A Tender Victory

by Taylor Caldwell

  “I haven’t any difficulty imagining,” said the rabbi.

  “So they decided they’d have to take things into their own hands. Nothing as crude as the hired police, of course. That would make the people suspicious, and they’d resist. Moreover, the people said, the priest was performing miracles. Children brought to him in extremis suddenly revived. Men coughing their lungs out in consumption got up from their beds and went directly to the fields. Women lying in childbirth suddenly delivered, sat up, and demanded hot tea. That was during, or just after, the time Father Ignatius had visited them. This alarmed the landowners more than anything else. A saint would be much harder to discredit than just a poor young priest.”

  “But saints die oftener,” said the rabbi. “And more terribly.”

  Father Krupszyk nodded grimly. “At this point my grandfather would become a little obscure, and brief. He didn’t know just what happened. But all at once smooth men appeared to harangue the peasants in the fields. The priest was in league with the devil. They had been born, the peasants, to a humble station ordained by God; they would suffer hell-fire if they rebelled, and if they asked that their rumbling stomachs be filled a couple of times a week. The priest was leading them right down into the pit, teaching them rebellion against their ordained masters. It was anarchy.”

  “A very old story,” said the rabbi again.

  Father Krupszyk deftly brought his complaining car in front of the rabbi’s house. “There,” he said, “we got here, though I had my doubts that we’d make it.”

  “What happened to Father Ignatius?” asked Rabbi Chortow.

  “Oh, he was canonized quite a few years ago,” said the priest. “After all, he was a saint. They built a shrine to him, and the miracles went on. At least, that’s the last I heard, before the Nazis, or the Russians, got there.”

  The rabbi looked at the priest’s strong, blunt profile, and he saw the brooding anger on it. He said, “Of course, Father Ignatius overcame his enemies, and lived to a fine old age, in honor.”

  “No,” said the priest. “You see, the peasants burned down his house one night, and killed him.” He tentatively raced the ancient motor of the car. “They found the flute in the ruins. It wasn’t even smeared with soot.”

  20

  “I can find nothing in the record to show that Mr. Fletcher has neglected either the health or the education of his foster children,” said old Judge Bridges, pulling at his long, thin white nose with its red tip. “Except for a few anonymous and obviously malicious letters. The officers of the Children’s Aid Society have conducted a proper and thorough investigation.”

  He glanced at the United States Immigration and Naturalization officer from Philadelphia, who said, “We find no real substance for any report that any of these children have become public charges, or that they were likely to become public charges at the time of their entry into this country.”

  An officer of the Children’s Aid Society agreed to all this, after an inimical glance from Dr. McManus. “Mr. Fletcher has promised that when his foster children have reached their age-group level in the public schools, he will send them to these schools. We agree with him that to send them now would be harmful, psychologically, to these children, for they would have to attend classes with children much younger than themselves.”

  The courtroom was bare, dreary, and filled with the shadows of the driving rain outside. A news photographer from the Press snapped Johnny’s photograph.

  “I find,” said the judge, “that Mr. Fletcher has taken out fifteen thousand dollars insurance on his life, to provide for these children in the event of his death, and Dr. Francis Stevens of New York, a very prominent minister, has sent me an affidavit to the effect that he has established a trust fund for the benefit of these children. Moreover,” and the judge coughed, “Dr. Alfred McManus of this city has assured me that he has made a new will leaving these children a very considerable sum. They are very fortunate indeed.”

  Johnny looked with amazement at Dr. McManus, who ignored him. The lawyer representing him and the children then rose and thanked the judge, gathered up his brief case, shook hands with Johnny and the doctor, and ran out. “There goes three thousand dollars,” muttered the doctor crossly. “Don’t bother me, son. I’ve got to get to the hospital. Shut up. I’m not going to talk to anyone as stupid as you about wills. How’s Jean getting along on the crutches?”

  Johnny smiled at him, still amazed and confused. “You know how he’s getting along. You were with us last night. I still can’t get over how fast you medical fellows can heal bones these days, with pins and things.”

