The Wide House

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  However, the fact remained that the people were more concerned with their sufferings and the frightful winter than they were with the issues of a gigantic and bloody struggle.” The winter had come early. October saw the first bitter drifts of snow, the first wild gales from the Lakes, the first dark shadow over the land. By December the city was snowbound, a quaking cemetery under white dunes and hillocks, under air as sharp as the crack of a whip, under winds that shook chimneys, snapped off trees, and heaped the streets with impassable drifts. Huge and blazing stars crackled in black skies, but the sun was not seen in the day except for fleeting instants when it exploded through layers of thick gray clouds and flooded the snow with brilliant, strong blue light, its fierce shadows lying in the hollows of dunes and fanged ridges.

  Even the houses along Main Street, Delaware Avenue, Franklin Street, Porter Avenue and Richmond, were cold. Only one room was heated, and here the families gathered, shivering, miserable and speechless with fear. As for the poor, they sat about the kitchen stove, and when that, cooled, they crept, shivering, to bed.

  Joshua Allstairs had sufficient coal. His hearth was a fiery blaze of warmth and comfort. He reflected on the state of his cellar, where over ten tons reposed snugly. Quite enough for the winter. Even for next winter, if necessary. There was a fire in his bedroom, too. As for the servants, they were graciously permitted to fill warming pans from his wide hearth and carry them to their frozen bedrooms. One did not quarrel with servants, these days. There was a dangerous ferment in the air, to which Joshua was not insensible.

  His old arm was slow in healing. He still carried it in a black silk sling. A permanent palsy had come to him, also, so that his huge gray-white head nodded in a constant, gentle rhythm. He had never quite recovered from the horror and terror of the night when Stuart had come to hunt him to his death. One side of his face was fixed in a petrified grimace, and, as if to compensate for this, the other side was more malignant and terrible in its expression than ever.

  He smiled benevolently on his visitor. But that visitor, who rarely saw others objectively, or even subjectively, was not insensible to the terrifying look of his host. He wondered, faintly, how such an old man, poised on the very brink of death, could retain such an avid hatred, such a sleepless malevolence.

  But that was not his concern. He even respected Joshua for his vitality. His own vitality, never very positive, was always cold and tired these days. The pain in his head was almost constant. At intervals he quietly munched lozenges which had been recommended to him “for their soothing comfort and alleviation of the nervous system.” They were intended to be soporific. They only dimmed his own grinding pain, however, so that he could allow his mental faculties to emerge briefly. In these interludes, he felt his mind like a quivering bared knife, with light glimmering along its edge. He could actually see that knife. When the vision became too keen, he would munch another lozenge, chewing rapidly, with a kind of terror.

  Joshua was speaking, in a soft and affectionate purr: “So, here we have everything before us, my dear Angus. Our dear friend, Stuart, owns fifty-five percent of the stock in the shops now, thanks to the Jew who left him half of his own forty percent. Thanks to the Jew, also, that abominable priest owns twenty percent. As matters now stand, all the stock is worthless. Even, unfortunately, your own, or rather your mother’s, twenty-five percent. I commiserate with you on that, with all my heart, my boy.

  “We now know that Stuart’s personal debts amount to twenty thousand dollars, in personal notes which he gave to New York and Chicago banks—money squandered on—er—reprehensible females, jewelry, objets d’art, his house, and his extravagant ways of living beyond his means.”

  As Joshua struck each of the bony fingers of his left hand with his right index finger, there was a thin cracking sound. Angus shivered. But his face did not change.

  “Your affectionate and astute father-in-law, Mr. Schnitzel,” resumed Joshua fondly, “has lent you the money to buy up those personal notes in the amount of twenty thousand dollars. He has also bought the mortgage on Stuart’s house, and presented it to you. Stuart knows nothing of all this as yet. Am I correct?”

  “You are correct, Mr. Allstairs,” said Angus politely, in his neutral and echoless voice. He touched his forehead briefly, found it damp, shook out the immaculate folds of a kerchief, and wiped away the dampness. He replaced the kerchief with precise and quiet motions.

