Testimony of Two Men

by Taylor Caldwell

  He had not thought her capable of making such a long statement, but as he saw the flush on her cheek and her empty glass he knew that the wine had taken her shyness from her and that Jenny was herself with him, and he blinked his eyes rapidly.

  He refilled her glass and she watched him with that touching pleasure. "As for myself," she said, "I am content to be a nobody, going nowhere. That's the nice thing about being a nobody: You don't feel you have to go somewhere—and there's no somewhere, really."

  Now her face changed again, and she looked down into the wineglass with sudden melancholy. "Nowhere," she repeated. "Nowhere at all."

  "Oh, come, Jenny. You are young and the world is open to you."

  "No," she said. "I'm afraid it opened, once, when I was sixteen, for about three minutes. Three whole minutes. And then it closed again, and that was all there was to it, and all there ever will be."

  "Tell me," he said, wanting to know more and more about this enigmatic girl.

  She shook her head. "There's nothing to tell. It was all in my imagination."

  She put down her plate from her knee, and quickly drank the wine. In a more worldly woman it would have been a theatrical gesture, for effect. In Jenny it was swift desperation. Again, for apparently no reason, Robert thought of Jonathan Ferrier.

  "Jenny," he said, "Why don't you go away for a while, to see something of what you should see?"

  "Oh, I can't, Doctor. I couldn't leave my island. But if Harald ever leaves permanently, which he won't, then I could leave it for a little while myself."

  That sounded strange to Robert, and he frowned. "You see," said Jenny with all earnestness, "I couldn't leave the island alone to him. Could I?"

  "Why not?"

  "Well, when I came back, it wouldn't be the same to me."

  He was baffled. "One day, when you are married, you will leave the island and never go back except for a visit."

  "No. I'll never leave the island. And I'll never get married."

  A vague dimness came over the earth for Robert and nothing was very bright any longer. He said, "You'll change your mind, Jenny, when you find someone who loves you."

  To his horror and concern he saw her eyes fill with tears, and she shook her head. She put the empty wineglass on the cloth and it rolled from her and she watched it.

  "Hasn't anyone spoken of—well, love to you, Jenny?"

  She only shook her head over and over.

  The breeze grew stronger and it lifted away the leaves and the sunshine fell on Jenny's hair in a shaft of pure light, and Robert thought, How lovely is the sunlight on a woman's hair!

  He wanted to say, "I love you, Jenny, my sweet Jenny. Let me tell you how much I love you." But he knew it was too soon. He would only alarm her away, send her off into her silences again. There was someone else like that whom he knew. Jonathan Ferrier. The slightest extension of stronger friendship or personal concern given by anyone to him sent him off into one of his cold remarks or a ribald aphorism. He rejected the close touch as much as Jenny feared it and would reject it. Robert did not like the resemblance.

  He decided to change the subject. "What do you particularly like to read, Jenny?"

  She had swallowed her involuntary tears. "Poetry," she said. "I like Homer, in Greek, and I especially like Ovid, in Latin."

  Robert was impressed. Another woman who confessed this would make him recoil, but in Jenny it was quite natural and part of her.

  "So much of the essence is lost in translation," said Jenny. "Don't you think so?"

  "I'm afraid my Latin extends only to medicine," said Robert.

  She laughed suddenly. She looked about her with that frank candor he found so touching and lovely. She stared at the water. Then she said, "Did you like Aunt Marjorie's picnic on the Fourth?"

  "Very much. She is a delightful lady."

  "It was a ridiculous speech," said Jenny.

  "Wasn't it? I'm afraid I didn't listen to it very much. But Jon and Father McNulty thought it 'ominous.' I believe that all politicians are ominous myself."

  Jenny had taken a long grass in her hand was was pulling it through her fingers. Her head was bent and he could not see her face.

  "Won't it be very hard for you to take all Jon's practice, when he has gone?" she asked. "It's a very large practice, I heard."

  "I hope to do my best," he said, and heard the stiffness in his own voice.