  The clerk was calling another case, and they left. “Well, that’s over,” said Johnny, pulling on his raincoat. “I couldn’t help worrying. But after all—”

  “God provides,” said the doctor gloomily. “It’s a good thing He has people like me around. I’d like to see how He’d get along if there weren’t so many suckers in this world—like me, for instance. Well, I have my price too. You know I’m coming on Thursday for Thanksgiving dinner? I haven’t had a Thanksgiving dinner in that house since I was a boy.”

  Johnny, later in the day, appeared in County Court where he was given preliminary adoption papers. Here he encountered a small difficulty. A little brown woman he had never seen before rose up with a flash of eyeglasses and remarked that Mr. Fletcher was not married. The judge sarcastically called her attention to the fact that the unmarried state was not detrimental to adoptions, and that the court had investigated. He looked at Johnny and his eyes twinkled. “And there’s no guarantee that Mr. Fletcher will escape matrimony in the long run. He looks sound in wind and limb.”

  Johnny went out into the dark wind and dark cold. As he was about to cross the street a young woman passed him with a long stride, her raincoat glistening, her blond head held high and proudly. Johnny’s heart jumped with unaccountable hope. But she could not be Lorry Summerfield! Now he was namelessly despondent, remembering his dream. A sense of profound loneliness and aching came to him. He found his ancient car, but did not start it immediately, looking through the streaming windshield at the mournful street. Why had he hoped, with that bounding of his heart, that the girl he had seen was Lorry? Why did the very thought of her make him tremble, and his face become hot? She was in New York; she was working with her brother. This Dr. McManus had told him.

  “She wouldn’t even look at me,” said Johnny aloud, as he turned the ignition key. “There isn’t any place in her life for me. The idea’s ridiculous. And coming down to it, there isn’t any place in my life for her either.”

  He arrived home much depressed, to find only a few calls for him, none of them sick calls, to his relief. All matters referring to meetings and church affairs. He sighed, sat at his desk, and listened to the sound of the children’s voices in the dining room as they discussed lessons with Miss Coogan. He opened his desk drawer and took out Lorry’s golden box and held it tightly in his hand. It seemed to give out a tender warmth against his flesh. Mrs. Burnsdale, glancing in at him maternally, thought to herself that he needed a wife. He gave so much to everybody, but no one, she reflected, gave him anything. Except, of course, affection. But one of these days—and she knew how time passed—the children would be grown and gone, and he would be alone, and the children would have their own lives. She could see him, gray and lonely and old, in this very wretched room. He was still young, but tomorrow he would be middle-aged, then elderly, then aged, watching for the children’s letters, listening to the wind and the rain, getting up to visit the sick, returning to an empty dining room, reading alone, then going to a cold bed. And then, finally, a lonely grave in a forgotten cemetery, like too many ministers.

  Driven by these emotions, she went as fast as possible into the parlor. The lamps had been turned on; Johnny was writing his sermon for Thanksgiving Day. The golden box was near his hand. He looked up and smiled at Mrs. Burnsdale as she came in so precipitously. “Anything wrong?” he asked. “Am I needed?”<
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  She stood before him, her hands on her hips. “You know, sir, that’s what you always ask! Nobody asks that of you. Nobody!”

  He put down his Army-issue fountain pen and looked at her, puzzled.

  “How’s your cold?” she demanded, in an unusually loud voice. “After being out in the rain?”

  “My cold?” he said. He coughed tentatively. “Why, it’s practically gone.” He smiled again. She came closer to the desk, and her blunt features worked. “Mr. Fletcher, I’m awfully worried about you. All the things that’ve happened here in this town. Mr. Fletcher, don’t you think you should get another parish, in another city?”

  “Why, that’s what Dr. Stevens asked me in his letter the other day.” Johnny was amused. “He’s worried about me.”

  “Well, I am too!” Mrs. Burnsdale suddenly gulped. “I’m afraid of this town, Mr. Fletcher.”

