Ceremony of the Innocent

by Taylor Caldwell

  “I don’t know what you are talking about, Chris. The only thing I do know is that as of now we are practically beggars. That is, we will be if the Market collapses, in spite of all that tremendous buying.”

  Now they contemplated each other for a considerable space. Then Gabrielle said, in a gentle matter-of-fact voice, “If only she had died. If only she was dead.”

  “Yes,” he replied. “The estate of my father is sound. If only she was dead. Why didn’t she die?”

  Gabrielle gave a short and ugly laugh. “Well, we tried hard enough. If it hadn’t been for that damned Charlie Godfrey—She’d have been dead now, and we wouldn’t be here chewing our hearts out.”

  Her brother considered her. “We’ll find a way, after all, Gaby. We’ll find a way.” He stood up and kissed her, and she clung to him. For the first time since she was a child she cried. “It’s unfair, unfair!” she exclaimed.

  C H A P T E R 42

  IT WAS NOT A SURPRISE TO Charles Godfrey when on the following Tuesday, October 29, the Market truly collapsed, and the bankers made no effort to save it.

  The newspapers called the situation “a financial nightmare, comparable to nothing ever experienced before on Wall Street.” Still, the next day America took some hope from the fact that John D. Rockefeller had just said, “Believing the fundamental conditions of the country are still sound, my son and I, for some days, have been buying sound common stocks.” The calamity seemed halted for two days; prices did improve in a slight measure. Then the Stock Exchange governors declared a two-day holiday. For some reason this was regarded as “good” by the country, in spite of the past huge sales.

  Francis Porter could not remain in his office. He haunted Wall Street, among throngs of others. He still could not consult his “friends.” They were all too busy. His only comfort now was that Ellen always greeted him with affection when he returned home, and that she was daily improving. They had contented hours together, while Ellen read a book and Francis studied the black headlines in the newspapers, and tried to hope. He would surely have known, wouldn’t he, if “the day” had arrived? He would have been given warning months ago. He had even tried to discover if Christian “knew anything.” Then he finally understood that Christian had no more information than he did himself. So—the day had not yet “arrived.”

  Gabrielle and Christian called once on their mother, hating her for her miraculously recovered health and appearance, her tender smiles, her solicitude for them. They gave her loving smiles in return, kissed her, and plotted. They were the first to visit Kitty Wilder on her return home. She looked wizened and fleshless, as tight and hard and gnarled as a wintry twig, but her huge white teeth glittered as ever on her dark face with the furrowed wrinkles.

  “I had such a marvelous time in London and Paris and Rome, my dears! Such fun on the ships, too. And I’ve bought such clothes in Paris! Fantastic. We are out of style in America, Gaby, really provincial.” She paused. “And how is your mother, my sweets?” Her face took on a sad expression.

  “She looks,” said Gabrielle, “twenty years younger. And healthy. And blooming. I’d like to know,” she added with bitterness, “what that doctor is giving her. I could use it myself, these days.”

  Kitty’s frenetic face expressed her disappointment. “Well, isn’t that good news!” she said with enthusiasm. “I must really see her in a day or two, when all my trunks are unpacked, and I am settled.” Her eyes narrowed on the two. “She isn’t going to be institutionalized after all?”

  “No. She’s still under Cosgrove’s care,” said Christian. “And he and that priest—and that infernal Francis, too—guard her like lions.”

  “Ah,” said Kitty thoughtfully. She said, “Well, we mustn’t lose hope that she will recover, must we?”

  They all exchanged significant looks, then the brother and sister smiled. “We are,” said Christian, “relying on you, Aunt Kitty, to complete the—improvement.”

  They settled down to a discussion concerning the Stock Market. Kitty was optimistic, for in the last years she had bought only blue-chip stocks and sound bonds. “Never fear,” she said, “that things are in a terrible state. They aren’t. It is a passing thing; panics usually follow big booms, and then it all calms down and prices start to rise again.”

  As promised, she visited Ellen within two days, and Ellen greeted her with love and happiness. She led Kitty into the library for tea and chattered like a young girl. Kitty sat down, and contemplated Ellen and made her face anxious and somber.