  "Yes," said Jenny. She wound the grass over her fingers and pulled it hard.

  "He may come back from time to time to help me, if he can."

  She looked up so suddenly that he was startled. "Did he promise you that?"

  "No. He didn't. He said that when he left here, he was finished with the town forever, and with everyone in it."

  "But you feel he will come back?"

  "No, I don't, Jenny. Why should he? He didn't abandon the town. The town abandoned him, and for no good and worthy reason."

  "Did he—recently—say he would never come back?"

  "Only this morning."

  Jenny drew a long breath and he heard it. "But, he has his house and his farms."

  "I hear he is looking for a buyer for his farms, except for one. The house is really his mother's. No, he won't be back. He is leaving before the first of September, he told me a few days ago."

  "Four weeks," said Jenny.

  "Yes."

  He was bored and unaccountably disturbed by the conversation. He let himself lie back on the grass, his arms folded under his head. He did not know why he said, "Then, again, he may take someone with him. A lady calls him up at least once a week and he sounds very pleased to hear her. It isn't a patient, I know. He used his 'personal' voice when he talks to her."

  The sky was suddenly blotted out for him by Jenny's head, bending over him.

  "A woman?" she said, and there was deep shadow on her face. "A woman calls him?"

  "Yes. I don't know who she is, Jenny. I do know he calls her 'dear.'"

  "Oh." Then Jenny said in a flat voice. "Perhaps he is thinking of marrying her."

  Robert deliberately yawned. "Who knows? Why don't you lie down, too, Jenny, in this soft thick grass, before we go back?"

  She did not hesitate at all. She stretched herself beside him, and he could hear her light breathing and could see her profile. It was blank and pale. Then she closed her eyes and her head was like a fallen statue's in the grass. He felt the poignancy, the lost and broken abandonment of it. Something had gone wrong in this halcyon day, which had begun so vividly and with so much joyful contentment, and he did not know what it was.

  He saw her hand near his hip, and he carefully lifted one of his arms from behind his head and let his hand wander to hers, and then her fingers. He expected her to snatch her hand away, but she did not. Nor did she open her eyes or move. Her fingers were cool and flaccid under his, but still it was enough for him, at this time, just to hold her hand and to feel again the sweet contentment of his love for her. He wished they needed never to go home and that they might spend eternity here like this, with the wind blowing over them and the dark green tree arching over them, and the butterflies in the grass, and the faint sound of the lighted river just slightly disturbing the scented air.

  He drowsed. He began to have a curious half-dream or fantasy. He thought that he awakened and when he did so, Jenny was not there, and it was autumn, and the bronze and red leaves were falling all about him, and the river roared, and he was full of cold desolation for he knew he would never see Jenny again and that she had gone away forever.

  He came awake with a violent start. Jenny indeed was not beside him. But she had gathered up all the dishes and the linen and had put them neatly in the basket, and she was standing, looking at the river and winding up her hair.

  Her back was to him. He could see the long and slender lines of her figure, the lithe grace of her waist, the fine modeling of her shoulders and arms. She had forgotten him. What she was thinking of he could not remotely guess, but he knew that she w
as lost in her own dreams, or thoughts, as he had been lost in his. Her hands pinned up her hair now. Her arms dropped to her sides. She sighed and turned.

  "Well," he said. "It seems I fell asleep."

  "Yes."

  "It must be late."

  Jenny looked at the watch pinned to her shirtwaist. "Five o'clock," she said. Her face was quite still and indifferent, but when he caught her eyes, she gave him again her shy and diffident smile. "It's late."

  "Not very." He hesitated. "Jenny, will you have dinner with me?"

  She replied with haste, "Oh, I couldn't!"

  He did not ask why. He got up, found his coat and put it on. He brushed himself down. He put on his hat. Jenny watched him, and when he glanced at her, she was smiling gently, as one smiles at a child of whom one is fond. "I want to thank you for a lovely day. Doctor," she said.

