The Sound of Thunder

by Taylor Caldwell

  He turned to Henry, kindly, while the Senator sat in speechlessness. “Well, Henry?”

  The young man’s sensitive mouth trembled visibly. “Hans, if you are really convinced—I can’t believe these terrible things, but you know more than I do—Hans, you can count on me to vote against getting America into any war—”

  The Senator suddenly turned his head to the youthful Congressman, and for an instant there was a malign flash in his eye. Then he gave his attention to Hans and laughed gently.

  “Hans, I’m going to overlook your remarks about my munitions stocks and what you allege are my ambitions. I am going to ask you a hypothetical question, purely hypothetical. What if the British or German fleet should ever stand in New York harbor with guns trained on the city?”

  Hans smiled slightly. “You know that’ll never happen, Thorne. And you also know that can be used as a lying threat to get America into some long-plotted war.”

  The Senator assumed an expression of sadness and open dismay. “Hans! I honestly don’t understand you. You and Ed here have been talking about plots and counterplots and Socialism and wars, and, frankly, it sounds like Alice in Wonderland. I’ve not been contradicting anything either of you has said, for, to me, it has no meaning whatsoever. No basis, no reality. But I’ve been interested, as one would be interested in a new game. That’s why I asked you that hypothetical question, without real seriousness.

  “But,” and now his face stiffened and he watched them, “would you not defend America, in the very improbable circumstance that we should be attacked? Would you be—pacifists?”

  Pacifists. Hans pondered the word. It was new. And it was terribly dangerous. “Pacifists?” said Edward, in a loud and brutal voice. “Explain that.”

  The Senator waved his hand largely. “I meant, isn’t America worth fighting for or even dying for? I think so.”

  “Yes,” said Edward. “She is. I love my country. I want to keep her out of fighting and dying—permanently.”

  Hans stood up and stretched his lean body. He seemed casual and relaxed, but the Senator watched him with sudden alertness. “I’m thinking of something the fourth President of the United States once said, James Madison: ‘Of all the evils to public liberty war is perhaps the most to be dreaded.… War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes, are the known instruments for bringing the many under the dominion of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the executive is extended—and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force of the people! No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.’

  “That, Thorne, was said by President Madison generations on generations ago. And I suggest that you understand it all too well, too well for American peace. ‘Armies, and debts, and taxes, are the known instruments for bringing the many under the dominion of the few.’ You expect to be one of the few, don’t you, Thorne?”

  The high color left the Senator’s face, and Edward, watching him, wondered if that hard white pallor meant guilt or anger or fear. It could be all of them. He was convinced this was true when the Senator lost his jocund manner, his affability, his genial air of tolerant appeasement, and replaced it with menace and quiet fury and threat. The time had come, the Senator had apparently decided, when the politician’s amiability was of no further use.

  “Hans,” he said, “don’t use those remarks of yours in your newspapers. We still have libel laws. And in Washington—”

  “Yes, I know,” said Hans with bitter coldness. “A word in Washington, from you. My newspapers are mortgaged. Somehow, through your banker friends and your friends in Washington, my loans could be suddenly called in. But I have friends, too. My newspapers almost defeated you last November. The next time I can really defeat you, even if I lose my newspapers. But do you know something, Thorne? I don’t believe you’ll move against me. Not yet, anyway. You wouldn’t dare.”

  He turned to the Congressman, Henry Sheftel, who was much shaken after this exchange. “Henry,” said Hans, “let’s get out of here. There’s a stench in this place.”

  “So, you see,” said Edward to Margaret, in the glowing green light of the early evening, as they sat side by side on the wooden bench, “Hans wasn’t sure about Bonwit. He wanted to be sure; he wanted to learn something. And he did. He learned about Sheftel, too. We talked about Sheftel later. We’re going to support him against Bonwit, at the next senatorial elections, though he isn’t of our party.”

  Margaret looked at his worn and haggard face, and her heart squeezed together, and she put her head on his shoulder. She was deeply frightened and stricken. The vast gardens rose beyond the small hollow where they sat in isolation, and the last long rays of the sun flooded the grass with light and shadow. The warm wind blew stronger and lifted the scent of the earth into the air, like an overpowering perfume. The sky dreamed in a soft blue, and a few radiant clouds stood motionless in it. There was such peace here, such coolness. It was almost impossible to believe in hot if quiet plottings, and terrors, and unnamed wars, and the furious calculations of evil men. But Margaret believed Edward. However, she wanted to soothe and comfort him. Before she could speak, he went on drearily:

  “Bonwit knows about my plans for expansion into large markets in most of the big cities. General grocery, meat, and vegetable stores, like the Atlantic & Pacific. Just before we left him—and he’d lost all that ruddy pleasantness of his by then—he said to me, ‘Ed, there’s some rumor in Washington of bringing an antitrust suit against the Atlantic & Pacific. It would be unpleasant, wouldn’t it, if a similar suiit were brought against you? Or an order of restraint?’”

  “Oh, Ed, you’re not afraid of him!”

  “No,” said Edward, grimly. “But there was another thing. At the door, he said, ‘You’re a German, aren’t you?’ And he looked at Hans from me. So Hans is now convinced that the war will be against Germany.”

  “Impossible,” said Margaret, quietly. “At least a third of the American people are of German stock. And America and Germany have always been good friends, and the American people don’t like England.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Edward. “Nations like, or dislike, other countries whenever their rulers tell them to do so, with lies and libels.”

  Margaret was silent for a few minutes. Then she said, “But, Ed, if there is an inevitability about all this, what can you do? What makes you so intense about it?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered, slowly. “So help me God, I don’t know. But when I think of it, I almost lose my mind.”

  He held her hand so tightly that it hurt her. “There’s something else. It might not be true, but Hans thinks it is. A friend of his just returned to New York from Europe. The friend said that two British men-of-war are riding in the middle of the Atlantic. He saw them through binoculars. It was as if they were waiting for something. They didn’t move; they just stood there.”

  He rubbed his aching forehead until it was dark red. “What are they waiting for? What’s in the middle of the Atlantic?” He paused. He lifted his head and stared before him. “Cables from Germany to the United States.”

  Then he looked at Margaret, at her sweet and valiant face, which was so troubled. He tried to smile, and he helped her to her feet.

  “Let’s forget it, shall we, darling? As you said, there’s nothing I can do. Have you forgotten? Five days to our wedding!”

  He held her in his arms and kissed her passionately, then rubbed his cheek against the top of her bright hair. She clung to him. He pushed aside a soft curl and saw her ear, and it struck him how young she was, for the ear was the ear of a loving and vulnerable child, so soft and small and innocent, curving against her head. She was gallant and had a tender strength, but for some reason the very contour of her ear, whiter and of a more fragile outline than the rest of her face, recalled to him the years of her own defenseless suffering and homelessness and unloved life. He sheltered her in
his arms and kissed the ear, and it seemed to him that the layers of calcification which had relentlessly grown over his emotions had suddenly dissolved.

  “You make me, even now, love life and have hope,” he said in a voice that none of his family ever heard. “As long as I have you, I won’t be completely desperate, Margaret.”

  “Where there’s love there’s always hope,” she answered, and she leaned back in his arms to smile at him. Her ardent blue eyes were wet and shining. He kissed the gilded lashes and then her lips.

  “I never had a friend but you,” he said.

  “Oh, no, dear. You have William and Padraig and Mr. Enreich, too.”

  He frowned, and his arms slackened about her a little. She gazed at him anxiously. “I don’t know,” he said. “I think they only like what I am.”

  “But, Ed, that’s everything!”

  “Not exactly. It’s hard to explain. If I became less than what I am, or what they think I am—and I’m not speaking of money or success—then they’d despise me. Well. Perhaps not Padraig. Still, I don’t know. I’m not making myself clear. It’s too subtle for me.”

  They began to walk up the shallow slope that led to the great formal gardens. A sudden green rage struck the trees, and Margaret’s linen dress was molded about her body, and her hair blew back. She looked like some virginal nymph, filled with a frail heroism, and Edward thought to himself, How is it possible for anyone to love someone else as I love her? But he said gloomily, “George Enreich always talks in riddles. He quoted something from Macbeth: ‘Bloody instructions, which being taught, return to plague the inventor.’ I suppose he thought that relevant. He talks in riddles, like my mother, and William.”

  “It’s not a riddle,” urged Margaret, timidly. “I think he meant that whatever wicked men do, whatever they persuade foolish men to do, will rebound on them.”

  “After we’re all dead, or in prison, or sent to some Siberia,” said Edward with unusual and desperate force. “Well, never mind. I’ll do what I can. And what makes you so clever, child?” he added, trying to change his mood for young Margaret’s sake.

  “Being about to marry you,” she said, with a look that held her heart. “And that reminds me. Your family is giving us a party tonight, inviting most of their friends. We must hurry.”

  Edward was quite aware of his family’s reactions to Margaret. He stopped, but Margaret coaxingly locked her arm in his and laughed. “Your mother is really a most remarkable lady,” she said. “A grand lady. Your brothers and sister are spoiled, I admit, but they have possibilities. And your father is sweet. He told me this morning that he was coming down for the party.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with him!” said Edward, with a violence that startled her. “Nothing! He’s just indulging himself. He can afford it. I made that possible for him. He has what he wanted, a mansion, money, servants, and people fawning on him and visiting him.”

  But no one notices the poor thing, thought Margaret sadly. And what he wants isn’t what you’ve said, my darling.

  Now they were out in the last long sunlight and approaching the formal gardens with their flower beds, their grottoes, their dusky paths and little glades. A fountain sang before them, a bowl of water in mossy stone. A marble child stood in the center, naked and laughing, with a big fish in his arms and from the fish’s mouth poured a sparkling stream. The child had a gay and mocking face, in spite of the chubby cheeks and the stony curls and the dimpled chin. Edward stood with Margaret to look at him.

  “Somehow I don’t like it,” said Edward. “William picked it up in Italy. The face’s too wise, too knowing. Too—decadent.”

  Margaret thought so, too, but she said, “I think it’s charming.”

  She hugged his arm briefly, and they went on. They came in sight of the house at an angle; it loomed against a dark red sunset, all its windows cold. Edward said restlessly, “It’ll never be my own until I lift the mortgage. And lifting the mortgage is the first thing I’ll do when I can stop pouring money into the business and open my markets. I’m going to call them the Green and White Stores, and I’ve got ideas better than the Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company. I’ll give them some good competition.”

  He seemed more vigorous. He lifted Margaret’s hand from his arm and kissed it. All at once he was buoyant. “Perhaps the things I know won’t happen in our lifetime. With you, darling, surely I’ll have some peace now, all the days of my life.”

  “‘Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever,’” she quoted softly.

  “What?” he said, annoyed.

  “It’s the Twenty-third Psalm,” she said with surprise. “Didn’t you know what you’ve been quoting?”

  “No,” he said shortly. “And I’m sorry I know now. And I’m going to forget it. I like it the way I thought it was.”

  She knew his moods as well as she knew her own. She walked with him in silence. The air seemed to darken as they approached the mighty and solid house. There was a sudden flash of lightning in the east, and then a low rolling of thunder. A willow’s long hair suddenly lashed in the strengthening wind and blew against the red sky in green dishevelment. Margaret, oppressed all at once, hoped it wasn’t a bad omen. She looked at the eastern sky and saw new and looming clouds, as dark as Edward’s face and as unquiet. “Let us run!” cried Margaret, and there was an urgency in her voice which was not connected with the gathering storm at all.

