The Seeker by Harry Leon Wilson

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"Yes. She wanted me to see her sister, poor Mrs. Eversley, who is ill at
her house. I promised to look in to-morrow."

"I've just been telling Nance how beautiful I think Mrs. Wyeth is," said
Bernal. "She's rare, with that face of the low-browed Greek. It's one of
the memories I shall take back to my Eve-less Eden."

"She _is_ beautiful," said Nancy. "Of course her nose is the least bit
thin and long, but it rather adds zest to her face. Now I must dress for
dinner."

When Nancy had gone, Bernal, who had been speaking with a marked
lightness of tone, turned to Allan with an equally marked seriousness.

"Old chap, you know about that money of mine--of Grandfather's?"

Allan instantly became attentive.

"Of course, there's no hurry about that--you must take time to think it
over," he answered.

"But there _is_ hurry! I shouldn't have waited so long to make up my
mind.

"Then you _have_ made up your mind?" questioned his brother, with
guarded eagerness.

"Definitely. It's all yours, Allan. It will help you in what you want to
do. And not having it will help me to do what I want to do--make it
simpler, easier. Take it--and for God's sake be good to Nancy."

"I can't tell you how you please me, Bernal. Not that I'm avid for
money, but it truly seems more in accord with what must have been
grandfather's real wish. And Nancy--of course I shall be good to
her--though at times she seems unable to please me."

There was a sanctified displeasure in his tone, as he spoke of Nancy. It
caused Bernal to turn upon him a keen, speculative eye, but only for a
moment. And his next words had to do with matters tangible. "To-morrow
I'll do some of the business that can be done here. Then I'll go up to
Edom and finish the transfers that have to be made there." After a brief
hesitation, he added: "Try to please _her_ a bit, Allan. That's all."

CHAPTER XVI

IN WHICH THE MIRROR IS HELD UP TO HUMAN NATURE

When, the next day, Nancy went to pay her promised visit to Mrs.
Eversley, the rectory was steeped in the deep household peace of
mid-afternoon. Both Allan and Bernal had gone out soon after luncheon,
while Aunt Bell had withdrawn into the silence, there to meditate the
first letters of the alphabet of the inexpressible, to hover about the
pleasant line that divides the normal from the subliminal.

Though bruised and torn, Nancy was still grimly upright in the eye of
duty, still a worthy follower of orthodox ways. Buried in her own
eventful thoughts in that mind-world where love is born and dies, where
beliefs rise and perish but no sound ever disturbs the stillness, she
made her way along the shaded side of the street toward the Wyeth
residence. Not until she had passed several doors beyond the house did
she recall her errand, remember that her walk led to a goal, that she
herself had matters in hand other than thinking, thinking, thinking.

Retracing her steps, she rang the bell and asked for Mrs. Eversley.
Before the servant could reply, Mrs. Wyeth rustled prettily down the
hall from the library at the back. She wore a gown of primrose yellow.
An unwonted animation lighted the cold perfection of her face, like fire
seen through ice.

"_So_ glad to see you!" she said with graceful effusion--"And the
Doctor? And that queer, fascinating, puzzling brother of yours, how are
they? So glad! Yes, poor sister keeps to her room and you really mustn't
linger with me an instant. I'm not even going to ask you to sit down. Go
right up. Her door's at the end of the hall, you know. You'll comfort
the poor thing beautifully, you dear!"

She paused for breath, a vivid smile taking the place of words. Mrs.
Linford, rendered oddly, almost obstinately reserved by this excessive
cordiality, was conscious of something unnatural in that smile--a too
great intensity, like the greenness of artificial palms.

"Thank you so much for coming, you angel," she went on playfully, "for
doubtless I shall not be visible when you go. You see Donald's off in
the back of the house re-arranging whole shelves of wretched, dusty
books and he fancies that he must have my suggestions."

"The door at the end of the hall!" she trilled in sweet but unmistakable
dismissal, one arm pointing gracefully aloft from its enveloping foam of
draperies, that same too-intense smile upon the Greek face that even
Nancy, in moments of humane expansion, had admitted to be all but
faultless. And the latter, wondering not a little at the stiff
disposition to have her quickly away, which she had somehow divined
through all the gushing cordiality of Mrs. Wyeth's manner, went on
upstairs. As she rapped at Mrs. Eversley's door, the bell of the street
door sounded in her ears.

