Richard Lister played with Eleanor Bent for the first time on the afternoon of Commencement Day, which was Thursday. He played with her also on Friday and Saturday and again on Monday and Tuesday. In the mornings he played with Thomasina, who was certain that she had never seen her beloved pupil so anxious for perfection. Never was there such gilding of the lily, such painstaking practice of trill and mordent. She would have opened her brown eyes to their greatest possible diameter could she have known that what he practiced with her in the mornings he played with Eleanor Bent in the afternoons, when he displayed all the fine shadings of expression, all the tricks of fingering which he had learned from her. With Eleanor's mistakes he was patient, to himself he allowed no mistakes.
As little as Thomasina suspected that his playing with her was for the time mere practicing for a more important audience, so little did Richard suspect that the young lady beside him neglected all other tasks in order to prepare as well as she could to support his treble.
On two evenings of the week, they read poetry together, sitting on the little porch facing the wide valley and each taking a turn. They looked at thebeautiful prospect, then they read again. Each watched the other. When Eleanor's eyes were turned definitely toward the western mountains and her head away from him, Richard's eyes took their fill of her. When his eyes were upon his book, she learned by heart each line of his countenance. She had quite forgotten by now her uncertainties and fears. Within doors Mrs. Bent sat under her lamp, forever embroidering beautiful things.
Together the two read "Abt Vogler," together "A Toccata of Galuppi's." Thomasina, appealed to by Richard, produced "A Toccata of Galuppi's" and played it smilingly.
"Curious, isn't it? You've been reading Browning. Yes, take it with you."
To Richard Eleanor carried from her neat bookcases, volume after volume.
"How many books you have!"
"My mother gives them to me, and Dr. Green has given me a great many."
"Your mother and Dr. Green have good taste," said Richard.
Together they read the "Blessed Damozel," together "Love among the Ruins," together "Staff and Scrip." Then in an instant the old, common miracle was wrought. Life was short and troubled and often tragic—one must have companionship to make it endurable. Looking up they met each other's eyes.
Richard's hands trembled, a solemn thrill was succeeded by a warm wave of emotion, all emotions which seemed to gather themselves into one. Hecould not look long into the bright eyes so near him, he could say nothing, he must rise and go away, even though Eleanor begged, trembling, "Oh, do not go!" He had not reckoned upon anything like this, was not prepared for it.
"I have forgotten something. I will come to-morrow."
Richard went home and sat by his window and looked out over the campus with its deep shadows, a broad shadow here by the chapel, a lesser shadow by the Scott house. He heard in a daze his mother's voice and his father's footstep, and when all was quiet once more he gave to his youthful fancy, still clean and fresh, free rein. He leaned his head against the window frame, then, hiding his eyes, he laid his cheek on his folded arms. The night seemed to excite while it blessed him.
He began to be sorry that he had left her. What was she doing now? Had she thought him rude? Did she think of him at all when he was not with her? She seemed far above him, she had been more conscientious about college work, she knew more than he did. But he would work, there should be no limit to his working. If only he had his clavier now! He would have at least the noblest profession in the world. He began to count the years before he could amount to anything. And she was already complete, already perfect!
When he thought of Thomasina, it was to bless her for setting his feet in the right way and for guarding him and guiding him. He thought of his mother with a slight feeling of uneasiness abouther opinion of Eleanor. She had never even invited Eleanor to the house. But that should not worry him. His mother loved him, wished him to be happy; she would not deny him that which would be the most blessed source of happiness. He would tell her about Eleanor to-morrow. It should be a casual sentence at first, a word or two about the pretty house or the magnificent piano or the many books.
It was long past midnight when he went to bed and almost morning when he fell asleep. He was certain that he was the only person awake in Waltonville and he felt as though he were guarding his beloved.
Mrs. Bent said nothing to her daughter about the sudden and frequent visits of this young man. Certainly no two persons could be more safely or profitably employed than in playing or reading together! She did not listen to what they read, but sat wrapped in her own thoughts, or in that blankness of mind which serves even the most mentally active for thought at times. There were now many moments when she looked worried and harassed. A course which had once seemed reasonable was beginning to seem more and more mad.
On Wednesday evening Richard returned, having kept himself away since Tuesday afternoon. He had said nothing to his mother about Eleanor or her books or her piano. He had been making vague plans. Certain expressions of his mother's came back to him; a sigh when he sat down at the piano, and an unflattering opinion of Thomasina'sfinger exercises, heard by Mrs. Lister as she passed the house. Thomasina, she had said, had been "tinkling and banging," two favorite words from her small musical vocabulary. Richard felt that the time was not propitious. He would wait a day or two until the confusion in his mind had given place to those even and regular processes which had always been his.
He found Eleanor seated on the upper step of the porch, trying to read by the failing light, and he sat down and leaned against the other pillar from where he could watch her. She told him what she had been doing, how she had practiced—this a little wistfully—all the morning, and how she had found that Dr. Green had sat in his carriage listening to her for dear knows how long.
"He's a funny soul," said Eleanor. "He's always bossing me and correcting me, but I love him. Aren't you very fond of him?"
"I don't know that I am," said Richard, conscious of a sudden cooling of whatever emotion he had felt toward Dr. Green.
"Well, I am," said Eleanor. "Did you ever hear how he disposes of his books?"
"No."
"If he begins a book and doesn't like its theories, he drops it into his waste-basket. Then his Virginia carefully fishes it out and carries it down to the cabins. She has a lot of shelves made of soap-boxes, and there stand Billings on the Eye and Jackson on Bones and Piatt on dear knows what."
Eleanor talked easily and well. Her teachers and her friend Miss Thomasina and her acquaintance Mr. Utterly would have been astonished to hear her. It seemed to her that some confining band within her had parted and that she was expanding out of the former compass of her body and her mind. She talked about the moonlight, about the lovely valley, about the poetry she had been reading. Suddenly she turned to Richard.
"What are you going to do this fall?"
"I'm going to study music." Richard woke from a trance to his uneasy thoughts.
"How lovely!" Eleanor sighed. She was beginning to know him and now he would go away; he would become famous, he would forget her entirely. To her came also a determination to be more devoted to her work, to grow as he grew. "When are you going away?"
"In the fall."
"And where will you study?"
"In New York, with Faversham."
"Miss Thomasina's friend?"
"Yes."
