EXPLANATIONS
By midnight, when the fury of the storm had abated, there was still no
Richard. Mrs. Lister would not hear of going to bed, but sat stiffly
upon the sofa in the study or wandered through the house. With a candle
she explored the third story, venturing even into the tank room where
the dim light cast flickering shadows on the brown unfinished walls and
ceiling. She remembered with horror the old story of the bride locked
into a chest and found mouldering after many years, and a more recent
and sentimental tale of a young woman, who, discovering that she was
merely the foster child of her parents, fell fainting to the floor
before the old trunk into which she had been prying, and there remained
until she was accidentally stumbled upon. Mrs. Lister did not climb the
projecting beam and look into the tank--that madness she forbade
herself.
She went into Richard's room and opened distractedly the cupboard door,
then laid back the covers on the bed as she had always laid back
Richard's covers, every night of his life.
As Dr. Lister sat beside her, he heard the whole story of Basil Everman,
and his first puritanic disapproval of Basil's course gave place to
protesting amazement.
"Something within him seemed to impel him to do wrong things," said
Mrs. Lister. "It wasn't that he didn't love us. I am convinced that he
loved us dearly. _But he had to have his own way!_"
"'_Had to have his own way!_'" Dr. Lister repeated the words to himself.
His own way, which led him to "Roses of Pæstum" and "Bitter Bread"! If
they had only let him have his own way, unmolested, or had helped him to
it, poor Basil might not have turned into this unpleasant by-path.
Certainly the friendship between Richard and Eleanor Bent must end.
Could there be any serious feeling between them? With this new light
upon the girl's mental inheritance and with quickened recollection of
her as she had sat in his classes, came deeper alarm.
There were moments when Mrs. Lister, in her fright and exhaustion,
seemed to confuse Basil and Richard. Basil had been out in such storms;
she had waited and watched for him all night long. He had been gone not
only all night, but days and nights. Sometimes he had been almost within
call, but he had insisted upon watching the storms. He was sorry to have
troubled them, but he would not change any of his idle, purposeless
ways.
She had tried and her father had tried to find a precedent for Basil,
but in vain.
"I never heard of any one so strange and willful but Mr. Poe, until Mr.
Utterly told those dreadful stories. And now Richard is--is like them!"
"Did Basil never announce his departures?"
"He knew that my father would forbid him wasting his time in idleness
and wandering. He knew that my father would prevent him. So he simply
went."
At one o'clock and at two o'clock there was still no Richard. The house
assumed a different appearance after the customary hour for retiring.
The high ceilings seemed in some strange fashion to rise, the walls to
expand, the shadows to darken. Another storm approached, broke over
Waltonville, and died away. Mrs. Lister, selecting a darkened window,
looked out and saw that the Scotts were stirring. Her anger with Mrs.
Scott almost suffocated her. Poor Mary Alcestis was not created to bear
heroic passions.
Again and again Dr. Lister begged her to rest.
"You will be utterly worn out. Richard will not come any sooner because
you wait for him."
"But where can he be?" wailed Mary Alcestis.
Dr. Lister determined that at dawn he would set forth, make a round of
the village and all the neighboring walks, and then go to Thomasina
Davis's and take counsel with her. If Richard had not come by eight
o'clock, his disappearance must be made public. He could have no reason
for going away and search could be no longer postponed. Having
acknowledged this to himself, Dr. Lister became as much a victim of
terror as his wife. There had never been a more obedient son; to
attribute callous indifference to him was wicked. That he could
thoughtlessly or intentionally have brought upon them such cruel anxiety
was unthinkable. In his distress Dr. Lister began to tramp up and down
the long study.
Then, at last, as dawn was breaking, Richard came home. In the study
the watchers still sat with the shades drawn, not realizing that outside
a gray light was already exhibiting the ruin wrought in the night. The
smooth grass was strewn with branches and twigs, the cannas lay flat,
gardens were flooded, and at the campus gate a tree lay across the
street.
At the first click of the latch Mrs. Lister screamed, then held her hand
across her lips. Nervous strength had forsaken her. But she gathered
herself together and Dr. Lister, watching her, failed to see the
entrance of the prodigal. Her form stiffened, the distress on her face
altered to a stern and savage disapproval. She looked suddenly and
uncannily like the portrait of the austere old man above her head. The
night's vigil seemed to have removed the plumpness which disguised her
physical resemblance to her father and her indignation destroyed the
placid good nature which was her usual mood. She felt no weak impulse to
throw herself upon her son's shoulder or to reinforce her maternal
influence by any appeal to his affection.
When he entered, bedraggled, wet, black with railroad dust, he saw,
first of all, his mother, sitting like a judge before him. He saw his
father also, but his father seemed as usual a little indifferent to him
and his needs, and even to this adventure.