Somewhat less than an hour after, she came softly out again, opening and
closing the door noiselessly. So effectually had she soothed the
invalid, that the latter had fallen into a much-needed sleep, and Nancy,
eager to escape to that mind-world where the happenings are so momentous
and the silence is so tense, had crept like a mouse from the room.

At the top of the stairs she paused to gather up her skirts. Then her
ears seemed to catch the sound of voices on the floor below and she
remained motionless for a second, listening. She had no desire to
encounter for the second time the torrent of Mrs. Wyeth's manner, no
wish to meet unnecessarily one so disagreeably gifted in the art of
arousing in her an aversion of which she was half ashamed.

No further sound greeted her straining ears, and, deciding that the way
was clear, she descended the thickly carpeted stairs. Near the bottom,
opposite the open doors of the front drawing-room, she paused to look
into the big mirror on the opposite wall. As she turned her head for a
final touch to the back of her veil, her eyes became alive to something
in that corner of the room now revealed to her by the mirror--something
that held her frozen with embarrassment.

Though the room lay in the dusk of drawn curtains, the gown of Mrs.
Wyeth showed unmistakably--Mrs. Wyeth abandoned to the close, still
embrace of an unrecognized man.

Distressed at the awkwardness of her position, Nancy hesitated, not
knowing whether to retreat or go forward. She had decided to go on,
observing nothing--and of course she _had_ observed nothing save an
agreeable incident in the oft impugned domesticity of Mr. and Mrs.
Wyeth--when a further revelation arrested her.

Even as she put her foot to the next step, the face of Mrs. Wyeth was
lifted and Mrs. Wyeth's big eyes fastened upon hers through the
impartial mirror. But their expression was not that of the placid matron
observed in a passage of conjugal tenderness. Rather, it was one of
acute dismay--almost fear. Poor Mrs. Weyth, who had just said,
"Doubtless I shall not be visible when you go!"

Even as she caught this look, Nancy started down the remaining steps,
her cheeks hot from her own wretched awkwardness. She wanted to
hurry--to run; she might still escape without having reason to suspect
that the obscured person was other than he should be in the opinion of
an exacting world. Then, as her hand was at the door, while the silken
rustling of that hurried disentanglement was in her ears, the voice of
Wyeth sounded remotely from the rear of the house. It seemed to come
from far back in the library, removed from them by the length of the
double drawing-rooms--a comfortable, smooth, high-pitched voice--lazy,
drawling--

"Oh, _Linford!_"

_Linford!_ The name seemed to sink into the stillness of the great
house, leaving no ripple behind. Before an answer to the call could
come, she had opened the great door and pulled it sharply to behind her.

Outside, she lingered a moment as if in serenely absent contemplation of
the street, with the air of one who sought to recall her next
engagement. Then, gathering up her skirts, she went leisurely down the
steps and passed unhurriedly from the view of those dismayed eyes that
she felt upon her from the Wyeth window.

On the avenue she turned north and was presently alone in a shaded aisle
of the park--that park whose very trees and shrubs seem to have taken on
a hard, knowing look from having been so long made the recipients of
cynical confidences. They seemed to understand perfectly what had
happened, to echo Wyeth's high-pitched, friendly drawl, with an added
touch of mockery that was all their own--"Oh--Linford!"

CHAPTER XVII

FOR THE SAKE OF NANCY

It was toward six o'clock when she ascended the steps of the rectory.
Bernal, coming from the opposite direction, met her at the door. Back of
his glance, as they came together, was an intimation of hidden things,
and at sight of him she was smitten by an electric flash of wonder. The
voice of Wyeth, that friendly, untroubled voice, she now remembered had
called to no specific Linford. In the paralysis of embarrassment that
had seized her in that darkened hallway, she had failed to recall that
there were at least two Linfords in existence. In an instant her inner
world, wrought into something like order in the past two hours, was
again chaos.

"Why, Nance--you look like night, when there are no stars--what is it?"
He scanned her with an assumption of jesting earnestness, palpably meant
to conceal some deeper emotion. She put a detaining hand on his arm as
he was about to turn the key in the lock.

"Bernal, I haven't time to be indirect, or beat about, or anything--so
forgive the abruptness--were you at Mrs. Wyeth's this afternoon?"

His ear caught the unusual note in her voice, and he was at once
concerned with this rather than with her question.

"Why, what is it, Nance--what if I was? Are you seeing another
Gratcher?"

