Testimony of Two Men

by Taylor Caldwell

  "Nearly six. Campion gassed so long that you fell asleep, Mother, and nearly everyone else at this table. What a fraud and dangerous farce he is! What did you think, Bob?"

  "I?" asked Robert, and his fair cheeks turned very pink. "Candidly, Jon, I don't enjoy listening to politicians. I heard enough of them in Philadelphia. I just let the Senator's words slide easily, without penetration." At this word his color became extremely bright and Jonathan wanted to burst out laughing, for the young doctor had glanced with wincing at Jenny Heger, who was not listening at all and had so far overcome her fear of strangers that she was helping Marjorie fill clean glasses with ice and tea.

  "You didn't miss anything," said Jonathan. The men were not yet seated. They stood in a little group together, Jonathan, Robert Morgan, the priest and Mr. Kitchener.

  "I didn't listen, either," said the latter. "What for? It's bad enough around election time. Did you listen—sir?" he kindly asked Father McNulty.

  "I'm afraid I did," said the priest. "I found it very disturbing. I've never heard a speech like that before, though I've been hearing hints of such things in editorials in many news- papers since the new century arrived. There's a sort of exuberance in the air—"

  "Well, that isn't very bad," said Mr. Kitchener.

  "An approaching madness," said Jonathan. "I just remembered what Henry James said recently, to the effect that our world will have pretty well gone to smash about midcentury. I believe him. Some of the old boys are very good prophets."

  "In what way will it have gone to smash?" asked Mr. Kitchener, and he looked at his daughter.

  "Wars. Revolutions. Nihilism. We've already smelled its stench in America. Coming events send their stink ahead of them, as well as their shadows. Populism. Teddy's Progressivism. William Jennings Bryan. Eugene Debs. I've been reading a lot about Debs lately. At midcentury I'll be eighty-four, and dead, thank God."

  "But our grandchildren," said Mr. Kitchener, very unhappily.

  Jonathan shrugged. "I won't have any, and that's a blessing. Let our grandchildren take care of themselves. Sufficient unto the day— Well, we still have comparative peace in the world just now, though I doubt it is going to last much longer, considering our Campions in Washington."

  "Wars?" said Robert. "Can you imagine America embroiling herself in any foreign war? Impossible."

  But Jonathan had turned his head to look at Jenny. She was leaning over the table, her back to him, and he saw the extended long slim length of her and her small and slender waist, and the stretch of cheap checked cotton over her fine shoulders. Marjorie caught his eye and the gentlemen, all of them troubled now, returned to the table and the tea and the cake. But now Jenny was sitting far opposite Jonathan, next to Marjorie, and other of the ladies had changed their seats and so Jonathan found himself near Mrs. Kitchener on one side and Maude on the other. Maude was not pleased at this, for Robert was sitting next to Jenny on the opposite bench and was not looking at Maude at all.

  They ate and drank desultorily, idly watching the stout German Brass Band put away its instruments. The hot early evening air was so quiet that those at the table could hear the guttural accents of the musicians. They could hear the dry rustling of the trees and the movements of carriages in streets beyond the park as the celebrants drove home. Men were clearing away the flags and the chairs on the City Hall steps, and the draped banners of red, white and blue, and other men were walking over the grass gathering up the larger litter. No one moved quickly. A man laughed. A distant dog barked. The sun fell lower and lower into a reddening sky. There was a scent of old roses and hay from somewhere, even over the smell of heated stone, and a breath from the river.

  "How peaceful it is," said Marjorie. "I'm just drugged with sun and air. I'm sure I'll be asleep before we get home. I've enjoyed this day, in spite of the Senator. You must tell me what he said when we get home, Jon."

  "I've forgotten," her son replied. Now the old sick restlessness was on him again, the blankness, the wanting to go he knew not where, the intense desire for meaning and fulfillment, which he had known as a child. He looked at the golden glitter in the tops of the trees and the blue shadows under them, and his restlessness deepened to an old pain, an old desire, and his disquiet submerged his thoughts in darkness. He looked at Jenny, shyly talking to Mrs. Kitchener, and again he was tense and tingling and again he felt sorrow and bitterness and the deepest anger. But now the anger was against himself because he knew, finally, what had ailed him for nearly four years.

