The $30,000 Bequest, and Other Stories Read online

  CHAPTER III

  The three last named stood by the bed; the aunts austere, thetransgressor softly sobbing. The mother turned her head on the pillow;her tired eyes flamed up instantly with sympathy and passionatemother-love when they fell upon her child, and she opened the refuge andshelter of her arms.

  "Wait!" said Aunt Hannah, and put out her hand and stayed the girl fromleaping into them.

  "Helen," said the other aunt, impressively, "tell your mother all. Purgeyour soul; leave nothing unconfessed."

  Standing stricken and forlorn before her judges, the young girl mournedher sorrowful tale through the end, then in a passion of appeal criedout:

  "Oh, mother, can't you forgive me? won't you forgive me?--I am sodesolate!"

  "Forgive you, my darling? Oh, come to my arms!--there, lay your headupon my breast, and be at peace. If you had told a thousand lies--"

  There was a sound--a warning--the clearing of a throat. The auntsglanced up, and withered in their clothes--there stood the doctor, hisface a thunder-cloud. Mother and child knew nothing of his presence;they lay locked together, heart to heart, steeped in immeasurablecontent, dead to all things else. The physician stood many momentsglaring and glooming upon the scene before him; studying it, analyzingit, searching out its genesis; then he put up his hand and beckoned tothe aunts. They came trembling to him, and stood humbly before him andwaited. He bent down and whispered:

  "Didn't I tell you this patient must be protected from all excitement?What the hell have you been doing? Clear out of the place!"

  They obeyed. Half an hour later he appeared in the parlor, serene,cheery, clothed in sunshine, conducting Helen, with his arm about herwaist, petting her, and saying gentle and playful things to her; and shealso was her sunny and happy self again.

  "Now, then;" he said, "good-by, dear. Go to your room, and keep awayfrom your mother, and behave yourself. But wait--put out your tongue.There, that will do--you're as sound as a nut!" He patted her cheek andadded, "Run along now; I want to talk to these aunts."

  She went from the presence. His face clouded over again at once; and ashe sat down he said:

  "You too have been doing a lot of damage--and maybe some good. Somegood, yes--such as it is. That woman's disease is typhoid! You'vebrought it to a show-up, I think, with your insanities, and that's aservice--such as it is. I hadn't been able to determine what it wasbefore."

  With one impulse the old ladies sprang to their feet, quaking withterror.

  "Sit down! What are you proposing to do?"

  "Do? We must fly to her. We--"

  "You'll do nothing of the kind; you've done enough harm for one day. Doyou want to squander all your capital of crimes and follies on a singledeal? Sit down, I tell you. I have arranged for her to sleep; she needsit; if you disturb her without my orders, I'll brain you--if you've gotthe materials for it."

  They sat down, distressed and indignant, but obedient, under compulsion.He proceeded:

  "Now, then, I want this case explained. _They _wanted to explain it tome--as if there hadn't been emotion or excitement enough already. Youknew my orders; how did you dare to go in there and get up that riot?"

  Hester looked appealing at Hannah; Hannah returned a beseeching lookat Hester--neither wanted to dance to this unsympathetic orchestra. Thedoctor came to their help. He said:

  "Begin, Hester."

  Fingering at the fringes of her shawl, and with lowered eyes, Hestersaid, timidly:

  "We should not have disobeyed for any ordinary cause, but this wasvital. This was a duty. With a duty one has no choice; one must put alllighter considerations aside and perform it. We were obliged to arraignher before her mother. She had told a lie."

  The doctor glowered upon the woman a moment, and seemed to be tryingto work up in his mind an understanding of a wholly incomprehensibleproposition; then he stormed out:

  "She told a lie! _did _she? God bless my soul! I tell a million a day!And so does every doctor. And so does everybody--including you--forthat matter. And _that _was the important thing that authorized you toventure to disobey my orders and imperil that woman's life! Look here,Hester Gray, this is pure lunacy; that girl _couldn't_ tell a lie thatwas intended to injure a person. The thing is impossible--absolutelyimpossible. You know it yourselves--both of you; you know it perfectlywell."

