little preference as much as possible. You don't want me to be
dangling after you every moment?"

"No-o-o. But not--dangle after others."

Dan sighed a little--a little impatiently. "Do I dangle after others?"

"Of course not. But show that we're thoroughly united in all our tastes
and feelings, and--like and dislike the same persons."

"I don't think that will be difficult," said Dan.

She was silent a moment, and then she said; "You don't like to have me
bring up such things?"

"Oh yes, I do. I wish to be and do just what you wish."

"But I can see, I can understand, that you would sooner pass the time
without talking of them. You like to be perfectly happy, and not to have
any cares when--when you're with me this way?"

"Well, yes, I suppose I do," said Dan, laughing again. "I suppose I
rather do like to keep pleasure and duty apart. But there's nothing you
can wish, Alice, that isn't a pleasure to me."

"I'm very different," said the girl. "I can't be at peace unless I know
that I have a right to be so. But now, after this, I'm going to do your
way. If it's your way, it'll be the right way--for me." She looked
sublimely resolved, with a grand lift of the eyes, and Dan caught her to
him in a rapture, breaking into laughter.

"Oh, don't! Mine's a bad way--the worst kind of a way," he cried.

"It makes everybody like you, and mine makes nobody like me."

"It makes me like you, and that's quite enough. I don't want other people
to like you!"

"Yes, that's what I mean!" cried Alice; and now she flung herself on his
neck, and the tears came. "Do you suppose it can be very pleasant to have
everybody talking of you as if everybody loved you as much--as much as I
do?" She clutched him tighter and sobbed.

"O Alice! Alice! Alice! Nobody could ever be what you are to me!" He
soothed and comforted her with endearing words and touches; but before he
could have believed her half consoled she pulled away from him, and
asked, with shining eyes, "Do you think Mr. Boardman is a good influence
in your life?"

"Boardman!" cried Mavering, in astonishment. "Why, I thought you liked
Boardman?"

"I do; and I respect him very much. But that isn't the question. Don't
you think we ought to ask ourselves how others influence us?"

"Well, I don't see much of Boardy nowadays; but I like to drop down and
touch earth in Boardy once in a while--I'm in the air so much. Board has
more common-sense, more solid chunk-wisdom, than anybody I know. He's
kept me from making a fool of myself more times--"

"Wasn't he with you that day with--with those women in Portland?"

Dan winced a little, and then laughed. "No, he wasn't. That was the
trouble. Boardman was off on the press boat. I thought I told you. But if
you object to Boardman--"

"I don't. You mustn't think I object to people when I ask you about them.
All that I wished was that you should think yourself what sort of
influence he was. I think he's a very good influence."

"He's a splendid fellow, Boardman is, Alice!" cried Dan. "You ought to
have seen how he fought his way through college on such a little money,
and never skulked or felt mean. He wasn't appreciated for it; the men
don't notice these things much; but he didn't want to have it noticed;
always acted as if it was neither here nor there; and now I guess he
sends out home whatever he has left after keeping soul and body together
every week."

He spoke, perhaps, with too great an effect of relief. Alice listened, as
it seemed, to his tone rather than his words, and said absently--

"Yes, that's grand. But I don't want you to act as if you were afraid of
me in such things."

"Afraid?" Dan echoed.

"I don't mean actually afraid, but as if you thought I couldn't be
reasonable; as if you supposed I didn't expect you to make mistakes or to
be imperfect."

"Yes, I know you're very reasonable, and you're more patient with me than
I deserve; I know all that, and it's only my wish to come up to your
standard, I suppose, that gives me that apprehensive appearance."

"That was what vexed me with you there at Campobello, when you--asked
me--"

"Yes, I know."

"You ought to have understood me better. You ought to know now that I
don't wish you to do anything on my account, but because it's something
we owe to others."

"Oh, excuse me! I'd much rather do it for you," cried Dan; but Alice
looked so grave, so hurt, that he hastened on: "How in the world does it
concern others whether we are devoted or not, whether we're harmonious
and two-souls-with-but-a-single-thought, and all that?" He could not help
being light about it.

"How?" Alice repeated. "Won't it give them an idea of what--what--of how
much--how truly--if we care for each other--how people ought to care? We
don't do it for ourselves. That would be selfish and disgusting. We do it
because it's something that we owe to the idea of being engaged--of
having devoted our lives to each other, and would show--would teach--"

"Oh yes! I know what you mean," said Dan, and he gave way in a sputtering
laugh. "But they wouldn't understand. They'd only think we were spoons on
each other; and if they noticed that I cooled off toward people I'd
liked, and warmed up toward those you liked, they'd say you made me."

