A CONFIDENCE BETRAYED
When she returned from Mrs. Lister's bedside, Thomasina sat for a long
time looking into her garden. The light shimmered above the flower-beds,
the plants were drooping. The air even in her cool room was heavy and
hard to breathe.
Summoned to lunch, she ate only enough to prevent alarmed inquiries from
'Melia, then she went upstairs. She took off her dress and put on a cool
and flowing gown and lay down upon her couch and closed her eyes. After
a while she rose and opened a drawer in her bureau and took out a little
inlaid box, and from it lifted a package of letters. She did not read
them or even open the package, but looked at them and laid them back.
Once more she lay down upon her couch and hot tears rolled from under
her eyelids and out upon her cheeks. After a long time she fell asleep.
In the morning she went again to Dr. Green's office. She rang the bell
and entered and sat down to wait Virginia's pleasure, almost certain
that Dr. Green had not come back. When Virginia appeared, lithe and
shapely and deliberate of motion, Thomasina had reached a point which
she seldom allowed herself even to approach. Virginia looked in
consternation at her flushed face.
"You sure you not sick, Miss Thomas'?"
"No, Virginia. Has the doctor come?"
"No, Miss Thomas'."
"Virginia"--Thomasina could be no longer restrained--"why don't you keep
the doctor's office in better order? Look at that corner. And at that!"
Virginia leaned against the door.
"Don't believe doctor he could find things if it was too clean, Miss
Thomas'. Could I get you something--glass of water or something? You
look all wore out."
Thomasina smiled faintly. The race disarmed anger.
"No, I thank you."
She started to Dr. Green's office on a third morning. As she was about
to leave her door she saw the doctor entering the gate.
"I got back on the nine o'clock train," he explained. "This morning
Virginia came early--early, if you please--to tell me that you have been
twice to my office. She suspects all sorts of afflictions. Surely you
are not ill!"
Thomasina led the way into her parlor and sat down upon her throne-like
chair. Her pale face wore both a judicial and an embarrassed air.
"You should have a wife, Dr. Green. Virginia should be taken in hand,
dealt with, commanded, bullied."
"I agree with you. You are thinking of my office. I suppose when I'm
away, Virginia's 'on the town' as she says."
"But a wife could make a fine girl of Virginia."
Dr. Green looked at Thomasina with faint astonishment. It was not like
her to assume so intimate and bantering an air.
"I hope there is nothing serious the matter. What are your symptoms? Do
you not think it is the intense heat that has affected you?"
"The heat never troubles me. It is a patient of yours who worries me. I
mean Mrs. Lister."
"Mrs. Lister! there's no reason to worry about her. There was nothing
seriously wrong with her when I went away and I found no message when I
got back."
"They wouldn't send a message about this. Her trouble is not to be cured
by medicine, it is of the mind."
Dr. Green pursed his lips and frowned. He was surprised at Thomasina and
was prepared to give her his most earnest attention. She would not speak
to him in this fashion without good reason. He rested his arms on the
arms of his chair and leaned forward, his hands clasped lightly.
Whatever his origin, he was a person of distinguished presence, and,
except in the matter of order in his office, of fastidious taste.
"Well, Miss Thomasina," said he in his clear, deliberate, well-modulated
voice.
When Thomasina began to speak in a high tone, as though she were forcing
herself a little, he frowned again; as she went on a dull color stole
into his cheek and his motionless figure seemed to stiffen. He might
well blush to hear so extraordinary a betrayal of confidence.
"Dr. Green, Basil Everman, Mrs. Lister's brother, about whom we have
recently heard so much and of whom you and I spoke upon one occasion,
was a good man, but he was a genius, and it is the common fate of
geniuses to be misunderstood. They are often denied by their friends the
possession of common and sometimes of moral sense. Basil wore flowing
neckties at a period when neckties were small; he used well-selected
words when the rest of mankind were indifferent to their speech; he drew
sometimes a parallel from the classics--consequently Waltonville thought
him queer. You know Waltonville's attitude of mind?"
"Perfectly."
"But he did worse, he did not always come to meals on time, or go,
candle in hand, in solemn procession to bed when the rest of the family
went, old Dr. Everman in his white stock, Mary Alcestis looking
tearfully back over her shoulder, hoping in terror that Basil might at
that moment be heard on the porch. They attributed to him strange
motives and stranger acts. They watched him, were embarrassed for him,
apologized for him. They thought of him, in moments of unusual charity,
as not quite sound. They thought in other moments a good deal worse of
him. Basing their opinion on stupid coincidences, they blamed upon him
actual crimes. They did not wish to believe these things of Basil. Over
what she really believes is true, Mrs. Lister has been for many years
breaking her heart. It is that which ails her, and not the heat."
"How foolish!" said Dr. Green, leaning back in his chair. "Let the past
bury its dead. Middle life, you see, with no mental exercise. How very
foolish!"
"But the dead aren't buried, they are in our midst, and as long as
Eleanor Bent is in sight, Mrs. Lister must worry her heart out."
"Eleanor Bent!" repeated Dr. Green, bending forward once more. "What has
she to do with it?"
Thomasina looked down at the floor. She hesitated; perhaps remembering
at this moment that she had never before betrayed the confidence of a
friend. Perhaps it was because she had a sickening conviction that her
whole course in this matter was that of a fool.