"Mother!" he cried from the doorway.
Mrs. Lister did not answer. That the boy was amazed, that he could not
account for their waiting presence was evident, but she did not help him
to straighten out the puzzling situation in which he found himself.
"You have been up all night!"
Mrs. Lister allowed the evident truth of this assertion to serve for an
answer. She felt as though she could never speak, as though her throat
were paralyzed, her tongue dead in her mouth. A lover, hearing his
mistress explain her faithlessness, could have been no more powerless to
express the sense of injury within him. There was a great gulf between
her and her son, who till this moment had seemed almost as much a part
of her as he was in the months preceding his birth.
Richard sat down inside the door.
"You didn't get my message, then?"
Still she did not speak.
"What message, Richard?" asked Dr. Lister. "We have had no message. We
only knew that you vanished yesterday after breakfast."
"I found I had to go," explained Richard. Then he paused. His words
sounded as strange to him as to his parents. "I wrote a note telling you
where I was going and I fastened it to my pincushion where I was certain
mother would find it. I missed the train home, and I came on the freight
and it was delayed. I tried to telegraph, but the wires were down.
Didn't you find my note, mother?"
"There was no note on your pincushion," said Mrs. Lister in a hollow
voice.
Richard turned and ran up the steps. The two waiting below could hear
him throw up the blinds. He descended in his fashion, three steps at a
time, carrying two bits of paper in his hand.
"There, mother, they were under the edge of the bookcase! They must have
blown there. I am so sorry that you have been anxious." His voice
trembled, his father saw that he was almost exhausted.
Mrs. Lister did not lift the papers from her lap where he laid them. In
the confusion of her mind, one intention was firm. She would not learn
his excuse from any paper.
"But, Richard--" Dr. Lister, returning to the comfortable habits of
every day, changed his right knee for his left. "Why did you go away and
where did you go?"
Richard straightened his shoulders.
"I heard that Henry Faversham was to be in Baltimore for a few days and
yesterday I saw in the paper that he had come. I knew that he accepted
no pupils without having first heard them play, and I thought it would
be better to see him in Baltimore than to make the long trip to New
York. Miss Thomasina had written him about me and had given me a letter
to him, and I expected certainly to go down and back in a day. Mother,
of course she didn't know that I had gone without telling you! You know
she would have told you herself rather than have that happen."
Dr. Lister cleared his throat.
"But, Richard, has it been our custom to communicate with one another by
newspaper slips or written notes?"
"No," said Richard. He drew a deeper breath and looked his father in
the eyes. "I couldn't have any argument about it, father. I _had_ to go.
There was no time for argument. I thought it would be easier for
everybody if I just went. I am deeply sorry that you had this anxiety. I
didn't mean you should."
Mrs. Lister saw the pleading eyes, heard the pleading voice, saw the
even more eloquent grime and the white, streaked cheeks, but she made no
affectionate sign of yielding, no tender motion to her son to come to
that bosom which had thus far been a pillow for all his troubles.
Hereditary motives were no less strong in her than in her son.
"Please, mother!"
"You'd better get a bath and go to bed."
For the sake of saving his life, Richard could not have kept his lips
from quivering.
"When did you have anything to eat, my boy?" asked Dr. Lister.
"I'm not hungry," answered Richard steadily.
"But how lately have you eaten?"
"Not very lately," confessed Richard. "I didn't think much about eating
yesterday." For an instant his face was lightened by pleasant
recollection. "I'm really not hungry. Please, mother, don't bother! You
ought to go to bed; you're more tired than I."
Mrs. Lister paid no heed to Richard's protests. She went to the kitchen
and filled a tray and carried it upstairs. When he came from his bath,
he found it there and ate, like a criminal in his cell. Then with a
long sigh, he lay down. He threw his arm round the unused pillow beside
his own on his broad bed and smiled. He heard for an instant heavenly
harmonies, then he was asleep.
Even now that Richard had come home, Mrs. Lister would not lie down. She
changed her dress for her usual morning apparel and put away the remains
of his breakfast which he had placed on a chair outside his door, so
that 'Manda might not suspect the strange doings of the night, then she
went into the study. Dr. Lister lay on the couch. When she entered, he
opened his eyes for a second, then closed them again, and she sat down
and waited. In a little while, as though the tremendous disturbance of
her mind was transferred through the still air to his sleepy brain, he
opened his eyes wide and sat bolt upright.
"Yes, yes, my dear! What is it?"
Mrs. Lister made no apology for any telepathic means by which she might
have awakened him. It was his business to be awake.
"This thing must be settled, Thomas."
From the vague borderland of sleep, Dr. Lister tried honestly and vainly
to understand just what must be settled.
"What thing, mother?"
Mrs. Lister gave him a look in which astonishment and impatience were
mingled.