"Should you care?" asked Alice sublimely, withdrawing a little from his
arm.

"Oh no! only on your account," he answered, checking his laugh.

"You needn't on my account," she returned. "If we sacrifice some little
preferences to each other, isn't that right? I shall be glad to sacrifice
all of mine to you. Isn't our--marriage to be full of such sacrifices? I
expect to give up everything to you." She looked at him with a sad
severity.

He began to laugh again. "Oh no, Alice! Don't do that! I couldn't stand
it. I want some little chance at the renunciations myself."

She withdrew still further from his side, and said, with a cold anger,
"It's that detestable Mrs. Brinkley."

"Mrs. Brinkley!" shouted Dan.

"Yes; with her pessimism. I have heard her talk. She influences you.
Nothing is sacred to her. It was she who took up with those army women
that night."

"Well, Alice, I must say you can give things as ugly names as the next
one. I haven't seen Mrs. Brinkley the whole winter, except in your
company. But she has more sense than all the other women I know."

"Oh, thank you!"

"You know I don't mean you," he pushed on. "And she isn't a pessimist.
She's very kindhearted, and that night she was very polite and good to
those army women, as you call them, when you had refused to say a word or
do anything for them."

"I knew it had been rankling in your mind all along," said the girl "I
expected it to coma out sooner or later. And you talk about renunciation!
You never forget nor forgive the slightest thing. But I don't ask your
forgiveness."

"Alice!"

"No. You are as hard as iron. You have that pleasant outside manner that
makes people think you're very gentle and yielding, but all the time
you're like adamant. I would rather die than ask your forgiveness for
anything, and you'd rather let me than give it."

"Well, then, I ask your forgiveness, Alice, and I'm sure you won't let me
die without it."

They regarded each other a moment. Then the tenderness gushed up in their
hearts, a passionate tide, and swept them into each other's arms.

"O Dan," she cried, "how sweet you are! how good! how lovely! Oh, how
wonderful it is! I wanted to hate you, but I couldn't. I couldn't do
anything but love you. Yes, now I understand what love is, and how it can
do everything, and last for ever."




XLI.

Mavering came to lunch the next day, and had a word with Mrs. Pasmer
before Alice came in. Mr. Pasmer usually lunched at the club.

"We don't see much of Mrs. Saintsbury nowadays," he suggested.

"No; it's a great way to Cambridge," said Mrs. Pasmer, stifling, in a
little sigh of apparent regret for the separation, the curiosity she felt
as to Dan's motive in mentioning Mrs. Saintsbury. She was very patient
with him when he went on.

"Yes, it is a great way. And a strange thing about it is that when you're
living here it's a good deal further from Boston to Cambridge than it is
from Cambridge to Boston."

"Yes," said Mrs. Pasmer; "every one notices that."

Dan sat absently silent for a time before he said, "Yes, I guess I must
go out and see Mrs. Saintsbury."

"Yes, you ought. She's very fond of you. You and Alice ought both to go."

"Does Mrs. Saintsbury like me?" asked Dan. "Well, she's awfully nice.
Don't you think she's awfully fond of formulating people?"

"Oh, everybody in Cambridge does that. They don't gossip; they merely
accumulate materials for the formulation of character."

"And they get there just the same!" cried Dan. "Mrs. Saintsbury used to
think she had got me down pretty fine," he suggested.

"Yes!" said Mrs. Pasmer, with an indifference which they both knew she
did not feel.

"Yes. She used to accuse me of preferring to tack, even in a fair wind."

He looked inquiringly at Mrs. Pasmer; and she said, "How ridiculous!"

"Yes, it was. Well, I suppose I am rather circuitous about some things."

"Oh, not at all!"

"And I suppose I'm rather a trial to Alice in that way."

He looked at Mrs. Pasmer again, and she said: "I don't believe you are,
in the least. You can't tell what is trying to a girl."

"No," said Dan pensively, "I can't." Mrs. Pasmer tried to render the
interest in her face less vivid. "I can't tell where she's going to bring
up. Talk about tacking!"

"Do you mean the abstract girl; or Alice?"

"Oh, the abstract girl," said Dan, and they laughed together. "You think
Alice is very straightforward, don't you?"

"Very," said Mrs. Pasmer, looking down with a smile--"for a girl."

"Yes, that's what I mean. And don't you think the most circuitous kind of
fellow would be pretty direct compared with the straight-forwardest kind
of girl?"

There was a rueful defeat and bewilderment in Dan's face that made Mrs.
Pasmer laugh. "What has she been doing now?" she asked.

