“And you never saw his worth—never responded to his tenderness?”
“Not until I came home from Bromfield, two years ago. That was the only time David and I came together, in all those years. I never knew how handsome he was until I had been looking at Calvin every day for a month. And his appearance wasn’t all of it. I had made up my mind, while I was still at Ellen’s, that I was going to treat David different. You couldn’t help seeing that I had all the best of the bargain. The house Calvin built, ten years ago, is no comparison to mine. And he had to mortgage it to the limit, when his son got into trouble. Lately he sold it, to keep from losing it outright. That was when I wrote him that I would buy back the old house from my brother. But that’s ... I’ll come to that, later on. All those years I had been thinking of David as a poor carpenter, and Calvin as a banker, in fine society. And when I found out that he didn’t have near as much as I had—”
“I see how you found your deep satisfaction.”
“No, you don’t. It wasn’t just the money, and David’s position in Springdale—on the Board of Trustees, and all that. I got my real triumph after I started for home. I had snubbed Calvin and tormented him in every way I could. I wasn’t going to let him think I went to Bromfield on his account. Besides, I wanted to hurt him, for the way he had treated me. I thought I would take it out on him, and that would end it. If I had been trying to win him, I couldn’t have used better tactics.
“I was on the train and we were pulling out of Rochester when he came walking in the Pullman. At first he pretended to be surprised. Said he was going to Buffalo on business. After a while he owned up that he had come ... because he wanted to be alone with me. He told me that his life had been hell on earth, and he was glad when Lettie died. He even said that if David should die, he would go to the end of the world to compel me to marry him.”
“The boor!”
Lavinia ignored the comment. Hot lava was pouring from the crater of her wretchedness, lava long pent up, and such flimsy obstacles as her daughter-in-law’s disgust were swept away unnoticed in its stream.
“I told him he wasn’t fit for David Trench to wipe his feet on. I didn’t mean it ... but I talk that way when I am beside myself. When I repulsed David, he would look hurt and walk away. But it only made Calvin more determined. He said he would lie down and let me wipe my feet on him. And then he said something sneering about ‘Dave Trench.’ I flew into a rage—and he said I always was a beauty when I was angry. Afterwards he almost cried when he begged me to show some little spark of affection for him. He was always that way ... wanted what he thought he couldn’t get. I see the whole thing now, as plain as day. It is easy to see things, when it’s too late. If the minister hadn’t preached that sermon about helping to redeem sinners by making them suffer, and you hadn’t told me all that other ... about it being worse to want to sin than to come right out and do the thing you wanted....”
Judith shifted uneasily in her chair. Her own indictment was surely on the way. She had no choice but to see the play through, to the final curtain.
“He began writing to me, on one pretext or another. I didn’t answer more than half of his letters. And the meaner I treated him, the more devoted he grew. All that time I was falling in love with David—and I didn’t hesitate to tell Calvin so. It seemed to make him wild. The very day I found out about Eileen, I had had a letter from him that I was ashamed to read, in my own room. I believe that letter would have finished him for me ... if it hadn’t been for Eileen.