The Turnbulls

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  Eugenia shuddered, averted her face.

  “And,” concluded the young man, mercilessly, “I have my hopes. I’ll stay with Uncle Gorth. I’ve had many conversations with him. I’ve seen his will, in the event he survives his wife. Everything goes to me. He is very certain that my father will not remain in America.”

  He hesitated, then smiled disagreeably. “Besides, am I not personable? I may marry a rich young lady, and make my fortune that way.”

  Eugenia rose. She moved across the floor to the doorway. There, she paused, looked back at her son with haughty withdrawal and contempt.

  “I have said all I can ever say,” she said. “I’ll not bring it up again, I assure you.”

  “I hope that is a promise,” returned Anthony. “It is one you haven’t kept before.”

  Eugenia closed the door firmly behind her. As she did so, the last dinner bell rang. Anthony laughed softly to himself, gave himself a brief inspection in the mirror, and, humming under his breath, ran quickly down the stairs.

  CHAPTER 54

  After dinner, Anthony accompanied his parents and his aunt and uncle to the Academy of Music. It was a gracious gesture on his part, for he did not particularly admire music, especially some of the more sentimental passages. But he was feeling in high good temper now, excitedly remembering Adelaide, for whom he would go tomorrow. He laughed a little to himself, when he thought of presenting her to his parents, and of then hearing Richard Gorth’s loud outburst of lewd and enjoying laughter.

  He wondered a little about his mother’s hints of returning soon to England. Was she really fed up, then, with John Turnbull, whose black decay and disintegration were now notorious knowledge in the business world? He was a weakling. She must have discerned that long ago. She had always hated weakness. Now, Andrew, his father, was not weak. He saw things with sudden clarity. There had been open soft affection, sincere and gentle, in her manner lately, towards her husband.

  Well, that was proper. But if he, Anthony, had had such a wife he would never have endured her for so long, nor would never, in the final triumph, have taken her back. But Andrew was something quite different, enigmatic. Anthony had not particularly cared for his father, but lately he had acquired a fondness for him, a deep understanding, silent and mirthful, and Andrew had shown signs of comprehension towards his son. Andrew was an impersonally evil and amused man, as suave, elegant, languid and distinguished as ever. It had been only recently that Anthony had possessed a sudden sharp appreciation of his intellect, breeding and extreme poise. How he must love his wife, then, for all her folly, and the underlying stupidity beneath her keenness and subtlety! But he, Anthony, would have been bored by her very shortly. Her tricks annoyed him. They did not annoy Andrew, who found in them a constant diversion, and variety. They both saw through Eugenia’s tricks. The only difference was that Andrew was tenderly amused by them. Was it possible, if one loved a woman, to accept her tricks and sillinesses as part and parcel of her charm?

  Andrew no longer annoyed his son with imperative suggestions that they all return to England together. He granted him that dignity. Whatever he thought, he kept to himself.

  He would accept Adelaide as Anthony’s wife, perhaps with enjoyment. But Eugenia would never forgive him. Perhaps the very fact that she had been Adelaide’s father’s mistress would be the impassable barrier to her acceptance. The whole affair to her would seem excessively degrading, untenable.

  Eugenia was surprised at Anthony’s decision to accompany them. And very pleased. She began to hope that he had given her remarks consideration, that this was the first step towards her triumph. Anthony did not disillusion her. He had begun to feel some compassion for his mother, who was so absurd.

  He sat beside her in the carriage, solicitously covering her silken knees with the robe. As he did so, she caught his hand and delicately pressed it, and, by the light of a street-lamp he saw the gray bright flash of her subtle eyes. He felt again a quickening of his pity. He was her only child, her only son, and in her way she loved him with the cool hard possessiveness of her nature. But he would not be possessed by her, and so was sorry for her, knowing how frightened, embarrassed and enraged she could be when frustrated and denied. There was some urge in her nature which could not endure resistance. Perhaps it was because of hidden fear of defeat. Defeat, in some natures, he reflected, might be a veritable threat to the integration of the personality. How like his father, then, she was! He had never thought of that before.

