The Wide House

by Taylor Caldwell

  The priest murmured inaudibly: “The thorns and the worms are there, but the roses are there, too. If we look only at the thorns and the worms, we shall never see the roses, or know them.” He blinked a dazzle from his eyes. He took the child’s weak cool hand and held it passionately. “At the last, then, the world will be full of thorns and worms and darkness and decay and pain, for us.” He put his arm about her and held her to him, burying his face for a moment in her cloud of dark hair. She relaxed against him, and shyly slipped her arm about his neck.

  Stuart was perplexed. What was wrong with old Grundy? Why was his head bent like this, and why did his chest heave? The priest looked up at him, and he was pale, but his blue eyes were shining with peace and joy.

  “Stuart,” he said, “your child has saved my faith, and perhaps my reason. You see, Stuart, I had begun to see only the thorns and the worms.”

  “Damn,” said Stuart, baffled.

  But the priest said, with quickening ardor: “I had forgotten something I once heard, in my youth. There is a saying of Rupert, Abbot of Deutz, which touched my heart with the knowledge of its truth and eternal beauty. The heavens and earth and sea and all that is in them are the works of the Lord, but man is His work in a special sense, for to make him the Lord used His hands. For the other things it sufficed for the Lord to speak and they were made, but for man He took clay and fashioned it with His own hands.’ Stuart, I had forgotten that. I had forgotten that the thing which the Lord had made with His own hands could not be entirely corrupt and evil and full of vileness.”

  Stuart stared at him blankly for a moment. Then his intuition, which was always greater than his reason, or his mind, understood. He laughed boisterously, but with affection. “So even you, Grundy, have your wrestlings! You’d begun to prick your fingers on the thorns and to smell the worms! I’d never have believed it of you!”

  He stood up, still laughing. He put his hand on his daughter’s head. “Kiss Father Houlihan now, Mary Rose. We must be going home.”

  Father Houlihan remained on his bench for a long time after his friend had gone. He sat very still, his clasped hands between his knees. But upon his tired and peasant face there stood for the first time in many weeks a look of shining peace.

  CHAPTER 48

  Robbie sat with his brother, Bertie, before the fire in the latter’s bedroom. It was a gray and streaming November day, the wet air acrid and cold, the wind a stertorous bellow against the windows. The leaden rain stalked by those windows; mingled with it were flakes of heavy snow. The sky boiled with gray and rushing clouds. The fire spluttered on the hearth. Robbie had lit a lamp or two, but their light was feeble against the early darkness. He took the pipe he now affected out of his small and delicate mouth and remarked idly: “Winter again, curse it.”

  Bertie sat near him, in his favorite chair, his dressing gown wrapped about him, a shawl around his shoulders. He turned his head politely, and said: “Yes. Horrible. I hate winters. They never end, here.”

  He was very thin now, almost emaciated. His face was hollow and sunken. But his bright and ruddy curls were still thick and gay, and his blue eyes were shining. He coughed a little, weakly. After his last prolonged bout, in October, he had been taken ill with lung fever, and his life had been in jeopardy. He was now recovering. But his strength was slow in returning. He watched Robbie pour himself a glass of sherry, and his mouth, always ready with a smile, puckered with aversion. He turned away his head and looked at the fire. His profile, amiable, perpetually half smiling, was serene and still, with always that childlike expression of friendly interest and potentially eager waiting. His hands lay peacefully on the arms of the chair, beautiful hands, but hands without significance. They expressed nothing. They were dead hands, thought Robbie, but they were hands without peace, or even the lack of peace.

  As if Robbie had spoken, Bertie turned his head politely. Robbie sipped his sherry. Bertie controlled an instinctive grimace, then hastily smoothed it from his features lest his brother be offended. On Robbie’s lap lay the Commercial, and he glanced down at it. “Well, Lincoln’s elected, and watch the fur fly now. There’ll be war, as sure as hell. You’ll see.”

  Bertie smiled again, courteously. He said: “Don’t be so gloomy.” But his voice was without interest. He spoke again. “In a week from now, Robbie, you’ll be a married man. I’ll miss you.” Again he smiled, but it was without regret.

