“Jim,” he said, “how would you like to return to New York?”
“For a visit, sir?” said Jim, in a tone of such hopefulness that Jerome was not deceived. He shook his head a little.
“No, Jim. For good. You are delighted, of course.”
Jim said nothing.
“You were quite right, in the beginning,” Jerome continued, with an expression of great candor. “We ought not to have remained. I was wrong in insisting. This is a damned dull place, and I have, frankly, had enough of it. So it’s back to New York for us, eh?”
Jim blinked, but he said in a voice of low firmness: “I think, sir, it’s too late to go back.”
Jerome scowled, and his eyes narrowed. “Now, what the devil do you mean by that, you rascal?”
Jim glanced at the small mound of ashes on the hearth, and Jerome followed his glance. He took the cheroot from his mouth, slowly. But Jim said quietly: “If you go back, sir, it’ll be after the wedding?”
Jerome stood up. “I am afraid, Jim, that there will be no wedding. Not for a while, at least.”
Jim did not seem surprised, but his nutlike face wrinkled despondently. He said: “I thought not, sir.”
Jerome walked up and down the room, smoking abstractedly. “I see,” he said, at last, after a few turns. He stood before his valet. “Jim, you aren’t a fool. What would you suggest? Things are in somewhat of a pickle.” He smiled wryly.
Jim shrugged. “You wouldn’t take my advice, sir, beggin’ your pardon. It would be improper to suggest anything.” Jerome waited. The little man sighed. “If it was anybody but you, sir, I’d say to him: ‘Stay here and weather it out, you bloody fool. Stay here and keep your mouth shut. Mum’s the word, and the man was never hanged who held his tongue. Let the storm blow over. Batten down the hatches, and take down the sails, and let ’er rip. There’s cargo aboard as should be saved.’” He paused, grimacing dismally. “But I couldn’t say that to you, sir.”
Jerome walked up and down again. “I love your metaphors, Jim,” he said. “They are so colorful. But, like all metaphors, they aren’t specific. ‘I couldn’t say that to you, sir.’ Very good, Jim. I’d glad you didn’t. I am a pragmatist, Jim. I like diagrams and maps, closely annotated and marked. No, I don’t like metaphors. The imagination has a tendency to fill metaphors, like a handful of peas in a pot. It rattles around too much, and forms no pattern. Be specific, Jim. Unroll the map and show the directions which, I hope, are noted in words of one syllable.”
Jim straightened, looked at Jerome with hopeful courage. “Well, sir, here’s the map, and it’s plain to see. If—if not too many know, keep mum, ride the storm. You’ve got a valuable cargo, and that’s the Bank, sir, and you like the Bank, and it’s your life now. You’ve got a fine passenger aboard, too, and that’s Mr. Lindsey, and you’ve sworn to take him through. All your treasures, if I may say so, sir, is on that ship, and if it goes down, you go down with it, and there’s no saving of any part, not even yourself. That fair mithers me, Mr. Jerome. We’ve been through thick and thin together, and got out of blasted scrapes together, leaving only a little skin behind.” He smiled mournfully.
“Go on, Jim.” Jerome’s voice was very affable.
Jim took more courage. “The—the country where you’re headed, sir—” he shook his head, “it might be prodigious attractive, but I fancy it’s full of bogs and moors and lost places, with no shelter on it, and no escape.”
Jerome smiled at him with great admiration. “I do love your metaphors. By the way, where did you pick up all this seaman’s lingo?”
“I was a sailor, sir, very briefly, at one time.”
“You mean you were transported?”
Jim made a grimace. “It’s a crude way of expressin’ it, sir. But upon reflection, I believe you could call it that.” He tried to smile. “I prefers, sir, to say that I took a sea voyage, for my health.”
Jerome put his hand on the other’s shoulder. “You came back with a lot of wit, Jim. You’re helping me think. But, as I was never a—seaman—I must think in terms of a landlubber. Go on from there.”
