"Who are these coming to the sacrifice?...What little town by river or sea shore,Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,Is emptied of its folk this pious morn?"
"Who are these coming to the sacrifice?...What little town by river or sea shore,Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,Is emptied of its folk this pious morn?"
"Who are these coming to the sacrifice?...What little town by river or sea shore,Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,Is emptied of its folk this pious morn?"
"Who are these coming to the sacrifice?...
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of its folk this pious morn?"
"How delightfully Attic!" he said to himself, not without satisfaction in the knowledge which made this comment possible.
The various members of the procession were not so set upon the significance of their orderly march that they did not notice the stranger as he stood watching them. All the professors saw him and envied him a little his youth and his elegance, and were at the same time a little amused. Eleanor Bent saw him and flushed, then grew very white. Here, perhaps, was the stranger who was to call upon her! Her heart was wax, as yet unwritten upon, but this day plastic and ready for a lover's signature. She was, at the thought that Utterly might be the coming messenger of "Willard's Magazine," at once excited and alarmed. She was so ignorant—what should she say to so imposing and elegant a person?
Seeing that the body of the chapel was filled, Utterly climbed one of the two broad staircaseswhich led to the rear gallery, and from there looked down upon the bonnets of the ladies and upon the flower-decked platform on which faculty and graduates were now taking their places. There were two other occupants of the gallery—at the organ a handsome boy, who was evidently a senior, since his black gown lay on the bench beside him, and the same tall gentleman redolent of drugs who had breakfasted at the hotel.
The boy was playing vigorously. His touch was clear and true, and Utterly, who possessed, along with many other serviceable and unserviceable bits of knowledge, an acquaintance with organ music, listened with surprise to his spirited and accurate work. His eyes then passed from one member of the faculty to another, resting longest upon President Lister, short, dark-skinned, and Jewish in appearance, and upon a tall, slender, smooth-shaven man whom he guessed to be the Professor of English. In these two, he decided, after contemplating them and their colleagues, was concentrated the intellectual strength of Walton College.
When the processional was finished, the player slid off the organ bench, slipped into his gown, straightened his shoulders, whispered a "Hello!" at the doctor, and left the gallery. A much smaller boy emerged, red-faced, from the interior of the organ, and to him Utterly signaled a demand for a programme.
During the long prayer, he read the list of graduates. The first name upon which his eye fell, that of Eleanor Bent, startled him so that he almostexclaimed aloud, and for a few moments he continued to stare at it as though he were not quite certain that he read aright. But the name was unmistakable, as well as the young woman's part on the programme—"Eleanor Bent, Valedictory." Utterly slid along the bench toward the doctor, who was much surprised to find him close by when he lifted his head after the prayer. There was a strange, excited look in the doctor's eyes. At the programme which Utterly held out to him he glared almost savagely. He did not like Utterly's looks; he was an effeminate dandy.
Utterly had drawn a heavy line under Eleanor Bent's name, and he pointed to it now with his pencil.
"Is that ayounglady?" he whispered rather stupidly.
The doctor looked at him with unfriendly astonishment.
"Naturally!"
"I mean—is there another person of that name in the town?—an aunt, perhaps, or—"
"No," said Dr. Green, "there isn't."
"And here!" Mr. Utterly's pencil moved to another point. "'Richard Everman Lister.' Do you know anything of him?"
The doctor jerked his head toward the organ. "That was he."
"Did you ever hear of a Basil Everman?"
It was impossible to tell whether this jerk of head signified impatience or negation. Utterly pointed again to Richard's name. He did notobserve or choose to observe that the doctor objected to this whispered questioning.
"Do you know anything about his relatives?"
"I know them all."
"And there is no Basil Everman?"
The doctor turned his shoulder now with an unmistakable intention to say no more. As Utterly slid back to his place, he saw an old catalogue in another pew and leaned forward to secure it. Among the former presidents of the college was Richard Everman, who was also Professor of Greek. Basil—who but a Professor of Greek would give his son such a name? Mr. Utterly glared at Dr. Green. Was this foolish doctor trying to conceal something from him, something which he had every right to know? He had a moment's silly suspicion that the conductor and the hotel-keeper and the brakeman and the doctor might have conspired against him.
Putting the old catalogue into his pocket, he gave his attention to the speaker, that same bright-eyed, blond Richard who was beginning his "Auditores,Comites,Professores," in a clear voice and with a smiling face. Utterly smiled back, partly in response and partly at the old-fashioned English pronunciation, antiquated even to him, though he was years older than these children.
Between Richard Lister and Eleanor Bent came ten speakers, each addressing a tense and motionless audience, sympathetic with aspiring youth, sympathetic in turn with each attentive parent and sister, and breathing audible sighs with eachconcluding bow. Of all the boys only Richard was composed. The only girl in the class beside Eleanor, Cora Scott, made no impression upon Utterly except that she was a frail little thing, what color and prettiness she might have overshadowed, blotted out by the black gown in which she was swathed. Of them all, no one failed, but there were slight hesitations and cheeks red with embarrassment. The topics which they discussed might well have excited older heads than theirs. Especially were the theories of Mr. Darwin, penetrating after many years to Walton College, now torn, shredded, cast to the winds.
But Eleanor Bent—here was no blotting-out, but rather a heightening of vivid beauty. Utterly, who did not have an enthusiastic temperament, said to himself that he had never seen a more charming girl. She walked well in her approach to the center of the platform, she bowed gracefully, she had, he decided, the most wonderful gray eyes he had ever seen, and the most musical, low voice. She was in a sense his discovery also, and this evening he would talk to her and learn just how remarkable she was.
Her address was merely an elaborate farewell, flowery, perhaps, but appropriately and becomingly flowery, matching well the roses and the honeysuckle and the Southern inflections of her sweet young voice.
While the degrees were being conferred, Utterly consulted again the catalogue in his pocket. The name of the teacher of English was Scott, HenryHarrington Scott; was certainly the smooth-faced gentleman. He lived probably in one of the pleasant houses on the campus with their domestic resemblance to the classic architecture of the large buildings.
