Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Dave Morgan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net _By Ethel Cook Eliot_ Ariel Dances Green Doors ETHEL COOK ELIOT [Illustration: Decorative glyph] GREEN DOORS [Illustration: Little, Brown, and Company] LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY _Boston_ 1933 _Copyright, 1933_, BY ETHEL COOK ELIOT _All rights reserved_ Published February, 1933 Reprinted February, 1933 (twice) Reprinted April, 1933 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA DEDICATED TO MY FATHER GREEN DOORS _Chapter One_ âHello! Whatâs up with you?â Doctor Lewis Pryne was obviously surprised at the intrusion of a mere friend on office hours. âHow did you persuade Miss Frazier to bring you in? You arenâtâor are youâlooking for a doctor?â Dick Wilderâs smile was tinged with awed diffidence. âNo, Iâm not wanting treatment myself,â he said. âAll the same, I did get a regulation appointment from your secretary via the telephone, and Iâve been out there in your reception office meekly waiting my turn for hours. But first I have a message for you, from Cynthia. They want you for the week-end in Meadowbrook. Harryâs counting on golf with you, and the childrenââ Lewis broke in dryly. âSorry, Dick, but Iâm most frightfully busy just now. If you insist on staying to chat, Iâll send you a billâregulation fee for a first appointment. But if you vanish at once, Iâll let you off. Give my fondest love to Cynthia, tell her Iâll call her up; thanks, good-by.â But though the doctor rose, his visitor sat. âYouâre hard, Lewis, hard,â he murmured. âBut itâs all right with me. I expect a bill. Iâm here to offer you a lovely new patient on a silver platter. It is ratherâahâprivate, though.â His embarrassment was due plainly to the presence of the secretary, Miss Frazier. She had escorted him into the presence of the famous psychiatrist and she was now hovering near the door on tiptoes, it seemed, to escort him out again. Lewis sighed, but with good nature. âMiss Frazier neednât bother you,â he explained. âShe is my confidential secretary and it saves time having her here to make a record as we go along. How many people are out there, Miss Frazier?â âOnly two, Doctor. Mrs. Dickerman andââ âA sullen but gorgeous fellow who doesnât want to be spoken to,â Dick finished for her. âOr is he one of the really unhinged ones and not responsible for his manners?â Lewis smiledâfleetlyâat his secretary. He said to Dick, âThat will be Mr. Neil McCloud. He is perfectly sane. Heâs lost the power of speech, thatâs all.â âReally? Somehow it didnât look all to me. He has a flash in his eye,âwellâa flashâ. But I thought the dumb were deaf, Lewis. That fellow heard every word I saidâlistened as if he heardâand then coolly turned his shoulder. He might have wriggled his eyebrows or something, to show he couldnât speak. I only asked him were you likely to keep us waiting much longerâassuming, do you see, that he was a regular patient and knew the ropes. What was there in that to antagonize any one?â Lewisâ smile a moment ago had been very fleeting. Now his face had taken on its accustomed gravity. It was an unusual sort of gravity, however, lacking any element of heaviness. âThat encounter will have been harder on McCloud than on you, Dick,â he said. âHe isnât deaf. Merely canât articulate. Hasnât been able to for some months. Itâs a rather perplexing case of shock. Temporary, Iâm certain, but awkward for him while it lasts. Itâs after four, I think, Miss Frazier. Did McCloud or Mrs. Dickerman have appointments?â âNo, Doctor. Neither of them. Mrs. Dickerman telephoned yesterday and there was no time I could give her within a week. She came on the chance you might be able to work her in somewhere. Mr. McCloud dropped in in the same way. I had no idea how long Mr. Wilderâs appointment would take, so I rather encouraged them both to wait. Shall I tell them thereâs no use now? Itâs quarter to five.â âNo. Donât do that. Iâll see them. Only let McCloud in ahead of Mrs. Dickerman.â âShall I? Mrs. Dickerman telephoned yesterday, as I told you! She came in several minutes ahead of Mr. McCloud too.â âDid she? I suppose then youâd better convey to McCloud, somehow, that I wonât be long with Mrs. Dickerman. Tell Mrs. Dickerman that I will be free in another few minutes. Do that now, please, and then come back to take this record. Pardon all this, Dick. Have a cigarette?â From the brief exchange between doctor and secretary, Dick had been able to form a pretty complete mental picture of what was back of it. Mrs. Dickerman must be some slightly neurotic lady of wealth who was falling over herself to pay fabulous fees to Lewis for a little mental coddling, while the rather gorgeous but definitely shabby dark-browed young giant was, of course, a charity case, and in real trouble. But supposing their needs had been equal, Dick suspected his friend still would favor the penniless down-and-outer, for Lewis was slightly snobbish in his mistrust of wealth and position. It was a little perverse in him. Even his own sister, Cynthia, thought so. Dick frowned to himself. This matter of Lewisâ prejudice against paying patients was rather pertinent to himself at the moment on account of the errand which had brought him here. What could Petra Farwell seem to Lewis beyond what Dick himself thought herâa beautiful but dull ingÃ©nue whose psychic maladjustments (if that was the term) were the result of too much leisure and spoiling? Dick took out his cigarette case, waving Lewisâ aside, for Lewis, he knew, was as economical when it came to cigarette brands as he was about clothes and office furniture. What a bare room this sanctum was! The reception office had been on the luxurious side, but that was Cynthiaâs taste and