The Turnbulls

by Taylor Caldwell

  He tried to speak, and then was silent. Then he caught her in his arms and pressed his mouth hard upon hers. She melted against him. The bonnet fell down upon her back, and her shining brown hair, so smooth and orderly, loosened and rolled down over her neck and shoulders. He felt the wild and tumultuous beating of her heart against his. A wild rapture swept over him. His hands pressed her body, hot and seeking, and her firm flesh softened and yielded under them.

  They were aware of nothing but their turbulent coming together, the satisfying of their desperate hunger. The shadows of evening closed about the carriage, entered it and filled it with darkness. The coachman on his high seat yawned, turned and tried to see in the vehicle. But he could see nothing. He heard nothing at all.

  CHAPTER 27

  John lay tensely beside his wife all that night, unable to sleep for the feverish thronging of his thoughts. Lilybelle breathed softly and regularly, the night air scented with the sweetness of her warm flesh. But John was no more aware of her than if she had never been born.

  There had been much said and promised between him and Eugenia. So much spoken until the carriage had been engulfed in complete darkness, and yet, they felt, at parting, that they had not said all that there had been to say.

  Eugenia had informed him sadly that he had not heard from his father for the reason that James had suffered a stroke two weeks after the departure of John, that he had enforced a promise from Eugenia that John not be told. “There will be enough of adjustments and confusion for him,” he had said. But, Eugenia hurried to reassure the anxious young man, Uncle James had shown much improvement later, and had been able to attend her wedding to Andrew Bollister. He had seemed quite well at that time.

  However, the puzzled Eugenia commented, when he was informed that she and Andrew were to leave for America almost immediately after the wedding ceremony, he had acted quite strangely. Moreover, he had been actually incoherent, and had made remarks which she found it difficult to understand and interpret. He had urged her to make no effort to see her cousin in America. He had said he, John, was not to be made unhappy. That is why, said James, he had not allowed John to be informed of his illness, and why, now recovered, he had not yet written. John was to be allowed to secure a firm foothold in America before being reminded of his old home and his kinsfolk. (He had said other things to Eugenia, bitter, denunciatory and angry things, but these the young woman prudently refrained from divulging to John.)

  “So,” said John, in his aching love for his father, and his misery, “so that is why he didn’t answer my letters.” He had a sense of great desolation. If he had only known the truth, how different life might have been for him, and for others! But of this he dared not think just now.

  He lay now and thought of his father. Then, as the thought brought nothing but (pain, he thought of Eugenia, and his heart and his flesh burned with impassioned joy and a mysterious sorrow. How brave and resolute she had been to do the things she had done, for him! He was humbled and incredulous at the very thought, and unbearably elated. It had been enough for him, that evening, to hold her in his arms and kiss her lips, but he felt in her a surging power and restlessness, as if these embraces had not been enough, that it was necessary for much more to satisfy her. Nor was it solely passion, John recalled, with vague confusion. There was a greater urgency in the delicate and exquisite Eugenia, something sexless and indomitable and relentless, something which aroused a cold and nameless caution in him, and inexplicable resentment. For awhile, he had felt that he had been the weaker of the two, and that he had been exposed to a strange ruthlessness.

  Let us forget what has gone, Eugenia had said to him, looking into his eyes. And, as she said this, he could believe, for high and blazing moments, that it would be possible. It could be possible to forget their marriages, their children, this alien land, and all the desolation, hunger, grief and wretchedness that lay between. They would make a world for themselves here, in which America and families could not enter. “A bit of England,” Eugenia had said. And in that “bit” they would be free again, and young and untouched again, like children, wandering hand in hand in a universe created by themselves, eternally young and careless.

  When he had suggested, in a restive surge of his old hatred, that Andrew would still be existing, and waiting outside the charmed circle of that golden universe, Eugenia’s face had shown a faint dark shadow, and she had put her fingers gently on his lips. “What does it matter?” she had asked. However, she had changed the subject quite abruptly.