  He looked at his father, long and thin and so always polished and contained. He was a little taken aback by Andrew’s expression, thoughtful, conjecturing, and amused. To his further embarrassment, Andrew winked at him, without changing his expression in the least. What had happened to Andrew in these years, he who, like Eugenia, could not endure defeat? Was it that he felt a greater victory at hand, beyond which all others meant nothing? Did a man, as he grew older, decide that one could not have a multiplicity of desires and attain a single one of them?

  The music, as Anthony had feared, bored him, made him restless. He preferred German music, passion and fury and uproar. The massive tread of gods that shook the pillars of the earth. The sounding of terrible trumpets against boiling heavens. The rumbling of earthquakes which originated in some profound cosmic space and convulsed all the universe in tormented travail. The cries of demi-gods against the stupidity of man and the inexorability of cause and effect. But there was none of this tonight. The light sweet suavity of French music only irritated Anthony. There was the perfumed and fetid taint of decadence in it, he thought. There was nothing here to transfix or strike the soul. The French masters, especially, seemed to have reduced all fundamental passion to civilized gestures and epigrams of graceful sound. The Germans were more elemental. They scorned, or were unaware of, epigrams. They dealt with emotion, the savage heart, the strange and terrible exaltation of the spirit which accompanied savagery. Flesh and soul in gigantic combat, Jacob and the Angel.

  Anthony amused himself with his thoughts until he could endure the sweetness and graciousness of the music no longer. At the second intermission, he whispered to his mother that he had a headache, and wished to go home. Before she could protest, he slipped away, reached the cool dark windiness of the street. A light rain was falling. He turned up the velvet collar of his coat, pressed his tall black hat more firmly on his head, and turned homeward. He had missed a tedious party also, he congratulated himself. He wanted to prepare for tomorrow, when he would go and demand Adelaide.

  The rain was heavy and determined by the time he reached his uncle’s house. He ran up the steps, saw the white glimmer of a handkerchief near the door. His mother’s, doubtless. He rang the bell, holding the silken square of linen, and as he waited, he saw the neat white A embroidered at the edge. He eyed it with distaste. Aunt Arabella. But no whiff of musky perfume rose from it. He remembered that she drowned all her belongings with this sickening scent, as if to hide the smell of decay that pervaded her diseased body.

  Still wondering vaguely, he entered the hall, and let the butler assist him in removing his wet garments. “Any calls, William?” he asked, without interest, but from habit.

  The old man stood near him, the coat and hat in his hands. He hesitated, fixed a stern if respectful eye on the young gentleman. He had not thought this of Mr. Anthony. Always so correct and refined, so proper and unmuddied.

  He spoke reluctantly: “Nothing important, Mr. Anthony. Except that a young—person, a really objectionable young person, came here in the wildest state and demanded to see you about two hours ago. A female person. I suspect she was a little—intoxicated sir, if I may be permitted to say so.”

  “Eh?” said Anthony, absently, examining the handkerchief again. Then he started. He turned abruptly upon William. “What did you say? A young lady? Did she leave a message for me? Where is she?”

  The old man was alarmed. His wrinkled face paled. Anthony was eying him with an excited sparkle in his eyes, a flushing of
the face.

  He stammered: “Why, sir, I had to put her out. She was in a state. No carriage. Muddy and wet. A servant, I judged, from her garments. Not quite herself. Rushed in, screaming.” He was terribly frightened. “I—I had to persuade her to leave. She was violent. When she was outside the door again, she began to scream like a witch. It was very unnerving. No carriage, sir,” he repeated, in extenuation.

  Anthony’s face was darkly flushed now. He caught the old man by the arm.

  “Her name? She left her name?”

  The old man’s fright was so great that he trembled, tried to withdraw from Anthony’s grip. “She said to tell you it was Adelaide,” he whimpered.

  There was a sudden silence, while Anthony regarded him with mounting ferocity. His eyes had paled to the glint and colour of light stone. His hands had clenched. But he spoke with pent calm:

  “I want to know about this, William. Everything. You say you threw her out?”

