MRS. LISTER TAKES TO HER BED
Surely there could have been no more remarkable coincidence than this
proximity in "Willard's Magazine" of the work of Basil Everman and of
Eleanor Bent. It seemed to Mrs. Lister that their connection must be
blazoned thereby to the world, that the two compositions must bear on
their faces evidence which the least discerning could interpret. Things
done in secret could not be hidden; all her efforts of years to save the
name of Basil from disgrace were of no avail before the power of God's
law. She had given one painful, fascinated reading to the "Scarlet
Letter"; to her, now, Basil and his companion were approaching the
scaffold in the market-place for their final acknowledgment of common
guilt.
After a few days she rose, white and trembling, from her bed and went
once more into a suspicious world. She had faced it for twenty years,
she would face it again.
But in spite of her terror, the coincidence apparently suggested nothing
to Waltonville, brought back no damning recollection to any human being.
The memory of mankind is short; that which she had desired was
accomplished; Basil's swinging step, his bright eyes, his dark,
beautiful hair were long ago forgotten; the step so like his, the eyes
lit by the same fire, the mass of dark curls recalled his image as
little as did this youthful writing connect itself with his work. As a
matter of fact, Eleanor's account of a semi-pathetic, semi-humorous
college incident was not in the least like Basil's work, but to Mary
Alcestis writing was writing.
Waltonville's response to Basil's story was varied. Mrs. Scott did not
think it in any way remarkable; it reminded her, she said, of the
productions of Edgar Allan Poe, and was therefore a little
old-fashioned.
"He gave us long ago our fill of horrors," said she lightly. "And I
don't think this is even as horrible as 'The Black Cat' and it certainly
doesn't compare with 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue.'"
With Utterly's opinions as a stepping-stone she had leaped far above
him, as one might leap from a supporting hand into a high saddle. She
talked until her husband blushed, until his soul writhed. As for Basil
Everman's story, she thought Utterly had been absurd to talk about a
thousand dollars.
"I warrant that Mrs. Lister has searched through every old trunk in the
attic," said she.
Dr. Scott stirred with one of his uneasy little motions, but made no
other answer. He was having a restless, unhappy summer, the worst he had
passed since his marriage. There was literally nothing in life which was
worth while. He longed to go away, he longed for the companionship of
those with kindred tastes and gentle ways, he longed for a sight of the
foreign lands of which he dreamed. He stood sometimes and looked about
his house with its frivolous and worthless gauds; he thought of the
bill for Mrs. Scott's outing, postponed a little this year beyond its
usual date, and then of how simply one could live in Italy for a
springtime.
Italy!--He took a book from his shelf and opened it.
"A city of marble, did I say? nay, rather a golden city, paved with
emerald. For truly, every pinnacle and turret glanced or glowed,
overlaid with gold or bossed with jasper. Beneath the unsullied sea drew
in, deep breathing, to and fro, its eddies of green wave.... It lay
along the face of the waters, no larger, as its captains saw it from
their masts at evening, than a bar of the sunset that could not pass
away; but for its power, it must have seemed to them that they were
sailing in the expanse of heaven, and this a great planet whose orient
edge widened through the ether. A world from which all ignoble care and
petty thoughts were banished, with all the common and poor elements of
life. No foulness nor tumult in those tremulous streets, that filled, or
fell, beneath the moon; but rippled music of majestic change, or
thrilling silence. No weak walls could rise above them; no low-roofed
cottage, or straw-built shed. Only the strength as of rock, and the
finished setting of stones most precious. And round them, far as the eye
could reach, still the soft moving of stainless waters, proudly pure; as
not the flower, so neither the thorn nor the thistle, could grow in the
glancing field. Ethereal strength of Alps, dreamlike, vanishing in high
procession beyond the Torcellan shore; blue islands of Paduan hills,
poised in the golden west. Above free winds and fiery clouds ranging at
their will;--brightness out of the north, and balm from the south, and
the stars of evening and morning clear in the limitless light of arched
heaven and circling sea."
Dr. Scott sighed and took down another book, then for hours he was dull
to the passing of time. Sometimes he was able to lose himself in dreams.
But when he woke his house was all the more intolerable and even his
study offered no balm. Late July brought Walter for a visit and Walter
seemed more than ever worldly, smart, progressive, and intolerable. Cora
sat in her room silent and white-faced. Sometimes she read for a long
time from one of her padded poets. Mrs. Scott longed for Atlantic City
and complained about the Listers.