  Johnny studied her contemplatively. “Well, I’m not. People are the same everywhere. And the children are putting down roots here. Pietro’s got friends from his church, and Kathy’s got friends from the Sunday school, and even Max has brought a kid or two home. He models them in his clay. You know, he’s going to be a sculptor! He’s always working in clay. He made a head of Rabbi Chortow, and it’s wonderful. And Father John Kanty sends over children to visit Jean. And Pietro’s in the choir of the church. They like the town. So do I.”

  Mrs. Burnsdale was silent, but the terror did not leave her. “What’s wrong?” asked Johnny gently. “Are you afraid that there’ll be more trouble?”

  She shook her head dumbly. Her small eyes implored him. Then she said, “I don’t know, Mr. Fletcher. I was thinking about you, in the kitchen, and I—well, I sort of saw you in this room, old, you know, and the kids gone and grown up, and you not having any wife, or anybody.”

  To his distress, one or two tears ran down her cheeks. “Mr. Fletcher, we couldn’t get along without you. You’ve got to take care of yourself. It isn’t that I don’t trust God.” She pushed out her lower lip, then tossed her head defiantly. “Well, maybe I don’t, in a way. You trust God, and something awful happens, and you can’t see why. You’re supposed to trust Him, but trusting can sure be pretty hard on you.”

  He patted her fat shoulder. Oddly, his loneliness had lifted. He walked with Mrs. Burnsdale into the kitchen, and sniffed appreciatively at the pots. “Ah! Spareribs and sauerkraut! And lemon pie.”

  At this point Pietro marched into the kitchen, fixed his merry eyes with as much sternness as possible on the minister, and announced, “My name is Peter.”

  “Why, so it is, Pietro,” said Johnny.

  “I mean, Papa, I am not Pietro now, I am Peter. Pietro—poof!” He made a wide circle of contempt with his arms. “It is not American.”

  “Who said so?” asked Johnny, approvingly inspecting another pot.

  “Keep out of that pie!” shouted Mrs. Burnsdale, slapping Pietro’s wandering hand. He sucked the meringue from his fingers and said, “I say so, Papa.”

  “A man called Petrus, or Pierre or Pietro, is still Peter,” said Johnny. “Besides, I like your name. Why should you have a name that’s no different from anyone else’s? Don’t you want to be different?”

  Pietro looked longingly at the pie, then at Mrs. Burnsdale’s threatening face, then with bright interest at the stove. Like Johnny, he inspected the savory pots. “No,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  Pietro was uncertain, now. Then, after a long contemplation, he said, “Okay. Pietro. I am going to be a priest, Papa. Do you believe it?”

  “No,” said Johnny.

  Pietro laughed. “No. I shall be the great singer. I shall make a lot of money.”

  “No doubt,” said Johnny.

  “And the ladies will love me,” said Pietro with satisfaction.

  “Now where does that kid get his awful ideas?” asked Mrs. Burnsdale disapprovingly.

  “He comes by them naturally,” said Johnny. “The Italians are the one race who really appreciate the opposite sex.”

  “I have thought of marrying Miss Summerfield,” said Pietro seriously. “But then she is too old. Kathy has hair like hers. I think,” he said, giving the matter thought, “that I shall marry Kathy. I like yellow hair.”

  “If you don’t get away from those cookies,” said Mrs. Burnsdale, lifting a ladle menacingly, “you’ll have a different color on your behind, young man.”

  “What is a cooky?” said Pietro, disdainfully, as he chewed it with appreciation. “Yes. I shall marry Kathy. For her hair.”

  Kathy, who had heard her name mentioned, came briskly into the kitchen. “What’s the matter with my hair?” she demanded.

  Pietro studied her admiringly. “I have just seen you are pretty,” he said.

  Kathy gave him a formidable stare. “A kid like you,” she said, scornfully. “By the way, Papa, I have another name.”

  “You too?” said Johnny.