  “I congratulate you, Angus, on the kindness of Mr. Schnitzel. Mr. Schnitzel has also demonstrated a shrewd faith in you.

  “Let us continue. The shops will go into bankruptcy. Not only will Stuart’s interest in them be worthless, but yours, also. You know that.

  “And now, here is my offer: I will advance you the money to settle with your debtors, or, rather, Stuart’s debtors—the merchants, manufacturers and importers—for fifty cents on the dollar. In return, I shall enter into partnership with you. The war cannot last much longer. As your silent partner, I shall take no active part in the operation of the shops. You will be sole manager, at a salary, or a profit, to be amicably settled between us. My only stipulation, of course, will be that you force Stuart Coleman out of the shops, entirely. You own his personal notes; you own the mortgage on his house. You will have no difficulty at all, my dear boy!”

  He leaned back in his chair, and smiled angelically. Angus looked at him, and winced inwardly. The young man’s face was as cold and fixed as if it had lain under the snow for weeks.

  Angus shook his head. He said: “I am sorry, Mr. Allstairs, but I have not planned it that way. Do not think I am insensible to your kindness. I am not. I marvel, indeed, at your generosity. But it cannot be that way. However, I have a counter offer.”

  Joshua’s face wrinkled viciously. He sucked in his lips. He clutched the head of his cane. But he said, mildly enough: “Well, then, I am a reasonable man. Make me your offer.”

  Angus was silent. His forehead was puckered. He looked at the fire in a long meditation. Then he began to speak quietly, as if thinking aloud:

  “I have a deep attachment to the shops, Mr. Allstairs. I might even say, a profound attachment. They are my whole life. I know nothing else. I have dreamed, for years, of owning them entirely. I want no partners, not even a silent partner. The shops must be entirely in my own hands. I have worked to that end for years.”

  Joshua, who in the beginning had listened with impatience, now listened intently. Respect glimmered in his vulture’s eyes. He rested his chin on the head of his cane and fastened his gaze unblinkingly on Angus’ face. He nodded tremulously. Why, he reflected, there was even a dim passion in that dead voice! A tremble, a movement, as of life.

  “Mr. Schnitzel,” continued Angus, “is more than—kind, sir. He is overwhelmingly magnanimous. He has offered to back me in any sum. However, he too has suffered from this war, and the twenty thousand dollars he has lent me to buy up Stuart’s notes—in order that Stuart can be forced from the shops—is all he can spare me just now.

  “Suppose, Mr. Allstairs, that you decide to proceed on your own, and foreclose on the shops. You will get nothing but debts. There will not even be a manager. The Merchants’ Committee, newly formed in New York to conclude the business of the shops, will take everything. How much do the shops owe you, Mr. Allstairs? Eighteen thousand dollars? You will lose that entirely, sir.

  “But suppose, on the other hand, that you take my own personal notes, after I have disposed of Stuart, to be amortized during a reasonable period of time from the profits of the shops—say at an interest of eight percent, which is practically illegal.” The young man allowed himself a bleak smile. “As you have said, the war cannot last much longer. Then, with cash in hand, I can restock the shops now, from merchants in New York and Chicago. I can have the shops on a flourishing basis, in spite of the war, within six months. I will draw nothing for personal expenses from them, until prosperity returns.

  “I think, with your monetary aid, that I can settle with the Merchan
ts’ Committee for fifty cents on the dollar. I have sounded them out, discreetly, and they are giving the matter consideration. They must. Otherwise, they will lose everything. They know that if they sell at auction what stock there is on hand, they will get much less in that event of total liquidation, probably not more than five cents on the dollar. I think they will listen very closely, yes, indeed.”

  Joshua said nothing. But his head was nodding excitedly.

  Angus continued unemotionally: “I will reorganize the business entirely. I will call it Cauder & Company. I will be sole owner. Perhaps this is an obsession with me. But I know I must have it that way.

  “You have the figures. You know that the shops owe seventy-five thousand dollars to the banks and merchants, the wholesalers, manufacturers and importers. You know what I need. I have outlined my plans to you. It is entirely in your hands, now, to decide what can be done.”