To Dr. Scott the story of Basil Everman exhibited all the cruel sadness
of human fate. His imagination was fertile and he reconstructed Basil,
an alien spirit in the Everman house. His speech was not the speech of
Puritanic theology, his ways could not have been the ways of Mary
Alcestis. He was so soon a ghost, wandering forlorn, his work only begun
when life was ended! Dr. Scott meant to talk to Thomasina Davis about
him--she surely would remember him.
He saw no reason why "Bitter Bread" should not make a little book. Would
the Listers think of him as the editor for such a volume? So happy an
event was hardly, in this disappointing world, probable; nevertheless,
though he knew himself to be reckoning without any host whatever, he
began to put together editorial words and phrases. Then, remembering
Utterly, who had a certain right as a discoverer, he ceased dreaming.
Mrs. Scott thought Eleanor's story poor and called attention to the fact
that she had taken Dr. Green's office as a model for untidiness, at
which he laughed immoderately. He said that Eleanor might use himself or
his office as a model at any time or to any extent she wished.
"Undoubtedly she has some kind of a pull," was Mrs. Scott's next
comment.
"Pull?" repeated Dr. Scott nervously.
"Yes, influence over the editor," explained Mrs. Scott, "pull" in this
sense being a new usage adopted from Walter. "Perhaps a financial
influence. They seem to have money."
Thomasina Davis, when she opened her copy of "Willard's Magazine," grew
pale; then she put it aside and went to walk up and down her garden. It
was a long time before serenity returned to her countenance.
Later in the day she went to the Bents' to congratulate Eleanor. It was
probable, she thought, that no one else in Waltonville but Dr. Scott
would say anything to her. Eleanor looked ill and troubled, not as one
would expect a rising author to look, and her mother looked even more
distressed. They sat on the porch with Mrs. Bent watching her daughter
anxiously, from the background, the dark circles under her eyes telling
of sleepless nights.
"You ought to take Eleanor away for a vacation," advised Thomasina.
"There is no place superior to Waltonville, but you have to go away
sometimes to realize it. Perhaps she would like to go somewhere with
me."
To Thomasina's astonishment Eleanor burst into tears, and rising,
overwhelmed with mortification, went indoors.
"She ain't very well," explained Mrs. Bent, who was overwhelmed also.
"Please do excuse her, Miss Davis. She has studied hard and she has
practiced too much since she got her piano. That is, she did, but she
don't now."
"Perhaps she ought to see Dr. Green."
"Perhaps." But Mrs. Bent's forehead did not smooth itself out at the
suggestion. Her anxieties tightened about her daily like a coil of wire
long ago flung out and now being wound closer and closer.
Thomasina said nothing to Mrs. Lister about Basil's story. They had
never talked about him, for though they had been intimate companions,
Mary Alcestis had shut her out with every one else from her grief. She
believed that Thomasina had thought even when they were children that
she did not love him enough, was not always amiable with him. Not love
Basil! It was because she had loved him so dearly, so desperately, that
she had tried to watch over him, to lead him, to admonish him. A woman
who had never been really in love, who had never married, who had never
had children, who had always maintained even toward Dr. Lister an air of
mental equality, could not be expected to know the height and depth of
love which Mary Alcestis knew. Thomasina, for all her bright mind and
all her knowledge of many things, had had little experience of life's
realities.
From others the Listers had comments in plenty. "To the relatives of
Basil Everman, Waltonville, Pennsylvania," had come to be a familiar
address to the postmaster. Editors wrote asking whether there had not
been preserved other compositions of Basil Everman. They would welcome
even fragmentary notes. Could not anything be found by searching? Dr.
Lister went to the attic and opened the little trunk and took the
Euripides and the Æschylus down to his study. He laid his hand for an
instant on the upper drawer of the old bureau where Basil's clothes were
packed, but did not open it. These clothes should long, long ago have
been given away or burned.
A few old friends wrote to Dr. Scott for information about his
distinguished fellow citizen. The story was to be followed in
"Willard's" by "Roses of Pæstum" and "Storm." It promised to be
fashionable to reprint old material. Dr. Lister heard nothing from Mr.
Utterly, but imagined him swelling with pride and heard his sharp, high
voice going on interminably about the rights of the public in all the
details of an author's life.
Richard sat about quietly, holding a book in his hand, but not reading.
His first experience with pain appalled him. So this was the world, was
it? this was life? Was this dull shade the real color of the sky, this
heavy vapor the atmosphere? He could not reconcile so malevolent a
trick of fate with any conception of benevolence. Presently he began to
resent his misery. He had done nothing to deserve this pain.
To his side, as he sat in Dr. Lister's study or on the porch, his mother
made frequent journeys.
