Tender Victory

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  The floating and double heads were coming together again, becoming one. A dull, hot throbbing began in Johnny’s temple. But the sharpness of agony was gone. He tried to smile, and the taut clamps caught his flesh. He winced.

  “How—long?” asked Johnny weakly.

  Dr. McManus was very casual. “Usual thing. When the hospital heard about it, sent Tim here with an ambulance; he volunteered. But you yelled about the ambulance; made a hell of a fuss. You wouldn’t remember. So the boys hoisted you up here. You tried to walk. Funny thing about concussions. You even talked about the God-damn rotten young swine who attacked you. They ran away, of course. But this criminal stayed.” Dr. McManus glared at the crying boy in the corner. “Why I don’t know. And you said the police shouldn’t be called; just his parents.” Dr. McManus grated his throat hideously. “Well, they weren’t at home. Both of them in a factory. I talked with the superintendent. Father making over a hundred a week. Not enough for the female, though they got only this one brute here. She’s got to have every lousy appliance she sees advertised, so she works in a factory, and lets this infernal kid loose on the street making mischief. Big, shiny car, they got too. Better than the superintendent’s. Old story. Nice for this country. Filthy little house full of every kind of machine you can think of, and dirty old furniture.”

  He went on, “All in all, you’ve been in and out about two hours. Nothing too serious, though you’re going to have some sort of a scar on the side of your head. Keep it as a memento.” The squealing voice became savage. “Maybe you’ll learn what people are, finally.”

  A gentle warmth crept over Johnny’s cold flesh. He smiled drowsily. “The boy,” he pleaded. Dr. McManus turned his big, untidy head, its gray hair like a thatch. “Come over here, you,” he growled. “The parson wants to look at the kind of punk who’d make a riot and get him almost killed. Yes, killed, I said. An inch difference and there’d be murder.”

  The thin and hulking boy, his sunken cheeks running with tears, sidled to the bed. He stood there, his eyes fixed on Johnny’s hand. He gulped once or twice. Johnny said gently, through the comforting haze of the sedative, “What’s your name, son?”

  The boy gulped again. Then he stammered hoarsely, “I—my name’s Lon Harding.”

  “And how old are you?” Johnny’s voice gentled still more. The boy lifted his head and looked at him, white, feeble, and limp on his bed. Then the boy shut his eyes convulsively. “Sixteen,” he whispered.

  “And you didn’t run away, Lon, with the others?’’

  The boy opened his eyes. “No, sir, I didn’t. I couldn’t. It was what you said—all at once I—I couldn’t. You—fell. The little kids screamed, and started to run around in circles. The—this lady, here, came out of the house. I told her to call the hospital. You, well, you were kind of bleeding. I had a clean handkerchief, and I shoved it against the—we were taught that in first aid at school. Shoved it hard, real hard.” He sobbed. He fumbled in his pocket and brought out his handkerchief. It was a reddish-brown stiff ball. “You kind of bled pretty bad. But the doctor here said I done pretty well; stopped an artery or something.”

  Dr. Kennedy regarded him in grave silence.

  “And all the time, Mr. Fletcher, you just lay there and said it was all right.” The boy’s voice broke. “You said it didn’t matter. I—put my coat under your head, rolled up. I said I was sorry; you said it was all right. You sounded all right, too.” A wan grin touched his trembling mouth. “You sure tried to fight the ambulance people; kept shoving them off. And you let me help you up the stairs, and I helped get you undressed.”

  “You’re a very bright boy, Lon,” said Johnny, and he lifted his hand with a great effort and took the boy’s soiled, clenched fist. “What year in high school, Lon?”

  A note of pride crept into the boy’s hoarse voice. “Well, sir, I’m a senior. Get almost all A’s, too. High third of class. Teacher wants me to go to college, she told me. I want to be an engineer—mechanical. But there isn’t any money.”

  “Sure, a bright boy,” said Dr. McManus with loathing. “Bright enough to think up a riot, and bring other murderers with him, to frighten little children and attack a harmless minister. If that’s brightness, then all such dogs should be in prisons.”

  But Johnny said, “You didn’t run away. You stayed. You knew you’d get in trouble if you stayed. But you didn’t run away.

  “No,” the boy whispered. “How could I? You needed me.”

  Johnny’s hand tightened on the boy’s rigid fingers. “Why, Lon?” he asked.

  The boy colored; he did not try to draw away from Johnny’s hold. “Well, you see, my parents aren’t very—well, they never did have much schooling. But a fellow kind of listens to his parents, even if he knows they aren’t very educated. And Pop was saying yesterday, ‘Bringing all those foreigners in, to take away our jobs. That’s what they’re trying to do all the time. Put Americans on the street, and give the foreigners our jobs.’ And Mom says, ‘That’s right. It’s bad enough since they stopped the war on us, just when we were making big money, and buying all the things we want. Stopped the war on us, after they told us it’d go on for years and years yet, and we’d be rich. Lied to us.’ That’s what Mom said. And she and Pop went on about how everybody was sick, really sick, on V-E and V-J days. They were told by the superintendent not to worry, about V-E day. The government would keep the war on for a long time, with the Japs.”

  “For Christ’s sake,” said Dr. McManus, and he looked at Dr. Kennedy, who nodded. “So, these lumpen thought wars are run for their benefit, for big wages in factories!” the old doctor continued. Then he was struck; he wrinkled up his face. “Well, maybe they are; maybe they are!”

  Lon added brokenly, “It’s all mixed up.”

  “And so you picked the first helpless people you could find, to straighten out your mix-up!” said Dr. McManus with disgust.

  The children, thought Johnny in his dream, as he floated away. It is always the children—betrayed, baffled, frightened, brutalized, forgotten. Somewhere in the warm darkness, he was holding a hand. He tightened his hold, and prayed: Let them come to me. Let me help them.

  “Please,” said the boy, “let me stay with him.”

  14

  “That parson’s in trouble again,” said Mr. Summerfield. “I must talk with the chief of police. Perhaps we can force him out of Barryfield. We don’t want troublemakers here. Lorry, haven’t you had enough?”

  “I can’t see why we can’t go to Philadelphia next Monday,” complained Esther Summerfield, his wife. “The Ballet Russe. Everybody is mad about it. MacDonald, do look at the pictures, right here in your own newspaper. Such grace; such artistry. Lorry, why didn’t you complete your ballet lessons? Oh, Lorry, please, no more cocktails.”

  It was wonderful to slip over the border, where it was all golden, all softness, all gaiety, all peace, all excitement, all vivid, incandescent meaning. Lorry Summerfield held out her glass for another large martini. She said to the butler, “Come on, George, don’t be stingy. Never mind the olive or onion.” It was almost possible to endure your parents, after the fourth drink. It was almost possible to endure living. Memories came back, when you drank. Not always ugly memories. Memories of quiet, elm-shaded streets and child-laughter and a father you loved and trusted, and flowers in a green garden, and the love of a brother who was so serious but who could be coaxed into a smile, and sometimes laughter. “I’m thinking of Barry,” she said aloud, in a carefully controlled voice.

  Esther Summerfield regarded her with delicate distaste. “You always talk about Barry when you’ve had too much to drink, dear. Lorry, you don’t need that, you know.”

  “Now, how can you tell?” said Lorry. “Who told you how much I need, just to go on living?”

  The golden haze hummed with bees. Evening bells were ringing over the silent mountains, sweetly, clashing, solemn, calling. But there aren’t bells in Barryfield, thought Lorry with severity. Not many, anywa
y. Besides, I couldn’t hear them here. The bells chimed entrancingly, and Lorry smiled with contentment. She let herself slide deeper in her chair, listening to the bells. They had a Mozart quality, high, gentle, infinitely harmonious. Like a spinet. At these times she always had a mysterious vision. She was sitting against a pale gold wall, dim and cold. To her left wide French doors opened, on a gray garden. Figures of men and women stood on the threshold of the room, in powdered wigs, in brocaded coats, in full and rustling skirts, bowing formally to each other before they went into that misty garden from which they would never return. Lorry could see the trees beyond the garden, all diffused and faintly luminous shapes, clouded in vapor. And in the room where she sat there was the tinkling of a spinet, melancholy, frail, and very thin. I am so alone, she would say to herself, as the others vanished into the mists of the garden. No one sees me. The spinet tinkled on and on, spraying the great spectral room with a perfume of dolorous harmony. Oh, God, she said. She watched the elegant figure of a man in a white wig disappear into the mist beyond the windows. Come back, my love, she cried in herself. Come back, and see me. Have you forgotten? The spinet tinkled sorrowfully.