  There was a long silence in the dark and desolate room. But the fire was a blaze of scarlet on the hearth. Joshua crouched in his chair, licking his lips, his mesmerizing regard fixed on the younger man.

  Then his tremulous hand reached out for the bell-rope. “Shall we have a little tea, eh? A little light refreshment, perhaps?”

  Angus nodded. Then he said, firmly: “There is another thing which I must discuss with you. I ask you to listen reasonably, sir. I think, too, in a way, that it will please you, when you consider it.” He smiled again, and that smile was like cold moonlight on snow, yet without malignance.

  “I need a manager. I shall offer Stuart the position of manager in the shops at a salary, say, of three hundred dollars a month. After all, he is my kinsman. He will receive no other remuneration, however. He cannot refuse. If he does, he will be penniless. I feel it is my duty to offer this, even my religious and Christian duty. Of course, if he does refuse, then I am absolved from any further effort in his behalf.”

  Joshua’s face darkened, lightened, blazed, twisted with evil, as all the potentialities of Angus’ words rushed through his mind. He leaned forward, hardly breathing, watching the younger man. He began to chuckle. “Ah,” he said, “how have the mighty fallen! What an end! What justice! What retribution! Please me? My dear Angus, this is the final delicate touch, the final revenge, the final righteousness! Please me! Ah, if I could only be present when you make him that offer, which he cannot refuse! It would be a justification of my long suffering at the hands of that blackguard, the very vengeance of God!”

  Angus stiffened. He sat even straighter, and thinner, in his chair. Again, he touched his forehead with his lean fingers, and his eyes closed on a spasm of pain. He said quietly: “I cannot agree with any of that, sir. I am an honest man. I believe in justice, and I believe I am being just with Stuart. The shops have been his; he has loved them, been proud of them, lived for them. They are his monument. What I have to offer him—what I must offer him in all Christian compassion and mercy—he cannot refuse. Otherwise, he will see his shops collapse about him, himself reduced to penury, his house lost forever. He will remember the shops—and his house. He will remember, too, how he has neglected the shops, ignored the bills and the duns. I know that he has done this out of fear, out of a craven reluctance to face consequences and grapple with reality. His motto has always been ‘sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’ But he has refused to see that the day of evil always arrives. As for his prodigalities, his sins, his excesses, his follies and his dishonesties, I leave them to the final judgment of God.”

  CHAPTER 69

  Father Houlihan could not sleep. He could hear the hissing of the snow against his window. He could hear the snoring of Mr. Walsh, stretched across his doorway. He could hear the dolorous howling of the wind, the rattling of the windowpanes. Trees cracked in the iron frost of the winter. Life had retreated from the world.

  There was a long sickness of the soul in the priest. He could not even pray. It was as if his very spirit were enclosed in ice, lying at the bottom of a dark crevice in some glacier. His loneliness, his desolation, were unendurable. A dozen times he rose, knelt before his crucifix. But he had no words. The lips of his soul were numb. He could not weep; he could not even think. He felt himself alone in a universe of evil; he felt the winds of black and endless space roaring over him.

  He had been suffering like this for several days, and had avoided even Stuart. The disease which afflicted him was nameless. He knew only that he wished for death, as he had never wished it before in his long life. There were no words for his malady.

  He was filled with fear and dread and hopelessness. He saw the candle on his table throw wan streamers of pale light on the crucifix. He lay rigid in his narrow bed, cold as death, despite the heaped blankets and quilts. But there was a hot coal in his brain, throbbing, blackening, scarring.

  He was not given to self-analysis. He could not trace the beginning of the mortal illness in his soul. He tried, vaguely. Sam’s death, perhaps? Stuart’s black preoccupation in these days? The disaffection of his wealthier parishioners? The coldness of his bishop? The war? Each thought made the coal in his head brighten, pain more deeply. Perhaps they were the sum of his misery. But why had God deserted him? Why could no prayer come to his lips? He felt himself surrounded by the hatred of the city. There was no help for him.