doing. She had insisted on decorating it, and Dick could not doubt she had drawn on her own purse for most of the accessories. But even as he passed it up, Dick noticed that Lewisâ cigarette case holding the Luckies or whatever they were, was rather wonderful. Finest jade. You could see at a glance. Marvelous color. Some grateful woman patient, of course, had forced the gem on Lewis, and probably he did not dream what its value was; if he did, he would sell it, to give to the deserving poor.... Miss Frazier was back and ready with her shorthand pad. Since they were smoking, Dick offered her a cigarette, one of his own Club variety. But she refused it, coldly, her eyes on her pad. Dick did not so much get the idea of having been put in his place as of the secretary having insisted on keeping hers, which was that of an invisible, impersonal automatonâa dicta-phone with judgment. Suddenly Dick did not mind talking before her. âItâs a stepmother stepdaughter situation,â he explained to Lewis. âThe stepmother is my friend. She is a wonderful person. She knows that you and I are related in a way. (The relationship between them consisted in the fact that Lewisâ sister, Cynthia, was married to Dickâs first cousin, Harry Allen.) And she got the idea that because of the relationship I might have some sort of a pull with you, do you see? But perhaps thatâs stupid. Perhaps nobody has a pull with you in that sense. I warned her. Is it stupid?â Lewis smiled, that peculiar fleeting smile of his. But it was for himself this time. He had assumed the position he kept through all these office interviews. His chair was swung half around on its pivot so that he did not directly face the patient, and his eyes, for the most part, were on the knob of the door leading into Miss Frazierâs little private office. âOf course you have pull, Dick, all the pull in the world. But I donât see what that has to do with it. When it comes to taking on patients, one does it on the merits of the cases themselves, naturally. Let me hear.â âWell, itâs the stepdaughter who isâfunny. Clare, who is my friend the stepmother, do you see, is utterly devoted to the girl. In fact, to my mind, she is almost obsessed with the idea that itâs up to her to make the girl happy. Thatâs far-fetched, of course. You canât do _that_ for any one. But Clare tries desperately. And all she gets for her pains is very nice polite manners and nothing under âem. It is absurd. You would think soâyou _will_ think soâwhen you see Clare. But even if Clare werenât so wonderful as she is, the girlâs indifference would still be absurd, for just on the material side she owes Clare everything sheâs got in the world. She and her father were as poor as poverty until Clare came into their lives, married the father. Now that she is there, their lives are all luxury.âCharm.âBeauty too. But what good does it do? Clare is only getting her heart broken. âBut I ought to tell you,â Dick went on quickly, after a secondâs pause in which he had suddenly remembered some last admonishments of Clareâs, âClare doesnât mind personal heartbreaks and things like that. That is not why she wants you to psychoanalyze the girl. It is for the girlâs own sake and her fatherâs sake. She doesnât want those two to become estranged. And it is bound to happen if things go on the way they are going. The girl must be more responsive to Clare, return _some_ of her devotion, or the father is going to begin to feel the antagonism in the air and blame his daughter for it. For, in a choice of loyalties, the man is Clareâs. It isnât Clareâs fault itâs that way, though. From the very beginning she has _worked_ to preserveâeven to createâa fine relationship between her husband and his daughter. She is big enough, detached enough, to keep herself and her personal disappointments out of the situation and think only of those two. And thatâs why she sent me here, at dollars a minute, I suppose, to ask you to see the girl and straighten her out. She has an idea that there is some deeply hidden resentmentâsome mix-up, anywayâin the girlâs subconscious mind and that it only needs you to excavate it. She thinksââ But there Dick faltered. Lewis was smiling and no longer fleetingly. Miss Frazier, noticing Dick look around for it, pushed an ashtray along the desk toward him. He crushed out his cigarette stub in it, looking miserable and a little angry. âI can see what youâre thinking, Lewis,â he exclaimed. âYou think that it is a simple case of stepdaughterish jealousy and that Clare and I are just too ingenuous for words to have come bothering a top-notch psychiatrist with it. But you happen to be wrong. You donât know the people. Petraâs not jealous. Not for a minute. She hasnât enough warmth in her for such a passion, if it comes to that. Really, sheâs no jollier with her own father than with her stepmother. But Clare doesnât see that. She thinks itâs only herself Petra pushes off. And what is there so absurd in her getting the idea that you might help?â But if Dick had only noticed, his belated mention of the girlâs name had effectually changed his friendâs expression. âIs it Petra Farwell youâre talking about?â he asked quickly. âDaughter of Lowell Farwell, the novelist?â Dick hesitated an instant, glancing a little painfully at Miss Frazierâs efficient hand with its pen poised but so far idleâabove her pad. But after all, Miss Frazierâs presence at this conference was Lewisâ responsibility, and one had to trust Lewis. So he said, âYes. Itâs the Farwells. I thought you would guess. You know I built their house, Green Doors. We started it the minute they were back from the honeymoon. Clare made Featherstoneâs give me a free hand with it. It was my first real chance at self expression. But Clare had as many ideas as I had and the nice part was that our ideas didnât clashâmerely supplemented. Until that summer I had only known Clare socially and even so not very well. She is in an older crowd. Itâs an interesting crowd. The Lovings, you know,âthe Stracheys, Jim Strange, Isabell Peters Clough. Rather exciting, being accepted by them! Clare sees to it that I am. And Lowell Farwell is the lion of the lot, I suppose. Clare herself ought to be. Wait till you meet her!