Encouraged, Jim said with more boldness: “There’s your weddin’ with Miss Sally, sir. A lovely young lady, with a rich pa as loves you. Go on with the weddin’, and collect the cash. Money’ll fill the bill for a lot of other things as has no cash value, and cash value’s what’s important, in the long run, in spite of what the parsons say. Why,” and he became quite animated, “there was a lad as I knew, who was—takin’ a voyage for his health when I was—who was quite the highwayman! Stowed away the goods neat, and they never found it. When he got back his health, after a number of quite profitable years in Australia, sir, and could return to the old country, he bought hisself a run-down County place, good acres and an old house, and became quite the squire, and married the local vicar’s daughter. No one is more respectable now, sir, and more admired. Goes to church every Sunday, and is an example to his tenants. Three sons, now, strappin’ young chaps as would do any father’s heart good.”
Jerome burst out laughing. He struck Jim several times, with heartiness, on the shoulder. But the little man had become very earnest and eager.
“So, sir, it’s my advice that you keep mum, and let it blow over. What the tongue holds back never hurts anybody. Things pass, and they are forgot. It’s dangerous to keep a fire burning in a wood. Just put out the fire, and the wood still stands. So marry Miss Sally, and let everythin’ wag on. No one’s hurt yet. You don’t have to live in this house, sir, while—while Mr. Alfred’s here. Unless your pa leaves you the house. But that’s for the future to settle. Maybe it won’t be pleasant for a while, watching a bull graze in your own pastures. But it’s better than baiting the bull, and gettin’ out the neighbors with pitchforks. Better,” he added, with deep gravity, “than doin’ a fine old gentleman in, and breakin’ Miss Sally’s heart, and makin’ bloody enemies, and walkin’ into a bog with your eyes open.”
“That,” said Jerome, with high admiration, “is what is known as expediency.”
But Jim said urgently: “Mr. Jerome, you’re not a young buck with green grass in your hair, and willin’ to throw away your life just to toss in another man’s bed! There ain’t a woman alive, sir, as is worth a man sinkin’ himself in a pit for! It’s excitin’ for a while, I admit, but the mornin’ always comes, and there’s always a reckonin’, and it’s usually a nasty one. Besides, you wouldn’t be doin’ the lady much good either. Women can be sensible, sir, more sensible than many men. Put it up to ’em, and they’re always the practical ones. So, let the lady forget, too, and she’ll thank you for it later.”
Jerome sat down. He crossed his legs and stared at his foot. “I am afraid you’re not romantic, Jim.”
“Neither are you, sir,” said the little man, with a hopeful smile. “You never was. I’ve seen that. It’s a good thing, too. It’s mueh better to be kind and sensible.”
Jerome rocked his foot gently, turning his head from side to side to watch a finger of sunlight glisten on his boot. But his face darkened and tightened, and his black brows knotted together. Jim watched him with passionate hopefulness.
Then Jerome said thoughtfully: “I don’t know whether your advice is honorable or dishonorable, Jim, or just intelligent. I suspect the last.”
All at once, he seemed profoundly exhausted. He stood up and walked towards the windows, and Jim noticed that he limped a little, as if his leg ached and he were enormously tired and ill. He’s hard hit, then, thought the valet, with a sudden and frightened sadness. It’s not just a roll in the hayloft, for him, or a scramble under the hedges. I’ve never seen him like this. And what of the poor lady? It was a bad day when we came here!
He anxiously watched Jerome standing at the windows with his back to the room. He saw Jerome’s fingers tapping on the polished panes. He heard the faint and restless tattoo. What was the master thinking? He was not one to let his ruddy emotions run away with him. He had a level head, that one, an
d straight on his shoulders. He had always been one as considered everything, cool-like. If such an immense struggle was taking place in Jerome, then this affair must be of colossal proportions and not a little thing of heat and casual passion or any minor folly. Did he really love that poor lady with the large purple eyes and the lovely throat? Was the thing that had them both too huge for expediency?
Jim shook his head mournfully. It was indeed an evil day that had brought them here, together. Jim did not believe much in “love.” He had never encountered it before, except in its lighter and gayer episodes in Jerome’s career. Now he almost believed in it, and it terrified him. It could, then, destroy lives and tear up the foundations of strong houses; it could make fools of men and fugitives of women. It was something beyond the control of any realism, of any pleading of reason, any law or creed. It was even something beyond the wild and frenetic matings of savage beasts, which lasted a moment and then were forgotten.
