Dynasty of Death

by Taylor Caldwell

  The truth was that poor Hilda felt usurped and useless, ill in body, sick in mind and heart, torn with unending longing for Joseph, finding no interest or real pleasure in living, not even in her food. She had always been vivacious and vigorous, mistress of her household, a good-natured and competent scold and mother and wife. Now she had been relegated to the chimney corner, she thought; no one wanted her or needed her. Night after night she whimpered like a child into her ruffled pillows, and stretched out her empty and trembling arms for a body that was not there. Night after night she went over the deathbed scene, and bitterly blamed Martin for his refusal to protect Ernest against the accusations of their father. She perversely thought that in this Martin had made his father’s death harder, had alienated Ernest long before the quarrel. She was the type of lusty woman who is wife and lover first, and mother only incidentally. Deprived of her lover, she found only irritation in her children. Had she been childless, she would have been happier.

  The “girls” were not sure which was their home. Florabelle decided, finally, that hers was with her favorite brother, Ernest, for May was fond of her and liked her to occupy the best guest chamber whenever she desired, during school holidays. But Florabelle’s several years at school had become quite enough, more than enough, and there was now the problem of her permanent home. Then there was Dorcas, who said her home was with Martin. But she was a delicate girl, and had had scarlet fever the last winter. Amy was doubtful that she ought to be far from refinements and the vicinity of her doctor.

  So it was finally arranged that Hilda and the “girls” were to live in a small but fine little house near Ernest. He had vaguely considered bringing his women-folk to live in the Sessions house, but May exclaimed: “God forbid!” with astonishing frankness. Florabelle, she said, was a love, and she adored her. But she was also stubborn and given to pouting for days at a time. Dorcas was too silent and reserved, too unsmiling and proud and suspicious. “She gives me the vapors,” said the candid May, who was envious of the girl’s beauty. As for Hilda! May raised pious eyes and hands to the ceiling. It would be, she informed her laughing husband, just one cat-and-dog fight after another.

  Martin, approached formally through an attorney, consented to pay one-third of the price of the house, and one-third of the cost of its upkeep and the maintenance of its inmates. These things ate deeply into his funds, he observed anxiously to himself. “Well, the girls are so lovely that they are bound to be married soon,” said Amy consolingly. She privately cancelled half of her large order for new clothing; she was fond of fine gowns and laces and furs, and this was a real sacrifice. She sturdily decided that the new baby would not droop and pine because he could not have yards and yards of hand-made French lace on his dresses, and that one narrow border of tatting would do as well. So she tatted the borders herself. They would not entertain so much in the country, she told Martin, so really would not need three maids. One cook and one housemaid were more than enough. Also, one carriage.

  A few months ago Martin would not have noticed nor heeded such deprivations, or, if he had, he would have thought it only right, the expected thing for Amy to do. But now he said somewhat sadly: “I am robbing you, my dearest.”

  “Do you think,” asked Amy, “that all of these things together are worth your happiness?”

  One day, three days before the removal to the country, Gregory called upon his niece in great agitation. He was realizing afresh how much he was attached to her, how much he really loved her and her children. He came to her without irony or sarcasm; he came in real perturbation and anxiety.

  “Is it possible that he has converted you to his madness, Amy?” he asked, walking rapidly to and fro in the dismantled parlor, and kicking aside scraps of paper as he did so.

  “Please, do not call it madness, Uncle Gregory. You hurt me so. No, I have not been converted. As I told you before, I can see it from his point of view, but I cannot feel it. I confess I would not do it, myself. Perhaps I am stupid in believing that one man cannot set his shoulder against the world and move it all by himself. He has to have help. Martin feels that no one will help him, so he is giving all his own strength. He has to do it; he is compelled so by his own nature.” Her voice became very low. “And then, perhaps, it is we who are blind and mad and stubborn, and not Martin, as you seem to think. Perhaps it is we who lack understanding.”

  Gregory irritably waved aside her last words. “Yet, not believing in it, you allow him to rob you and your children without a word of protest, and in fact, even encourage him?”