â âI have met Mrs. Farwell, once, for a few minutes,â Lewis said. âShe was Mrs. Tom Otis then. It was just before the former Mrs. Farwell abdicated. But itâs Petra, the girl, Iâm interested to hear about. Is she prepared to come to a psychiatrist for treatment forâwhat do you say the trouble is? General lack of appropriate feeling toward the latest Mrs. Novelistâs Wife? Or hasnât she been consulted?â âYou keep on laughing at us,â Dick complained. âIf I were a stranger, would you? Yes, I knew about that meeting with Clare, of course. But I meant, wait till you _really_ know her. Clare hasnât said a word about you to Petra, not yet. Petra would be sure to resent it, donât you think? What Clare wants is to have it come aboutâgradually. If youâre week-ending at Cynthiaâs, right there in Meadowbrook, you can drop around at Green Doors, meet the family, have tea informally in the garden, chat with Petra,âand let that call seem to put the idea of having Petra psychoanalyzed into Clareâs head. That way, Petra might get the idea that being psychoanalyzed by Doctor Lewis Pryne would be a pretty interesting experience, do you see? Thatâs Clareâs scheme and I think itâs a good one.â Lewis, lighting himself another cigarette, murmured, âGood is an adjective that I myself seldom apply to the word âscheme.â But it happens that Iâll like meeting Lowell Farwell. His psychological novels interest meâat least, to the point of wanting to find out how he gets that way. Even more I shall be glad of an excuse to see Petra again. I met her at the same time I met your Mrs. Clare. By the way, Mrs. Clare is Petraâs second or third stepmother, isnât she! Mightnât it be that the childâs stand-offish attitude toward the species is cumulative and not, strictly speaking, personal? Had that occurred to either of you?... But it doesnât matter. Iâm charmed by the invitation to tea at Green Doors. Itâs only fair, though, that you should warn Mrs. Farwell that it cannot, not possibly, be a professional call. And just remind yourself, will you, Dick, if only now and then, that Iâm not a psychoanalyst. It always annoys me a little, being called one.â âSorry. Yes, I do know, of course. But the differences are too slight for the laity to master. Then you will come for tea? Thatâs fine. All we wanted, as a start-off, really. Clare knows you wonât be lionized and I can promise you it will be informal. Shall we say Saturday afternoon? Itâll be just the Farwells themselves and me. Iâm there such a lot, Iâm almost family,â he added, flushing a little. Dick was ready to get out now and give place to Mrs. Dickerman and Mr. McCloud. But he had a diffident feeling that since this was actually a professional seance he had been having with Lewis, it was up to Lewis to bring it to an end. And Lewis had not stirred in his chair. He was saying, âIâll like seeing your work with that house, too. Iâve meant to get Cynthia to take me over, ever since you finished it. Why do they call it Green Doors?â Lewisâ gaze, as he spoke, was still attached to the knob on Miss Frazierâs door. Dick, now that he had secured part of what Clare wanted and was no longer anxious, was looking at his friend with an increasing discernment in his vision. âHeâs got the look of a medieval monk,â he told himself,âseeing it, strangely, for the first time. Well, perhaps asceticism was the price Lewis had had to pay for his astonishing success. He had accomplished in ten years or so what usually takes a man in his profession the better part of his life, if he ever achieves it at all. âNaturally Lewis hasnât had much time for the flesh-pots along the way,â mused Dick. Doctor Lewis Pryne was only thirty-three, and yet in the years since graduating from Harvard Medical he had made himself a specialist in psychiatry, written three instantly famous books on dynamic psychology, and accumulated a clientele which might be the envy of any other psychiatrist not congenitally superior to envy, in the country. And he was self-made. At least, ever since his father had died when Lewis was a Senior in Latin High, he had earned his own way, and looked out for Cynthia as well, until she married Dickâs cousin, Harry Allen. Yet here he was, in spite of that stupendous early handicap, loaded with fame and honorâand if not with money, that was simply because money did not seem to be one of his goals. Meeting Lewis in the ordinary wayâthat is, outside of an office visitâyou got no hint of past struggles and their necessary austerities. His gray eyes were more sleepy than austere, with a languid droop at the outer corners of the heavy upper lids. His mouth curled, slightly, as if fleeting little smiles were habitual, and most of the time an almost palpable light played over the lower part of the face, particularly the full but chiseled lips. Without that light and the odd, fleeting smile, Lewisâ mouth would have been definitely sensuous. As it was, you never thought of thatâonly of its sensitive but exquisitely impersonal sympathy. The gray sleepy eyes released the door knob, came to rest on Dick Wilderâs face. âHow did Green Doors come by its name?â Dick started, realizing that this was a repeated question. What had he been woolgathering about? Lewis, himself. He had been busy seeing Lewis in a new, fresh way, after a fifteen yearsâ friendship. That was strange. Then he understood it. He had been seeing Lewis as Clare would soon be seeing him,âlooking at him through Clareâs eyes. âOh? The name? It was Clareâs idea. Itâs in a poem. Published in _The Glebe_, 1914.