Ceremony of the Innocent

by Taylor Caldwell

  Who was selling, and why? No one knew but the deadly quiet men, as Jeremy had called them. They were meeting today in the barred building of the Committee for Foreign Studies, and coded messages were constantly being delivered to them from all over the world. They smiled coldly together when news arrived that Thomas W. Lamont had met with the foremost bankers of New York, and had produced a two-hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar “fund” to stabilize the shaking Market. Richard Whitney, of J. P. Morgan and Company, bought twenty-five thousand shares of Big Steel at 205. In the meantime he also bought large blocks of the leading stocks at the last-quoted price. There was a sudden resurgence of hope among stockbrokers. But the tickers were over five hours late all over the country, and when they finally stopped their frantic clickings, some ominous facts were evident: A record had been established. Nearly fourteen million shares of stock had been sold, at a loss of nearly twelve billion dollars. Nothing like it had ever happened to the Market before.

  “My God,” said Charles Godfrey to Jochan Wilder, “so Jeremy was right, after all! It has begun—the planned economic collapse of America. Thanks to your own warnings, Jochan, I sold off much of my doubtful stock over the past three months.” He paused, then smiled a tight small smile.

  “Something’s just given me a lot of pleasure. As Jerry’s administrator and executor, I sold off a lot of somewhat doubtful stocks, and bought blue-chip and sound bonds, and so, so far, the estate is in a good position. But my real pleasure is in thinking about the estate left to Christian and Gaby Porter by their grandparents. Really all dubious stocks, and they’ve gone down almost to the vanishing point today. Those two were practically wiped out—in a few hours—and I could dance with joy. Of course, that doesn’t affect what they will receive from Jerry’s estate—” His smile vanished. “When Ellen dies.”

  Jochan said, his amiable smile wider, “They both shook off your advice, and bought the wilder stocks for themselves. You were too pessimistic, Christian said. He saw himself with about a two-million profit by the end of this year, and so did his sister. I wonder what they’re thinking today.”

  Charles’ pleasure returned, and he laughed. Then he was suddenly uneasy. Jeremy’s estate, held in trust for Ellen during her lifetime, was in excellent order, though it, too, had rapidly declined to lower figures today. But the stocks and bonds were sound, if depreciated in value. The capital was intact, if not as large as only yesterday. Ellen could not take that stock and restore the fortunes of her children. Jeremy had planned well for her safety.

  Only on her death would they inherit the capital—her children. Only on her death—

  “Now what’s wrong?” asked Jochan, seeing his friend’s grim expression. So Charles told him. Jochan shook his head in smiling denial.

  “Oh, come now. They might wish her dead, but they wouldn’t dare do anything openly against Ellen. What they had tried wouldn’t even be condemned by the most suspicious. They were just trying to ‘help’ their poor mother, and had engaged well-known and respected psychiatrists. They’re no fools, Charlie. They aren’t going to put themselves in jeopardy. Don’t let your imagination stray. You’ve warned them enough, and they do love their precious selves.

  Do you actually fear they might poison or strangle or shoot Ellen?” Jochan laughed. “Covert and heartless bastard and bitch—but they’d never be grossly overt. Too dangerous.”

  Charles considered, and then he said sheepishly, “Of course, you’re right. Smooth scoundrels. But—the coolest rascals, the most calculating and careful, can be driven mad—and do murder, when their fortunes are threatened. Never mind. I’m probably using my imagination, my Irish imagination, too vividly.”

  His uneasiness returned. If only Ellen trusted him; if only he could approach her as a realistic mother, with warnings. But Ellen did not trust him, and she loved her children with a passionate devotion, and she was not realistic and did not credit the full evil in the human heart, and its endless and bloody and very probable machinations, when it was forced to act, violently.

  Charles began to think of the great financiers and bankers in New York who were buying up incredible amounts of stock. Why were they doing this? To stabilize the Market, to reassure the terrified country? To encourage more buying among the millions of smaller stockholders—to the latter’s ultimate ruin? There I go again, thought Charles, using my imagination. But he now had another uneasiness, stronger than before.