He looked with interest at Richard Everman Lister when he returned to his place on the organ bench for the recessional. Richard's countenance was frank and open; there had descended to him, if he were at all related to this mysterious Basil, no outward trace, at least, of the interesting qualities of mind and soul which distinguished the author of "Bitter Bread" and "Roses of Pæstum."
When Utterly started from the hotel to call upon the Professor of English, the three members of the Scott family were still at the dinner table. Mrs. Scott occupied the chief seat, a small, birdlike creature with quick motions and a sharp tongue which helped to shape staccato notes as varied as those of a catbird. She condemned now in rapid succession the decorations of the chapel, President Lister's address, and Eleanor Bent's color, which she believed was not altogether natural.
Little Cora, who sat to her mother's left, was, to most persons acquainted with the family, a negligible quantity. She had gone through college because college was at hand, and she would now assume, it was to be expected, like the other girls in Waltonville, an attitude of waiting, which was to her mother not without its precise object.
"Richard Lister never looked at any one else," she often insisted to her husband.
"Richard is very young," Dr. Scott would remind her in his nervous way. He stammered when he addressed his wife, who seldom allowed him to finish his long, beautiful sentences. Sometimes she helped him with a word, sometimes she finished the sentence herself, radically altering his meaning, and proceeding precipitately to some lighter theme.
He sat opposite his wife and awaited impatiently the moment of release. About twenty-five years after he was married, he had made for himself a refuge in a room adjoining his classroom. Here a single wide window opened upon a part of the prospect which Mrs. Bent and her daughter enjoyed daily; here was a fireplace and here ample space for shelves. He transported himself thither with desk, pamphlets, old books, and all other movable possessions except his clothes, to spend that part of his time which was not devoted to eating or sleeping or teaching. There Mrs. Scott did not seek him out, having everything in her own hands, and needing no advice upon any subject domestic or foreign.
He had an intense desire for a little fame, both because he did not wish to be wholly forgotten, and because he longed for association with those who were working in the same field. He wrote short articles for the "Era" and longer articles for the "Continent," and occasionally he received letters in comment from scholars. He read widely, and his mind, quickened by some modern instance, offered at once a parallel from literature or history. An eruption of Ætna reminded him of magnificent and almost forgotten lines of Cowper; a summer evening recalled stanza upon stanza; in spring he thought in verse.
Occasionally he received for his compositions a small honorarium. The first he had passed with fatal gallantry to Mrs. Scott. When she spent it for an atrocious "Head of an Arab" in Arabian colors,he determined to use the next for books. But she expected a continuation of these perquisites and was quick to suspect their arrival. Instead of adding new volumes of Pater or old editions of the poetry of Robert Herrick to his library, he added new pieces of statuary and other objects of doubtful value to his wife's collection. When the precious slips of paper passed from his hand, he was tempted to wonder why he had married. But loyalty was a religion with him and he would be loyal even in thought.
The vacant place opposite Cora belonged to her brother Walter, or, as he preferred to sign himself, W. Simpson Scott, a product peculiarly his mother's, moulded by her hand, holding her convictions. Earnestly advised in his boyhood that without a large income one could do and be nothing in the world, he had accepted a position with an uncle, a manufacturer in New York, and had risen until he was now his uncle's chief assistant at a salary well known in Waltonville. He proved himself to be equal to all those commercial emergencies in which a little sharp dealing goes farther than a good deal of hard work. He came home about twice a year, bringing with him the most recent of slang, the most fashionable of wardrobes, the latest musical-comedy songs, and the most contemptuous opinion of Waltonville.
To the Scott household the closing of the college for the summer brought little change. The time that Dr. Scott had spent in the classroom he would spend now in his study; the time that Cora hadspent with her books she would spend embroidering. Mrs. Scott's life would know at first no change, but in August she would take Cora to Atlantic City to meet Walter, and Dr. Scott would spend a month in heavenly quiet and with an entirely negligible indigestion.
When Evan Utterly reached the porch steps, Mrs. Scott stood still at the foot of the stairway which she was about to ascend and looked and listened, regretting the chance which had taken her husband to the porch before her. Somehow Utterly in his beautiful white clothes had escaped her attention at the morning exercises, or she would have had up to this time an uncomfortable period of speculation.
Vaguely provoked because she was not summoned at once, she stood still, her eyes roving from the parlor, with its gilt chairs and its pale upholstery, to the sitting-room, with its table spread with Cora's presents. There could be no better time to entertain a stranger!
She heard Utterly comment upon the Attic beauty of the campus; then his voice sank. He was still talking about Waltonville's charm, but she suspected a confidential communication. She determined to wait until she heard more. There was only one situation in life in which she was truly patient and in such a situation she now waited and listened. When a single clear statement reached her alert ears, she moved nearer to the door. The stranger had said that he was a member of the staff of "Willard's Magazine"! She had a passion forliterature, she believed, and here was doubtless a very celebrated literary man at her door! She laid her hand lightly upon the latch, thereby producing a little sound which the stranger could not hear, but which Dr. Scott could not mistake. Surely he would rise at once and invite her to join them!
But her husband gave no sign of summoning her. Patience became impatience. She could hear in his voice the tone which he assumed when he was bored or when he was talking with persons whom he did not like. She could still hear only unintelligible fragments of the conversation. She clicked the latch again.
Dr. Scott did not like the stranger, either for himself or his clothes or his speech. It was a period when Anglomania affected the rising generation and this youth used English pronunciations as he might have used a monocle, with evident and painful effort. In what he had to say Dr. Scott was not the least interested. He had begun to open the mail which lay on the chair beside him and he wished desperately that the young man would state his errand and go.
When Utterly asked finally for Basil Everman, Dr. Scott was not able to help him in his search. He said that he had lived in Waltonville for only about fifteen years and that he did not remember that he had ever heard of Basil. Richard Everman had been president of the college and he had had one child, a daughter who was now Mrs. Lister. From her the family history could doubtless be learned. It might be that Basil was her uncle. Dr.Scott stirred uneasily, as he was wont to do when he was anxious to be left in peace.