â (He got up as he answered. Lewisâ time _was_ precious, and staying to chatter now would be inexcusable, after Lewis had been so altogether patient and friendly.) âI donât remember it all. But thereâs a lineâ ââI know an orchard old and rare, I will not tell you where, With green doors opening to the sun....â âSomething like that anyway. Clare said we wouldnât plan a house at all, but just green doors, opening to the sun. Weâve done it too! Youâll see, Saturday. Iâll pick you up at the Allensâ around four. Crazy to show the place to you!â During the brief interval between Dick Wilderâs departure from the office and Mrs. Dickermanâs entrance, Lewis stood in the big window at the back of his desk, looking down onto the glistening river of automobile tops which was Marlboro Street, and recalled his first and only meeting with Petraâthe girl who was, so it seemed, the one discordant note in the idyllic existence at that country estate, already famous to literature,âGreen Doors, in Meadowbrook. _Chapter Two_ Lowell Farwellâs voice making the appointment over the telephoneâit was three or four years ago nowâstill vibrated through Lewisâ memory, melodious, _interesting_. Lewis had never happened to catch sight of the novelist at that time, nor had he since, but he knew from numberless newspaper cuts what he looked like. And the voice perfectly fitted those leonine, distinguished heads. âMy wife has been ill for months and now a friend has persuaded her to see you. Her doctor agrees that it may be a wise move to get your opinion, Doctor Pryne. You are acquainted with him. Doctor MacKay, here in Cambridge. He has come to the end of his resources and is ready to give psychiatry a try.â It was a wind-clear, blue-red-gold October afternoon, when Lewis made that call in Cambridge. The Farwells were living on the upper floor of an unpretentious double house on Fayerweather Street. Instead of the expected maid in cap and apron opening the door, there was a girl in a brown smock.âStrange to be remembering color, and shades of color, after so many months!âHer eyes were brown-gold, and as photographically as Lewis remembered those gay and sincere eyes, he remembered the curves of the smiling mouth. The room into which she brought Lewis was a blank in memory. Perhaps, even at the time, it had been a blank to his consciousness. Except for the blue gentians. There was a clump of them growing out of dark earth near where he laid down his hat. He supposed the flowers must have been planted in some sort of dish, but his memory of the Farwellsâ Cambridge living room was fringed blue gentians growing out of dark earth. The girlâs voice was as smiling as her mouth. âMrs. Farwell will see you in a minute, Doctor.â âAre you Miss Farwell?â he asked, for he knew, from Cynthia, probably, who read the columns of literary gossip in the Sunday papers, that Lowell Farwell had a daughter. The smile became laughter. Laughter which sounded like pure happiness, translating itself into sound. The rarest sort of laughter in the world. Not amusement. Not embarrassment. Mere self-unknown joy. âNo. I am Teresa Kerr. _This_ is Petra.â The novelistâs daughter was sitting on the sill of an open window, her background wall-lessâa sea of blue October air and light. She was a schoolgirl then, in a navy blue jersey schoolgirl dress. Her attentive, innocent eyes, set wide in a grave young brow, were the precise color of the gentians. That repetition of color and the eyesâ innocent attentiveness stabbed Lewis like some too pure, too perfect note in music. It was the most beautiful childâs faceâor any faceâof his memory. No wonder he remembered _that_ so vividly! The short, straight nose, the upper lipâshort to the exquisite point of breath-taking beautyâthe Botticelli mouth, the strong, white, round chin!âThe child was hardly human, she was so lovely!âHer head against the windowâs blue background was a sculptorâs dream. Fine, very alive brown curls molded rather than obscured its classic contours. The gawky schoolgirl body, in its clinging jersey, was sculpture, too, with its wide shoulders and long thighs.... Lewis had supposed, since, that the mood which took possession of him when Teresa Kerr had opened the door to the Farwellsâ Cambridge apartment, and which had increased like daylight upon dawn during the brief minutes he spent with those girls waiting for Mrs. Farwell to be ready to see him, was merely a state of _rapport_ with their youth and happiness. Their relationship with life and with each other had by some miracle extended itself to him and created what at the time, and in memory ever since, had seemed a golden age circumferenced by a passing moment. When the circumference contracted upon its enclosed eternity (these were Lewisâ similes, far-fetched, of course, but for himself alone), it was by way of a trivial voice calling out from the next room. Then he left timelessness, passed through a door into a ceilinged, four-walled space, and took a chair facing an emotional, pretty woman who lay relaxed among cushions on a chaise-longue; and at once, quite as if he had never passed through the sound of Teresaâs laugh and the sight of Petraâs attentive, innocent gaze to reach this meeting, he gave his complete attention to Mrs. Farwell and her woes. She had these violent headaches. Weeks on end she could not sleep and then for other weeks she slept too much, could do nothing else but sleep. Her nerves needed either a stimulant or a sedative, constantly. But Doctor MacKay did not approve of drugs, not in the quantities her case demanded. Doctor MacKay said, âExercise!