  “Ellen, dear, I thought to find you much improved. But how thin you are! How pale, how haggard!” She stared at Ellen’s fresh cheeks and shook her head. “Do you really feel quite well? You seem very nervous, and upset. Perhaps it would have been so much better for you to have been institutionalized than to have been in that gloomy hospital.”

  “Institutionalized?” asked Ellen. Now she lost her color. “What do you mean by that, Kitty? Whoever talked of such a thing? That’s for mad people, isn’t it?”

  Kitty saw that she had made a serious blunder. But she was quick. “Well, dear, there was some talk of a sanitarium, where you could rest in cheerful surroundings, like a home, instead of a hospital.”

  “Who thought of that, Kitty?”

  Kitty shrugged. “Dear me, I can’t remember. It was quite a long time ago. And sanitariums aren’t just for ‘mad’ people, dear. They are for people in distress, too, who need peace and quiet for some time. You are behind the times, Ellen.”

  Ellen silently poured tea. Kitty could not read “that stupid cowgirl face.”

  “How poor Francis and your poor children suffered, Ellen! It was tragic to see them. They became almost as sick as you were. Tragic.”

  Ellen’s expression changed, became soft and tender again. “I know. Gabrielle just cried, and I thought Christian would cry, too. And Francis—he and I are good friends now. He is often a comfort to me, when I am feeling lonely.” She smiled. “He is taking me to the theater next week, something lively, he says, to cheer me up. Ziegfeld Follies, I think. I have been away so long—”

  “Francis? Ziegfeld Follies?” Kitty was momentarily diverted. “What a strange combination.”

  “Yes, isn’t it? But he is determined to do all he can for me.”

  Kitty sipped her tea. She looked at Ellen’s highly complimentary dark-blue dress with its bodice of silvery beads. It clung to her beautiful figure and heightened the color of her eyes and her brightening hair.

  “Ellen, dear, who on earth bought that frock for you? So out-of-date, and too young for you and too gaudy, for someone who has lost all her color—and youth. Really.”

  “Gabrielle chose it for me She has excellent taste, Kitty,” Ellen protested.

  “Did she? I am surprised at Gaby. Really. Of course, the young never do seem to know what is appropriate for their elders.”

  Now Ellen widely smiled. For the first time in her life she spoke with something approximately like gentle malice. “I’m not that old, Kitty. I’m not quite forty-four yet; I won’t be until January. And I am a lot younger than you, too.”

  Kitty felt a vicious spasm in herself. “Really? I thought you were near my age, dearest. What year were you born?”

  “January 4, 1886.”

  Ellen was looking at her with a steadfast smile, and Kitty thought: I always thought you were sly and foxy, you housemaid, and now I am sure of it. First poor Jeremy, and now poor Francis, and from what I’ve heard they weren’t the only ones, either. What the poor devils saw in you is beyond me. She said, with lightness, “Well, age is only numbers, isn’t it? It is how you feel—”

  “I feel eighteen again,” said Ellen. She was astonished at herself. Poor Kitty was only trying to be kind, yet she, Ellen, felt no guilt at all, or very little, for her own repartee. Still, she said placatingly, “Do have one of these hot biscuits, Kitty; they are filled with raspberry jam, your favorite. What gloomy weather we are having, aren’t we? So chilly and dark and g
ray, and now all this financial fear and confusion. Of course, I have missed a lot that was going on the past year, and I am trying to catch up. If Jeremy were here he could explain it to me.”

  “Oh, I am sure he could.” Kitty paused. “He would also be worried about his children. Gabrielle and Christian are sparing you, of course, but they are terribly worried. The stocks left to them by their grandparents are worth almost nothing now. I am distressed for them.”

  Ellen became serious. “I know nothing about these things, I am sorry to say. Surely, they are not in difficulties?”

  “You must ask them yourself, when you are feeling better—much better than you are feeling now. After all, you must not be disturbed for a long time.”

  Ellen had felt new life springing in her before Kitty’s visit, but now, all at once, she felt drained and tired and agitated. She bent her head and thought. She would have to ask her children; she would have to find a way to help them. However, she could not force herself to believe that they were in very great difficulties; they would surely have told her. But how thoughtful it was of them not to bother her just now.

