The Wide House

by Taylor Caldwell

  He turned to Robbie, and said irritably: “Stop staring like a dolt. Give me a hand with the lad. Under his arm, there. Careful now. Come on, Bertie, you’ve got legs, not gristle; you can stand. Put your arm around my shoulder.” He saw Angus at the top of the stairs, and shouted furiously at him: “Come down here, you! Give us a hand with your brother. Get him to his room.”

  Angus came slowly down the stairs, proud and silent. He looked at his brother, dangling between Stuart and Robbie. He saw the lolling head, the drooling grimacing lips, the half-closed eyes of drunkenness. He shuddered. Then he turned to his mother, and his face changed. He put his arm about her stiff and trembling shoulders. “Mama,” he said, “please go upstairs, to Laurie. She mustn’t see him like this. Mama, it doesn’t matter. You know what you’ve always said: it is just his high spirits.”

  But Janie, apparently, did not hear him. However, she pushed his arm from her with rigid violence. She shrank against the balustrade. Then she put her hands silently over her face.

  Stuart, with irate eyes sparkling, looked at her, then at Angus. He exclaimed: “Come on, you! Take his legs. He can’t stand up, and I’m damned if I’m going to sprain my back hauling him up these stairs! Take his legs; that’s it. Slowly, now. Up we go.”

  Struggling, sweating, bumping, staggering, they got Bertie upstairs. Halfway up he began to sing, incoherently and with stammerings. It was a gay and ribald song. Once or twice he became aware of his carriers, and he kissed Stuart, and then Robbie, with grateful enthusiasm. “Stout feller,” he would mutter, approvingly. “Bit of trouble with the legs, you see. Not responsible.” And then he would burst into loud and rollicking song again, throwing back his head and bawling lustily. He was heavy, well-fed, and seemed all flesh, boneless. His legs, in Angus’ arms, were leaden, his polished boots glimmering gaily in the lamplight. Just before they reached the top he appeared to recognize Angus, and he burst into huge laughter, which exercise almost unbalanced Stuart and Robbie who, for a moment, hung precariously, and with teeterings, over the long flight behind them. Bertie’s laughter increased in volume as he continued to stare at Angus’ white strained face and averted eyes.

  Janie stood below, crouched against the balustrade, her hands still over her face.

  They carried Bertie into his room, and flung him roughly across his bed. It was the handsomest room in the house, with many windows, the softest rug of all, the most pleasant pictures framed on the white walls, and a pleasant fire already burning warmly on the black marble hearth. Robbie lit a lamp.

  Stuart mopped his steaming face with a dazzling-white kerchief. He took off his tall hat and flung it on a table. He ran a finger around his choking stock. He exclaimed: “If I don’t have a heart attack after this, or break a blood vessel somewhere, it’ll be a marvel! Damned young scamp! He needs a kick in his backside, and a clout in the jaw.”

  But his rough words, as always, concealed distress. He could not forget Janie, there on the stairs. He fumed. He glared at Bertie, kicked aside one dangling plump leg. He grimaced as he saw the stained striped silk of his own waistcoat. “Dirty puppy,” he muttered, rubbing at Bertie’s droolings with his kerchief. His mouth twitched disgustedly. He stood at the foot of the bed, and cursed Bertie with vigor. But all this was to forget Janie’s face on the stairs.

  Robbie listened to him with cool amusement. Angus stood near the bed and regarded his drunken brother with bitter moroseness. Stuart glanced at the two young men, then compressed his mouth. He disliked both of them immensely. They were both very thin, and dressed in their funereal black broadcloth. But Robbie was all exquisite aristocracy; the somberness of his cloth increased his look of elegance and gentlemanly assurance. Angus, on the other hand, looked like a “damned gravedigger,” as Stuart thought, with considerable vindictiveness.

  “What do you do with the dog, now?” he asked sullenly, of Robbie.

  “We undress him, naturally.” Robbie’s voice was all quiet competence. He hesitated, smiled faintly at his brother Angus. “I’ve never asked you before, Angus, but I think I’d like a little help.”

  “Not me, this time,” said Stuart. “I’ve enough vomit on me now, I’m thinking. Careful with him. If I’m not mistaken, he’s about to puke.”