"Dinner-time, Richard," said Mary Alcestis gently. "Fried chicken,
Richard," she would add hopefully. Or, "'Manda has just finished baking,
Richard. Would you like a little cake? It would please 'Manda, Richard."
Or--now Mrs. Lister's heart throbbed with hope--"Would you like to have
the piano tuned, Richard?"
To all these suggestions he returned a polite, "No, I thank you,
mother." No tuning or feeding could help either the piano or Richard
now.
Once he turned upon his mother with a question.
"Mother, do you mean to say that during all these years, you and Mrs.
Bent have never exchanged a word about--this matter?"
"She came up to me once on the street with her little girl," confessed
Mrs. Lister tremulously. "But of course I couldn't talk to her there--or
anywhere!"
"What did she say?"
"She said she wanted to talk to me about Basil."
Finally Mrs. Lister yielded her citadel.
"Richard, your father and I have been talking about music. We think that
when you get your clavier with your Commencement money, we had better
get a piano also. Father thinks I should go with you to Baltimore and
that it would be well to ask Thomasina to go too. You could have it to
practice on now, and then it would be here when you came from--from New
York, Richard."
Richard made no answer.
"Would you like that, dear?"
Richard laid his book on the table before him. He remembered the things
which had been said about music, about art, about him! He laid his head
down on his arms.
"A grand piano, Richard!" said Mrs. Lister, appealingly. "Papa thinks--"
"I would like to be let alone!" said Richard. "That is all I ask."
But Mrs. Lister had not yet made the hardest of her sacrificial
suggestions. She was grieved by Richard's response, but she had
determined to bear anything.
"I am thinking of that young girl," said she timidly.
"What young girl?" asked Richard with a warning savageness.
"Of Miss Bent. I don't like you to seem rude to her. I don't suppose she
knows anything about her history. I can't believe she does. Perhaps you
might make another call on her--with Thomasina. I am sure she would go
with you if you would ask her. There would not be anything strange in
it. Then you would go away and it would be--over. You will have new
scenes."
In answer Richard simply looked at his mother. He believed that her mind
was affected by long brooding over his Uncle Basil; thus only could her
behavior and her conversation be explained. To embrace Eleanor Bent, to
stay away from her for days, and then to call upon her with Thomasina
Davis! It was, indeed, a fantastic scheme.
Presently he went away. His father's sisters sent once more from St.
Louis an urgent invitation and to their quiet household he was persuaded
to go. Mary Alcestis composed a letter saying that he had not been well
and that he did not care at the present time for gayety. Before mailing
the letter she wrote another saying that he had lived so entirely with
older folk that it was good for him to have gayety and go about with
young people. When she had finished this letter the possibility of a
western daughter-in-law disturbed her. In the end she destroyed both
letters and he set out unencumbered by directions.
Casually in Dr. Green's office Dr. Lister asked about the marriage of
first cousins and Dr. Green reached into the irregular pile of "Lancets"
behind him and dragged out a copy, sending thereby the superincumbent
stack to the floor. Upon it he did not bestow a glance.
"There, read the pleasant catalogue! Deaf children, dumb children,
children malformed, children susceptible to disease, children with
rickets, no children at all. I can give you a dozen articles if this
doesn't suffice."
Early in August the Listers went to call upon Thomasina. In her
living-room there was a single dim light, only a little brighter than
the moonlight outside. The rest of Waltonville whose rooms blazed,
wondered often how she made her parlor so restful, so comfortable to
talk in. From the garden through the long doors came the odor of jasmine
and sweet clematis and the heavier scent of August lilies.
She had been walking in her garden and when she came in to meet her
guests there appeared with her a slender young figure in a white dress.
Eleanor had come to show that she was not a fool, that she could talk
sensibly and not burst out crying. Her heart had changed from a delicate
throbbing organ into a hard lump, but her eyes were dry.
At sight of Eleanor, Mrs. Lister drew closer to Dr. Lister, who looked
at her in return as sternly as he ever looked at any one. Thomasina
asked at once about Richard, where he was and how soon he would be at
home. Mrs. Scott had come to her with her story, and Thomasina,
concealing her surprise, had said that she saw nothing unsuitable in
such a friendship. In a few hours she ceased even to be surprised, she
felt only an aching envy for youth and happiness. She did not share Dr.
Green's opinion that youthful marriages were suicidal. But something
evidently had gone wrong between Richard and Eleanor. Could Mrs. Scott
have made trouble between them!
Mrs. Lister told where Richard had gone and said they did not know when
he would return.
"He is going to New York late in the fall," she explained. "He is going
to be a musician."
Thomasina's arm felt the throb of Eleanor's heart.