"Bernal, quick, now--please! Don't worry me needlessly! Were you at Mrs.
Wyeth's to-day?"

Her eyes searched his face. She saw that he was still either puzzled or
confused, but this time he answered plainly,

"No--I haven't seen that most sightly cold lady to-day--more's the
pity!"

She breathed one quick little sigh--it seemed to him strangely like a
sigh of relief.

"I knew you couldn't have been." She laughed a little laugh of secrets.
"I was only wondering foolish wonders--you know how Gratchers must be
humoured right up to the very moment you puff them away with the deadly
laugh."

Together they went in. Bernal stopped to talk with Aunt Bell, who was
passing through the hall as they entered; while Nancy, with the manner
of one not to be deflected from some set purpose, made straight for
Allan's study.

In answer to her ominously crisp little knock, she heard his "Come!" and
opened the door.

He sat facing her at his desk, swinging idly from side to side in the
revolving chair, through the small space the desk permitted. Upon the
blotter before him she saw that he had been drawing interminable
squares, oblongs, triangles and circles, joining them to one another in
aimless, wandering sequence--his sign of a perturbed mind.

He glanced up with a look of waiting defiance which she knew but masked
all his familiar artillery.

Instantly she determined to give him no opportunity to use this. She
would end matters with a rush. He was awaiting her attack. She would
make none.

"I think there is nothing to say," she began quickly. "I could utter
certain words, but they would mean one thing to me and other things to
you--there is no real communication possible between us. Only remember
that this--to-day--matters little--I had already resolved that sooner or
later I must go. This only makes it necessary to go at once."

She turned to the door which she had held ajar. At her words he sat
forward in his chair, the yellow stars blazing in his eyes. But the
opening was not the one he had counted upon, and before he could alter
his speech to fit it, or could do more than raise a hand to detain her,
she had gone.

He sat back in his chair, calculating how to meet this mood. Then the
door resounded under a double knock and Bernal came in.

"Well, old boy, I'll be off to-night. The lawyer is done with me here
and now I'll go to Edom and finish what's to be done there. Then in a
few days I'll be out of this machine and back to the ranche. You know
I've decided that my message to the world would best take the
substantial form of beef--a message which no one will esteem
unpractical."

He paused, noting the other's general droop of gloom.

"But what's the trouble, old chap? You look done up!"

"Bernal--it's all because I am too good-hearted, too unsuspecting. Being
slow to think evil of others, I foolishly assume that others will be
equally charitable. And you don't know what women are--you don't know
how the sentimental ones impose upon a man in my office. I give you my
word of honour as a man--my word of _honour_, mind you!--there never has
been a thing between us but the purest, the most elevated--the loftiest,
most ideal--"

"Hold on, old chap--I shall have to take the car ahead, you know, if you
won't let me on this one...."

"--as pure a woman as God ever made, while as for myself, I think my
integrity of purpose and honesty of character, my sense of loyalty
should be sufficiently known--"

"Say, old boy--" Bernal's face had lighted with a sudden flash of
insight--"is it--I don't wish to be indiscreet--but is it anything about
Mrs. Wyeth?"

"Then you _do_ know?"

"Nothing, except that Nance met me at the door just now and puzzled me a
bit by her very curious manner of asking if I had been at the Wyeth's
this afternoon."

"_What_?" The other turned upon him, his eyes again blazing with the
yellow points, his whole figure alert. "She asked you _that--Really_?"

"To be sure!"

"And you said--"

"'No'--of course--and she mumbled something about having been foolish to
think I could have been. You know, old man, Nance was troubled. I could
see that."

His brother was now pacing the floor, his head bent from the beautifully
squared shoulders, his face the face of a mind working busily.

"An idiot I was--she didn't know me--I had only to--"

Bernal interrupted.

"Are you talking to yourself, or to me?"

The rector of St. Antipas turned at one end of his walk.

"To both of us, brother. I tell you there has been nothing between
us--never anything except the most flawless idealism. I admit that at
the moment Nancy observed us the circumstances were unluckily such that
an excitable, morbidly suspicious woman might have misconstrued them. I
will even admit that a woman of judicial mind and of unhurried judgments
might not unreasonably have been puzzled, but I would tear my heart open
to the world this minute--'Oh, be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as
snow, thou shalt not escape calumny!'"

"If I follow you, old chap, Nancy observed some scene this afternoon in
which it occurred to her that I might have been an actor." There was
quick pain, a sinking in his heart.