  Unbidden, terrifying, the words of Job rose up before his eyes in letters of fire: “Though I speak, my grief is not assuaged; and though I forbear, what am I eased?—He teareth me in his wrath, who hateth me: he gnasheth upon me with his teeth; mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me. They have gaped upon me with their mouth; they have smitten me upon the cheek reproachfully; they have gathered themselves together against me. God hath delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked.—My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death. Not for any injustice in mine hand: also my prayer is pure.”

  The long sickness in him sharpened, became like the taste of ashes and vitriol in his mouth. He knew now the source of his sickness. He saw the hatred of the people, even those he had helped with passionate hands and voice and indignation, all about him, like a cloud of poisonous insects, stinging him, filling him with disease and suffering. He remembered each of the scores of foul letters, all anonymous, which had come to him. He saw the clouds of venomous and grinning faces he had met on the streets. He heard, again, the curses. He saw the slowly emptying pews of his church. He heard the voices, saw the hands, lifted against him. Why? There was no guilt in him, he hoped. He thought, humbly, I have only tried to do the will of God. Why, then, was he hated?

  Suddenly, the priest sat up, his eyes filled with tears. What had Jesus said on the Cross? “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” Then, He, too, had felt such a sickness and terror as this, such a hopelessness, such a despair, such an abandonment! At the last, even His own godhead had not been strong enough to prevent His mournful cry to God, His own consciousness of the overpowering wickedness of men! Why then, should he, Michael Houlihan, be so afraid, so ignorant, so terrified? He, who was less than the dust beneath the feet of Christ. If God, Himself, could feel so, in the last supreme moment of anguish, desolation and abandonment, in the last realization of the enormity of mankind, why should he, a miserable priest, feel such guilt in his own anguish?

  He pushed himself out of bed. He sank on his knees before the crucifix, his eyes flooded with tears. But he was smiling. He murmured aloud. He prayed. “Forgive me, Father, for I am only a poor and wretched man. I did not accept the hatred, the same hatred which followed Thee. I thought, in my stupidity, my conceit, that I might be loved for doing, in a little way, what Thou dids’t, and for which Thou wast paid with hatred! I, to be loved, and Thou, to be hated! What presumption on my part, what folly, what sinfulness! But, forgive me.”

  He knelt for a long time in the bitter cold of his room, his head bowed on his clasped hands. But he was at peace. He was filled with pure and trembling joy. The universe was no longer filled with evil, but w
ith love and tenderness, with the presence of God. It seemed to fume and blow with indescribable colors and warmth and music.

  He heard shouts, cries, the ringing of bells. He lifted his head, dazedly. He heard Father Billingsley pounding frantically at his door. Then the door burst open, and the younger priest stood on the threshold, trembling, white as a ghost, wrapped in his dressing-gown. He mouthed, unable to speak. Father Houlihan rose slowly to his feet, ice-cold again, shivering. Father Billingsley pointed at the window, and the priest turned in heavy, numb obedience. He saw a brilliant red glow in the sky, the swirling of smoke.

  It was the church! The beautiful little white church, which Stuart had built so lovingly, and at such reckless cost. The church was burning. Father Houlihan heard shouts and screams, the frenzied ringing of fire-bells, the galloping of horses, the grinding of wheels.

  “My God!” whispered Father Houlihan. “My God!”

  He turned, as if in a nightmare, to his junior. But Father Billingsley had gone. His feet were clattering down the bare wooden stairs. Father Houlihan heard the front door open. He heard his junior’s frenzied cry: “The eucharist! I must save the eucharist!”

  Flames enveloped the white snow of the church. They turned the golden cross to a cross of fire. Every window was a pool of scarlet. The arsonists had done their work well. There was no saving of the church. There was no saving of Father Billingsley, who had eluded the dazed firemen to dash into the gushing church, and to die on the seething floor before the altar, his arms outstretched.

  CHAPTER 70

  Stuart led the appraiser from New York to his cherished buhl cabinet, and waited while that cabinet was scrutinized, tapped, thoroughly examined. His lips were compressed grimly. The appraiser’s attention was attracted by some exquisite porcelain French figures in the cabinet, also, and he narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. There was an ivory fan, too, which had belonged to Marie Antoinette, to which the appraiser was not insensible.