AN ANXIOUS NIGHT
In the morning Richard breakfasted with his father and mother. The
breeze had died down and the day was already intensely warm. Mrs. Lister
had given a large part of the night to thoughts of him and her pale face
showed the effect of her vigil. She had determined upon second thought
that his offense could not be overlooked, and for the first time in his
life she was thoroughly angry with him. He had not only offended, but he
had caused her to offend also. She could not forget Cora's brown,
astonished eyes. If it had been Mrs. Scott to whom he had been rude, she
might have found an excuse for him. But only the most wanton cruelty
could hurt Cora.
Her indignation deepened, when, after her household labors were
finished, she could not find the object of her just wrath. He was not in
his room, nor in his father's study, nor on the porch, and there was no
sound from the chapel organ or the assembly room piano. She had prepared
her reproach and she wished to deliver it at once.
But she was to be denied still longer the relief of expression. Richard
did not come to his dinner. Occasionally he had lunch with Thomasina, to
which objection was made only when dinner had been prepared with a
special view to his taste. Mrs. Lister always missed him and never
really enjoyed a meal without him, but she felt that such absences were
good for her, since they helped to prepare for the day, now so rapidly
approaching, when he would go away altogether.
This was not a propitious time for him to absent himself, not only
because his mother wished to see him, but because 'Manda had baked
waffles. Mrs. Lister could eat nothing and 'Manda scolded about the
pains she had taken to prepare food which her "fambly" would not touch.
When he had not appeared at three o'clock, Mrs. Lister passed from a
state of anger into one of acute anxiety. She could not rest, could not
lie down, could not sew. The heat was intolerable. She sought her
husband in his study.
"Where is Richard?" she demanded. "What has got into the boy? Last
evening he insulted Cora Scott by walking out as soon as he had had his
supper, and now he has gone away, apparently to stay all day, without
saying a word to his mother."
Dr. Lister looked up, startled.
"Hasn't he come?"
"He hasn't been here since eight o'clock this morning!"
"He can't be very far away."
"But _where_ is he?"
"Perhaps with Thomasina?"
"Thomasina lies down every afternoon. She'd send him home if he hadn't
sense enough to come. Besides, I think she's gone away."
"Perhaps he's in the chapel or the assembly room, practicing."
"There isn't a sound from that direction, not a sound. I've sat at my
window and listened and listened." Mrs. Lister began to cry.
"But, mother! This is a grown man, this is not a child!"
"He is a child in his father's house. He owes us respect if he's fifty
years old." Mrs. Lister crossed the room and looked out between the
slats of the bowed shutter across the shimmering campus. "There are
thunderheads above the trees and"--her voice took on a tragic
tone--"Mrs. Scott is coming!"
Dr. Lister rose from the couch where he had been napping.
"Shan't I excuse you? It's too hot to see any one, least of all, Mrs.
Scott."
"No. Richard might be there. Something might have happened to him and
she is coming to tell us!"
"Nothing has happened to him, my dear."
Mrs. Lister met Mrs. Scott at the door. The heat which smote her face as
she opened it was so great that she urged her guest to come quickly into
the cool parlor. Surely Mrs. Scott would not have ventured out unless
she had some special purpose! Perhaps she had come to speak about
Richard's behavior to Cora! The idea was fantastic, but it seemed to
Mrs. Lister in her alarm perfectly reasonable. Or she might pretend to
know nothing about it, yet make Mrs. Lister the most miserable of human
beings.
Mrs. Scott agreed that it was hot, but she did not continue to dwell
upon the weather or allow Mrs. Lister to dwell upon it. Even to Dr.
Lister, sitting across in his study in a position from which he could
see neither of the two ladies or be seen by them, it was plain that she
had come upon business of importance. He pictured them both, Mary
Alcestis, large, benign, gentle, and slow of speech, Mrs. Scott, small,
eager, ferret-like.
He heard the two opening sentences, Mrs. Lister's pleasant compliment to
Mrs. Scott's energy, Mrs. Scott's answering boast that the heat could
not "throw her out of her stride." Her voice then went on and on. It was
confidential and pleasant enough in tone and Dr. Lister could not
understand a word, but he was certain that she was worrying Mrs. Lister.
It was undoubtedly wrong and un-Christian, but he hated her. He rose,
intending to cross the hall and relieve Mary Alcestis of some of the
burden of conversation.
Then he stood still by his desk. The softly murmuring voice rose to a
tone approximating that in which Mrs. Scott addressed her family.
"I thought you would want to know it, Mrs. Lister. I thought you ought
to know it."
"I didn't understand exactly what you said."