  "Jenny, why don't you call me Robert, or Bob?"

  "Very well. Robert." He had never heard his name said before like that, or so it seemed to him. He was quite cheered. They went to the buggy, and found that the horse had eaten all his oats, and they climbed into the vehicle and turned homeward. They were halfway to Hambledon when Robert said, "You forgot your hat! We'll go back at once."

  "No, no. Please. It doesn't matter at all. It really does not."

  She means it, thought Robert. Had she accomplished something with the hat, and her new clothes? The thought was very queer to Robert, himself, and yet he could not shake it off. He could hardly speak the rest of the way, and Jenny made no remark. The world was less glowing to Robert now, but he was still resolutely planning to meet Jenny again, and very soon.

  "You will go somewhere with me again, Jenny, in the near future?"

  "Yes. Oh, yes."

  He was so elated that he wanted to bend toward her and kiss her cheek. But she was looking at the gardens along the way and seemed to be absorbed in them. They arrived at the little dock, hardly more than a plank or two, where the island boats waited. There was only one left. "Harald must be home," said Jenny, and she appeared disappointed.

  Robert was helping her out of the buggy when they heard the brisk tattoo of horse's hoofs, and there was Jonathan Ferrier on his horse, looking down at them and smiling broadly. He touched his hat with his crop and said, "How was the picnic?"

  "Splendid," said Robert, and felt less cordial to Jonathan than usual. "Here, Jenny, take my hand." She did so in silence, and Jonathan watched her descend as if her every movement was intensely interesting to him.

  "How did you enjoy it, Jenny?" he asked.

  Jenny had jumped to the ground. She did not know where to look. As if involuntarily pulled, her eyes rose to look at Jonathan. And then Robert saw the deep and ugly crimson on her face, the heavy tears in her eyes, and her trembling chin. She stood like that, stricken, and she and Jonathan could not look away from each other, and Robert saw it all, and he knew.

  Jenny, at last, walked toward the boat and Robert followed her on legs that felt like stone. Yes, he knew. He knew now why Jenny had gone with him. She had gone to hear him, Robert, speak of Jonathan Ferrier and give all news of him. She could ask him, with openness, things which she could not ask his mother.

  "Let me row you over, Jenny," said Robert, and his voice was dull.

  "No. Please. I like to row," said the girl, not looking at him. She jumped into the boat. She still did not look at him. But just as she rowed away she did look once again at Jonathan, and the crimson was still in her face and her mouth was shaking. Robert watched until she was only a dark figure on the gleaming golden water of the evening river. He forgot Jonathan. When he turned, Jonathan was still there on his horse.

  "I wouldn't," said Jonathan, "take Jenny too seriously, if I were you." Then he touched Robert lightly but smartly on the shoulder with his crop and rode off.

  The jocular blow stung Robert. Had it really been jocular, or friendly? Robert looked after Jonathan until he had disappeared. Jenny, he thought. Jenny, I'm not going to give up. I don't know what this is all about, Jenny, but he isn't the man for you, nor are you the woman for him. I won't give up, Jenny. I have something more wholesome and something more of life to give you than a wrathful man who will soon have no home of his own. I have youth to give you, and hope, and peace, and some fun and laughter, and travel, and I have all my love and no terrible memories. From those I will protect you.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Jonathan had just left the operating room at St. Hilda's, where he had watched Robert Morgan perform an operation, and had assisted. He met young Philip Harrington in a corridor. The gynecologist put both hands on his shoulders and said, "Congratulate me."

  "Congratulations," said Jonathan. "What is it? No, let me guess. You've bedded Elvira Burrows."

  "Now, now, Jon. You know Elvira better than that."

  "Have you been wasting your time, by any chance?"

  "Oh, come on. Anyway, we're engaged, thanks to you! We're to be married on September first and you are to be the best man."

  "You thought I'd congratulate you? Aren't condolences more in order?"

  "Hey. aren't you the one who contrived all this?"

