An Alabaster Box Part 38

Rain was falling in torrents, slanting past the windows of the old parsonage in long gray lines, gurgling up between loosened panes, and drip-dropping resoundingly in the rusty pan the minister had set under a broken spot in the ceiling. Upstairs a loosened shutter banged intermittently under the impact of the wind, which howled past, to lose itself with great commotion in the tops of the tall evergreens in the churchyard. It was the sort of day when untoward events, near and far, stand out with unpleasant prominence against the background of one's everyday life. A day in which a man is led, whether he will or not, to take stock of himself and to balance with some care the credit and debit sides of his ledger.

Wesley Elliot had been working diligently on his sermon since nine o'clock that morning, at which hour he had deserted Mrs. Solomon Black's comfortable tight roof, to walk under the inadequate shelter of a leaking umbrella to the parsonage.

Three closely written pages in the minister's neat firm handwriting attested his uninterrupted diligence. At the top of the fourth page he set a careful numeral, under it wrote "Thirdly," then paused, laid down his pen, yawned wearily and gazed out at the dripping shrubbery.

The rain had come too late to help the farmers, he was thinking. It was always that way: too much sunshine and dry weather; then too much rain--floods of it, deluges of it.

He got up from his chair, stretched his cramped limbs and began marching up and down the floor. He had fully intended to get away from Brookville before another winter set in. But there were reasons why he felt in no hurry to leave the place. He compelled himself to consider them.

Was he in love with Lydia Orr? Honestly, he didn't know. He had half thought he was, for a whole month, during which Lydia had faced him across Mrs. Solomon Black's table three times a day.

As he walked up and down, he viewed the situation. Lydia had declared, not once but often, that she wanted friends. Women always talked that way, and meant otherwise. But did she? The minister shook his head dubiously. He thought of Lydia Orr, of her beauty, of her elusive sweetness. He was ashamed to think of her money, but he owned to himself that he did.

Then he left his study and rambled about the chill rooms of the lower floor. From the windows of the parlor, where he paused to stare out, he could look for some distance up the street. He noticed dully the double row of maples from which yellowed leaves were already beginning to fall and the ugly fronts of houses, behind their shabby picket fences. A wagon was creaking slowly through a shallow sea of mud which had been dust the day before: beyond the hunched figure of the teamster not a human being was in sight. Somewhere, a dog barked fitfully and was answered by other dogs far away; and always the shutter banged at uncertain intervals upstairs. This nuisance, at least, could be abated. He presently located the shutter and closed it; then, because its fastening had rusted quite away, sought for a bit of twine in his pocket and was about to tie it fast when the wind wrenched it again from his hold. As he thrust a black-coated arm from the window to secure the unruly disturber of the peace he saw a man fumbling with the fastening of the parsonage gate. Before he could reach the foot of the stairs the long unused doorbell jangled noisily.

He did not recognize the figure which confronted him on the stoop, when at last he succeeded in undoing the door. The man wore a raincoat turned up about his chin and the soft brim of a felt hat dripped water upon its close-b.u.t.toned front.

"Good-morning, good-morning, sir!" said the stranger, as if his words had awaited the opening of the door with scant patience. "You are the--er--local clergyman, I suppose?"

At uncertain periods Wesley Elliot had been visited by a migratory _colporteur_, and less frequently by impecunious persons representing themselves to be fellow warriors on the walls of Zion, temporarily out of ammunition. In the brief interval during which he convoyed the stranger from the chilly obscurity of the hall to the dubious comfort of his study, he endeavored to place his visitor in one of these two cla.s.ses, but without success.

"Didn't stop for an umbrella," explained the man, rubbing his hands before the stove, in which the minister was striving to kindle a livelier blaze.

Divested of his dripping coat and hat he appeared somewhat stooped and feeble; he coughed slightly, as he gazed about the room.

"What's the matter here?" he inquired abruptly; "don't they pay you your salary?"

The minister explained in brief his slight occupancy of the parsonage; whereat the stranger shook his head:

"That's wrong--all wrong," he p.r.o.nounced: "A parson should be married and have children--plenty of them. Last time I was here, couldn't hear myself speak there was such a racket of children in the hall.

Mother sick upstairs, and the kids sliding down the banisters like mad. I left the parson a check; poor devil!"

He appeared to fall into a fit of musing, his eyes on the floor.

"I see you're wondering who I am, young man," he said presently.

"Well, we're coming to that, presently. I want some advice; so I shall merely put the case baldly.... I wanted advice, before; but the parson of that day couldn't give me the right sort. Good Lord! I can see him yet: short man, rather stout and baldish. Meant well, but his religion wasn't worth a bean to me that day.... Religion is all very well to talk about on a Sunday; broadcloth coat, white tie and that sort of thing; good for funerals, too, when a man's dead and can't answer back. Sometimes I've amused myself wondering what a dead man would say to a parson, if he could sit up in his coffin and talk five minutes of what's happened to him since they called him dead.

