The Sound of Thunder

by Taylor Caldwell

  His wandering eye roamed over the sloping lawns and gardens and paths and heroic stands of ancient trees and little low fences of stone, all of which now covered twenty acres about his house. It was an estate, yes. It was the finest in all of Waterford; people drove or walked past it on Sunday evenings, full of envy and admiration and malice. They paused to look at the flower beds and the trees and the silk-shrouded leaded windows and the summer house and the grottoes and the conservatories and the barn and the big garage. It was fabulous to the observers. It was rumored that there was a big fountain hidden in the rear gardens, which was quite true.

  The scene tonight, in the growing twilight, was serene and silent, but there was neither serenity nor peace in Edward. He would have to wait until the visitor left before breaking the news of his coming marriage to Margaret Baumer to his family. He walked up the dim staircase to the second floor and entered the suite which his parents occupied. There, in the pleasant sitting room, sat Maria and Heinrich and Sylvia, who in spite of the warm air had a white lacy shawl over her shoulders. For some reason this irritated Edward more than the presence of the Reverend Mr. Yaeger. Sylvia was no invalid yet it pleased her to pretend to this melancholy state, especially when Edward was present. There she sat, near the open casement, all sharp black and white, and all viciousness, according to her brother. She was the first to look at him, and her dark tilted eyes pointed at him with the umbrage one usually reserves for an unwelcome intruder. She was thinner than ever, and her pale face more planed, more angular, more intense.

  Maria was knitting comfortably, bulging grossly in her black silk dress, her pouched face unbecomingly flushed in the warmth of the evening. She lifted her protuberant eyes when Edward entered, nodded with stern affability. Heinrich, in a big chintz chair, seemed too small, like a fat and sorrowful child. His expression, now always so sad, so timid, so eager to please, so pathetic, frequently vexed Edward to the point of outbursts of unreasoning anger. He was convinced that his father existed in a state of passive reproach, all directed at himself, though why his father should feel injured was beyond him. He did not know his father’s sense of terrible loss, his loneliness, his conviction that he was no longer either needed or useful.

  Mr. Yaeger, delicately sipping a glass of sherry, sat near Maria and confined most of his conversation to this redoubtable woman. Heinrich was too simple and confused for him; his remarks, Mr. Yaeger thought, were never pertinent or astute. He had a way of gently stammering when his opinion was asked about anything, and looking at Maria imploringly, as if begging her to relieve him of the necessity for answering. She invariably complied. As for Sylvia, her sharpness, her cynicism, her sudden changes of mood, her brooding air, her way of, all at once and for no perceptible reason, turning her bitter eyes on the speaker and smiling slightly and even more bitterly, disconcerted Mr. Yaeger. He suspected that Sylvia was very intellectual and keen, and ladies had no business having these attributes. She seemed very antipathetic to him, and without any physical beauty, and he was afraid of her. But Maria, with her air of vast composure, her common sense, her aristocracy in spite of her huge and shapeless body, her patience and wise remarks, soothed the minister. He even thought her beautiful, overlooking everything because of her wonderful hair and her largess.

  No one heard Heinrich’s pleading, “Eddie!” It was uttered in such a feeble and crying little voice. Maria indicated a chair for her son and he sat down, glowering at the minister, who suddenly gulped his sherry and murmured that he must leave at once. Edward smiled disagreeably. “Don’t go because of me,” he said. “What was the conversation?”

  He appeared very big and shabby and uncouth in his chair, his legs crossed, his large foot beginning a restless swinging. Mr. Yaeger strived for calm dignity. “We were discussing Ecclesiastes,” he said. “12:1.” He paused. Edward never came to church, never called on his family’s pastor. Mr. Yaeger believed all the good that had happened to him over these years proceeded from the benevolence of Maria Enger. He did not know that the money which had built him a new parsonage of some luxury and had redecorated his church had come almost entirely from Edward’s pocket. Both he and Edward would have been extremely puzzled as to how to explain this, particularly Edward, who had considerable scorn, now, for the minister.