  “The sweet smell of money,” Jeremy had once remarked to him. “Men lose their wits when it comes to money. They have no other allegiances.”

  When Ellen awoke from her afternoon rest she said to Miss Hendricks, “Are my children having dinner with me tonight?”

  Miss Hendricks said, “I don’t think so, dear. There was a call for them, on Wall Street. Something to do with the Market.”

  Ellen was disappointed, but she said with firm brightness, “Yes. I read something about it last night, rumors, in the newspapers.” Then she remembered something with vague alarm. What had Jeremy once told her? “The ultimate collapse of the American economy, planned for a long time, will soon arrive—then will come the tyrants and a planned economy and the slavery of the American people.” She thought of her children’s inheritance from their grandparents—surely that was safe? She did not think of her own income or the effect of a coming collapse on Jeremy’s estate. Her anxiety grew, for Christian and Gabrielle. Ah, well, she had money, and so she could help them. At this thought there came to her a strange and disquieting stiffening in herself, a resistance, which alarmed her. Father Reynolds had visited her frequently in the hospital after his first visit. He had said to her, “He who does not protect himself, even from his family, has made himself contemptible and a victim. We have no right to tempt others. ‘Thou shalt not tempt.’ That is another of my amendments to the original Ten.” He had smiled, but his eyes had remained grave.

  Preoccupied, Ellen dressed herself for dinner. She did not understand the sharpness of her thoughts, and she waited for the familiar old softening and sense of guilt. They assaulted her, then, oddly enough, they faded away, and she felt a strength in herself, an alertness she had never known before. She smiled a little and thought: Ah, well, one must help one’s family, mustn’t one? To a certain extent—yes. But if I do not care for myself, why should they care for me? If I do not respect myself, how can I expect others to respect me?

  As she dressed she looked at the portrait of Jeremy, and he seemed to be smiling at her, and she smiled in return. The crushing agony of before did not return to her; now she experienced peace and the conviction that Jeremy still loved and cared for her, and that this protection surrounded her as a wall. Above all, his love was her surety, her profound invincibility against all the evils of living.

  She went down to the library for a glass of sherry. Francis was there, gloomily staring at the fire. He was biting his fingernails and restlessly moving in his chair. When he saw Ellen he stood up and looked at her with silent hope. She was surprised that she did not shrink and leave; she found herself even smiling. Francis saw that smile and he forgot all the terrifying things he had heard today, and the fact that suddenly he was not accessible to his “friends.”

  “Ellen?” he said tentatively. She smiled at him again. This was “Mr. Francis,” the friend of her youth, and she felt sorrow that she had misjudged him and driven him away. He was, to her, not her husband, but the guardian of her childhood who had been kind to her and had helped her. She held out her hand to him, and her blue eyes shimmered with light.

  “Will you have dinner with me, Francis?” she asked. “I would be happy if you would.”

  He held her hand. He was afraid to speak for a moment, for he felt a desire to cry. He kissed her hand and said, “Thank you, Ellen, thank you.”

  She sat down near him and accepted a glass of sherry. He could not look away from her; she was so renewed, so alert, so gracious, so the Ellen he had remembered through all the years. She said, “I have just been lis
tening to the radio. It seems something very bad has been happening today, on Wall Street. What does it mean?”

  Francis was beginning to know. He knew it was planned; he had heard it over many years, from his “friends,” but they had been very guarded and noncommittal in his presence. “Changed economy,” they had murmured, “leading to the freedom of the people from the oppression of capitalism, and their exploitation.” He had accepted this as a necessary “social change.” But he himself had been at the Stock Exchange that day, and had seen the terror and disorder of not mere “capitalists” but of “little” people who had invested in the Market in good faith, and under the songs of “permanent prosperity.” He was confused. He had foreseen a “change” which did not beggar the “common people,” or throw them into a desperate panic. He had reviewed his own portfolio. It was very vulnerable. Why had his “friends” not warned him a week ago? Why had these been so busy, in their guarded offices, that they could not spare the time to talk to him and reassure him and explain to him the events of the day? He was terribly frightened.