  "Robert?" said Mrs. Morgan. "I really think we must be getting home. My arthritis, you know."

  Robert seemed rebellious, and then he sighed. "Very well, Mother." He stood up. He bowed to Marjorie. "Mrs. Ferrier, it was most kind of you to invite us, most kind. You have done so much to make us happy in our new home. When we have moved into our house, I hope you will visit us often."

  "My dear, I've done nothing," said Marjorie, and her hazel eyes sparkled at him with affection.

  Robert stood and hesitated. He had the strongest yearning that Jenny look at him, say a word, or simply smile. He could not leave without that. As if she felt his urgent desire, she did glance up across the table, for he had moved to help his mother, and she gave him her faint and shrinking smile, then glanced away. It was enough for the young man. He was quite hearty in his last good-byes.

  "Such a nice young man, so devoted to his poor mother," said Sue Kitchener. "She has led a life of such trials. Quite a martyr. Is he—I mean, has he spoken—"

  "If you mean, Sue, is there a girl lurking in the shadows— no," said Jonathan. "He's disengaged. I hope he keeps that way."

  "Now, Jon," said Marjorie, and yawned deeply and richly.

  Sue giggled. "Well, I hope he finds a lovely girl, right here in Hambledon." She smiled tenderly at her daughter and Maude blushed.

  "And I have Benediction," said Father McNulty, "not that I expect many visitors to the Blessed Sacrament today."

  He rose and made his farewells and trotted off, and everyone watched him go, even Jenny Heger. "At any rate, Kenton was good to help him buy his horse and buggy," said Marjorie. "I suppose that was because of Francis." She looked inquiringly at Jonathan, but he said nothing.

  "And now I am afraid we must leave, too," said Sue Kitchener. "We are having just a light supper—if we can find any room for it—and then we are going down to the river to watch the fireworks in the dark. Are you going, too, Marjorie?"

  "I think not," said Marjorie Ferrier. "I'm really too tired. Jonathan?"

  "Certainly not," he replied.

  "Well, that's too bad. I thought you might like to take Jenny."

  Jonathan was amazed. The very idea was grotesque. The Kitcheners took their leave. Now the last yellow glitter had left the trees and a coolness was rising, and the Ferriers were alone with Jenny, who was sitting in her usual anguished silence with her head bowed and her hands in her lap.

  But when Marjorie began to gather dishes and glasses and silver and napkins together, Jenny stood up at once and began to help her, her young hands deft and quick. Jonathan filled the baskets neatly. "Jenny," said Marjorie, "will ride with us to the river. She didn't bring her bicycle today."

  "Oh, no, I can walk!" cried the girl. "I like to walk! It isn't far!"

  "Nonsense. A young girl walking alone on the streets—it's getting quite dark now—and on a holiday, could be misunderstood," said Marjorie.

  "Mother, you're in the twentieth century now," Jonathan said. "Young ladies are understood these days, not misunderstood. Isn't that so, Jenny?"

  When she did not answer but only hurried more, he added, "It is all the 'new woman' now, isn't it, Jenny, the free woman, free to do as she likes under any circumstances. Bold and free, like a man."

  "Don't be unpleasant, Jon," said Marjorie. "Jenny, I'll hear no more. You must ride with us, among the baskets, I am afraid. Will your servants have returned by the time you arrive?"

  The girl blurted, "No. I told them they need n
ot come back until the morning. It is a holiday for them, too."

  Marjorie let her hands fall. "Jenny! You mean to spend the night entirely alone on the island! Why, that's not to be thought of! It's too dangerous. Anyone can row over there and molest you or rob you. Say no more. You must stay with us tonight."

  "Oh, no!" The cry was purely desperate. "I'm not afraid, Aunt Marjorie. I'm not afraid when I am alone." She looked, in the blue twilight, as if she were about to cry. "I want to be alone," she added. "I didn't mean to say that, Aunt Marjorie, but I did mean it—I mean—"

  Jonathan had listened to this with surly amusement. Was she planning a new rendezvous, with Childe Harald away, on that island? She looked distracted enough.