Mrs. Scott had moved to the side of the doorway from which she could see the stranger. He seemed to her each moment more distinguished in appearance. She was certain that he hailed from that distant Boston which she adored without having seen. When she saw him reach for his hat and stick, which he had laid on the porch floor beside him, she lifted the latch and walked out. She was just in the nick of time. Neither the conductor nor the brakeman nor even the hotel-keeper was as offensive to Utterly as this man who professed to teach English literature. He did not exhibit his magazines or explain why he sought Basil Everman.
For once, Dr. Scott did as he was expected and desired to do. Rising, he presented the stranger to Mrs. Scott with a cordiality which only hope of his own escape could have inspired. Now, at least, he need not talk. Perhaps he could even leave the stranger entirely in her hands. This was, he explained with a Chesterfieldian bow, Mr. Utterly, who was making inquiry about some one named Basil Everman.
Mrs. Scott seated herself with a finality of manner which made it necessary for Utterly to be seated also.
"Oh, yes?" said she eagerly and inquiringly.
"Do you know anything of him?" asked Utterly.
"Why, yes. He was a brother of Mrs. Lister. He died—"
"Died!" repeated Utterly.
"Oh, yes, before we came to Waltonville. I believe he lived away from home. He died of some contagious disease and he wasn't buried here, I know that. I think he was a bitwild." Mrs. Scott looked at the stranger with some deep meaning.
Dr. Scott flushed during this rush of words. It was strange that she should know so much about Basil Everman and he so little, but whether he had never heard his name, or whether he had known and had forgotten were questions of too little importance to solve or to explain.
"What do you mean by 'wild'?" asked Utterly with blunt curiosity.
"Oh, he—he didn't do things as other people did them," answered Mrs. Scott vaguely.
"You never saw him?"
"No."
"Nor heard anything of him but that?"
"No." Mrs. Scott made the acknowledgment with reluctance.
When Utterly said that her not knowing more was very singular, her curiosity became almost a physical distress.
"Was there anything remarkable about him?" she asked.
"Rather!" Utterly now took hat and stick firmly in his hand. "Where do the Listers live?"
Mrs. Scott ignored the question. It annoyed her to think of this brilliant stranger in the hands of Mrs. Lister even though his business was with her.
"If you are interested in hearing about Basil Everman"—the name slipped from her lips asthough it had long waited just behind them—"you might like to meet some Waltonville people here to-morrow evening. They could tell you a great deal."
Utterly accepted the invitation with alacrity. If he were still in Waltonville, he should like nothing better.
"There is another citizen of Waltonville whom I should like to meet," said he.
Mrs. Scott's mind traveled rapidly down the list of professors. She almost purred in her satisfaction.
"I shall be glad to ask any one. That person is—"
When Utterly answered "Miss Eleanor Bent," Mrs. Scott looked astonished and disapproving. Utterly read her countenance with amusement. It was evident that Miss Bent did not move in Mrs. Scott's circle. The worse for Mrs. Scott! He explained that he was to call on Miss Bent that evening by appointment. She was, thank fortune! here and alive and easy to find. Then, with a polite good-afternoon, he descended the steps and started toward the Listers' white house.
Dr. Scott and his wife spoke simultaneously.
"What on earth does he want?" demanded Mrs. Scott of Dr. Scott and of the universe.
"The man is a stranger! Why did you invite him here like that?"
"We are told to entertain strangers," replied Mrs. Scott flippantly. "Whatdoeshe want here? What does he want with Eleanor Bent? What is this about Mrs. Lister's brother?"
"I don't know. I didn't ask. It's none of my affair."
"Perhaps she has applied somewhere for a position. What—"
Dr. Scott gathered up his papers and books. He dropped the "Fortnightly Review" and almost groaned to see that magazine and cover had parted company. Then he bestowed upon his wife one of the glances of incredulous astonishment which he had cast upon her during all but a very brief period of their married life, and fled. That a party involved the making of ice-cream and that he would be required to furnish the motive power for its manufacture in the middle of to-morrow's hot afternoon was not the least disturbing of the reflections which this unfortunate incident introduced into his mind.
Hat and cane in hand and carrying under his arm the three old magazines which he contemplated from time to time so earnestly, Utterly ascended the steps of the Lister porch. There, in mid-afternoon, Dr. Lister sat alone, the dinner guests having departed to join the general exodus on the five-o'clock train. Mrs. Lister had gone upstairs to change her black dress for one of lighter weight, and now sat quietly and happily beside her window. Such periods of unhappiness as she had lived through that morning were followed by spaces of calm when a crust seemed to form over the grief which could still burn so fiercely. The house was very still; the only movement indoors was that of the thin curtains swaying gently in the summer air.
Hearing a strange voice on the porch, she made haste to complete her change of apparel. She was as punctilious in the small relations of life as she was in its more important principles. Perhaps the visitor did not wish to see her; if he lingered she would go quietly down into the hall and find out.
Dr. Lister had seen Utterly and had wondered who he was. Now, saying to himself that Waltonville was seldom glorified by so well-clad a figure, he rose to meet his guest. Dr. Lister loved Greek and taught his boys and girls faithfully, butwithout much enthusiasm for their capabilities or possibilities. His mind was more intently occupied with the affairs of the great world which seemed to lie so far away, with prospective changes in the English cabinet, with ominous stirrings in the East. It seemed to him at the first glance that his guest belonged to that interesting outer world.
"This is Dr. Lister?" Utterly saw the eager eyes. Here was a man! "I am Mr. Utterly of 'Willard's Magazine.' Can you spare me a few moments of your time?"
Dr. Lister motioned the stranger to one of the comfortable chairs. He had been thinking of a few minutes' sleep before supper, but he gave it up willingly and even eagerly in the prospect of a talk with this keen stranger.
"My vacation began at noon, sir. I shall be glad to give you all the time you wish."
Utterly sat with the magazines in his hand. This Waltonville, he said, was charming.
"A New Yorker would find it rather dull," answered Dr. Lister.
"There would be compensation here for anything New York could offer," said Utterly, without meaning it in the least. "This peaceful Attic flavor"—with a gesture toward the green trees and the smooth lawn and Dr. Lister's canna beds—"makes one feel that after all some persons and some places do arrive at serenity. We never do in New York. We don't know what serenity is." Then Utterly descended from the pedestal upon which Dr. Lister had for the moment established him. He addeda "don't you know" to his sentence. "We don't know what serenity is, don't you know." The phrase was still not common property in America, but it offended Dr. Lister's ear.