  She had listened with tender sympathy to his account of how he had fared in America, and had uttered little cries of exultation. Tactfully, of course, she did not tell him of Mr. Gorth’s angry denunciations of Andrew, and the furious arguments which took place regularly in the fine home on Fifth Avenue since Mr. Wilkins had displayed his astute duplicity concerning the new patents. It was not Eugenia’s intention to soften John’s rage against her husband and his uncle.

  Like one remembering every detail of an occasion of great joy, John went over the events of that evening. He remembered, vividly, his heavy sadness because he had been unable to feel the Spring, and could only see it, and then, later, how the world had taken on vividness and a poignancy too sharp to be endured. He had left Eugenia, and had walked home, and all the air, the stars, the very stones under his feet, had seemed to sing, with a wild high agony of joy.

  He had stood there, on the warehouse steps, waiting for his carriage, too leaden of heart to feel anything, and then Eugenia had come!

  Then, all at once, he thought: Where had I been going? There had been an unimportant letter from the lawyers Gillespie, about some trivial matter no doubt concerning a stockholder. John smiled disdainfully in the darkness.

  Suddenly, without any discernible reason, his heart began to beat with savage swiftness, and he sat up in bed, his ears ringing, his eyes smarting, his whole body pervaded with a sensation of disaster and terror. He got out of bed, trembling heavily. The windows were gray with dawn. He sat beside them, his throat dry and choking, telling himself incoherently that it was all nonsense, this fear, that it was the night, and his exhaustion, and the events of the past evening, which had brought this reaction upon him. But still, the fear mounted blacker, more nameless, and when Lilybelle awoke, with a murmurous sigh, and a smile, she found him sitting there, rigid and cold, in the light of the morning.

  Mr. Aaron Gillespie, a little wiry man with a dry face like a sharp ferret, was surprised to find Mr. John Turnbull waiting for him at eight o’clock that morning.

  “We expected you last night, Mr. Turnbull,” he said, briskly seating himself beside his desk in the office that smelled of leather and legality and the mustiness of virtuous law. He eyed John curiously, and with a little hesitation. This young man with the pale dark face and sleepless eyes looked ill to him. Was it possible he had already heard?

  “I was delayed, unavoidably,” replied John. He moistened his parched lips. Then he could not longer control himself: “It isn’t about my father, is it, sir? I don’t know why,” he added, smiling painfully, but fixing his eyes with pathetic urgency upon the little man, “but I’ve had that foolish idea all night—”

  Mr. Gillespie was silent. He lit a cheroot so long that it looked ridiculous in his small gray face. He spent quite a time on its correct lighting, swearing genteelly under his breath at the spluttering “lucifer,” and frowning severely at the lighted end as though it were culpable. And all the time John waited, sitting on the edge of his chair, his clenched hands pressed on the top of his tall hat.

  Mr. Gillespie cleared his throat, and spoke quietly: “Yes, Mr. Turnbull, it is about your father.” He paused and studied John apprehensively. An emotional beggar, from the look of him, and violent. Strange that such a big young man could be so volatile. Big men were usually calm and lethargic. He wondered if he should call in one of his partners to help him bear the brunt of what was likely to happen.

  “You haven’t heard from you
r father recently? About his illness?”

  John was so relieved that he felt quite weak, and a light sweat broke out upon his face. He smiled slightly. “Yes, I have heard. From my cousin. Last night. But I understand he is better now.”

  Mr. Gillespie allowed a grave expression to come over his face. He nodded sombrely. “Yes, Mr. Turnbull. Very much better. Very much better, indeed. He will never suffer again.”

  There was a sudden silence in the room. Then, stiffly, as if pushed to his feet, John rose. He put his hands on the desk to support himself, leaning forward.

  “You mean,” he said, very quietly, “that he is dead.”

  Mr. Gillespie was quite relieved. He was not wrong, then, about the lethargy and lack of emotion in big men. For John had seated himself, and was sitting motionless in his chair, staring blindly before him. But beyond this, he showed no other emotion.

  “Yes,” said Mr. Gillespie, in a sepulchral voice, “he has passed on. Very calmly, in his sleep, I am informed by his solicitor. About six months ago.”