  She said, as if speaking to herself, “If Jeremy were here I would be afraid of nothing. Nothing. Neither for myself nor for my children. Still, I am not really afraid, for you see, Kitty, I feel he is here with me always; I feel he will never stop loving me, and loves me still. That is my—harbor,” and she smiled a little. “My shelter. Knowing of Jeremy’s love keeps me alive, keeps me hopeful, for his sake.”

  She wondered at the sudden intense silence which fell between her and Kitty, and wondered even more at Kitty’s curious expression, almost of exultation. Then she saw fully, for the first time, that Kitty was very plain, even ugly, and that there was something malign glittering in her eyes and on her teeth.

  Kitty said, and she lifted a cautioning finger like a dried stick, “Ellen, dear, you must be careful. I do hope you aren’t having more hallucinations about poor Jeremy, poor dead Jeremy, being still ‘alive.’ What would your doctor think? He would pack you right back to the hospital.”

  But Ellen’s face had regained its tranquillity. “No, he wouldn’t. He was the one who assured me, with Father Reynolds, that Jeremy still lives and loves me.”

  “What absurdity, Ellen dear!”

  Ellen shook her head. “No, it is the real verity, the one thing that is certain. Love does not die; it does not betray; it is immortal.”

  Again that intense silence suddenly filled the room like a malevolent presence. Kitty began to lick the corner of her lip. Her eyes, fixed on Ellen, were too vivid. She was elated. But she would have to think this over. The possibilities were tremendous, almost insanely exciting.

  Francis came into the library, and he looked like a tall gray ghost in the twilight. He was startled to see Kitty, and greeted her with a new cold formality; then he studied Ellen with a touching earnestness. “How are you, my dear?” he asked, hesitated, then bent and kissed her cheek. She patted his hand lightly and said, “I am splendid, Francis. Will you have some tea?”

  He glanced at Kitty and then he could not endure her presence. He said, seeing that she was watching him with a queer intentness, “I’m afraid not, my dear. I must go out again; I have an appointment. But I will be here for dinner. However, tomorrow, I am going to Washington. A client of mine is in some trouble.”

  When Kitty left, a few moments later, he said to Ellen, “Ellen, there’s something about Kitty which I never knew before. I don’t think she is good for you.”

  Ellen gazed at him uneasily, remembering her new responses to Kitty. She said, “I can’t think what you mean, Francis. She’s always been so kind to me, so thoughtful—”

  He recalled Kitty’s affidavit, and he knew now that Kitty had never had any affection for his wife but only envy and malice. She had always hated Ellen—Francis thought, with an insight alien to him. Still, he was a gentleman, and as such he could not speak meanly of a lady, especially one of Kitty’s impressive background. So he said, “Perhaps you need younger friends, Ellen, those nearer your own age and temperament. All the people you ever knew through Jeremy were much older than yourself, as was Jerry—and I.”

  He wondered why Ellen smiled so widely as she said, “Age is only numbers, isn’t it?” But he rejoiced at the deep dimple coming in and out of her cheek, and he knew, as he had always known, that she was the only thing in his life that mattered, and the only thing he had ever deeply and tenderly loved.

  Now he sat down and accepted a cup of tea from Ellen, after glancing briefly at his watch. He said, “I haven’t seen that dress before, Ellen. I must admit that Maude Godfrey has good taste; it is so becoming.”

  “Maude? Maude Godfrey? Are you certain?” Ellen was disconcerted. “I thought it was Gabrielle—all my new clothes.”

  Francis frowned. “Did Gabrielle tell you that? No? You just jumped to conclusions, Ellen,” and his voice took on a tinge of its old severity. “A bad habit of yours, I am sorry to say. I don’t care much for Maude Godfrey, or her husband. But they were very considerate. Maude redecorated this house—and a pretty penny it cost, too—and discharged your domestics, who were of doubtful character, I later discovered. I thought you knew.”

  “No, I didn’t.” Now real free guilt came to Ellen. “How kind of Maude. I haven’t seen her since I came home, of course, but she never said a word in the notes she would write to me at the hospital, and neither did Charles. How I misunderstand people! I’m really sorry. I must call her tomorrow, and thank her.”