"I listened with great pleasure to your boys and girls, especially to the playing of your own boy—I believe it was your son who played the organ?"
"Yes," said Dr. Lister.
"I stood at the campus gate and watched your peaceful procession with envy and I might say with awe. I felt that it wasn't real. I seemed to have stepped back just about two thousand years. You ought to keep it forever as a spectacle. Pilgrimages ought to be made here, not by train, but on foot. Everything in the world is changing—you have something that is old. I couldn't help thinking of 'Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,' and so forth, don't you know?"
Dr. Lister shifted his knees so that the one which had been uppermost was now beneath the other. Who was this strange, bearded, sentimental youth, robed like the lilies, who quoted poetry at first acquaintance? Dr. Lister read poetry, but he did not quote it to men whom he did not know. He wished that the young man, still running eloquently on about the Attic scene, would state his errand and go. He thought longingly of his couch in the cool study.
Then, in the still afternoon, thus far so like any other Commencement afternoon, he was startled out of all sleepiness.
"It is difficult to understand how Basil Evermanwith such an environment could have looked so keenly and seeingly at the grimmer side of life."
Dr. Lister turned his head.
"I didn't understand you."
"I said that it is difficult to understand how Basil Everman, with such an environment as this in his youth, could have presented so completely a side of life so grim and terrible."
"Basil Everman!" repeated Dr. Lister. Still he could not believe that he had heard aright. He had been sleepy and he had misunderstood.
"Why, yes! It surely is not possible that Dr. Lister does not know Basil Everman!"
"Basil Everman was my wife's brother. He has been dead for twenty years!"
"You did not know him as a writer?" Utterly's eyes arraigned Dr. Lister for stupidity or some worse fault.
"No. What do you mean?" Dr. Lister lowered his voice. His impressions of Basil Everman, whom he had not known, were not extensive, but they were very positive. He had been a strange youth who had brought sorrow, and sorrow only, to those who loved him, talented without question, but lacking in balance of mind. He had often felt for him a stern disapproval, coupled with a half-defined jealousy because of the devotion of his sister to a memory which was best put away.
"I am a member of the staff of 'Willard's Magazine,'" explained Utterly. "Some weeks ago I looked carefully over the old files with a view to making a comparison of the shorter fiction ofto-day with that which was being written twenty-five years or more ago. Ours to-day is vastly superior." Suddenly Utterly's words came in a flood. He grew ardent and excited. "We are beginning to learn from the French and Russians. We are learning the beauty of the lowly, even of the degraded. We are learning to look at life with our eyes and not with our puritanic moral sense. I have no words with which to express my contempt for that dull, blind, wickedly perverted thing called Puritanism."
Dr. Lister now sat motionless, his knees a limp parallel. His perfect quiet, the intentness of his gaze, the complete stillness of all about them, suggested to Utterly a breathless moment in a play. He felt that he was talking well, that he had never talked better in his life.
"But here, twenty years ago, was an exception, a glorious, shining exception. I found a story called 'Bitter Bread,' an essay called 'Roses of Pæstum,' and a poem called 'Storm.' Every one who has read them considers them extraordinary. They exhibit not only marvelous imaginative power, but an extensive experience of life, the experience of a man who has seen many things and felt all things. I am not one of those who hold that genius finds both its source and its material in itself, furnishing at once its own fuel and its own fire."
Utterly paused for breath. Here was a well-expressed sentiment of which he must make mental and afterwards written note.
"But—" began Dr. Lister.
Utterly lifted his hand.
"We found after a good deal of searching that one of the original manuscripts had been preserved. It was mailed from Waltonville, Pennsylvania, though the answer was to be sent to Baltimore. I had another errand here, and I was anxious to discover what I could about this contributor of twenty-five years ago, who promised such extraordinary things and who then, as far as we know, ceased to write. I belong to that class of biographers who believe that all is sacred and valuable in the development of genius. The facts of a writer's life are of transcendent importance. The power of imagination fails after a certain point, rather it does not begin until a certain degree of experience has been reached. A writer must havelived. I am hungry to know all you can tell me of Basil Everman. I mean to write about him at length." Utterly settled himself a little more comfortably in his chair. "You say that he is dead? How unfortunate!"
"Yes," said Dr. Lister slowly. "He has been dead for twenty years."
"Did he die here?"
"No. He died away from home in an epidemic. It was not possible to bring his body home. His death seriously affected my wife, who is his sister, and who lost her father about the same time. I never saw Basil Everman either in life or death."
"And you never knew or suspected that he wrote?"
"I never heard that he was supposed to have talent of any sort. He was very young."
"So was Keats when he wrote 'St. Agnes Eve.'Surely Basil Everman's sister knew about his talent!"
"I do not believe she ever knew that he had published any writings."
"May I see her?"
"I—I will see."
Dr. Lister rose, bewildered, and went slowly toward the door. Surely Mary Alcestis could have known nothing of this! The idea that she might have mental reservations was new. He was certain that she would be shocked by this inquiry and he wished that there were time to prepare her for it. He could, if she wished, ask the stranger to come at another time, or he could excuse her entirely.
He found her in the hall. He had a fleeting impression that she had been for some time where she stood now, by the stairway with her hand on the newel post. But she came forward at once, her smooth and slightly pale face showing only its usual expression of placid content.
"Did you have a rest, mother?" asked Dr. Lister.
"Yes," she answered in her steady voice. "All that I needed."
"There is a literary man here who comes from a New York magazine who wishes to speak to you."
"To me?" repeated Mrs. Lister. It was not a question, real or rhetorical, it was simply a mechanical repetition of her husband's words.
"Yes. He wishes, strangely enough, mother, to ask you about some literary work of your brother Basil's."
"Of Basil's." Mrs. Lister did not seem so much surprised as benumbed. Dr. Lister was now certain that she had heard the stranger, and had tried, and was still trying, to gather herself together.
"He says that your brother sent to his magazine many years ago some remarkable compositions which they published anonymously. Did you know of them?"