  After a long pause, John asked tonelessly: “I wasn’t informed.”

  “No, it was by his request that you were not. Six months were to elapse. I may say, however, that I, myself, was not informed by my English associate until day before yesterday. I understand,” continued Mr. Gillespie, clearing his throat, “that your father appeared to wish that you be better established before you were told. He seemed to be very solicitous about you.”

  John said nothing. He felt nothing in himself but desolation, too profound, too deep, for speech or thought. Later, there would come anguish and wild sorrow, but not yet.

  Mr. Gillespie opened a drawer and proceeded briskly about the business. He laid a sealed envelope before John. “A letter to you from your father,” he said. He rustled other papers. “And now, let us go into the matter of your inheritance:

  “You are to receive fifty thousand dollars immediately, Mr. Turnbull. At the age of twenty-five, fifty thousand more, provided that you have earned, by your own endeavours, not less than fifteen thousand dollars. From what I have heard,” and he smiled fondly at John, “you have already been able to accumulate much more than that already. So, there will be no trouble about that part of the will. Then, at the age of thirty, you are to receive the balance of your father’s estate, provided,” and now Mr. Gillespie betrayed some embarrassment, “that you are still living in connubial relationship with your present wife, the former Miss Lilybelle Botts. Unless, (and we hope this will not come to pass) she has already passed on.”

  But John had heard only the rumbling echo of his words. He had taken up the envelope and was opening it with stiff and icy fingers. His father’s words, written in a painful and angular hand, lay before him:

  “My dear son, this is a letter of regret and sorrow, and a plea for forgiveness. There were so many years when I might have been a father to you, but I had not allowed this, in my selfishness and stupidity. I might have saved you much regret and bitterness of heart, much disaster and pain. I did not do this. Not out of design, but out of ignorance and love of self and comfort. Perhaps this is the more reprehensible, the more unpardonable. I believe it is. That is why I implore you to forgive me, even though I will be in my grave when this is put into your hands.

  “We often say ‘but that is all gone and done with, and forgotten.’ But nothing is forgotten. We cannot stay the widening rings in the water when we cast in our stone. The rings go on into infinity. Only compassion and forgiveness can make their effects endurable. But the stone remains, sunken at the bottom of our consciousness, and our lives. I cannot recall that stone. I only ask that by your own efforts, and your fortitude, you do not let it destroy your life. Otherwise, even in the grave, there can be no peace for me.

  “I cannot say to you: ‘be happy.’ Those are the words of fools. I hope I have not been a fool, though I have been a criminal in my dealings with you. I can only say: ‘be strong. Do not let others destroy your life. Your life is your own, sacred to you, and to God.’ You have never heard me speak of God, except with a faint smile and a shrug. But now that I stand here alone, I know there is nothing but a man and his God, at the last. Remember God; think of the day when you will stand as I stand at this hour, and know there is nothing else. Be strong. A man needs all his strength to survive. He needs it even more when he loves. Men, perhaps, have not died for love, but they have been destroyed by it. You will know my meaning.

  “Be true, not to other men, but to yourself. That is the first commandment. Never lie to yourself. Men lie more to themselves than they do to others.

  “I wish I might look at your face again, my dearest son, and touch your hand. But that is not to be. That is my punishment. Forgive me.”

  John folded the letter slowly. He stood up. And then, without another word, he left the office.

  BOOK THREE

  CHAPTER 28

  It was very odd, but the flowers Lilybelle grew in her garden were as blowsy and opulent and warm as herself.

  Others might grow the most genteel of little pink tearoses, properly behaved and correct of petal and leaf, but Lilybelle’s roses were lush and riotous, huge, overpowering of scent, boisterous of leaf and thorn. But she loved them, and would bury her rosy plump face deep into their hearts, sniffing loudly, and with quite unrefined delight.

  She had gathered a big basket of them this June morning, and was busily engaged in thrusting masses of them into every available Chinese and alabaster vase she could find in the pleasant brick house on West Eleventh Street, much to the aristocratic alarm of her housekeeper, Mrs. Bowden, who, however, loved her passionately. (Later, Mrs. Bowden would remove the masses, and allow only a few exquisite buds and blossoms to remain in each jar and vase. She would strip off most of the enormous leaves, and would pick off the happy insects.)

