CHAPTER XVIII
THEY thought of many ways to get him to do it, but none of such ingenuity as to inspire them with confidence. Mrs. Oliphant made more suggestions than her husband did, and she put most of them into the form of little dramatic dialogues imagined as taking place between Mr. Oliphant and Harlan. Mr. Oliphant was to say such-and-such things to Harlan, who would necessarily reply in certain terms, which she sketched;—whereupon his father could triumphantly turn the words just uttered into proof that Harlan would not only be doing his duty by helping Dan, but at the same time would make great headway with Martha Shelby in a straightforward manner involving not the slightest pose.
Unfortunately, after each of these small dramas in turn, becoming eager in her opinion that “this time” she had “got it,” she was forced into pessimism by Mr. Oliphant’s pointing out that Harlan wouldn’t say what she had sketched for him; but, on the contrary, was certain to express himself to an effect precisely the opposite.
Many times that afternoon the poor lady murmured, “No, I suppose perhaps it wouldn’t do after all,” and pondered again. “But why don’t you think of a way that would do?” she asked, with more spirit, after one of her failures. “You’re a lawyer; you ought to be able to think of something.”
He laughed and made the gesture of a man helpless between opposing viewpoints of his own. “What provokes me is that I can’t help seeing Harlan’s side of it, too. There’s a good deal to be said on his side, you know.”
“Yes, indeed,” she readily assented. “He thinks he’s perfectly right; but of course he isn’t.”
“Well, why isn’t he? After all, your mother trusted him to do just what we’re planning to get him not to do.”
“But her will doesn’t say he can’t help Dan. So why shouldn’t he?”
“No,” Mr. Oliphant interrupted; “it doesn’t say he mustn’t; but that’s what she counted on. In our hearts we’re blaming him for not betraying a trust, and for being unwilling to put money into the fire;—he honestly believes it would be putting it into the fire. And he won’t do it, even though he knows his refusing makes him look mean in the eyes of pretty much everybody he cares about, even in the eyes of the person he seems to care most about. Well, there’s something rather fine in a stand like that, after all.”
“Martha’d never forgive him!” Mrs. Oliphant said emphatically. “Never! If he doesn’t help Dan, now that he’s got so much, she’d always believe him terribly stingy. So you see we ought to persuade him for his own good, too—if we could only think of a way.”