The Turnbulls

by Taylor Caldwell

“Well, now,” boomed Mr. Wilkins in sudden cheeriness, producing his bottle, and beaming at the child on the pillow. “I’ve just been told there was a little leddy down here in need of Dr. Wilkins! Right you are, Miss! I’ve come to get you up in no time.”

  The girl still gazed at him with that look of suffering which caused Mr. Wilkins such strange wrenchings in the region of his heart. Then, in the very depths of those round blue eyes, so empty and motionless, a spark of desperate pleading rose.

  “This is Mr. Wilkins, Lilybelle,” said John, in a cold and emotionless voice. “My wife, Mr. Wilkins. Lilybelle, Mr. Wilkins believes he has a cure for your sea-sickness.”

  He withdrew from the two of them, and stood near his own bunk, his dark face closed and heavy.

  The girl’s lips quivered. But she did not stir even a finger. Ah, thought Mr. Wilkins, it is not the sea-sickness, then. For, for one moment, he had seen the shrinking and wrinkling of the girl’s eyelids as her glance had touched John, the sudden faint drawing together of her flesh as if she expected a blow.

  Mr. Wilkins saw that she was no child, after all, but a well developed young woman of about fifteen. But always, he thought, this would be a child at heart, helpless and vulnerable and bewildered, despite the good strong body and the strong hands used to work and long patience.

  He approached the bunk, beaming like the sun, his head on one side, his hand shaking the bottle archly. The girl watched him come. Her eyes widened; the look of frightened pain increased in them. Mr. Wilkins looked about for a cup or a spoon. There was a dirty cup on the table near the bunk, filled with tea-leaves and a little dark fluid. He tossed this into a pail near by, and poured out a generous dose of his medicine. Then, with the utmost tenderness and gentleness, he presented it to the girl.

  She stared at it, then at Mr. Wilkins’ vast rosy countenance. Their eyes met. Then slowly, though the girl did not look away from Mr. Wilkins, but seemed to cling to his face in a kind of suffering mournfulness and despair, tears rose in a flood to her eyes, rolled over her cheeks. Her breast heaved and trembled. Her lips parted and uncontrollable sobs burst from her pale and swollen lips.

  John uttered a low and impatient exclamation, filled with disgust. But Mr. Wilkins did not move, did not lessen his smile. His hand continued to extend itself with the cup towards Lilybelle. However, had there been any one there of sublety to see, he would have perceived that something passed between Mr. Wilkins and Lilybelle. It was as if, recognizing in a world of bewildering enemies and oppressors, a potential friend with a voice promising succour, and expressing sympathy and kindness and tenderness, the girl had cried out for help in an agonized voice.

  John did not understand any of this, but he vaguely experienced a resentment and dim anger. He felt himself thrust aside, an alien, in the midst of two who had mutually recognized each other. If he did not know that he had gained a terrible enemy, he knew, confusedly, that Lilybelle had gained a friend.

  “Nah, nah,” said Mr. Wilkins, in the most soothing and soft of voices, “if the little leddy will just sip of this nice medicine—”

  Still weeping and shuddering with her sobs, catching her breath as a hurt child catches it, the girl obediently let Mr. Wilkins put the cup to her lips. She drank, choked, swallowed, her tears mingling with the potion. And, as she drank, her pleading eyes, swimming with tears, did not leave Mr. Wilkins’ face. She seemed to believe that so long as she gazed at him she was not entirely bereft.

  Mr. Wilkins had learned several things from John’s uneasy and taciturn mutters just before they had left his stateroom. He had learned that this had been a “hasty marriage,” and vaguely gathered that Mr. Turnbull had not “approved,” that he had given his son one hundred pounds and passage and had packed him off. But there had been something in John’s reserve which made Mr. Wilkins believe that all of the story had not been told. Like a faint scrawl underlying blacked-out words in a letter, Mr. Wilkins had felt some subtle emphasis on things which had remained unsaid. When John had spoken of his wife, it had not been with obvious distaste and in his actual voice. What he had omitted, however, had been very poignant and eloquent to Mr. Wilkins’ trained ear. He had “smelled” hatred.