  “Yes? And what’s the quotation?” asked Edward. The minister’s prosperous face colored a little, as he remembered that Edward had no “religion.” He disliked Edward as much as a man of his inherent mild disposition could dislike anyone, and he feared him for what he believed was coarseness and brashness and greed. He cleared his throat tentatively. “It is this, Edward: ‘Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them.’”

  The twilight deepened in the room, and silence lay in it like dim water. But the nervous minister did not see Edward’s face change strongly and become saturnine and tight. No one saw his hands clench on the arms of his chair.

  The minister cleared his throat again. He felt some singular change in the atmosphere, as if someone had made a violent and terrible gesture which was more powerful than any speech. He was more nervous than ever. “We were applying it to the present-day youth,” he went on, wishing fervently that he had left half an hour ago. “Children are so heedless and disrespectful these days. It is all pleasure and jazz.” He uttered the last word apologetically, as if he had said something obscene. “There is no more modesty in girls, no more responsibility in youths, no obedience or respect or honor for elders. And the—the dress of the ladies!” He coughed. There was the slightest sound from Sylvia, the very spectral ghost of a mocking laugh which only Edward heard.

  “It was the subject of my last Sunday’s sermon,” said Mr. Yaeger. (Why was everyone so still? Why did no servant come in to turn on the lamps? The sensation that someone had gestured savagely, and with enormous pain, lingered in the air.)

  “And you think that that passage from Ecclesiastes is concerned with proper behavior on the part of young people, do you?” asked Edward. His voice, though quiet, was strangely charged and constrained. Maria turned her head quickly, and her eyes became thoughtful as they rested on her son’s face in the dusk.

  “May I ask what else?” said Mr. Yaeger. He moved forward in his chair, preparatory to rising.

  “It doesn’t have any spiritual meaning, then?”

  Mr. Yaeger was baffled. “Yes, indeed, Edward. Purely spiritual. It rebukes the modern world of pleasure-seeking, superficiality, movies, ragtime, materialism, scorn of authority—” His voice dwindled helplessly. “And drinking.”

  “I don’t think it means that at all,” said Edward.

  “What do you think it means, my son?” asked Maria, tranquilly. She was not smiling; she tried to see Edward in the dimness, and her search was concentrated.

  “Never mind,” said Edward. “Oh, you are leaving so soon, Mr. Yaeger?” He got up and pulled the bell rope vigorously, and Pierre Faure, the old butler, came in almost at once. He turned on the lamps, moving like a small shadow, and the room bloomed into light, and all was normal and pleasant again to Mr. Yaeger’s relief.

  He left after effusively shaking hands with Maria and then with Sylvia. He overlooked poor Heinrich entirely, and avoided coming close enough to Edward to shake his hand. He was conducted downstairs by Faure, who had been ordered by Edward to “bring in the whisky and soda.” This loud command was not lost on Mr. Yaeger.

  No one spoke after the minister had left. Edward went to the second window, far from Sylvia, and he stared out at the somber darkening of the great estate. He saw the thick shadows under his trees; the flower beds were ghostly, their color lost. A crescent moon was rising palely against a still, cobalt sky. Maria continued to knit; Sylvia took up a book. Only Heinrich watched his son’s back; there was a crying in his heart.

  Then Edward turned abruptly. “I sent a cable to Dave and Ralph today. I’ve ordered them to come home at onc
e.”

  “What for?” demanded Sylvia, in her edged and bodiless voice.

  But Edward said only to his mother, “I’ve been hearing rumors that there’s going to be a war in Europe. It’ll be no place for Americans.”

  Sylvia laughed scornfully. Heinrich pulled himself up in his chair. He said feebly, “Is it not what I have said for years, my Eddie? And so it comes.”

  Maria said, as she knitted, “I have respect for your judgment. If you think it necessary, then it is necessary. It is unfortunate for my sons, however.”