"She had reason to know it was one of us--and if I had denied it was
I--"

"I _see_--why didn't you?"

"I thought she must surely have seen me--and besides"--his voice
softened with affection--"do you think, old chap, I would have shifted a
misunderstanding like that on to _your_ shoulders. Thank God, I am not
yet reduced to shirking the penalties of my own blameless acts, even
when they will be cruelly misconstrued."

"But you should have done so--It would mean nothing to me, and
everything to you--to that poor girl--poor Nance--always so helpless and
wondering and so pathetically ready to _believe_! She didn't deserve
that you take it upon yourself, Allan!"

"No--no, don't urge! I may have made mistakes, though I will say that
few men of my--well, my attractions! Why not say it bluntly?--few men of
my attractions, placed as I have been, would have made so few--but I
shall never be found shirking their consequences--it is not in my
nature, thank God, to let another bear the burden--I can always be a
man!--"

"But, old boy--you must think of poor Nancy--not of me!" Again he felt
the hurt of her suspicion.

"True--compassion requires that I think of her rather than of my own
pride--and I have--but, you see, it's too late. I committed myself
before I knew she didn't _know_!"

"Let her believe it is still a mistake--"

"No, no--it would be trickery--and it's impracticable--I as good as
confessed to her, you see--unless"--he brightened here and stopped in
his walk--"unless she could be made to believe that I meant to shield
you!"

"That's it! Really, you are an executor, Allan! Now we'll put the poor
girl easy in her mind again. I'll tell her you did it to shield me. You
know it's important--what Nancy thinks of you, old chap--she's your
wife--and--it doesn't matter a bit how meanly--she thinks of me--of
course not. I dare say it will be better for me if she _does_ think
meanly of me--I'll tell her at once--what was it I did?"

"No--no--she wouldn't believe you now. I dislike to say this, Bernal,
but Nancy is not always so trusting as a good woman should be--she has a
habit of wondering--but--mind you, I could only consent to this for the
sake of her peace of mind--"

"I understand perfectly, old chap--it will help the peace of mind of all
of us, I begin to see--hers and mine--and yours."

"Well, then, if she can be made to suspect this other aspect of the
affair without being told directly--ah!--here's a way. Turn that
messenger-call. Now listen--I will have a note sent here addressed to
you by a certain woman. It will be handed to Nancy to give to you. She
will observe the writing--and she will recognise it,--she knows it. You
will have been anxious about this note--expecting it--inquiring for it,
you know. Get your dinner now, then stay in your room so the maid won't
see you when the note comes--she will have to ask Nance where you
are--"

At dinner, which Bernal had presently with Aunt Bell and two empty
seats, his companion regaled him with comments upon the development of
the religious instinct in mankind, reminding him that should he ever
aspire to a cult of his own he would find Boston a more fertile field
than New York.

"They're so much broader there, you know," she began. "Really, they'll
believe anything if you manage your effects artistically. And that is
the trouble with you, Bernal. You appeal too little to the imagination.
You must not only have a novelty to preach nowadays, but you must preach
it in a spectacular manner. Now, that assertion of yours that we are all
equally selfish is novel and rather interesting--I've tried to think of
some one's doing some act to make himself unhappy and I find I can't.
And your suggestion of Judas Iscariot and Mr. Spencer as the sole
inmates of hell is not without a certain piquancy. But, my dear boy, you
need a stage-manager. Let your hair grow, wear a red robe, do
healing--"

He laughed protestingly. "Oh, I'm not a prophet, Aunt Bell--I've learned
that."

"But you could be, with proper managing. There's that perfectly stunning
beginning with that wild healing-chap in the far West. As it is now, you
make nothing of it--it might have happened to anybody and it never came
to anything, except that you went off into the wilderness and stayed
alone. You should tell how you fasted with him in a desert, and how he
told you secrets and imparted his healing power to you. Then get the
reporters about you and talk queerly so that they can make a good story
of it. Also live on rice and speak with an accent--_any_ kind of accent
would make you more interesting, Bernal. Then preach your message, and
I'd guarantee you a following of thousands in New York in a month. Of
course they'd leave you for the next fellow that came along with a key
to the book of Revelations, or a new diet or something, but you'd keep
them a while."

Aunt Bell paused, enthusiastic, but somewhat out of breath.