  “Uncle Gregory, it is the duty of a wife or a husband to do all in her or his power to make the other happy. Children, money, position, the respect of one’s friends, friendship itself: these are absolutely nothing compared to the happiness of the one you have married. They should not even be considered for a moment. If it would give Martin happiness to give everything away to put us down in a log cabin, to surround us with poverty, then it would be my duty, and my own happiness, to let him have his way without a murmur from me.”

  Gregory was moved. “I believe you mean that, my love. It seems incredible—” Then his violence renewed itself. “But you are elevating a self-appointed reforming fool to a dignity he doesn’t deserve! There is nothing to be gained by all this, except jeers and deprivations and loneliness and anxieties. Martin is no great hero, no Savonarola, no Martin Luther or Moses or Voltaire or male Joan of Arc, though perhaps he considers himself such. He’s just another tilter at windmills.”

  Amy forced a smile to her tired face. She rose and laid her hand on her uncle’s arm. “Well, then, if he is just a tilter, I can carry his sword, and keep it from getting rusty. But you have not seen the babies for two weeks—”

  Gregory sighed, then made himself smile also. “Where are the rascals? They’re the prettiest things I’ve ever seen, Amy, twice the size of little Godfrey James. Ah, there’s a puny little mite, God help him! Not much stamina there, or strength. Do you know, I’m beginning to think he looks oddly like your precious husband, my love. Much more so than do his own children. I hope to God we aren’t going to have another reformer in the family! God knows this one is hard enough to bear.” He growled: “All this talk of ‘happiness’! I wonder if these self-appointed little Messiahs know what unhappiness they cause everyone else who is unfortunate enough to be connected with them!”

  When the babies were brought to him, he held them on his knee and struggled to keep them in order. They had begun to walk now, and insisted on moving floorwards over his legs, his arms, his knees and his stomach. They were like an eight-limbed octopus, restless, hard-fleshed and vehement with strength and brassy of lung, and as hard to hold. Gregory exulted in them, rescued his watch a dozen times, choked on his pulled cravat, blinked his poked eyes, and laughed at their smiling mother over the welter of them. When they had been carried away, roaring, by their nurse, he said, with a little hoarseness in his voice: “Don’t take them away from me, Amy. Damn it, I never meant to say this, but my own home is becoming intolerable to me! I have no complaint to make of May, except that she is becoming dictatorial and a little too managing; but damned if I will be able to put up with Ernest Barbour much longer without sneaking into his room some night and murdering him. No, truly, Amy,” as she laughed enjoyingly, “I’m a man of few attachments, and you and your children are the only things I care a copper penny for in this whole world.”

  “We are not going far,” said Amy, putting her arms about him, and pressing her cheek to his. “You can drive out in half an hour. And you know how we love you, how welcome you will be, dear Uncle Gregory.”

  He looked down at her, and it seemed to him that she was her mother the sister he had loved. He remembered, too, how much he had hated the man his sister had loved; yes, he was a rascal and a mountebank, but she had loved him. Then he remembered the night the message came, that she had married him, and how enraged their father had been, cursing his daughter and swearing she would get not one red penny from
him if she starved for want of it. He could have done something then, thought Gregory; he could have softened the terrible old man, turned him back to his daughter, for his father respected his opinion. But he had not done it: he had been so outraged and bitter against her. Finally it was too late, Amy died, and then their father died, and there was the will and the baby girl. He thought suddenly: If I had spoken to my father, if I had softened him toward my sister, Amy would have married Ernest Barbour, and those babies would be his. The idea struck him so forcibly with its possibilities, that he could not help asking Amy: “Are you sorry, my love, that Ernest—that I did not want you to marry Ernest Barbour?”

  Amy was startled. She looked up into his eyes. She did not know why he was asking, but she felt with sudden intuitiveness that should she hesitate, show the least sadness or faintest regret, she would hurt him beyond repair. So she said quickly, smilingly: “Of course not, Uncle Gregory! That is all gone and forgotten. I was just a chit, then, not knowing my own mind. And I do love Martin. Only I know how much!”

  But he was still uneasy, gnawed by an obscure discomfort he could not name.

