Ceremony of the Innocent

by Taylor Caldwell

  It had two great enemies, the new President of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, and Alfred Smith. But though these enemies were formidable the David Rogers Foundation, and its several brothers, had no doubt that the gentlemen could be obliterated in one manner or another. The foundations began to plan even this early for the elections of 1928. It was decided, after many national and international conferences, that the currency of America—like that of Germany—must be debased to bring on a terrible depression in the United States, and total chaos, as in Germany. In this they were assisted ably by their creature, the Federal Reserve System, which controlled the banks. The best way to destroy American currency was to eliminate the backing of gold and introduce fiat money. The collapse of the American economy would be arranged. The conspirators increased their activity. Once the economy collapsed they would introduce many “reforms” which would lead to either overt or covert Communism in America. They looked about for a politician who would serve them, in the years to come. They studied Germany, and sought for “the man,” through their German co-conspirators.

  The fact that America was devoutly and strenuously anti-Communist did not disturb them overmuch. Through their various organizations they promoted disastrous strikes and other public upheavals. For these they employed men like Francis Porter—“labor lawyers,” fervid and dangerous innocents. They employed agents provocateur, cleverly educated and directed. These agents were not innocents, but were carefully trained: men of education and extraordinary deviousness and intelligence, men of eloquence and stamina, men without nerves or scruples.

  The David Rogers Foundation was the creation of the Rogers Brothers Steel Company, originally of Pittsburgh but now the owner of many subsidiary firms. It also owned various oil companies of smaller stature, and fabricators of steel, and aluminum, and some coal mines and electric companies. It had been noted, in the past, that it had been scrutinized by Washington for obvious violations of the Antitrust Act, but had emerged with smug vindication. It had worked well and zealously in behalf of America’s engagement in the Great War, and had been praised by politicians of considerable influence. It had recently bought a radio broadcasting company in New York, and one of its firms was manufacturing crystal sets preparatory to making more wieldy and efficient instruments. It was also quietly buying whiskey futures in the sure conviction that Prohibition would be repealed. Its stock was one of the highest on Wall Street. The original David Rogers had been a confidence man before the War between the States, operating diligently, and profitably, in various northern cities. He had also owned a number of brothels in Pittsburgh. Frugal and canny, he had later bought a bankrupt small steel mill and had entered on real fortune. His portrait, piously improved so that he resembled a bishop, hung in the main office, in Pittsburgh.

  In addition to introducing Christian to the David Rogers Foundation, Francis also introduced the young man to the Scardo Society and the Committee for Foreign Studies. They were noncommittal to Francis, whom they did not trust because he was a hysteric and believed his polemics, but they were deeply impressed by Christian, whom they recognized as one of themselves. They graciously permitted Francis to bring the young man to some of their peripheral meetings and discussions, none of which Francis fully understood. But the gentlemen saw, with gratification, that Christian understood immediately, though he was still a young man.

  On the occasion of one discussion Francis vehemently complained that though the country was in a state of apparent roaring prosperity the average worker and the farmer were barely subsisting. He confessed his perplexity. Wall Street was doing a tremendous business; stockbrokers’ loans reached $4,422 million. An air of wild euphoria filled the nation; shops teemed with customers; the streets were smoking with cars; the factories clamored day and night Yet the real wages of workers remained extremely low and farms were going into bankruptcy. President Coolidge said, with great complacency, “Well, farmers never made much money at any time.” It was hard for Francis to equate the obvious prosperity with the meanness of the lives of farmers and workers.

  But Christian understood at once. The twin brothers, rampant capitalism and Communism, were working for one end only, and Christian knew that end. It amused him that Francis did not know. When Francis confided to him that he had joined the Communist Party, in low and despised esteem in America, in order, as Francis said, that “justice could be brought to the workers,” Christian could hardly keep from laughing aloud. Francis urged the younger man to join also. Christian put on a serious expression. “It would be too dangerous for me,” he said, “though I sympathize fully. I am with the Foundation, you know, and the Foundation is ostensibly anti-Communist.”

