The Eagles Gather

by Taylor Caldwell

  Estelle, severely dressed in dark gray and smelling slightly of the stables, had already guessed that something was “up.” She felt excited, and spots of brighter color roughened her cheekbones. Adelaide sat beside her, and she made unusual gestures of friendship in her direction. Next to Adelaide sat Celeste in a plain dark blue cloth dress with a childish round white collar. What a shame, too, with those eyes and that lovely hair! thought Estelle. And that pure ivory skin! Celeste appeared to be no more than sixteen years old. Dark, thin, knowing Rosemarie next to her, with her sly fluttering eyelashes and streak of red mouth, seemed much older. When Celeste spoke, her voice had a gay freshness about it; when Rosemarie spoke, it was in blasé accents, and in a voice now admiringly called “husky,” though only a few years ago it had been usual with chronic drunkards. Next to her sister sat young Phyllise, a more childish edition, but just as knowing and just as vixenish.

  Francis sat at the head of his table, spare and frigid and sunken-cheeked. He was the only one of the male Bouchards who wore any jewelry: on the ring finger of his right hand a beautiful diamond flashed and winked. Yet, this did not seem ornate on him, as it might have done on another man.

  He was very fond of his daughters, with whom he kept exchanging incomplete and humorous phrases. He was always amused at their flippancy, their impudences, their modern realism. They reminded him, he thought, of little girls dressing in their mother’s garments, though he had to admit that Estelle seemed much less competent and poised and finished. He had an old photograph of his aunt, Renee Bouchard Sessions, and considered that there was quite a resemblance between the dead woman and Rosemarie. There were the same dark eyes and Indian-straight hair and hard boniness of face. But Renee had never worn such an expression as Rosemarie wore.

  Once Jules had said that Adelaide among the Bouchards reminded him of a rabbit among foxes. There was much truth in this. Adelaide, though smiling fixedly, kept moving her head slightly from side to side, her brown eyes distended and uneasy. She laughed when the others laughed; she nodded and smirked on the appropriate occasions. But her heart kept up the old familiar faint trembling against her ribs, and her nostrils continually quivered and drew in. Estelle seemed especially kind tonight, and solicitous. Adelaide found her own hand clumsily dropping silver in consequence. Once her fingers, grasping a goblet, shook so violently that the water splashed on her dress.

  Christopher, as usual, spoke very little. He smiled constantly and faintly, listening. Sometimes his smile was agreeable and acknowledging of some witty remark of Francis’; but most of the time it was secret and inward, as though he heard only the things he was thinking. He had a habit of passing the palms of his small bony hands backward over his hair, like brushes. Adelaide was familiar with this habit; she knew that Christopher was “plotting” again.

  Always she watched him more than she watched anyone else. It was like watching a danger which might not culminate if one’s eyes fixed themselves upon it. Sometimes she would think: he is my son; I carried him in my womb; I conceived him. He is my flesh. And then she would stare at him unbelievingly. Those were not her hands that moved so lightly and effortlessly among silver and crystal or held a cigarette. There was such a sure and cruel aura about them. Jules had once called them surgeon’s hands; he had also remarked that surgeons are sadists who have sublimated their perversion. Christopher, thought Adelaide sadly, had not bothered to sublimate his. Fascinated by him, she watched his motionless “Egyptian” eyes, which never smiled and never revealed anything. When he turned his head the blazing light of the chandelier glittered on his sleek fine brown hair, which always looked so polished, like natural mahogany. His bloodless skin was dry and fine; when he smiled, it stretched and wrinkled like parchment. In company like this, he never said anything that was not tactful or amusing or indifferent or courteous, yet Adelaide always listened with the most painful attention.

  Many, besides Adelaide, had often asked themselves, and others: What does he think of? No one knew, not even Adelaide. But she felt his thoughts. They were like bright steel machinery, flashing and gliding and turning without sound. There was not even the warmth of conscious villainy about them, the hot violence of evil. Had there been villainy or evil, she would not have been so afraid, for she knew that sometimes a wicked man can be made to realize his wickedness, but a soulless man can never acquire a soul, a faithless man, faith.