Interesting to think of--eh? ...Had lots of time to think.... Thought of most everything that ever happened; and more that didn't."

"You are a stranger in Brookville, sir?" observed Wesley Elliot, politely.

He had already decided that the man was neither a _colporteur_ nor a clerical mendicant; his clothes were too good, for one thing.

The man laughed, a short, unpleasant sound which ended in a fit of coughing.

"A stranger in Brookville?" he echoed. "Well; not precisely.... But never mind that, young man. Now, you're a clergyman, and on that account supposed to have more than ordinary good judgment: what would you advise a man to do, who had--er--been out of active life for a number of years. In a hospital, we'll say, incapacitated, very much so. When he comes out, he finds himself quite pleasantly situated, in a way; good home, and all that sort of thing; but not allowed to--to use his judgment in any way. Watched--yes, watched, by a person who ought to know better. It's intolerable--intolerable! Why, you'll not believe me when I tell you I'm obliged to sneak out of my own house on the sly--on the sly, you understand, for the purpose of taking needful exercise."

He stopped short and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief, the fineness of which the minister noted mechanically--with other details which had before escaped him; such as the extreme, yellowish pallor of the man's face and hands and the extraordinary swiftness and brightness of his eyes. He was conscious of growing uneasiness as he said:

"That sounds very unpleasant, sir; but as I am not in possession of the facts--"

"But I just told you," interrupted the stranger. "Didn't I say--"

"You didn't make clear to me what the motives of this person who tries to control your movements are. You didn't tell me--"

The man moved his hand before his face, like one trying to brush away imaginary flies.

"I suppose she has her motives," he said fretfully. "And very likely they're good. I'll not deny that. But I can't make her see that this constant espionage--this everlasting watchfulness is not to be borne.

I want freedom, and by G.o.d I'll have it!"

He sprang from his chair and began pacing the room.

Wesley Elliot stared at his visitor without speaking. He perceived that the man dragged his feet, as if from excessive fatigue or weakness.

"I had no thought of such a thing," the stranger went on. "I'd planned, as a man will who looks forward to release from--from a hospital, how I'd go about and see my old neighbors. I wanted to have them in for dinners and luncheons--people I haven't seen for years.

She knows them. She can't excuse herself on that ground. She knows you."

He stopped short and eyed the minister, a slow grin spreading over his face.

"The last time you were at my house I had a good mind to walk in and make your acquaintance, then and there. I heard you talking to her.

You admire my daughter: that's easy to see; and she's not such a bad match, everything considered."

"Who are you?" demanded the young man sharply.

"I am a man who's been dead and buried these eighteen years," replied the other. "But I'm alive still--very much alive; and they'll find it out."

An ugly scowl distorted the man's pale face. For an instant he stared past Wesley Elliot, his eyes resting on an irregular splotch of damp on the wall. Then he shook himself.

"I'm alive," he repeated slowly. "And I'm free!"

"Who are you?" asked the minister for the second time.

For all his superior height and the sinewy strength of his young shoulders he began to be afraid of the man who had come to him out of the storm. There was something strangely disconcerting, even sinister, in the ceaseless movements of his pale hands and the sudden lightning dart of his eyes, as they shifted from the defaced wall to his own perturbed face.

By way of reply the man burst into a disagreeable cackle of laughter:

"Stopped in at the old bank building on my way," he said. "Got it all fixed up for a reading room and library. Quite a nice idea for the villagers. I'd planned something of the sort, myself. Approve of that sort of thing for a rural population. Who--was the benefactor in this case--eh? Take it for granted the villagers didn't do it for themselves. The women in charge there referred me to you for information.... Don't be in haste, young man. I'll answer your question in good time. Who gave the library, fixed up the building and all that? Must have cost something."

The minister sat down with an a.s.sumption of ease he did not feel, facing the stranger who had already possessed himself of the one comfortable chair in the room.

"The library," he said, "was given to the village by a Miss Orr, a young woman who has recently settled in Brookville. She has done a good deal for the place, in various ways."

"What ways?" asked the stranger, with an air of interest.

Wesley Elliot enumerated briefly the number of benefits: the purchase and rebuilding of the old Bolton house, the construction of the waterworks, at present under way, the library and reading room, with the town hall above. "There are," he stated, "other things which might be mentioned; such as the improvement of the village green, repairs on the church, the beginning of a fund for lighting the streets, as well as innumerable smaller benefactions, involving individuals in and around Brookville."

The man listened alertly. When the minister paused, he said:

"The young woman you speak of appears to have a deep pocket."

The minister did not deny this. And the man spoke again, after a period of frowning silence: