Answer as a Man
Page 57
Father Sweeney was only a parish priest and John was a monsignor. But Father Sweeney got up on his suddenly trembling legs, and his eyes were fiery. “It’s you, Jack Garrity, who are mocking God! You mock him every day of your life, and always did! You mock at his altar! How dare you raise the Host—blasphemy! Anathema! I saw blood on your hands when you distributed the Host at the funeral. Your brother is one of the few good men I have ever known, and you are not worthy to kiss his hand!
“Jason is afflicted, yes. But, when were the good not afflicted? The evil flourish like a green bay tree, and the righteous mourn. But let me tell you this, you false priest: God is with Jason, and always was, and he will not forget his son!”
Father Sweeney left the room, and tears of rage and sorrow filled his eyes. But he did not repent his words. He went to the empty church and prayed, and as he prayed, he felt peace. After a while he chuckled.
He had long wanted to tell Jack Garrity the truth about himself.
Chauncey Schofield left Belleville permanently and closed his office in March 1918. There were whispers. His wife did not go with him. She sold her house in April and went to New York.
Rumor had it that Elizabeth and her mother were “estranged,” and the daughter declared her “independence” from Anita. Elizabeth went to Philadelphia, where the “brave girl” was reported to work in an office. Belleville did not see her again, nor did it see Anita and Chauncey.
Mrs. Lindon had had her revenge, but she never confided it to anyone. She alone knew when Anita filed for divorce from her husband and named his adulteries at Mrs. Lindon’s house. Mrs. Lindon had supplied the pertinent details to her good wronged friend, as she had supplied the location of Chauncey’s little cottage in the woods and other data.
In May 1918 Jason telephoned Molly at her house in New York. She answered somewhat cautiously and with hesitation. “Hello, Jason. I’m glad you called. I’m going to Canada, to Montreal, and then to—”
“Molly?”
“I’m already packed. I’m leaving in an hour … for three months.”
“Molly, darling. I’ve thought and thought about my unknown benefactor for the last months. When I received back my paper, debts paid in full, I got suspicious. I don’t know anyone who would do such a thing and has the means to do it. Except you. Molly?”
She began to cry, and Jason heard her sobbing. “I don’t know, Jason, and I wonder—”
“Molly, will you marry me?”
He heard her take a deep breath. “I’m sorry about Mr. Mulligan’s recent death. Three weeks now, isn’t it.”
“Yes. Patricia’s death was the final blow. He never recovered. Though he was ill and his death was expected at any time, we had hopes. Things were too much for him. Molly, will you marry me?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“What’s there to think about, Molly?”
There was a silence; then Molly sighed. “You haven’t told me you love me.”
“Oh, God, you are like every other woman! I told you that years ago.”
“But not recently. Jason, I don’t want a husband who is merely grateful to me.”
“If you don’t marry me, I will get loans from the bank, no matter if it takes years, and repay you. Incidentally, Mr. Mulligan left his entire estate to me, free and clear, except for a trust fund for Bastie. And the thousand acres, too. I was on the deed, and didn’t know it. I want to use that land to build a home and hospital for people like Nick and name it the Patrick Michael Mulligan School.”
“Good,” said Molly with some coldness.
“Molly, I love you and I never loved another woman. Now, are you satisfied? I love you, I love you, and always did. And Nickie loves you, and Bastie. They deserve another brother and sister. Will you be so kind—”
Molly said in a bright voice, “I think I’ll cancel the trip to Canada. And come home.”
Jason went out in the May morning. It seemed to him that the world was new, shining, exultant, though in Europe thousands died on battlefields every day. Come what may, man endures, man survives, and there is joy in the morning.
Jason raised his eyes and smiled. God is good. He moves mysteriously, as the priests say, but he has his ways, he has his ways!
He is not the adversary of man. Man is, Jason thought. God is not to be understood by man. He is just to be trusted.
The bells rang for early Mass, and Jason went into the church, reconciled, and looked at the high altar and genuflected. Sanctus, Sanctus.
A Biography of Taylor Caldwell
Taylor Caldwell was one of the most prolific and widely read American authors of the twentieth century. In a career that spanned five decades, she wrote forty novels, many of which were New York Times bestsellers.
Caldwell captivated readers with emotionally charged historical novels and family sagas such as Captains and the Kings, which sold 4.5 million copies and was made into a television miniseries in 1976. Her novels based on the lives of religious figures, Dear and Glorious Physician, a portrayal of the life of St. Luke, and Great Lion of God, a panoramic novel about the life and times of St. Paul, are among the bestselling religious novels of all time.
Born Janet Miriam Holland Taylor Caldwell in 1900 in Manchester, England, into a family of Scotch-Irish descent, she began attending an academically rigorous school at the age of four, studying Latin, French, history, and geography. At six, she won a national gold medal for her essay on novelist Charles Dickens. On weekends, she performed a long list of household chores and attended Sunday school and church twice a day. Caldwell often credited her Spartan childhood with making her a rugged individualist.
In 1907, Caldwell, her parents, and her younger brother immigrated to the United States, settling in Buffalo, New York, where she would live for most of her life. She started writing stories when she was eight years old and completed her first novel, The Romance of Atlantis, when she was twelve, although it was not published until 1975. Marriage at the age of eighteen to William Combs and the birth of her first child, Mary Margaret—Peggy—did not deter her from pursuing an education. While working as a stenographer and a court reporter to help support her family, she took college courses at night.
Upon receiving a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Buffalo in 1931, she divorced her husband and married Marcus Reback, her boss at the US Immigration Department office in Buffalo. Caldwell then dedicated herself to writing full time. Even as her family grew with the arrival of her second daughter, Judith, Caldwell’s unpublished manuscripts continued to pile up.
At the age of thirty-eight, she finally sold a novel, Dynasty of Death, to a major New York publisher. Convinced that a pre–World War I saga of two dynasties of munitions manufacturers would be better received if people thought it was written by a man, Maxwell Perkins, her editor at Scribner—who also discovered F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway—advised her to use only part of her name—Taylor Caldwell—as her pen name. Dynasty of Death became a bestseller in 1938 and the saga continued with The Eagles Gather in 1940 and The Final Hour in 1944. Inevitably, a public stir ensued when people discovered Taylor Caldwell was a woman.
Over the next forty years, Caldwell often worked from midnight to early morning at her electric typewriter in her book-crammed study, producing a wide array of sagas (This Side of Innocence, Answer as a Man) and historical novels (Testimony of Two Men, Ceremony of the Innocent) that celebrated American values and passions.
She also produced novels set in the ancient world (A Pillar of Iron, Glory and the Lightning), dystopian fiction (The Devil’s Advocate, Your Sins and Mine), and spiritually themed novels (The Listener, No One Hears But Him, Dialogues with the Devil).
Apart from their across-the-board popularity with readers and their commercial success, which made Caldwell a wealthy woman, her long list of bestselling novels possessed common themes that were close to her heart: self-reliance and individualism, man’s struggle for justice, the government’s encroachment on persona
l freedoms, and the conflict between man’s desire for wealth and power and his need for love and family bonding.
The long hours spent at her typewriter did not keep Caldwell from enjoying life. She gave elegant parties at her grand house in Buffalo. One of her grandchildren recalls watching her hold the crowd in awe with her observations about life and politics. She embarked on annual worldwide cruises and was fond of a glass of good bourbon. Drina Fried recalls her grandmother confiding in her: “I vehemently believe that we should have as much fun as is possible in our dolorous life, if it does not injure ourselves or anyone else. The only thing is—be discreet. The world will forgive you anything but getting caught.”
Caldwell didn’t stop writing until she suffered a debilitating stroke at the age of eighty. Her last novel, Answer as a Man, was published in 1981 and hit the New York Times bestseller list before its official publication date. She died at her home in Greenwich, Connecticut, in 1985.
William Combs, Taylor Caldwell’s first husband and father to Peggy, aboard a naval ship, circa 1926.
A portrait of Caldwell at the start of her career in the late 1930s.
A portrait of Caldwell taken before Scribner’s publication of Melissa on June 21, 1948.
Caldwell at her desk in Palm Beach, Florida, in 1949. She spent many winter months at Whitehall, a resort hotel on the property of Henry Flagler’s former estate, which is now the Flagler Museum.
Caldwell’s second daughter, Judith Ann Reback, during time with her mother at Whitehall in the 1940s.
Caldwell receiving an award in Los Angeles, California, for A Pillar of Iron after its publication in 1965.
Caldwell with her daughters, Peggy Fried and Judith Ann Reback (Goodman), and Ted Goodman in 1969 on the MS Bergensfjord.
Caldwell at a cocktail party with her daughter, Peggy, and the hostess of a research world cruise on the SS President Wilson in 1970.
Caldwell with her granddaughter, Drina Fried, at her home in Buffalo, New York, winter 1975. Soula Angelou, her personal assistant, insisted on taking this rare family picture.
An invitation from 1975 to one of Caldwell’s many cocktail parties. She hosted at least two parties a year in Buffalo, New York, before she moved to Connecticut.
Caldwell with her fourth husband, Robert Prestie, who cared for her in the last six years of her life in Connecticut.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1980 by Taylor Caldwell Prentice
Cover design by Connie Gabbert
ISBN: 978-1-5040-3899-7
This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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