This Side of Innocence

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  Jerome looked from one to the other. Then he burst out laughing. There was no other sound in the room but the sound of that brutal and vehement laughter. But Alfred and Philip did not seem to hear him. Philip was even trying to smile at Alfred, with gentle encouragement.

  Jerome stopped his laughter abruptly. Something that greatly disturbed him and strangely tormented him was happening here. But he said, almost genially: “It is all settled then, without trouble and without fireworks. I always like to see people being reasonable, It is so much pleasanter.”

  Don’t mind, Father, Philip was saying, with his eyes to Alfred. Don’t mind for me. I shan’t die of it. Men don’t die of such things. We’ll both forget, some day.

  Jerome was saying: “Yes, this gives me much pleasure. I’ve waited for it a long time.” He concentrated his attention upon Alfred, who still looked only at his son: “You thought to work your way into Hilltop through your deformed son, didn’t you? You thought you’d intrude into my life, and go snooping and spying about, It was a nice plot, but it didn’t turn out the way you thought it would, It was a very stupid and infantile plot.”

  Alfred turned to him slowly, as if he had forgotten that Jerome was there and was surprised to discover that he was. He could not speak immediately, and then he said in a low and inflexible voice: “There was no plot. That is just in your mind. I never want to see Hilltop again. You’ve made it an ugly place for me. I never wanted to see you again, either, or anyone who belongs to you.”

  He paused, then he said, as if in rising incredulity: “I don’t understand it! How can you have lived so long and acquired no charity, no kindness, no gentleness? How is it possible for a man to be so cruel?”

  Jerome did not move. But he appeared to have retreated a step or two. Now all the malignity had gone from his dark narrow face. He seemed profoundly startled, as if he were listening to something else besides Alfred. His brows drew together in concentration.

  Alfred sighed heavily. “I’ve watched you all these years. I’ve seen what you have done. And I’ve thought that you had become a different man, a better one. I don’t understand it, no.” He shook his head. “I’m afraid that I’m not very clever.”

  Again he was all dignity. Now, as he looked at Jerome, he became aware of an oddness in the other’s expression. He leaned forward a little, in the dusk, to try to find out what it was. Jerome stared back at him, and his eyes had in them a peculiar intent brilliance, as if he were listening with all his faculties.

  Alfred heard his own voice trembling uncertainly: “I don’t think we have anything more to say to each other. Except one thing: I beg of you not to be too harsh to that lovely child. She is young. This was a—mistake. Let her forget.”

  Jerome said nothing. Alfred, suddenly uneasy and bewildered, again peered at him. He became aware that he was seeing something he had never before seen in Jerome. A kind of sober and shaken thoughtfulness, lonely and wretched, and completely vulnerable. Alfred shook his head slightly. It was his imagination, of course. The firelight and the stormy dusk were confusing him.

  Then Jerome turned away, opened the door, shut it softly behind him.

  Philip had sat down. He was leaning his elbows on his father’s desk, and he had covered his face with his hands. Alfred studied him, and he thought to himself that this was the greatest pain that he had ever had to bear, and that it was easier for a man to suffer his own personal agonies than to see the suffering of one he loves.

  He said: “Philip. My son.”

  Philip dropped his hands. He looked before him steadily. “Yes, Father,” he answered.

  Alfred put his hand on Philip’s shoulder, and was miserably silent. He looked a long time at the snow-shrouded window. Then he said, almost softly: “Don’t be too unhappy. I don’t understand some things. I know everything will be all right. Philip, when I looked at Jerome just now, I saw something strange. It was like seeing someone come out for the first time from behind distorted shadows. He didn’t hate me any more. Yes, I am sure of that: he no longer hates me. I don’t know. But I do know that things will be well for you, my dear boy. Just a little longer, just a little more patience.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  Jim, huddled in the fur robes, was waiting in the sleigh for Jerome. The little old man was very wretched and perturbed. There was no standing this beastly weather, he thought. It was like the night that Mr. Jerome had come ’ome. It was still day, but the storm had so darkened the sky that it might have been late evening.