  Hannah came to her sister's rescue:

  "Hester didn't mean that it was that kind of a lie, and it wasn't. Butit was a lie."

  "Well, upon my word, I never heard such nonsense! Haven't you got senseenough to discriminate between lies! Don't you know the differencebetween a lie that helps and a lie that hurts?"

  "_All _lies are sinful," said Hannah, setting her lips together like avise; "all lies are forbidden."

  The Only Christian fidgeted impatiently in his chair. He went to attackthis proposition, but he did not quite know how or where to begin.Finally he made a venture:

  "Hester, wouldn't you tell a lie to shield a person from an undeservedinjury or shame?"

  "No."

  "Not even a friend?"

  "No."

  "Not even your dearest friend?"

  "No. I would not."

  The doctor struggled in silence awhile with this situation; then heasked:

  "Not even to save him from bitter pain and misery and grief?"

  "No. Not even to save his life."

  Another pause. Then:

  "Nor his soul?"

  There was a hush--a silence which endured a measurable interval--thenHester answered, in a low voice, but with decision:

  "Nor his soul?"

  No one spoke for a while; then the doctor said:

  "Is it with you the same, Hannah?"

  "Yes," she answered.

  "I ask you both--why?"

  "Because to tell such a lie, or any lie, is a sin, and could cost usthe loss of our own souls--_would_, indeed, if we died without time torepent."

  "Strange... strange... it is past belief." Then he asked, roughly: "Issuch a soul as that _worth _saving?" He rose up, mumbling and grumbling,and started for the door, stumping vigorously along. At the threshold heturned and rasped out an admonition: "Reform! Drop this mean and sordidand selfish devotion to the saving of your shabby little souls, and huntup something to do that's got some dignity to it! _Risk _your souls!risk them in good causes; then if you lose them, why should you care?Reform!"

  The good old gentlewomen sat paralyzed, pulverized, outraged, insulted,and brooded in bitterness and indignation over these blasphemies. Theywere hurt to the heart, poor old ladies, and said they could neverforgive these injuries.

  "Reform!"

  They kept repeating that word resentfully. "Reform--and learn to telllies!"

  Time slipped along, and in due course a change came over their spirits.They had completed the human being's first duty--which is to think abouthimself until he has exhausted the subject, then he is in a conditionto take up minor interests and think of other people. This changes thecomplexion of his spirits--generally wholesomely. The minds of the twoold ladies reverted to their beloved niece and the fearful disease whichhad smitten her; instantly they forgot the hurts their self-love hadreceived, and a passionate desire rose in their hearts to go to the helpof the sufferer and comfort her with their love, and minister toher, and labor for her the best they could with their weak hands, andjoyfully and affectionately wear out their poor old bodies in her dearservice if only they might have the privilege.

  "And we shall have it!" said Hester, with the tears running down herface. "There are no nurses comparable to us, for there are no othersthat will stand their watch by that bed till they drop and die, and Godknows we would do that."

  "Amen," said Hannah, smiling approval and endorsement through the mistof moisture that blurred her glasses. "The doctor knows us, and knows wewill not disobey again; and he will call no others. He will not dare!"

  "Dare?" said Hester, with temper, and dashing the water from her eyes;"he will dare anything--that Christian d
evil! But it will do no good forhim to try it this time--but, laws! Hannah! after all's said anddone, he is gifted and wise and good, and he would not think of such athing.... It is surely time for one of us to go to that room. What iskeeping him? Why doesn't he come and say so?"

  They caught the sound of his approaching step. He entered, sat down, andbegan to talk.

  "Margaret is a sick woman," he said. "She is still sleeping, but shewill wake presently; then one of you must go to her. She will be worsebefore she is better. Pretty soon a night-and-day watch must be set. Howmuch of it can you two undertake?"

  "All of it!" burst from both ladies at once.