He’s always forgotten the women before, thought Jim, despairingly. Why could he not forget this one, for his own sake, and hers?
The dinner bell, pealed softly, reverberating through all the quiet rooms, in which the dim shadow of twilight was settling. Jerome turned away from the window. Jim could not see his face plainly, but he could feel the other man’s intense weariness, and he knew that he had come to no conclusion.
Jim said: “The ladies won’t be down to dinner, I’m told, sir. Miss Dorothea is indisposed, and Miss Amalie has a severe headache. Shall I bring up your tray, or will you go downstairs?”
“Bring up a tray, by all means,” said Jerome. His voice was abstracted. He added: “Bring up one for yourself, too, Jim. We’ll eat together.”
He hesitated, and then Jim could feel, rather than see, that he was smiling in the dusk. “Jim, I don’t know what to do. I only know we’ve got to wait and see how things arrange themselves.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Mr. William Lindsey had been an earnest protagonist of Descartes’ theory of a “clara et distincta perceptio rerum.” He had often told his son, Jerome, that only the man who applied this ideal in his life was truly civilized. He also quoted, in this connection, his favorite Addison, who prided himself on being a calm spectator of other men’s passions and hot idiocies and stresses. Again quoting Descartes, Mr. Lindsey would say that it was necessary to withdraw from men, at least temporarily, to obtain a proper perspective not only upon one’s own affairs, but upon the affairs of the world generally.
Jerome remembered this wryly, while strolling over Hilltop’s grounds that evening. Detach oneself? How? Wherever one glanced, whether at the sky or at a stone, at a face or a problem, everything was colored by the individual psyche. Rather than Descartes or Addison, Jerome quoted Decimus Magnus Ausonius: “What way of life shall I now follow?”
Mr. Lindsey had always been certain, with Confucius, that good manners solved all sorts of difficulties, and made a clear path through the jungle of human emotions. With acrid amusement, Jerome speculated on the uses of good manners in his present predicament. Good manners demanded a basis of good taste. Jerome could only assure himself that, in so far as good taste was concerned, he possessed none.
This startled him, for he had egotistically prided himself on the impeccable good taste which had served him so well that he had never before been involved in impossible complications. But, damn it, he thought, if one exercises good taste relentlessly, one inevitably becomes desiccated. Good taste prevented hot embroilments, but it also prevented a man from living fully. It demanded moderation and lukewarmness in all passions, all desires, all hopes. One might as well live on tepid mutton soup, he thought.
He stood on the slope below Hilltop, in the grove of pines. And it came to him forcibly, and with a sort of passionate exultatioh, that in his abandonment of good taste he had, for the first time, known what it was to live. Bad taste had forced the drawers of Alfred’s secret files, and had brought Jerome, for the first time, into contact with the lives and the miseries and the frustrations of others. Bad taste had entangled him with the wife of his cousin, his adopted brother. But this entanglement had brought him the first deep passion of his life, his first physical and mental and emotional fulfilment. There was definitely something wrong with the exercise of good taste.
Five months ago, he reflected, he could have withdrawn himself without much difficulty. A woman unknown could be sentimentalized about, and deserted with only a touch of sweet melancholy. But a woman intimately known, understood and felt, became part of a man’s flesh and blood, and he could no more abandon her than he could voluntarily abandon himself. Even if he willed it consciously, he could not really leave Amalie. He would be leaving a great part of himself behind, and would be only half a man.
Nor could he leave the Bank. With profound amazement, he understood now that for some inexplicable reason he was bound up with the Bank and its problems. He had finally looked reality in the face, and it excited him. He did not quite comprehend, as yet, why he was so concerned with the affairs of Riversend, and he had a secret conviction that part of his concern lay in his detestation of the smug and iron-willed Alfred. However, he found that power to control and order the affairs of others, especially those others who were at the mercy of Alfred Lindsey, was unexpectedly sweet.
He could not leave his father now either. Nor his home. He glanced back at Hilltop, dim against the fading evening sky. How had he ever complacently entertained the idea that Alfred should inherit Hilltop? How had he ever been agreeable that Alfred should be Mr. Lindsey’s son, his heir, his successor? He, Jerome, had come to that house as a usurper. Who had made him feel so? Alfred? Dorothea? Himself? He knew now that it was himself.
