The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  Nor were David's motives selfish or unworthy. His patients were his friends. He had a sense of responsibility to them, and very little faith in the new modern methods. He thought there was a great deal of tomfoolery about them, and he viewed the gradual loss of faith in drugs with alarm. When Dick wore rubber gloves during their first obstetric case together he snorted.

  "I've delivered about half the population of this town," he said, "and slapped 'em to make 'em breathe with my own bare hands. And I'm still here and so are they."

  For by that time Dick had made his decision. He could not abandon David. For him then and hereafter the routine of a general practice in a suburban town, the long hours, the varied responsibilities, the feeling he had sometimes that by doing many things passably he was doing none of them well. But for compensation he had old David's content and greater leisure, and Lucy Crosby's gratitude and love.

  Now and then he chafed a little when he read some article in a medical journal by one of his fellow enthusiasts, or when, in France, he saw men younger than himself obtaining an experience in their several specialties that would enable them to reach wide fields at home. But mostly he was content, or at least resigned. He was building up the Livingstone practice, and his one anxiety was lest the time should come when more patients asked for Doctor Dick than for Doctor David. He did not want David hurt.

  After ten years the strangeness of his situation had ceased to be strange. Always he meant some time to go back to Norada, and there to clear up certain things, but it was a long journey, and he had very little time. And, as the years went on, the past seemed unimportant compared with the present. He gave little thought to the future.

  Then, suddenly, his entire attention became focused on the future.

  Just when he had fallen in love with Elizabeth Wheeler he did not know. He had gone away to the war, leaving her a little girl, apparently, and he had come back to find her, a woman. He did not even know he was in love, at first. It was when, one day, he found himself driving past the Wheeler house without occasion that he began to grow uneasy.

  The future at once became extraordinarily important and so also, but somewhat less vitally, the past. Had he the right to marry, if he could make her care for him?

  He sat in his chair by the window the night after the Homer baby's arrival, and faced his situation. Marriage meant many things. It meant love and companionship, but it also meant, should mean, children. Had he the right to go ahead and live his life fully and happily? Was there any chance that, out of the years behind him, there would come some forgotten thing, some taint or incident, to spoil the carefully woven fabric of his life?

  Not his life. Hers.

  On the Monday night after he had asked Elizabeth to go to the theater he went into David's office and closed the door. Lucy, alive to every movement in the old house, heard him go in and, rocking in her chair overhead, her hands idle in her lap, waited in tense anxiety for the interview to end. She thought she knew what Dick would ask, and what David would answer. And, in a way, David would be right. Dick, fine, lovable, upstanding Dick, had a right to the things other men had, to love and a home of his own, to children, to his own full life.

  But suppose Dick insisted on clearing everything up before he married? For to Lucy it was unthinkable that any girl in her senses would refuse him. Suppose he went back to Norada? He had not changed greatly in ten years. He had been well known there, a conspicuous figure.

  Her mind began to turn on the possibility of keeping him away from Norada.

  Some time later she heard the office door open and then close with Dick's characteristic slam. He came up the stairs, two at a time as was his custom, and knocked at her door. When he came in she saw what David's answer had been, and she closed her eyes for an instant.

  "Put on your things," he said gayly, "and we'll take a ride on the hill-tops. I've arranged for a moon."

  And when she hesitated:

  "It makes you sleep, you know. I'm going, if I have to ride alone and talk to an imaginary lady beside me."

  She rather imagined that that had been his first idea, modified by his thought of her. She went over and put a wrinkled hand on his arm.

  "You look happy, Dick," she said wistfully.

  "I am happy, Aunt Lucy," he replied, and bending over, kissed her.

  On Wednesday he was in a state of alternating high spirits and periods of silence. Even Minnie noticed it.

  "Mr. Dick's that queer I hardly know how to take him." she said to Lucy. "He came back and asked for noodle soup, and he put about all the hardware in the kitchen on him and said he was a knight in armor. And when I took the soup in he didn't eat it."

  It was when he was ready to go out that Lucy's fears were realized. He came in, as always when anything unusual was afoot, to let her look him over. He knew that she waited for him, to give his tie a final pat, to inspect the laundering of his shirt bosom, to pick imaginary threads off his dinner coat.

  "Well?" he said, standing before her, "how's this? Art can do no more, Mrs. Crosby."

  "I'll brush your back," she said, and brought the brush. He stooped to her, according to the little ceremony she had established, and she made little dabs at his speckless back. "There, that's better."

  He straightened.

  "How do you think Uncle David is?" he asked, unexpectedly.

  "Better than he has been in years. Why?"

  "Because I'm thinking of taking a little trip. Only ten days," he added, seeing her face. "You could house-clean my office while I'm away. You know you've been wanting to."

  She dropped the brush, and he stooped to pick it up. That gave her a moment.

  "'Where?" she managed.

  "To Dry River, by way of Norada."

  "Why should you go back there?" she asked, in a carefully suppressed voice. "Why don't you go East? You've wanted to go back to Johns Hopkins for months?"