"Mrs. Pasmer," said Dan, "you and I are the only frank and open people I
know. Well, she began to talk last night about influence--the influence
of other people on us; and she killed off nearly all the people I like
before I knew what she was up to, and she finished with Mrs. Brinkley.
I'm glad she didn't happen to think of you, Mrs. Pasmer, or I shouldn't
be associating with you at the present moment." This idea seemed to give
Mrs. Pasmer inexpressible pleasure. Dan went on: "Do you quite see the
connection between our being entirely devoted to each other and my
dropping Mrs. Brinkley?"

"I don't know," said Mrs. Pasmer. "Alice doesn't like satirical people."

"Well, of course not. But Mrs. Brinkley is such an admirer of hers."

"I dare say she tells you so."

"Oh, but she is!"

"I don't deny it," said Mrs. Pasmer. "But if Alice feels something
inimical--antipatico--in her atmosphere, it's no use talking."

"Oh no, it's no use talking, and I don't know that I want to talk." After
a pause, Mavering asked, "Mrs. Pasmer, don't you think that where two
people are going to be entirely devoted to each other, and
self-sacrificing to each other, they ought to divide, and one do all the
devotion, and the other all the self-sacrifice?"

Mrs. Pasmer was amused by the droll look in Dan's eyes. "I think they
ought to be willing to share evenly," she said.

"Yes; that's what I say--share and share alike. I'm not selfish about
those little things." He blew off a long sighing breath. "Mrs. Pasmer,
don't you think we ought to have an ideal of conduct?"

Mrs. Pasmer abandoned herself to laughter. "O Dan! Dan! You will be the
death of me."

"We will die together, then, Mrs. Pasmer. Alice will kill me." He
regarded her with a sad sympathy in his eye as she laughed and laughed
with delicious intelligence of the case. The intelligence was perfect,
from their point of view; but whether it fathomed the girl's whole
intention or aspiration is another matter. Perhaps this was not very
clear to herself. At any rate, Mavering did not go any more to see Mrs.
Brinkley, whose house he had liked to drop into. Alice went several
times, to show, she said, that she had no feeling in the matter; and Mrs.
Brinkley, when she met Dan, forbore to embarrass him with questions or
reproaches; she only praised Alice to him.

There were not many other influences that Alice cut him off from; she
even exposed him to some influences that might have been thought
deleterious. She made him go and call alone upon certain young ladies
whom she specified, and she praised several others to him, though she did
not praise them for the same things that he did. One of them was a girl
to whom Alice had taken a great fancy, such as often buds into a romantic
passion between women; she was very gentle and mild, and she had none of
that strength of will which she admired in Alice. One night there was a
sleighing party to a hotel in the suburbs, where they had dancing and
then supper. After the supper they danced "Little Sally Waters" for a
finale, instead of the Virginia Reel, and Alice would not go on the floor
with Dan; she said she disliked that dance; but she told him to dance
with Miss Langham. It became a gale of fun, and in the height of it Dan
slipped and fell with his partner. They laughed it off, with the rest,
but after a while the girl began to cry; she had received a painful
bruise. All the way home, while the others laughed and sang and
chattered, Dan was troubled about this poor girl; his anxiety became a
joke with the whole sleighful of people.

When he parted with Alice at her door, he said, "I'm afraid I hurt Miss
Langham; I feel awfully about it."

"Yes; there's no doubt of that. Good night!"

She left him to go off to his lodging, hot and tingling with indignation
at her injustice. But kindlier thoughts came to him before he slept, and
he fell asleep with a smile of tenderness for her on his lips. He could
see how he was wrong to go out with any one else when Alice said she
disliked the dance; he ought not to have taken advantage of her
generosity in appointing him a partner; it was trying for her to see him
make that ludicrous tumble, of course; and perhaps he had overdone the
attentive sympathy on the way home. It flattered him that she could not
help showing her jealousy--that is flattering, at first; and Dan was able
to go and confess all but this to Alice. She received his submission
magnanimously, and said that she was glad it had happened, because his
saying this showed that now they understood each other perfectly. Then
she fixed her eyes on his, and said, "I've just been round to see Lilly,
and she's as well as ever; it was only a nervous shock."

Whether Mavering was really indifferent to Miss Langham's condition, or
whether the education of his perceptions had gone so far that he
consciously ignored her, he answered, "That was splendid of you, Alice."

"No," she said; "it's you that are splendid; and you always are. Oh, I
wonder if I can ever be worthy of you!"

Their mutual forgiveness was very sweet to them, and they went on
praising each other. Alice suddenly broke away from this weakening
exchange of worship, and said, with that air of coming to business which
he lad learned to recognise and dread a little, "Dan, don't you think I
ought to write to your mother?"