"I said that your Richard had been visiting morning, noon, and night,
since Commencement, Eleanor Bent," repeated Mrs. Scott. "I said that
people thought it very strange that Dr. Lister's son should devote his
time to her. He plays duets with her on a beautiful new piano that dear
knows where she got, and her mother sits by watching them. I guess she
has her own intentions. The piano must have cost a thousand dollars."
Promptly and smoothly came Mrs. Lister's answer.
"I have heard Thomasina say often that Miss Bent plays very well. And he
is not there morning, noon, and night, as you say, Mrs. Scott. He is
here almost all the time. And after all"--the pause between Mrs.
Lister's words suggested to her husband a straight gaze and a head
somewhat lifted--"after all, it is Richard's affair, isn't it, and not
any one else's?"
Mrs. Scott was too astonished to answer. She was furious at Richard and
almost as angry at Cora, who, when informed, would say nothing about his
visits to Eleanor except that he was his own master. She had expected
that Mrs. Lister would grow deathly white and perhaps faint.
"I should dislike to have my Walter show any attention to a person in
such an anomalous position," said she, rising. "I came out of the
kindness of my heart."
"I don't know what you mean by an 'anomalous position,'" said Mrs.
Lister, rising also. "I am sure Mrs. Bent and her daughter are very
quiet, retiring people."
She went with Mrs. Scott to the door and let her out into the burning
sunshine. She did not return to the study, but went directly to her
room. Dr. Lister sat for a few minutes with his pen poised over his
paper, then, when she did not return, he began a letter. He was amused
at Mrs. Scott's feline retaliation and was grateful to the gods for
having given him a Mary Alcestis. There was nothing to be distressed
about in the fact that Richard played duets with Eleanor Bent, who was a
bright, pretty girl. He said to himself vaguely that if the young rascal
didn't come home soon, he would go and fetch him. Hearing a low rumble
of thunder, he rejoiced that a change of temperature was at hand.
Richard did not come home to supper. Mrs. Lister ate nothing and made no
pretense of eating. The rumbling of thunder continued, growing loud very
gradually, as though the storm were only slowly gathering force. She
rose from the table and went from window to window, not so much to see
whether they were securely fastened as to look out in every direction.
There was still the vividly blue sky in all quarters but the northwest,
where there was a low, but slowly rising, bank of dark cloud with
white-tipped thunderheads above it.
She grew more and more pale, more and more wretched. Her anxiety seemed
to weigh down her cheeks and add ten years to her age. Richard must have
been hurt; he might have gone for a walk and have fallen and be lying
somewhere helpless.
"But there isn't any place to fall from, mother!" said Dr. Lister, now
as anxious as she.
Presently, as the sky grew darker and the thunder louder, she wept.
"I will go to Thomasina's," said Dr. Lister, "and I'll stop at Dr.
Green's and--"
"Do not ask them any questions!" cried Mrs. Lister. "Do not let them
know! People will get to talking!"
"But, mother, we must find him!"
"I cannot have any one know that Richard does not obey us," insisted
Mary Alcestis. "You can look in at the window. Thomasina's curtains are
always up to the sky and Dr. Green hasn't any in his front office."
Dr. Lister put on a raincoat and took an umbrella and started out
against the high wind. The search seemed unreal, weird, impossible.
Richard was not at Thomasina's, for the house was dark, and Dr. Green
was alone. Dr. Lister went to the assembly room and to the chapel and to
all the rooms of the recitation building. He stood in the doorway of
each one until a bright flash of lightning or several flashes had
illuminated each corner. At the door of Dr. Scott's study he knocked.
Within, Dr. Scott sat at the window watching the wide valley magically
illuminated by the flashing light, which was now rosy, now bright blue.
He had seen nothing of Richard. Dr. Lister said that he had brought
Richard an umbrella thinking that he was here. He supposed that by now
he was at home. Under the first heavy drops of rain, he hurried back to
his house.
As he neared the porch, the sight of a figure approaching from the
opposite direction, or, rather, being blown from the opposite direction,
startled and relieved him.
"Richard!" said he.
He saw to his amazement that the figure was not that of Richard, but
the broader form of his mother.
"I thought I would look for him," she gasped, blown finally to the porch
step and there firmly seized by her husband. "I couldn't stay in the
house and do nothing."
"Where have you been?"
"I thought he might be about s-s-somewhere. I went to see." She
quickened her steps. "Perhaps he is here. Oh, I am sure he has come
home!"
But he had not come home. His mother called as she opened the door and
was answered only by a faint echo from the upper story. She walked with
tottering step into the study and sat down and smoothed her hair back
into its proper place. Her face was contorted, her lips trembling. Dr.
Lister laid his hand on her shoulder.