  “Just when they’re doing so well!” exclaimed Sylvia, malevolently. “Could that be your real reason, Ed?” She twitched her shawl closer about her, and her thin hands trembled.

  “Why should it be?” asked Edward, with contempt.

  “I know! You want them under your thumb again!” cried Sylvia. “They’re free in Europe, free of you!”

  Edward sat down slowly and smoked a cigarette. Faure came in with his tray of soda and whisky. Everyone fell into silence, but the old man glanced with anxiety at Edward, whom he loved dearly and devotedly. There was something very wrong with Edward, he thought; he recognized that pentness, that grim stillness, on his face. But Edward merely thanked him and waited until Faure had left the room. Then he sipped at his drink and looked at his sister with quiet loathing.

  “Free?” he repeated. “Free of me? What is holding any of you here? Have you any idea of what you are all costing me and what my debts are? Even my house isn’t my own. What is to prevent you, for instance, leaving this house and going where you want to go? This is Greg’s last year at Yale. He chatters now of writing ‘his book,’ right here, of course, at my expense, living in my house. Dave can manage to get engagements on his own and pay his own agent, and as for Ralph, he can go to New York and make his own way as a portrait painter.”

  He sipped his drink again; his big hand shook with suppressed wrath. His gray eyes became points of fire under his thick black brows. “Well, why don’t all of you do what you want to do? You’ve been costing me a fortune, in time and money, all the days of my life. And you speak of freedom for yourselves!”

  “Edward,” said Maria.

  But Edward looked at his sister and did not hear his father’s faint and desperate murmur, “But the geniuses! It is expected that they have a patron—”

  Sylvia had turned whiter than before, and she shrank in her chair. She moistened her pale lips. Edward must never know of the hats she designed for Madame DelaFontaine. If he did, he would evict his sister from this house, insist on her going to New York on her own. She would have to live in some cramped apartment in the city; she would lose her security, the luxurious, effortless luxury of her home. She shivered, feeling the coldness of freedom, the uncertain and shifting footing of freedom, and she was swept with terror.

  “We have a right—!” she cried, in her fear.

  “A right to what? And who are you to talk of rights?” asked Edward, and a thrill of caustic triumph shook him. “You don’t have any rights except those I give you and have given you. I’ve noticed that those who take finally believe they have a right to take—at someone else’s expense. For weeks now, you’ve sat here in your shawl, and have had your meals carried up to you, and a doctor dancing attendance on you. Are those your ‘rights’? What’ve you done to earn them? You haven’t even taken an interest in the theater I bought for you, for months now.”

  Sylvia’s terror disappeared in hatred and helplessness. She saw Edward’s eyes and shrank again. She opened her mouth to speak, but he went on in that damning slow voice of his: “You’re like this whole country since Wilson got in with his New Freedoms. Now men speak of a ‘right’ to a living, as if they have any rights just because they’ve been born and have settled themselves down to the world’s trough. A man has a right to earn a living, but no other rights at the expense of his neighbor. No right to eat what he hasn’t earned; no right to shelter he hasn’t provided for himself; not even a right to freedom unless he deserves it. But now they have a new song. Uninvited, they came into the world, and uninvited, they demand that the world support them. Why? When you give me that answer, Sylvia, you won’t speak of ‘rights’ any longer. You’ll have the answer yourself.”

  Maria broke in calmly. “Why should the takers be blamed, when the givers tell them they are taking only what they deserve and what they have a right to expect?”

  Her son and daughter turned their heads to her, but neither understood. The mother knitted steadily. “A slave is not a slave until the moment he accepts his slavery. And the master commits the crime when he offers slavery to kill the responsibility of free men to provide for themselves. Who are so strong as to prefer liberty and the hardships of living, when an easy thralldom is offered them which demands neither thinking nor manhood?”

  A glimmer of understanding came to Edward, and he flushed duskily. “I’m offering freedom,” he said.