"How fortunate you are!" Eleanor meant not only that he was fortunate to be able to do as he pleased, but that he was fortunate to be Richard. "Then you'll forget all about Waltonville."
"It's not likely." Richard remembered miserably that after all nothing was settled. An exceeding high mountain blocked his path and it was growing higher and higher. He looked out over the valley, chin on hand. It seemed to Eleanor that heshut her out of his thoughts, that he had already forgotten her.
"I have written a story that has been accepted," she said timidly, forgetting all her fears and compunctions about what she had written. "It has been accepted by 'Willard's Magazine' and it is to be published very soon. A Mr. Utterly came here to tell me."
Richard's comment came after a long pause.
"I think that is splendid!"
"I haven't told any one but my mother," faltered Eleanor, certain that he must think her boastful and conceited. It seemed to her that again he left in a sudden, unceremonious way.
Again Richard sat by his window. He would have liked to walk the floor, but he was afraid that his mother would hear and that she would come to his room and talk to him. He must have this time alone. He had accomplished nothing, was accomplishing nothing. Only a little while ago he had been so happy and so certain of himself and of all that he was going to do. But Eleanor Bent had had a story accepted for publication! He did not believe that Dr. Scott, whom he called "Old Scotty," had ever dreamed of such an honor. That man Utterly had come to tell her! Utterly had seemed a counterfeit, but he must be a man of some parts or he would not hold a responsible position. She was now even farther above him than before. To-morrow his own future must be definitely settled.
The next afternoon he went to see Thomasina. She would help him as she had always helped him.She sat upon her throne by the garden door with a new life of Beethoven open on the table by her side; she had put it down as he came in to take up a piece of sewing.
"It is amazing and incredible and inspiring to contemplate the obstacles which great spirits have overcome," said Thomasina with shining eyes. "Physical defects, mental defects, opposition of relatives, of all mankind, of fate itself—none of them ever daunted an earnest man set upon achieving a great thing. All great achievement seems to have had the history of Paul's! 'In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.' Richard—" Her bright eyes searched his troubled face—"What is the matter, my dear?"
"Everything," said Richard.
"Suppose we begin with one thing."
Richard slapped his cap up and down on his knee. "I want to get to work."
"Why don't you?"
"What do you suppose my father and mother will say to my studying music?"
"The sooner you hear what they have to say the better for all of you. Your parents are persons of excellent common sense. And I have some news for you. Henry Faversham is to be in Baltimore for a few days before long."
Richard's head whirled.
"Do you suppose I could play for him there? Do you suppose he will ever take me as a pupil?"
"Certainly he will! I haven't spent all theseyears teaching you to have you refused by anybody."
"Suppose I did go, what should I prepare to play?" The unhappy look was gone from Richard's face. Thomasina had the gift of wings, no less than Basil Everman. Moreover, she lifted others out of fog-dimmed valleys up to mountain peaks. Richard's eyes shone, his cheeks glowed, ambition and aspiration now quickened by a new motive, took up their abode once more in his breast.
On his way home Mrs. Scott called to him from her porch. Impatiently he obeyed the summons. He did not like her, and had never disliked her so much as he did at this moment. She had many foolish questions to ask. What did he think of her friend Mr. Utterly? What did he suppose was Mr. Utterly's business with Eleanor Bent? She understood that he had spent an evening with her. The Bents were strange people, they behaved well, yet everything that one knew definitely about Mrs. Bent was that she was a hotel-keeper's daughter.
Richard said shortly in reply that he had had no conversation with Mr. Utterly and that he knew none of his business.
"And I do think it is the most pathetic thing about your Uncle Basil," said Mrs. Scott.
"My Uncle Basil," repeated Richard. "What of him?"
Mrs. Scott's hands clasped one another in a gesture of amazement.
"Why Mr. Utterly said—why where were you?—oh, yes, you were in the kitchen so kindlyhelping Cora!—he said your uncle wrote wonderfully. I think it's very strange—"
Richard was suddenly certain that his neighbor wished to "get something out of him."
"Oh, that!" said he, without having any idea what she meant.
Mrs. Scott made him promise to come the next afternoon to play with Cora. He could not escape. He almost added poor, inoffensive Cora to her mother and the metallic piano in the limbo to which he consigned them. Now his wings drooped. He decided that after supper he would lie down for a few minutes to get rid of the sharp pain which too much practicing had put into the back of his neck. Then he would join his father and mother on the porch and settle the important business of his future.
At the supper table he asked about his Uncle Basil and his mother answered placidly, prepared for the question.
"He had published anonymously some stories and this Mr. Utterly came to ask questions about his life."
"Why wasn't I told?"
"You haven't been here very much of late, my dear."
"Where are the stories?"
"Mr. Utterly has them."
"Couldn't we get them?"
"Perhaps we could."
"How did Mrs. Scott know about him?"
"Mr. Utterly went there to inquire."
"Did you know they had been published?"
"No. You had better stay with us this evening. We scarcely know our boy."
There was to be no escaping to his room. Mrs. Lister laid her arm across his shoulders and together they went out to the porch. The air was cool and sweet; near by a woodpecker tapped slowly, wrens chattered, anxious about their late nestlings, song sparrows trilled, and flickers and robins hopped under the spray which Dr. Lister was sending over his cannas and elephant ears.
Mrs. Lister, with Richard at her side, felt her heart at rest. Utterly had vanished definitely, leaving no trail behind him. She could now think of Richard's future, both immediate and far removed. She asked him whether he would like to pay a visit to Dr. Lister's kin in St. Louis.
"No, indeed," said Richard.
"But you used to want to go out there!"
"But I don't now, mother—unless you want me to take you," he added with sudden compunction.
"Oh, no," said Mrs. Lister.
Further conversation was postponed by the arrival of the Myerses to call. When all possible themes of common interest had been discussed and they had moved on to talk of the same subjects at the Scotts', darkness had come. Mrs. Lister did not wish to give up the idea of a visit.
"You have had a busy winter and this fall you will go to the university, and you may wish to do something else in vacations."
Richard cleared his throat. He sat about a dozenfeet away from his father and mother and facing them as a culprit might have sat.
"But I don't wish to go to the university, mother."
"What do you wish to do?"
Richard almost said passionately, "You know what I wish to do!" But he would have been wrong. Mrs. Lister was certain that Richard had put away all childish things.
"I wish to study music."
Mrs. Lister dropped her hands, palm upward, into her lap.