  "I won't hear of it," said Marjorie. "What if something happened to you?"

  "It won't," said Jenny. "It never has before. I've often been alone like this."

  Oh, you have, have you? thought Jonathan, and remembered a recent story now avid in Hambledon, alleged to be directly from one of the servants herself. It was related that the maid had often seen Harald leaving Jenny's bedroom early in the morning, and once or twice had detected Jenny leaving Harald's at dawn. It was a delicious story. There was still another—that Jenny's favors were not Harald's alone and never had been. The girl was only twenty, yet there was hardly a woman more notorious in Hambledon than she.

  Who had muttered the sniggering story to him only a few days ago? He could not remember. "But I can vouch for it," someone had said. "It is true enough." Then he remembered. It had been in St. Hilda's lobby, and one of the young doctors had told him. Jenny had discharged the maid, who was now working for his mother. "The wench had seen too much," the doctor had said. "But that Heger trollop is a fine piece! I'd like to—" Jonathan had walked away, full of his chronic rage and full of his hate. He did not see but only guessed the young doctor's obscene gesture.

  There was a desperate resolution about Jenny now, as she pushed aside Marjorie's pleas, "I really am not afraid. I really like to be alone. I have locks on the doors," she said. "Please don't insist, Aunt Marjorie."

  "I'm really too tired to oppose your willfulness," Marjorie said with severity. "And I'm very angry with you, Jenny. Jon will drop me at home and then will take you to the river. And then," she said in a clear hard voice, "he will row you over to the island and inspect every room for you, and the grounds, and then wait until you are locked up. No, Jenny, I won't hear anything more. I'm very tired. I'd like to sleep tonight and not worry about you. Jon?"

  He was delighted to make the girl more distracted than she already was. "It will be a pleasure, dear Jenny," he said, and gave her a low bow. She looked at him with mute wretchedness and her mouth shook and he was elated.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  It was deep twilight when Jonathan let his mother out of the surrey and led her to the house. "Hurry back," she whispered, "I'll go in alone. It would be just like Jenny to get out and run away. Jon, be kind to her, will you? Don't tease, her so."

  "Kind? Jenny doesn't want anyone to be kind to her. She's sufficient unto herself, a very haughty and sullen young lady with a mind of her own. At least let me unlock the door for you."

  Marjorie stood in the lighted doorway and watched the surrey drive off. Jenny, apparently, had refused to leave the back seat and still sat crowded among the baskets, which Marjorie had forgotten. It was just like the poor child. Intel-lectual, intelligent, proud, but shrinking and afraid. Marjorie thought, Intellect isn't enough for a woman, or even intelligence. A woman isn't really a man, though so many militant women seem to think so these days, and say "there is very little difference." They don't understand that that little difference is the most important thing in the world. There's little difference, I heard, between lead and gold—until it reaches the marketplace. A woman stripped of her "difference," in mere mind, was still not a man. Even those deprived of their generative organs were not men. The mysterious and inexorable "difference" remained, and, thought Marjorie, closing the door behind her, let the world beware when it forgets that. A woman who was not distinct from a man in a spiritual way could betray the whole race.

  The surrey clopped through the quiet dark streets. The lamps were already lit, and burned in yellow straightness, for there was no wind. A few voices sounded sleepily from dark porches, and there were the creakings of rockers and an occasional scolding as a woman addressed herself to dilatory children inside the houses. Now the refreshed grass exhaled its sweetness and the trees murmured a little, and at a far distance there was a clatter of one of Hambledon's few streetcars going toward the river park. It was a somnolent early night.