  “She and Charles also sent you all these plants, and a lot of flowers to the hospital. You honestly didn’t know?”

  “No.” Ellen was close to tears. “Now, we mustn’t be unjust to Gabrielle. She never even implied she bought my clothes and rearranged my house, and did all of the other considerate things. I just—jumped to conclusions. I am sure, though, that if Maude hadn’t done all that, Gabrielle would have.”

  Would she? thought Francis. But he said, “Of course. Now, I must go for an hour or two. I will return in time for dinner. Rest in the meantime.”

  When Francis had left her she telephoned the Godfrey house, only to be told that Mr. Godfrey and his family were in Boston visiting his relatives, and would not be home for another two weeks. Ellen was both disappointed and relieved. She would write Maude and thank her, instead of speaking to her directly. She still could not like Maude, and now a faint resentment came to her that Maude had put her under obligation. And a fresh surge of guilt for feeling that resentment. But this was an entirely different guilt from that which she had known most of her life. It was a refreshing clean one, authentic, and so healthy and natural.

  She went upstairs to her rooms. Miss Hendricks was rocking and knitting in her own bedroom. She stood up when Ellen appeared on the threshold. “Are we dressing for dinner, Mrs. Porter?” Then she saw Ellen’s face. She said, “My, we look cross! Is there something the matter?”

  “I’m annoyed with myself,” said Ellen. Then, to her own astonishment, she laughed a little and she looked like a girl. “Did you ever feel like kicking yourself, Miss Hendricks?”

  “Regularly,” replied the nurse, delighted by the mischief on Ellen’s mouth. “It’s good for the soul—kicking yourself. That is, if you deserve it.”

  “Oh, this time I do,” said Ellen. She listened to the small radio; it was spurting with “good news.” Ellen was deeply relieved. Nothing serious had happened to her children’s fortune. They would have told her.

  “I have the most wonderful idea, dears,” said Kitty to Gabrielle and Christian the next day as they sat in her sitting room and drank cocktails. Her eyes were vivid with glee and spite. “It is so wonderful that I must think it all out clearly before I tell you about it.”

  “What is the idea?” asked Christian, with no hope. “Does it concern our money?”

  “Yes. And something much more important, much more. But let me plan it all.”

  “If there was just some way to get
rid of her,” said Gabrielle.

  “Honestly, I can’t stand visiting her, in that house. I hate that house; I hate everything about it. It is like a nightmare. But I force myself to visit dear Mama, much as I detest it.”

  “She does look well,” said Kitty, always vindictive and happy to stir up the gall in her visitors. “I was quite surprised.”

  The next day Father Reynolds visited Ellen, for tea, and she took his hand as she would have taken the hand of a beloved father. “How well you look, Ellen,” he said. “I hope you are following all the instructions of Dr. Cosgrove.”

  “I feel so well, Father,” she said. “And so hopeful. I don’t really know what I am hoping for—but it gives me joy. I am so expectant, too.”

  He sat down near the fire, and his long tired face was sweet with affection. He felt the new vibrancy in Ellen, the new awareness.

  “To be expectant is to remain young,” he said. “You are never old when you can feel that something joyous may be, will be, coming to you soon, even if you don’t clearly know what it is.”

  He accepted a little cake, with pleasure. Then he was grave. “These are terrifying days for America. But Americans are resilient. They have passed through crises before, even when they thought it was the absolute end of their world. Still, I can’t remember—and I am an old man—when I have seen such despair, such frantic despair. They say this is the aftermath of the war; I think, though, it is something else.”

  “So did Jeremy, a long time ago,” said Ellen. “I wish I had listened more to what he said then.”

  The priest shook his head. “I hate to be sententious,” he said, “but it is a habit with me now, being a priest, I suppose. I always say, ‘While there’s life there’s hope,’ and often it is true. If a cliche. And sometimes it is stupid to say that. I feel calamity in the air—and it doesn’t mean just this collapse of the Market. I feel, in some way, that this is the end of an era, for America, and—perhaps it is because I am old—I feel the new era will be terrible.”