Washington Square

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 repetition of 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 it she bethought herself that there was something else—something better—she might have said.  She almost wished, now, that her father would ask his question again, so that she might reply: “Oh yes, Mr. Morris Townsend proposed to me, and I refused him!”

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

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

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

“She has got such an artificial mind,” said Mrs. Almond, who always enjoyed an opportunity to discuss Lavinia’s peculiarities with her brother.  “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 conceal everything.”

“And yet at moments no one blurts things out with such crudity.  She is like a revolving lighthouse; pitch darkness alternating with a dazzling brilliancy!  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; “she would prefer him to have been guilty of some romantic crime.  However, we must make the best of people.  They tell me our gentleman is the cousin of the little boy to whom you are about to entrust the future of your little girl.”

“Arthur is not a little boy; he is a very old man; you and I will never be so old.  He is a distant relation of Lavinia’s protégé.  The name is the same, but I am given to understand that there are Townsends and Townsends.  So Arthur’s mother tells me; she talked about ‘branches’—younger branches, elder branches, inferior branches—as if it were a royal house.  Arthur, it appears, is of the reigning line, but poor Lavinia’s young man is not.  Beyond this, Arthur’s mother knows very little 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 name is Mrs. Montgomery; she is a widow, with a little property and five children.  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 once in the Navy.”

“Once?  What is his age?”

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

“Is he in earnest about Catherine, then?”

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

The Doctor looked at his sister a moment, and then, with the slightest touch 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 great one.  A great many young men think so; and you appear to me never to have been properly aware of that.  You have always had a little way of alluding 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 much attention has she ever received?  Catherine is not unmarriageable, but she is absolutely unattractive.  What other reason is there for Lavinia being so charmed with the idea that there is a lover in the house?  There has never been one before, and Lavinia, with her sensitive, sympathetic nature, is not used to the idea.  It affects her imagination.  I must do the young men of New York the justice to say that they strike me as very disinterested.  They prefer pretty girls—lively girls—girls like your own.  Catherine is neither pretty nor lively.”

“Catherine does very well; she has a style of her own—which is more than my poor Marian has, who has no style at all,” said Mrs. Almond.  “The reason Catherine has received so little attention is that she seems to all the young men to be older than themselves.  She is so large, and she dresses—so richly.  They are rather afraid of her, I think; she looks as if she had been married already, and you know they don’t like married women.  And if our young men appear disinterested,” the Doctor’s wiser sister 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 age of calculation.  If they only waited a little, Catherine would fare better.”

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

“Wait till some intelligent man of forty comes along, and he will be delighted 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 to take the contrary for granted.  Lavinia is sure of it, and, as he is a very 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 better ask Mrs. Montgomery herself?” she inquired.

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

VII

He was, however, by no means so much in earnest as this might seem to indicate; and, indeed, he was more than anything else amused with the whole situation.  He was not in the least in a state of tension or of vigilance with regard to Catherine’s prospects; he was even on his guard against the ridicule that might attach itself to the spectacle of a house thrown into agitation by its daughter and heiress receiving attentions unprecedented in its annals.  More than this, he went so far as to promise himself some entertainment from the little drama—if drama it was—of which Mrs. Penniman desired to represent the ingenious Mr. Townsend as the hero.  He had no intention, as yet, of regulating the dénouement.  He was perfectly willing, as Elizabeth had suggested, to give the young man the benefit of every doubt.  There was no great danger in it; for Catherine, at the age of twenty-two, was, after all, a rather mature blossom, such as could be plucked from the stem only by a vigorous jerk.  The fact that Morris Townsend was poor—was not of necessity against him; the Doctor had never made up his mind that his daughter should marry a rich man.  The fortune she would inherit struck him as a very sufficient provision for two reasonable persons, and if a penniless swain who could give a good account of himself should enter the lists, he should be judged quite upon his personal merits.  There were other things besides.  The Doctor thought it very vulgar to be precipitate in accusing people of mercenary motives, inasmuch as his door had as yet not been in the least besieged by fortune-hunters; and, lastly, he was very curious to see whether Catherine might really be loved for her moral worth.  He smiled as he reflected that poor Mr. Townsend had been only twice to the house, and he said to Mrs. Penniman that the next time he should come she must ask him to dinner.

He came very soon again, and Mrs. Penniman had of course great pleasure in executing this mission.  Morris Townsend accepted her invitation with equal good grace, and the dinner took place a few days later.  The Doctor had said to himself, justly enough, that they must not have the young man alone; this would partake too much of the nature of encouragement.  So two or three other persons were invited; but Morris Townsend, though he was by no means the ostensible, was the real, occasion of the feast.  There is every reason to suppose that he desired to make a good impression; and if he fell short of this result, it was not for want of a good deal of intelligent effort.  The Doctor talked to him very little during dinner; but he observed him attentively, and after the ladies had gone out he pushed him the wine and asked him several questions.  Morris was not a young man who needed to be pressed, and he found quite enough encouragement in the superior quality of the claret.  The Doctor’s wine was admirable, and it may be communicated to the reader that while he sipped it Morris reflected that a cellar-full of good liquor—there was evidently a cellar-full here—would be a most attractive idiosyncrasy in a father-in-law.  The Doctor was struck with his appreciative guest; he saw that he was not a commonplace young man.  “He has ability,” said Catherine’s father, “decided ability; he has a very good head if he chooses to use it.  And he is uncommonly well turned out; quite the sort of figure that pleases the ladies.  But I don’t think I like him.”  The Doctor, however, kept his reflexions to himself, and talked to his visitors about foreign lands, concerning which Morris offered him more information than he was ready, as he mentally phrased it, to swallow.  Dr. Sloper had travelled but little, and he took the liberty of not believing everything this anecdotical idler narrated.  He prided himself on being something of a physiognomist, and while the young man, chatting with easy assurance, puffed his cigar and filled his glass again, the Doctor sat with his eyes quietly fixed on his bright, expressive face.  “He has the assurance of the devil himself,” said Morris’s host; “I don’t think I ever saw such assurance.  And his powers of invention are most remarkable.  He is very knowing; they were not so knowing as that in my time.  And a good head, did I say?  I should think so—after a bottle of Madeira and a bottle and a half of claret!”

After dinner Morris Townsend went and stood before Catherine, who was standing before the fire in her red satin gown.

“He doesn’t like me—he doesn’t like me at all!” said the young man.

“Who doesn’t like you?” asked Catherine.

“Your father; extraordinary man!”

“I don’t see how you know,” said Catherine, blushing.

“I feel; I am very quick to feel.”

“Perhaps you are mistaken.”

“Ah, well; you ask him and you will see.”

“I would rather not ask him, if there is any danger of his saying what you think.”

Morris looked at her with an air of mock melancholy.

“It wouldn’t give you any pleasure to contradict him?”