Answer as a Man

by Taylor Caldwell

  “Oh, I … I’ve thought about that, too. We could say I’m an orphan. But what’s wrong with a minister? If Dada objected to that, after we were married we could always be remarried before a priest.” She was jumping with excitement. “Lionel, don’t you see? It’s so easy. And then, when all the hubbub is over Dada will build us a beautiful house and we’ll be so happy together!” She was again seized with ecstasy and took his arm and shook him almost fiercely. “Don’t you see?”

  Yes, I sure as hell see it, thought Lionel with fresh hatred. He said, “I can’t do that to your father, Patsy.”

  Again the extreme impatience took her. “Why not? He’ll be happy for me, knowing how much I love you.”

  “You haven’t told him that, for God’s sake?”

  “Of course not!”

  The tight muscles of his chest relaxed and he could breathe without that iron band across it. He said, “Let’s be reasonable, Patsy. Let’s … wait. A year or two. By then the hotel will be built, and I’ll have enough money, and a strong position, and in the meantime I’ll get around your father and make him understand—”

  “We can’t wait!” Patricia almost sobbed in her agitation and fear.

  “Why not?” Once more he was terrified.

  The red swept over her face again. She almost told him. But she controlled herself. “I … don’t want to wait, Lionel. I love you too much. I’m twenty years old. I want to have our life begin now! Now! In a beautiful new house of our own, the one Dada will build for us.”

  “Patsy,” he pleaded. “Let’s be sensible. When I’m soundly established, your father won’t be so against it. It won’t be more than a year, I hope.”

  Patricia paused. Oh, if it weren’t for that … condition, it would be so wonderful! It would be only a matter of a little waiting, and in the meantime they would meet like this, every other Sunday, in a sheltered spot somewhere. But that baby, that horrible baby! It threatened to come between her and Lionel, and she tensed with her hate of it, her tremendous repudiation of it, her denial of its existence, and she felt a longing for it to die. A tempest of thought roared into her mind. Elsie had mentioned Mrs. Lindon and had hinted that Mrs. Lindon would probably know a doctor. Patricia no longer thought of “murder.” She wanted only to rid her body of this vile intrusion into her happiness, and again she knew hatred for the thing in her womb. A memory like lightning slashed into her tumbling mind, a remembrance of words she had repeated hundreds of times without any consideration of their meaning: “… and blessed is the fruit of thy womb …” It had never occurred to her what a womb was in all reality, though she had had a vague idea that it was something in her body which would later contain an infant, still later to be born. But the process had been lost on her. Besides, she had believed that Plans were made for such an occurrence, special measures, until Elsie had enlightened her that morning.

  Knives. Blood. Blood poisoning. Death. And for what? She was struck by a maddened frenzy of despair. She was beginning to remember whispers of “bad girls,” of “girls sent away.” Servants. She had been curious, but no one had explained, and the subject had been changed abruptly. She herself was not a “bad girl.” Her thoughts became incoherent, jumbling around in her mind like leaping; insane balls. She twisted her gloved hands together, staring up at Lionel with a face stark and white.

  He took a step back from her. Yes, it was possible. She looked mad. But why didn’t she say something, if it were true? When confronted by such things, girls were never reticent about voicing their fears.

  Mrs. Lindon, thought Patricia in her frantic groping for a solution. But Mrs. Lindon was Dada’s friend, an investor in the new hotel. Mrs. Lindon wouldn’t help her. At the thought of Clementine, Patricia cringed. Mrs. Lindon would tell Dada. Dada would then know … Patricia almost screamed in her terror. Dada would kill Lionel. Or he would throw poor Lionel out, to walk the streets. It would be all her fault, not his. No, it was the baby’s fault, for daring to be conceived, for entering into her bright magic world of love and hope.

  Lionel was watching her with a fiery acuteness. “You see how it is, Patsy,” he said, and his voice was actually trembling.

  She whimpered, “Let’s get married, Lionel. Dada will come around. I know he will. We’ll—”

  “Patsy. I’m a poor man just now, a very poor man. My mother, who’s never got over my father’s death, is an invalid in her bed. It takes nearly all the money I earn, and nearly all Molly earns, to have someone take care of Mum so we can work. We live in a three-room cottage, Patsy. You’ve never seen poverty. A shack. Ice-cold in winter, a furnace in the summer. I haven’t any money, Patsy. Where would we live if we were married now? In that shack that leaks when it rains? You’d have to sleep with me on a cot in the kitchen. You’d have to help the woman who takes care of my mother, washing her clothes, feeding her … You’d be a drudge, Patsy, as poor as death. You don’t know what poverty is!” His hatred grew as he contemplated the past years of his lean and deprived life.

