Oliver’s fingers tapped on the arm of his chair. Mr. Bassett was studying him a trifle too acutely. He was moving his eyes over Oliver’s face, over his body, and then over his tapping fingers. Oliver immediately held his hand still.
“What do you think of Gene Arnold, Oliver?” asked Mr. Bassett. He was smiling oddly.
“I don’t know him well,” replied Oliver. “I’ve seen him thousands of times, I suppose, but still I don’t know him well. There was never any—shall we call it rapport, between us, sir.”
Mr. Bassett appeared vaguely amused at Oliver’s words. But he only murmured: “Yes, yes, of course.” He went on: “In spite of what some ill-natured people might say, Chauncey was no fool, except in one instance. He might have continued to display intelligence, if he hadn’t been so self-indulgent in his later years, just before he died. You never saw him; he was a very handsome young man, at one time, very—er—vivid. We were children and boys, together, Oliver. Chauncey, however, later on, developed a tendency to indiscretion, and put on too much flesh. Moreover, he drank considerably.” Mr. Bassett sighed with regret.
“Is that the ‘sordid’ story you wish to tell me, Mr. Bassett?” asked Oliver, after some moments of silence had passed.
“Eh? No, it was only a prelude, my dear boy. I just wanted you to understand Mr. Arnold’s whole story, his background.”
Again, Oliver waited. He seemed to have lost all senses but hearing.
“People are apt to be rather censorious about what they consider a man’s loss of ‘virtue’,” Mr. Bassett went on. “We are coming on more enlightened and less rigid days; perhaps this is good, perhaps it is bad.
“Now, Oliver, you perhaps remember Mrs. Arnold?”
Oliver had a sudden vision of Alice. “Yes, I called her Aunt Alice. She was kind to me, and my mother regarded her as her friend.”
Mr. Bassett nodded, agreeably. “Yes. They were what, in my day, we called ‘great ladies’. Your mother, Oliver, is still a great lady.” He paused. “Chauncey was devoted to Alice. And that is why he came to me, nearly twenty-five years ago, with a story that distressed him to tell and me to hear.
“In short,” said Mr. Bassett, “it was the old, old story. The old story, this time with a slight variation. He was once a rich man. Alice had a personal maid, a quiet, demure little thing, a Mennonite. You know the Mennonites, Oliver? Full of integrity, rigid in their personal lives?”
Oliver could not speak.
For a moment or two, Mr. Bassett gave his attention to the fire.
“Her name,” he said, “was Mary Bauer. She was eighteen years old and, in spite of her queer clothes and her little bonnets, a very pretty little creature. I saw her only once or twice. Big dark eyes, smooth dark hair, and the sweetest voice.”
“In short,” repeated Oliver, and his voice was hoarse, “it was the ‘old, old story’. In short, Mr. Arnold seduced Mary Bauer.”
Mr. Bassett coughed, as if hurt at such open vulgarity. “Dear me,” he murmured, “for a lawyer, you are a very precipitate young man, Oliver. Let us say that Chauncey and the girl fell in love.”
“A middle-aged man and a girl hardly more than a child!” exclaimed Oliver with loud bitterness. He caught himself. Mr. Bassett was smiling, and the smile was not agreeable.
“It happened that Chauncey was much taken by the girl,” he said. “I think he even loved her. Yes, I am sure of that. I don’t know how the whole thing happened, and especially when the girl came of such a God-fearing family, and people. But it did. Of course, none of us knew anything about it, not even Alice, I am certain. And so I was astounded when Chauncey came to me, quite in despair, and told me the girl was going to have a child. His child.”
Oliver could hardly control himself. This pink old devil knew. He knew everything there was to know.
Mr. Bassett sighed. “When the girl found out, she told Chauncey. She also told him she was going away. Not to her home. She couldn’t return there, she said. She would go away to some good friends of her family, in Greensleet, who would care for her, until she could work again. She was very proud; she came of proud folk.”