  Whatever the girl had done, Mr. Wilkins did not particularly care. He observed that she was of a much lower station than was her young husband. That did not matter, either. What did matter to Mr. Wilkins was that she was defenseless, that she was being made to suffer, that she was the victim of chronic hurts and cruelties. Perhaps she was a trollop; perhaps she had inveigled and tricked this young jackanapes into marrying her. No matter. He had made her suffer, and she had no defense. That was the unpardonable crime to Mr. Wilkins. To afflict the helpless was the one thing Mr. Wilkins could not forgive.

  He laid the cup down on the littered table, still glowing like a beneficent sun. He sat down on the edge of a stool, and put his hands on his spread thighs. He regarded Lilybelle benevolently, still with that warm kindliness in his glassy hazel eyes. But now those eyes were like agate marbles with a light behind.

  The girl lay back on her pillows, gulping down her sobs. She directed one fearful and cringing glance at her husband. Her pale cheeks paled even more. She returned her drowning gaze to Mr. Wilkins.

  John stirred. He came forward slowly and stood at the foot of the girl’s bunk. “Better, Lily?” he asked, coldly.

  Still gazing at Mr. Wilkins, the girl’s head moved affirmatively on her pillows.

  “I’ve never known it to fail!” exclaimed Mr. Wilkins. “The little leddy will be as right as rain in no time. Mark my words.”

  He turned now to John, smiling broadly. He winked. “Your husband and me ’as ’ad a very interesting conversation, Mrs. Turnbull. A proper talk. I’m to make his fortun in Ameriky.”

  John coloured. He dropped his eyes to his boots, and his big mouth set itself sullenly. “Santa Claus,” he muttered.

  Lilybelle’s swollen eyes lightened with pathetic eagerness. Her head moved more strongly on her pillows. She spoke now, in a voice hoarse with tears: “Oh, Mr. Wilkins, that’s very good of you, just!”

  Lancastershire lass, thought Mr. Wilkins. He smiled widely.

  Lilybelle now looked desperately at her husband, all her desire to placate him out on her poor face like a blaze. “Mr. Turnbull, that’s very good of Mr. Wilkins, ain’t it?”

  “Very good,” said John, with sardonic heaviness. “The only thing, Lilybelle, is that I think Mr. Wilkins is just a little too sanguine.”

  The blaze vanished from Lilybelle’s face, and the look of bewilderment returned. It was obvious that she did not understand. She looked at Mr. Wilkins humbly, waiting for translation.

  “He means, Mrs. Turnbull, ma’am, that he don’t believe I’m capable,” he said, with good humour. “He thinks I’m a proper liar. Well, we’ll see.”

  He took Lilybelle’s hand and patted it paternally. That hand was very cold and tremulous. But it began to warm. She smiled at him vaguely. She was feeling much better. The retching quiver in her stomach was subsiding. The chill in her feet was less. Slowly, a languor began to steal over her, comforting and gentle.

  Mr. Wilkins looked at John. “You’ve called me Santa Claus, Mr. Turnbull. Now, that’s not fair to you, or me. Bob Wilkins don’t do anything for nothing. Fee only. If I help you make your fortun, it’s understood I make a fortun, too.”

  Now he gazed into space, and his smile took on a curious and peculiar quality, as if he looked at a seething world of men. “I allus gives people what they wants,” he said, in a strange and echoless voice, musing and withdrawn. “Allus what they wants.”

  Mr. Wilkins soon took his departure. At the very last, he winked gently at Lilybelle, and she smiled drowsily in return. He had hardly closed the door when she fell into a deep and motionless sleep.

  By the light of the swaying lantern, John undressed. It was bitterly cold in the little narrow cabin. Shivering, he reached for the lantern to blow it out. He held it in his hand and look
ed down at his sleeping young wife. Her face was still blotched and stained with tears. The auburn lashes quivered on her pale cheeks. Her white lips trembled slightly.

  He looked at her with hatred and loathing and despair. He

  had taken her body several times during this voyage, but always with that hatred, always with that despair and loathing. His violence was part of his revenge on her, and, in spite of her stupidity and ignorance, she knew it. She loved him, and he terrified her with his black rages, his curses, his roughness. Once, when he slept, he had cried out in anguish: “Eugenia! Eugenia!” She had known, then, that he was calling for some one whose place she had usurped.

  During these rocking days of misery and illness, she had wildly contemplated throwing herself into the sea. But her wholesome love of life, her simple peasant affirmation of living, had made her shrink instantly from the idea.