  Robbie laid down his glass. He wiped his lips daintily. He refolded his napkin, and said quietly: “Miss me, hell. You won’t miss me, Bertie. You’d never miss anyone.”

  Bertie regarded him with fond amusement. “Oh, I’ll miss you, Robbie. I’ll be visiting you, until you kick me out as a nuisance.”

  No, thought Robbie, you’ll live in your vacuum of shining glass and smile out at me and at the world, and there’ll never be anything within that glass but your own black and soundless storms. He said: “I hope you will be strong enough to be my best man, as you promised. But it would be just like you to decide that it would bore you.” He laughed a little.

  Bertie’s words were concerned, but his still and smiling face did not change. “Nonsense. I am never bored.”

  You are never anything, thought Robbie.

  “Judge Cauder,” said Bertie, and he laughed slightly, as if genuinely amused. “Black little Robbie. Well, you are fitted for it. Did I ever tell you I am proud of you?”

  Robbie looked at him with sudden gravity. “Are you, Bertie? Are you?”

  “Of course.” Bertie lifted one of his fine hands in a vague gesture. “I’m sorry I was too ill to be present at the ceremonies. But I was there, in spirit.”

  You have no spirit, thought Robbie, and the thought was a sick pain to him. You move and drink and sleep and smile, but there is nothing in you. If there ever was, it died long ago, and blew away like dust.

  He wanted, as he had wanted so many thousands of times, to approach Bertie, to cry out to him, to seize him with his hands and force comprehension into those serene and untenanted eyes, to arouse recognition in them, and pain and life. If he would only die! he thought to himself, almost vehemently. There is no peace for me, until he dies. Until he returns to the void from which he came, and is nothingness. I shall never be able to feel anything, until he is dead. I shall never be a human being, a full creature of vitality and eagerness, so long as he lives.

  He loathed himself for this abysmal confession, for his helplessness, and suffering. He could not understand his incompleteness while Bertie lived. Little Alice awaited him. Doubtless he loved her. But he could feel nothing. He had nothing to give anyone, so long as Bertie was alive.

  He said abruptly: “Bertie, do you remember Alice’s cousin, Agnes Clayton? She was quite smitten with you, and I thought for a time that you liked her. At least, you paid her court. I remember that when she returned to Syracuse you used to correspond. What happened?”

  Bertie laughed gently, and again he made that aimless gesture. “She was too good for me,” he said amiably.

  “But didn’t you like her?”

  “Of course I liked her. She is a very sweet girl. A charming female.” But Bertie’s voice, though musical as always, had no inflection in it of regret or sadness.

  “Well, then,” said Robbie, tentatively.

  Bertie shrugged. “I’m quite contented with life as it is. Why should I complicate it? Besides, I said she was too good for me, didn’t I? What have I to offer such a nice girl?”

  “You could offer her something if you wished,” said Robbie, abruptly. And then he knew it was no use. Bertie was smiling at him affectionately. “I don’t want to offer anyone anything, Robbie,” he said.

  Robbie began to speak, annoyed, wanting to struggle against the impossible, and then he met Bertie’s eyes. They were still shining. Robbie felt a curious lurching in himself, and he bent forward the better to see his brother’s eyes in the lamplight. Was it only his imagination, or was there something strange and fixed in those blue depths,
something warning and cold and sharp with pain?

  If only there were! If only there were! But Bertie was smiling again, and there was nothing there now but bright emptiness.

  Shaken by what he had seen, or imagined he had seen, Robbie continued with harsh earnestness:

  “You talk like a confounded fool, Bertie. What do you mean, you don’t want to offer anyone anything? You’re an infernal egotist, Bertie. You don’t want to dissolve the love affair you have with yourself.”

  Bertie flung back his head and laughed delightedly. “How clever you are, Robbie! It is nothing for you to turn out epigrams by the hour.”

  But Robbie was enormously shaken all through his cool reason and detachment. It was now or never, he thought. He must break that glassy and brilliant shell about his brother. He must plunge his arm through it, to seize on that strange and furtive something he had seen in its depths only for an instant.

  He made his voice calm and neutral, but oddly penetrating: “Bertie, I’ve wanted to talk to you for a long time.”