"I'll quit, Aunt Bell--that's enough--"

"Mr. Spencer is an example for you. Contrast his hold on the masses with
Mrs. Eddy's, who appeals to the imagination. I'm told by those who have
read his works that he had quite the knack of logic, and yet the
President of Princeton Theological Seminary preaches a sermon in which
he calls him 'the greatest failure of the age.' I read it in this
morning's paper. His text was, 'Ye believe in God, believe also in me.'
You see, there was an appeal to the imagination--the most audacious
appeal that the world has ever known--and the crowd will be with this
clergyman who uses it to refute the arguments of a man who worked hard
through forty years of ill-health to get at the mere dry common-sense of
things. If Jesus had descended to logic, he'd never have made a convert.
But he appealed magnificently to the imagination, and see the result!"

His mind had been dwelling on Allan's trouble, but now he came back to
his gracious adviser.

"You do me good, Aunt Bell--you've taken all that message nonsense out
of me. I suppose I _could_ be one of them, you know--one of those
fellows that get into trouble--if I saw it was needed; but it isn't. Let
the men who can't help it do it--they have no choice. Hereafter I shall
worry as little about the world's salvation as I do about my own."

When they had finished dinner he let it be known that he was not a
little anxious concerning a message that was late in arriving, and he
made it a point, indeed, that the maid should advise Mrs. Linford to
this effect, with an inquiry whether she might not have seen the delayed
missive.

Then, after a word with Allan, he went to his room and from his south
window smoked into the night--smoked into something approaching quietude
a mind that had been rebelliously running back to the bare-armed girl in
dusky white--the wondering, waiting girl whose hand had trembled into
his so long ago--so many years during which he had been a dreaming fool,
forgetting the world to worship certain impalpable gods of
idealism--forgetting a world in which it was the divinely sensible
custom to eat one's candy cane instead of preserving it superstitiously
through barren years!

He knew that he had awakened too late for more than a fleeting vision of
what would have made his life full. Now he must be off, up the path
again, this time knowing certainly that the woman would never more stand
waiting and wondering at the end, to embitter his renunciations. The
woman was definitely gone. That was something, even though she went with
that absurd, unreasoning, womanish suspicion. And he had one free, dear
look from her to keep through the empty days.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE FELL FINGER OF CALUMNY SEEMS TO BE AGREEABLY DIVERTED

Shut in his study, the rector of St. Antipas paced the floor with nicely
measured steps, or sat at his desk to make endless squares, circles, and
triangles. He was engrossed in the latter diversion when he heard the
bell sound below. He sat back to hear the steps of the maid, the opening
of the door; then, after an interval, her steps ascending the stairs and
stopping at his own door; then her knock.

"A letter for Mr. Bernal, sir!"

He glanced at the envelope she held, noting its tint.

"He's not here Nora. Take it to Mrs. Linford. She will know where he
is."

He heard her go down the hall and knock at another door. She was
compelled to knock twice, and then there was delay before the door
opened.

He drew some pages of manuscript before him and affected to be busy at a
work of revision, crossing out a word here, interlining one there,
scanning the result with undivided attention.

When he heard a knock he did not look up, but said, "Come!" Though still
intent at his work, he knew that Nancy stood there, looking from the
letter to him.

"Nora said you sent this letter to me--it's for Bernal--"

He answered, still without looking up,

"I thought he might be with you, or that you might know where he was."

"I don't."

He knew that she studied the superscription of the envelope.

"Well, leave it here on my desk till he comes. I sent it to you only
because I heard him inquiring if a letter had not come for him--he
seemed rather anxious about some letter--troubled, in fact--doubtless
some business affair. I hoped this might be what he was expecting."

His eyes were still on the page before him, and he crossed out a word
and wrote another above it, after a meditative pause. Still the woman at
the door hesitated.

"Did you chance to notice the address on the envelope?"

He glanced at her now for the first time, apparently in some surprise:
"No--it is not my custom to study addresses of letters not my own. Nora
said it was for Bernal and he had seemed really distressed about some
letter or message that didn't come--if you will leave it here--"

"I wish to hand it to him myself."

"As you like." He returned to his work, crossing out a whole line and a
half with broad, emphatic marks. Then he bent lower, and the interest in
his page seemed to redouble, for he heard the door of Bernal's room
open. Nancy called:

"Bernal!"

He came to the door where she stood and she stepped a little inside so
that he might enter.

"I am anxious about a letter. Ah, you have it!"

She was scanning him with a look that was acid to eat out any untruth in
his face.

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