Green Doors

by Ethel Cook Eliot

“In September, when we went back to Cambridge, Teresa wanted to use her scholarship and enter Radcliffe. But Marian needed her so much and had come to depend on her for everything so much—but most of all it was her cheerfulness she needed—that Teresa gave up college for that year and stayed on with us. But she told Father and me, then, when she decided to stay on with us, about the fire, and about the two sisters who had died of pneumonia, and about how her mother and father had wanted her to go to college. Father said that she must go, of course, but that she was surely young enough to wait a year. He was appalled about the fire and said she must never tell Marian. It would be too harrowing. And he was very sorry I had heard it....

“The summer after that we couldn’t afford the cottage on the Cape and we stayed on in Cambridge. That was bad for Marian. All the time that she was in the apartment she spent in her bedroom on her chaise-longue. But it was frightfully hot and she would get wildly nervous and go out then to luncheons and tea dances and places—looking very gay and well. But it was only a false, nervous strength, the doctor said....

“Then that fall you came, Doctor Pryne. Teresa and I were so relieved! But you didn’t have a chance. Marian went away, and there was the divorce. But she went away without saying anything to Teresa and me. We came back from a day in the country in time to get dinner that afternoon, and she was gone. That evening Father explained it all to us—in words of one syllable, you know,—what had happened.

“Teresa took it so hard that I don’t remember how I felt about it. I didn’t feel anything, I think. I was so surprised to hear Teresa crying that that was all I thought about, really. It was as if the world was shaking under us—under Father and me—with Teresa, of all people, crying. But Father was angry with Teresa. She said, you see, that he must bring Marian back. He said he would not think of doing any such thing—that she had a right to her freedom, if she wanted it. Teresa started crying when Father said to us, ‘I can honestly say I am happy in Marian’s happiness and I think she has done exactly right. It’s sheer stupidity for people who are not happy together to go on pretending they are. It is happiness that matters. There’s at least one person the happier in the world to-night, and any one who really and genuinely cares for her must be glad for her,—even if it means separation from her, of a sort, and for a time. And after the divorce goes through, you know, there’s no reason in the world why we shouldn’t all be as good friends as ever.’

“But Teresa cried just exactly as if somebody was dead. And this time Father Donovan was dead too and could not pray her prayers for her, while she cried. That is what I thought, I remember, though I didn’t understand why she was crying like that. I was terribly frightened by her crying like that—and Father’s walking the floor so white and angry with her.

“Clare came in about then. I think Father called her up and asked her to come, to help him with Teresa. She made Teresa drink some water. And then, when Teresa was quiet, she said, ‘You are a self-righteous, ignorant girl. Mr. Farwell has the patience of a saint but this is more than he can bear.—He is going to give you a month’s wages and you must go away. You are only making things that are hard for him already much harder.’

“I went with Teresa while she packed her suit cases. Clare called up Morris Place House and told them to get a room ready for Teresa. She is a trustee there. She ordered the taxi too, and told us when it came. She took everything in charge, as if she were in Marian’s place already. But Teresa told the taxi-driver to go somewhere else, not Morris Place House. She wasn’t crying any more but she looked ghastly. She wouldn’t let me go away with her but she promised never to forsake me. And she never has. She is my guardian angel.... But Clare doesn’t know any more about Teresa now—how she is, where she is—than she told you she did. And she’s not going to know. That is something I can do for Teresa.... But you asked about her, Doctor Pryne. You remembered her. And now I have told you about her.... I really wanted to....”

The bobolink’s Gloria had reached its climax minutes ago and ceased. Petra’s voice—when she had come to telling how Clare had discharged Teresa and sent her away, “as if she were in Marian’s place already”—had taken on the reticence of her eyes. It was not her personality any more—that voice—not as it had been. But the girl’s eyes, now that both she and the bobolink were silent, and Lewis looked at her, were thick with tears.

“But what did Teresa do? Was it too late to get into Radcliffe that fall? I suppose so. That was late autumn—nearly three years ago. What did Teresa do? Where did she go?”

Lewis had to know. Teresa had become increasingly real and important to him with every word that Petra had said of her. Petra must go on, must tell it all, even if she did cry, doing it.