â But she had this nervous heart. He admitted the nervous heart and yet insisted on the exercise. Imagine! Besides, how could she exercise? Riding was out of the question. Couldnât afford it. And golf bored her. Terribly! And what other exercise is there, besides golf and riding? They hadnât even a car. If they had, she might at least get some fresh air each day. But perhaps Doctor Pryne knew for himselfâshe was looking at his ready-made tweed suitâthat fame did not pay in dollars and cents. Her husbandâs novels were only for the discriminating few. The better the review, she noticed, the smaller the royalties always.... And noisesâcooped up in a cheap little apartment like thisânoises were a sort of crucifixion! A laugh, muffled by the closed door, but audible enough for demonstration, coincidentally bore her out. Or so she imagined. She winced, becomingly, but genuinely enough. âIf only Petra could go away to school! She is my husbandâs daughter, you know. But we canât even afford a camp for her. And big girls like that are so noisy, so all over you! If she were a boy, she wouldnât be always at home. It would be easier then. If Doctor MacKay ever thinks I am strong enough to have a baby I do hope it will be a boy!â Lewis listened to all of this and much more with attention. And not until Mrs. Farwell had worn herself out with the emotion which accompanied her eager, fluent explanations of her nervous condition, did he venture a few tentative suggestions. But it appeared that Doctor MacKay had made the very same suggestions dozens of times already,âand none of them were any good. âWell thenâ?â But it was only a mental question, a mental shrug. Lewis was grave and interested up till the very last. Doctor MacKay, however, had not had the slightest excuse for calling in a psychiatrist. It was an old story, but as disheartening and ridiculous as if it were the first occasion on which Lewis had wasted his time like this. As it happened, the laugh which had penetrated Mrs. Farwellâs closed door, with its crucifying effect on one of its hearers, was Lewisâ last touch with Teresa and Petra. When he came out of Mrs. Farwellâs bedroom into the living room, they were gone. In their stead, a new individualâyounger than Mrs. Farwell, older than the girlsâwas lying in wait for him. She had usurped Petraâs place in the open blue window, but she quickly left it and came forward. âI am Mrs. Tom Otis, Doctor Pryne. A friend of the Farwells. Mr. Farwell has commissioned me to see you in his place. He is at a critical point in the new novel, and if he leaves it, heâs lost. You know how that is, since you write yourself. He is working in my house,âhas his study there. He wants you to tell me your âfindingsâ hereâif thatâs the wordâand then, when he comes to earth again, Iâm to report to him. Do you see?â Mrs. Otis had spoken in a lowered voice in spite of Mrs. Farwellâs closed door, and now she found a chair for herself with the obviously gracious intention of permitting Lewis to do the same. She appeared so altogether ingenuous a person that Lewis was fain to divert his irritation over the stupidity of the situation to the absent Lowell Farwell. Meanwhile he tried to get away from this Mrs. Otis as promptly and tactfully as possible. âThatâs all right,â he said. âIâm glad Mr. Farwell didnât interrupt his work. Thereâs no reason why he should. Doctor MacKay will get in touch with me to-morrow and heâll give Mr. Farwell my âfindingsâ such as they are, I suppose.â He was looking for his hat, but wondering about Petra and Teresa. Why had they had to go away? He had meant to ask them where they had found the gentians. âHere it is,â Mrs. Otis moved aside, so that he saw the dish of gentians, and then his hat beside them. âBut please donât go right away. Mr. Farwell will think I have failed him if you go without telling me what you think about Marian. It was stupid of me, perhaps, not to have explained myself more fully before I asked you to tell me. You couldnât understand, of course. You couldnât know how very close I am to these people. Why, it was I who persuaded them to get you. I couldnât bear the way things were going. Something had to be done. Doctor MacKay is so tiresomely conservative. Any wise, up-to-date doctor would have seen long ago that Marian Farwell ought to go right awayâto a sanitariumâabroadâanywhereâbut _away_. It isnât fair to let neurotics inflict their nerves on people who are perfectly sane and healthy. And itâs all the worse when an extremely sensitive artist like Lowell Farwell is the victim! You think so too, donât you?â But Mrs. Otis had not waited for Lewisâ answer. She took his agreement for granted and hurried on. âDoctor Pryne, see here. I am so eagerâand more important, perhapsâ_able_ to help. Did you think I was merely curious and officious? That would be too hateful of me, if it were true. But it isnât. This affair is almost as much mine as it is Lowellâsâtheirs, the Farwellsâ, I mean. I got Mr. Farwell to call you in, I am paying your fees, and I will send Marian abroad, anywhere, _to-morrow_, if you will only say the word. WeâSocietyâowe to first-rate artists their chance for good working conditions. Well, you and I between us can manage things for this particular artist right now. He wonât let me give Marian the money for Europe as things are, just for my urging it. But if _you_ say she _must_ goâ Donât you see?â Mrs. Otis had seemed to Lewis at the time a rather delightful person. A magnetic smile and an air of almost naÃ¯ve simplicity had robbed what she said, and implied, of too much stupidity. And she went on to speak of her wealth with simplicity. âWhat use is all this money,â she asked, eyes shining and wide, âif I canât do some ordinary human good with it outside of organized charity, and without fuss? What I canât spend myselfâspend beautifully, I meanâcertainly belongs to the next person who needs it. And Marian, poor darling, is really and truly my next person. Itâs as simple as that.