  That stark, still face stared up at him, slowly comprehending.

  “I know your father better than you do, Patsy, much better. He’d never forgive us. He wouldn’t give you a cent. Within a few months you’d be ragged, your hands sore, your shoes broken. He wouldn’t let you take a coat from his house. And, Patsy, he’d throw me out. Where would I go? Who would give me a job? We’re in the midst of a Panic. There’s no work to be had. We’d be in the breadlines, at the door of the soup kitchen. Think! Think just for a minute, for God’s sake!”

  His own terror was mounting, and he was sweating with his urgency. He took Patricia by her stiff shoulders and shook her. “You must understand!”

  That … thing would destroy my Lionel, thought Patricia. Dada would ruin Lionel’s life. It was a measure of her love for Lionel that she did not think of herself just then. But she felt a consuming flame of savage hatred in her for her baby—and for her father, who would see Lionel and herself homeless, starving. She believed Lionel implicitly. Men knew more about men than women did. There had been times when she herself had had to confront her father on some trivial thing he opposed, and he had been like a stone wall, inexorable in his refusal. How could she have forgotten?

  In a last pathetic convulsion of despair, as she saw her whole life going down into a black chasm, she whispered, “I wouldn’t care where I lived if I was with you, Lionel.…”

  He stood straight and stiff and assumed a noble expression. “But I would care, Patsy. How could I drag you down to such poverty and degradation? I can’t do that to you, dearest, I can’t, not even if it kills me to lose you! I’d sacrifice everything, everything I’ve hoped for, for you. But I haven’t anything in that hotel myself except the offer of my services. I haven’t even the fourteen acres Jase Garrity is putting into it. I have nothing. What have I to offer you? Nothing but my bare hands. Patsy, I can’t do that to you. I would hate myself for all the rest of my life. Don’t tempt me any longer, Patsy, my dearest. Don’t weaken me. Or I’ll be guilty of everything you’ll suffer.”

  There were tears of fear in his eyes, and she believed they were for her.

  “Patsy, send me away, now, at once, for your sake. For your dear sake.”

  No, she thought in her desolate heart. Not for my sake, my darling. For yours.

  But the baby remained, and her father would send her away, possibly never to return. The shame. Or … the knives, and possible death. What had Elsie said? There was prison for such girls as herself, if they survived. Prison. There was no escape for her, unless she destroyed Lionel, and she would prefer to die herself rather than to do that.

  Suddenly she thought of Jason Garrity. She shivered with horror and revulsion. Dada would be out of his mind with joy if she married him. And Lionel would be safe, safe from hunger and vagabondage. Lionel would be safe.

  Patricia closed her eyes, and her face was white and still. There was a menacing rumble of thunder, but she did not hear it. She looked tragic, and for the
first time in her life she had assumed a pathetic dignity, the dignity of sacrifice. Lionel was not moved. He felt only the exhilaration of victory. There was a deathly luminousness on the girl’s features, and Lionel stepped back from her, dimly intimidated. Then she opened her eyes, and a less implacable man than Lionel would have felt compassion and shame. But he felt nothing but his own triumph, his own release. He was convinced that he had induced her to think of herself, and poverty. So he was safe from retribution.

  “For your dear sake, Patsy …”

  “No, Lionel. For yours.” She held out her hand to him, and he, after a moment’s hesitation, took it. Even through the glove her fingers were icy. She said in a voice suddenly mature and strong, “Kiss me just once, Lionel, before we say good-bye.”

  Again he hesitated. Then he bent his head and kissed her chastely on her cheek. In a moment she sought his mouth, and now tears were gushing down her cheeks. But he was too clever to let her succeed in seducing him. He dropped her hand.

  “Good-bye … my darling,” he said, and let his voice shake with assumed anguish. “Good-bye.”

  He turned, and rushed noisily through the shrubbery. He let her hear a terrible moan. Then he got on his bicycle and pedaled away as fast as he could.