  She believed, in her ignorant simplicity, that some day he might at least tolerate her, that he might allow her to understand him, or permit her to serve him. That was all she desired. If once she touched him and he did not recoil from her, that would be enough. If once she spoke, and he listened, not with averted head, but with polite decency, she would be satisfied. She asked for so very little.

  “I’ve wronged him,” she would whisper to herself. “I’ve done a wicked thing to him. Please God, let me help him.”

  Only that morning, while he had been dressing in his black silence, she had timidly stammered that she was a good cook, and “a proper manager.” For some time she thought he had not heard her, then suddenly he had given her the most glittering and malevolent of glances, and had flung himself out of the cabin, leaving her to weep alone for hours.

  Now, as he looked down at her, a very swirl of aching visions passed before his mind’s eye. He saw the austere and elegant parlours of the Turnbull and MacNeill mansions. He saw the face of Eugenia, and his heart twisted with real agony. He saw all that he had lost, and he gazed at it with the desperate eye of the exile. Because of this drab who lay there before him, he had lost his home and his love, his prospects and his father, and all that had been his life.

  He lifted his arm with a fierce and involuntary gesture, the lantern swinging in his hand. He had only one desire, to smash that lamp down upon the sleeping face of the miserable girl. He lusted to obliterate her features with one bloody and lacerating blow. There was a redness before his eyes, fiery streaks before his vision. In the very act of bringing the lantern down, he caught himself. Then, bathed in sweat, trembling violently, he stood there, panting, filled with horror.

  Finally, he blew out the lamp, and in the darkness crept to his soiled bunk. He drew the cold sheets over him, shivering.

  The ship rocked in complete blackness. The wind screamed outside. John turned his face into his mussy pillow, and it became wet with the most terrible tears he would ever shed.

  CHAPTER 13

  Weather meant nothing to Mr. Wilkins, not even this weather in New York. The sky might be gray as an old woman’s hair, and streaked with boiling black whips lashing through layers of spinning clouds. The raw wind, blowing in from the ocean, might be as cold and penetrating as death itself, reaching for bone and warm flesh with inexorable tendrils. Heaps of dirty melting snow might be piled high along the crowded streets, and the air might have in it the wet astringent smell of ashes and soot. But it still meant nothing to Mr. Wilkins, wrapped in his greatcoat with its beaver collar, his tall brown hat set firmly on his bald pink head, thick gloves of good leather and fur on his hands, and his cane flourishing gaily as he strutted along.

  He glowed at the world, his smile broad and jovial. Drays and wagons of all kinds splashed through the black slush and running waters of the streets. Carriages rolled arrogantly by, phaetons, buggies, victorias, carryalls, fringe swaying, harness, gleaming, whips curling, horses prancing disdainfully, the occupants within the vehicles peering through polished windows at pedestrians struggling against wind and a new harsh rain which had begun to fall. Women held their skirts high, battled with umbrellas. Men turned up their collars and clutched their tall hats. Ragged urchins shrieked the afternoon papers, and between times made balls of the dirty snow to hurl at a particularly high and resplendent hat. Though it was hardly past two, lamps were already lit, sending their flickering yellow light over wet and irritable throngs. Shop windows, steamed and streaked, gushed rays of golden light out upon the wet pavements. Crowded buildings, their browns and grays running with water, huddled together, doors opening and shutting swiftly.

  Mr. Wilkins loved New York as he had never loved his native London. He loved its quick and riotous roar, though the long sustained mutter of London had never thrilled him. The roar of New York was the voice of young men, hot and tempestuous, alive with greed, gaiety, richness and rapacity. But the mutter of London was the mutter of old men, still potent, still dangerous, still looming over the City like bent and evil spirits. If there was evil in New York, it was a vital and laughing evil. The wickedness of London was the wickedness of ancient things, corrupt, filthy and broody. The very dirtiness of New York was exciting. There was virility in the ashen air, and a limitless power, boisterous, clangorous and violent. Moreover, there was hope. There was always hope when a city was in flux, coming into being. But London had long ago done with flux. It had petrified in its darkness and immensity. There was only dusky rigidity there, and hopelessness. “What we will shall come!” cried New York. “What has been is to be,” muttered London.