Greensleet! A small town only thirty miles from Andersburg—
“In those days,” Mr. Bassett went on, “thirty miles was a long distance. If friends or relatives in Andersburg had connections in Greensleet, it was as if they lived hundreds of miles away. Besides, Greensleet was a tiny village, twenty-five years ago. It had one small bank, the First National, one or two shops, and only one school. It was not even on a railroad spur. Backwoods.”
He looked at Oliver’s glass. “More brandy, Oliver?”
“No,” said Oliver.
Mr. Bassett smiled comfortably. “Well, then. Of course, I was very disturbed when Chauncey told me the story. The girl would not accept money from him. She only begged him not to follow her, or to see her again. It was, she said, the only way she could protect herself. A very determined and resolute little thing, with character. So, she went to Greensleet, to her friends. And Chauncey came to me. Business was very bad. But he gave me three thousand dollars for the girl. He had promised her he would not see her again, but he couldn’t help being upset about her.”
“Very kind of him,” remarked Oliver.
“I was to send the money to the bank in Greensleet. I informed the bank that ‘friends’ were forwarding the money for Mary, friends who preferred to remain anonymous. The bank sent me a receipt.” Mr. Bassett paused. “I have the receipt.”
Oliver gripped the arms of his chair.
Mr. Bassett said, mournfully: “I came upon the story much later. It is all in my files, carefully locked away. Mary apparently found her ‘friends’ in Greensleet not too hospitable. At any rate, it appears that within six weeks she married a young ne’er-do-well of a farm laborer in that village, possibly with the idea of protecting her child. No one knew much about him, or his family. The bank had notified her, when she arrived in Greensleet, that the money was waiting for her there. She refused to touch it. At first. Then, one day she appeared at the bank, said she was going to be married and that she would take the money to buy a farm for her husband-to-be. That is why he married her, I suspect. She must have told him the whole story. In a way, she must have bribed him to marry her.”
Oliver could see little Mary Bauer with deep clarity, a girl suddenly awakening to the realization that, unless she accepted Chauncey Arnold’s money, her child would be born under dreadful circumstances. She had become afraid, not for herself, but for her unborn baby.
“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Bassett. “Very sad. Very sad, indeed. She married the young man, they bought a farm. It was a good property, but he was worthless.” Mr. Bassett apparently brooded over Mary and her husband. He said idly: “His name was John Oliver.”
Oliver stood up, involuntarily. Mr. Bassett had apparently not seen Oliver jump to his feet. He was too engrossed in memories of the past.
“I have all this information in my files,” he said, meditatively. “All of it. Ah, well.
“Perhaps things might not have gone too badly, except for a most unfortunate circumstance. About six months after the marriage, the baby was born. Then, in the middle of the night, when the child was about a year old, the farmhouse burned down.”
Oliver forced his voice through the stricture in his throat. “They all died?”
Mr. Bassett shook his head. “No. John Oliver was a drunkard. He must have caused the fire. Mary awakened to find her bedroom full of smoke and flames. She escaped with the child, just before the roof crashed in. She slept downstairs. John slept in a room above. Apparently they did not live together. John died in the fire. The girl was terribly burned. But she had wrapped a blanket about the baby, and the child had not suffered.”
Oliver listened with horror.
“The girl was given shelter in the home of a neighbor about a mile away,” Mr. Bassett continued sadly. “It was winter. How she managed to find the house through the snow, in the condition she was i
n, I don’t know. Fear for her child must have driven her. In any event, she collapsed at this farmhouse. They called in the village s only doctor. He told the farm-folk that the girl was dying. They then prevailed upon her to tell them the name of the friends who had originally been supposed to take her in and protect her. Again, fearing for her child, for she knew she could not live, she gave them the name. The friends came. They notified her family, who lived on a farm ten miles nearer Andersburg.”
“Her family came?” said Oliver.
Mr. Bassett nodded. “Yes. Her mother and her father. She was the only child, this Mary, and the parents had married late in life. Grim people, I understand. Grim, unrelenting people, aghast at the story they were told. The girl begged them to keep her baby. They might have done so, had they not discovered that Greensleet was well aware that John Oliver was not the child’s father. The child was an outcast; it was illegitimate. It had not even the humblest status.”
