UTTERLY IS PUT UPON HIS METTLE
In the morning Utterly continued the search which was the chief object
of his visit to Waltonville. Passing the house of Dr. Green soon after
breakfast, he beheld that gentleman sitting inside his window. Dr. Green
looked up absent-mindedly and bowed. Utterly stopped short.
"I have had an amusing time hunting for my Basil Everman," said he in
his high, clear voice.
Dr. Green laid his paper on his knee and looked over his spectacles.
"Did you find him?"
"I found he was Mrs. Lister's brother, but not much more. They seem
singularly averse to answering questions about him, to say nothing of
offering any information."
"Possibly there isn't anything to offer," said Dr. Green, returning to
his paper.
Thus dismissed, Utterly departed, having taken a long and astonished
stare into Dr. Green's chaotic office, and having decided that he never
saw a spot better suited to the harboring of germs.
Now he sought the cemetery beside the college church, and there gave
expression to a "By Jove!" The building copied exactly the old Colonial
church first built on that spot, and was as beautiful in proportions and
design as any Colonial building he had ever seen. Still looking up, he
walked round it, gazing at the tall steeple with its fine lantern and at
the high, narrow windows with their delicate, diamond-patterned old
glass. Then with another "By Jove!" he began to search for the family
plot of the Evermans.
Without difficulty he found the place where Richard Everman and his wife
lay side by side under heavy slabs of marble. Of their son Basil there
was no memorial. For a while he wandered about reading names and
inscriptions, then, shaking his head in strong disapproval of death and
all its emblems, he passed through the gate once more and out to the
street. He decided that he would wander about and steep himself in
Waltonville's primitive atmosphere. He grew more and more baffled and
angry, and more certain that information was being kept from him.
Descriptive sentences formed themselves tantalizingly in his mind. "Here
in this quiet spot, surrounded by quiet influences, belonging to the
family of a clergyman, growing up under the shadow of the old church,
was developing one of the most somber geniuses to which our nation has
given birth." Until noon, still constructing sentences, he wandered
unhappily.
In the afternoon he returned to the Listers' for his magazines. Again
Dr. Lister sat on the porch; Utterly said to himself angrily that his
manner was as stolid as his mind was stupid.
Dr. Lister agreed with him that Basil Everman's contributions to
"Willard's Magazine" were remarkable, that they gave extraordinary
promise.
"Then it is certain that Basil Everman had extraordinary experience of
life, and that that experience is the property of those interested in
him."
"Not necessarily." Dr. Lister reversed the position of his knees as was
his habit. He now made what was for him a long speech. "I have talked at
length with Mrs. Lister about him. Even after these many years it is
difficult for her to speak of him. There is apparently no foundation
whatsoever for your supposition that he led a life in any way different
from the ordinary life of a young man in this community. He was an
omnivorous reader, and, I gather, a reader of most careful taste. It is
my judgment that any one who carried about with him volumes of Euripides
and Æschylus did not--"
"Did he do that?" Utterly took out his notebook.
"--Did not need any personal experience with the strange contrarieties
of the human mind or the strange twists of fate in order to write either
'Roses of Pæstum' or 'Bitter Bread.' I am sorry for your disappointment,
Mr. Utterly, but there really is nothing beside the simple facts which
we have told you. If there were any possibility of establishing a
posthumous fame for Basil, surely an affectionate sister would be the
last to withhold information leading to such a result! I think--if you
will allow a much older man to express an opinion--I think you are
building upon entirely false premises. The constructive power of the
human imagination is greater than you are willing to believe. What deep
or wide experience could this young man have had? He could not have been
much over twenty when he wrote these articles. They were published--at
least two were published--before he died, and then he was less than
twenty-five. He must have been living here at home when they were
written. He had never been away from home except for occasional visits
to Baltimore. His ability to imagine the heat, the blue sky, the
loneliness of Pæstum without ever having been to Italy is proved beyond
a doubt; why could he not picture the heat and the passion of the human
heart of which each one of us has such conclusive proof within him?"
Utterly did not care for general speculations.
"How did he happen to die in Baltimore?" he asked.
"He happened to be there on business when he was smitten with malignant
diphtheria," explained Dr. Lister again patiently. "His death occurred
about the same time as that of his father. Mrs. Lister lost in a short
period her father and her brother. She lost also in a sense her home,
since her father's death made it necessary to call a new president to
the college. She returned to this house upon her marriage. You will
understand, I am sure, how gladly she would furnish you with information
if it would in the slightest degree give her brother that fame for which
he probably longed. You will understand also, I am sure, that your
inquiry, since it is so unlikely to bear any profitable fruit, is trying
to her."