"I thought you were overthat!" said she, much more sharply than Richard had ever heard her speak. "I thought you had given it up."
"I have never given it up for a minute. I never shall give it up."
Mrs. Lister gasped. Richard might almost as well have announced that he had ceased to think of her or love her. She could not brook difference of opinion in her son.
"It cannot be. I cannot hear of it. You are a man and you must do a man's work."
"It is a man's work!" cried Richard. The pain in the back of his neck was growing more acute. "Father, don't you consider it a man's work?"
Dr. Lister moved uneasily.
"We haven't had musicians in the family thus far. Suppose you tell us about it."
Richard drew a long breath.
"It's what I have wanted to do ever since I have wanted to do anything! I have planned for it allmy life. I have practiced for professional, not for amateur playing. The two are very different. Miss Thomasina has drilled me with the greatest care. I have taken pains with my German and French and Italian. I have talent, Miss Thomasina says so, and I know that I have no other talent, at least. I—"
"Thomasina has been encouraging you, I suppose?" said Mrs. Lister.
"She was my teacher, of course she encouraged me. I am prepared for Faversham. I—"
"Faversham?" Mrs. Lister's tone was as nearly scornful as she could make it. It was as though she alluded to a mountebank.
"I have often told you about him, mother. He is the greatest teacher in New York and he is Miss Thomasina's old friend. She has prepared me for him as though she were a pupil teacher."
"What is a pupil teacher?" asked Mrs. Lister in the same tone.
"He is the pupil of a great master who prepares younger pupils according to the master's methods. Miss Thomasina is the most wonderful person I know."
After that sentence there was a pause, which grew longer and longer.
"Your mother would like you to be a preacher or a teacher like your father and grandfather," said Dr. Lister at last. "Or, perhaps a lawyer or doctor."
"I could not be a doctor. I hate the sight of Dr. Green's office with all the bottles and knives. And a lawyer—I think a lawyer's business is hideous.They make people pay to get what is theirs by right, and they help to cheat the poor. They defend murderers when they know they are murderers and try to hang innocent men. I'm not interested in sick bodies or in crimes. I'm willing to be a teacher, but it must be a teacher of music."
"To take children to teach, like Thomasina, for pay?"
"Why, certainly, for pay! A musician must live like any one else. I wouldn't want to take absolute babies or too many stupid children, but I'd be perfectly willing to begin that way."
"You would cover me with shame!"
"Mother!"
Dr. Lister tapped the arms of his chair nervously. Above all things in the world he disliked acrimonious discussion between members of the same family. Mrs. Lister was hard on the boy. Besides, she was becoming a little ridiculous. He was apt to put off disagreeable duties in the hope that they would not have to be performed or that they might cease to be disagreeable.
"We needn't decide it all at this moment."
"It is decided," said Mrs. Lister.
"Mr. Utterly thought he played very well. I suppose he has had opportunity to judge."
"I consider Mr. Utterly a poor judge of anything," Mrs. Lister went on vehemently. It seemed to her agonized eyes that Richard looked like Basil. Basil never argued, but he took his own way. "I cannot have it," said she. "I will not have it. You are my child. I brought you into the world. I havesome rights in you. If you persist—" Mrs. Lister stopped, terrified, at a bitter reminiscence suggested by her tone and her words. She put up her hand to hide her eyes.
Richard was frightened. It could not be that they would seriously oppose him, that he could not persuade them! It could not be that he would have to work his own way. It could not be that he must hurt and defy his mother! He thought of Eleanor Bent, successful, honored, sought out, lost to him.
"It will not be necessary for you even to get a new piano, mother. I can use Miss Thomasina's and the assembly room piano. I am going to spend my Commencement money for a clavier. It will not make any noise that can be heard when the door of my room is shut. I need not practice at home at all. I will not be a nuisance in the least."
Mrs. Lister looked at him as though he had struck her.
"It is not money," she said slowly. "And it is not noise. But what you wish to do is impossible."
She rose and went into the house.
Richard turned to his father.
"I am sorry for mother," said he. "But I am going to study music."
Here at last was steel under the satin.
Eleanor did not yield without a struggle to the tyranny of this new affection. The seclusion in which she and her mother lived, a natural shyness as deep, though not as manifest, as that which her mother had so strangely developed, and the keen ambition implanted and nourished by Dr. Green had prevented thus far the characteristic seeking of youth for emotion to match its own.
Nor had she been humiliated by the failure of a lover to seek her. Waltonville had seemed to offer no one who was not too old or too young or too dull or already married. She admired her teachers, Dr. Lister and Dr. Scott, and would have selected Dr. Scott as a specimen of her favorite masculine type.
Now she found herself changed. She could not rise in the morning and fill her leisurely summer day as she had planned. The long mornings and longer afternoons and quiet evenings were not hers to divide and use. Instead of steady practicing at exercises and scales, she practiced the bass or treble of duets; instead of sitting at her desk for many quiet productive hours, she sat on the porch or in the little parlor. Plots which she had expected to crystallize promptly now that school was over, refused to progress beyond the point where she hadleft them in her notebooks; images grew dim, words refused to fit themselves to thought, thought itself was dull and valueless. She could put her mind upon one object, Richard Lister; could wish for but one thing, his company.
In the mornings she was least possessed. Then she had still the hope of his coming; the childish belief that if she practiced a certain number of hours or wrote a certain number of pages, the fates would reward her. If afternoon did not bring him, she tried vainly to work, as though she would by her very striving win a blessing. The evenings, if he did not appear, were intolerable. At bedtime she made up her mind definitely to think of him no more, to make to-morrow a day of accomplishment. She saw herself in a dim future greeting him placidly from some tall peak of literary achievement, but she knew while she planned that literary achievement, hitherto so intensely desired, allured no more. In anger at herself she wept.
"I am a fool! I will do differently! I will not think of him!"
The excuses which she invented for him only made a bad matter worse. He was under no obligation to come to see her. Then he did not need her as she needed him! He was surely under no obligation to come to see her every day since he was preparing for the splendid career which was to be his. But she would never shut him out from any career of hers! He was spending his days in the society of his father and mother or of Thomasina or—with Cora Scott. The first possibility she could endure,the second was tolerable, though it brought a pang. But that he could be seeking out Cora Scott, little, quiet, dull Cora Scott! That could not be believed.