  The old man was reduced to shaking terror. Incoherently he exclaimed: “Mr. Anthony, what shall I do? It—it was a very disorderly young person. Not a lady at all. One could see that. Dirty, wild, quite, quite excited. No carriage, sir. Not a sign of one. Wet shawl and bonnet, hair all of a tumble. Quite frightening. And screaming, outside the door when I persuaded her to leave. What a state, sir. She quite aroused the street, and some one called the police. She stopped screaming then, then ran away—” He could not go on. His whimpering stopped his words.

  “Why, you damnable old fool,” said Anthony, with vicious calm. “You filthy old wretch. That was my wife. Miss Adelaide Turnbull.”

  The old man was overwhelmed. He staggered back against the wall. He regarded Anthony with abject horror. “I didn’t know, sir, before God, I didn’t know,” he mumbled.

  “And you threw her out,” repeated Anthony, advancing upon him. “My wife.”

  “There was no carriage,” pleaded William, moaning, throwing up his arm as if to defend himself.

  Anthony caught that withered old arm and pressed his fingers almost to the bone. His face was very ugly. “Be quiet. Did she say where she was going? Try to think.”

  William swallowed convulsively, his eyes fixed with affright on the young man.

  “No. I tell you, sir, it was quite awful. Screaming, and all that. Wet and muddy. You can see the footprints yourself. Quite beside herself.” He swallowed. “Did you say your wife, sir?” he asked, in incredulous terror.

  “My God,” said Anthony, dropping the arm he held. So Adelaide had come for him in that condition, “beside herself,” distracted and lost. What had happened? Had she told her father? Had he driven her out, in true melodramatic fashion? What had forced her to a confession? Had they been seen? And where was she now?

  The ugly expression of his face increased, and the glitter of his eye was murderous. He snatched up his hat and coat from the old man’s paralysed grasp, opened the door, and ran out into the streaming darkness.

  He felt naked with fear under the rain. What had happened to that poor distracted child? What had they done to her? His throat suddenly choked with his rage and hatred. The few streets he ran seemed endless to him. He saw red dots whirling before him. He would kill Turnbull. He would kill any one who had injured her, who had driven her to such a condition.

  When he reached the Turnbull mansion, he saw that the whole house was blazing with lights. Despite its outward quietness, it had a sinister look to the young man’s excited eyes. He tore at the bell, then shook the grill of the door, and shouted. He saw the forms of three men in the hallway, with its crimson carpet, its oaken furniture, its portraits and white marble busts on pedestals. He saw that they were dressed for the street.

  One of them loomed up against the door, and opened it. He did not move fast enough for Anthony, who pushed the door open and precipitated himself into the hallway, panting with his haste and fury.

  The lights dazzled him. He saw that the men were Turnbull, himself, ghastly and gray, Patrick Brogan and Rufus Hastings. They stared at him, astounded.

  It was Patrick who spoke first. “Tony. Tony Bollister. What the hell—” The big Irishman was very pale, and had a sullen and violent look. Even Rufus seemed disturbed.

  John stared at Anthony, and his face seemed to wither, to take on a wrinkled and wizened look. Eugenia’s son, whom he had seen once or twice, and then only at a distance. Andrew Bollister’s son. The thought brought no surge of emotion to him now. He felt nothing but emptiness, after the first shock.

  Anthony looked at them all with bottomless hatred and rage.

  “Where is Adelaide?” he demanded, advancing upon them. His appearance, so disordered, so furious, took them aback. Only John did not retreat. He only stared at the young man, and did not move.

  Now Anthony had always considered that what his mother had done with years of her life was a matter between herself and her own peculiar God. He did not share the fallacy that women were fragile and innocent creatures, seduced against their will by villains stalking in darkened doorways or in perfumed drawing-rooms. He believed that vice and treachery were mutual, that rarely was one a victim and the other a destroyer. Especially not in the case of his mother, he had reflected wryly, except that perhaps there was little doubt that she was certainly never a victim. There had even been times when he had felt some contemptuous pity for John Turnbull, so obviously and abjectly at the mercy of this small but terrible luster for power with the illumined gray eyes.

