The Professor's House
by Willa Cather
Chapter XVI
One Saturday morning in the spring, when the Professor was at work in the old house, he heard energetic footsteps running up the uncarpeted stairway. Louie's voice called:
"Cher Papa, shall I disturb you too much?"
St. Peter rose and opened to him. Louie was wearing his golf stockings, and a purple jacket with a fur collar.
"No, I'm not going golfing. I changed my mind, but didn't have time to change my clothes. I want you to take a run out along the lake-shore with us. Rosie is going to lunch with some friends at the Country Club. We'll have a drive with her, and then drop her there. It's a glorious day." Louie's keen, interested eye ran about the shabby little room. He chuckled. "The old bear, he just likes his old den, doesn't he? I can readily understand. Your children were born here. Not your daughters—your sons, your splendid Spanish-adventurer sons! I'm proud to be related to them, even by marriage. And your blanket, surely that's a Spanish touch!" Louie pounced upon the purple blanket, threw it across his chest, and, moving aside the wire lady, studied himself in Augusta's glass. "And a very proper dressing-gown it would make for Louie, wouldn't it?"
"It was Outland's—a precious possession. His lost chum brought it up from Mexico."
"Was it Outland's, indeed?" Louie stroked it and regarded it in the glass with increased admiration. "I can never forgive destiny that I hadn't the chance to know that splendid fellow."
The Professor's eyebrows rose in puzzled interrogation. "It might have been awkward—about Rosie, you know."
"I never think of him as a rival," said Louie, throwing back the blanket with a wide gesture. "I think of him as a brother, an adored and gifted brother."
Half an hour later they were spinning along through the country, just coming green, Rosamond and her father on the back seat, Louie facing them. It struck the Professor that Louie had something on his mind; his restless bright eyes watched his wife narrowly, as if to seize an opportune moment.
"You know, Doctor," he said presently, "we've decided to give up our house before we go abroad, and cut off the rent. We'll move the books and pictures up to Outland (and our wedding presents, of course), and the silver we'll put in the bank. There won't be much of our present furniture that we'll need. I wonder if you could use any of it? And it has just occurred to me, Rosie," here he leaned forward and tapped her knee, "that we might ask Scott and Kathleen to come round and select anything they like. No use bothering to sell it, we'd get so little."
Rosamond looked at him in astonishment. It was very evident they had not discussed anything of this sort before. "Don't be foolish, Louie," she said quietly. "They wouldn't want your things."
"But why not?" he persisted playfully. "They are very nice things. Not right for Outland, but perfectly right for a little house. We chose them with care, and we don't want them going into some dirty second-hand shop."
"They won't have to. We can store them in the attic at Outland, Heaven knows it's big enough! You don't have to do anything with them just now."
"It seems a pity, when somebody might be getting the good of them. I know Scott could do very well with that chiffonier of mine. He admired it greatly, I remember, and said he'd never had one with proper drawers for his shirts."
Rosamond's lip curled.
"Don't look like that, Rosie! It's naughty. Stop it!" Louie reached forward and shook her gently by the elbows. "And how can you be sure the McGregors wouldn't like our things, when you've never asked them? What positive ideas she does get into her head!"
"They wouldn't want them because they are ours, yours and mine, if you will have it," she said coldly, drawing away from him.
Louie sank back into his seat and gave it up. "Why do you think such naughty things? I don't believe it, you know! You are so touchy. Scott and Kitty may be a little stand-offish, but it might very possibly make them feel better if you went at them nicely about this." He rallied and began to coax again. "She's got it into her head that the McGregors have a grudge, Doctor. There's nothing to it."
Rosamond had grown quite pale. Her upper lip, that was so like her mother's when she was affable, so much harder when she was not, came down like a steel curtain. "I happen to know, Louie, that Scott blackballed you for the Arts and Letters. You can call that a grudge or not, as you please."
Marsellus was visibly shaken. He looked sad. "Well, if he did, it wasn't very nice of him, certainly. But are you sure, Rosie? Rumours do go about, and people like to stir up family differences."
"It isn't people, and it's not rumour. I know it positively. Kathleen's best friend told me."
Louie lay back and shook with laughter. "Oh, the ladies, the ladies! What they do to each other, Professor!"
St. Peter was very uncomfortable. "I don't think I'd accept such evidence, Rosamond. I don't believe it of Scott, and I think Louie has the right idea. People are like children, and Scott's poor and proud. I think Louie's chiffonier would go to his heart, if Louie offered it to him. I'm afraid you wouldn't do it very graciously."
"Professor, I'll go to McGregor's office and put it up to him. If he scorns it, so much the worse for him. He'll lose a very handy piece of furniture."
Rosamond's paleness changed to red. Fortunately they were spinning over the gravel loops that led through shaven turf to the Country Club. "You can do as you like with your own things, Louie. But I don't want any of mine in the McGregors' bungalow. I know Scott's brand of humour too well, and the kind of jokes that would be made about them."
The car stopped. Louie sprang out and gave his arm to his wife. He walked up the steps to the door with her, and his back expressed such patient, protecting kindness that the Professor bit his lower lip with indignation. Louie came back looking quite grey and tired, and sank into the seat beside the Professor with a sadder-and-wiser smile.
"Louie," St. Peter spoke with deep feeling, "do you happen to have read a novel of Henry James, The American? There's a rather nice scene in it, in which a young Frenchman, hurt in a duel, apologizes for the behaviour of his family. I'd like to do something of the sort. I apologize to you for Rosamond, and for Scott, if he has done such a mean thing."
Louie's downcast face brightened at once. He squeezed the Professor's arm warmly. "Oh, that's all right, sir! As for Scott, I can understand. He was the first son of the family, and he was the whole thing. Then I came along, a stranger, and carried off Rosie, and this patent began to pay so well—it's enough to make any man jealous, and he a Scotchman! But I think Scott will come around in the end; people usually do, if you treat them well, and I mean to. I like the fellow. As for Rosamond, you mustn't give that a thought. I love her when she's naughty. She's a bit unreasonable sometimes, but I'm always hoping for a period of utter, of fantastic unreasonableness, which will be the beginning of a great happiness for us all."
"Louie, you are magnanimous and magnificent!" murmured his vanquished father-in-law.