A score of pin-pricking anxieties, which she would have laughed at at another time, rose now to vex her. There was a new gown which did not fit; there was an entirely imaginary coolness in Thomasina's greeting; there was, especially, the outrageous use she had made of Dr. Lister's shoelaces and Dr. Scott's den. Her unconsciousness of the offense made it all the more terrible since it seemed to indicate a lack of fine feeling. It was now impossible for her to understand how she could have ever committed so grave a fault.
When Richard had not presented himself for three days, she deliberately collected the meager facts which she knew about her mother and herself. Her mother had been the daughter of the tavern-keeper—Eleanor saw the present tavern-keeper. She had gone away from Waltonville and had married and had afterwards returned. Her father was dead long since; that she had told Eleanor definitely; and her husband was dead also, and she could not bear to speak of either of them or be spoken to about them. She had ample means for their simple living—enough, indeed, for such a luxury as the finest piano in Waltonville, enough so that she and Eleanor could go to New York or Boston for the next winter if they wished. Her money came to her each month from a lawyer in Baltimore who attended to her affairs. There was the total which Eleanor possessed.
It was a total with which she might have been still longer satisfied if it had not been for Richard and the contrast between his situation and her own. He knew all the details of his family history. One grandfather had perished in the Civil War, another had been the honored president of the college. One ancestor, indeed, had signed the Declaration of Independence. If only there were a single Bent or Ginter to place beside him, only a single Bent or Ginter about whom one could even speak!
Steadily bits of the past came into her quickened mind. There was the insulting familiarity of Bates, the sodden drunkard. But he would have known her mother when she lived at the tavern and he might not always have been as he was now.
"Am I growing mad?" said Eleanor in horror of herself.
She remembered also the scolding voice which had gone on and on, which connected itself with her cut head, and which had on another occasion wakened her at night. She heard her mother's voice, weeping, angry, and a single ungrammatical protest, "I ain't going to do it!"
"That I have imagined," said Eleanor.
The simple expedient of asking her mother occurred to her and was rejected. Old habit persisted; she had never forgotten her first rebuff. She still stood, in spite of her superior knowledge, her superior height, and various other superiorities, in awe of little Margie.
When the need of a confidant for some of her trouble became too pressing to be resisted, shewent to Dr. Green, to whom she had gone in all childish complaints. His independent custom of following his own will with complete indifference to all else appeared suddenly a most desirable quality. She would tell him about Dr. Lister's shoelaces.
Dr. Green hailed her loudly and directed her to his inner office while he saw a patient in the outer room. The night was warm and the odor of chemicals more oppressive than usual. Eleanor looked about with the amused astonishment with which the chaos always filled her. How could a human being live in such a state when all might be put to rights in a day? In the corners on the floor was piled an accumulation of medical journals covering five years. Dr. Green's method of filing consisted apparently of a left-handed fling for the "Journal," a right-handed fling for the "Lancet," and a toss over the head for the "Medical Courier." In the fourth corner a spigot dripped water steadily into a rusty sink. In the upper corners were dusty spider webs, and over all the light of an unshaded lamp glared. Sitting in the midst in her beautiful clothes, Eleanor looked like a visiting princess.
When Dr. Green came back, he sat down in the swivel chair before his desk and looked at her carefully, as though seeking some sign of illness. There was for an instant a hungry look in his eyes; he regarded her a little as her mother regarded her, or as Mrs. Lister regarded Richard. It was a look which only Thomasina had ever detected; it had made her laugh when he talked about young men encumbering themselves with families.
"Why don't you have a wife?" asked Eleanor.
Dr. Green stared.
"What!"
"Why don't you have a wife?" Eleanor waved her hand toward the pile of "Lancets." "She'd fix you up."
Dr. Green continued to stare. He flushed and blinked. Eleanor had changed somehow, had gathered from some source a new self-assurance. She had gathered also a new beauty.
"I don't see anything the matter with you." He laid his finger tips on her wrist. "What did you come for? To see me or to borrow a book?"
"I came to see you."
"You don't look exactly happy about it."
"I'm not happy."
"What's the matter with you?"
"I've gotten dreadfully worried about something."
"'Gotten' is obsolete, my dear, and an ugly word at best. What's worrying you?"
Eleanor suddenly blushed scarlet. She had known for three weeks that "Willard's Magazine" would publish "Professor Ellenborough's Last Class."
"I've written a story."
"You have!" Dr. Green brought the seat of his swivel chair down upon the base with a slam. "What sort of story? Where is it?"
"I sent it away." She could not help enjoying the telling. She felt her throat swell and her fingers tingle. She forgot even Richard and realized only that her hopes had been realized. She saw herselfa little girl in Dr. Green's buggy, traveling along a country road. Her clasped hands lay in her lap and were covered by his strong grasp. "You must amount to something, Eleanor," he had said. It had seemed to her that he was almost crying.
"Your story didn't come back, did it?" said Dr. Green now.
"Three times. But at last it has been accepted by 'Willard's Magazine.'"
Dr. Green gave a little start. Though he was a purist, he allowed himself certain vivid expressions.
"The dickens you say!"
Again the hungry look came back into his eyes and was gone. He looked Eleanor over from top to toe, as though expecting her triumph to have left some visible mark upon her.
"Aren't you surprised?"
"I am overwhelmed. Did you bring the story to read to me?"
"Oh, no!"
"When did you hear from them?"
"A Mr. Utterly came to tell me."
"That lily of the field! On Commencement Day? And you are telling menow! Why, Eleanor!"
"I had to get used to it. Then I got worried."
"Worried? What about?"
"It is a college story, and I wrote it without ever dreaming that Waltonville might read it or that any one would take it. I have represented people here in it."
"Not by name!"
"No; but I said one professor in the story had dangling shoelaces."
"Whose?"
"Dr. Lister's."
"Do his shoelaces dangle? What else?"
"I described a den like Dr. Scott's."
"Is that all?"
"Yes."
"Well, as far as the shoelaces are concerned, perhaps it'll teach Lister to keep his tied. And Scott doesn't have a den; he has a neat, dustless resting-place from terror by day and tempest by night. Tell them it's my den. Does your mother know?"
"Of course."
After this there was a little silence. Dr. Green looked at the floor.
"No one else, I suppose?"
"Richard Lister knows." Eleanor believed that she had succeeded in saying the name naturally and easily.
"Richard Lister! How does he come to know?"
"He has been playing duets with me. I—I just happened to tell him."