  They were capitalists themselves, of enormous wealth. Were they feeling threatened as he was feeling threatened at the debacle of today? He had taken their advice over several years, buying what they recommended, and selling at their suggestion. Yet he had seen for himself, today, that his own portfolio had dwindled disastrously in value.

  He said to Ellen, “I don’t know what it means, Ellen. I know no more than does anyone else. I only know something calamitous has happened. But I’ve been hearing of all the huge purchases of stock in an effort to save the Market—It will probably be all right.”

  “I hope so,” said Ellen. He looked at her glass of sherry and said, “Where did you get that, Ellen? You know it is illegal.”

  The old mischievous dimple, lost long ago, suddenly flashed in her cheek. “Oh, Father Reynolds gave it to me. It isn’t sacramental wine; it was from his own cellar, he said.” She sipped at the sherry and her eyes, so newly brilliant and intensely blue, flashed at Francis over the brim of her glass and he could not feel resentful. But he said, “I don’t approve of—religion—Ellen, and particularly not of the Roman kind.”

  She removed the glass from her lips and said with gentleness, “Father Reynolds and Dr. Cosgrove brought me back to life, Francis.

  Whatever Father Reynolds does and says is truth to me. If I hadn’t lost my faith I should not have been so ill, for so long. I—I lived in a wilderness. Now I see the earth and sky again. I am beginning to have hope.”

  He stared at her, and again his eyes moistened. Her voice had moved him more than her words. “Anything that helps you, Ellen, is wonderful for me, too. I can’t tell you—I was in despair. To see you looking as you do now, to see the color in your lips and face—it is like—like seeing life returned to one who was thought dead.”

  In her turn she stared wonderingly at him, and knew for the first time that he loved her, and she was both abashed and filled with sadness, and regret.

  “Thank you, Francis,” she said, “thank you, so much. There isn’t enough love and caring in this world, and they should be cherished.” She added, after a moment, “You know, I never trusted Dr. Lubish and Dr. Enright. There was something—I don’t know what it was, but I was afraid of them. I know you did your best, to engage them for me—”

  He was perplexed, and thought. Then he said, “I didn’t know about them. It was Gabrielle, and Christian, who recommended those doctors to me, Ellen.”

  She looked at him intently. “My children?”

  “Yes. Gabrielle knew his daughter—Dr. Lubish’s daughter—and I went to see him at Gabrielle’s suggestion. Frankly, I didn’t like them much myself. They didn’t help you in the least.”

  But she had paled. “Christian, and Gabrielle?”

  “Yes.” Ellen put down her glass and then gazed at it.

  “They are very reputable men,” said Francis. “I am sure they help many sick people. But they were not for you, it seems.”

  “No. Not for me,” said Ellen slowly. She looked at him and her eyes seemed far away. “I am sure that my children thought they would help me, as you did.”

  “Of course, Ellen.”

  She was thinking of the last months she had been under “treatment,” the increasing nightmares and lethargy, the mounting detachment from life, her suffering, her fear, the harsh accusations, the bewilderment and the anguish, the torment of her dimmed days, the grotesquerie of her daily hallucinations, the lost months of her existence, and, above all, her terrors.

  “What is it, Ellen?” asked Francis.

  “Nothing, really. I was just thinking of the difference between doctors. If I had continued with Dr. Lubish, I think I would have died. I might even have been dead now.”

  “You were very sick, my dear. I was almost out of my mind.”

