第68章

OUR STORY has hitherto moved with very short steps, but as it approaches its termination it must take a long stride.As time went on, it might have appeared to the doctor that his daughter's account of her rapture with Morris Townsend, mere bravado as he had deemed it, was in some degree justified by the sequel.Morris remained as rigidly and unremittingly absent as if he had died of a broken heart, and Catherine had apparently buried the memory of this fruitless episode as deep as if it had terminated by her own choice.We know that she had been deeply and incurably wounded, but the doctor had no means of knowing it.He was certainly curious about it, and would have given a good deal to discover the exact truth; but it was his punishment that he never knew- his punishment, I mean, for the abuse of sarcasm in his relations with his daughter.There was a good deal of effective sarcasm in her keeping him in the dark, and the rest of the world conspired with her, in this sense, to be sarcastic.Mrs.Penniman told him nothing, partly because he never questioned her- he made too light of Mrs.Penniman for that- and partly because she flattered herself that a tormenting reserve, and a serene profession of ignorance, would avenge her for his theory that she had meddled in the matter.He went two or three times to see Mrs.Montgomery, but Mrs.Montgomery had nothing to impart.She simply knew that her brother's engagement was broken off; and now that Miss Sloper was out of danger, she preferred not to bear witness in any way against Morris.She had done so before- however unwillingly- because she was sorry for Miss Sloper; but she was not sorry for Miss Sloper now- not at all sorry.

Morris had told her nothing about his relations with Miss Sloper at the time, and he had told her nothing since.He was always away, and he very seldom wrote to her; she believed he had gone to California.

Mrs.Almond had, in her sister's phrase, "taken up" Catherine violently since the recent catastrophe; but, though the girl was very grateful to her for her kindness, she revealed no secrets, and the good lady could give the doctor no satisfaction.Even, however, had she been able to narrate to him the private history of his daughter's unhappy love affair, it would have given her a certain comfort to leave him in ignorance; for Mrs.Almond was at this time not altogether in sympathy with her brother.She had guessed for herself that Catherine had been cruelly jilted- she knew nothing from Mrs.Penniman, for Mrs.Penniman had not ventured to lay the famous explanation of Morris's motives before Mrs.Almond, though she had thought it good enough for Catherine- and she pronounced her brother too consistently indifferent to what the poor creature must have suffered and must still be suffering.Doctor Sloper had his theory, and he rarely altered his theories.The marriage would have been an abominable one, and the girl had had a blessed escape.She was not to be pitied for that, and to pretend to condole with her would have been to make concessions to the idea that she had ever had a right to think of Morris.

"I put my foot on this idea from the first, and I keep it there now," said the doctor."I don't see anything cruel in that; one can't keep it there too long." To this Mrs.Almond more than once replied that, if Catherine had got rid of her incongruous lover, she deserved the credit of it, and that to bring herself to her father's enlightened view of the matter must have cost her an effort that he was bound to appreciate.

"I am by no means sure she has got rid of him," the doctor said.

"There is not the smallest probability that, after having been as obstinate as a mule for two years, she suddenly became amenable to reason.It is infinitely more probable that he got rid of her.""All the more reason you should be gentle with her.""I am gentle with her.But I can't do the pathetic; I can't pump up tears, to look graceful, over the most fortunate thing that ever happened to her.""You have no sympathy," said Mrs.Almond."That was never your strong point.You have only to look at her to see that, right or wrong, and whether the rupture came from herself or from him, her poor little heart is grievously bruised.""Handling bruises, and even dropping tears on them, doesn't make them any better! My business is to see she gets no more knocks, and that I shall carefully attend to.But I don't at all recognize your description of Catherine.She doesn't strike me in the least as a young woman going about in search of a moral poultice.In fact, she seems to me much better than while the fellow was hanging about.She is perfectly comfortable and blooming; she eats and sleeps, takes her usual exercise, and overloads herself, as usual, with finery.

She is always knitting some purse or embroidering some handkerchief, and it seems to me she turns these articles out about as fast as ever.

She hasn't much to say; but when had she anything to say? She had her little dance, and now she is sitting down to rest.I suspect that, on the whole, she enjoys it.""She enjoys it as people enjoy getting rid of a leg that has been crushed.The state of mind after amputation is doubtless one of comparative repose.""If your leg is a metaphor for young Townsend, I can assure you he has never been crushed.Crushed? Not he! He is alive and perfectly intact; and that's why I am not satisfied.""Should you have liked to kill him?" asked Mrs.Almond.

"Yes, very much.I think it is quite possible that it is all a blind.""A blind?"

"An arrangement between them.Il fait le mort, as they say in France; but he is looking out of the corner of his eye.You can depend upon it, he has not burnt his ships; he has kept one to come back in.When I am dead, he will set sail again, and then she will marry him.""It is interesting to know that you accuse your only daughter of being the vilest of hypocrites," said Mrs.Almond.