"Richard is such a nice, sleek, silky mother's boy! I expect he'll be a preacher. Did you read him the story?"
"No. Of course not. I wouldn't read it to any one. I only told him it had been accepted."
"What are you going to do next?" Dr. Green rose and began to walk up and down. He seemed possessed by a sort of rage. "Are you going to sit here and wait for some one to say, 'Eleanor, bemine!' meanwhile making tatting or lambrequins with String, or are you going to improve your mind and amount to something? You haven't done anything yet, you know! You do know that, don't you?"
"Oh, perfectly," answered Eleanor. "I don't know what I'm going to do. It depends on mother. I—"
Dr. Green swept "mother" aside and Eleanor's further explanations with her. "You ought to have experiences; you ought to see pictures and hear fine music and see the world. You—why, Eleanor, you're young, you have talent, you have the finest of prospects! I wouldn't think of anything else. I'd make all my plans for every minute of the day to accomplish one end. You haven't any encumbrances, you haven't any duties! But you must realize that you can't serve two masters. If you have talent, it's a trust, and you've got to improve it. If you don't, if you betray the trust, you'll suffer all your life." He came back and bent over her. "My dear Eleanor, promise to listen to what I say!"
Eleanor's voice refused to obey her bidding. She felt an excitement almost as intense as Dr. Green's and confidence in herself returned.
"Promise me!"
"I promise."
Then she rose unsteadily. Dr. Green's eyes disturbed her. "I must go home. Mother will want me."
Dr. Green did not go with her to the door;instead he tramped up and down his untidy room. "'Mother will want me!'" said he when she had gone.
Eleanor's mood lasted until morning. But when Richard did not come, morning, afternoon, or evening, either that day or the next, ambition became once more ashes in her mouth. It was all very well for Dr. Green to command her to write. Writing could be accomplished only with a mind at peace; talent was not a friend, but a fickle mistress, the companion of happy hours and not a panacea for heartache. She could not understand how her mother, completing her little round of daily duties, could be so quiet, so content. Presently the sight bred resentment. No sympathetic heart could be at rest when one's own was so ill at ease. When another day passed and still Richard did not come, she grew, for the first time in her life, irritable. Presently she put a question without preface as she and her mother sat together in the little dining-room on a rainy evening. The house had seemed all day like a prison.
"Mother, I wish you would tell me something about my father."
Mrs. Bent's head bowed itself lower over her work. The question had all the suddenness of an unexpected thunderbolt.
"What do you want to know about him?"
"Who he was, where he came from, who his people were."
"He was tall," answered Mrs. Bent. "He hadn't many relatives. He lived in Baltimore."
Eleanor saw her mother's hand shake. She had the uncomfortable sensation of one who is pursuing a perfectly correct course, but who is at the same time made to feel that he is entirely wrong.
"Could he write?"
"Could he write?" repeated Mrs. Bent.
"Stories, I mean. I thought that perhaps I had inherited my talent—if I have any talent—from him. I thought perhaps he had written."
"I never heard anything of his writing stories." Mrs. Bent was folding up her work as though she planned for flight, but Eleanor was determined that the conversation should not end.
"Mother—"
Mrs. Bent stood upright.
"I've worked for you and slaved for you," said she thickly. With her flushed face and her eagerness she looked as she had looked twenty years before. With her prettiness something else returned, a certain vulgarity, long shed away. "You have everything you need, don't you?"
"Why, mother!"
"I've given up enough so that you could have things, I guess, and sewed for you and washed and ironed for you, and—"
"Oh, mother, don't!" cried Eleanor. "I didn't mean to worry you, I only thought I would like to know. It's a sort of a mystery."
"It ain't no mystery to me," said Mrs. Bent. Then she began to cry. "I hear somebody coming. Go in and entertain your fine beau that makes you ashamed of your mother!"
Eleanor stood appalled. This must be finished, talked out.
"Why, mother, I—"
"There is some one on the porch, I tell you!"
Eleanor listened. Her breath came in a sob. Then she went to answer the door. Richard was there with a book. He stood for a few minutes and talked, then he sat down at the piano and opened the volume upon the rack.
"I have exactly thirty minutes to stay," said he. "Shall we play?"
Eleanor sat down beside him, her hands like ice. As well play as sit, dumbly.
When he had gone, she went to her mother's closed door. She did not mean to persist in her inquiries, her soft "Mother!" asked only for pardon. But Mrs. Bent made no answer. She was, however, not asleep; she believed, lying exhausted in her little iron bed, that at last, after years of fierce guarding of her tongue, she had done for herself.
Mrs. Lister was relieved in mind when, from day to day, Richard said no more about the choice of a profession. What he was to be was not as important as what he was not to be. Having given up so easily his own plans, he would, she was certain, agree with whatever plans might be made for him. He had never disobeyed in his life and he would not disobey now. She thought with comfort of his acquiescent years.
It was true that he seemed to be taking a little time to recover from the defeat of his plans, but that was only natural. He went quietly about the house, spending most of the day in his own room. When he was away for a whole afternoon, he was of course with Thomasina. His mother determined not even to ask where he had been. She smoothed his bed with the tenderest of touches, she fetched and carried, she consulted with 'Manda about the viands which he liked best.
The summer took on once more its normal character. The Waltonville ladies gave their little parties and Mrs. Scott discovered or invented new devices for the showing-up of their ignorance. She had always been tiresome to Mrs. Lister and this summer she became intolerable. She patterned her conversation after that of Utterly, happy to giverein to an inborn tendency to gossip and to make the most of the small foibles of her acquaintances, a tendency which association with Thomasina and Mrs. Lister had somewhat curbed.
Never had Mrs. Lister had to endure so much of her society. She "ran in" in the mornings; she called with a quiet Cora in the afternoons, and with a still more silent Dr. Scott in the evenings. Always she inquired for Richard. Sometimes she asked outright; again she pretended to see him just vanishing round the corner of the hall. She thought he was not well; she was afraid that he practiced too much and took too little physical exercise; she wondered what he meant to do with himself in the fall. Walter, she was thankful to say, had had no difficulty in deciding upon a life-work.
Presently Mrs. Lister invited Cora to supper and Cora came gladly, prettily dressed and ready with her little fund of small talk. It seemed as though all the pleasant characteristics which had been left out of Mrs. Scott's nature had been given her daughter. Mrs. Lister thought that she had never seen her so sweet.
