"LET US BE ENTIRELY FRANK WITH ONE ANOTHER"
Eleanor walked far out on the country road. She met no one and felt no
fear. There was in her heart, on the contrary, a bitter satisfaction in
feeling that she was doing what Cora Scott would not dream of doing and
what Mrs. Lister would heartily disapprove of. She felt a sullen
indifference to Waltonville's rules of conduct.
As she went on she made plans. As soon as arrangements could be
completed, they would go away to return no more. She would leave behind
her all the gifts which Dr. Green had showered upon her since her
childhood. She saw his strong-featured face, animated by intellect and
will, and then Margie's frightened eyes and her trembling mouth. For
herself she would not have anything to do with love in any of its
manifestations.
But when she had turned back, she said under her breath, "Oh, Richard,
Richard!"
As she passed Dr. Green's door, walking rapidly because she felt sudden
compunction on her mother's account, he appeared on the step and spoke
to her with astonishment.
"Where have you been at this hour, Eleanor?"
Eleanor looked up at him, hating his authoritative voice.
"I've been walking in the country."
"Come in. I wish to speak to you."
"It's late; my mother does not know where I am."
"A few minutes won't make any difference. I'll walk home with you."
Against her will Eleanor went slowly up the steps and into the untidy
rooms. She sat down upon the edge of a chair in the office and Dr. Green
sat opposite her.
"I have persuaded your mother to go away from Waltonville."
"Have you?" said Eleanor.
"Aren't you interested?"
"Oh, yes." Eleanor's tone belied her words.
"It is time that you were getting away."
"Why?" asked Eleanor perversely.
"So that you may possess the world. You didn't expect to stay here
forever, did you?"
Eleanor made no answer. There were certain conditions under which she
would have been willing to stay here forever.
Dr. Green looked at her impatiently.
"You had plans for your future. Where is the young woman who was going
to be George Eliot and Jane Austen in one, pray? You haven't forgotten
her?"
"She has ceased to exist. I'm not interested in writing."
"Not interested in writing! Nonsense!" He began to argue for learning,
for travel, for education. He reminded Eleanor of her achievements, of
her fine mind; he told her that it was sinful to think of anything but
her own mental progress in these formative years. She had no
responsibilities, no cares, nothing to look after but herself. She
should go to school, continuing her work at a university.
"But I am not interested in writing," repeated Eleanor.
"What are you interested in, then?" Dr. Green looked angrily at the
pretty creature who listened unmoved to his harangue. "I spoke to you,
Eleanor. I asked you what you are interested in?"
Eleanor rose, tall and slim, and looked at him across the untidy office.
It seemed to her that he knew about Richard and that he was mocking her.
"That is my own affair."
Dr. Green rose also and for an instant the two faced one another, eye
meeting eye.
"Eleanor," he announced distinctly, "if you ever speak to me like that
again, I shall punish you."
Eleanor measured the distance to the door, her eye creeping along the
floor. Then she looked back at Dr. Green. He had turned pale, the fine,
severe line of his forehead and cheek were outlined plainly against the
dark woodwork of the door behind him.
"I am going home," said Eleanor.
Dr. Green stepped between her and the door.
"You can't go like this!" said he earnestly.
"I can go any way I choose," said Eleanor. "You have no authority over
me. I know perfectly well what is in your mind when you threaten me. It
has been coming to me slowly for a long time, but I was too dull to
understand until to-day."
Dr. Green still stood before the outer door. A deep red rose from neck
to forehead.
"Your mother and I had very little in common," said he at last. Then,
after a long pause, "She has had every comfort, she has not suffered,
she has lived exactly the quiet, domestic, undisturbed life she wanted
to live."
Still Eleanor said nothing.
"And she has had you."
Eleanor made a tiny motion with her hand.
"All my boyhood I starved for learning. When I finished my college
course and was about to enter the medical school, I found myself carried
away. I had starved myself in other ways. I had known no women. Your
mother was very pretty. I blame myself entirely. But she couldn't see
any necessity for my going on. She was satisfied with things as they
were. I had ambitions; she--" Dr. Green did not finish his sentence, but
it was impossible not to know what was in his mind. "I gave her all I
had to leave me free to go on, and that, with what she had from her
father, was enough for her to live on. She went away. _But she didn't
tell me about you!_" Dr. Green's hands clenched. "We had had hard times,
but I didn't deserve that! I found her here by mere chance. She had even
taken another name! But I don't wish to cast any blame on her."
"I don't want to hear anything said against her," said Eleanor bluntly.
"I am not going to say anything against her," protested Dr. Green,
"except that she has had the easier part."
"I don't see that," said Eleanor. She went rapidly toward the door.
"You will go away from Waltonville?"
"Yes."
"Where would you like to go?"
"Where I can get work, teaching or something of that kind."
"Eleanor!" cried Dr. Green.
She paused, her hand on the knob.
"If you have any feeling for me at all, you won't even make it necessary
for me to tell you what I'm going to do."
Then she went down the office steps. Dr. Green let her go alone.