"Richard can't have anything to do with this girl; he can't play with
her, or see her, or talk to her; it isn't decent or right."
"You mean he must be told about Basil?" Dr. Lister remembered now the
events and revelations of the night.
"It must be stopped. Everything must be stopped. Our child must do what
is right."
The revelations of the night seemed to Dr. Lister like illusions.
"You are sure of all you told me, mother?"
"I am sure."
"Do you know where they went after they left here--the girl and her
father, I mean?"
"We heard it was a little town in Ohio called Marysville."
"You never caused any inquiry to be made there?"
"Oh, no!"
"Basil wasn't with them when he died, was he?"
"No."
"We can't do anything at this minute. We'll have to learn whether
Richard has gone any farther than to play the piano a few times with
this young lady and I'll find out about these plans and intentions of
his."
"His plans and intentions!" repeated Mrs. Lister.
"He's old enough to have them, my dear. I think we'd better let him have
his music, don't you?"
Mrs. Lister gave her husband another long, level, and astonished glance.
Then she sought her own room.
Richard came downstairs for lunch, white and with dark-rimmed eyes. But
he was clean and his eyes shone. Faversham had accepted him, had said he
would be glad to have him. He had sent messages to Miss Thomasina; he
had said a hundred things which she must hear at once.
"He talked about her as though he were in love with her," thought
Richard whose thoughts ran in one channel.
Faversham had played for him, had talked about Beethoven and John
Sebastian Bach. Faversham had heard and had torn up his small
compositions and had put them into the wastebasket, smiling.
"You don't want those to appear in collections of your works, my boy!"
he had said.
Richard would not have exchanged places with the Queen of England, or
the Czar of all the Russias, who still held enviable positions in those
days, or with any great character of history past or present. As for the
future, he intended to be one of the great characters.
And there was sweet Eleanor, waiting, perhaps even at this instant, for
him to come up the little walk.
If he could only tell his father and mother now about Henry Faversham
and all the things that he had said! He must make them see that music
was the breath of life to him; that he must be a musician, could be
nothing else.
But he would not make them try to see now. His mother's features were
too tense, her disapproval too evident, his own voice too tremulous. He
would stay at home in the early part of the evening and explain to them,
persuade them. Now he must find hungrier ears than theirs.
As Richard pushed back his chair, Mrs. Lister's eyes sought her
husband's, and thus prompted, he asked his son, a little unwillingly,
where he was going.
"I am going to Miss Thomasina's."
"And after that?" Mrs. Lister was not quite sure whether she had asked
the question, or whether he had announced his plans in defiance.
"Afterwards I am going to play duets with Eleanor Bent." He did not mean
to say exactly that. In both him and his mother forces were operating
which carried them farther along the path appointed than either had any
intention of proceeding. Here, to Richard, was another subject upon
which there could be no arguing.
"Eleanor Bent plays very well, and she has the finest piano in
Waltonville, the only piano really, except Miss Thomasina's. It is a
young and strong piano"--Richard smiled pleasantly--"without a tin
mandolin inside it like the Scotts'. I wish you could hear it, mother."
He waited for a second for an answer, but no answer came. Into his face
rushed a flood of brilliant color. Cora Scott had never made her case
plainer, never betrayed herself more helplessly. He turned and went out
of the room and upstairs quickly.
When he came down, Dr. Lister called him into the study.
"Richard, you have caused your mother and me very grave anxiety."
"I know. I'm very sorry and I told mother so. I didn't mean to, and
nobody can regret it more than I do." He could hardly wait to be gone.
"I'm going away for a few days, and I should like you to stay with your
mother."
"Why, of course!"
"I mean that I should like you to stay here at the house."
"All the time!" gasped Richard.
"Yes."
"What for?"
"Suppose we say that it is to show your mother that you are really
sorry."
"But I can show her that without staying in the house! When are you
going?"
"At four o'clock."
"Then I can see Miss Thomasina before you go."
"It is after two now."
"But I must, father!"
Dr. Lister had never so loathed managing other people.
"You'll be back before I start?"
"Yes."
Richard flew across the campus and down the street. His father often
made trips away in the interest of the college, but he did not often go
so suddenly. Richard remembered that his mother had planned to accompany
him to Pittsburgh. Was he going to Pittsburgh now? Why didn't she go
too? Was she staying at home to watch him?
Miss Thomasina, he heard from Amelia, had gone away. Now he could see
Eleanor. Then he groaned. He could not rush in upon her and off! Turning
homeward he found his father completing his preparations for departure.
"Where are you going?"
"To Baltimore, then to Pittsburgh."
"I thought you were going to Pittsburgh, mother!"
His mother looked at him reproachfully. Did he not know that she never
left him?
"No, darling," said Mary Alcestis. "My place is here."