  “I see your point,” admitted Francis, though he did not in the least. In the meantime stockbrokers’ loans rose so steadily that they exceeded the amount of money in total circulation in America. The few Congressmen and Senators who expressed their alarm were jeered into silence. America had reached the plateau of permanent prosperity. When Alfred E. Smith, Governor of the state of New York, and called the “Happy Warrior,” also expressed his alarm, his name was quietly removed from the consideration of the Committee for Foreign Studies. He had also annoyed the Committee by his authentic social reforms, improvements in education, and attempts to conserve natural resources. “But we are for these also,” Francis said to his friends, who looked amusedly at each other.

  But Christian understood that Mr. Smith’s solid reforms were not what the Committee had in mind at all. It was not in their plans to improve society but to destroy it. Christian understood. He was growing more and more contemptuous of Francis, who now seemed unbearably naive to the young man.

  Crime, hedonism, irresponsibility, the increasing flouting of laws, were a phenomenon to Francis, a bewilderment. But not to Christian. Once a nation became morally degenerate it became weak and fragmented, unable to resist. The sinister men began to attack Alfred E. Smith, who constantly denounced this sudden reversal of American mores in the Twenties. Though he was quite outspoken in his desire for the Presidency, of which the Democratic Party approved, it was well understood in secret sessions that he had now destroyed his hopes. He would not be amenable to the enemies of his country. An innocuous man must be chosen, a man of obvious rectitude but a man who would follow discreet suggestions from “concerned gentlemen,” without the slightest suspicion of the real motives of his supporters.

  Gabrielle, home for the summer holidays, enlisted the support of Kitty Wilder against her mother. “I don’t want to continue in college,” Gabrielle told Kitty. “Here I am, twenty years old, and am treated like an infant. I want to do something exciting with my life.”

  “Such as what?” asked Kitty.

  Gabrielle grinned. “Such as enjoying myself. I made my debut two years ago, yet I am supposed to be just a schoolgirl, by Mama. Christian has his own apartment, and I want mine. I’ve talked to Mama about this and she was horrified. Why, Christian was two years old when she was my age, and she’d been working since she was thirteen! I am certainly more mature than she ever was, in spite of the fact that she was earning her own living at an early time. Times have changed, Aunt Kitty. We’re very sophisticated now, and understand life and living—as Mama never did. She still doesn’t know. And she’s forty, for heaven’s sake! An old woman.”

  Kitty smiled affectionately though she winced inside and was resentful. She was well into her fifties now, and raddled and wizened, though the huge white flare of teeth had not diminished in her haggard face. As always, she was soignée and elegant, and the new shies of a flat breast and short skirts became her, as they certainly did not become Ellen with her full bosom. Her dyed hair was cropped and curled; she knew all the latest songs and international scandals and depravities. She could dance like the youngest “flapper.” Her vivacity might be more feverish and more forced than it was in her youth, but it was still strong and lively. She looked at Gabrielle and envied her. Gabrielle was young and vibrant, her figure “boyish,”
her animation authentic, her piquant dark face shimmering and gleaming with vitality, her black eyes glowing, her black hair very short and tossed over her pretty head in a mass of springing and glossy curls. She wore a bright-red silk dress with a silver belt low over her narrow hips, and red slippers; the dress was very short and revealed rolled silk stockings, pretty bare knees, and delicate calves. Her lips were full and scarlet.

  “Your mother is hardly ancient,” said Kitty.

  “Well, she looks and acts ancient. Look at her hair; down to her hips. Look at her skirts; they more than cover her knees, and as for her bosom—like a cow. She’s got awful fat lately, too. That’s because she is so lazy; she hardly moves from the house; she never goes anywhere, except to Europe once a year, and then to that awful house in the summer, on Long Island. She’s practically a recluse. Sluggish. Not interested much in anything, except to interfere with me. And our terrible old brownstone, so shabby and in such a neighborhood! She doesn’t realize how the neighborhood has decayed. I’ve tried to get her to buy a really beautiful house on upper Fifth Avenue. I even took her there; it belongs to the family of a friend of mine. Really exquisite, and only two hundred thousand dollars. Mama’s become a miser, too. That’s Uncle Charles’ fault, always talking of ‘conserving assets’ and ‘blue-chip stocks.’ But then, he’s old, too. It’s time for the younger generation to take over. Mama’s lived her life; I want to live mine.”