  Maria shook her head. “To those already in chains?”

  Edward surged with rage. He stood up. “You didn’t sing that song years ago, Ma. You sang the songs of the ‘geniuses.’ Everything for the geniuses, remember? You’ve changed your tune. When did the change begin?”

  Maria put her knitting in her lap and gazed at her son contemplatively. “There is a great difference between assistance and enslavement. When the one who assists becomes suddenly obsessed with power, then he has committed a great crime against those to whom he first extended help. I am convinced,” she went on, “that a man and a law become evil when they begin to oppress those who have offered themselves for oppression. You see,” and she smiled inscrutably, “as I grow older I become wiser. But then I was never a Socialist, and I never hated my fellow men enough to believe that I knew what was best for them.”

  “You’re too subtle for me, Ma,” said Edward, with new contempt.

  Maria nodded. She picked up her knitting again. “But someday it will be clear to you. That will be a sad day. Edward, I have noticed that you have studied much about Bismarck through these years. And you have begun to love liberty more than anything else. Yet you have denied liberty to others. Is that paradoxical? No. Not in good men, and you are a good man. And as a good man, you feel guilty in your heart.”

  “I feel guilty because I’ve let myself be exploited!” said Edward. “And not because I wanted power. Power over whom? A pack of weaklings and spenders?”

  Maria said nothing. She continued to knit impassively.

  Edward made a furious gesture. “Why don’t they get the hell out and make their own way and leave my house?”

  Maria said quietly, “Do you think they can, now?”

  “That doesn’t even deserve an answer, Ma.”

  Edward turned to his sister. “You’ve heard,” he said to her taut white face. “This’s been a very interesting discussion. Perhaps you’ve got enough intelligence to understand it. So you tell Ma why you don’t stand on your own legs and amount to something. You tell her what’s keeping you here, you who are going on twenty-five years of age.”

  But Maria said, “How can she answer you when she doesn’t dare answer?”

  Sylvia drew her shawl more tightly about her and her very lips were icy. Edward said, “What I’ve done for myself, they can do for themselves. They’re old enough.”

  “But no longer free enough, in their spirits,” said Maria. She turned her profile to her family and it was heavy with sadness. “Why have I not interfered before? That is what I ask myself all through the nights. And now I know there’s a terrible inevitability in the affairs of men. Not even God can interfere, for it is by their own wills that men become despots or slaves. And who is the victim? The despot or the slave? One can only have compassion.”

  “I’m a fine despot!” said Edward with irony. “I’ve worked ever since I can remember. I’ve sacrificed everything I could have had. I work sixteen hours a day. I take nothing for myself. I only give.”

  Maria nodded. “There was never a ty
rant who did not say the same thing, never in the history of the world. Before they died, either naturally or by violence, they cried out that they sacrificed themselves endlessly and worked endlessly. And so they did. Most of them lived austerely, wanting nothing of pleasure. They worked to their deaths for their people, and one cannot doubt their sincerity. But still they were despots and murderers. For they took away liberty and gave slavery. They destroyed souls, and there is no greater sin than that.”

  A great darkness and sickness welled up in Edward. Then, with renewed fury, he turned on Sylvia. “Have I destroyed your soul?” he asked.

  Yes, thought the terrified girl, simply. But I helped. I didn’t have any real courage.

  But she shut off the bleak horror of her silent confession, for she could not bear it. She looked about her quickly, like a threatened animal seeking escape from death. She clasped her hands together in a convulsive movement. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, either of you,” she said hoarsely. She could not stop herself from glancing at Edward, and she hated him.

  Edward laughed, and his laugh was ugly. “You see, Ma,” he said.

  Heinrich, as was common these days, had fallen into a sickish doze. But he started when he heard Edward’s laugh, and woke. “Is it dinner?” he said hopefully, for he found comfort in his meals. His belly would warm from the wine, and he could believe once more that he was a man and a father and the master of the home, and was loved and needed.