  Calmly, Robbie bent and produced the chamber from under the bed and set it on the floor close to Bertie’s lolling head. He and Angus then dragged and pulled at Bertie’s pantaloons, throwing the soiled and fashionable garments onto a chair. These Robbie soon folded neatly in a small bundle and put away in the wardrobe. He was all serenity. He directed Angus, who obeyed in that grim silence of his. All his actions were remote. He sternly repressed his shrinkings. He was very white.

  They put Bertie between his cool sheets, after dressing him in his ruffled linen night shirt. There he lay, his handsome hair red and thick on the smooth, embroidered pillows, the grin still fixed on his face. But now his eyes were wide open, and their bright blueness was fixed on the lamp. “Ho, its night!” he said with pleased surprise. He rolled his eyes and looked at Robbie. “Good ole Robbie. Nice boy. Stout feller. Where’s the day gone, Robbie?”

  “In your cups,” said his imperturbable brother. Robbie came close to him and smiled his chill smile. “How do you feel? Head ache?”

  “Damnably,” said Bertie, after a moment’s serious consideration. “Stomach like a ship at sea. All hands on deck,” he added, with a broad and happy smile. “Pipe all hands. Southeaster comin’ up. See her pitch, lads.” His face changed, became absorbed and serious. Robbie promptly lifted the china chamber, graced as it was with a wreath of pink roses, and held it near his brother’s mouth. He was none too soon. Stuart retreated to a window and opened it, letting in the cold December air. He closed his nostrils in nauseated disgust. He put his head outside the window, the better not to hear the ugly retching in the room. He looked down at the dark street, saw the flickering lamps glimmering across the cobbled pavements. The stark trees outside were silvered with the moon. But still Stuart could not shut out the memory of Janie’s face.

  He returned to the room. Robbie had left with the chamber. Angus was standing as Stuart had left him, near the bed. He was gazing down at his brother with his pale closed look which told nothing at all. As for Bertie, he lay on his pillows, and panted, white and drained, with leaden lips and sunken eyes. The room reeked of sour and vomited whiskey.

  “Don’t look so damned censorious!” said Stuart, impatiently. “It’s not a matter of life and death, Angus. The lad’s got a good heart. We must make allowances for high spirits. He’s young, y’know, and thinks it prodigiously manly of him—”

  But Angus only regarded his brother with bitter steadfastness, and said quietly: “He’s profligate and wicked. He’s a waster and a drunkard. He brings shame to this house, and heartbreak to his mother, and disgrace to his sister. There is evil in him, and godlessness and faithlessness and impiety.”

  Stuart stared at him with repugnance and anger. “Don’t talk like a fool,” he said roughly. “Or a bloody parson. Damn you all, anyway! My father used to say that every Scotsman was either a lawyer, a drunkard or a deacon, and I’m blasted if he wasn’t right! Who are you to judge this lad, you white-lipped ‘wee minister’? How do you know what drives a man to drink?”

  Angus raised his gray rigorous eyes and regarded Stuart with somberness. And those eyes shone in the lamplight like granite. “Why should Bertie drink?” he asked, sternly. “What drives him? He is our mother’s darling. He has unlimited pocket-money. He is given everything he wants. Nothing is denied him.”

  Bertie, during all this, had been panting noisily on his pillows. Now at Angus’ words he smiled brilliantly, and with childish affability. He nodded his head slowly, and pursed up his lips. “Right, right,” he agreed, in the soft and slurring voice of agreeable drunkenness. “Quite right. ‘Everything he wants. Nothing denied.’ Quite, quite right. Everybody loves Bertie. Bertie has heart of gold. Bertie wants nothing.” Suddenly he laughed and lau
ghed, wallowing on the bed, and his rollicking mirth was a loud and bacchanalian riot in the room.

  Robbie, in the meantime, had returned to the room, and had replaced the chamber in a handy spot. He wiped his hands fastidiously on his kerchief and glanced at Bertie with impersonal fondness. “Better now?” he asked, when Bertie paused for breath in his peals of joy.

  Bertie immediately became serious again. His eyes were gentle as they fixed themselves on Robbie. Then, all at once, they filled with easy tears. He lifted his hand and Robbie took it, chafing it in his small dry palms. “Robbie,” blubbered Bertie, “you’re ma ain brother, are ye not?” Now his accents roughened, and the old forgotten dialect came to his swollen lips.