  "On the other hand, why shouldn't I go back to Norada?" he asked, with an affectation of lightness. Then he put his hand on her shoulders. "Why shouldn't I go back and clear things up in my own mind? Why shouldn't I find out, for instance, that I am a free man?"

  "You are free."

  "I've got to know," he said, almost doggedly. "I can't take a chance. I believe I am. I believe David, of course. But anyhow I'd like to see the ranch. I want to see Maggie Donaldson."

  "She's not at the ranch. Her husband died, you know."

  "I have an idea I can find her," he said. "I'll make a good try, anyhow."

  When he had gone she got her salts bottle and lay down on her bed. Her heart was hammering wildly.

  Elizabeth was waiting for him in the living-room, in the midst of her family. She looked absurdly young and very pretty, and he had a momentary misgiving that he was old to her, and that--Heaven save the mark!--that she looked up to him. He considered the blue dress the height of fashion and the mold of form, and having taken off his overcoat in the hall, tried to put on Mr. Wheeler's instead in his excitement. Also, becoming very dignified after the overcoat incident, and making an exit which should conceal his wild exultation and show only polite pleasure, he stumbled over Micky, so that they finally departed to a series of staccato yelps.

  He felt very hot and slightly ridiculous as he tucked Elizabeth into the little car, being very particular about her feet, and starting with extreme care, so as not to jar her. He had the feeling of being entrusted temporarily with something infinitely precious, and very, very dear. Something that must never suffer or be hurt.

  VI

  On Wednesday morning David was in an office in the city. He sat forward on the edge of his chair, and from time to time he took out his handkerchief and wiped his face or polished his glasses, quite unconscious of either action. He was in his best suit, with the tie Lucy had given him for Christmas.

  Across from him, barricaded behind a great mahogany desk, sat a small man with keen eyes and a neat brown beard. On the desk were a spotless blotter, an inkstand of silver and a pen. Nothin
g else. The terrible order of the place had at first rather oppressed David.

  The small man was answering a question.

  "Rather on the contrary, I should say. The stronger the character the greater the smash."

  David pondered this.

  "I've read all you've written on the subject," he said finally. "Especially since the war."

  The psycho-analyst put his finger tips together, judicially. "Yes. The war bore me out," he observed with a certain complacence. "It added a great deal to our literature, too, although some of the positions are not well taken. Van Alston, for instance--"

  "You have said, I think, that every man has a breaking point."

  "Absolutely. All of us. We can go just so far. Where the mind is strong and very sound we can go further than when it is not. Some men, for instance, lead lives that would break you or me. Was there --was there such a history in this case?"

  "Yes." Doctor David's voice was reluctant.

  "The mind is a strange thing," went on the little man, musingly. "It has its censors, that go off duty during sleep. Our sternest and often unconscious repressions pass them then, and emerge in the form of dreams. But of course you know all that. Dream symbolism. Does the person in this case dream? That would be interesting, perhaps important."

  "I don't know," David said unhappily.

  "The walling off, you say, followed a shock?"

  "Shock and serious illness."

  "Was there fear with the shock?"

  David hesitated. "Yes," he said finally. "Very great fear, I believe."

  Doctor Lauler glanced quickly at David and then looked away.

  "I see," he nodded. "Of course the walling off of a part of the past--you said a part--?"

  "Practically all of it. I'll tell you about that later. What about the walling off?"

  "It is generally the result of what we call the protective mechanism of fear. Back of most of these cases lies fear. Not cowardice, but perhaps we might say the limit of endurance. Fear is a complex, of course. Dislike, in a small way, has the same reaction. We are apt to forget the names of persons we dislike. But if you have been reading on the subject--"

  "I've been studying it for ten years."

  "Ten years! Do you mean that this condition has persisted for ten years?"

  David moistened his dry lips. "Yes," he admitted. "It might not have done so, but the--the person who made this experiment used suggestion. The patient was very ill, and weak. It was desirable that he should not identify himself with his past. The loss of memory of the period immediately preceding was complete, but of course, gradually, the cloud began to lift over the earlier periods. It was there that suggestion was used, so that such memories as came back were,--well, the patient adapted them to fit what he was told."

  Again Doctor Lauler shot a swift glance at David, and looked away.

  "An interesting experiment," he commented. "It must have taken courage."

  "A justifiable experiment," David affirmed stoutly. "And it took courage. Yes."

  David got up and reached for his hat. Then he braced himself for the real purpose of his visit.

  "What I have been wondering about," he said, very carefully, "is this: this mechanism of fear, this wall--how strong is it?"

  "Strong?"

  "It's like a dam, I take it. It holds back certain memories, like a floodgate. Is anything likely to break it down?"

  "Possibly something intimately connected with the forgotten period might do it. I don't know, Livingstone. We've only commenced to dig into the mind, and we have many theories and a few established facts. For instance, the primal instincts--"

  He talked on, with David nodding now and then in apparent understanding, but with his thoughts far away. He knew the theories; a good many of them he considered poppycock. Dreams might come from the subconscious mind, but a good many of them came from the stomach. They might be safety valves for the mind, but also they might be rarebit. He didn't want dreams; what he wanted was facts. Facts and hope.