  Patricia stood alone in the glade. Rain fell heavily, but she felt nothing but her own sorrow, her own grief and despair. Water penetrated even through the mackintosh, drenching her clothes. She began to tremble with cold.

  She went home, surrounded by storm and blue lightning and rain, and never remembered it.

  She never remembered that while on the way home she kept repeating aloud, as if in prayer, “For you, my darling, only for you. My Lionel. My heart. Lionel, Lionel …”

  PART II

  And Satan answered the Lord and said: Doth Job fear God for naught? Hast thou not made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? Thou hast blest the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. But put forth thine hand now …

  —Job 1:9–11

  15

  Bernard Garrity sat with his friend and employer, Saul Weitzman, on a bench in the warm sun of a late-April Sunday, in what was called, by the people of Belleville, “The New Park,” but had been named by the town fathers “Mountain View.” It was not entirely a grandiloquent label, for the view of the mountains beyond was resplendent in the sunlight, but the park itself was very small and triangular and was surrounded by an iron fence whose gates were severely closed at sundown and never open at all in the winter. It had been a worthy deed to create the park—the only one in Belleville—and an expensive one. Property taxes had had to be raised to level ground in what was once a rocky slum covered with weeds, to demolish the derelict buildings, and to plant trees and flowerbeds and shrubs, and to erect an iron statue of William Penn in the center of it all.

  But Belleville, it was argued by the harassed mayor, “deserved a park,” like other communities and towns, and besides, what would the grand guests at Ipswich House think of a town that could boast of no such green oasis. Besides, the mayor had added, the hotel would bring prosperity to Belleville. Belleville had only to “clean up, paint up,” and shops would open and the value of property would rise, and things would be rich indeed for all and sundry. The mayor did not quite believe this himself, but his prophecy came true in a fine manner that even the carpers could not denigrate.

  So Belleville had its park, and more than half the houses now used electric power. Many new houses were built, and new people moved into them to enjoy the prosperity also, and some elegant little shops appeared—elegant to the inhabitants of the town at least—and there was even a medium-sized new factory producing “crafts of the region” and other mendacities, and it did an excellent business among the “summer people,” who declared the products “quaint.” There was also a very popular restaurant called the Amish House, where one could dine on shoofly pie, “country” ham, scrapple, and “distinct delicacies” invented by “our Amish neighbors.” The fact that the nearest Amish settlement was some forty miles away was not known by the summer people, who relished “the lavish food of the region.” They also loved Patrick Mulligan’s “old-country” Inn-Tavern, and the gentlemen loved the young relatives of Mrs. Lindon, and Mrs. Lindon loved the generous patrons of her establishment. The inspired mayor did not agree to having all the main streets covered with macadam. He insisted that some should be kept bricked and cobblestoned, so the lady summer visitors could gush over the “unspoiled” charm.

  Almost no houses now had backyard privies, except a few on the outskirts, and these, at the mayor’s urging, were wreathed in vines during the summer, and kept whitewashed and comparatively odor-free. Belleville began to respect itself. Bernard once said, “They should have put up an iron statue to old Johnny Myers instead of Bill Penn.” He was referring to the mayor, of course, who would have agreed with him, though the mayor had just been elected a state senator by a grateful people, whom he promptly forgot.

  Guests came to Ipswich House as early as mid-April from as far away as Philadelphia, Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, and, to the awe of the inhabitants of the town, even from New York and New Jersey. On a clear day, it was boasted, one could stand in the gardens of the hotel and see three states, or a reasonable suggestion thereof. The railroad had put in a spur that reached almost to the foot of the mountain, to provide easy access to the hotel for the summer people, and the hotel met the guests at the pretty little depot with a string of glittering carriages and two large automobiles. A bicycle trail had been added to the road, meandering down through an avenue of tidy trees and pruned flowering bushes. A brook had been discovered, smothered in earth and wild growth, and it had been enlarged and cleared and now tumbled down in a very pleasing fashion to the river, over artful little dams. “Weirs,” Bernard called them.

  In short, in just slightly over five years, Belleville had been quite “transformed,” to quote the more ecstatic inhabitants. It was all due, of course, to Patrick Mulligan, on whom affection was bestowed on all occasions. There was talk about electing him mayor, but the more restrained inhabitants of Belleville objected. “An Irish mayor? Heaven forbid!” That silenced the enthusiastic.

