Washington Square Page 6

  VI

  MRS. PENNIMAN even took for granted at times that other people had asmuch imagination as herself; so that when, half an hour later, herbrother came in, she addressed him quite on this principle.

  “He has just been here, Austin; it’s such a pity you missed him.”

  “Whom in the world have I missed?” asked the Doctor.

  “Mr. Morris Townsend; he has made us such a delightful visit.”

  “And who in the world is Mr. Morris Townsend?”

  “Aunt Penniman means the gentleman—the gentleman whose name I couldn’tremember,” said Catherine.

  “The gentleman at Elizabeth’s party who was so struck with Catherine,”Mrs. Penniman added.

  “Oh, his name is Morris Townsend, is it? And did he come here to proposeto you?”

  “Oh, father,” murmured the girl for all answer, turning away to thewindow, where the dusk had deepened to darkness.

  “I hope he won’t do that without your permission,” said Mrs. Penniman,very graciously.

  “After all, my dear, he seems to have yours,” her brother answered.

  Lavinia simpered, as if this might not be quite enough, and Catherine,with her forehead touching the window-panes, listened to this exchange ofepigrams as reservedly as if they had not each been a pin-prick in herown destiny.

  “The next time he comes,” the Doctor added, “you had better call me. Hemight like to see me.”

  Morris Townsend came again, some five days afterwards; but Dr. Sloper wasnot called, as he was absent from home at the time. Catherine was withher aunt when the young man’s name was brought in, and Mrs. Penniman,effacing herself and protesting, made a great point of her niece’s goinginto the drawing-room alone.

  “This time it’s for you—for you only,” she said. “Before, when he talkedto me, it was only preliminary—it was to gain my confidence. Literally,my dear, I should not have the _courage_ to show myself to-day.”

  And this was perfectly true. Mrs. Penniman was not a brave woman, andMorris Townsend had struck her as a young man of great force ofcharacter, and of remarkable powers of satire; a keen, resolute,brilliant nature, with which one must exercise a great deal of tact. Shesaid to herself that he was “imperious,” and she liked the word and theidea. She was not the least jealous of her niece, and she had beenperfectly happy with Mr. Penniman, but in the bottom of her heart shepermitted herself the observation: “That’s the sort of husband I shouldhave had!” He was certainly much more imperious—she ended by calling itimperial—than Mr. Penniman.

  So Catherine saw Mr. Townsend alone, and her aunt did not come in even atthe end of the visit. The visit was a long one; he sat there—in thefront parlour, in the biggest armchair—for more than an hour. He seemedmore at home this time—more familiar; lounging a little in the chair,slapping a cushion that was near him with his stick, and looking roundthe room a good deal, and at the objects it contained, as well as atCatherine; whom, however, he also contemplated freely. There was a smileof respectful devotion in his handsome eyes which seemed to Catherinealmost solemnly beautiful; it made her think of a young knight in a poem.His talk, however, was not particularly knightly; it was light and easyand friendly; it took a practical turn, and he asked a number ofquestions about herself—what were her tastes—if she liked this andthat—what were her habits. He said to her, with his charming smile,“Tell me about yourself; give me a little sketch.” Catherine had verylittle to tell, and she had no talent for sketching; but before he wentshe had confided to him that she had a secret passion for the theatre,which had been but scantily gratified, and a taste for operaticmusic—that of Bellini and Donizetti, in especial (it must be rememberedin extenuation of this primitive young woman that she held these opinionsin an age of general darkness)—which she rarely had an occasion to hear,except on the hand-organ. She confessed that she was not particularlyfond of literature. Morris Townsend agreed with her that books weretiresome things; only, as he said, you had to read a good many before youfound it out. He had been to places that people had written books about,and they were not a bit like the descriptions. To see for yourself—thatwas the great thing; he always tried to see for himself. He had seen allthe principal actors—he had been to all the best theatres in London andParis. But the actors were always like the authors—they alwaysexaggerated. He liked everything to be natural. Suddenly he stopped,looking at Catherine with his smile.

