The Breaking Point

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  XIII

  The week that followed was an anxious one. David's physical conditionslowly improved. The slight thickness was gone from his speech, and hesipped resignedly at the broths Lucy or the nurse brought at regularintervals. Over the entire house there hung all day the odor of stewingchicken or of beef tea in the making, and above the doorbell was a whitecard which said: "Don't ring. Walk in."

  As it happened, no one in the old house had seen Maggie Donaldson'sconfession in the newspaper. Lucy was saved that anxiety, at least.Appearing, as it did, the morning after David's stroke, it came in withthe morning milk, lay about unnoticed, and passed out again, to starta fire or line a pantry shelf. Harrison Miller, next door, read it overhis coffee. Walter Wheeler in the eight-thirty train glanced at it andglanced away. Nina Ward read it in bed. And that was all.

  There came to the house a steady procession of inquirers and bearersof small tribute, flowers and jellies mostly, but other things also.A table in David's room held a steadily growing number of bedroomslippers, and Mrs. Morgan had been seen buying soles for still others.David, propped up in his bed, would cheer a little at these votiveofferings, and then relapse again into the heavy troubled silence thatworried Dick and frightened Lucy Crosby. Something had happened, she wassure. Something connected with Dick. She watched David when Dick wasin the room, and she saw that his eyes followed the younger man withsomething very like terror.

  And for the first time since he had walked into the house that night solong ago, followed by the tall young man for whose coming a letter hadprepared her, she felt that David had withdrawn himself from her. Shewent about her daily tasks a little hurt, and waited for him to choosehis own time. But, as the days went on, she saw that whatever this newthing might be, he meant to fight it out alone, and that the fighting itout alone was bad for him. He improved very slowly.

  She wondered, sometimes, if it was after all because of Dick's growinginterest in Elizabeth Wheeler. She knew that he was seeing her daily,although he was too busy now for more than a hasty call. She felt thatshe could even tell when he had seen her; he would come in, glowing andalmost exalted, and, as if to make up for the moments stolen from David,would leap up the stairs two at a time and burst into the invalid's roomlike a cheerful cyclone. Wasn't it possible that David had begun tofeel as she did, that the girl was entitled to a clean slate beforeshe pledged herself to Dick? And the slate--poor Dick!--could never becleaned.

  Then, one day, David astonished them both. He was propped up in his bed,and he had demanded a cigar, and been very gently but firmly refused.He had been rather sulky about it, and Dick had been attempting to rallyhim into better humor when he said suddenly:

  "I've had time to think things over, Dick. I haven't been fair to you.You're thrown away here. Besides--" he hesitated. Then: "We might aswell face it. The day of the general practitioner has gone."

  "I don't believe it," Dick said stoutly. "Maybe we are only signpoststo point the way to the other fellows, but the world will always needsignposts."

  "What I've been thinking of," David pursued his own train of thought,"is this: I want you to go to Johns Hopkins and take up the special workyou've been wanting to do. I'll be up soon and--"

  "Call the nurse, Aunt Lucy," said Dick. "He's raving."

  "Not at all," David retorted testily. "I've told you. This whole townonly comes here now to be told what specialist to go to, and you knowit."

  "I don't know anything of the sort."

  "If you don't, it's because you won't face the facts." Dick chuckled,and threw an arm over David's shoulder, "You old hypocrite!" he said."You're trying to get rid of me, for some reason. Don't tell me you'regoing to get married!"

  But David did not smile. Lucy, watching him from her post by the window,saw his face and felt a spasm of fear. At the most, she had feareda mental conflict in David. Now she saw that it might be somethinginfinitely worse, something impending and immediate. She could hardlyreply when Dick appealed to her.

  "Are you going to let him get rid of me like this, Aunt Lucy?" hedemanded. "Sentenced to Johns Hopkins, like Napoleon to St. Helena! Areyou with me, or forninst me?"

  "I don't know, Dick," she said, with her eyes on David. "If it's foryour good--"

  She went out after a time, leaving them at it hammer and tongs. Davidwas vanquished in the end, but Dick, going down to the office lateron, was puzzled. Somehow it was borne in on him that behind David'sinsistence was a reason, unspoken but urgent, and the only reason thatoccurred to him as possible was that David did not, after all, want himto marry Elizabeth Wheeler. He put the matter to the test that night,wandering in in dressing-gown and slippers, as was his custom beforegoing to bed, for a brief chat. The nurse was downstairs, and Dick movedabout the room restlessly. Then he stopped and stood by the bed, lookingdown.

  "A few nights ago, David, I asked you if you thought it would be rightfor me to marry; if my situation justified it, and if to your knowledgethere was any other reason why I could not or should not. You said therewas not."