  Jim was frightened too. Why had Mr. Jerome gone to that Bank? He had not spoken from the time that they had left Hilltop. He had just sat there, like a graven image. Sat there, he had, in the sleigh, looking straight ahead with eyes like gleaming marbles. Something was wrong. Something had always been wrong since they had left New York nineteen years ago. God, was it nineteen years? The way time passed was a caution.

  The gray veils of snow and wind thickened, so that the street was lost in wavering gloom. Then Jim heard Jerome climbing into the sleigh again. “We’ll go home,” he was saying. He pulled the robes up to his chin.

  “Yes, sir,” said Jim thankfully. “It’s a bad day, and it’ll be a worse night. No use stayin’ in town today.”

  “No,” said Jerome. His voice was muffled.

  Jim turned the horses about. The sleigh floundered through piling drifts. The gas lamps flickered. The wind tore at the men’s faces, at their hats, at the tight warm robes. Jim’s nose was numb with cold; he sniffled, blinking reddened eyes.

  It was almost impossible to see. Jim gave the horses their heads. The devils could find their own way home. The runners of the sleigh crunched and whined through the snow; the vehicle rocked and swayed. Now, as the wind struck his face repeatedly, Jim began to gasp for breath. Jerome, sunk far down in the sleigh, sat without moving or speaking.

  The yellow street lamps wavered by them like faint moons seen through fog. Riversend had an abandoned, lost air. No one fought on foot against the storm, or even in sleighs. The snow hissed in the burning gale. Once a horse stumbled, and the sleigh jerked aside violently.

  Amalie. Mary. Jerome wiped the snow from his face. He roused himself a little. “Can’t you make them go a little faster?” he asked.

  “No, sir. It’s beyond me, this storm,” said Jim fearfully. “They’re doing the best they can.”

  “I must get home soon,” said Jerome loudly.

  Jim slapped the reins. Bells jingled. The horses, apprehensive, struggled up the slope from the valley.

  I must get home, thought Jerome. Amalie. Mary. My dears, my darlings. “Faster!” he shouted.

  “Can’t sir, beggin’ your pardon!” shouted Jim, in return. “There’s treacherous goin’, right about here. That ditch somewheres. Can’t see where it is.”

  Now it was almost as dark as night. The grayness grew more impenetrable. The wind roared in the unseen pines which ran along the heaving road. The sleigh lumbered from side to side. The horses panted, groaned. To Jerome nothing at all was visible, not even Jim, who was sitting in front and desperately slapping the reins.

  Amalie. I must go to Amalie. I must tell her—what? What can I say to her? I can only ask her to forgive me. How much she has known about me which I didn’t know at all! She sensed it all, but I didn’t understand until now.

  He saw himself and understood himself with new and brilliant clarity, and he felt wonder and shame. He knew now that always he had been bedevilled by the unadmitted fear of his adequacy to meet his dreams and aspirations. He had been a dabbler in everything. Once, he had dreamed of being a great artist. Then, at some time, he had discovered that he would never be great, but only pleasantly mediocre, and the disillusionment had paralyzed him, made him inert. He had become convinced, if only subconsciously, that he would never be completely adequate and in command of circumstance. He had never reasoned out his fear, nor subjugated his egotism, which had refused to be satisfied with anything but the ultimate, the greatest. His imagin
ation, which alone made him a superior man, had defeated him. It would not let him be content with what was within his capacities.

  His vanity had made him apathetic, but he had interpreted this apathy to mean an easy and mature detachment from all the feverish strugglings of other men. And now he understood that he had been puerile: he had had the silly, unconfessed notion that men like Alfred, the “gray men,” were adequate and invincible, and so he had hated them. He had rationalized his unconfessed defeat, and so had considered himself superior to the strivers, no matter for what they strove. He had despised men like Alfred, too, because of their dedication to the barren things of life, but now he knew that he had really despised them for the lack of imagination which had prevented them from guessing that they might be defeated at all. They had been content with small victories; he could never be content with anything but the most resplendent. They had not been afraid to fight. He in his youth had been afraid to fight, for fear of being ignominiously vanquished. What little joy he had known had been in these last nineteen years or so, when he had finally accomplished something and proved his adequacy. But it would have been much better for him if he had known himself then as he knew himself now.