  “I am that,” said Robbie, soothingly. “Now, be a good lad and try to sleep.”

  But Bertie was suddenly excited. “Ye’ll not turn from me, Robbie? With the drink and all? It’s the divil in me, Robbie, and there’s no guid reason for’t. Ye understand, Robbie?”

  “Of course, of course. Now, rest ye, Bertie. It’ll do you good.”

  But Bertie could not be restrained. He began to sob, clutching Robbie’s hand with a wet despair. He raved. He accused himself. He wept. His excitement rose, while Stuart watched him in alarm, and saw how damp that pale and swollen face was, and what an ominous color was spreading through his large full lips.

  Just then Janie entered, creeping in, huddling in her shawl as if most awfully cold. But her livid face was both tight and drawn, and filled with virulence. Her green eyes darted viciously and warily at Stuart and then at Angus, and lastly at Robbie. She came to the bed, and sat down abruptly at Bertie’s left. She caught his hand from Robbie. She clasped it to her breast, and glared at them all like a sharp and deadly weasel at bay, protecting her young.

  “Be off with you,—all,” she cried. “Leave me to my lad. You’re none of you doing him good, with your japes and your taunts. The poor lad! He wants to be alone with his mother!”

  Stuart’s first reaction was anger, and then he saw her despair, her hopeless defensiveness, her shame and her fear. “Calm yourself, Janie. We’ve done what we could for him.” He hesitated. He was full of pity for her, for this new Janie, so cold, so wretched, so broken-hearted. For he knew with the strong intuition of his primitive nature that Janie had at last realized what her son had become, and that she could no longer hide the hideous knowledge from herself.

  He said, impulsively: “I’ll help you, Janie. I’ll do what I can—”

  But she screamed at him, her face malignant with remembered hatred and frustration: “We’ll have no help from you, Stuart Coleman! You who left a poor widow and her bairns to face the world alone!”

  “Now, Mother,” said Robbie. His voice was quiet, but it had authority. “You should be grateful to Stuart, who found Bertie and brought him home.”

  But Janie’s shame was made only more violent at this. She waved one arm stiffly but menacingly at her cousin. “Be off with you!” she shrilled.

  Disgusted indignation and compassion warred in Stuart. He picked up his hat. Robbie shook his head at him slightly, and with amused apology. Angus seemed fallen into some dull despondency and unawareness of his own. He was like some dark ghost unseen by the others, and unseeing.

  Then indignation got the better of Stuart. He pointed at the recumbent Bertie, and his eyes sparkled with excited temper upon Janie.

  “Look at your son, ma’am, and blame no other but yourself for his disgraceful condition! It’s pampered him, you have, and coddled him, until there’s no manhood in him, no proper restraint or self-control! The blame’s on you, my good woman, and none else, no matter where you’d like to put it, in your damnable evil humor.”

  He paused. His voice had thickened with his rage. “I brought your blasted son home in my own carriage, hauling him from his den like a sack of flour. I’ve been puked upon by your son, and strained all my organs. I’d thought to come to this house today to plead with you to release your blessed son, Angus, from your commands, and allow him to pursue his natural bent for medicine. I’d planned to plead with you to allow me to assist him, to give him help offered by certain personages who can aid him profitably. And yet, for this, I receive nothing but insults!”

  Angus had stirred suddenly at Stuart’s words. He lifted his heavy gray eyes and stared at him strangely. In the wavering lamplight, his face appeared to dwindle and shrink.

  Janie stared at Stuart, and nothing could have been more evil and watchful than her glinting eyes. She cowered beside Bertie, his hand still clenched to her breast.

  Bertie had been muttering in his drunken delirium, then in the silence which followed Stuart’s words, he spoke out, loudly and clearly, with bubblings of mirth. “I’m a wise fellow!” he cried. “The wisest in the world! You all want something. Everlastingly you want something. But not Bertie Cauder. He is the wise fellow. He wants nothing at all, never anything at all, the darling!”

  They were suddenly silent, looking at him. He had fallen abruptly into a deep sleep. His breathing was harsh. But he was smiling.

