to pity Mrs. Marven more than he could. The ladies said that Mrs. Durgin's behavior was an outrage, and they ought all to resent it by going straight to their own rooms and packing their things and leaving on the same stage with Mrs. Marven. None of them did so, and their talk veered around to something extenuating, if not justifying, Mrs. Durgin's action.
“I suppose,” one of them said, “that she felt more indignant about it because she has been so very good to Mrs. Marven, and her daughter, too. They were both sick on her hands here for a week after they came, first one and then the other, and she looked after them and did for them like a mother.”
“And yet,” another lady suggested, “what could Mrs. Marven have done? What did she do? He wasn't asked to the picnic, and I don't see why he should have been treated as a guest. He was there, purely and simply, to bring the things and take them away. And, besides, if there is anything in distinctions, in differences, if we are to choose who is to associate with us—or our daughters—”
“That is true,” the ladies said, in one form or another, with the tone of conviction; but they were not so deeply convinced that they did not want a man's opinion, and they all looked at Westover.
He would not respond to their look, and the lady who had argued for Mrs. Marven had to ask: “What do you think, Mr. Westover?”
“Ah, it's a difficult question,” he said. “I suppose that as long as one person believes himself or herself socially better than another, it must always be a fresh problem what to do in every given case.”
The ladies said they supposed so, and they were forced to make what they could of wisdom in which they might certainly have felt a want of finality.
Westover went away from them in a perplexed mind which was not simplified by the contempt he had at the bottom of all for something unmanly in Jeff, who had carried his grievance to his mother like a slighted boy, and provoked her to take up arms for him.
The sympathy for Mrs. Marven mounted again when it was seen that she did not come to dinner, or permit her daughter to do so, and when it became known later that she had refused for both the dishes sent to their rooms. Her farewells to the other ladies, when they gathered to see her off on the stage, were airy rather than cheery; there was almost a demonstration in her behalf, but Westover was oppressed by a kind of inherent squalor in the incident.
At night he responded to a knock which he supposed that of Frank Whitwell with ice-water, and Mrs. Durgin came into his room and sat down in one of his two chairs. “Mr. Westover,” she said, “if you knew all I had done for that woman and her daughter, and how much she had pretended to think of us all, I don't believe you'd be so ready to judge me.”
“Judge you!” cried Westover. “Bless my soul, Mrs. Durgin! I haven't said a word that could be tormented into the slightest censure.”
“But you think I done wrong?”
“I have not been at all able to satisfy myself on that point, Mrs. Durgin. I think it's always wrong to revenge one's self.”
“Yes, I suppose it is,” said Mrs. Durgin, humbly; and the tears came into her eyes. “I got the tray ready with my own hands that was sent to her room; but she wouldn't touch it. I presume she didn't like having a plate prepared for her! But I did feel sorry for her. She a'n't over and above strong, and I'm afraid she'll be sick; there a'n't any rest'rant at our depot.”
Westover fancied this a fit mood in Mrs. Durgin for her further instruction, and he said: “And if you'll excuse me, Mrs. Durgin, I don't think what you did was quite the way to keep a hotel.”
More tears flashed into Mrs. Durgin's eyes, but they were tears of wrath now. “I would 'a' done it,” she said, “if I thought every single one of 'em would 'a' left the house the next minute, for there a'n't one that has the first word to say against me, any other way. It wa'n't that I cared whether she thought my son was good enough to eat with her or not; I know what I think, and that's enough for me. He wa'n't invited to the picnic, and he a'n't one to put himself forward. If she didn't want him to stay, all she had to do was to do nothin'. But to make him up a plate before everybody, and hand it to him to eat with the horses, like a tramp or a dog—” Mrs. Durgin filled to the throat with her wrath, and the sight of her made Westover keenly unhappy.
“Yes, yes,” he said, “it was a miserable business.” He could not help adding: “If Jeff could have kept it to himself—but perhaps that wasn't possible.”
“Mr. Westover!” said Mrs. Durgin, sternly. “Do you think Jeff would come to me, like a great crybaby, and complain of my lady boarders and the way they used him? It was Mr. Whit'ell that let it out, or I don't know as I should ever known about it.”
“I'm glad Jeff didn't tell you,” said Westover, with a revulsion of good feeling toward him.
“He'd 'a' died first,” said his mother. “But Mr. Whit'ell done just right all through, and I sha'n't soon forget it. Jeff's give me a proper goin' over for what I done; both the boys have. But I couldn't help it, and I should do just so again. All is, I wanted you should know just what you was blamin' me for—”
“I don't know that I blame you. I only wish you could have helped it—managed some other way.”
“I did try to get over it, and all I done was to lose a night's rest. Then, this morning, when I see her settin' there so cool and mighty with the boarders, and takin' the lead as usual, I just waited till she got Whit'ell across, and nearly everybody was there that saw what she done to Jeff, and then I flew out on her.”
Westover could not suppress a laugh. “Well, Mrs. Durgin, your retaliation was complete; it was dramatic.”
“I don't know what you mean by that,” said Mrs. Durgin, rising and resuming her self-control; she did not refuse herself a grim smile. “But I guess she thought it was pretty perfect herself—or she will, when she's able to give her mind to it. I'm sorry for her daughter; I never had anything against her; or her mother, either, for that matter, before. Franky look after you pretty well? I'll send him up with your ice-water. Got everything else you want?”
“I should have to invent a want if I wished to complain,” said Westover.
“Well, I should like to have you do it. We can't ever do too much for you. Well, good-night, Mr. Westover.”
“Good'-night, Mrs. Durgin.”
XIII.
Jeff Durgin entered Harvard that fall, with fewer conditions than most students have to work off. This was set down to the credit of Lovewell Academy, where he had prepared for the university; and some observers in such matters were interested to note how thoroughly the old school in a remote town had done its work for him.
None who formed personal relations with him at that time conjectured that he had done much of the work for himself, and even to Westover, when Jeff came to him some weeks after his settlement in Cambridge, he seemed painfully out of his element, and unamiably aware of it. For the time, at least, he had lost the jovial humor, not too kindly always, which largely characterized him, and expressed itself in sallies of irony which were not so unkindly, either. The painter perceived that he was on his guard against his own friendly interest; Jeff made haste to explain that he came because he had told his mother that he would do so. He scarcely invited a return of his visit, and he left Westover wondering at the sort of vague