  "So I did. I must have been out of my mind to do a thing like that to a nice, sweet, innocent bachelor. Well, Elvira's got a lot of money and will inherit more when Papa dies, and there's the house, of course."

  Phil Harrington began to laugh. "You were right about Papa. A few days after you cured him with brandy and your ineffable advice, he hied himself to New York for a few days for research on his damned book about Chaucer—I read a few chapters. Clean as a frog. Chaucer was a lascivious old boy, yet Papa's quotations are all scrubbed up. I asked him about that and he said he wanted to 'engage the curiosity of young minds first,' so they'd do their own research on Chaucer, and I told him that young minds are invariably prurient and are bored to death by niceness. Well, anyway. At some party in New York he met a very erudite widow—with money—and with what he calls 'a remarkable mind,' and Papa is a very fast worker, for the lady had given him her photograph before he returned to Hambledon. A nice cozy little body with a pretty round face. About forty-five. Elvira and I don't need programs to show us how the romance is progressing, and we are very happy for Papa. Elvira wanted to wait for our own wedding until Papa was married. 'More seemly,' the darling said, and after all Mama hasn't been dead a year. But I said it was far more seemly that we went to bed as soon as possible, and she agreed."

  "Did you put it to her that crudely?"

  "My friend, after Elvira and I had a few dark evenings together during Papa's absence, she opened one of the guest rooms, with a double bed, and is having it all spruced up. Don't jump to conclusions. We didn't help ourselves to the jelly beans—and we won't until we are married, and you can be sure that Elvira will investigate the minister thoroughly and all his credentials to see that the knot is not only legally tied but firmly double-tied."

  "A masterful girl," said Jonathan.

  Phil Harrington looked into the distance with a far and dreaming smile. "Oh, I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't say that at all." Jonathan thought he looked asinine.

  "I don't think III be here on September first," he said.

  "But, damn it, it's only three weeks! What's the hurry?"

  "Practically all my practice has now been taken over by Bob Morgan, so why should I stay? All right. I'll remain for the wedding and for the first kiss of the bride."

  Now Phil Harrington looked troubled. He said, "Jon, you always told me I didn't have much imagination, and you said that imagination was fatal for a surgeon like me. So perhaps I've been imagining things after all, a new characteristic. I'd like to talk to you in private. Let's look in the lounge."

  The doctors' lounge was empty, for it was lunchtime, and the two young men sat down in comfortable chairs near the windows. Phil had lumbered to them, and when he turned to Jonathan, his usually buoyant and amiable face was disturbed and uneasy.

  "Don't tell me," said Jonathan, "that you
have another girl whom you've knocked up and you can't get rid of her."

  "Be serious for once," said Phil. "This concerns you, not me.

  Since his arrest Jonathan had become familiar with a sudden sick dropping in his middle, something which he had never experienced before in his brave life. He lit a cigarette and watched Phil Harrington. "Well, tell me," he said.

  "I wish to God I could come to you with facts and conversations and 'he said' and 'they said,' and all that, and with dates, but I can't, Jon. I began to suspect something was in the wind when the other fellas would stop talking when I came up to them, because they know I am your friend, and once or twice I heard your name. It's sticky. I keep getting side looks and smirks and questions about how you are these days, as if they don't see you in the hospitals as much as I do."

  "Hum," said Jonathan. "It's even more obvious at the Friends'," said Phil. "I wish to God there was something definite I could tell you, but I think there's some danger in the wind for you, Jon."

  Jonathan thought of the malignant letter which had been delivered to him by messenger. He said, "I wouldn't worry, Phil. After all, no matter what they say or what evidence they think they have, I can't be tried the second time for the same crime. Double jeopardy. Anyway, I'll be out of here in a few weeks, forever. That ought to satisfy them."

  "They know you're going, Jon. But this thing has blown up very recently." He paused and frowned at his big competent hands. "It's worse than months ago, if that's possible. There's a kind of elation in the air among the fellas who never liked you. You know them. They were the ones who were almost out of their minds when you were acquitted."