â But Mrs. Farwell, to Lewisâ mind, was neither mentally nor physically ill. She was a âhappiness hound,â nothing else in the world, and he could not honestly prescribe Europe or a sanitarium as a cure for a deeply rooted perversion in human character. Yet getting away without committing himself to coÃ¶peration in Mrs. Otisâ naÃ¯ve philanthropic schemes was difficult, the more so since he could not, of course, tell her his âfindings.â But Lewis managed it at last and Dickâs errand here just now seemed to indicate that she had not stayed permanently resentful, however she had felt at the time. And then, before anything of his call at the Cambridge apartment had had time to fade from Lewisâ memory, the papers were full of the divorce of Lowell and Marian Farwell. A little while more and two marriages were front-page news, Lowell Farwell to Mrs. Clare Otis _nÃ©e_ Fay, and Mrs. Marian Farwell, _nÃ©e_ Dodge toâsomebody or other. The name hardly mattered since it was merely her recent connection with the celebrated novelist which gave the happiness houndâs new marriage its ephemeral public interest. And now, less than three years after that so simple solution of their problemsâand a wonder Mrs. Clare had not hit on it sooner and had ever bothered to try plotting with a psychiatrist!âshe had Lewis again marked down as a fellow conspirator. What did she want to buy from him this time, Lewis asked himself. Her stepdaughterâs affection, according to Dick. But that would be only part of it. With three years for perspective, Lewis was more than a little doubtful of âClareâsâ simplicity. But he could not guess what she might be wanting. It would be interesting to see, possibly. And in any case, there would be Petra. And Teresa Kerr. Who was Teresa Kerr, anyway, and where was she now, Lewis wondered. Well, Petra could tell him that. He would ask her on Saturday, the first thing. To-day was only Wednesday. Three days, then, to go until he should see Petra. It seemed an unconscionably long time to wait. But why, then, had he let three years go past without inquiring from Cynthia, or the dozen other people who could certainly have told him, what had become of Petra since Farwellâs last marriage, and who was Teresa Kerr? He turned sharply around, as if startled away from the window by astonishment at himself for this strangely belated impatience. _Chapter Three_ Green Doors lay a few miles beyond Meadowbrook, well away from the main highway on a meandering country road of its own. The new house had been built on the site of the old farmhouse which it had replaced, with its front door only a few paces from the road. In a general way the new house followed the contours of the old. The long, low lines of the sheds and the high, gabled lines of the barnâall house nowâgave the place, as one came on it, a casual air of simplicity. It melted into the landscape as if it were painted on it. The white walls, shadowed by old, gnarled apple trees, were friendly with the dusty white country road, while the entire landscape of meadows and fields, with stretches of brook-cooled woodland, cradled the new dwelling as no changeling but its own child, in a peaceful lap. So Lewis at any rate felt as he arrived with Dick, in Dickâs car, at tea time on that Saturday afternoon which had come, at last. âThatâs Clareâs guest house,â Dick explained of a small one-story doll-house-like place directly across the way from the big house. âIt used to be the cow sheds. We found it amusing, having the estate cut in two by the public road, and we have used the road in our landscapingâup to the hilt. Autos almost never come this way, and the hay carts and occasional cows that do only add to the flavor. Isnât it jolly!â âVery!â Lewis agreed. âAnd infinitely peaceful. Does Farwell write here at Green Doors?â He was contrasting the novelistâs Cambridge home with this latest one and thinking that Clare appeared, at least on the surface, to have been successful in giving this particular artist an ideal environment for his creative ventures. âOh, yes. But in a little studio off in the woods. He made us build it according to his own ideas and Farwellâs genius doesnât work along the lines of architecture. But such as it is, itâs his own, and thatâs charm enough, I suppose. Weâve laughed over it quite a lot, Clare and I, but itâs well out of sight and it doesnât matter what it looks like so very much, just so long as it serves its purpose. And it does that. The man practically lives there.â Lewis could not help thinking of his own books written in snatched minutes at his office, on trains, in hotel bedrooms in the dead of night with the call to sleep like a fire-engine siren shrieking a warning in his brain. But Farwellâs was creative writing and that was a different sort altogether, necessitating leisure and solitude, at any priceâpossibly! But there Lewis pulled himself up. âLord! This matter of price is none of my business! They may be quite decent people at heart, really, and even happy!â The front door had its stepâa big, flat slate stoneâa little below the level of the road. The hall into which one entered after so unpretentious an approach was almost startling in its palatial proportions. It was the height of the old barn, and the floor and the wallsâwith a balcony running around the second story on three sidesâwere made of composition which gave the effect of stone. In its own right, this great hall was a work of art; but on such a day as this, with the whole farther end opened to the New England countryside, it became merely a neutral frame for the garden, which, a mass of passionate color, cut a flaming swathe through a wooded valley to orchard-draped hills beyond. The maid who had opened the door for them said, âMrs. Farwell would like you to go through into the garden. She is under the elm.