  After glancing at Christopher, she inevitably glanced at Celeste. She saw her two children frequently smiling at each other, Celeste with devotion and sympathy, and Christopher with affection. When he looked at his sister a curious thing happened to his face. It did not soften nor objectively change, yet there was a subtle light on it, a gentle quickening, an almost imperceptible lifting of malice, a protectiveness. His toneless voice seemed to acquire a faint life when he spoke to her, but only the sharpest ear could detect it.

  In many ways he resembled his dead father, but he had nothing of Jules’ true and delightful humor, his impersonal gaiety or warmth. Jules might indeed have been “the Jesuit.” No one thought of calling Christopher a Jesuit at any time. Jules had sometimes been intrigued and diverted by his own subtle plottings. Christopher plotted, but he was never intrigued. He would have called it. Narcissism, which it probably was. Jules had been conceited, and had admitted it Christopher was not conceited. To him, conceit expressed some inner morbidity, some self-preoccupation, to be found only in men unsure of themselves. When he had been called a Rabelaisian Trappist he had been called so with startling insight.

  Francis had been dilating on the fine qualities of his new yacht, now waiting for him near Southampton. He was an enthusiast, and belonged to the New York Yacht Club. “You ought to get a yacht, Chris,” he said.

  “I don’t like the sea,” replied Christopher. “And I don’t like the yachting crowd.”

  “Oh, my dear, you miss so much!” exclaimed Estelle.

  “There is,” said Christopher, “much that it is pleasant to miss.”

  Rosemarie and Phyllise giggled. They thought their relative “fascinating.” But Estelle was offended.

  “After all,” she said sententiously, “there is something more in the world than work. You never go anywhere, Christopher, except to Long Island in the summer, and to New York for one week in the winter. You must think of Celeste, too, you know. She is a nun, really. Too bad you aren’t Catholics. If you were, I wouldn’t be surprised if you locked her up in some convent.”

  “That wouldn’t be a bad thing at all,” answered Christopher. He smiled at his sister. To his faint surprise, she did not smile back, as usual. Instead, she appeared restless. She was looking at Estelle.

  “I’d like to see the yacht,” she said timidly. “I was on one, once. I like the sea, especially when it is stormy. It— it seems so free, as if it is running. Usually it is so calm in the summer.”

  Estelle smiled at her maternally. “My dear, we don’t like to go out when it is storming. I can’t say I enjoy being thrown from side to side. But it is really beautiful when it is calm—” She frowned swiftly at her two children, who were silently convulsed by Celeste’s naïve remarks.

  Celeste saw their merriment; she flushed. She lifted her head and said clearly and simply: “I am so tired of calm things. I should like things to be stormy. Like the sea in the winter. Alive, making sound, running back and forth—-living. Even terrifying.” She drew in her breath, and her lips parted. For a moment there was a wild and desperate glimmer in her eyes. Christopher put down his glass slowly and carefully. He said nothing; he did not move. But he saw nothing but his sister.

  Hugo’s eyelids crinkled shrewdly. He looked from the girl to her brother, Christopher; he drew in his chin as though swallowing a morsel he appreciated. Emile, who was usually bored by the girl, seemed interested, and his wife regarded her with a bland and cunning expression.

  “I’m taking Lief Ericson to Canada this summer, Celeste,” said Emile. “You’d see enough stormy ocean up along the
coast there, I assure you. And feel it, too, in the pit of your stomach. How about you and Mother coming with us?”

  Celeste shone. “That would be wonderful! Mama, would you like that?”

  Adelaide had paled. That yacht, with Agnes and her friends on board! But she would be there, to protect Celeste, and there would be the ocean, and Quebec and Montreal— She said, her voice shaking: “I think it would be nice.”

  Christopher said coolly: “That is impossible. We have already extended invitations to a number of people to visit us at Crissons this summer. You know that, Celeste. And you, too, Mother.”

  Celeste sank in her chair. But Adelaide looked at her son with new courage.

  “We can easily withdraw the invitations, Christopher.”

  “That is impossible,” he repeated, without emphasis.

  There was a small but poignant silence about the table.