"Write to my mother?"

"Why, you have written to her. You wrote as soon as you got back, and
she answered you."

"Yes; but write regularly?--Show that I think of her all the time?" When
I really think I'm going to take you from her, I seem so cruel and
heartless!"

"Oh, I don't look at it in that light, Alice."

"Don't joke! And when I think that we're going away to leave her, for
several years, perhaps, as soon as we're married, I can't make it seem
right. I know how she depends upon your being near her, and seeing her
every now and then; and to go off to Europe for years, perhaps--Of course
you can be of use to your father there; but do you think it's right
toward your mother? I want you to think."

Dan thought, but his thinking was mainly to the effect that he did not
know what she was driving at. Had she got any inkling of that plan of his
mother's for them to come and stay a year or two at the Falls after their
marriage? He always expected to be able to reconcile that plan with the
Pasmer plan of going at once; to his optimism the two were not really
incompatible; but he did not wish them prematurely confronted in Alice's
mind. Was this her way of letting him know that she knew what his mother
wished, and that she was willing to make the sacrifice? Or was it just
some vague longing to please him by a show of affection toward his
family, an unmeditated impulse of reparation? He had an impulse himself
to be frank with Alice, to take her at her word, and to allow that he did
not like the notion of going abroad. This was Dan's notion of being
frank; he could still reserve the fact that he had given his mother a
tacit promise to bring Alice home to live, but he postponed even this. He
said: "Oh, I guess that'll be all right, Alice. At any rate, there's no
need to think about it yet awhile. That can be arranged."

"Yes," said Alice; "but don't you think I'd better get into the habit of
writing regularly to your mother now, so that there needn't be any break
when we go abroad?" He could see now that she had no idea of giving that
plan up, and he was glad that he had not said anything. "I think," she
continued, "that I shall write to her once a week, and give her a full
account of our life from day to day; it'll be more like a diary; and
then, when we get over there, I can keep it up without any effort, and
she won't feel so much that you've gone."

She seemed to refer the plan to him, and he said it was capital. In fact,
he did like the notion of a diary; that sort of historical view would
involve less danger of precipitating a discussion of the two schemes of
life for the future. "It's awfully kind of you, Alice, to propose such a
thing, and you mustn't make it a burden. Any sort of little sketchy
record will do; mother can read between the lines, you know."

"It won't be a burden," said the girl tenderly. "I shall seem to be doing
it for your mother, but I know I shall be doing it for you. I do
everything for you. Do you think it's right?"

"Oh; it must be," said Dan, laughing. "It's so pleasant."

"Oh," said the girl gloomily; "that's what makes me doubt it."




XLII.

Eunice Mavering acknowledged Alice's first letter. She said that her
mother read it aloud to them all, and had been delighted with the good
account she gave of Dan, and fascinated with all the story of their daily
doings and sayings. She wished Eunice to tell Alice how fully she
appreciated her thoughtfulness of a sick old woman, and that she was
going to write herself and thank her. But Eunice added that Alice must
not be surprised if her mother was not very prompt in this, and she sent
messages from all the family, affectionate for Alice, and polite for her
father and mother.

Alice showed Dan the letter, and he seemed to find nothing noticeable in
it. "She says your mother will write later," Alice suggested.

"Yes. You ought to feel very much complimented by that. Mother's
autographs are pretty uncommon," he said, smiling.

"Why, doesn't she write? Can't she? Does it tire her?" asked Alice.

"Oh yes, she can write, but she hates to. She gets Eunice or Minnie to
write usually."

"Dan," cried Alice intensely, "why didn't you tell me?"

"Why, I thought you knew it," he explained easily. "She likes to read,
and likes to talk, but it bores her to write. I don't suppose I get more
than two or three pencil scratches from her in the course of a year. She
makes the girls write. But you needn't mind her not writing. You may be
sure she's glad of your letters."

"It makes me seem very presumptuous to be writing to her when there's no
chance of her answering," Alice grieved. "It's as if I had passed over
your sisters' heads. I ought to have written to them."

"Oh, well, you can do that now," said Dan soothingly.

"No. No, I can't do it now. It would be ridiculous." She was silent, and
presently she asked, "Is there anything else about your mother that I
ought to know?" She looked at him with a sort of impending discipline in
her eyes which he had learned to dread; it meant such a long course of
things, such a very great variety of atonement and expiation for him,
that he could not bring himself to confront it steadily.

His heart gave a feeble leap; he would have gladly told her all that was
in it, and he meant to do so at the right time, but this did not seem the
moment. "I can't say that there is," he answered coldly.