"He used to write some," said Mrs. Lister in a childish way. "He played some, too, on the piano. No, I didn't know that anything was published."
"Will you come out and speak to this gentleman? Do you feel able to speak to him?"
Mrs. Lister walked toward the door without answering. She rested her hand for an instant on the door frame and felt for the step with perceptible confusion. If the sunshine looked suddenly dark, and the honeysuckle seemed to exhale a sickly odor, it was not the first time in her life that under like circumstances she had held her head bravely. She had heard every word the stranger had said. If she had put on spectacles of some strange, distorting medium, he could not have looked more monstrous, more frightful to her. She gave him a cold hand because his own hand reached for it, and then sat down.
Utterly repeated his account of the finding of Basil Everman's stories and his estimate of his genius. He expressed in even more realistic phrase his admiration for the insight of the younger generation of writers. He said that modern literature was finding material in thieves, drunkards, in whathad hitherto been considered bottomless pits. Even Keats had said that truth was beauty.
He recounted with witty embroidery how he had asked the brakeman and the conductor and the person whom he called "mine host" about Basil Everman and how none of them could tell him anything.
"But the little tavern gave the whole thing away. The heroine of 'Bitter Bread' takes refuge in just such a place; there is the identical worn doorstep and the fly-blown bottles and the print over the bar which pictures exactly her own arrival. There, at least, Basil Everman must have been long enough to have a photographic impression printed on his sensitive brain."
Dr. Lister's hands, lying upon the arms of his chair, straightened themselves as though, using them as a fulcrum, he meant to rise with a mighty spring. The tavern was not a place for Mary Alcestis's brother to be connected with! But he looked at Mrs. Lister and sat still. Her face was a little whiter, but it was unruffled. Now that he had been so unwise as to let her see this creature, the interview had better be conducted as she chose.
"Then I went to the house of the Professor of English and he knew nothing. If it hadn't been for the tavern, I should have despaired entirely. Will you"—Utterly, looking at Mrs. Lister decided that so Victorian a person could not possibly understand or appreciate her brother. "Will you tell me about Basil Everman? Will you not tell me everything?"
Mrs. Lister began in a smooth voice as though she were reciting a well-conned lesson. Not a quiver betrayed her spinning world.
"Basil was born here in this house. My father was president of the college before Dr. Lister. Basil was his only son and I his only daughter. He had no other children. Basil was only twenty-five years old when he died. He died of diphtheria." Mrs. Lister had evidently concluded. "In Baltimore," she added as though that put a period to her sentence.
"Yes?" said Utterly.
Mary Alcestis smiled a meaningless little smile and said nothing.
"That isn't all, Mrs. Lister!" cried Utterly.
"Yes."
"Oh, but Mrs. Lister!" Utterly was delighted to see that suddenly her eyes burned and her hands twitched. "What was he like? Do you remember him distinctly? What did he look like?"
"Remember him!" said Mrs. Lister's heart. "Remember Basil!" Aloud she said steadily and clearly, "He was quite tall and slender. He had black hair, curly hair. His eyes were large and bright."
"You have photographs of him, of course?"
Dr. Lister rose at Mrs. Lister's command to fetch the album from the parlor table. He recalled more and more distinctly those long hours when she had lain sleepless at his side suffering her abnormal and unwholesome grief for her brother. He moved his chair closer to hers as he handed the stranger Basil's picture.
"What extraordinary eyes!" said Utterly. "They look like another pair of eyes I've seen recently." He frowned, but could not remember what eyes. "That is, their shape is the same. What color were they?"
"Basil had gray eyes."
"You surely must have known that he was wonderful!"
"He was bright," conceded Mrs. Lister.
"Was he a graduate of this college?"
"No."
"He must have traveled a great deal. He could not have written 'Roses of Pæstum' without having been at Pæstum, and one does not get to Pæstum without going through some other places. I think your father was extraordinarily wise to let him get his education in that way. Did he live abroad?"
"He was never abroad."
"He never saw Pæstum!"
"No."
Utterly looked at Mrs. Lister as though he did not believe her. Again Dr. Lister's hands flattened on the arms of his chair.
"Extraordinary! And he lived here in this house!" Utterly looked up at the walls as though he expected them to bear a memorial plate or some other record. "Was he"—He turned impatiently to Dr. Lister—"Are there no interesting facts about him, nomemorabilia, no traditions of any kind? If he has been dead only twenty years, he should still be alive in the minds of men and women, especially ofwomen. A man like that couldn't simply grow up and die, like a vegetable! We used to think the Brontës had only lived and grown up and died, but we are learning differently. It was silly ever to have thought otherwise. Moreover, the reading public is determined to have the facts about those whom it admires. You cannot keep people from knowing," concluded Utterly in a harsh tone, some basic rudeness in his nature showing suddenly through the outer veneer. He was certain that they were withholding something from him, certain that Mrs. Lister knew a great deal more than she would tell. To him Basil Everman grew each moment more unusual, more mysterious, the position of the scholar who should discover him more to be desired. If he could see Dr. Lister alone, he might be able to learn more. He rose and asked whether he might leave the magazines until the next day.
"I suppose you will wish to read them?"
"Certainly," answered Dr. Lister, rising also.
"Basil Everman stands only second to Edgar Allan Poe among thelittérateursof the United States; of that even this small amount of work gives ample proof. It is the most deplorable tragedy in the history of American literature that the amount should be so small. Are yousurethere is nothing else?"
"Other magazines of the period might have something, might they not?" suggested Dr. Lister. "Have you thought of looking there? If the style is so individual, you should be able to recognize the work of the author elsewhere."
"Even if I did, I couldn't ask questions. Don't you see that I don't want any one else to find out now? Any calling of the attention of another magazine to Basil Everman would bring a representative here at once. There is no reason why I shouldn't have the facts as well as any one else."
Mrs. Lister rose heavily. The interview had been prolonged a moment too long and her composure was gone. What she said startled her husband more than anything that had preceded.
"Do you know all the facts about Homer, or about Shakespeare, or other writers? I know that you don't know anything about Shakespeare because there are some people who think that Bacon wrote his works. Whyshouldyou know?"