  Adelaide’s face wearily darkened.

  “However,” Christopher went on, “you may go, yourself, Mother, I think it would do you good. You are looking tired. But Celeste must stay with me and receive our invited guests.”

  Agnes bridled, tossed Christopher a bold look from her big black eyes.

  “What’s the matter, Chris? Do you think we’d pollute Celeste?”

  A burning scarlet ran over Celeste’s cheeks. The other girls tittered; one of them eyed Celeste malevolently, and with ridicule.

  Christopher smiled. “Yes, Agnes, frankly I do.”

  Emile scowled, then remembering, grinned. But Agnes laughed heartily. Estelle did not laugh. She regarded Christopher with anger.

  “I am sure that I, and Rosemarie and Phyllise, would not pollute Celeste, Christopher.” Her voice was filled with scorn, both for him and for his sister.

  Celeste uttered a small cry of utter shame and humiliation. The girls stared at her with delight. Adelaide, under cover of the tablecloth, reached for the girl’s trembling hand, and was shocked and astounded at the fierce gesture with which Celeste repudiated her touch.

  “Christopher,” said Celeste in a faint but steadfast voice, “you are making a fool of me.”

  He raised his eyebrows helplessly at her. “Am I, Celeste? I don’t think so. But if you think so, I’m sorry. I had no such intention.”

  The other girls laughed openly. Celeste was silent. Her breast rose and fell. Tears stood in her eyes, tears of mortification.

  Estelle felt pity for her. She said kindly: “Don’t be so sensitive, dear. You know how Christopher teases. Perhaps he will change his mind, after all, about your going with us and Rosemarie and Phyllise. Or with Emile and Agnes.”

  Christopher interrupted. “Celeste isn’t a child. Perhaps I had forgotten. Perhaps I had thought she realized her social obligations to those we have invited to Crissons. Perhaps I believed that she knew invitations once extended are not to be withdrawn except in extreme cases. It seems I was wrong. She is a young woman, now, and her own mistress. If she wishes to go with you, Estelle, or with you, Agnes, I am sure I shall offer no objections, now.”

  “That is splendid, then!” exclaimed Estelle. She reached over and patted Celeste’s cold little hand, which lay on the table. “I shall make you a list of the required clothing, my dear. I am sure you are going to enjoy yourself so much this summer.”

  But Celeste looked at Christopher. He avoided her gaze. He allowed the butler to refill his glass, and then sipped at it appreciatively. Adelaide clenched her hands together under the tablecloth. She prayed silently to her daughter: Darling, look at me! Don’t look at him! You can escape now. I will help you escape!

  But Celeste continued to gaze at her brother. A tremor like rippling water ran over her features.

  “Christopher, will you mind terribly?”

  He put down his glass, smiled slightly. “Does it matter so much, Celeste, if I mind or not?”

  Darling, look at me! cried Adelaide silently. Celeste did not see her.

  “And what will you do, Christopher, if I go?”

  He shrugged. “Go to Crissons, myself, of course. It will be awkward, sometimes, but I shall manage, I am sure.”

  Do not look at him like that, my darling! cried Adelaide with all the desperate power of her soul. You have not wanted to escape before. If you do not escape now, you may never be free.

  Celeste was silent. Then she sighed deeply. Everyone watched, with more or less malice and interest, this old, old struggle between Adelaide and Christopher for this girl. When they heard Celeste’s sigh, and saw how all the light had gone from her face, they knew that Christopher had won again.

  Celeste spoke faintly but steadfastiy:

  “Of course, Christopher, if you think you ought to go to Crissons, I’ll go, too. You can’t go alone.”

  Christopher flashed a humorous glance about the table, which stopped at his sister’s chin, and not her eyes.

  “Now, why can’t I go alone? After all, Celeste, I am of age. I shall be quite comfortable, and quite safe.”

  They all laughed, except Adelaide and Celeste. The girl continued to regard him fixedly. Her lower lip trembled.

  “No,” she said. “I’ll go with you.”

  He raised his small bloodless hand protestingly, and again flashed that humorous glance at the smiling others.