  She heard the sincerity in his voice and she suddenly thought: Why, poor Mr. Francis! He is really very kind—and simple. It is strange that I never knew that before. How worn he looks, how old, how thin, and dejected. I must be kind to him, in return, and never forget what he once meant to me. She smiled suddenly at him, as at a neglected friend, and her face was translucent. She held out her hand to him and he took it. His own was cold and wet, and she felt a deep compassion for him.

  “How really good you are,” she said with impulsiveness, and she never feared him again, for she saw what he was, a deluded if pompous man, a fanatic, but a pitiable one. She had insights now that she had never possessed before, and was almost overwhelmed with her sadness.

  “I am not very good,” he murmured, and pressed his hand for a moment to his forehead. “Things seem very—peculiar—to me now. I’m shaken. I don’t know what it is all about. I can’t explain, Ellen. I can only say how happy I am that you are home now, and seem your old self.”

  They dined together, with the radio near at hand at Francis’ request. Ellen listened with him. The voices were jubilant. The Market had “sustained a flurry today, but now all was well.” The President had expressed his optimism. “A mere adjustment, temporarily,” he had remarked. “We have reached a permanent prosperity for all Americans. Our country is sound and stable and rich and strong. There is no need for anxiety.”

  “That is good,” said Ellen after the final broadcast was completed. But Francis, to her surprise, only glanced at her somberly. He had never had much appetite. He had barely stirred the food on his plate. They had not told him, he thought. He had not expected “this” to come so soon. He was both afraid and puzzled. But perhaps, after all, it was indeed just a “flurry.” When the Market revived, as it surely must, tomorrow, he would begin to sell his stocks, at least a large part of them. If disaster threatened America, he wanted to be safe from the universal calamity. His friends had not warned him because there was no occasion for warning.

  “I found a letter today, from dear Kitty,” said Ellen. “At home. She had been so ill, you know, and her doctors had ordered her to take a long rest. All her community activities, and social affairs! But she is so lively she forgets that she’s not young any longer. She expects to be back in New York in two days. I’ll be so glad to see her again.”

  Francis turned his bemused face to her. “Kitty? Oh, yes, Kitty.” He thought of her affidavit concerning Ellen. “She was much concerned about you, Ellen, and worried so much about you. But she had to go away, though I know she wanted to remain here and do what she could. It was all very sudden.”

  He was more bemused than ever, remembering the dark and crafty smile on Kitty’s face whenever she mentioned Ellen. He said, and did not know why he said it, “Ellen, perhaps it would be better if you had other friends besides Kitty Wilder. She is too old for you; she is too ‘worldly.’ You aren’t worldly in the least, my dear,” added the man who was not worldly at all and never would be.

  “But I don’t have any other friends,” said Ellen. “I—for years I avoided everybody and wouldn’t see anybody. It isn’t their fault; it is mine.�
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  “Perhaps,” he said. He remembered that Dr. Cosgrove warned him that Ellen must not be disturbed for a considerable period of time, so Francis smiled at his wife and she smiled in return.

  “Before long, I must get in touch with my other friends,” she said. “I must begin to live again.” The deep peace of the last weeks came to her, and a sweetness and a hunger for living, and that odd strength. “All this must have been very hard on my children.”

  Gabrielle and Christian were sitting in the latter’s apartment on East Forty-eighth Street. They had been listening to the radio broadcasts in an almost complete silence. When the last broadcast ended Gabrielle snapped off the radio and said very calmly, “It looks as if you and I are wiped out.”

  Christian said nothing. He was leaning forward in his chair, his clasped fists tight between his knees. His large red head was bright in the lamplight, but his face was tense and the muscles showed visibly.

  “There’s something—something going on I don’t know about,” he said. “My own office was in confusion today; no one worked. I couldn’t find out anything, and that is what frightens me.”

  “But why should it?” He gave her an enigmatic look, then glanced away. “You don’t know what is going on,” he muttered. “I don’t know much, either.”

  “What do you think is ‘going on’?” she demanded, alert.

  But he could not tell her. His face became tighter, and she sensed he was in a cold rage. “They should have told me,” he said at last.