Testimony of Two Men

by Taylor Caldwell

  "Pete, probably," said Harald. "What a gross little fat beast he was! And crass about everything but his foolish castle."

  He turned to his mother, and his highly colored and appealing face was serious. "I've asked you before: Isn't there any word you could put in about me to Jenny?"

  "No, dear, there isn't, and I've told you that too, before." Marjorie shook her head and looked at her son with pity. "Harald, dear, I think you'd better look elsewhere."

  "I don't want anyone but Jenny, Mother. I never will. I'm not very young. I'm thirty-three. That's old enough to know what you want." He sat down beside her and sipped at the brandy near him. He regarded his mother thoughtfully. "Something just occurred to me. Is there something you haven't told me? You are so sure Jenny will never be reconciled to me or consider me."

  Marjorie hesitated. "Perhaps," she said, "there is someone else. Jenny hasn't told me, but there is something—something about her that makes me feel there is, indeed, someone else."

  "That's not possible. Jenny never goes anywhere, never meets anyone, hasn't seen half a dozen men in as many years! And only one or two young men." Harald smiled confidently. "It's something else. Pete's memory."

  Marjorie was silent. Harald's light eyebrows dropped over his eyes as he studied his mother, and his suspicions increased. "Mother, have you any idea?"

  "Jenny has never said a word to me."

  "That's not exactly what I asked you, dear. I asked if you have any idea, yourself."

  "I'm not a mind reader, Harald."

  "No. but you're evading the question." He smiled at her with affection.

  "Harald, I can't conjecture without absolute knowledge. And Jenny has—"

  "Never said anything to you. I know. You haven't seen her anywhere, with anyone else, have you?"

  Marjorie looked at the portrait. "She was at the Fourth celebrations with me and Jon and Dr. Morgan—such a nice boy—and the Kitcheners, and Mrs. Morgan."

  "Now, that's a lively gathering if I ever knew one! The Kitcheners are like soft, rolled breasts of chicken cooked in cream, and about as pungent, and Mrs. Morgan, I have heard, is a harpy, and young Dr. Morgan is very innocuous, with all that boyish charm. Our Jenny, who constantly reads Pascal's Pensées, and Molière and Walter Pater, and St. Augustine, and God knows what else, can't be interested in Dr. Morgan."

  "I think he was quite smitten with her," said Marjorie, glad that one name had not been mentioned by Harald. "He stared at her as if bewitched all through the fried chicken, the beer, the chocolate cake and the iced tea, not to mention the potato salad, the hot rolls and the green onions. He looks like a hearty young man with an excellent appetite, yet he hardly ate a thing, and when he got chocolate icing all over his fingers, he quite simply sucked them—and stared at Jenny, enraptured."

  Harald laughed, seeing the picture vividly.

  "And how did our Lady of Shalott respond to that?"

  "Well, you know how unaffected and unworldly Jenny is, and how little she appreciates her beauty or even knows she has it. She kept blushing. Robert made her uneasy, I am afraid."

  Harald stopped laughing. "When a man makes a woman uneasy, even if he is sucking chocolate off his fingers or nibbling at fried chicken, then it is serious. That uneasiness can grow into interest, and interest into something stronger. Has she seen him often before?"

  "I really don't know, dear. You know that Jenny comes into town once or twice a week, on that deplorable bicycle when she could have a buggy of her own or hire a hack, and it's possible she's encountered Robert on the street here and there or in a shop. He's looking for a special mirror which his mother wants, and some old paintings, preferably of London in a foggy rain. That's Mrs. Morgan's taste."

  But Harald was not diverted. His fair forehead knotted, and he considered. "He's just the sort of red-gold lamb who could appeal to a woman's cradle instincts. Such men end up with blue ribbons in their hair eventually, put there by Mama."

  "He's not that soft and weak and unmanly, Harald. He gives the impression of virility and a lot of stubbornness and other masculine qualities. I had invited him because of Maude Kitchener, who was enraptured as much by Robert as he was enraptured by Jenny."

  "And who do you think Jenny was enraptured by?"