He had an inheritance here, and sharply and clearly he decided to fight for it. He had a woman here, and he would fight for her also.
He had always winced away, laughing, at the very smell of battle and unpleasantness. And so, he had been rootless and uneasy, a superficial fool engrossed in the pampering of mean little vices. He was no longer young. All at once, his self-styled role of smiling epicure and exquisite and trifler with the arts seemed foolish and ridiculous. It surprised him that he had learned nothing from war. And then it came to him that since the war he had been chronically uneasy and dissatisfied. The war had started him on the way home. He could see it clearly, at last. Without the experiences of war, which had unconsciously touched him deeply, he would never have been embroiled with the affairs of this house and this community.
He sat down on the warm dark grass and smoked steadily. The pattern which had been so confused was brightening into order. It surprised him, amused him somberly.
Jim had presented the problem as a choice between his new life and Amalie. Amalie, too, could see nothing as inevitable but flight, after a gesture in the face of honor. Jerome saw no distinction between Amalie and the new world of his desires. They were one and the same.
When the family returned, there would have to be an open consultation. Certain facts might have to be suppressed, for the sake of decency and future harmony. But both Alfred and Mr. Lindsey would have to be impressed with the fact of the attachment between Jerome and Amalie. Jerome did not doubt that he could present the problem with dignity and reason. Certainly, there would be a stinking uproar, but he and Amalie had only to stand their ground quietly and openly.
After all, Jerome reflected, I am my father’s son. My father is not an impulsive and irrational man. He loves me and is fond of Amalie. Forced to the wall, to make his choice, he will inevitably choose me. It is just the next two months or so, in all likelihood, that will be unpleasant. It will be a new experience for me to face unpleasantness and stare it down, and I do not expect to enjoy it. But it would be cowardice to run away. Moreover, flight would bring catastrophe.
He had only to convince Amalie now. He got to his feet and went slowly back to the house. There was no sign of his sister or of Amalie. Someone had lit a lamp or two in the library, and the soft light streamed
out upon the fresh grass. He rang a bell, sent for Jim. The little man came quickly, eagerly and full of hope. But something in Jerome’s face frightened him.
“Jim,” said Jerome, “I want you to go to Mrs. Lindsey’s room and ask her to come downstairs to me here.”
Jim’s fright increased. He regarded Jerome imploringly. “But the lady ’as retired, sir.”
“Unretire her then,” said Jerome. “Go on, be off with you, Jim.”
Jim was incredulous and shaken. He could not recognize “the master” in this pale man with the grim mouth and inflexible eyes. Something “was up,” and Jim did not doubt that it was alarming. This is what happened when a man got himself “mucked up” with women: it changed a chap, put a new face on him. Almost slinking, Jim went upstairs to summon Amalie.
Jerome walked up and down the library. He felt a quite pleasant and exciting strength, and exhilaration. He had discovered that it can be an agreeable and exciting thing to make hard decisions and do battle for them and to impose one’s will on another.
The house was quiet, filled with the warmth of the past day, and the old familiar smell of wax, flowers, grass and leather pervaded the library. The nose, thought Jerome, is the sense closest to memory. He remembered walking like this, up and down over the thick carpet, many times in his almost forgotten youth and boyhood, waiting for his father to come down and listen to his, Jerome’s, own explanation of some recent enormity of which he stood accused. There was the same reassuring and homely scent in the room then as there was tonight, the same green leaves outside illuminated by the soft lamplight, the same gleam on the opened French windows. He paused in his pacing. He could almost hear his father’s hesitating footsteps on the stairway, his low dry cough, and could recall his own faint apprehension and angry defiance. How had he ever forgotten? Was it really possible he had believed that this house bored him and wearied him, and had no ties for him? He looked at the high shelves of blue and crimson books standing serenely in the light, and they were dearly familiar to him. This was his home. He would fight for it, and he would win. He would fight for the gentle sound of the wind in the trees, the feel of the carpet under his feet, the texture of the leather chairs, the glimmer of the brass andirons on the hearth. When a man went to war, and fought, it was for these things, and not for any ideal or abstract patriotism.
This Side of Innocence Page 32