  He had remained at Hilltop, he knew, not only because of Amalie, as he had thought, but because he had felt in that old house a serenity, a peace, a refuge, a sense of effectiveness. It had rested something in him that was feverish and exhausted.

  If only he could have delivered himself to that old house completely, and with understanding! He might then have accomplished more, without the sense of being driven which had made him hate and struggle and destroy himself. He would have had a happier life; he would have made others happier.

  He saw so clearly now how miserable he had made Amalie, out of his own unresolved misery. He saw all the ugly mistakes he had made, because he had been so blind. Mary, he thought, your father is a fool.

  “What is the matter now?” he cried, as the sleigh stopped abruptly.

  Jim’s voice, muffled by wind, blew back to him: “Feels like a bad drift, sir. Mounting-high. Horses havin’ trouble, like. There. They’re clear now.”

  The house would be warm and bright and snug. The grandfather clock would be chiming. There would be a fire in his room. He would be returning home, complete and healed. He would call Amalie in, and he would say: “Forgive me, if you can. Forgive me for all these years, for all my folly and stupidity and all the things I did, not only against you but against myself.” Then Amalie would kiss him, and she would say—What would she say? But he knew Amalie. Her face had been tired so long, and it was his fault. Would it brighten a little, when he spoke to her?

  They would talk together very soon, in the firelight, he and Amalie and Mary. And he would say: “Mary, I was all wrong. Forgive me. Send for Philip.”

  Philip. He saw Philip cringing away from him, turning away. Philip, who had been his friend. Philip had understood. He had known all the time what was bedevilling Jerome. Out of his kindness and his own deep convictions and integrity, he had tried to help Jerome find himself. He had made confused things clear. He had directed Jerome’s concentrated energy out from himself to others. Now Jerome remembered Philip’s quiet and compassionate eyes. Yes, he had understood. He had given Jerome some measure of victory. If he, Jerome, had accomplished anything truly permanent for Riversend it was because of Philip.

  How could I have spoken so to him? thought Jerome. What possessed me? I must have been mad. It seems I’ve been mad all my life.

  Tomorrow I will write to Alfred. There can be nothing between us, of course. There never can be, as long as we live. But I can write him: Try to forget what I have done and what I have said. It happened a long time ago.

  His cheeks were numb, and his hands and feet. The sleigh was rocking violently. He heard Jim cursing. From the tilting of the sleigh, he knew they were on a steep slope. He looked up. Was that a light in the far window at Hilltop? It was just a faint yellow glow, lost again in the snow and the wind.

  Wait for me, he said to the light.

  Then he had the most curious thought. His father was waiting for him, up there at Hilltop. He would find his father in the library. He would be sitting there, smoking and reading. He would look up, with a smile, laying aside his book. What would he quote now? Jerome smiled in answer. Addison? Thoreau? Whitman? Emerson? It would probably be Emerson, the young Emerson. Jerome heard his father’s voice, clear and high above the wind: “Jerome, Jerome! My dear boy!”

  Amalie heard the door open below. She heard a great hoarse cry. She ran out of her room, and met servants running also. And then there was Mary.

  She ran downstairs. Jim, bleeding from a dreadful gash on his cheek, stood below, shaking violently, wild with terror, his clothes covered with snow.

  He saw Amalie vividly in the lamplight as she came down. He saw her pause on the stairs, lifting her hand suddenly to her mouth, her eyes widening desperately above it. He saw her catch at the banister. Mary was behind her, very pale and still.

  Jim staggered towards the two women, flinging out his arms. He screamed: “Help! Help! The ditch! The master’s down there, in the ditch!”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  Philip came downstairs somewhat late this autumn morning. The lassitude which had been weakening him steadily during the summer months seemed especially heavy today. Alfred complained that his son was working much too hard. But he was proud of Philip, proud of all he had accomplished and was accomplishing.