  It was a raw and windy day when Martin’s young family moved to the country. The trees were still bare, the ground wet-brown and running with cold water, the barnyard and gardens dismal, the chickens half drowned, the house still dank from unoccupation in spite of the roaring fires the maid had already built on every hearth. Against a pale jade evening sky, cold and cheerless, the hills were dark and irregular mounds and ridges. The meadows and fields ran from the house, dipping and rising to meet the hills, and the rail fences sagged gloomily in the muddy earth, which was still entirely without color, and full of miniature lakes and rivers. Just as the family arrived, depressed and damp, a cow set up a mournful lowing in the barn, and this hollow sound, combining as it did with the cold strong air, the utter lonely silence, the desolate meadows and the dark hills against the green sky, sent an icy wave of melancholy over Amy. Her hoops swayed gingerly over the muddy ground; she was carrying one baby, and the cook carried another. The gardener brought up the rear with several wicker suitcases and bags. Amy was already exhausted, and the weight of the child on her arm and body was dangerous. She looked up at the house as she approached it; it would be comfortable enough and homelike after awhile, she told herself stoutly, but just now it had a lowering air against the pale and livid sky. The curtains were not hung as yet, and the windows scowled at her bleakly. Her heart sank lower and lower as she stumbled up the muddy path; she had dropped her heavy skirts, now, and they dragged in the brown slime. Martin had been unable to come with her, for there were some last details to attend to in the city house. The beds for the hospital were already being brought in.

  The maid opened the door as Amy approached it, and she could see the heartening glow of a fire beyond her. Amy dropped the baby with a gasp into the maid’s arms, and the girl burst into loud exclamations of indignation. “Now, ma’am, you come right in to the fire, and I’ll make you a cup of tea, that I will, and while cook starts supper in the kitchen I’ll attend to these two poor little dears! The idea, a lady in your state carrying a big rascal like this! It is a shame and a disgrace, I do declare!”

  The cook and the maid exchanged condemnatory and significant glances over Amy’s bent and trembling shoulder; they did not particularly care for Martin, and with others of their class had freely discussed what he had done. The consensus of opinion was that he was a maniac to say the least, and a fool into the bargain. Amy they respected and admired, for she had no active interest in them, nor anxiety about their class, as Martin had. So her manner was always impersonal and indifferently kind, while his was always thoughtful and courteous. Her attitude, they thought, stamped her as a great lady, while his, so touchily conscious of them, so concerned for them, betrayed his more plebeian origin.

  Everything was not yet in order. The babies were carried, scolding, upstairs, and Amy sank into a chair before the fire. She rubbed her hands exhaustedly in the warmth, glanced about her, shivering. Tables were still piled together, cushions heaped on chairs, pictures leaning against the dark walls, the windows livid and desolate rectangles in the dimness. A mahogany mantel clock, standing on the floor in the nearest corner, suddenly chimed sturdily in the silent and dreary room. Amy laughed weakly, looked at her dry and dusty hands, listened anxiously for the rattle of china and the heartening hiss of water on tea. But the kitchen was still silent. She could hear cook and the maid talking hoarsely together upstairs; one of the children had begun to cry. Amy remembered that the beds were still unmade, heaped with linen and quilts and blankets, and the thought of her bed, still stripped, its springs revealed cheerlessly, the mattress in the corner still wrapped in paper, overcame her. She began to cry, whimpering like a tired child, and childishly she wiped her wet eyes on the corner of the shawl she had not yet removed. “I am so tired,” she whispered, looking at the jumbled furniture and the flowered rug which was scattered with sawdust and unpacked small boxes.

  All at once she was sick with homesickness and helpless despair, not for the home she had left, not even for Martin, but for the Sessions house with its great fires and marble fireplaces, quiet lofty halls and chiming clocks, deep soft rugs and bookcases, rooms shining with candlelight, the subdued coming and going of maids, the distant smell of a delicious supper, the warmth and inviting comfort of the bedrooms. Her tears fell faster, became sobs and little cries. If she were just in her old bed, a girl again, without alarms and worries, without the burden of young children, without fear and anxieties, her life uncomplicated and serene and pleasantly dignified, all things and dreams before her, and someone, someone she loved, coming tonight!