  “No, no. No, indeed. The more I think of the prospect down there alone, the more it appeals to me. I think I should enjoy myself without a chaperone.” He smiled at Rosemarie and Phyllise. “Or, how about you two girls?”

  They shrieked with mirth. Rosemarie was smoking a cigarette, in spite of the frowns of her parents. She blew a deliberate cloud at Christopher. “Never mind Phyllise!” she cried. “Take me alone, Christopher,” and she languished at him insolently.

  Celeste’s small face had tightened and whitened with something close to anger and disgust. Adelaide, the old impotence creeping over her, could do nothing. Her head was bent. She hardly seemed to breathe. Estelle caught the expression on Celeste’s face, and the dinner being concluded now, she rose and said casually: “Shall we go?”

  She and her daughters, Celeste, Adelaide, old Ann Bouchard and Agnes, went into the great drawing-room, where a dull log fire, in spite of the warmness of the evening, was smoldering on the flagged hearth. Phyllise, with the arrogant bad manners of her generation, went immediately to the immense grand piano and began to pound popular music on it. The raucous discord, insistent and vulgar, filled the room. Her grandmother, after the first wincing, began to smile with false enjoyment. She tapped her old foot, painfully squeezed into four-inch-heeled slippers; she tapped the arm of her chair with her knotty and mottled fingers. She kept nodding her marcelled head, and her rouged, seamed cheeks quivered. From under their greased and tinted lids, so wrinkled and sagging, her fagged old eyes blinked, struggling against sleepiness and the desire for quiet. She was proud of her “slim” figure; her neck and chest were mottled and rough and discolored, and her withered breast hung lifeless under the black satin. Adelaide, filled with her own private hopelessness, yet could feel compassion for this old woman. When old Ann began to hum an accompaniment to the loathesome noise, with such a pathetic attempt at young sprightliness and knowing gaiety, Adelaide thought this the saddest of all.

  It was even sadder than Celeste, silent and pale, sitting near a widow where she could look out at the dark and blessed night.

  Rosemarie stood idly by the piano as her sister played, smoking with ostentatiously blasé gestures. She lifted her reedy and metallic voice and sang. Her flat immature figure was completely without distinction. Her long legs, in their gauzy pink silk stockings, splayed out from under the full short skirt. One long lock of her lusterless Indian-black hair fell over her dark bony cheeks, and her eyes raked the others in the room with an obscene insolence.

  Estelle was feeling irritable. She was sorry for Celeste, and this made her uncomfortable and impatient. She could see the girl’s cheek and profile; she had always thought Celeste vapid and weak, but now she was struck
by the pure strong modelling of that young profile. If Celeste allowed herself to be dominated by Christopher, it was from choice, and not from weakness.

  Estelle was altruistically alarmed. This was very bad, indeed! People like Celeste were always being exploited by the cunning and selfish. They were victimized not through their own weakness, but through their integrity and love and selflessness. This was very bad, indeed! But who could help this girl? That weak bending old fool, Adelaide, who did not have the courage of a grasshopper?

  Made more and more irritable by her reflections, Estelle became aware of the horrible noise her offspring were creating. She was used to this noise. She thought it an indication of high spirits, which should not be “suppressed,” for fear of complexes and inhibitions. But now she could not endure it.

  “For heavens sake, Rosemarie! Whoever told you you could sing! And Phyllise: you are being very rude. We can’t hear ourselves talk.”

  Rosemarie said aloud: “That’s probably just as well,” and went on shrilling louder than ever. Old Ann nodded, smiling her fixed bemused smile, and tapped more feverishly than ever. Agnes shrugged and laughed. “Let the brat alone, Estelle. You were young once, yourself.”

  But Estelle was fully aroused. Her face flushed with bad temper until it was crimson. “Perhaps I was young, but I was never a nuisance. Rosemarie, stop it at once! And you too, Phyllise.” Just at present she did not care whether her daughters developed Freudian complexes or not. In fact, she earnestly desired them to have a few violent inhibitions which would make them “stonily silent.” She thought emotionally of the many sharp slaps she had received from her father in her own girlhood, and wondered if she had appreciated him enough. But Francis would be infuriated if she slapped his darlings.