  The sharp and sudden question affected Marjorie unpleasantly. She said, "I'm sure I don't know, dear, as I told you before. It is just a—tenuous feeling I have. But, could you really imagine Jenny that enraptured by anyone, so that she might be present in person but far off in mind, dreaming?"

  "I do indeed," said Harald in that same sharp tone. "I do, indeed! She is just the sort. Now that you mention it, I have seen her in that absent condition, staring into space almost by the hour. Reminds me of that silly old poem, 'A woman dreaming of her demon lover.' The point is, who's the demon?"

  Marjorie sighed. "Do you really have to talk about poor Jenny so much?"

  "Mother," said Harald, "she is the only thing I ever think of, most of the time." He sat near his mother and though he had considerable of Jonathan's appearance of containment and control, just then he gave the impression of urgency. "I can't keep on just trying to change Jenny's mind about me any longer. I have to bring her to realizing—well, that I love her and want her. I've told her dozens of times! It doesn't seem to penetrate her mind, shall we say? That's why I thought you might be able to help me, to put in a word—"

  "Harald, I couldn't. You know I never interfere, and I'm absolutely no good at hints or insinuations, and I wouldn't want to offend Jenny by seeming to be minding her own business." She bit her lip a little. "It's possible we'll know soon enough, if there is anything to know."

  "And that'll be too late for me. You're hiding something from me, aren't you?"

  "You've been home three days, haven't you, Harald? You've seen Jenny. Have you shown her those clippings?"

  Now she saw Jonathan clearly in him for the first time, concentrated and annoyed at her attempt to change the subject. "I've seen her," he said, in Jonathan's own hard and impatient voice. "I've talked to her. I might have been talking to a statue, a statue which finds me particularly revolting, if a statue can feel anything. Show her the clippings? She'd throw them in my face! And what in hell did I ever do to her to merit all that hate?"

  "Did it ever occur to you, Harald, that a young girl like Jenny might find it a little—well, repulsive—to think of marrying a man who was married to her mother?"

  "Not in this case. I told her frankly after Myrtle died that —what is the delicate little euphemism?—we had not lived together as husband or wife, though we manifestly occupied the same bed."

  Marjorie did not know whether to laugh out loud or to express horror. She rounded her eyes at her son. "Dear me, I didn't know. How—very confusing. Why on earth," asked Marjorie, "did you two ever get married in the first place?"

  "It was simple." Harald was smiling now. "I needed money, and Myrtle needed a flattering, courteous, attentive man with whom to travel and whom to display—and an attractive one whom other women might envy her. She couldn't travel with Jenny. After all, even an unimaginative woman like Myrtle would find Jenny a little rocky to take while traveling and among company. Myrtle was considerably older even than Pete. She had been nearly forty when Jenny was born. She was one of those nice, inoffensive, agreeable little women, and full of affability, which men like Pete—bustling, offensive, determined little brutes—adore. But after one child —that was enough dallying in love's arms for Myrtle. So, we came to a pleasant arrangement. She loved art, she said. She wanted to be a sponsor for my art. She needed a winsome escort—that was me. And, she liked me and was fond of me, and I liked her and did not find her in the least objectionable. Her will was a shock to me, I admit, under the circumstances."

  Marjorie was fascinated. "And what did Jenny say to all this when you told her?"

  "I think she wanted to kill me, and for the life of me I don't know why. Do you?"

  "Surely. She thought you had married
her mother for her money."

  "Well, I did. Though it wasn't so bald as all that."

  Mirth glittered in Marjorie's eyes. "You know, Harald, you may find it incredible, but sometimes you are as single-eyed as Jon. Not very often, for you know a great deal more about people than he does, and they never surprise and stun you, as poor Jon is always stunned. But still, you were a little naive in telling all this to Jenny."

  "I don't think so. She's the forthright sort, and so I was forthright. And by nature I'm not at all that blunt, so please don't compare me with Jon. He's like a sledgehammer and throws himself at everyone he decides isn't being candid and honest enough for him, or just possesses the little ordinary human weaknesses that everyone but himself, of course, possesses. That's why his—trouble—was worse than it was. All he had to do, in court, was to defend himself respectfully, gently, modestly, and sincerely, with an eye to impressing the judge with his blameless sweet nature and the jury. Instead of that he showed every sign of contempt for them all, as if he thought them below the status of mankind for even daring to believe he had—done that to Mavis. He was outraged at them! He lacks finesse, the ability to slide around rough edges. He lacks diplomacy."