And now Mr. Bassett turned his head on his thick red neck and peered up at Oliver. Their eyes met. Oliver read contempt on the smug old banker’s face, a kind of gloating.
“To such people, attuned more to the Old Testament than to the New, the child was not only an outcast in the sight of man, but in the sight of God. He was as guilty as his parents. He could not be given shelter in a respectable home, where the name of God was sacred.
“So, one night, the grandmother brought him to Andersburg. Left him at the little orphanage we had then. She spoke to the janitor. She gave the old man a name, and nothing else. Then she went away. The child was called by that name.”
Oliver sat down.
Mr. Bassett relaxed in his chair. “Let us be just to Chauncey. He never knew. I’m sure if he had, he would have helped the child. He never knew that the baby, left practically on the doorstep of the orphanage, was his. He died, without knowing.”
“How did you know?” asked Oliver.
Mr. Bassett looked reflectively at his tented fingers. “It came about very oddly. About twelve years ago. I received a letter. From the girl’s mother. Mary’s father was dead by this time. The mother was dying of some obscure disease, and probably her conscience had begun to disturb her. She had heard from her daughter that Chauncey had had money deposited to Mary’s account in the Greensleet bank, money which had bought the farm. As natural executor of her daughter’s estate, she had learned that I was the banker who had forwarded the money. So she wrote me. She enclosed two yellowed newspaper clippings. One was about the desertion of the baby, the other about its adoption. She wrote that her daughter had told her Chauncey Arnold was the father. For years, she said in her letter, she had pondered whether or not she should communicate with the man who had adopted her grandchild. But, for some hidden reason, she could not bring herself to do it. I gather she thought he ought not to know, that it was best he should not know, for, as she said, ‘he must be a very kind man’.”
Yes, thought Oliver.
“But the old woman was still wrathful against Chauncey Arnold. She hated him, with what our earlier writers called ‘an undying hatred’. She could not forgive him. Apparently, she did not know he was dead. She thought he ought to be told, that he ought to be ‘shamed’, that her daughter must be ‘avenged in the sight of God’. She did not want the adoptive father to be told. She urged me not to tell him. But Chauncey must know. He must see his child call another man ‘father’. That would be his punishment.”
Mr. Bassett got up heavily, went to his cabinet again, brought out the brandy. He filled Oliver’s glass, and his own. He sat down. He drank meditatively. But Oliver did not drink.
“Naturally, I was greatly disturbed, my boy. Chauncey was dead. I knew the man who had adopted the child. What should I do? Should I open old wounds, cause misery and distress to my—friend? For, he, too, you see, hated Chauncey Arnold. It was a great responsibility. I felt unequal to it. What would happen to the boy, if my friend learned that his adopted son was really the child of the man he hated? No,” said Mr. Bassett. “I was not equal to telling. Let the dead bury the dead.”
No, thought Oliver. You did not tell because you felt it might some day be a weapon. A weapon against William Prescott. You have been hiding that weapon. You’ve waited for the time to use it. The time never came.
He said, roughly: “But you intend telling your ‘friend’—now?”
Mr. Bassett gave him a hurt glance. “My dear boy! Certainly not! How could you think that? And for what reason?”
“You are waiting, then, for the time to tell Eugene Arnold who his brother is?”
Mr. Bassett sipped his brandy with relish. “Exactly,” he said, imperturbably. He became thoughtful. “Or, perhaps better still, for the brother to reveal his identity to Gene.”
Now Oliver understood it all. He got to his feet; slowly and stiffly, he walked up and down the room. Mr. Bassett watched him, smacked his lips over the brandy, and smiled.
Oliver stopped before the old man. “Mr. Bassett,” he asked softly, “why have you told me this story?”
“Simple enough,” replied Mr. Bassett. “I wanted your advice. Shall I tell this adopted young man of his real parentage?”
For a long time they looked at each other. The fire crackled. The short spring evening was darkening outside.
Oliver said: “No. Not yet.”
Mr. Bassett nodded. “Good, but when?”
“When the time comes. You are waiting for the time, aren’t you?”