  The office attendant came in. She was as tidy as the desk, as obsessed by order, as wooden. She placed a pad before the small man and withdrew. He rose.

  "Let me know if I can be of any further assistance, Doctor," he said. "And I'll be glad to see your patient at any time. I'd like the record for my files."

  "Thank you," David said. He stood fingering his hat.

  "I suppose there's nothing to do? The dam will either break, or it won't."

  "That's about it. Of course since the conditions that produced the setting up of the defensive machinery were unhappy, I'd say that happiness will play a large part in the situation. That happiness and a normal occupation will do a great deal to maintain the status quo. Of course I would advise no return to the unhappy environment, and no shocks. Nothing, in other words, to break down the wall."

  Outside, in the corridor, David remembered to put on his hat. Happiness and a normal occupation, yes. But no shock.

  Nevertheless, he felt vaguely comforted, and as though it had helped to bring the situation out into the open and discuss it. He had carried his burden alone for ten years, or with only the additional weight of Lucy's apprehensions. He wandered out into the city streets, and found himself, some time later, at the railway station, without remembering how he got there.

  Across from the station was a large billboard, and on it the name of Beverly Carlysle and her play, "The Valley." He stood for some time and looked at it, before he went in to buy his ticket. Not until he was in the train did he realize that he had forgotten to get his lunch.

  He attended to his work that evening as usual, but he felt very tired, and Lucy, going in at nine o'clock, found him dozing in his chair, his collar half choking him and his face deeply suffused. She wakened him and then, sitting down across from him, joined him in the vigil that was to last until they heard the car outside.

  She had brought in her sewing, and David pretended to read. Now and then he looked at his watch.

  At midnight they heard the car go in, and the slamming of the stable door, followed by Dick's footsteps on the walk outside. Lucy was very pale, and the hands that held her sewing twitched nervously. Suddenly she stood up and put a hand on David's shoulder.

  Dick was whistling on the kitchen porch.

  VII

  Louis Bassett was standing at the back of the theater, talking to the publicity man of The Valley company, Fred Gregory. Bassett was calm and only slightly interested. By the end of the first act he had realized that the star was giving a fine performance, that she had even grown in power, and that his sentimental memory of her was considerably dearer than the reality.

  "Going like a house afire," he said, as the curtain fell.

  Beside his robust physique, Gregory, the publicity man, sank into insignificance. Even his pale spats, at which Bassett had shot a contemptuous glance, his highly expensive tailoring, failed to make him appear more than he was, a little, dapper man, with a pale cold eye and a rather too frequent smile. "She's the best there is," was his comment. He hesitated, then added: "She's my sister, you know. Naturally, for business reasons, I don't publish the relationship."

  Bassett glanced at him.

  "That so? Well, I'm glad she decided to come back. She's too good to bury."

  But if he expected Gregory to follow the lead he was disappointed. His eyes, blank and expressionless, were wandering over the house as the lights flashed up.

  "This whole tour has been a triumph. She's the best there is," Gregory repeated, "and they know it."

  "Does she know it?" Bassett inquired.

  "She doesn't throw any temperament, if that's what you mean. She--"

  He checked himself suddenly, and stood, clutching the railing, bent forward and staring into the audience. Bassett watched him, considerably surprised. It took a great deal to startle a theatrical publicity man, yet here was one who looked as though he had seen a ghost.

  After a time Gregory straightened and moistened his dry lips.


  "There's a man sitting down there--see here, the sixth row, next the aisle; there's a girl in a blue dress beside him. See him? Do you know who he is?"

  "Never saw him before."

  For perhaps two minutes Gregory continued to stare. Then he moved over to the side of the house and braced against the wall continued his close and anxious inspection. After a time he turned away and, passing behind the boxes, made his way into the wings. Bassett's curiosity was aroused, especially when, shortly after, Gregory reappeared, bringing with him a small man in an untidy suit who was probably, Bassett surmised, the stage manager.

  He saw the small man stare, nod, stand watching, and finally disappear, and Gregory resume his former position and attitude against the side wall. Throughout the last act Gregory did not once look at the stage. He continued his steady, unwavering study of the man in the sixth row seat next the aisle, and Bassett continued his study of the little man.

  His long training made him quick to scent a story. He was not sure, of course, but the situation appeared to him at least suggestive. With the end of the play he wandered out with the crowd, edging his way close to the man and girl who had focused Gregory's attention, and following them into the street. He saw only a tall man with a certain quiet distinction of bearing, and a young and pretty girl, still flushed and excited, who went up the street a short distance and got into a small and shabby car. Bassett noted, carefully, the license number of the car.

  Then, still curious and extremely interested, he walked briskly around to the stage entrance, nodded to the doorkeeper, and went in.

  Gregory was not in sight, but the stage manager was there, directing the striking of the last set.

  "I'm waiting for Gregory," Bassett said. "Hasn't fainted, has he?"

  "What d'you mean, fainted?" inquired the stage manager, with a touch of hostility.

  "I was with him when he thought he recognized somebody. You know who. You can tell him I got his automobile number."