  "There is no reason, of course. If she'll have you."

  "I don't know that. I know that whether she will or not is a prettyvital matter to me, David."

  David nodded, silently.

  "But now you want me to go away. To leave her. You're rather urgentabout it. And I feel-well I begin to think you have a reason for it."

  David clenched his hands under the bed-clothing, but he returned Dick'sgaze steadily.

  "She's a good girl," he said. "But she's entitled to more than you cangive her, the way things are."

  "That is presupposing that she cares for me. I haven't an idea thatshe does. That she may, in time--Then, that's the reason for this JohnsHopkins thing, is it?"

  "That's the reason," David said stoutly. "She would wait for you. She'sthat sort. I've known her all her life. She's as steady as a rock. Butshe's been brought up to have a lot of things. Walter Wheeler is welloff. You do as I want you to; pack your things and go to Baltimore.Bring Reynolds down here to look after the work until I'm around again."

  But Dick evaded the direct issue thus opened and followed another lineof thought.

  "Of course you understand," he observed, after a renewal of his restlesspacing, "that I've got to tell her my situation first. I don't need totell you that I funk doing it, but it's got to be done."

  "Don't be a fool," David said querulously. "You'll set a lot of womencackling, and what they don't know they'll invent. I know 'em."

  "Only herself and her family."

  "Why?"

  "Because they have a right to know it."

  But when he saw David formulating a further protest he dropped thesubject.

  "I'll not do it until we've gone into it together," he promised."There's plenty of time. You settle down now and get ready for sleep."

  When the nurse came in at eleven o'clock she found Dick gone and David,very still, with his face to the wall.

  It was the end of May before David began to move about his upper room.The trees along the shaded streets had burst into full leaf by thattime, and Mike was enjoying that gardener's interval of paradise whenflowers grow faster than the weeds among them. Harrison Miller, havingrolled his lawn through all of April, was heard abroad in the earlymornings with the lawn mower or hoe in hand was to be seen behind hishouse in his vegetable patch.

  Cars rolled through the streets, the rear seats laden with blossomingloot from the country lanes, and the Wheeler dog was again burying bonesin the soft warm ground under the hedge.

  Elizabeth Wheeler was very happy. Her look of expectant waiting, oncevague, had crystallized now into definite form. She was waiting, timidlyand shyly but with infinite content. In time, everything would come.And in the meantime there was to-day, and some time to-day a shabby carwould stop at the door, and there would be five minutes, or ten. Andthen Dick would have to hurry to work, or back to David. After that, ofcourse, to-day was over, but there would always be to-morrow.

  Now and then, at choir
practice or at service, she saw Clare Rossiter.But Clare was very cool to her, and never on any account sought her,or spoke to her alone. She was rather unhappy about Clare, when sheremembered her. Because it must be so terrible to care for a man whoonly said, when one spoke of Clare, "Oh, the tall blonde girl?"

  Once or twice, too, she had found Clare's eyes on her, and they werehostile eyes. It was almost as though they said: "I hate you because youknow. But don't dare to pity me."

  Yet, somehow, Elizabeth found herself not entirely believing thatClare's passion was real. Because the real thing you hid with allyour might, at least until you were sure it was wanted. After that,of course, you could be so proud of it that you might become utterlyshameless. She was afraid sometimes that she was the sort to be utterlyshameless. Yet, for all her halcyon hours, there were little things thatworried her. Wallie Sayre, for instance, always having to be kept fromsaying things she didn't want to hear. And Nina. She wasn't sure thatNina was entirely happy. And, of course, there was Jim.

  Jim was difficult. Sometimes he was a man, and then again he was a boy,and one never knew just which he was going to be. He was too old fordiscipline and too young to manage himself. He was spending almost allhis evenings away from home now, and her mother always drew an inaudiblesigh when he was spoken of.

  Elizabeth had waited up for him one night, only a short time before, andbeckoning him into her room, had talked to him severely.

  "You ought to be ashamed, Jim," she said. "You're simply worrying mothersick."

  "Well, why?" he demanded defiantly. "I'm old enough to take care ofmyself."

  "You ought to be taking care of her, too."

  He had looked rather crestfallen at that, and before he went out heoffered a half-sheepish explanation.

  "I'd tell them where I go," he said, "but you'd think a pool room was onthe direct road to hell. Take to-night, now. I can't tell them about it,but it was all right. I met Wallie Sayre and Leslie at the club beforedinner, and we got a fourth and played bridge. Only half a cent a point.I swear we were going on playing, but somebody brought in a chapnamed Gregory for a cocktail. He turned out to be a brother of BeverlyCarlysle, the actress, and he took us around to the theater and gave usa box. Not a thing wrong with it, was there?"

