EPILOGUE
In late August of the next year, Thomasina came slowly across the green
from the Lister house toward the campus gate. Mrs. Lister had begged her
to stay longer, but she had felt a need for quietness. Mrs. Lister had
been talking about Basil; she had not yet exhausted all possibilities
for conversation in his strange posthumous fame, or in his attachment to
Thomasina, so long unsuspected. She did not ask many questions at one
time of Thomasina; they came slowly, a question or two this week,
another question next month. Sometimes she wept.
"There are times when I can see just how I thought that dreadful thing
about Basil and there are other times when I just cannot understand!"
"I wouldn't think of it," said Thomasina cheerfully. "And, anyway, Mary
Alcestis, you didn't hurt any one but yourself."
A flood of tears choked Mrs. Lister's voice.
"I could explain it to Basil. He was always very kind and
understanding." She looked at Thomasina with a sort of angry
astonishment. "You are always so calm, and I--I am homesick to see
Basil. I shall never be altogether at peace until I see him."
"Yes," said Thomasina, "I can understand that."
"You ought to be with Richard as much as you can," said Mrs. Lister.
"In another month he will have gone back to New York."
Thomasina smiled. Across from the chapel drifted the sound of music.
Richard had spent a day inside the old organ and had coaxed and wheedled
it into a new sound. He was now on the organ bench with Eleanor beside
him. For Richard at his happiest moments there was still a favorite form
of expression, the chants of his boyhood. With full organ he sang the
Ambrosian Hymn. The Gregorian music, the summer evening, Richard's
voice--Thomasina was never to forget them.
"We believe that Thou shalt come to be our Judge:
We therefore pray Thee, help Thy servants: whom Thou hast redeemed
with Thy precious blood.
Make them to be numbered with Thy saints: in glory ever-lasting....
O Lord, have mercy upon us: have mercy upon us.
O Lord, let Thy mercy be upon us: as our trust is in Thee."
Then Richard established a deep and majestic foundation for his clear
tenor:
"O Lord, in Thee have I trusted: let me never be confounded!"
"She is a nice girl," said Mrs. Lister, her voice trembling. Music was
still terrible to Mary Alcestis. "I am satisfied. I believe she will
make a good wife to Richard. He wants her to write, but I don't believe
she thinks much about writing now. And her mother is a nice woman,"
added Mrs. Lister. "She has excellent ideas and she has trained
Eleanor."
Thomasina intended to stop for a moment in the chapel and went so far
as the threshold. Then, seeing the two heads close together, she turned
away. She did not fear interrupting Richard and Eleanor--there was no
one among all her acquaintances, least of all these two, whom she could
interrupt. But she turned away. Youth, with its confidence and its
ignorance, was alien to her mood; youth which knew nothing of heartache,
which had no visions of a loved body, covered--how many years ago!--with
earth, of lonely days, of nights filled with rebellion. Even Mary
Alcestis, who thought herself so wise in grief, knew nothing.
The Scott house was closed, the Scott family scattered, in happy
separation, Mrs. Scott with her son at Atlantic City and Dr. Scott and
little Cora exploring in Italy. Thinking of them, Thomasina smiled. She
saw Dr. Scott enchanted, inarticulate. It seemed to her that each of her
friends had that which his heart desired--even Mrs. Bent, whom
Waltonville still called Mrs. Bent, though it knew better, who stayed in
her little gray house adoring her household gods, and even Dr. Green,
who seemed to crave management by his daughter. Neither Dr. Green nor
Mrs. Bent felt apparently any reviving flame of affection, but jealousy
at least was gone. Both now had Eleanor.
Each one, it seemed to Thomasina, entering her gate, had some hearth
whereat to warm himself, some eyes wherein to see himself reflected. The
latch of her door felt cold, the cool hall vault-like. The house was
empty; she shivered as she entered it.
She moved across her parlor. On the shelf nearest her throne-like chair
stood four books, which she took one by one into her hand and then put
back. All had been completed as Dr. Scott had planned, all had been
brought out in perfection to the delight of the discerning. She did not
open them, did not need to open them to read.
"The admirers of Basil Everman are grateful to his friend Thomasina
Davis, of Waltonville, to whom he wrote constantly during the last years
of his life his aspirations and his plans. Miss Davis has allowed his
biographer to make extracts from his correspondence."
Here was fame--the only fame for which Thomasina cared!
When she sat down before the garden door, tears were in her eyes. Her
flowers offered their incense to the sky; the sound of Richard's music
was carried softly to her by the evening breeze. The hour was enchanted.
She was too wise not to know that it was a space set apart, that
unhappiness, discontent, a fierce resistance to life as it was, would
have their hours also. But this was reality--to that she held with a
divine stubbornness--this hour in which Basil, young, radiant, immortal,
stood beside her. For such hours as this, infrequent though they were,
she had declined other loves, refused to sit at warmer hearths.
"Saints, apostles, prophets, martyrs,
Answer 'yes!'"
remembered Thomasina.
"'I, Sergius, live!'" said she, aloud.
Then, folding her hands, she sat quietly.
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS
U. S. A.