  Bertie looked at him affably as he paused, and said: “Yes? What is it, Robbie?”

  “I’m not going to ask you whether you have any affection for me, Bertie,” Robbie went on. “You’ll always tell me you have.” Bertie nodded amiably. Robbie shook his head with the nearest approach to violence he ever manifested. “Try to think, Bertie. Try to understand. We’ve been very close. At least, I’ve tried to be close to you. We’ve been friends, Bertie. Oh hell, this means nothing at all to you, does it?”

  Bertie said quickly: “Of course it does, Robbie. But what are you getting at?”

  Robbie was silent. He chewed his pale underlip. He stared at his brother with something like desperation.

  “Bertie,” he said at last, “I’m going to be married. We’ll be separated, you and I. We’ll see each other often, but not so intimately as this. I’ll have enlarging interests, in my work.”

  And then, helplessly, he knew it was no use at all. He could not smash that glass. There was nothing there, or if there was, it was forever removed from him. He stood up and poked the fire in the silence that followed his words. He shook coal upon it. He sat down again, and regarded the fire grimly. No use. No use at all. He could feel Bertie near him, tranquil, untouched, unapproachable.

  And then he heard Bertie speak, very quietly, and it was not for some moments that he realized the significance of what he was hearing.

  “Leave me alone, Robbie,” said Bertie.

  Robbie started. Slowly, cold as ice now, he turned his head. He looked full into Bertie’s pellucid eyes. He saw the smile on Bertie’s lips. But he saw, with a shock, the inexorable warning, the thing that was almost a stern threat. He held his breath. The two brothers regarded each other in a terrible silence.

  “Leave me alone, Robbie,” Bertie repeated, very softly. “Don’t touch me, Robbie. Go away and forget me, Robbie.”

  And then, to Robbie’s anguished amazement, he saw that Bertie’s hands were tightening on the arms of his chair, flexing, arching, the fingers lifting rigidly.

  “O my God!” whispered Robbie.

  Bertie inclined his head gravely. “Yes, ‘O my God,’” he said.

  Something was clenching, crushing, Robbie’s heart. He dropped his head. Again he whispered: “I can’t I can’t ‘go away.’”

  Bertie’s voice was serene and low. “You must, Robbie. You really must. You must leave me alone. Perhaps it won’t be long. But you must leave me alone.”

  The door handle rattled, and they heard Janie’s hoarse, demanding voice. Robbie stood up. He felt very weak. He was trembling. He looked at his brother. Bertie’s face was untenanted again, turned to the door, smiling a welcome.

  CHAPTER 49

  Mayor and Mrs. Cummings lived in a classic white mansion on Delaware Avenue near North Street. It stood on the heights of a stately ascent of green land, embellished by numerous trees and carefully tended flower beds. All its rooms were high, broad and gracious, with lovely majestic staircases and immense fires. Mrs. Cummings (the former Alicia Clayton) had been the only daughter of an exceedingly wealthy freebooter, and as the majority of the gentry of Grandeville were composed of tanners, sausage-makers, slaughter-house owners, Lake traders, horse-breeders and “swappers,” quarrymen and shopkeepers, grain merchants and canalmen, the defunct Mr. Clayton had acquired a kind of royalty by reason of being an adventurer. He had presented his daughter with this land and this perfect house upon the occasion of her marriage to one of his associates, who no longer bore the splendid aura of the freebooter. In fact, no one could have had a more respectable air than did this little, wise, rotund man with the serious brown eyes and the gentle tongue, and the passion for justice and decency. He had brown aquiline features, and was suspected, by the malicious, of possessing Indian blood.

  He was serving his third term as mayor, and as he was generally loved by the less venal citizens, it was generally conceded that he would soon be elected to a fourth term. Despite his lack of stature, he had a certain dignity and quietness that conferred a largeness upon him. It was to be expected that he was virulently hated by many, and respected by all.