"We should never cease to give thanks if we could find out, dear lady," answered Utterly. "I'll give you a hundred dollars a word for any authentic information about Shakespeare, and a thousand for any about Homer. Homer and Shakespeare have been dead for centuries and men are still trying to find out about them.And will keep on trying," he added.
When Utterly was well out of sight, Dr. Lister took his wife's hand.
"Why, my dear! What is it?"
Mrs. Lister turned upon him a gray face. She looked old, terrified, distraught.
"That is a wolfish man," said she. "Make them leave poor Basil in his grave! I will tell nothing about Basil. I have nothing to tell about him."
Richard Lister had been a placid, comfortable baby, though his birth had followed a period of deep anguish in his mother's life. To her he was a miracle, an incredible phenomenon, his dependence upon her for every need of his little being the most heavenly experience she had ever had. He slept a proper and wholesome number of hours and remained awake long enough for ample petting, and for the first twelve years of his life he was scarcely out of her sight. She tended him awake and watched him while he slept, enduring with considerable pain the sight of him in the arms of any one except his father or Thomasina Davis or 'Manda.
When he was five years old, she entered upon a period of anxiety whose beginning she had set for this time. She compelled herself to realize that she could not have him always; that the small imitations of mannish clothes which he wore would be presently exchanged for full-grown originals which he would put on and off without her aid. He would have, moreover, some day a wife who would supersede his mother in the delectable kingdom of his heart.
She began also to anticipate the moment when she must begin to discipline him, and to dread the various forms of infant crime for which she searched her mind. Presently he would cease to obeypromptly; he would refuse to put his toys away neatly on the low shelf of the cupboard assigned to him; he would stamp and scream like other naughty little boys. He might, alas, take pennies from her pocketbook. Then there would be the fondness for tobacco and playing-cards on whose account he would have to be struggled with and possibly whipped. She had never been whipped, and she had good reason to doubt the efficacy of whipping, but she would not allow her own observation to contradict Biblical injunction. No one but herself, however, should lay hand or switch upon Richard, hideous as such necessity would be to her.
But Richard needed no whipping and his mother could decide upon no moment when the discipline, to which she had given so many hours of anxious thought, should begin. He continued, up to and long past the age of five, to be the most biddable little child that ever lived, satisfied with what he had, requiring no other companionship than that of his father and mother and 'Manda, playing a great deal by himself, and never screaming or stamping or taking pennies from pocketbooks. He liked, as he grew older, to have little Cora Scott come to play with him, but to the Scotts he would not go without his mother, having a wholly justifiable fear of Walter.
He was allowed each pleasant morning in summer to cross the broad, grassy field back of the campus to a little stream, tin bait-can, fishing-rod, and package of lunch in hand, and a great old straw hat of his father's on his head. As he sat and fished,'Manda could watch him from the kitchen window and his mother could gloat over him from a window above. Even Dr. Lister left his work once an hour to see how he fared. If it were a baking morning 'Manda would go down with a fresh patty-cake or a handful of cookies.
Luck was always poor with Richard, probably because he sang constantly while he fished. His repertoire was composed of hymns and songs of a rather solemn cast. He was particularly fond of the lengthy liturgical service of the church, and prayed the Lord a hundred times in a morning to have mercy upon him. The fervor with which he expressed this plea frightened his mother, who feared that such intense emotion indicated a spirit not long for this world.
Sometimes in the evenings he and 'Manda held a concert at the kitchen door, 'Manda in her rocking-chair on the porch, Richard on the lowest step, hands on knees, eyes gazing upon the meadow with its shadowy trees and its myriad fireflies or looking up at the stars. 'Manda was loath to leave upon such occasions and sat long after the hour when she was usually in the colored settlement.
Richard was the soloist and always selected and began the hymns. Frequently the two took liberties with the original form. Richard made a long pause after each line of "I was a wandering sheep," and 'Manda's rich contralto inserted an eerie, tender, indescribably deep and rich "po' lamb!" The refrain varied constantly and the variety indicated a keen instinct for harmony.
When he changed to "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," or "Hallelu," or "These Bones Shall Rise Again," 'Manda ceased to rock, and bending forward, hands on knees, joined in at the beginning, her rich voice furnishing a background for the child's soprano with its piercing sweetness. In her performance was all the savagery of deepest Africa and besides all spiritual meanings and desires. Thomasina Davis, sitting often with Dr. and Mrs. Lister on the porch on the other side of the house, commanded every one to stop and listen.
"It makes clear the universal kinship of believers," said she with shining eyes. "There are a hundred thrilling suggestions in that duet of blue-eyed Anglo-Saxon and black-haired African."
Dr. Lister smiled back at Thomasina. Mrs. Lister did not understand exactly what she meant, but she smiled also and obeyed willingly the command for silence. No sound in the world was so sweet to her as Richard's voice.
Little Richard liked also to preach. The audience which he usually selected was, like that of St. Anthony, one of fishes. In imagination he saw before him, from his pulpit on the bank, a decorous congregation and a tuneful choir. His performance, while it shocked his mother, yet gave her hope that he might incline toward the ministry. Her father, for whom he was named, had had theological training and used to preach in the college church. It seemed to her often that she could see in Richard's solemn gestures a resemblance to those of the grave old man.
Richard's discourses suggested no such probability to his father, eavesdropping from behind a convenient tree. They were pleasant to Dr. Lister, who sometimes feared that a boy who was never uproarious, who always remembered to wipe his shoes on the mat, and who never carried toads or mice in his pockets, might be too amiable and good. He wished for a little temper, a little disobedience, a little steel under the satin. When Richard cried out, "Oh, you darned fishes!" in imitation of the ice man whom Mrs. Lister could neither silence nor reform, his father was convulsed.
When Richard grew older and ceased to sing, his mother, while she missed his hymns, was content. Thus had Basil sung when he was a little boy. At Thomasina's suggestion, Richard had begun early to take music lessons from her. Except that he had often to be summoned from the old piano to other duties, and that he often called to his mother to listen to little melodies which he invented or to certain resolutions of chords which pleased him, and which were to her ear like any other musical sounds, he gave no disturbing sign of special interest in music. Sometimes he repeated stories of musicians which Thomasina told him, about Beethoven who was an accomplished player at the age of nine, and who had become deaf when he had scarcely left his youth, and about Handel who had become blind. Richard's face would glow and his eyes shine with tears.