  Then she pulled herself together sharply and said aloud, as she wiped her dust-and-tear-streaked face: “This is all such nonsense, pitying myself this way! I am just tired and a little ill, and it is so silent here, so lonely, and everything so muddled. I’ll be splendid again, tomorrow, after a good night’s sleep.”

  She rose and went to a window. It afforded a wide view of the valley and the hills. But her heart sank again; all was pale and leaden sky, dark ridges, wet and colorless earth. Not a soul was to be seen, not a sound to be heard, except the dismal clucking of chickens, the melancholy throbbing of frogs in the pool at the foot of the garden.

  Amy leaned against the cold window-pane and struggled with herself. The mental conflict seemed to extend itself to her body, and all at once she was alarmedly conscious of quick hot pain. “It can’t be!” she thought. “Not for at least another month!” Terror rolled over her, filled her with sick weakness, set her knees to knocking together and sweat to break out over her face. She stumbled back to her chair, fell into it. The pain was more intense now, like the plunging of knives into her vitals. She cried out, again and again. The footsteps and voices still sounded dimly overhead; no one heard her. A grotesque fear swept over her that no one would ever hear her, that she would die alone in this place, away from her friends and those who loved her. She staggered to her feet, clutching her tortured body in her wet hands; she began to scream with terror and agony. A mist fell over her eyes, and everything danced before her: the red fire, the piled furniture, the pale rectangles of the windows. She heard someone screaming on and on down a dark tunnel, and she seemed to be dragged along that tunnel by the power of that screaming.

  There was a startled confusion above. She heard that. But she also heard the outside door open, and three persons, entire strangers, came into the room, a tall lean old woman in a gray shawl and black bonnet, a short stout old man with a yellow beard, and a young man, tall and fair and strong. She stopped her screaming, but her eyes and mouth remained open and vibrating.

  “Mein Gott!” exclaimed the old woman. She came forward, peering in the dusk. “It iss Mrs. Barbour, iss it?” She let the lightning flick of her old eyes pass over Amy. Instantly she became competent, understanding. Amy had a last impression, before the mists closed down upon her entirely, of being
lifted, of a crooning voice in her ear, of confusion, voices, searing pain, a delicous mattress under her, cries, and prolonged sailing screams. Then total darkness.

  At midnight, her second daughter, Lucy, was born. At dawn she awoke to find Martin, haggard and spent, sitting near her bed, in the hastily organized front bedroom, with the old woman. Through peaceful drowsiness she felt his kisses, his pleas for forgiveness; she heard him tell her faintly that the old people were Mr. and Mrs. Heckl, the young man; their son, Carl; that they, were to occupy the tenant cottage down the lane and run the farm. Amy had one dim moment of weak amusement; it was so like Martin never to have told her this until now. She was grateful for the aid and comfort and competence of the old woman, who had most assuredly saved the baby’s life if not her own, and somehow, as she fell asleep again, she felt safe with this woman near her, safer than she had ever been with Martin, whom she had had to protect, and would always have to protect, against the impaling points of life

  CHAPTER XLIII

  One month later May’s daughter was born, a dark-eyed, triangular-faced little creature who was named Gertrude.

  Ernest had expressed a desire for another son, but he conceived a sudden, and to May, an absurd, passion for the little girl. He totally forgot Godfrey James for the time being; nothing was too good for the new baby. A cry from her in the nursery sent him leaping upstairs with more agitation than a mother would display; he discharged, with much violence, a nursemaid whom he suspected of a minor carelessness. When, at the age of one month, she developed a slight indisposition, he returned from the office at noon, unable to concentrate in his anxiety. To visitors, he would say: “My daughter!” as though he had no other child. When she was three months old, he bought her a fine fat pony and a cart, in which May was forced to ride, awkwardly carrying the baby. He started a bank account for her with a staggering deposit, though he had not done this for his son. Before very long, all Windsor rang amusedly with stories of his passion for his daughter, stories none too kind nor sympathetic. Ernest cared not a jot for this, probably never heard of it. He was immune to the dangers of ridicule, now.