  His daughter, Miss Alice, resembled him in that she had inherited his brown eyes and a certain aristocratic cast of feature. But she also had shining brown hair the color of new chestnuts, and a fair complexion. Her figure was dainty and exquisite. She had a low light laugh, very musical and kind, and her father’s quick and reserved intelligence. Her accomplishments were many, for her mother was a sensible wise woman, and Alice had been reared in a bookish but alert atmosphere which set her singularly apart from the apathetic young ladies of her acquaintance. She also had the warmest and most modest heart, a brilliant humor, clever perceptiveness and the quiet graciousness of a great lady. Her father’s passion was law, and Miss Alice had become so proficient in that science that the Mayor sometimes regretted that she was a female. Between father and daughter was the deepest sympathy and tenderness, and he thought it the loveliest sight possible to see the swift bright changes of her animated mind reflected on her pretty oval face, as sunlit water throws its trembling shadow on quieter leaves. Mrs. Cummings would often wryly remark that she had given Alice birth but that the girl was really her father’s daughter.

  Cherished and adored as she was, her suitors were closely scrutinized by the Mayor, and it was not until Robbie appeared that the older man felt complete relief and satisfaction. Alice, he would think to himself, was the most sensible minx possible, and possessed of the most level head, but, even so, females were unpredictable when it came to the heart. The girl was now barely nineteen, and had betrayed no signs of any unthinking involvement with unsuitable gentlemen. Nevertheless, it was a great relief to the Mayor that she had finally chosen Robbie Cauder.

  The marriage between the young people was celebrated the latter part of November. The Cummings’ mansion, decorated with bowers of flowers and ferns and potted plants, was filled with life and festivity and that bubbling artlessness of youth so dear to the quiet Mayor. Alice’s friends came from New York, and even from Boston, to be present at the ceremony. There were to be nearly two hundred guests, and as the Commercial editor lyrically observed, “this is the most important event of the social season of 1860.”

  However, even in that brightly lit and warm and happy mansion, the shadow, of the troubled year hung deeply. Gentlemen who ought to have applied themselves assiduously to the punch bowl, gathered in knots, and, with grave faces discussed “the situation.” Where only laughter should have been heard, there were annoyed and disagreeing voices raised in argument. Mrs. Cummings, harassed and irritated, kept the Mayor in a ferment of busyness roving from group to group, urging them to “remember, gentlemen, this is a wedding, not a political caucus.”

  Fires roared in the chimneys. Great pier mirrors reflected the firelight and the many lamps and the laughing faces of the guests and the elaborate toilettes of the ladies. Stuart had been busy for three months importi
ng laces and velvets and silks and feathers and perfumes for this event, and the dressmakers had been driven to distraction. The bride’s gown, of white satin and faille, was a French importation, designed by Worth himself, and her veil was a cloud of French lace. About her small neck was a perfect string of pearls, her bridal gift from Robbie, and on her right wrist there sparkled her father’s gift, a diamond and ruby bangle. Above the great bell of her gleaming bridal gown, her slender waist rose like the stem of a flower, and her pretty little bosom was smothered in pearl-strewn lace.

  The bridegroom’s mother, in crimson velvet bordered with ermine and draped with blue velvet roses, topped by a blue velvet bonnet, was resplendent and a wonderful figure of fashion. Janie’s carroty curls were naturally threaded with gray, for she was now nearly forty-five. However, those betraying threads had been artfully dyed (by herself, in the privacy of her boudoir) and her complexion as artfully applied. She was the most vivacious lady present, and her hoarse and zestful laughter could be heard all over the mansion. She was excessively pleased by this marriage, and though she had had nothing whatsoever to do with it, she preened herself that she had been very clever in her guileful suggestions to Robbie ever since he had begun to grow a beard.

  Stuart, who still retained a certain splendor in spite of his obvious dissipation, was present with his wife, the perfectly beautiful former Miss Allstairs. When that flawless beauty appeared, the most festive groups became silent in unwilling awe and admiration, though all felt that when Mrs. Stuart’s tawny eye fell upon them with a gracious smile she really saw nothing at all.

  Naturally the loathed Schnitzels were there, also, with their German friends and associates, and Angus, as part of the clan, stayed near them. His tall thin figure, his shut pale face, his eyes which appeared closed even when wide open, set him apart from these stout and clumsy aliens, who muttered and grunted and smirked and snarled among themselves, with envy.