"The Listers have imagined--at least Mrs. Lister has from these stupid
coincidences--has imagined it for years, weeping over it in secret--that
Eleanor Bent is her brother Basil's daughter."
"Extraordinary!" said Dr. Green slowly. "Does any one else have this
notion?"
"I think not. Basil was as much forgotten as though he had never been
born."
"What are these coincidences?"
"Mrs. Lister saw the two together, followed them, indeed, and says that
Margie Ginter was clinging to Basil's arm and pleading with him and
crying. In the second place, he went away from Waltonville about the
time that the Ginters went. In the third, Eleanor has in Mrs. Lister's
eyes a strong resemblance to him. Then there is this writing."
"Writing?" queried Dr. Green.
"Yes, Eleanor's writing. What is more likely than that she should have
inherited talent from Basil Everman?"
"The fact that her work bears not the remotest resemblance to his has
nothing to do with the question, I presume?"
"Writing is writing," answered Thomasina in her lightest tone. She
waited for a word from Dr. Green, but none came. "Margie Ginter was a
good girl, I have always believed," she went on. "She was in a dreadful
position here. If Basil had anything to do with her, it was to help her
in some fashion. He was--" Thomasina did not go on with her sentence; it
seemed difficult for her to say what he was. "As for the resemblance,
Eleanor has gray eyes and so had he, and a light step and so had he, but
others have bright eyes and a light step."
Dr. Green still said nothing. He seemed to give each sentence of
Thomasina's careful consideration.
"It is a pity for Mary Alcestis to have worried for so many years." Her
voice seemed to lose its strength.
"One can't do much for a woman as foolish as that," said Dr. Green. "I
should say she deserves to have the punishment exactly suited to her
case."
"It is a pity, too, for little Mrs. Bent," went on Thomasina.
"What no one knows will not hurt Mrs. Bent."
"No one knows now," answered Thomasina. "But Mary Alcestis told me. She
is in a hysterical condition and there is no telling to whom she may
break out. It would be most unfortunate to have this pried out of her
by--well, say by Mrs. Scott."
Again Dr. Green was silent.
"It's a pity, too, for Eleanor," said Thomasina.
"I think it very unlikely that Mrs. Lister will let such a mad tale
become public--you say it is a mad tale."
"It is a pity for Richard, too."
"Richard least of all," answered Dr. Green. "I can't see how he would be
affected."
"Then you have not been watching the young people."
"I don't understand you."
"I mean that Richard is evidently in love with Eleanor and that his
mother has found it out--therefore his absence and her tears."
"Is Eleanor in tears?" Dr. Green's tone sharpened.
"Yes, a part of the time Eleanor is in tears."
"She had better cry than think of marrying," declared Dr. Green. "Such a
match would be the end of her work. It would be the greatest mistake, it
would be a calamity. She has every prospect of success. I do not believe
that she can be seriously impressed with that silky mother's boy. If she
is, let her get over it!"
"You have always taken a great interest in her."
"Yes," answered Dr. Green. "I have. She has possibilities."
"I saw by accident your check for her piano," said Thomasina. "It lay on
the desk in the company's office."
"Did you?" asked Dr. Green coolly. His tone could have been no more
severe if Thomasina had opened and read one of his letters. "What did
you conclude from that?"
Thomasina did not answer his question.
"It is worst of all for Basil Everman," said she. "When one thinks of
him, it becomes monstrous. Doesn't it seem so to you, Dr. Green?"
Green rose to his feet. He met Thomasina's eyes coolly.
"Miss Thomasina--"
Thomasina lifted her hand.
"What I concluded was simply that you knew more about Mrs. Bent and her
daughter than the rest of us," said she. "I am sure that Eleanor has an
honorable paternity and Mrs. Bent a history that could be safely
revealed. But one could not go to her and ask her!"
"From your own account the danger of this myth becoming public is so
small as to be almost negligible. Since Mrs. Bent and her daughter are
not likely to stay in Waltonville, it is wholly negligible. As for my
connection with the Bents--it is this--I believe that Eleanor has a mind
of great promise. I have tried to influence her and I shall continue to
try."
"I am sorry that I told you," said Thomasina faintly.
"There is no reason that you should be," said Dr. Green. "If Mrs. Lister
needs any further attention I shall have her case already diagnosed."
When he had gone, Thomasina sat down in her high-backed chair. Her face
was deathly pale, her hands lay limply in her lap, her eyes were closed.
Suddenly she sat upright.
"I believe he has lied to me," said she. Her hands gripped the arms of
her chair, her eyes seemed to be fixed intently upon objects outside her
parlor. She saw Dr. Green and heard him speak; she saw also another
figure and heard also another voice.
"I would like for you to choose a pie-anna"--why was it that the one
suggested the other? Thomasina remembered Dr. Green distinctly in his
queer, opinionated, misogynistic youth. Had he ever even spoken to
Margie Ginter before she had returned to Waltonville? She thought of
Eleanor, followed the lines of her body, the contour of her face. There
was a line from brow to chin, there was a shapely nose, there was--but
she could think no more.
She rose and walked up and down the room, her brain weary with
speculation. After a long time she said aloud, "Oh, _Basil_!"