  Bernard, with his friend and employer, was enjoying this unusually mild April sunlight, “warming our old bones,” as Saul said. “Who’s old?” grunted Bernard. “Speak for yourself, Saul, and you six years younger.”

  “You’ll never grow old,” said Saul with admiration, his voice carrying the thick accents of his native Germany.

  “Quite right,” said Bernard. “The Irish don’t believe in it.”

  Saul chuckled, shifting his fat buttocks on the slats of the bench. The blue smoke from his treasured meerschaum pipe rose contentedly in the shining air. Bernard smoked a cigar, a very large one. It had cost ten cents, which he considered outrageous. “The Jews don’t believe in it, either,” said Saul. “Too busy running all the time from pogroms. Got to have young legs.” New, tentative leaves, a soft yellow-green, threw dancing shadows on the two old men below. The winding paths through the park were of zealously raked gravel, which people said was picturesque; flowerbeds, showing rows of buoyant tulips, mostly red, bordered the walks. Later there would be other flowers in season, lovingly cared for and very neat. No child dared to stamp on those beds or pick any blossoms. Activity among children was severely kept in check by parents proud of the park if not of their offspring. No picnics were allowed, and a shower of chewing-gum wrappers brought swift punishment to the offender. “Keep Off the Grass” signs were meticulously obeyed. Dogs were outlawed in the park. Even the birds looked disciplined as they flashed through the sun and to the refuge of their new nests.

  Bernard was eighty-four now, a vigorous and lively eighty-four. Always spare, his body was still hard muscle, quick and springy when he walked or trotted, a quick marching step he had learned in the British army. It was nearly as fast as it had been in his youth. But his flesh now re
sembled the driftwood washed up on the stony shores of the sea, dark and with a dim silvery shine. His gray eyes were still vital, even if nested in deep wrinkles, and his large nose was as arrogant and defiant as ever. The plow of years might have cleft his sunken cheeks, but the mouth between them was stern and forbidding and the teeth within were strong and clean as always. His totally white hair had diminished, but the crest-like way it rose over his forehead was still like the crest on a Roman helmet. His chin had retained its pugnacity. He had not lost his formidable look. The years had not gentled him. Rather, they had increased his native ferocity. He was one who would never mellow into tolerance for sloth, lies, cruelty, weakness, or general ineptitude. The world was “a bastard of a place,” he would say, “and I don’t know why the good Lord hasn’t smashed it by now.” His mind was like a knife, sharp and brilliantly honed. He did not need glasses to read.

  His hand, now roped with veins, lifted to his cigar. He raised his eyes to the distant view. “Age,” he remarked, “is a matter of opinion. I’ve seen buckos in their fifties and sixties whining about the long years they have lived. They are ‘tired,’ they say. Tired of what? Living, perhaps. But then, I’m thinking, they never really lived.”

  “Work,” said Saul, “keeps a man young.”

  “Depends,” said Bernard, who hated platitudes. “I’ve seen work kill, that I have. It’s how a man looks at things. Does he want to endure, or does he not? Simple as that, then.”

  He studied the far scene with little visible pleasure. But few things had ever pleased Bernard, and Saul suspected that this was the source of Bernard’s vitality. He would never be complacent or sentimental. Saul considered him fondly, as one would a brother. In contrast with the tall gaunt Bernard, Saul was like a plump small cushion, extremely trim and turned and comfortable, rosy as a peony in full bloom. His three round chins were excellently barbered, as was his thick white hair, and he had a rigorously trimmed white mustache which did not hide his kind smiling mouth. He might be poor, but his blue serge suit was pressed—by himself—at least twice a week, and his striped shirt daily knew an iron, and his stiff white collar and cuffs—celluloid—never had a stain upon them. Though it was only April, he wore a shining white straw hat with a gay red band around the crown, and it looked jaunty and pleasingly defiant. He had sweet round brown eyes that seemed to be perpetually smiling. He was a childless widower of many years and hardly remembered his Anna, who had had a stringent tongue and had stood at least a foot taller than himself. She had also kept kosher. Saul had long forgiven her that, but he had never forgotten. He would sometimes remember with a shudder, especially around the time of Passover. However, in her memory, he ate matzohs and prepared gefilte fish for himself, both of which he deplored but which Bernard found tasty and enjoyable.