"Could you imagine, mother, how he felt when he knew that he could never hear again? He neverheard his greatest works. Think of it, mother, what a fearful thing that would be!"
Mrs. Lister could not imagine it and would not think of it, having but slight conception of the pleasures which harmonious sound can give to the ear of the musician. Thus had Basil called upon her for sympathy in his strange, incomprehensible satisfactions. She wished that Thomasina would not tell Richard such stories.
Richard was always busy. He kept a series of little notebooks, neatly indexed; he cut clippings from newspapers and filed them away; he divided his day into periods for each sort of study, for exercise, and for play.
Soon after he entered college, his voice returned, a clear, serviceable tenor. He led the Glee Club which then took no long journeys round the country, but sang for its own amusement and that of the college, and he played the chapel organ and the assembly room piano. He continued to practice at home, but his practice was chiefly that of dull exercises and unending scales which roused no alarm in his mother's breast, and which his father regarded fearfully as the indication of a rather feeble intellect seeking exercise which involved no mental or physical effort. Richard called out no more with tears, "Oh, mother, did you know that Handel was blind?" cried out no more, "Oh, mother, listen!" in ecstasy over some sound which he had produced, no more, "That is to be playeddelicatessimente, mother. Isn't that a beautiful word?" Richard's musical passion, at least so it seemed to his mother,had died a natural death. She could not quite understand why he sought the society of Cora Scott so seldom and that of Thomasina for several hours daily—but that was a choice to be thankful for at his age.
In the fall he would have to begin in earnest to prepare for whatever profession he was to follow. So far there had been no family discussion of this matter. Mrs. Lister had not quite given up her hopes that he might become a preacher. Of the other professions open to him, medicine, law, and teaching, she hoped that he would choose teaching. Then they could all stay here, forever.
As a matter of fact—alas, for poor Mrs. Lister!—Richard's plans were made, and of them in their entirety one person knew beside himself. Under Richard's satin there was steel. His life-work had been selected and he meant to begin to-morrow. His Commencement money would buy him a clavier and to it he intended to devote the summer. He could have it in his own room where it would disturb no one and where he could look upon it when he woke and practice upon it when he was supposed to be in bed. He knew that his mother was not fond of music, but his mother would let him have his way, had always let him have his way. He did not realize that thus far his way had been hers. In the fall he would go to study with Faversham in New York, and therefore it was probable that he would be at home no more. Thus lightly does youth arrange for itself. If poor Mary Alcestis could have looked into Richard's mind as he sat beside her atthe dinner table when Commencement was over, and could there have read its hopes and plans so alien to her own, her heart would have been nearly broken.
Thomasina Davis was not sanguine about Mrs. Lister's easy yielding to Richard's wishes. She was prepared to talk to his parents by the hour if need be; she would have been willing to live on bread and water and go without shoes so that he should be able to study. She was determined to behold in him the fruit of her labors. Faversham had been a fellow pupil in the three happy years away from Waltonville; to send Richard Lister to him with supple, well-trained fingers and with fine taste, to have Richard say to him that he was a pupil of Thomasina Davis, was a reward she had promised herself since Richard had sat beside her piano on a high chair, enchanted by her music. Thomasina, unlike Mrs. Lister, had a profound respect, an adoration, indeed, for genius. This adoration was innate, but it owed its strength to certain events in her past, a past which seemed to Mrs. Lister to have been pathetically empty of most of women's joys.
When Commencement and the Commencement dinner were over, Richard felt suddenly restless. He realized that there was nothing that he must do, that no lessons waited. He sat for a while talking with his mother's guests, then he went out to the kitchen, meaning to escape across the campus to the chapel and play. That was what he wanted and needed, the touch of the smooth keys under hisfingers, the sound of the full, rich organ tones, to give him, instead of this sense of idleness and emptiness, a consciousness of all the work that was beginning.
But there were obstacles in the way of his playing. The chapel organ and the assembly room piano were public; he would have an audience in a few minutes, and he did not wish an audience. If he could find some one to play duets with him, he would have the volume of sound for which his ear longed. Thomasina was away; only Cora Scott remained. Cora did not read well, but they could play compositions which she knew.
'Manda paused in her dishwashing to regard him with a warm and beaming glance which expressed entire sympathy with him in his flight.
"Goin' to git out, honey?"
"Yes, 'Mandy, I'se goin' to git out."
Making a wide détour in the shrubbery and round the back of the chapel, he approached the Scotts' porch. Then he stopped short. There in white splendor sat the stranger whom he had seen that morning in the chapel gallery. He turned promptly away.
"No sitting for an hour listening to that!" said he.
Then it was, swayed by the slight incident of Evan Utterly's presence, that Richard, who had hitherto sailed in such a calm domestic stream, turned his boat into another and an alien channel. He said to himself that he would play, that he would perish if he did not play. He consideredgoing to Thomasina's, even though she was not at home and rousing 'Melia from her afternoon nap to let him in. But when he had reached Thomasina's gate, he thought of Eleanor Bent.
Eleanor played well; he had heard her at Thomasina's. She was pretty and bright, but not very friendly. There was, he believed, something queer about her and her mouselike little mother. He had a vague feeling that his own mother would not quite approve of his going to their house.
But he had set his mind upon playing the Eighth Symphony, and, if possible, several other symphonies. He had, he remembered suddenly and happily, a volume of music belonging to Eleanor Bent, which he had carried away by accident from Thomasina's. He would take this round to Eleanor, and if she were not cordial or the piano not tolerable, he would come away.
With the same care he stole back through the shrubbery to the kitchen door and succeeded, after ludicrous blunders, in getting through 'Manda the volume which he sought. As he crossed the campus again, he saw Utterly rising from his chair. But the die was cast; it was with Eleanor Bent that he wished to play and not with Cora Scott. He kept on his way through the college gate and down the broad street which led to the other side of the town, whistling softly as he went, and feeling a sense of freedom and adventure.