That Richard was quite unlike himself was clear to every one. He answered in monosyllables; he did not address Cora except in general conversation; he teased no one, not even 'Manda who waited for some comment upon her biscuit; and after supper, rising suddenly, he pleaded an engagement and went away. His mother was stricken numb and dumb, his father looked astonished, and Cora's eyes expressed not so much amazement as cruel pain.
"Why, Richard!" cried Mrs. Lister.
But Richard was gone.
It was Cora who recovered most quickly. Dr. Lister blinked for a second before answering the question which she promptly put to him, first with amazement at Richard, then in sympathy with her evident astonishment and pain, then at her question. She inquired about the politics of modern Italy, and in a second, he answered her as carefully as he would have answered her father. Was she interested in modern Italy? Cora even managed a little laugh as she answered that it was the interesting look of Italy on the map which had always attracted her. She paid Dr. Lister a pretty compliment about his teaching at which he flushed with pleasure and carried her off to the library. If poor Cora wilted a little after her first instinctive flash in her own defense, he did not observe, so absorbed was he in showing her his books.
Both Dr. and Mrs. Lister walked across the campus with her when it was time to go home, her little figure proceeding straight and slender between them. She now talked about nothing, though she spoke steadily in a high, clear voice. When they reached the porch, she did not invite them to come in.
From her sitting-room Mrs. Scott asked where Richard was.
"He's—"for an instant little Cora meant to say, "Richard didn't come in"; then she proceeded composedly into the bright light.
"Dr. and Mrs. Lister brought me home."
"Where was Richard?"
"He had an engagement."
"An engagement! Do you mean to say that he wasn't at supper?"
"Yes, he was at supper."
"An engagement with whom?"
"I didn't ask. Perhaps—" Cora's voice failed her for a second. With whom in Waltonville could Richard have an engagement when he might have been with her?—"perhaps with Miss Thomasina."
"An engagement with Thomasina! When you were there to supper!" Mrs. Scott's ferret eyes seemed to pierce to Cora's soul. "When did this engagement begin?"
"About an hour ago."
"Thomasina is a fool," declared Mrs. Scott. Then she repeated, "a fool."
"Oh, no, mother!" said Cora lightly. "Good-night."
She went up the stairs with an even, steady step. At the top, where all sound was lost in the thick carpet, she stood still, her hand on the banister.
"Nothing dreadful has happened," said she to herself. "He might easily have gone to Miss Thomasina's, he's so crazy about music." After a while she said again, "Nothing dreadful"; then she went into her room and closed the door, and all dressed in her best as she was, lay down and hid her face in her pillow.
When Richard came home at eleven o'clock, his father and mother had gone to bed. He heard themtalking, and they heard him come in. He saw his mother standing in her white gown at her door as he came up the stairs. She had determined to be patient even with this vagary.
"Good-night, Richard," said she. "Good-night, darling."
"Good-night," said Richard.
He went into his room, and for the first time in his life turned the key in the lock, stealthily, slowly, and noiselessly. When, with a shaking hand, he had lit his lamp, he sat down at his desk and wrote a note and pinned it to a newspaper clipping and fastened them both to his pincushion. Then, his hands still shaking, he undressed and blew out his light and lay down upon his bed. His cheeks were scarlet, his hands cold; he lay motionless. At this moment the world revolved that Richard might be happy, stars shone to light his way, flowers bloomed to make his path sweet, streams ran to make music for him. Last night he had been unhappy, worried, uncertain of everything. Now everything was different, everything was glorified. No one had ever been so happy, it was doubtful whether any one could ever have known what happiness was before this transfigured moment.
He had not meant to be rude to Cora; he had scarcely realized even yet that he had been rude, and still less had he meant to give his mother pain. He had read in the morning paper, his eye falling accidentally upon it as it lay on the arm of his father's chair, that Henry Faversham was to be in Baltimore the next day, and he had to tellThomasina—that was all, at first. His mother would not have accepted this excuse for leaving and the only course was to leave without excuse. He had so little to say to Cora and she had so little to say to any one, that time spent with her was wasted unless they could play, and playing was impossible upon the aged Lister piano. If he waited until she was ready to go home, Thomasina might have gone to bed, or if she went home early, Mrs. Scott would entrap him in her spidery way. Hehadto see Thomasina, so he rose and went.
When, excited and elated, he left Thomasina, he did not go home. He had a letter to Henry Faversham; he had certain compositions of his own which she had selected; he had the recollection of a smooth hand on either cheek and a light kiss on his forehead.
"Why, Miss Thomasina isyoung!" said Richard.
He did not go home, because he was afraid that he might find Cora still there, or his mother might be waiting to reprove him. He was determined to endure no more reproof, to take part in no more argument. Argument was undignified and worse than useless. It left opponents with opinions unchanged, but deeply offended with one another; it prevented one from working for a whole day; it numbed one's mind and paralyzed one's hand and blinded one's eyes.
So, to avoid an encounter that night, Richard went to see Eleanor Bent. Hehadto see Eleanor as he had had to see Thomasina. It was after nine o'clock and he was suddenly frightened lest shemight have gone to bed, and he took a short cut down a lane and ran.
Eleanor came promptly to the door and then out to the porch in the soft dark night, and sat down on the upper step. All day she and her mother had avoided each other's eyes. She was forlorn and deeply troubled.
"No, I wasn't thinking of bed. I have always hated to go to bed."
She bent forward and the light from the doorway shone on her dark hair and made her bright eyes gleam, and the little breeze which blew across her to Richard brought the faint scent of perfume. Her voice seemed to have deepened overnight and she spoke with a little tremolo as though she were not quite in command of it.
Richard told his story, at once calmed and further excited. When one has found in one human being both stimulation and peace, a die is cast. He was going to-morrow to Baltimore to see Faversham and arrange for his winter's work. He was going to play for him, to show him his compositions. It was already late and he could not stay. He merely wanted her to know, to think of him.
Eleanor leaned a little toward him.
"Oh, don't go yet," said she, her voice trembling. This, it seemed to her, was the beginning of the end.
"I must," said Richard.
"When will you come again?" Would he ever come, or would he leave her to watch for him, day after day, to do nothing but watch for him? He had already risen; it was possible that he might nevercome back. She was filled with nameless terror. Her mother—
"You look sorry," said Richard. His voice was not like hers, but high and clear. Thomasina did not guess what her kiss had done for Richard. He held out his hand and Eleanor took it and rose.