â The terrace, as they came to it, was merely an unroofed continuation of the floor of the great hall. It ended with wide slabs of flower-rimmed stone shelving down into grassy sweeps of hot June color. Off at one side, in a distant corner of the lawn, some Chinese garden chairs were grouped around a rustic table in the shade of a perfect wineglass elm. A little beyond, in the same shade, a woman in a white dress lay stretched in a long chair, her back to the house. A big garden hat, brilliant orange, was tossed on the grass beside her. But Mrs. Farwell was not asleep, for she heard their voices, and jumping up, came several steps out beyond the shade in her eagerness to welcome them. âPetra and I were to play tennis. She was to have joined me hereâohâages agoâand she hasnât, and Iâve just stayed on waiting all afternoon, and never dreamed it was tea time. Look at me!ââMrs. Farwell meant apology for her crumpled, sleeveless frock, for her ankle socks on suntanned bare legs, for rather shabby sneakers. âI meant to change, of course. But the afternoon is a dream and I have been dreaming with it, since Petra never came. The child must not forget her tea date, though, and I donât think she will. She remembered you perfectly, Doctor Pryne, and seemed actually _pleased_ that you were coming.âYes, Richard! Petra _showed pleasure_. Doesnât that sound propitious?â She stood for another minute out in the glare where she had met her guests, looking hopefully toward the house, as if half expecting Petraâs arrival to coincide with theirs. âLowell too!â she murmured. âMy husband was terribly pleased you were coming, Doctor Pryne. But time doesnât exist for him when he is working. He will be sure to turn up, though. He has no intention of missing youâthis time.â Then she shaded her brow with her palm and, turning suddenly to Dick, smiled deliberately and sweetly into his eyes. Lewis wished he had been looking somewhere else when this happened. She led them back to the chairs and herself took the one nearest the tea table. His hostess was not nearly so pretty as Lewis remembered her. But she was much more than pretty! Yesâsitting upright against the fantastic high back of the Chinese chair, in her sleeveless white frock, her hair black as the lacquer of the wickerwork, her very long, curving lashes black, tipped in gold, and dimples subtly hinted in her thin cheeksâshe was vital and engaging. But specious!âLewis quickly added. Before, when he had thought her rather beautiful and certainly naÃ¯vely ingenuous, he had been looking at her through the beginning of twilight in a city apartment. But this second time her background was an elm and the light was of broad day. That changed things somewhat. Lewis did not particularly enjoy his present skepticism. But he could not help himself. And his next unhallowed thought was âPoor Dick!â For the latest Mrs. Farwellâs particular variety of predatoriness was of the sort that relishes a spiritual flavor to its meat; so Lewis, at any rate, hazarded. The bodies, even the hearts of men, would not be enough: Clare Farwell would demand the soul before all. âPretty selfish of Petra to waste your afternoon for you like this!â Dick exclaimed. He turned to Lewis. âYou can see for yourself how it is. Youâve run right onto it, first thing, without our showing you. Itâs always like this. This is the way Petra treats Clare.â âOh, Richard! Please! How horrid that sounds. Itâs a little unjust as well. This time I am almost certain she really and genuinely forgot I was waiting for her. Her offering to play with me at all was generous. Petra is a hum-dinger at tennis, Doctor Pryne, and I am only fairish. So itâs not much fun for her, playing with me. This is probably the truth of it: Petra wanted to be nice, then her subconscious mind got busy making her forget and so saved her from having to be nice. Doctor Pryne will tell you, Richard, that the hardest things not to forget are the duties which bore us.â She was laughing but in spite of that she meant them to believe her serious. Clare _would_ call Dick âRichard.â Given her type, it was almost inevitable. Lewis wondered why it had taken him so unaware and why it need so irritate him. And it was also inevitableâbut for this he had been totally unpreparedâthat she would overtly exonerate the slandered Petra and in the very act make it look worse for the child. For she was a person who could have her cake and eat it too, every time. It was a trick act, peculiar to the type.... But Lewis liked his own critical self less and less in exact ratio as he found himself liking Petraâs stepmother less and less. He wished he had never had to see her by daylight. âSubconscious mind nothing!â Dick scoffed. âClare, youâre always making excuses for everybody, but most of all for Petra. Couldnât she _see_ you waiting out here all afternoon from every window in the house? Wouldnât that circumvent her subconscious forgettery mechanisms?â âOh yes, if she were in the house, my dear Richard. But she may have gone for a walk. Now, though, sheâll be back, dressing for this party of ours. _I_ should have!â âWell, I only wish I had known you were just waiting around here for nothing!â Dick was thoroughly upset. âIâve been spoiling for exercise all afternoon. Cynthia insisted it was too hot to play, Harry stuck at his bank, and Lewis couldnât be torn from Marlboro Street one minute ahead of time. But Iâm sleeping at the Allensâ to-night, after Petraâs dance. How about a game tomorrow morning?