  And yet now, as he looked at John Turnbull staring at him so motionlessly, with no expression at all upon his face, Anthony felt the sudden surging of an atavistic gorge and loathing, a primordial fury, the murderous outrage of a man who sees another male creature, who has violated his own personal pride, sanctity and integrity. All his cool reason and indifferent tolerance were lost in the whirlpool welter of his chaotic emotions like helpless straws. Much of what he was enduring (and in fact he was enduring rather than thinking) must have been starkly evident, for John, though he still did not move, appeared to wince, and his eyes retreated far back in their sockets as at the sight of an upspringing and relentless enemy, full of contempt and balefulness.

  All the passions of his flesh, and his flesh alone, assailed Anthony. This was the contemptible and fulminating creature who had lain with his mother, and so assaulted the decency and dignity of her son and her husband, and in so doing had destroyed their self-respect. Anthony’s maleness rose up in towering repudiation and gorge against the destructive maleness of John Turnbull. His face became darkly congested, his eyes glittered. He was filled with lust, with the crushing desire to batter his fists against the flesh of this man, to kick him and tear him.

  Patrick and Rufus, regarding them in silence, were struck into a kind of waiting breathlessness. But it was Patrick who struck into a kind of waiting breathlessness. But it was Patrick who smiled first, with malicious satisfaction, and a glance at his father-in-law.

  John broke a silence which was fast approaching the explosive point, and he spoke in a dull voice without resonance, and even with listlessness.

  “Adelaide? What do you know about my daughter, Adelaide? What have you got to do with Adelaide?”

  It was the tone of his voice, his weariness, his dreary denial of the young-man’s passions, that quieted Anthony, rather than his words. He replied as quietly, feeling the glowing heat leave him, with no residue left behind except a hard beating in his temples.

  “Adelaide is my wife. We were married this morning.”

  “Married?” cried John, with a blank and idiotic look. “You? My daughter?”

  “Married!” exclaimed Rufus and Patrick, in unison. The two young men turned quickly and faced each other. Then Patrick burst out in his sudden boisterous laugh, and threw back his head in his convulsions of mirth. But Rufus became deadly pale.

  “Married?” repeated John. He had quickened. He approached Anthony, and looked at him with hard steadfastness. Then all at once, he flushed, and his mouth fell op
en as if he was stifling, and must struggle for breath.

  “My God!” shouted Patrick, slapping the shining broadcloth of his large and shapely thighs. “It can’t be! It’s impossible! It’s delicious!”

  But neither Anthony or John heard him. They were saying unfathomable things to each other in silence. It was John, not Anthony, who had forgotten Eugenia, and to whom she no longer existed. It was Anthony who remembered. And he saw no remembrance in this man’s look. He was only trying to understand, to orient himself. This baffled and disconcerted the young man. He knew that John was seeing him as his daughter’s husband, and not as the son of Andrew and Eugenia Bollister.

  John’s hand reached out, and he gripped Anthony’s shoulder, and shook him roughly. “I don’t believe it. She would have told her mother.” Now his features were suffused and thick again, and full of incredulous agitation.

  “Take your hand off me,” said Anthony, in a low and contemptuous tone. He did not try to shake off John’s grip, but he turned on that hand a look ineffable scorn and distaste.

  John’s hand fell away. It dropped to his side. He did not remove his black and jerking eyes from Anthony’s face.

  “I don’t believe it,” he mumbled. He pressed his fingers suddenly to his wrinkling forehead. “Why should she do that? She would have told her mother. Her mother said nothing—”

  Then he had a thought. He dropped his hand and regarded Anthony with vivid and rising excitement.

  “If this is true, you can perhaps tell us where she is? She disappeared some hours ago. We are going out to look for her. She had only a few friends!” His voice rose to a hurried cry, and hope. “You can tell us where she can be found? Her mother is in a state of collapse—”

  “What did you do to her?” asked Anthony, ruthlessly. “You’ve always hated her. You must have done something. And if you have, I’ll make you pay for it, someway.” “Where is she?” cried John. “You must know? She must have gone to you, in the beginning.” It was apparent that he had heard nothing of what Anthony had said.