"I am sorry because you are going away. I haven't any plans except to stay here. I am not sure that I can write any more and the winter looks very long. I ought to go away, but I don't know just how. I—I wish you were going to be here to play with me and read with me sometimes. I—"
"Miss Thomasina is here," said Richard lightly. "She will play with you."
Eleanor smiled, but she seemed to shrink within herself.
Then Richard laughed and crossed the lane of light which separated them and put his arm round her shoulders and drew her back into the deep shadows. He laid his hand beneath her chin and tipped her head back against his breast.
"Do you love me?" asked Richard.
Eleanor yielded slowly to his arm. She felt his lips on her cheek, her hair, her eyes, at first lightly. Then he laughed and kissed her on the mouth.
"Well?" said he. "Have you nothing to say?"
Eleanor lifted her hand to his cheek.
"Nothing," said she.
In a second a sound from within doors drove them apart. Eleanor knew that her mother would not appear, but already Richard stood on the steps. He would bring her music, he said, when he couldcome at a less unearthly hour. This evening he had come out for a walk after they had had company. He hoped that Mrs. Bent was well. It was strange that all of yesterday's rain had not cleared the air. His mother prophesied a day of storms to-morrow and his mother always knew.
Now Richard lay wide-eyed upon his bed. The soft breeze fanned his cheek and wafted the curtains like waving arms into the room. Toward morning the breeze quickened to a gale. It lifted his note and newspaper clipping from the pincushion and carried them across to the farthest corner under the bookcase. By this time he was asleep.
In the morning Richard breakfasted with his father and mother. The breeze had died down and the day was already intensely warm. Mrs. Lister had given a large part of the night to thoughts of him and her pale face showed the effect of her vigil. She had determined upon second thought that his offense could not be overlooked, and for the first time in his life she was thoroughly angry with him. He had not only offended, but he had caused her to offend also. She could not forget Cora's brown, astonished eyes. If it had been Mrs. Scott to whom he had been rude, she might have found an excuse for him. But only the most wanton cruelty could hurt Cora.
Her indignation deepened, when, after her household labors were finished, she could not find the object of her just wrath. He was not in his room, nor in his father's study, nor on the porch, and there was no sound from the chapel organ or the assembly room piano. She had prepared her reproach and she wished to deliver it at once.
But she was to be denied still longer the relief of expression. Richard did not come to his dinner. Occasionally he had lunch with Thomasina, to which objection was made only when dinner had been prepared with a special view to his taste. Mrs. Lister always missed him and never really enjoyeda meal without him, but she felt that such absences were good for her, since they helped to prepare for the day, now so rapidly approaching, when he would go away altogether.
This was not a propitious time for him to absent himself, not only because his mother wished to see him, but because 'Manda had baked waffles. Mrs. Lister could eat nothing and 'Manda scolded about the pains she had taken to prepare food which her "fambly" would not touch.
When he had not appeared at three o'clock, Mrs. Lister passed from a state of anger into one of acute anxiety. She could not rest, could not lie down, could not sew. The heat was intolerable. She sought her husband in his study.
"Where is Richard?" she demanded. "What has got into the boy? Last evening he insulted Cora Scott by walking out as soon as he had had his supper, and now he has gone away, apparently to stay all day, without saying a word to his mother."
Dr. Lister looked up, startled.
"Hasn't he come?"
"He hasn't been here since eight o'clock this morning!"
"He can't be very far away."
"Butwhereis he?"
"Perhaps with Thomasina?"
"Thomasina lies down every afternoon. She'd send him home if he hadn't sense enough to come. Besides, I think she's gone away."
"Perhaps he's in the chapel or the assembly room, practicing."
"There isn't a sound from that direction, not a sound. I've sat at my window and listened and listened." Mrs. Lister began to cry.
"But, mother! This is a grown man, this is not a child!"
"He is a child in his father's house. He owes us respect if he's fifty years old." Mrs. Lister crossed the room and looked out between the slats of the bowed shutter across the shimmering campus. "There are thunderheads above the trees and"—her voice took on a tragic tone—"Mrs. Scott is coming!"
Dr. Lister rose from the couch where he had been napping.
"Shan't I excuse you? It's too hot to see any one, least of all, Mrs. Scott."
"No. Richard might be there. Something might have happened to him and she is coming to tell us!"
"Nothing has happened to him, my dear."
Mrs. Lister met Mrs. Scott at the door. The heat which smote her face as she opened it was so great that she urged her guest to come quickly into the cool parlor. Surely Mrs. Scott would not have ventured out unless she had some special purpose! Perhaps she had come to speak about Richard's behavior to Cora! The idea was fantastic, but it seemed to Mrs. Lister in her alarm perfectly reasonable. Or she might pretend to know nothing about it, yet make Mrs. Lister the most miserable of human beings.
Mrs. Scott agreed that it was hot, but she didnot continue to dwell upon the weather or allow Mrs. Lister to dwell upon it. Even to Dr. Lister, sitting across in his study in a position from which he could see neither of the two ladies or be seen by them, it was plain that she had come upon business of importance. He pictured them both, Mary Alcestis, large, benign, gentle, and slow of speech, Mrs. Scott, small, eager, ferret-like.
He heard the two opening sentences, Mrs. Lister's pleasant compliment to Mrs. Scott's energy, Mrs. Scott's answering boast that the heat could not "throw her out of her stride." Her voice then went on and on. It was confidential and pleasant enough in tone and Dr. Lister could not understand a word, but he was certain that she was worrying Mrs. Lister. It was undoubtedly wrong and un-Christian, but he hated her. He rose, intending to cross the hall and relieve Mary Alcestis of some of the burden of conversation.
Then he stood still by his desk. The softly murmuring voice rose to a tone approximating that in which Mrs. Scott addressed her family.
"I thought you would want to know it, Mrs. Lister. I thought you ought to know it."
"I didn't understand exactly what you said."
"I said that your Richard had been visiting morning, noon, and night, since Commencement, Eleanor Bent," repeated Mrs. Scott. "I said that people thought it very strange that Dr. Lister's son should devote his time to her. He plays duets with her on a beautiful new piano that dear knows where she got, and her mother sits by watching them.I guess she has her own intentions. The piano must have cost a thousand dollars."
Promptly and smoothly came Mrs. Lister's answer.