  Harald's ruddy hair caught a beam of sunlight and it sparkled on his fine teeth and Marjorie, as always, thought how endearing he appeared and how charming.

  "Yes, I know," she said. "Jon was like that from babyhood."

  "You can't go around in this world telling the truth," said Harald. "It's a very bad, disgraceful habit and deserves all the uppercuts it gets, and all the infamy and hate. Besides, what makes Jon think that everything he thinks about people is the exact truth? For instance, he called me a 'lute player' years ago—"

  "A lute player?"

  "Yes, an idle singer of poetic little songs to amuse the ladies with. Of course. I'm using my painting seriously, for the simple reason that the almighty Jonathan Ferrier never understood it or wanted to understand it. To him I was as trivial—as—Mavis, and just about as useful in the world. Not to be useful in the world was to him a cardinal sin, one of the worst. I strolled around the fringes of the grimy and industrious world; I laughed when I should be deadly solemn. I sauntered when he thought I should be running. I lacked 'purpose,' he said. He was always bursting with purpose, until he married Mavis, and then he started to wander in a dark wood, like Dante. But you can be sure that under all that he was seething with his infernal purpose or trying to recover it. He couldn't live without it."

  "Yes, I know," said Marjorie.

  "He never found out that the real purpose of living—if there is one at all—is to enjoy yourself as much as possible and have as little pain as you can. It's a very interesting and beautiful world, and I like to roam it and paint it, my own impressions of it, and mingle with people—I like people and can't live without them—and drink and dine with them and laugh with them. It's harmless; it's enjoyable, and if there is some plan for us here, I think it is purely to have pleasure in a world made for pleasure. There's every enticement, God knows."

  "And that's always been the contention between you and Jon."

  Harald shifted in his chair. "Partly. At least, that's what started it. Then, he's possessive. Do you know that he thinks you never cared for him in the least and that all your maternal devotion was centered on me?" He laughed at his mother's astonishment.

  "Now, really, Harald!"

  "Oh, he does. I used to watch him when we were kids, and I used to torment him about it. He wanted everyone and everything centered on himself."

  "Jon never cared about anyone but his father."

  "Don't believe it, Mother. He took good care of dear Papa's tender little sensibilities, but you were the object of his real affections. He thought he didn't have yours, so he decided that you weren't very intelligent in not appreciating the golden salver he was offering, containing his heart's blood or something. Maybe his head."

  Marjorie was still disbelieving and she smiled at Harald in denial. "Perhaps you are as wrong about Jon as he is about you. You two were always incompatible. I think you both try very hard to find something tangible to dislike each other about, when it's only a matter of—a matter of—"

  "' I do not like you, Dr. Fell, The reason why I cannot tell.' "

  "Exactly," said Marjorie. "It isn't uncommon between brothers or anyone else."

  Harald stood up. "When is he leaving Hambledon, with that rasping tongue of his? To afflict some other community?"

  "I suppose soon, when young Robert is well established. But, it's a very strange thing. He hasn't talked much about it lately." Then Marjorie looked at her son with her hazel eyes darkening and becoming deeper and more watchful.

  In turn, he lost his amiable look. He went over to the portrait and affected to be studying it, and his voice was careless when he said, "I wish he'd leave very soon. It would be better for him. Much better. And very much safer, safer above all."

  Marjorie was silent. When Harald turned to her again, her face held nothing but pain, and she showed every sign of intense weariness. "You mean Hambledon has robbed him of purpose?" she said after several moments.

  "No," said Harald. "I don't mean that at all, I mean Mavis."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  "Where, in God's name, did you buy that suit?" asked Jonathan on a very warm Saturday late in July. He surveyed Robert and laughed.

  "You provincials," said Robert. "I bought it in New York last spring. It is jealousy, my dear man, which suffuses your cheek with yellow, and envy which has jaundiced your eye. Your remark was poltroonish. Consider the fit, the style, the flair."