"But it will be profitable."
"My dear sir, the world has moved too far and too fast for this small
contribution, excellent as it is, to be of great account!" Dr. Lister
spoke with politeness, but there had crept into his voice at last a note
of impatience. He thought again of a nap. Mrs. Lister had accepted an
invitation to Mrs. Scott's for the evening, and an evening at Mrs.
Scott's was not to be endured without all possible physical and mental
fortifying of one's self. He wished most earnestly that the young man
would go.
"And he left nothing else?"
"Nothing."
"No notes?"
"Nothing."
Utterly bade his host farewell and went across the campus and out the
gate. For a second he was convinced that his errand was a fool's errand.
But "Bitter Bread" and "Roses of Pæstum" did exist--an account of their
author was valuable, even if he had never written another line. Debating
with himself whether he should now shake the dust of Waltonville from
his feet or whether he should make another effort to shake from its
stupid mind some of the recollections which in spite of all testimony to
the contrary must exist, he walked back to the hotel. There, he
discovered, the question had been decided for him. The four-o'clock
train, which had gone, was the last train that day. He was almost as
angry as he would have been if the B. & N. had arranged its schedule to
try his patience and if Basil Everman had lived his brief life, had
written his great works, and had died to spite him.
Then, as he turned away from questioning the landlord, he took heart
once more. Above the damp, unpleasant bar with its dripping glasses,
its show of tawdry bottles, hung, faded and fly-blown, the picture
described in "Bitter Bread." Utterly set his lips and swung out his
hands with a crack of the joints.
The Listers notwithstanding, the stolid landlord behind the bar
notwithstanding, he would learn what was to be learned about Basil
Everman. Even if Basil Everman had never written anything, he would
still pursue his search.
At that moment he found before him and close to him a vessel of
testimony more important than the old picture. This was one of the
miserable sodden creatures whom he had seen in the bar-room and on the
hotel porch, perhaps the most forlorn and disreputable of them all. It
was afternoon; he had recovered from the morning's stupor and evening
drowsiness was not yet upon him.
"You were asking yesterday about young Basil Everman," said he with a
thick tongue. "I knew young Basil Everman."
Utterly's loathing of the bloated face, the soiled clutching hand, was
not as keen as his pleasure.
"I was a good friend to him," said the drunkard.
Utterly drew the miserable creature across the hall to a dark little
parlor where dampness and the odor of beer were only a shade less
unpleasant, that same parlor where Margie Ginter had entertained her
admiring friends. There he sat him down in the most comfortable chair.
"What is your name?"
"My name is Bates."
"What do you do for a living?"
Bates explained that he was a lawyer, but that business was poor and he
could not really earn a living. It had not always been this way; when
Basil Everman was young, things had been different, very different. He
had associated with the best people then, he had had plenty of money.
Now he had nothing. Contemplating his misery, Bates wept.
With leaping heart Utterly took his measure.
"I will give you five dollars if you will tell me everything you know
about Basil Everman."
At this munificent offer Bates wept again and made an unsuccessful
effort to stroke the hand of his benefactor, who realized that he might
have purchased the commodity he was bargaining for with a quarter of a
dollar.
Bates began making apologies for himself, to which Utterly listened
impatiently and which he presently cut short.
"About Basil Everman," said he. "Did you know him when he was a boy?"
Bates said that he had known Basil always. Weeping he described Basil in
his childhood.
"He would hold my hand, this one." He put out his hand palsied by
dissipation. "I would tell him stories and stories."
"And then you knew him when he was a young man?" said Utterly briskly.
Bates blinked at him uncomprehendingly. The brief period of sobriety was
passing. He was already, in anticipation, drunk upon Utterly's bounty.
Then he mumbled something about a pretty girl. Utterly leaned forward,
his soul crying Eureka! But the well was almost dry. Bates could only
complain that Basil had got a girl away from him, that Mary Alcestis
would never speak to him nowadays, and that he had had bad luck for
thirty years. Utterly closed the door; he coaxed, he cajoled, he
suggested. But Bates only wept or smiled in a maudlin way. Presently he
began to whine for his five dollars in a loud tone, and angry, yet
encouraged, Utterly gave him his easily earned fee and let him go.
Now, Utterly determined, he would shake Waltonville. He would go to Mrs.
Scott's party and sit by the gilt table which he had seen through the
window, and shake Waltonville well.