  CHAPTER X

  The wedding day was dim and oppressively green, so that the gardens, where the marriage took place, lost color and, in spite of the smothering heat of the weather, held a kind of remote desolation and colorlessness. It was Sylvia who had designed the altar, near the fountain, and Margaret thought it perfection. Sylvia received this compliment haughtily and turned away in disdain. Did this shopgirl, this cheap creature, think she could please her, Sylvia Enger, with her superficial gratitude? It was actually an insult. Sylvia said ungraciously, “I’m glad you like it. It was the garden altar I designed last summer for our play The Golden Lady.”

  The altar was in an arch painted soft green and covered with yellow roses, each one perfect, and seeming to shine vividly in the spectral light of the ominous afternoon. The arch itself was banked with Chinese jade-colored pots filled with towering ferns, and in its center was a low altar covered with a green and silver cloth, which glimmered dully. The sound of the fountain seemed unduly loud, almost crashing, in the hushed quiet, and drops of quicksilver water floated on the ferns closest to it. A green grass carpet stretched all the way from the house to the altar, which stood in wide isolation. At a considerable distance tables covered with white damask and bowls of flowers and glimmering silver were prepared for the bridal party.

  There had been considerable scornful and derisive conversation between Edward’s brothers and sister because he had chosen William MacFadden to be his best man, and Margaret had chosen as her matron of honor Maggie McNulty Devoe. Sylvia and Violette were the bridesmaids, and Gregory and Ralph the ushers. Sylvia, who had spitefully hoped that rain would spoil the wedding, now was anxious that it would not, for she had designed not only Margaret’s wedding gown but the gowns for herself and Violette. Pride in her secret profession had prevented her from her first impulse to make Margaret seem dowdy and unattractive, and when she heard the sincere exclamations of delight from her sister-in-law, Maggie, and Margaret, she almost liked the bride.

  But when Padraig had arrived two nights ago with his imposing and beautiful wife, Sylvia had been freshly devastated. She could not beg her mother to let these guests stay at the hotel in Waterford; that would be betraying herself. She hated Maggie; the very sight of her made Sylvia physically ill. She avoided Padraig, and did not see him until the day of the wedding. She detested William; his bright hazel eyes saw too much, and he had a sharper repartee than her own. Moreover, he was attached to Edward and that, in Sylvia’s estimation, branded him as a person of low tast
e. Her whole being, body and spirit, was in a state of tense and aching turmoil these days. She supervised the dressmakers, and her cutting voice could frequently be heard in the sewing rooms. But she would not come downstairs for her meals and lay for hours, sometimes, on her bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.

  Violette was malicious; she had guessed that Sylvia loved Padraig. But she admired Maggie to Sylvia with such an air of absolute innocence that Sylvia was deceived. “I think Mrs. Devoe’s too lush,” said Sylvia. “But after all, she is quite old. Did you see the gown she is wearing to the wedding, Violette? I didn’t.” She paused. “Tell me.”

  Violette described the blue silk lace with enthusiasm, and the wide garden hat to match, and the blue lace parasol. “The magnificent eyes: they will be—increased,” said Violette, in her uncertain but descriptive English. “I suggested a touch, an accent, one pink rose on the bosom, embossed on the lace. Ah! She kissed me. Like a mother,” added the clever Violette, seeing the sick darkness on Sylvia’s face.

  Sylvia had designed a daring gown for Violette, her artistic eye guiding her to enhance the girl’s trig and impudent prettiness. The gown was of fresh golden silk, sophisticated in its lines, which brought out the firm young bosom, the short narrow waist, the swelling hips. It clung to the trim thighs, then flared from the knees to the floor. To Sylvia, Violette was the perfect model, though her figure certainly was not American. Sylvia also designed the golden silk little sailor hat, which Violette was to perch on her chestnut curls and chignon. All this brought out the amber lights of Violette’s skin, and the vivid oval eyes, and naturally red mouth with its naughtily pouting lower lip.

  For herself Sylvia had designed a dress of mauve faille, demure yet unusual. Violette suggested padding for the bosom of Sylvia’s dress. “It is too thin, the figure,” said Violette. “It is—it is the virginal. One may be a virgin—non?—but one does not display it to the gentlemen. It is like fruit, the green fruit, hard like the stone, biting to the tongue.”