  "I can't," said Jonathan. "I'm partially blinded as it is. What did the morning's patients think of it?"

  "Stunned," said Robert. "Stunned to awe."

  "I bet," said Jonathan. Robert's suit was of lightweight wool in a gigantic plaid design embracing black, white, a splash of green, a quick run of red thread here and there, and even a shy hint of orange. The long coat was stylishly cut back. With this he wore a high white collar, the points of which were open just below the chin, and flared outward, and he had crowned the whole attire with a lavish silk tie repeating the plaid and fastened with an enormous pearl tiepin. His pointed boots shone like black coal, and a pair of yellow leather gloves and a pearl-gray fedora completed the costume. He slowly pivoted to allow Jonathan to survey all the glory, and he touched the tips of his red-gold mustache and jauntily struck a pose.

  "Not even lascivious little Perry Belmont ever dared to wear a suit like that," said Jonathan. "You look like an overgrown jockey. All you need now is an automobile. I'm thinking of getting one, myself, from England."

  Robert was impressed. "Do you know Perry Belmont, personally?"

  "I not only know the stocky little lecher but I know most of his ladies, too, who are mad for him and why I never knew. He does have a Nero sort of appearance, a wicked eye and a fat nose. Maybe these are attractions to the ladies. The short men seem to enchant them, especially if the Little Corporals look Napoleonic, and Perry does." Jonathan shook his head. "He was Minister to Spain, and that cost him a fortune and I hear he upturned the señoritas like a cyclone through a forest. They all fell down and pulled up their skirts at the mere sight of Perry. Or, at least he says so.

  "He and I were guests of Cornelius K. G. Billings, the racing boy, last year, and we both belong to the New York Riding Club, and I bought a mare for fifteen thousand dollars from Cornelius, and she wasn't worth five thousand. Never trust a rich man; he'll flay you with pleasure and sell your hide and call it Morocco. Well, Cornelius gave the club a banquet at the famous restaurant, Sherry's, and damned if he hadn't sodded the floor with earth and grass, and we arrived on horseback, were taken up to the banquet hall in elevators, still on horseback, and we still sat on the horses while we were served caviar and champagne and a dinner cooked by the best chefs in the world, and all on heavily gold-plated fine silver, complete with solid gold dinnerware. And there were lackeys, of cours
e, to clean up the manure behind the horses and wash down the sod, and there we sat, on our prize animals, in formal evening wear. I thought it was the most outrageous, the most depraved, the most infantile and brutish affair I ever attended in New York, and I have attended some marvels. I hear it cost Cornelius about twenty-five thousand dollars, which would have helped to found a hospital somewhere for tuberculosis." His face had turned contemptuous. "The only animals there who could really boast of aristocracy and decency were the horses. I felt embarrassed for them and wanted to apologize to them. I did apologize to my own horse."

  "I've read a lot about those things, in New York," said Robert, "and what they call the Four Hundred. That makes good subject matter for William Jennings Bryan—the lavish and degraded and vulgar spending of enormous amounts of money, and the overgrown crowded mansions, and the gaudy jewelry and the vice—and the social diseases, as they are discreetly called. It's not folly; it's cheap garishness. The average workman is lucky to have a wage of twelve or fifteen dollars a week! No wonder half, or more, of his children die before they are five years old! And he's an old man at forty."

  "True," said Jonathan. "But let's not glorify the working-man either. I admit his state in America is far worse than anywhere else in the world except, perhaps, Egypt and Arabia and the darkness spots of Africa. But he's human, too. He is beginning to utter loud and bitter cries over his condition —and I'm glad of that and I'd like to see him strongly unionized—but let him get power and he'll be just as bad as the bluebloods, as they like to call themselves, in New York or London or Paris or Berlin. It's that old thing called human nature. You can't trust it. Well. Who is the lucky young lady who is going to be paralyzed by your costume today?"

  Robert carefully pulled on his yellow gloves. It was obvious they had never been worn before. "Miss Jenny Heger," he said, giving much attention to the buttons of the gloves and seeming to have a small difficulty with them. "I wrote to her last week and asked if she would care for a ride along the river, and a picnic, in my company."