Mrs. Bent let him in from the little front porch to the neat little hall. He explained that he was Richard Lister and that he had come to return abook of Eleanor's, and she invited him into the parlor, saying that Eleanor would appear in a few minutes. Eleanor had had a surprise, she explained, which had delayed their dinner. Her cheeks were flushed; she seemed to be excited.
There was nothing queer to Richard's eye, either in Mrs. Bent, or, at his first glance, in the interior of her little house. All was fresh and neat and simple and in good taste. There was a picture opposite the door, a view of the Castel Angelo, exactly like one which hung in his father's study; there were pretty curtains, there was—Richard stopped short in the doorway, the bright color in his fair cheeks fading rapidly away and then as suddenly returning. Here before him in the parlor of this little gray house, unknown of him, was a new piano! Moreover, it was a magnificent grand piano, finer than Thomasina's, finer, indeed, than any piano he had ever seen. He did not need to read the name on the front; its very shape was familiar to him from catalogues at which he had gazed in inexpressible longing.
"Why, Mrs. Bent!" cried Richard.
Mrs. Bent smiled in her frightened way at his confusion and delight.
"That is the surprise," said she. "It is hers. It came while she was at the exercises."
"It looks as though it hadn't been touched!"
"It hasn't. She had sort of a queer spell when she saw it"—was that right, or was it "seen"?—"I said she would better eat something."
"It was a surprise to her?"
"Yes."
"How glorious! I wish some one would surprise me that way!"
Left alone, Richard walked round and round staring at the shining rosewood and the gleaming keys. He had expected—he almost laughed aloud as he remembered—an upright piano of a poor make, covered with a velvet cover laden with vases and photographs. Thus was the Scott piano decorated. And here was really a grand piano, and the best grand piano that could be bought! If he might only play it!
Eleanor found him walking about. She held out her hand, like her mother all excitement and friendliness. She still wore her beautiful embroidered dress, full in the skirt and low in the neck. Her hair was ruffled and her eyes more than ever brilliant.
There were no introductory explanations. Richard forgot to say why he had come, never explained, indeed, until long afterward when together, as is the custom of those in like case, they made each impulse, each trivial incident of their association the subject of conversation.
"It hasn't been touched," said Eleanor. "When I saw it I forgot how to play!"
"Does Miss Thomasina know about it?"
"She selected it in Baltimore. She had known about it for weeks and I knew nothing. It doesn't seem as though it could be real. Will you, oh, will you play it first?"
Richard turned pale once more.
"I'm not sure that I can play either. I'm not sure that I ever touched a piano!"
"Oh, you can! Something with great, heavy, rolling, smashing chords. I know that if I touch it it will disappear, and I can't possibly wait till Miss Thomasina comes home. I never could have got through Commencement if I had known it was here."
"Nor I. If I had met it, I would have followed it like the children follow the elephant, and some one else might have saluted the audience. It makes Commencement seem like three cents."
"Now, play!" commanded Eleanor. "Mother!"
Mrs. Bent came to the door. Richard saw her look at her daughter, and the glance was worth coming farther than this to see. It adored her, swept over her from head to foot, devoured her. Something of its intensity entered into Richard. Eleanor was older than he; she had stood ahead of him in school; she had scarcely spoken to him a dozen times; but she became in that moment a creature to be admired, to be cherished. Life changed for him, boyhood was left behind. He met Eleanor's eyes and saw in them youth, curiosity about himself, restlessness, a reflection, it seemed to him, of the confused emotions of his own heart. It was Eleanor's gaze which first turned away.
"The concert is going to begin, mother."
Mrs. Bent sat down in the bay window and Eleanor took a chair from which she could watch Richard's beautiful hands. Once after he had taken his place on the stool, he looked into her eager face,then he let his hands fall upon the keys. He shut his eyes to keep back starting tears. He remembered that some one had said that life held few moments to which a man would say, "Stay, thou art so fair!" The saying was not true. Here was such a moment; there would be for him, he knew, a thousand more.
A Schumann Nachtstück, a Bach Prelude, a Mozart Sonata rolled from under his fingers, which then danced into a jig, performances allowed by Thomasina. There were others, forbidden except under her own direction and in careful, studious sections. These Richard now hazarded boldly and played them not ill. A dozen compositions finished, he whirled round upon the piano stool.
"Won't you play, now?"
"I can't."
"Will you play with me?"
"There is nothing here."
"I brought the second volume of Beethoven with me."
"I will try," promised Eleanor.
Richard spread the music open on the rack. Both had been trained by Thomasina, both played easily and well, both knew their parts. Shoulders and hands touched; sometimes Richard laughed aloud from sheer pleasure, sometimes he sang an air, sometimes he stopped to give directions. At that Eleanor laughed a little nervously. Richard seemed to all his mates to hold himself above them, to be dictatorial. He had seemed all of this to Eleanor, but now she obeyed instantly.
In the bay window Mrs. Bent sat and watched. She could not have looked at them with anything but pleasure. Eleanor was so young, so pretty. There was no mother in Waltonville who would not have been pleased to see her daughter playing duets with Richard Lister.
But a shadow had settled on Mrs. Bent's face. The look which had transfigured her changed to a look of anxiety and trouble. She had years ago made wise plans for her life and Eleanor's—they had begun to seem now not wise, but insane. They were wicked, because they were made in one of the rages into which she had fallen, like her father, in her youth; they were stupid, because they had taken no account of the future; and they were selfish, because they had taken no account of anything but her own fury.
When Dr. Green drove by in his buggy, Mrs. Bent laid her hand with a gesture which was almost melodramatic across her heart, and stared after him, as though the sight of him had for an instant illuminated her despair. In another instant, however, the shadow returned to her face and she bent over her sewing.
Dr. Green drove by, returned and passed again, drove a mile or two into the country and passed the fourth time. He thought that Eleanor was playing, and he said, "Good for her!" He took a great deal of credit to himself for Eleanor.
The afternoon light softened, shadows began to spread over the little garden. When Richard rose to go, Mrs. Bent had vanished, and the two youngpeople looked at each other, startled and a little bewildered, trying to hide their confusion. Eleanor did not say "Come back," nor did Richard ask whether he might come again, but the volume was left open on the piano.