When she had gone, he sat and looked about. "The little monkey!" said
he, aloud. Then suddenly he rose with a mighty spring and opened the
door. Though the hour was late he strode up the street toward the
college. At Thomasina's he glanced in, but the house was dark. As he
went through the campus gate, he saw that there was a light in Dr.
Lister's study; it might be that she was there--if so, well and good; it
would save him some words.
In Dr. Lister's study Richard and his father and mother and Thomasina
sat together. There were traces of tears on Mrs. Lister's face, as was
natural to one who was bidding farewell this evening to a happy era. Dr.
Lister swung his foot rapidly; he anticipated with delight his journey
to New York. Thomasina sat with Richard on the sofa. He was thin; his
boyish good looks were gone, but good looks of a better sort had come to
take their place. He discussed impersonal matters with a manly air.
All four were glad to see Dr. Green. The moments had grown a little
difficult and Thomasina took advantage of his coming to make her adieux.
"I'll see you next month, my dear. If I can persuade your mother to
come, too, we'll have a fine time."
Green's tall figure barred the way to the hall.
"Please wait a minute, Miss Thomasina," said he. "I have something to
say to all of you and it is easier to say it to all of you together.
Miss Thomasina told me some days ago that you, Mrs. Lister, have been
misled by several coincidences into thinking that Eleanor Bent was the
daughter of your brother Basil."
Mrs. Lister looked aghast.
"That is a great mistake," said Dr. Green. "Eleanor Bent is my daughter.
I fell in love with her mother when I was here and followed her away.
Before Eleanor was born, we separated, and when I came here to practice
I found them. Her mother was established and was not willing to readjust
her life and I deferred to her. It was an absurd mistake. Eleanor's
ideas of a departed parent were already fixed; otherwise it would have
been more absurd."
Having finished his speech, Dr. Green was left without a response. One
would have thought that he had stricken his audience dumb. After a long
time Dr. Lister swung his right knee over his left.
"Mrs. Lister thought she resembled her brother," said he.
"She resembles _me_," said Dr. Green.
"But her talent!" said Mrs. Lister, beginning to cry.
Green smiled grimly.
"That couldn't have been inherited from me, I suppose?" said he. "I
asked Mrs. Bent about Basil Everman. She said that she had been
persecuted by John Bates, then sinking into debauchery, and that your
brother had protected her. She looked upon him as a sort of Saint
George."
"Oh! oh! oh!" wept Mary Alcestis.
Richard rose to his feet.
"Does Eleanor know this?" he demanded.
"She knows now," said Dr. Green sorely.
"By Gad, you've got her into a pretty mess between you!" said Richard.
Thomasina sat with her hand covering her eyes. Suddenly she took it away
and looked sharply at Mary Alcestis.
"This isn't the time to cry!"
"You cannot understand," sobbed Mary Alcestis.
"Can I not?" said Thomasina softly.
Mrs. Lister looked at Thomasina; then she crossed the room and sat down
beside her.
"You said I was a fool, Thomasina. I was just that." She stared at
Thomasina as though she saw her now for the first time. She did not even
know the moment when Dr. Green left them to themselves.
The college clock struck eleven as Dr. Green went through the campus
gate. But he did not go home, even though that was a late hour for
Waltonville. He went across the town to the little gray house where the
light still burned in the dining-room. When he walked in, Mrs. Bent
looked up at him helplessly.
"I am trying to talk to her. I tell her that both of us was wrong. I was
too much for gayety and going, and I didn't appreciate learning. But I
appreciate learning now. I didn't know I should come to be ashamed."
Eleanor's face looked frozen.
"You kill me, mother, when you talk about being ashamed. I'm never
ashamed of you. I don't see why we need to talk about it. Let it go."
"He was always kind to you," said Mrs. Bent. "Your books he gave you and
your pie-anna and even your name that you like so well and your learning
and you get your mind from him, and--"
"They are all hers by right," said Dr. Green.
"And he might go somewheres else and be a great doctor. I heard people
say it often. I was hard to get along with," sobbed Mrs. Bent. "And I
was afraid you would grow up ashamed of me. Oh, I done wrong!"
Still Eleanor said nothing.
"Do not make it harder for us than you must, my dear," said Dr. Green at
last. "There have been some matters I didn't give heed to because I
wanted you to come to something. I didn't know you had a question in
your mind. I am more ambitious for you than I was for myself. An early
and unconsidered marriage like your mother's and mine--"
Now Eleanor lifted her head.
"Oh! oh! oh!" she cried as Mrs. Lister had cried.
"What is it?" asked Dr. Green. "Let us be entirely frank with one
another."
"I did not understand that you had _married_ my mother!" cried Eleanor.
"Oh, I think you have been wrong and foolish and wicked, not so much to
me as to one another!"
At midnight, when Dr. Green went out the little gate, he saw a dark
figure in the shadow. It did not frighten or surprise him.
"Well, Richard?"
"I'm not going in. I wanted just a glimpse of her, that was all. I can't
stand seeing her and talking to her and then having to come away."
"You have had your glimpse?"
"Yes. I'm fortified till the morning." Without further confidences,
Richard took the first short cut that offered.