  Lilybelle, in her morning gown of sprigged muslin, her hoops swaying vigorously, was a pleasant sight, for all she had taken on much white flesh. But her height prevented her from obesity, so that her appearance was warmly commanding rather than gross. Too, her face was full rather than fat, and if there was a suspicion of a double chin already making its appearance, it only served to enhance her air of lush generosity, health and vitality. Her white skin had pearly-rose undertones to it, and her big, if somewhat stupid and sensual mouth, was flushed with living scarlet, the lips always parting in smiles to reveal flashes of marvellously sound and snowy teeth. If her round blue eyes were often vacant and vague, they could brighten with an almost constant affection and good humour, and one forgot that the short wide nose had distinctly the appearance of a pretty snout. The vivid auburn curls no longer hung down her neck upon her shoulders, but were piled in lustrous and beautifully radiant masses upon her handsome head, and little coppery tendrils curled lovingly at the nape of her long white neck. Mrs. Bowden thought her the loveliest (if the most buxom) lady she knew. Never were there such large white arms, with such dimples at the elbows. It made one quite forget that the hands were large and coarse, the nails square and too pink.

  Mrs. Elsie Bowden, a brown spare little sparrow of a woman, followed her mistress about on the rose-disposing business, listening to the endless loud chatter of the young woman about household duties and the children, the flowers and the weather, and forthcoming meals. Mrs. Bowden listened with an attentive smile, and a fond look in her beady brown eyes. Dressed in brown cotton, over which was a black satin apron, white-capped and with white linen at the wrists, and with a huge bunch of jingling keys at her compact little waist, Mrs. Bowden was a wholesome and comforting small woman. She had a brown wrinkled face, wise and quiet, the arched and delicate nose of the Beardsleys, and a still puckered mouth. She was exceedingly intelligent and shrewd, uncompromising but gentle. She never forgot that Lilybelle, against all the stern and outraged arguments of her cousin, Miss Amanda, had rescued her from the misery of a cold back room and had taken her away to all this pleasantness, noise and gaiety and happy “dis”order of the house on W
est Eleventh Street. She had her own comfortable apartments on the third floor, a cosy bedroom and a fine sitting-room with a fireplace and plenty of coal, and fifty dollars a month to boot. She managed all the affairs of the household, including the nursemaid for the three little girls, four housemaids and the cook, and the two gardeners. She was friend and counsellor and guardian, and Lilybelle could not have done without her, in her vague frivolity, irresponsibility and quite complete helplessness to manage her family.

  Lilybelle chattered about her children. The last governess had left, and Lilybelle discussed the new present incumbent with her housekeeper.

  “Do you think Miss Hamlin really understands the children?” she asked, with a vague passing anxiety, as she stood off to admire the last enormous bunch of roses to be forced into the large Chinese vase on the polished grand piano. The drawing-room was quite enormous. Lilybelle had had no part in the selection of this furniture, at least. John, not knowing that he was doing so, had reproduced the austerity and elegance of his father’s home in his own house. The gleaming floors, scattered with Persian and Turkish carpets, the few chairs in their quiet tapestries and damasks, the white walls and molded ceilings, the crimson draperies and white marble fireplace, all revealed an astonishing taste in John. But the room did not appeal to the exuberant Lilybelle, who privately thought it very dreary and cold and bare. She had been allowed to indulge her own taste, however, in the other rooms of the big colourful house. The drawing-room rioted in scarlets and blues and gilt and intricately carved black walnut furniture. The bedrooms were noisy with colour, and crowded to the very doors. If it was all very vulgar and riotous, it was also very gay and comfortable. “Homelike,” Lilybelle would say, with satisfaction, avoiding the drawing-room except when stuffing flowers into every available receptacle, or when entertaining guests. (She was certain that the guests found the room as overpowering as she did, and was only happy when she led the way into her great and violent dining-room.)