  “That’s what I like you for; you are so natural! Excuse me,” he added;“you see I am natural myself!”

  And before she had time to think whether she excused him or not—whichafterwards, at leisure, she became conscious that she did—he began totalk about music, and to say that it was his greatest pleasure in life.He had heard all the great singers in Paris and London—Pasta and Rubiniand Lablache—and when you had done that, you could say that you knew whatsinging was.

  “I sing a little myself,” he said; “some day I will show you. Notto-day, but some other time.”

  And then he got up to go; he had omitted, by accident, to say that hewould sing to her if she would play to him. He thought of this after hegot into the street; but he might have spared his compunction, forCatherine had not noticed the lapse. She was thinking only that “someother time” had a delightful sound; it seemed to spread itself over thefuture.

  This was all the more reason, however, though she was ashamed anduncomfortable, why she should tell her father that Mr. Morris Townsendhad called again. She announced the fact abruptly, almost violently, assoon as the Doctor came into the house; and having done so—it was herduty—she took measures to leave the room. But she could not leave itfast enough; her father stopped her just as she reached the door.

  “Well, my dear, did he propose to you to-day?” the Doctor asked.

  This was just what she had been afraid he would say; and yet she had noanswer ready. Of course she would have liked to take it as a joke—as herfather must have meant it; and yet she would have liked, also, in denyingit, to be a little positive, a little sharp; so that he would perhaps notask the question again. She didn’t like it—it made her unhappy. ButCatherine could never be sharp; and for a moment she only stood, with herhand on the door-knob, looking at her satiric parent, and giving a littlelaugh.

  “Decidedly,” said the Doctor to himself, “my daughter is not brilliant.”

  But he had no sooner made this reflexion than Catherine found something;she had decided, on the whole, to take the thing as a joke.

  “Perhaps he will do it the next time!” she exclaimed, with a repetitionof her laugh. And she quickly got out of the room.

  The Doctor stood staring; he wondered whether his daughter were serious.Catherine went straight to her own room, and by the time she reached itshe bethought herself that there was something else—something better—shemight have said. She almost wished, now, that her father would ask hisquestion again, so that she might reply: “Oh yes, Mr. Morris Townsendproposed to me, and I refused him!”

  The Doctor, however, began to put his questions elsewhere; it naturallyhaving occurred to him that he ought to inform himself properly aboutthis handsome young man who had formed the habit of running in and out ofhis house. He addressed himself to the younger of his sisters, Mrs.Almond—not going to her for the purpose; there was no such hurry asthat—but having made a note of the matter for the first opportunity. TheDoctor was never eager, never impatient nor nervous; but he made notes ofeverything, and he regularly consulted his notes. Among them theinformation he obtained from Mrs. Almond about Morris Townsend took itsplace.

  “Lavinia has already been to ask me,” she said. “Lavinia is mostexcited; I don’t understand it. It’s not, after all, Lavinia that theyoung man is supposed to have designs upon. She is very peculiar.”

  “Ah, my dear,” the Doctor replied, “she has not lived with me thesetwelve years without my finding it out!”

  “She has got such an artificial mind,” said Mrs. Almond, who alw
aysenjoyed an opportunity to discuss Lavinia’s peculiarities with herbrother. “She didn’t want me to tell you that she had asked me about Mr.Townsend; but I told her I would. She always wants to concealeverything.”

  “And yet at moments no one blurts things out with such crudity. She islike a revolving lighthouse; pitch darkness alternating with a dazzlingbrilliancy! But what did you tell her?” the Doctor asked.

  “What I tell you; that I know very little of him.”

  “Lavinia must have been disappointed at that,” said the Doctor; “shewould prefer him to have been guilty of some romantic crime. However, wemust make the best of people. They tell me our gentleman is the cousinof the little boy to whom you are about to entrust the future of yourlittle girl.”