  “Really, darling, what do you mean?” asked Esther, impatiently twitching at her long “art” draperies. “Who has forgotten you? MacDonald, I’ve told you over and over that Lorry simply can’t stand more than two or three drinks. Look at her. Her eyes are glazed. She glares like an idiot at the wall.”

  If I got up, thought Lorry, I could follow him out, and take his arm, and he would turn around and look at me with those dark-blue eyes, and he would smile. But his smile would be cool and reserved and wondering, as if he didn’t know me. The woman beside him, a little, dainty figure, would clutch at him and say, “The grotto is so beautiful, down there near the stream. The violets are so fragrant.” And then they would go, and she, Lorry, would not be remembered. She would stand there, in the mist, the swirling, choking mist, and there would be nothing at all in the world but that mournful spinet, crying out in the closing darkness. Nothing at all, but this deep and eternal misery of the heart.

  She muttered, “Does anyone believe in reincarnation? I do. I wonder why we come back. No, it’s impossible. The brain I could remember that with is mud and dust now.”

  Mr. Summerfield stood before his daughter, elegant, gilthaired, and supple. He looked at the girl and his face thinned and saddened. “Lorry,” he said. “You’re getting morose again. Don’t drink any more. Not tonight.”

  The frail clamor of the spinet died away. The room in which she sat suddenly surged at Lorry in fearful clarity, every color sharp, every light bitter and splintering. The ugliest room in the world, she thought with hatred. Her mother had “gone in” for Chinese decor a few years ago. Lorry doubted that a Chinese would have recognized it. It was all glittering red lacquer cabinets with black dragons crawling over them, intricately carved ebony chairs inlaid with ivory, many-sided tables similarly tortured, black lacquer chests and lamp stands, bamboo shades at the windows, draperies of gold satin on which tormented black trees had been painted, and yellow carpets on which embossed green leaves and apricot roses crept in a silent nightmare. The monster fireplace was of red lacquer too, and on the mantelpiece stood large porcelain Buddhas and a purplish cloisonné bowl filled with chrysanthemums of a deep bronze shade.

  “I was just thinking that this is the most abominable room I’ve ever seen,” said Lorry. She sipped at her drink and ignored her father. She could not endure looking at him. Her diaphanous gray dress outlined her lovely figure, made her white flesh luminous, her golden hair more striking. But her face was drawn, dulled, and empty.

  “You’ve said that a thousand times, darling,” her mother sighed. Esther Summerfield was an extremely tall and angular woman, and very thin, but, in a way, somewhat handsome. She piled her coarse black hair on the top of her head, Chinese-fashion, for the evenings, and held it with tortoise-shell combs. She wore a Persian robe, which, in spite of its absurd artiness, was appropriate with her triangular, rather yellowish face, narrow black eyes, and thin mouth. She even affected a painted Chinese fan, and her long sallow hands, with their painted nails, moved it languidly. “And again, I say I’m sorry. Other people think it’s fascinating.”

  “Frightful,” said Lorry. “I want another drink.” She added, “Why do we have to have a clash of cymbals announcing meals? I’m not ready. Another drink.”

  “Lorry,” said Mr. Summerfield gently. His daughter looked at him with her glazed eyes. “Go away, Mac,” she said. “You—obstruct my view.”

  Her father had hoped that Lorry had given up her periodical bouts of drinking, for there had been a four-week interval since the last time. But now she was off again, as bad as ever. He said, “Lorry, I was talking to you about that preacher who brought those children to this town—McManus’s minister. Remember? He wouldn’t give you a story. Well, he’s in trouble again. Are you listening, Lorry? It isn’t very important, I suppose. Some boy hit him with a stone yesterday. One of our reporters picked it up from the police blotter. What is he doing to make people attack first one of those children, and then himself? Is this worth a story now?”