  Jonathan drove in silence but acutely aware of the girl behind him. He knew that she hated him, but he had never cared, until now, to know the reason why. He had seen her in childhood and young girlhood, and then in early womanhood, and it was not until she had been sixteen—and still untouched, he had presumed—that he had sharply noticed her. That had been six months after his marriage to Mavis. She had reminded him of a young white swan sailing alone in a pond, quiet, shy, nervously smiling when spoken to, rarely speaking. Her mother had been alive then, foolish Myrtle, and had recently married Harald. No, it had not been that marriage which had changed the girl from a touching young softness to a steely witch, for though it had been evident that she had at first thought her mother had violated the sacred memories of Daddy, she had regarded Myrtle as a child who must be given what she desired to make her happy and to keep her protected. Jenny had not changed until her mother had died. Myrtle had been on digitalis for a considerable time, then six months before her death her condition had worsened. Jonathan had told her then that her days were counted, and to his surprise the silly woman had not become hysterical or maudlin but had accepted what was to come. But Jonathan, she had said, must not tell dear Harald or darling Jenny. It would destroy them. Jonathan had been freshly surprised. Myrtle had not seemed to be a woman capable of strength to carry her affliction alone.

  Myrtle's death changed Jenny violently. The girl who could speak so gently in her sweet strong voice—when pressed by kind insistance—and could even laugh a little, though she was always so grave, became cold and hard and remote and silent. It was her foolish mother's will, of course, which had changed her. She had probably felt herself betrayed. It was odd, but not so very odd—considering human nature—that money could transform people. Yet, at her early age, she had become Harald's mistress, and not long, if one was to credit reports, after her mother's death. Was it to hold Harald to the island? If he left for more than seven months at a time, the money would be hers, but it was possible that it was not only the money she wanted but Childe Harald, too.

  It was a mystery which Jonathan had not been able to settle satisfactorily in his own mind. There was a dimension here which eluded him, which was stark and brutal, yet hidden. Certainly, in the presence of others she was deadly silent and did not speak to Harald, and, if he spoke to her so directly that she was forced to notice him, she looked at him with what appeared to be actual and deep aversion. It was all very elusive. Of course, they could have conspired together to give this effect to others in order to deceive, for there were times when Jenny could not take her eyes off Harald and watched his every movement like a woman possessed, and it was very evident, then, that nothing he said was not heard by her intently and probably weighed and measured. Jenny was the weighing-and-measuring kind; that had been evident from her very childhood, for she had always been thoughtful and contemplative and had answered the most casual question as if she had given it her deepest consideration and had not replied until she was certain her answer was correct in all respects. When others spoke in her presence and Harald's, she was totally indifferent and gave the appearance of deafness, but when Harald spoke, she came alive.

  Only an infatuated woman could behave so and have such an immoderate reaction to a man's every gesture and every word.

  Jonathan remembered the first time that Jenny, as an awkward girl
approaching womanhood, had become more than a child to him and had invaded the wretched cloister of his life with Mavis. It had been a spring day and he had visited Myrtle and Harald on the island—they had not long been married—and Jenny, the devoted daughter, was pruning her father's roses. She had never dressed well but always frumpily, as if deliberately trying to offset her mother's very fashionable and elaborate clothing. Jonathan, strolling over the grounds and silently laughing at them as usual, had come upon Jenny in the pale spring sunlight, bending solicitously over the steaming dark earth and tenderly cutting here and there as careful as a surgeon cleaning up after an operation. She wore a brown wool dress and an ugly brown coat and her hair was bare to the cool crispness of the wind and it rolled in long black waves over her shoulders and her back.

  She had looked up at him, startled, for she had not heard him come, and the sunlight had suddenly struck the exquisite pale contours of her face and the carved rose jade of her hps and had made her blue eyes blaze like illuminated sapphires. Knife in hand, still bending, she had turned her head, and the wind lifted her long black hair and blew it about her in a tumbling cloud of deep shadow and sparkling light. She was like a nymph, he had thought without originality, faintly smiling, still startled, shy, ready to run but afraid to offend, her hands stained with mud, her immature body as delicate and pliant as a white birch sapling.

  "Hello, Jenny," he said. "I thought you were over in Hambledon today."

  "No. No, Uncle Jon," she answered, and for the first time he was conscious of the promise of rich sweetness in her voice. She straightened, and tried to control the tossing masses of her hair. "I didn't know you were here, either. I— I'm pruning my father's roses. It should have been done long ago, I'm afraid. So much dead wood from the hard winter. I think his best old-fashioned one died." She looked down at the bush sadly. Jonathan inspected it, too. "No," he said, "there's a leaf or two, very small, near that dead crotch. Just cut off the top."