â âBut my dear boy, to-morrow is Sunday,â Clare reminded him. Then, to Lewis, she explained, almost with a blush, âDonât be shocked, Doctor Pryne. I never impose my religious idiosyncrasies on others, not even on my family. One doesnât! And I donât even carry my peculiarity to the point of going to churchâdo I, Richard? Oh, yes, I do really, only notââshe laughedââthe Meadowbrook Congregational Church! Green Doors is my church. âI know an orchard, old and rare, I will not tell you where, With green doors opening to the sun, And the sky children gather thereâ âI can slip away, with a volume of essays or poetry, stretch out anywhere in the grass and sun on one of those slopes up there, and feel God nearer than He would ever come to me in the four walls of any church on earth, even the most beautiful cathedral. My husband says that thatâs pagan. Perhaps it is. I am pagan, I think. But words for oneâs religion donât matter, do they! _I know what I know, and I feel what I feel, and it isâbeautiful._â Then, laughing again, she asked, âWhat church do you go to, on Sundays, Doctor Pryne? Not one built by men, any more than I, Iâm sure. You too are beyond that kindergarten point in evolution. You see, I know you much better than you can even begin to know me, for I have read your books!â Good Lord! What had Lewisâ books to say of his religion? They were austerely psychological, made up of the findings and the theories of a practising psychiatrist. The philosophical humility in all his writing was Lewisâ pride. But he was saved the trouble of defending his pride just then, even if he had thought it worth the trouble, for Clareâs stepdaughter, Petra, had come down the terrace steps and was hurrying across the lawn. âImagine Clare calling herself the mother of that!â Dick laughedâand Lewis, somehow, knew that the remark and its accompanying mirth was probably as familiar at this tea table as was Clareâs explanation of her individualistic out-of-doors worship. Clare murmured hurriedly, softlyâher fingers just touching Lewisâ coat sleeve as she leaned toward himââRichard is only teasing me. He knows perfectly well that Iâm not flattered. I am thirty years old and have no ambition to compete with Petraâs _lovely youth_. What I long to be is a mother to her, a real one. How I long for it! But I need your help, Doctor Pryne. You will see how I need it....â Petra, when she reached the shade of the elm, was constrained and even a little awkward. But that was hardly surprising. All three of them had watched her approach from the instant that she had come down the terrace steps, and she might very well have felt that Clareâs murmurings in Lewisâ ear, and even more, Dickâs laugh, concerned herself. âDarling!â Clare exclaimed, smiling up at her through her really fascinating lashes. âWhat a perfectly enchanting frock! Itâs new! And you never showed it to me! And look at me! I havenât even changed!âThis is my daughter, grown up, since you saw her, Doctor Pryne. Sit down quickly, darling. Itâs too hot to keep the men standing. And hereâs the tea. Draw your chairs to the table.âYou neednât stay to pass things, Elise.â She threw a warm, grateful smile to the maid who had brought out the tray. The look she won in return was humbly idolizing. Lewis held a chair out for Petra, and when she took it, drew his own along beside it. The gawky schoolgirl body had rounded into selfconscious maturity. Otherwise Petra was exactly the girl of Lewisâ, in this case strangely explicit, memory ... until she turned from him and the intense gentian blue of her eyes no longer blurred his power for deeper perception. Then he saw that the attentive fairy-tale gaze was quite gone; or if there was attentiveness there now, it was not bent on a happy, mystery-brimmed world before the girlâs face, but on a realm within. Childlike receptiveness was transformed to a look of reserve made vivid. The utter beauty of the remembered child face was thereâintactâbut it no longer took oneâs breath; it was protected by this vivid reserve as by a sword, on guard. But Lewis was not sorry for the sword. He saw that it would, at any rate, keep her safe from Clare. He knew that Youth often has need of its seeming hardness until years give it some chance to acquire a little subtlety in its denials, if it is to protect with any success the inner, personal development of its own integrity. Lewis took the teacup and saucer Clare handed him. He helped himself to toast and strawberry jam. He laughed, amusedly, at some remark or other of âRichardâs,â and could even have repeated the witticism word for word if it had been required of him. But in spite of all this overt conformity to the social requirements of those first minutes since Petraâs arrival under the elm and his holding her chair for her, he was conscious of one thing only, the young girlâs living, breathing, _still_ self, there at his side. _Chapter Four_ It was Dick who brought up the broken tennis date, not Clare. Petra came out of her stillness to show a mild surprise. âBut I thought it wasnât definite,â she turned to Clare. âI thought we were to play if we felt like it when the time came. And then it was so hot!â The breath of silence which Clare allowed to follow this and the expression which crossed her face spoke an acute surprise on her part; but it was quickly followed by a seeming desire to shield Petra from anybodyâs criticism, even her own. Tactfully she changed the subject to ask, âWhat did you do all afternoon, darling? It has been deliciously hot.â And then to Lewis, âIâm like Shelley. I adore hot summer days and am more alive then than ever.ââBut she repeated her question to Petra: âWhat did you do with yourself all afternoon, darling?â
{'title': 'Green Doors by Ethel Cook Eliot', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}