  Breakfast was waiting for Philip in the small narrow room overlooking the gardens. He thought: How strange it is that all that brilliance is shining out there and in this house there is only coldness and dimness!

  Alfred had gone to the Bank. Philip ate his breakfast alone, and without appetite. There were letters for him. He ran through them quickly, then caught up one with an eagerness he could not control. It was from Mary, written from New York.

  “Darling Philip,” she wrote, “you will doubtless be surprised that Mama and I are now in New York. We had to leave New Orleans to bring William back to his school. But that was not the only reason. Mama suddenly decided that she was very tired, and that she wished to return to Hilltop. She is not looking well at all, and I. am very anxious about her. She is wearing a very sad and determined air lately. But she does not appear so numb and listless as she did during the first months after Papa’s death.”

  Philip’s eye ran swiftly over that sharp small script with its clear legibility.

  He continued to read: “Perhaps I imagine it, but your letters are so short and distant. So cold. Is it because you are working too hard? If that is so, then Mama and I shall feel conscience-stricken. But we are also proud. How kind, and how wise it was of Papa, to appoint you executor of his will and his estate, and to name you as president of his bank! He knew that you and General Tayntor were good friends, and that the General, as vice-president, would have no quarrel with you.”

  Philip paused and looked before him. I can’t go on with it, he thought. But he knew he must. He could not abandon Amalie and Mary. Love for them and duty, as his father had pointed out, must keep him in Jerome’s bank, as president, until young William had attained his majority. But even then, according to the terms of the will, Philip was to be chairman. The years stretched before Philip as a great weary desert is spread before exhausted eyes.

  It was not only the bank, Jerome’s massive Grecian temple dedicated to finance. Philip was also director of the Riversend Community. Too much depended upon him. I haven’t the strength, he thought. But he knew it was because he no longer had the heart. He wanted nothing for himself, because the thing that he truly wanted he could not take.

  Mary’s letter continued: “It has been so long since we have seen you. Since last February! Eight months! But, as you know, I had to take Mama away. I was afraid that she would die—first, during those weeks of illness after Papa’s death, and then during the following months. She has become so thin you would hardly know
her, and it breaks my heart. But she sometimes smiles now. She smiled for the first time, about a month ago, when William said something very ridiculous. Now she even reads occasionally. But her real interest is aroused when I talk of the time when you and I will be married. In fact, it is only when I talk of this that she becomes truly alive and almost like her old self. She still doesn’t speak much of Papa. At first, she could not mention him at all. But now she often says: ‘Your father would like that frock, Mary. Your father would be so amused to see how much you resemble your grandfather.’

  “I was beginning to be very depressed about all this travelling. But, of course, I was willing to undergo it for Mama’s sake. She was so restless, even though she always appeared about to faint from weariness. But she has become quieter. When she spoke of going home I tried to conceal my joy.”

  The script became softer now, less certain: “Dear Philip, I am counting the days until I see you again. How wonderful it will be! And then we can make our plans. I know that you did not mention them before because it was so soon after Papa’s death. But Mama says it is proper to do so now.

  “I do not know the exact day when we shall return. But it will be soon. I know it will!”

  Philip slowly laid aside the letter. Again he looked through the narrow window at the garden. Mary. But he could not marry her. That was impossible. Jerome had made him see what he, Philip, was, in contrast to that lovely girl. She was young. She would soon forget. In his self-abasement, he could not make himself believe that she would remember him for very long. Some day she would be grateful that she had not married him; she would be grateful to Philip himself.

  The dull stone that now lived always in his chest became heavier. He rubbed his tired eyes. It had not been too hard while Mary was away, while Hilltop stood untenanted, except for servants, on its high green hill. But now Amalie and Mary were returning. Hilltop would come alive; its heart would beat again, strongly, urgently. How would he be able to endure it, never going there again, never seeing Mary except casually, never talking to Amalie?