  "Where did you go from there?" she persisted inexorably. "It's half pastone."

  "Went around and met her. She's wonderful, Elizabeth. But do you knowwhat would happen if I told them? They'd have a fit."

  She felt rather helpless, because she knew he was right from his ownstandpoint.

  "I know. I'm surprised at Les, Jim."

  "Oh, Les! He just trailed along. He's all right."

  She kissed him and he went out, leaving her to lie awake for a longtime. She would have had all her world happy those days, and all herworld good. She didn't want anybody's bread and butter spilled on thecarpet.

  So the days went on, and the web slowly wove itself into its complicatedpattern: Bassett speeding West, and David in his quiet room; Jimand Leslie Ward seeking amusement, and finding it in the littereddressing-room of a woman star at a local theater; Clare Rossiterbrooding, and the little question being whispered behind hands,figuratively, of course--the village was entirely well-bred; Gregorycalling round to see Bassett, and turning away with the information thathe had gone away for an indefinite time; and Maggie Donaldson, lying inthe cemetery at the foot of the mountains outside Norada, having shrivenher soul to the limit of her strength so that she might face her Maker.

  Out of all of them it was Clare Rossiter who made the first consciousmove of the shuttle; Clare, affronted and not a little malicious, butperhaps still dramatizing herself, this time as the friend whofeels forced to carry bad tidings. Behind even that, however, wasan unconscious desire to see Dick again, and this time so to impressherself on him that never again could he pass her in the streetunnoticed.

  On the day, then, that David first sat up in bed Clare went to the houseand took her place in the waiting-room. She was dressed with extremecare, and she carried a parasol. With it, while she waited, she drilledsmall nervous indentations in the old office carpet, and formulated herline of action.

  Nevertheless she found it hard to begin.

  "I don't want to keep you, if you're busy," she said, avoiding his eyes."If you are in a hurry--"

  "This is my business," he said patiently. And waited.

  "I wonder if you are going to understand me, when I do begin?"

  "You sound alarmingly ominous." He smiled at her, and she had a momentof panic. "You don't look like a young lady with anything eating at herdamask cheek, or however it goes."

  "Doctor Livingstone," she said suddenly, "people are saying somethingabout you that you ought to know."

  He stared at her, amazed and incredulous.

  "About me? What can they say? That's absurd."

  "I felt you ought to know. Of course I don't believe it. Not for amoment. But you know what this town is."

  "I know it's a very good town," he said steadily. "However, let's haveit. I daresay it is not very serious."

  She was uneasy enough by that time, and rather frightened when she hadfinished. For he sat, quiet and rather pale, not looking at her at all,but gazing fixedly at an old daguerreotype of David that stood on hisdesk. One that Lucy had shown him one day and which he had preempted;David at the age of eight, in a small black velvet suit and with verythin legs.

  "I thought you ought to know," she justified herself, nervously.

  Dick got up.

  "Yes," he said. "I ought to know, of course. Thank you."

  When she had gone he went back and stood before the picture again. FromClare's first words he had had a stricken conviction that the thing wastrue; that, as Mrs. Cook Morgan's visitor from Wyoming had insisted,Henry Livingstone had never married, never had a son. He stood and gazedat the picture. His world had collapsed about him, but he was steady andvery erect.

  "David, David!" he thought. "Why did you do it? And what am I? And who?"

  Characteristically his first thought after that was of David himself.Whatever David had done, his motive had been right. He would have tostart with that. If David had built for him a false identity it wasbecause there was a necessity for it. Something shameful, something hewas to be taken away from. Wasn't it probable that David had heard thegossip, and had then collapsed? Wasn't the fear that he himself wouldhear it behind David's insistence that he go to Baltimore?

  His thoughts flew to Elizabeth. Everything was changed now, as toElizabeth. He would have to be very certain of that past of his beforehe could tell her that he loved her, and he had a sense of immediatehelplessness. He could not go to David, as things were. To Lucy?

  Probably he would have gone to Lucy at once, but the telephone rang.He answered it, got his hat and bag and went out to the car. Years withDavid had made automatic the subordination of self to the demands of thepractice.

  At half past six Lucy heard him come in and go into his office. When hedid not immediately reappear and take his flying run up the stairs toDavid's room, she stood outside the office door and listened. She had apremonition of something wrong, something of the truth, perhaps. Anyhow,she tapped at the door and opened it, to find him sitting very quietlyat his desk with his head in his hands.

  "Dick!" she exclaimed. "Is anything wrong?"