  “I agree with you,” said Kitty with a sigh. “What does Francis say about all this?”

  Gabrielle shrugged her thin shoulders. “Oh, Francis. So dreary. All he talks about is ‘social consciousness.’ And he’s stingy, like Mama, too. He spends her money, but keeps his own. He does agree with me, though, that that old house on Long Island should be sold. In many ways, he’s very sympathetic to Christian and me, and understands us. He often says, ‘Youth must be served,’ but I have the naughtiest conviction that he means youth in the factories, and dull clothes. Sometimes he tells me I’m too extravagant. Did I ever tell you that he wants me to be a volunteer for that dreadful pet charity of his, Hopewell House? All full of what he calls ‘oppressed workers and immigrants.’”

  They were sitting, this warm July day, in Kitty’s cool and perfect living room, sipping illegal whiskey and ginger ale tinkling with ice.

  Fans whirred close by. Gabrielle glanced about restlessly. ‘Tour house is an old brownstone, too, Aunt Kitty, but in a better neighborhood. And you are always redecorating. Mama won’t touch a thing. All that terrible damask silk on the walls, and gloom, and silence. Mama never touches her piano any more, though I should count that a blessing, considering her taste in music. We rarely have visitors, or dinners. Mama seems shut in on herself, hidden.”

  Kitty was surprised at the girl’s perspicacity. “Well, Ellen was always that way, even when she was married to your father, whom she adored. I don’t think she ever got over his death, and her marriage to Francis seemed to make her more—retiring.”

  “I think,” said Gabrielle, watching Kitty closely, “that Mama is mentally ill. I think she needs a psychiatrist. Someone to take care of her.”

  Kitty understood immediately. She moistened her painted lips and stared at Gabrielle with thoughtfulness.

  “Have you mentioned this to Francis?”

  Again Gabrielle shrugged. “In a way, he’s as bad as Mama. He sometimes fills the house with the most horrible people, all jabbering excitedly, all socially impossible, all dingy and smelling. I call them ‘the dirty-underwear brigade.’ He wants me to join them occasionally—but no! He says they are all ‘concerned’ people, concerned with social progress and reforms. Me, I think they are a bunch of Communists.”

  “Oh, hush,” said Kitty, laughing. “That’s libelous, you know. They could sue you, Gaby.”

  Gabrielle laughed also. “I sometimes drop in on them, in our musty parlors. I’m very serious with them, and nod and agree. They don’t seem to mind that I am dressed up and perfumed and wear jewelry. They love inherited wealth, but they hate people who make their own way in life. I do, too. Nouveau riche. I agree with Francis that the nouveau riche should be taxed heavily—but not those with inherited wealth. Patricians. We must keep the upstarts down and force them to share the wealth with what Francis calls the ‘oppressed.’ We don’t want new challengers to our established positions, do we?”

  “No, indeed,” said Kitty.

  “Francis is all in favor of taxing the middle class heavily and forcing them to ‘share,’ as he calls it. He also calls it equality. Of course, that wouldn’t affect ‘us.’ I know some girls at college whose fathers were what is called ‘self-made men,’ men who worked their way up and sacrificed and studied and did all those dreary things, and became rich. I agree that they should be taxed almost out of existence. Upstarts. The girls were so damned serious, too. One of them actually said to me, To work is to pray.’ Bourgeoisie! What could be more stuffy and lightless?”

  “Nothing,” said Kitty.