  “Mark my words,” Mr. Wilkins would say with unusual seriousness to those who laughed at his predictions, “New York will soon be the center of the whole bloody universe. Mark my words!”

  The stinging rain on Mr. Wilkins’ face did not annoy him in the least. He buried his chins in his beaver collar and chuckled. He lifted his polished boots as high as possible, and daintily stepped around puddles. Fog was coming with the rain. It swirled in yellow wisps about the lamps. The streets were becoming more narrow, more dirty, more crowded. The squat dark buildings bent towards each other. Now Mr. Wilkins could smell the strong fishy odour of the dark ocean heaving sullenly behind the warehouses which were beginning to replace the shops and business buildings.

  “Ah!” sniffed Mr. Wilkins, as if that primordial stench was the very perfume of Araby. There was salt in the vicious wind. It brought a ruddier tint to Mr. Wilkins’ rosy countenance. He bought a paper from a shivering urchin, handing the lad a round silver dollar, then walking away hastily with a wave of his hand. The boy stared after him, stupefied, looking first at the shining circle in his dirty fingers, then at the back of Mr. Wilkins’ sturdy and resplendent figure.

  Mr. Wilkins was happy. He had returned to New York. He was among his own again. His mind, which had threatened to become fat, was churning pleasurably. By the time he had reached a certain gloomy warehouse, blank and reeking in the lamplight, his strut had in it the lilt of a dancing step. He stood for a moment to watch the passing of a clamorous horse-car, the gray horses bent and steaming, the bells deafening. Lanterns swayed inside, so that it was a rolling cabin of yellow light and huddled bodies in the midst of dark rain and wind and fog. The windows had become steamed; there were little rubbed circles on them, through which anxious eyes peered. Mr. Wilkins smiled after the car, his sandy tufts of eyebrows quivering.

  There was little traffic in this dark and misty South Street, narrow and lined with the great bleak warehouses. The rain rushed in stormy torrents over the broken wooden pavements. Here and there a lamp tossed its yellow light in the wind. The roar of the sea behind the warehouses penetrated far up the river. Mr. Wilkins could hear its tumultuous harsh sucking around the quay. Dolorous moanings penetrated the foggy afternoon, for the river was busy with cargo ships and tugs. Night was settling down over the city. On a level with the pavements lamplight flickered through little dirty windows. Beyond the sound of the storm and the whistles of the ships, there was silence in South Street.

  Mr. Wilkins approached the d
oor of a certain warehouse, on whose blank front was painted the words: “Richard Gorth, Cotton Exporter.” He pushed open the door, and found himself in a gritty office, lined with the high desks of bookkeepers. About eight old men bent over ledgers, their green eyeshades casting sharp shadows on their gray faces, their shirt sleeves protected with black paper, their knees drawn up on their stools. Over their heads swung dirty oil-lamps, which hardly lightened the cold and ashen gloom.

  “Good afternoon!” roared Mr. Wilkins, flourishing his cane, his face seeming to send out rays of its own. Immediately a warmth penetrated the vaultlike chill. Every hopeless old face turned towards him with one accord. Every pale and sunken lip burst into a broad and delighted smile. Every man slipped down from his stool, and immediately Mr. Wilkins was surrounded by incoherent old men, each reaching eagerly to shake his warm plump hands. The diamond on his right ring finger glittered bravely and agilely, as his hand was pumped by one man after another. And he looked into each pair of faded eyes with a real and tender compassion and affection. He listened to their anxious exclamations as they brushed off the drops of rain on his greatcoat. He watched another old gentleman sedulously polishing the gold head of his cane. Another knelt stiffly to wipe off the mud from his shining boots with a thin white handkerchief. Every eye glowed with passionate devotion and joy in his presence. The room resounded with tremulous and broken voices, with Mr. Wilkins’ booming Cockney voice laden with its rich jokes and deep rumbling laughter.

  A chair was dragged from a distant corner for him, brushed off with half a dozen handkerchiefs. He was induced to sit in it, surrounded by these wretched and ancient starvelings, with their pathetic veined hands so wasted by hunger and endless toil and the stains of imbedded ink. He saw their painful neatness, their darned linen and polished and patched old boots. He saw the wrinkles about their tired eyes, the weariness in their delighted smiles. That familiar lurching began again in the depths of his strange and evil heart. These, too, were the dumb and helpless ones, bewildered and unasking.