  The doctor's eyes flashed, and he said, with energy:

  "You _do_ ring true, you brave old relics! And you _shall _do all of thenursing you can, for there's none to match you in that divine office inthis town; but you can't do all of it, and it would be a crime to letyou." It was grand praise, golden praise, coming from such a source, andit took nearly all the resentment out of the aged twin's hearts. "YourTilly and my old Nancy shall do the rest--good nurses both, white soulswith black skins, watchful, loving, tender--just perfect nurses!--andcompetent liars from the cradle.... Look you! keep a little watch onHelen; she is sick, and is going to be sicker."

  The ladies looked a little surprised, and not credulous; and Hestersaid:

  "How is that? It isn't an hour since you said she was as sound as anut."

  The doctor answered, tranquilly:

  "It was a lie."

  The ladies turned upon him indignantly, and Hannah said:

  "How can you make an odious confession like that, in so indifferent atone, when you know how we feel about all forms of--"

  "Hush! You are as ignorant as cats, both of you, and you don't know whatyou are talking about. You are like all the rest of the moral moles;you lie from morning till night, but because you don't do it with yourmouths, but only with your lying eyes, your lying inflections, yourdeceptively misplaced emphasis, and your misleading gestures, you turnup your complacent noses and parade before God and the world as saintlyand unsmirched Truth-Speakers, in whose cold-storage souls a lie wouldfreeze to death if it got there! Why will you humbug yourselves withthat foolish notion that no lie is a lie except a spoken one? What isthe difference between lying with your eyes and lying with your mouth?There is none; and if you would reflect a moment you would see that itis so. There isn't a human being that doesn't tell a gross of lies everyday of his life; and you--why, between you, you tell thirty thousand;yet you flare up here in a lurid hypocritical horror because I tell thatchild a benevolent and sinless lie to protect her from her imagination,which would get to work and warm up her blood to a fever in an hour, ifI were disloyal enough to my duty to let it. Which I should probably doif I were interested in saving my soul by such disreputable means.

  "Come, let us reason together. Let us examine details. When you two werein the sick-room raising that riot, what would you have done if you hadknown I was coming?"

  "Well, what?"

  "You would have slipped out and carried Helen with you--wouldn't you?"

  The ladies were silent.

  "What would be your object and intention?"

  "Well, what?"

  "To keep me from finding out your guilt; to beguile me to infer thatMargaret's excitement proceeded from some cause not known to you. In aword, to tell me a lie--a silent lie. Moreover, a possibly harmful one."

  The twins colored, but did not speak.

  "You not only tell myriads of silent lies, but you tell lies with yourmouths--you two."

  "_That _is not so!"

  "It is so. But only harmless ones. You never dream of uttering a harmfulone. Do you know that that is a concession--and a confession?"

  "How do you mean?"

  "It is an unconscious concession that harmless lies are not criminal;it is a confession that you constantly _make _that discrimination. Forinstance, you declined old Mrs. Foster's invitation last week to meetthose odious Higbies at supper--in a polite note in which you expressedregret and said you were very sorry you could not go. It was a lie.It was as unmitigated a lie as was ever uttered. Deny it, Hester--withanother lie."

  Hester replied with a toss of her head.

  "That will not do. Answer. Was it a lie, or wasn't it?"

  The color stole into the cheeks of both women, and with a struggle andan effort they got out their confession:

  "It was a lie."

  "Good--the reform is beginning; there is hope for you yet; you will nottell a lie to save your dearest friend's soul, but you will spew outone without a scruple to save yourself the discomfort of telling anunpleasant truth."

  He rose. Hester, speaking for both, said; coldly:

  "We have lied; we perceive it; it will occur no more. To lie is a sin.We shall never tell another one of any kind whatsoever, even lies ofcourtesy or benevolence, to save any one a pang or a sorrow decreed forhim by God."

  "Ah, how soon you will fall! In fact, you have fallen already; for whatyou have just uttered is a lie. Good-by. Reform! One of you go to thesick-room now."