  "I have a headache," he said. He looked at his watch and got up. "I'lltake a look at David, and then we'll have dinner. I didn't know it wasso late."

  But when she had gone out he did not immediately move. He had been goingover again, painfully and carefully, the things that puzzled him, thathe had accepted before without dispute. David and Lucy's reluctance todiscuss his father; the long days in the cabin, with David helping himto reconstruct his past; the spring, and that slow progress which now hefelt, somehow, had been an escape.

  He ate very little dinner, and Lucy's sense of dread increased. When,after the meal, she took refuge in her sitting-room on the lower floorand picked up he
r knitting, it was with a conviction that it was only atemporary reprieve. She did not know from what.

  She heard him, some time later, coming down from David's room. But hedid not turn into his office. Instead, he came on to her door, stood fora moment like a man undecided, then came in. She did not look up, evenwhen very gently he took her knitting from her and laid it on the table.

  "Aunt Lucy."

  "Yes, Dick."

  "Don't you think we'd better have a talk?"

  "What about?" she asked, with her heart hammering.

  "About me." He stood above her, and looked down, still with thetenderness with which he always regarded her, but with resolution in hisvery attitude. "First of all, I'll tell you something. Then I'll ask youto tell me all you can."

  She yearned over him as he told her, for all her terror. His voice, forall its steadiness, was strained.

  "I have felt for some time," he finished, "that you and David werekeeping something from me. I think, now, that this is what it was. Ofcourse, you realize that I shall have to know."

  "Dick! Dick!" was all she could say.

  "I was about," he went on, with his almost terrible steadiness, "to aska girl to take my name. I want to know if I have a name to offer her. Ihave, you see, only two alternatives to believe about myself. EitherI am Henry Livingstone's illegitimate son, and in that case I have noright to my name, or to offer it to any one, or I am--"

  He made a despairing gesture.

  "--or I am some one else, some one who was smuggled out of the mountainsand given an identity that makes him a living lie."

  Always she had known that this might come some time, but always too shehad seen David bearing the brunt of it. He should bear it. It was notof her doing or of her approving. For years the danger of discovery hadhung over her like a cloud.

  "Do you know which?" he persisted.

  "Yes, Dick."

  "Would you have the unbelievable cruelty not to tell me?"

  She got up, a taut little figure with a dignity born of her fear and ofher love for him.

  "I shall not betray David's confidence," she said. "Long ago I warnedhim that this time would come. I was never in favor of keeping youin ignorance. But it is David's problem, and I cannot take theresponsibility of telling you."

  He knew her determination and her obstinate loyalty. But he was fairlydesperate.

  "You know that if you don't tell me, I shall go to David?"

  "If you go now you will kill him."

  "It's as bad as that, is it?" he asked grimly. "Then there is somethingshameful behind it, is there?"

  "No, no, Dick. Not that. And I want you, always, to remember this. WhatDavid did was out of love for you. He has made many sacrifices for you.First he saved your life, and then he made you what you are. And he hashad a great pride in it. Don't destroy his work of years."

  Her voice broke and she turned to go out, her chin quivering, but halfway to the door he called to her.

  "Aunt Lucy--" he said gently.

  She heard him behind her, felt his strong arms as he turned her about.He drew her to him and stooping, kissed her cheek.

  "You're right," he said. "Always right. I'll not worry him with it. Myword of honor. When the time comes he'll tell me, and until it comes,I'll wait. And I love you both. Don't ever forget that."

  He kissed her again and let her go.

  But long after David had put down his prayer-book that night, andafter the nurse had rustled down the stairs to the night supper on thedining-room table, Lucy lay awake and listened to Dick's slow pacing ofhis bedroom floor.

  He was very gentle with David from that time on, and tried to returnto his old light-hearted ways. On the day David was to have his firstbroiled sweetbread he caught the nurse outside, borrowed her cap andapron and carried in the tray himself.

  "I hope your food is to your taste, Doctor David," he said, in a highfalsetto which set the nurse giggling in the hall. "I may not be much ofa nurse, but I can cook."

  Even Lucy was deceived at times. He went his customary round, sent outthe monthly bills, opened and answered David's mail, bore the doubleburden of David's work and his own ungrudgingly, but off guard he wasgrave and abstracted. He began to look very thin, too, and Lucy oftenheard him pacing the floor at night. She thought that he seldom or neverwent to the Wheelers'.

  And so passed the tenth day of David's illness, with the smile onElizabeth's face growing a trifle fixed as three days went by withoutthe shabby car rattling to the door; with "The Valley" playing itssecond and final week before going into New York; and with Leslie Wardunconsciously taking up the shuttle Clare had dropped, and carrying thepattern one degree further toward completion.