"My dear, you are so strange! What is back of this? Had you any words
with him about anything?"
Mrs. Lister laid her hands palm upward on her lap. With a start at each
new roll of thunder she began to speak. The first words made her husband
frown; they had long been the sign and signal of trouble. As he
listened, he grew amazed, then sick at heart.
"My brother Basil--" Mrs. Lister paused and looked dumbly at her
husband.
"Yes, my dear--"
"My brother Basil left us to--to follow the daughter of the village
tavern-keeper. That was the last straw, that was what worked on my
father's health and finally killed him. He never saw Basil again. You've
said to me so often that Basil was past, that we needn't think of him or
trouble about him or break our hearts over him. But he is not past.
Nothing ever is. You cannot get away from the things you do and that
other people do. They keep on forever, from generation to generation."
"Mary Alcestis, tell me plainly what you mean!"
"It was this woman who calls herself Mrs. Bent whom he followed away.
Her name was Margie Ginter."
Dr. Lister drew up a chair and sat down by Mrs. Lister.
"How much of this is suspicion? How much do you really _know_?"
Mrs. Lister started again. The storm increased in intensity without
breaking. The rain fell in slow, heavy drops, audible as they struck the
roof of the porch. Her voice, on a high and monotonous key, seemed to
fill the house.
"She lived here at the tavern. It was a terrible place. People who keep
places of that kind pay some attention to public opinion now, but they
didn't then. We found that he went there--my father thought it was to
drink. Then one evening I came upon them, him and the girl, on Cherry
Street in the dark, walking together under the thick trees. I was not
often out alone in the evening, but it seemed that this had to happen. I
heard her talking to Basil and I told my father. In a little while they
left here, and then he went also."
"Do you mean that your father could compel them to leave?"
"No, I think they were just going. And Basil went too."
"And then?"
"Then, afterwards, he died. And she came back here, brazenly, with a
little child and a married name. Once she spoke to me on the street. She
said she would like to talk to me about him, but I told her I couldn't.
I had Richard with me in the coach and it was right out in the open
street. I was afraid to go out for weeks."
"Did she ever make any other effort to speak to you?"
"No; she seemed afraid."
"But if what you think is true, the girl should be older than she is! It
can't be, mother!"
"I believe that she is older than she says. How else should she have got
ahead of our Richard in school? That is the only way to account for it."
Dr. Lister remembered the astonishing maturity of Eleanor's mind.
"And I know what my eyes tell me!" cried Mrs. Lister. "Her eyes are
Basil's eyes. It was her eyes Mr. Utterly was thinking of when he saw
Basil's picture. I knew it. Her walk is his. She is Basil over again.
For all these years I have had to look at her in church and on the
street. I had begun to feel a little safe because I thought that now she
might go away. Then this man came with his hateful inquiries."
"Poor Mary Alcestis!"
"I couldn't forbid her to go to college. I couldn't do anything
but"--Mrs. Lister now broke down completely--"but watch and pray."
"And you never told me!"
"I couldn't tell any one about Basil. If you had known what a sweet
little boy he was, perhaps I could have told you. And Richard--oh,
Richard, Richard!"
"I heard Mrs. Scott."
"I went there to look for him."
"To the Bents'!"
"Yes, through all the lanes. It was quite dark and no one saw me. But I
fell once; I was so excited and the lane was rough. Miss Bent and her
mother were sitting together like innocent people, but he was not there.
I said to myself that if he was I would go in and bring him home."
"But, mother, this about Richard is imagination run mad!"
"All the dreadful things I ever imagined came true. When he sits at the
piano, he looks like Basil. It's something in them, it--Hark!"
Dr. Lister sprang up and went to the door. As he opened it the wind set
the flame of the lamps quivering. There was a shrill, wailing sound.
"What is it?" cried Mrs. Lister.
"Nothing but the wind," answered Dr. Lister, his own nerves badly
shaken. He came back into the study. "Mrs. Scott exaggerates till she
lies. Suppose he has gone there to play for a few hours! They are both
pupils of Thomasina's."
"Thomasina's ideas are all wrong--about _everything_," said Mrs.
Lister. "She never had a brother or a child, she has had no experience.
She puts a higher value on talent than on the Ten Commandments. Where
_is_ Richard?" She sprang up. Her cry was lost in the breaking of the
storm. "This very house is rocking!"
Dr. Lister drew her down once more beside him.
"At this moment we can do nothing but wait."
"I've gone through this misery before," said she piteously. "It isn't
new to me."
Dr. Lister tried to persuade her to lie down, but she would not stir.
The storm reached a climax, seemed to recede, and advanced in greater
fury. Silently, hand in hand, the two waited.