“You are very astute, Oliver.”
Oliver drew a deep breath. “You have everything, the letter, the clippings, the receipts?”
“Yes. Certainly. And the child’s birth certificate, and Mary’s marriage certificate.”
Oliver took up his hat and coat. “Good-bye, Mr. Bassett. And, of course, this is very confidential. You made sure of that. Good-bye, Mr. Bassett.”
Mr. Bassett coughed. “Er, just a moment, my dear boy.”
They walked into the bank together, Mr. Bassett’s hand on Oliver’s arm. All doors were locked; the clerks were busy at their books. Mr. Bassett called one of them, and within a few moments he and Oliver were standing in the vaults. Mr. Bassett opened a certain box, while Oliver stood by. “This box is in your name, Oliver,” said Mr. Bassett.
Inside, there was a yellow envelope, filled with letters and papers. Oliver took up the envelope, and balanced it in his hand. The papers that established his paternity.
CHAPTER XLIX
The thunderous evening outside, this late May day, was not more thunderous than the atmosphere in the library of the Prescott house.
The western skies had resolved themselves into tumultuous masses of tumbling dark cloud, through which thunder-heads gushed upwards like enormous fountains of vapor, crowned and bursting with the gold of the falling sun. In the east, the skies remained bright, and the mountains stood in vivid radiance against the blackening western heavens. But it was a foreboding radiance, already dying abruptly on some of the purplish ranges. To the east, the city of Andersburg, lying in its valley, still glimmered distinct and detailed in the sun, though the shadow had begun to blur its distant outlines. All day, it had been unseasonably hot and humid and uneasy. Now, though the west churned in chaotic and livid cloud-shapes, what breeze had stirred through the streets of the city, and set the mountain trees to moving, had died away. Over everything lay a deathly hush. But the earth was disturbed. It filled the hot air with bruised scents, the sharp tang of grass, the smell of dust.
William had returned home slightly earlier than usual, though when Ursula had anxiously questioned him he had replied impatiently that he was perfectly well. The heat had tired him a little, had made him sluggish. He wanted to rest before dinner. He went into the library, shut the door behind him with a bang. Once there, his sudden activity had subsided. He had almost fallen into a chair. The windows faced the west. The room waited in pent darkness for the storm. William lit no lamps. He sat in his chair, his head on his chest. Inwardly, he was fightin
g, fighting his hopelessness, his intuitive sense that something was most dreadfully wrong with him, and with everything. Beyond the windows reached the wide vista of sky and mountain and cloud, lit occasionally by ugly flashes of lightning. Now there was a muttering, which seemed to come more from the apprehensive earth than from the sky.
A servant came in silently, carrying a tray on which there was a bottle of the whiskey which William loathed, and a glass. She put the tray down near the exhausted man, and went out as silently as she had come. With a great effort William turned his head and looked at the whiskey. He grimaced. Then, with an even greater effort, he poured himself the prescribed amount, drank it off suddenly and quickly, to be rid of it.
It was then that the door had opened again, and Julia had entered, a slender pretty figure in the dusk. She had said in a low voice: “Papa? Papa, I must talk to you.”
William had roused himself. He was no longer so tired. The sight of his favorite child stimulated him, gave him warmth and pleasure. Julia had avoided him for so long; she never came for him any more. For months she had been so silent, so pale. He had tried wheedling, love, fondling, teasing, urging, to make her tell him what troubled her so deeply. All had failed. Julia had coldly eluded him, had run away from him.
He had said: “Julie! Come in, my darling.” His daughter had returned to him. She would tell him what harassed her; she would let him help her, as he had always helped her. He patted a chair near him. His manner was eager, humble, full of aching sympathy. She sat down, stiffly, on the edge of the chair. She sat there for a long time, just looking at him, while the lightning flashed outside and the earth and sky muttered ominously together.
She had begun to speak. She spoke lifelessly, but with distinctness, as if each word had been rehearsed so long that she could speak it without emotion. Even when the lightning lit up her figure, it was a figure of quietness, only the lips moving inexorably. Under the passionless words, William heard her despair.
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