  All at once, Stuart’s anger was gone. He felt tired and heavy. He looked at them each, slowly, with frustrated weariness, and irascibility. He saw the chill Robbie, who looked at him with the faintest of smiles. He saw the gloomy withdrawn Angus. He saw Janie, hating him in the most violent silence. He saw the sleeping Bertie. He felt something inimical in the whole atmosphere, something which rejected him with contempt.

  Then, in quite a shaken tone, he said: “You are a cold, grim and secretive people, you Scots.” He pointed first at Angus: “It’s always stiffening your moral backbones you are, with your frightful religion, or plotting and brooding in your cold rooms against better men.” He turned to Janie and Robbie again. “There’s something terrible about you, too much for the likes of me.”

  He went from the room. He walked down the corridor. A door was open, and on the threshold stood the young Laurie with her golden smooth hair and her still blue eyes. Stuart hesitated. They looked at each other in the dimly lit silence. Stuart wanted to speak to the girl, but he could not. He went down the stairway. He had almost reached the bottom step when he felt a touch on his arm. He was so certain he would see Laurie that he was quite startled when he saw it was only Robbie.

  “Don’t mind,” said the young man quietly. “Mama’s upset. Oh, damn it, I’m not apologizing for her impoliteness. You know Mama, Stuart. As for Angus—” and he shrugged. Now he smiled bitterly.

  “You find it all amusing, I presume?” said Stuart bitterly. “You, with your smiles, and your confounded coolness. There’s no heart in you.”

  Robbie shrugged again. He said: “I don’t find it particularly amusing. I very seldom laugh at anything.” He smiled again. “I’m like the Ephesian philosopher, Stuart, who laughed only when he saw asses eating thistles, in the midst of grass.”

  Stuart stared at him. His thick black brows drew together. He went away without speaking again.

  CHAPTER 33

  Angus was now one of the eight bookkeepers and office workers employed by the Grandeville Supreme Emporium, having served his apprenticeship in the shops. The original office behind the main luxurious shop had been enlarged to house several high desks and tables, where, under flickering oil lamps suspended from the ceiling, the clerks labored at the ledgers and wrote letters. Angus was not yet in charge, though Stuart was preparing him for that position. He worked doggedly, in remote and courteous silence, and was much feared, disliked and respected by his less august associates. It was nothing for him to work to nine and even ten o’clock at night, all alone, his small brown head bent over the ledgers, his neat pen adding or subtracting rapidly, the white pages turning methodically. If his stern and austere face took on a drained and exhausted look, it also increased in quiet harshness. Sam Berkowitz, whose own office led from the main office, would often pass the young clerk and stand near him, unseen, and watch him with sad eyes and furrowed face.

  Christmas came
and went. This was one of the periods when Stuart and Janie were “not speaking.” Like all the other periods, it would continue until some chance encounter in the home of a mutual friend, or a meeting on the street, or in the shops, brought them face to face and forced them to speak politely to each other. They would greet each other quite imperturbably, and with genuine smiles of pleasure, and an affable conversation which ignored past unpleasantness would ensue. Then Stuart would call casually upon his cousin, or she would call upon him and his wife, and all would be forgiven and forgotten, until the next time.

  Stuart had ostentatiously refused to allow his wife to include his name on her gifts to Janie at Christmas, though he permitted her and his little daughter to call upon the Cauder family at New Year’s, the traditional celebration of the Scots. When Marvina returned, all golden smiles and placid simpers, Stuart questioned her closely about the behavior of his cousin. (He was always forgetting that his wife was a fool, who never found anything unusual or disturbing.) But Marvina would only gaze at him amiably and remark that Janie was very civil and kind. Stuart fumed.

  Stuart did not carry his rages at Janie to her children. If he met Robbie accidentally, or Angus in the shops or the offices, he might be somewhat stiff and stately. But he would not mention their mother to them, nor show them his displeasure.

  However, he had been deeply wounded this time, and so it was that for several weeks he did not speak to Angus, and elaborately ignored his existence. The “row” on this occasion had not been confined to Janie and himself. Her children had shared in it, which was unique. They had heard him ordered from her house like a whining beggar, had heard their mutual vows never to be aware of each other’s presence in the world again. For dignity’s sake, if nothing else, it was necessary for Stuart to be lofty and cold towards Angus, whom he genuinely disliked now, anyway.