  “One of the girls’ fathers was a Russian immigrant Jew who went into the clothing business in that horrible section—you know. He worked all the hours that God sent, and became rich. Then he sent for his relatives to rescue them, Esther said, from the Russian Communists. Esther is the dreariest girl. She talks politics, and other vulgar things. She wrote articles for the college newspaper—all very weighty, concerning God and duty and the Ten Commandments and the dangers of Socialism. We all laughed at her. Now, her illiterate father should really be crushingly taxed, and maybe Esther would be quiet for once. I agree with Francis when he quotes Karl Marx about taxing the middle class.”

  You are quite a little bitch, thought Kitty, smiling at her young visitor with deep affection. You forget who your mother is, and was. She looked at Gabrielle, with the restless licentious face, and speculated.

  “Have you talked with Francis, about a psychiatrist for your mother?”

  “Yes. I think he agrees. He and Mama rarely exchange a word, and he seems miserable. I heard about a psychiatrist, a Dr. Emil Lubish. His daughter goes to school with me. I’ve met him. A very wonderful man, though he does have a habit of pawing and calling me Liebchen. He’s an Austrian, and was a student of Freud’s. I once talked to him about Mama and he said, very gravely, that she needs ‘help.’ I told that to Francis, and I think he agrees with that, too, though Mama never quarrels with him, and does almost everything he suggests. Well, almost. She can be very obdurate and and sullen, and Dr. Lubish calls that a ‘syndrome.’ Of what I don’t know.”

  There was a little silence, while Kitty’s mind hummed. Then she said, “Well, you wanted me to help you, dear, with something. What is it?”

  “Frankly, I want you to help me to persuade Mama to let me have my own apartment. Now. Oh, I can wait until next year, when I will be twenty-one. I’m rich, as you know, Aunt Kitty, but I can’t touch my inheritance until next year, and even then Uncle Charles will be watching and scolding. So narrow. I also want a car of my own. A Cadillac. All the girls have their own cars. But I have to take taxis or the subway! Mortifying. And my allowance! Beggarly.”

  They refreshed their glasses. Kitty said, “Surely your mother, and Francis, know your position. No? Well, I’ll talk to your mother if you wish. But you know how stubborn she can be. But I’m her dearest friend, and always was. Loyal. Devoted. Her only friend.”

  Francis Porter said to his wife with reproving distress: “You know it is illegal and unlawful, Ellen. Where do you get this—liquor? This bootleg poison?”

  “I have to have it, Francis. It—soothes me. I have a very good bootlegger. This is genuine whiskey, imported.”

  “Why do you need ‘soothing,’ Ellen?”

  Ellen was silent, frowning and considering. How could she explain to him the black horror of her life, her suffering, her memories? He had no point of reference through which he could understand her. She did not care whether he understood or not; she simply wanted to be relieved of reproaches. When he reproached
her she almost groveled with guilt, though she did not understand her guilt, either. She only knew that she must have an anodyne. It was little enough, to shut out the recurring dreams of her terrible youth, the torment, the hunger, the hopelessness. It was little enough, to bring back the memories of Jeremy, to whom she talked and laughed in her sodden sleep. Without those memories of her husband she would surely die.

  “I must live,” she muttered. “I must live for my children.”

  Francis looked at her with genuine misery. Ellen had become fat and shapeless. Her face was bloated, her color gone forever. She sagged and sprawled. Only her brilliant hair was alive, disheveled though it was. She ate almost nothing—but still she was fat.

  “I have done so much for Christian,” Francis said, his lean body vibrating with anxiety. “You are not grateful, Ellen.”

  She sipped at her glass; the liquid was deep amber. “I am grateful, Francis. I can’t tell you how much. But—I must have peace. You don’t understand. I must—”

  “Run away?”

  Ellen was silent. Run away? Yes. Run away from a world that never cared for despair, but only exploited it. Run away from knowing, grinning faces which belonged to people who had no integrity, no decency, no honor, no love. What had Jeremy once said? “The sweet smell of money.” It was a deadly effluvium. No. It was the stench of madness. The insidious reverie broke through her defenses and her mind shut it out.

  “I only wanted to live,” she said. “But that was denied me, until I knew Jeremy. Then he died. Now I cannot live.”

  “You are raving. You are drunk, Ellen.”