  “Arthur is not a little boy; he is a very old man; you and I will neverbe so old. He is a distant relation of Lavinia’s _protégé_. The name isthe same, but I am given to understand that there are Townsends andTownsends. So Arthur’s mother tells me; she talked about‘branches’—younger branches, elder branches, inferior branches—as if itwere a royal house. Arthur, it appears, is of the reigning line, butpoor Lavinia’s young man is not. Beyond this, Arthur’s mother knows verylittle about him; she has only a vague story that he has been ‘wild.’But I know his sister a little, and she is a very nice woman. Her nameis Mrs. Montgomery; she is a widow, with a little property and fivechildren. She lives in the Second Avenue.”

  “What does Mrs. Montgomery say about him?”

  “That he has talents by which he might distinguish himself.”

  “Only he is lazy, eh?”

  “She doesn’t say so.”

  “That’s family pride,” said the Doctor. “What is his profession?”

  “He hasn’t got any; he is looking for something. I believe he was oncein the Navy.”

  “Once? What is his age?”

  “I suppose he is upwards of thirty. He must have gone into the Navy veryyoung. I think Arthur told me that he inherited a small property—whichwas perhaps the cause of his leaving the Navy—and that he spent it all ina few years. He travelled all over the world, lived abroad, amusedhimself. I believe it was a kind of system, a theory he had. He haslately come back to America, with the intention, as he tells Arthur, ofbeginning life in earnest.”

  “Is he in earnest about Catherine, then?”

  “I don’t see why you should be incredulous,” said Mrs. Almond. “It seemsto me that you have never done Catherine justice. You must remember thatshe has the prospect of thirty thousand a year.”

  The Doctor looked at his sister a moment, and then, with the slightesttouch of bitterness: “You at least appreciate her,” he said.

  Mrs. Almond blushed.

  “I don’t mean that is her only merit; I simply mean that it is a greatone. A great many young men think so; and you appear to me never to havebeen properly aware of that. You have always had a little way ofalluding to her as an unmarriageable girl.”

  “My allusions are as kind as yours, Elizabeth,” said the Doctor frankly.“How many suitors has Catherine had, with all her expectations—how muchattention has she ever received? Catherine is not unmarriageable, butshe is absolutely unattractive. What other reason is there for Laviniabeing so charmed with the idea that there is a lover in the house? Therehas never been one before, and Lavinia, with her sensitive, sympatheticnature, is not used to the idea. It affects her imagination. I must dothe young men of New York the justice to say that they strike me as verydisinterested. They prefer pretty girls—lively girls—girls like yourown. Catherine is neither pretty nor lively.”

  “Catherine does very well; she has a style of her own—which is more thanmy poor Marian has, who has no style at all,” said Mrs. Almond. “Thereason Catherine has received so little attention is that she seems toall the young men to be older than themselves. She is so large, and shedresses—so richly. They are rather afraid of her, I think; she looks asif she had been married already, and you know they don’t like marriedwomen. And if our young men appear disinterested,” the Doctor’s wisersister went on, “it is because they marry, as a general thing, so young;before twenty-five, at the age of innocence and sincerity, before the ageof calculation. If they only waited a little, Catherine would farebetter.”

  “As a calculation? Thank you very much,” said the Doctor.

  “Wait till some intelligent man of forty comes along, and he will bedelighted with Catherine,” Mrs. Almond continued.

  “Mr. Townsend is not old enough, then; his motives may be pure.”

  “It is very possible that his motives are pure; I should be very sorry totake the contrary for granted. Lavinia is sure of it, and, as he is avery prepossessing youth, you might give him the benefit of the doubt.”

  Dr. Sloper reflected a moment.

  “What are his present means of subsistence?”

  “I have no idea. He lives, as I say, with his sister.”

  “A widow, with five children? Do you mean he lives _upon_ her?”

  Mrs. Almond got up, and with a certain impatience: “Had you not betterask Mrs. Montgomery herself?” she inquired.

  “Perhaps I may come to that,” said the Doctor. “Did you say the SecondAvenue?” He made a note of the Second Avenue.