Before the Listers had found seats, the knocker sounded again. Now the
Scotts arrived. This was the evening that Dr. Scott had set as the limit
of his boredom. Things had grown no better; they had, on the contrary,
grown worse. But when he had set out, Mrs. Scott announced her intention
of accompanying him, and she was now at his side, effervescent,
sharp-voiced, and more than usually trying to her husband.
Eleanor lingered, feeling awkward and unhappy. She wished to be alone
with her own thoughts of Richard, alone with her never-ending effort to
account for his silence, his departure without a good-bye. Perhaps he
would write to her! The possibility made her happy for a second. She
waited a pause in the conversation so that she might go home, but none
came. When Dr. Green arrived, the talk grew more rapid and the
opportunity seemed farther away.
Of the hard feeling which she had exhibited against Eleanor, Mrs. Scott
gave now no sign. She spoke of "Our budding authoress" with whom she
said she had had little opportunity thus far to become acquainted. How,
she asked, with her sweetest expression, did one write? She drew a
picture of Eleanor sitting before a ream of paper, laying aside finished
sheets with machine-like regularity.
Eleanor made no answer; she did not wish to be rude, but she had no
words. It was before the days when the reporter penetrated through the
boudoir of the writer or artist into the more secret regions of his
work-room to watch hands flitting above a typewriter, or to photograph
preoccupation at a flower-laden mahogany desk. Eleanor blushed as though
she had been asked to describe the process of putting on her clothes.
Her silence did not suggest to Mrs. Scott the propriety of stopping.
"What are you going to do, Miss Bent?"
"What do you mean, Mrs. Scott?"
"I mean are you going to bury your talent in Waltonville or are you
going into the great world? I hear that women are going into all the
fields of men. Perhaps you will be a reporter and write us all up!"
"I have no plans for anything of that kind."
"You speak as though Waltonville were a cemetery, Mrs. Scott," said
Thomasina.
"Where did you get the idea for your little story?" persisted Mrs.
Scott.
It was clear now that Eleanor was being baited. Even Mrs. Lister felt
sympathy. Eleanor's cheeks flamed; their color could be seen even in the
dim light. Thomasina was about to answer, when Dr. Green interposed.
"Out of her head, Mrs. Scott, where all authors that are worth while get
theirs. That's where Shakespeare got his and where Basil Everman got
his. Their heads are differently stocked from ours. You don't suppose
they have to see everything they write about, do you? Mrs. Lister, I
have been deeply interested in Basil Everman. I suppose it is too much
to hope for--but is it possible that anything else will turn up?"
"I'm afraid not," answered Dr. Lister. "There is a chance of something
in other magazines of the time, but I fancy they have been pretty
carefully gone over in that hope."
Mrs. Scott, never long quiet, turned to Mrs. Lister.
"Cora had a letter from Richard."
"Did she?" said Mrs. Lister. "That was nice."
She spoke smoothly, but a sudden pang of sympathy for Eleanor shot
through her heart. Eleanor must love Richard, could not do otherwise.
His caring for Cora became suddenly undesirable; his tragedy had lifted
him above her. Mrs. Lister was glad now that he was going away, to win
fame, to separate himself from Waltonville. He could never emancipate
himself from Mrs. Scott if he were her son-in-law. That fate she could
not wish any one, least of all her dear child. The occasion of his
letter to Cora was the return of a book long since lent him and
forgotten.
"I told him he must write at once and explain why he had kept it so
long," explained Mary Alcestis simply.
Eleanor moved suddenly closer to Mrs. Lister.
"I read about Basil Everman," said she hurriedly. "I was mortified to
see my poor story published in the same magazine with his. I think he
was wonderful. It makes Waltonville seem like a different place when one
realizes that he lived here. It must have been wonderful to be with him,
to help him. There is a poem about 'a brother, a sister, anything to
thee!' My mother says she remembers him well. I think she knew him
_quite_ well and admired him very much. I told her she ought to come to
you and talk to you about him."
"Yes," said Mrs. Lister faintly.
It seemed to her that she went on saying "yes" interminably. She saw
tearful Mrs. Bent, laying her hand on Richard's coach, her little
gray-eyed daughter clinging to her and staring round-eyed at the other
baby. She had not described this incident in full either to Dr. Lister
or to Richard. She could not confess how sharply she had refused to talk
to Mrs. Bent; how she had backed away, literally pulling the coach from
under her hand; how eyes and voice had expressed horror and anger. It
was not likely, whatever her daughter might think, that Mrs. Bent would
approach her again! But equally dreadful things had happened. She looked
at poor Eleanor now as she had looked at her mother; then she rose to
go. The next morning she stayed in bed, waiting for the blow to fall.