  Lorry sat up suddenly. The crystal glass fell from her hand, and the contents splashed over her gown. “What?” she cried. “Johnny Fletcher?” Full consciousness had come back into her eyes like a blaze. “What have they done to him now?”

  Her father was much relieved. He gave her the evening newspaper. The tiny black letters jumped on the pages. She bent over them.

  Lorry read the short column. Then she flung the paper from her. She looked up at her father, and her eyes became very large and distended. Her mouth worked. “He’s hurt. Badly hurt. Concussion of the brain! Do you hear? Hurt!”

  “What does it matter to you?” asked Mr. Summerfield.

  Barry, she thought. Barry, who would have died—dear Barry, who looked so much like his father and his sister, and yet was not at all like them. Not in any way, thought Lorry, shaking her head in a slow motion of despair. Her voice thickened. “Never mind. I’m just thinking of Barry now. Remember when we got the telegram that he was seriously injured, somewhere in Normandy? Dad, why did you drive Barry away—as you drove me away?”

  Esther shook her head significantly. “You know you shouldn’t let her drink. Whenever she does, she always asks you those foolish questions.”

  Mr. Summerfield bent over Lorry, and rested his hands on the arms of her chair. “Dearest, I never drove you and Barry away. You always get that idea when you’ve been drinking too much. Lorry, why do you always say that? You never answer me.”

  Her nostrils flared. “I’ll answer you this time. We found out about you.”

  Mr. Summerfield’s arms stiffened, but he still bent over Lorry. “What did you find out, sweet?” he asked.

  Even through her drunkenness a warning inside her mind reached Lorry. She said, “What does it matter?”

  “It matters terribly to me,” replied her father in a low voice, inaudible to his wife. “You and Barry—you’re all I have. Get it right, Lorry; I love you both. You know that. But Barry almost never comes here now. Once he was my boy. Once you were my girl. Lorry, tell me. You hate me now, don’t you? Lorry, tell me.”

  “Why?” she asked contemptuously.

  “I love you. Don’t you know that, Lorry?”

  She regarded him in silence; through the sharp clarity of alcohol she could see every faint line in his smooth face, the iris of his eyes, the carved narrowness of his nose. “You look like us too much,” she murmured restively. “Barry’s not like you. But I am.” It wasn’t enough for her father. He repeated, “Lorry? What did you find out about me?”

  “Why isn’t anything ever enough for you?” she asked, moving in her chair. “Why do you live here in this town? Your newspapers? Just to write the editorials? You could write them in New York or London or Paris just as well. Why do you stay here?” Her mouth curled in an ugly way. “Is it because you could
n’t be powerful enough anywhere else? Too many other millionaires in New York, for instance, where you’d sink out of sight? Too many polished gentlemen in Europe, where you wouldn’t be conspicuous?”

  His fine skin flushed. “Lorry, you know as well as I do that the newspapers are important to me. To us. To you. We stay to—watch—everything in Barryfield. We have a mission, you know. To tell the people the truth.”

  “Ah, yes,” murmured Lorry. “The truth. How are you doing about buying the New York Gazette?”

  He straightened up. “I had a telegram this evening. They’re losing circulation. They hate liberalism, and so they’re hanging on, like some patched anachronism.”

  He added, despondently, “So, that’s what you mean when you say you and Barry found out about me. I can understand Barry; he’s been exposed too long to his mother’s and stepfather’s hidebound ideas. But you are different. So—you hate Barryfield, hate the newspapers. In a way I can’t blame you. The people here are below par, mentally. Lorry,” and he tried to smile, “you had been hoping for the New York Gazette, hadn’t you? You thought that you could be the editor on it. Yes, I can understand your ambition. You’re very like me, as you said. You thought you could bring a liberal policy to that newspaper. And I’ve disappointed you. And that’s why you’ve been drinking—?”

  Lorry did not answer. Her father extended his hand and touched her timidly on the cheek. She held herself from flinching. “Lorry, I’ll do anything to get that paper for you. Anything. I’ll get in touch with Swensen.”