"I have heard Thomasina say often that Miss Bent plays very well. And he is not there morning, noon, and night, as you say, Mrs. Scott. He is here almost all the time. And after all"—the pause between Mrs. Lister's words suggested to her husband a straight gaze and a head somewhat lifted—"after all, it is Richard's affair, isn't it, and not any one else's?"
Mrs. Scott was too astonished to answer. She was furious at Richard and almost as angry at Cora, who, when informed, would say nothing about his visits to Eleanor except that he was his own master. She had expected that Mrs. Lister would grow deathly white and perhaps faint.
"I should dislike to have my Walter show any attention to a person in such an anomalous position," said she, rising. "I came out of the kindness of my heart."
"I don't know what you mean by an 'anomalous position,'" said Mrs. Lister, rising also. "I am sure Mrs. Bent and her daughter are very quiet, retiring people."
She went with Mrs. Scott to the door and let her out into the burning sunshine. She did not return to the study, but went directly to her room. Dr. Lister sat for a few minutes with his pen poised over his paper, then, when she did not return, he began a letter. He was amused at Mrs. Scott'sfeline retaliation and was grateful to the gods for having given him a Mary Alcestis. There was nothing to be distressed about in the fact that Richard played duets with Eleanor Bent, who was a bright, pretty girl. He said to himself vaguely that if the young rascal didn't come home soon, he would go and fetch him. Hearing a low rumble of thunder, he rejoiced that a change of temperature was at hand.
Richard did not come home to supper. Mrs. Lister ate nothing and made no pretense of eating. The rumbling of thunder continued, growing loud very gradually, as though the storm were only slowly gathering force. She rose from the table and went from window to window, not so much to see whether they were securely fastened as to look out in every direction. There was still the vividly blue sky in all quarters but the northwest, where there was a low, but slowly rising, bank of dark cloud with white-tipped thunderheads above it.
She grew more and more pale, more and more wretched. Her anxiety seemed to weigh down her cheeks and add ten years to her age. Richard must have been hurt; he might have gone for a walk and have fallen and be lying somewhere helpless.
"But there isn't any place to fall from, mother!" said Dr. Lister, now as anxious as she.
Presently, as the sky grew darker and the thunder louder, she wept.
"I will go to Thomasina's," said Dr. Lister, "and I'll stop at Dr. Green's and—"
"Do not ask them any questions!" cried Mrs.Lister. "Do not let them know! People will get to talking!"
"But, mother, we must find him!"
"I cannot have any one know that Richard does not obey us," insisted Mary Alcestis. "You can look in at the window. Thomasina's curtains are always up to the sky and Dr. Green hasn't any in his front office."
Dr. Lister put on a raincoat and took an umbrella and started out against the high wind. The search seemed unreal, weird, impossible. Richard was not at Thomasina's, for the house was dark, and Dr. Green was alone. Dr. Lister went to the assembly room and to the chapel and to all the rooms of the recitation building. He stood in the doorway of each one until a bright flash of lightning or several flashes had illuminated each corner. At the door of Dr. Scott's study he knocked. Within, Dr. Scott sat at the window watching the wide valley magically illuminated by the flashing light, which was now rosy, now bright blue. He had seen nothing of Richard. Dr. Lister said that he had brought Richard an umbrella thinking that he was here. He supposed that by now he was at home. Under the first heavy drops of rain, he hurried back to his house.
As he neared the porch, the sight of a figure approaching from the opposite direction, or, rather, being blown from the opposite direction, startled and relieved him.
"Richard!" said he.
He saw to his amazement that the figure wasnot that of Richard, but the broader form of his mother.
"I thought I would look for him," she gasped, blown finally to the porch step and there firmly seized by her husband. "I couldn't stay in the house and do nothing."
"Where have you been?"
"I thought he might be about s-s-somewhere. I went to see." She quickened her steps. "Perhaps he is here. Oh, I am sure he has come home!"
But he had not come home. His mother called as she opened the door and was answered only by a faint echo from the upper story. She walked with tottering step into the study and sat down and smoothed her hair back into its proper place. Her face was contorted, her lips trembling. Dr. Lister laid his hand on her shoulder.
"My dear, you are so strange! What is back of this? Had you any words with him about anything?"
Mrs. Lister laid her hands palm upward on her lap. With a start at each new roll of thunder she began to speak. The first words made her husband frown; they had long been the sign and signal of trouble. As he listened, he grew amazed, then sick at heart.
"My brother Basil—" Mrs. Lister paused and looked dumbly at her husband.
"Yes, my dear—"
"My brother Basil left us to—to follow the daughter of the village tavern-keeper. That was the last straw, that was what worked on myfather's health and finally killed him. He never saw Basil again. You've said to me so often that Basil was past, that we needn't think of him or trouble about him or break our hearts over him. But he is not past. Nothing ever is. You cannot get away from the things you do and that other people do. They keep on forever, from generation to generation."
"Mary Alcestis, tell me plainly what you mean!"
"It was this woman who calls herself Mrs. Bent whom he followed away. Her name was Margie Ginter."
Dr. Lister drew up a chair and sat down by Mrs. Lister.
"How much of this is suspicion? How much do you reallyknow?"
Mrs. Lister started again. The storm increased in intensity without breaking. The rain fell in slow, heavy drops, audible as they struck the roof of the porch. Her voice, on a high and monotonous key, seemed to fill the house.
"She lived here at the tavern. It was a terrible place. People who keep places of that kind pay some attention to public opinion now, but they didn't then. We found that he went there—my father thought it was to drink. Then one evening I came upon them, him and the girl, on Cherry Street in the dark, walking together under the thick trees. I was not often out alone in the evening, but it seemed that this had to happen. I heard her talking to Basil and I told my father. In a little while they left here, and then he went also."
"Do you mean that your father could compel them to leave?"
"No, I think they were just going. And Basil went too."
"And then?"
"Then, afterwards, he died. And she came back here, brazenly, with a little child and a married name. Once she spoke to me on the street. She said she would like to talk to me about him, but I told her I couldn't. I had Richard with me in the coach and it was right out in the open street. I was afraid to go out for weeks."
"Did she ever make any other effort to speak to you?"
"No; she seemed afraid."
"But if what you think is true, the girl should be older than she is! It can't be, mother!"
"I believe that she is older than she says. How else should she have got ahead of our Richard in school? That is the only way to account for it."