MRS. LISTER OPENS AN OLD BUREAU
Mrs. Lister lay motionless for many moments after Thomasina had left.
Exhausted both mentally and physically she was for a little while dull
to her own woes. She should not have talked to Thomasina, but neither
should Thomasina have responded as she did. Thomasina had put her in the
wrong, she had not acted like a friend.
"As though I made it up!" sobbed Mary Alcestis. "What does she think I
am?"
Once more she dropped into a doze which was not so much physical as
mental. She dreamed that a dreadful danger threatened them all, like the
collapse of the solid Lister house, and under the impression of the
dream she stepped from bed without being fully awake. Once on her feet,
she understood its significance and determined to carry out that which
she had long intended. She felt under the edge of the bed for her
slippers and put them on and wrapped round her a capacious
dressing-gown. Locomotion, tried at first warily, proved easier than she
expected. Opening the door, she stood still and listened. Dr. Lister was
doubtless comfortable in the conviction that she was asleep and would
consequently be lost in his book until dinner-time.
Opening the door more widely, she stepped out into the hall. She was not
accustomed to stealing about her own house and her weakness and the
throbbing of her heart terrified her. But with the foresight of one
accustomed to sly deeds, she closed the door softly. If her husband came
upstairs he would think that she was asleep and he would not disturb
her. She went stealthily along the hall to the stairway and stopped once
more. There were certain steps that creaked so that they could be heard
all over the house, but she knew which steps they were and with painful
care stepped over them. Her dressing-gown got in her way and almost
tripped her, and she steadied herself by the aid of the banister and
stood for a long time trembling.
"I shall say I am going to find something I need," she planned. "I have
a perfect right to go into my own attic."
But mercifully she heard no sound nearly as loud as the throbbing of her
own heart. Each step made her feel weaker and more miserable as it
lifted her into the hot darkness of the third-story hall with its smell
of dry wood and camphor and other faintly odorous objects. The shutters
were closed tight and the blinds were drawn, but through them and
through the roof the sun penetrated until the air was furnace-heated.
She gasped, feeling a sharp pain in her head, but she moved on, her hand
against the wall, to the door of Basil's room.
There she turned the key and entered. The temperature was higher than
that of the hall and the odors stronger and more significant. Each
simple article of furniture, the narrow bed, the high, old-fashioned
bureau, the little washstand with its Spartan fittings, a single chair,
a little table, the old trunk, all was as it had been for twenty years.
In it was no life or reminder of life; it was empty, terrible as an old
burial vault.
She did not open a window and thereby admit a breath of saving though
heated air; her purpose must be quickly accomplished and admitted of no
discovery and no interruption. She believed that if any one should come
upon her suddenly at this moment she would die of shock. She went
directly to the old bureau and opened the upper drawer. There, each
garment wrapped in paper with a little piece of camphor in its folds,
lay specimens of Basil's clothes going as far back as a little winter
coat discarded when he was five. How often had she wept over them! How
speedily her husband or Thomasina would have consigned them to the
flames, refusing to connect a human life with the garments of the past,
now so grotesque!
Thrusting her hand beneath the lower layer, she brought out a key and
with it opened the second drawer. Then she stood very still. The drawer
was not filled to the top, but held only a few large, thick old tablets
in a pile, a few books, a small handful of letters, a half-dozen pens
and pencils, a little penwiper and a half-dozen packages of paper
thickly covered with writing in a small, delicate hand.
She lifted the tablets and, trembling, turned the yellowed pages, also
covered with close writing. She lifted the packages of paper and laid
them softly back. When she took the letters in her hand, tears ran down
her cheeks. Here was her father's handwriting, here her own, here even
her mother's. Only once had Mrs. Everman left her home, and it was then,
upon the occasion of a funeral in her family, that she had written to
her children. That he had kept this letter, which, when it came, he had
been too young to read, or even to understand, was a redeeming, a
consoling incident in Basil's life. The little penwiper moved her most
strongly. She remembered when it was made, what scraps of her own
dresses composed it; she laid it carefully away.
But she treated the relics of Basil's mind with no such tenderness. She
lifted one of the packages of manuscript in her hands. She was not mad
or wicked, poor Mary Alcestis, she was only devoted to what was seemly
and right. This was a duty which she owed Basil, a duty which she should
have performed long ago. Persons changed their opinions as they grew
older and he, could he have survived, would have come to regret those
stories of love and crime and hate which he had written, which would now
so cruelly reveal his soul. Had not Mr. Utterly confirmed all her own
convictions on this point? Loving Basil, she would do exactly as she
knew he would wish her to do! She would do it quickly. Certain remarks
of Dr. Lister's in other connections made her fear that he would be not
upon her side and that of Basil's good, but upon the side of Basil's
youth. Standing tall, loosely wrapped in her long robe, she looked for
once in her life heroic, like a sybil or prophetess. Her hands grasped
the paper and she tried to tear the whole across.
But the paper was still tough in spite of its age and she had to lay
the package down and take a few sheets at a time. The slow process made
her nervous; it seemed hours since she had come into the room. She tore
the half-dozen sheets across, then dropped them into the pitcher on the
little washstand. When she had finished she would carry them downstairs.
'Manda had a good fire at this time of day.
She lifted six other sheets and tore them across. She remembered dimly
the story of the manuscript of some famous and important book
accidentally fed day after day to the fire. But that was a great work of
philosophy or history or theology, it was not anything like poor Basil's
stories! She saw as she proceeded a few clear words, "Hunger knows no
niceties and passion no laws," and she shuddered. They could not too
soon perish, these utterances of Basil's sad, uncontrolled youth!
Suddenly she began to feel faint. She remembered again the story of the
bride locked into the great chest. But that was nonsense! Dr. Lister
would soon find her. Was he not coming, did she not hear steps, a voice,
did she not feel--not a hand touching her--but a breath upon her cheek?
Thomasina had said--what was it Thomasina had said?
She pushed the drawer shut, all but a crack, then she moved slowly and
with dignity toward Basil's bed. She would lie down and after a little
rest strength would return. Then she would go on, tearing the papers
into finer and ever finer bits.