  Kathy, seeing that Mrs. Burnsdale was washing some dishes, automatically took up a dishcloth, and Mrs. Burnsdale gave her a loving glance. “I have met a girl, in Sunday school,” she said. “Her name is Charmenz. We all call her Charm. So, I am now Charm. At home, of course. There is no use having two people with the same name in Sunday school; it’s confusing.”

  “It’s stupid,” said Mrs. Burnsdale severely. “I don’t know what’s got into you kids. Pietro wants to change his name, and then you do.”

  Kathy was startled. She looked at Pietro, who was reaching slyly into the cooky jar again. She screamed, “Stay away from those cookies! You eat everything, you pig!”

  Mrs. Burnsdale, who was an expert in these matters, swiftly folded a towel into a deadly length and slapped Pietro heartily about the legs. This delighted him. He made high short leaps around the kitchen, stuffing cookies into his mouth, while Mrs. Burnsdale pursued him. Johnny laughed at the sight of this dark faun skipping ahead of the not very agile Mrs. Burnsdale, while he ate with measured enjoyment. Finally he gave a very long leap, and in the very midst of it he pushed open the dining-room door and disappeared.

  “I think,” said Kathy coldly, “that I’ll still be Kathy. Anything Pietro wants to do is wrong. Of course.”

  “You are such a sensible girl,” said Mrs. Burnsdale. There was a small mirror over the sink. Kathy studied her reflection, preened a little, saw with pleasure that in the steam of the kitchen a curl or two had developed around her temples, and that her round cheeks were satisfactorily pink. “I hope not,” she said.

  Johnny, unaccountably lighthearted now, went out into the rain. There was nothing like children! Nothing! Especially his. And how they had changed these many weeks. It was rare, now, to see the old gleaming hatred in their eyes, the old fear. Sometimes they reacted a little too strongly to situations, but even these occasions were becoming fewer. They were devoted to their lessons; they learned with a kind of consuming avarice. The head-shrinkers, thought Johnny, would say they are becoming adjusted. They are only becoming aware that love will never fail them.

  He went through the church, where the great candelabra stood on the altar, the candlelight dissipating the dark and surging against every wooden pillar. Fresh flowers stood beside them. Above the altar gleamed the faded gold of a large cross. No one had protested, to Johnny’s knowledge. He had paid twenty-five dollars for the cross, secondhand. “Lord,” he said, “I know it doesn’t matter where a man prays, but I’m glad Thy House is bright.”

  Humming to himself, he went down into the basement, the parish hall, where a great deal of hammering was going on. Bookshelves lined the old plastered walls; the wood was a soft and lustrous pale tint, faultless and exquisite. Johnny vaguely assumed it was pine, but it was, in fact, the best mahogany, unstained. Several men, and boys, were in the process of making tables. The basement smelled of sawdust. Among the men was George Harding, Lon’s father, and among the cropped-headed, thin-faced boys, was Lon himself. They greeted Johnny with friendly reserve, and went on with their work. J
ohnny said to Lon, “How’s the new school these days?”

  “They sure work hell out of you,” said Lon earnestly. “Hey, I’m sorry, sir. I mean, there’s no fooling around. I really have to work.” He grinned. “I’m learning a lot.” Now his opaque eyes looked at the minister with intense affection; he picked up his hammer and began to pound on a table. Johnny smoothed his hand over it. It was darker wood than the bookshelves, so sleek, so blond, so well made. It was oak. Well, oak was even better than pine for tables; it didn’t splinter. Again Johnny looked proudly at the bookcases. “Best pine I’ve ever seen,” he said.

  One of the boys made a choking sound, then coughed abruptly, and with convulsive movements of his shoulders. Johnny gave him a cough drop, absently. He hoped to have his “school” ready after Christmas. Huge cartons of books stood in the corners of the hall, under the raw bulbs, and there were other cartons, containing student lamps which Johnny had bought secondhand. He could see the shelves filled, the lamps glowing, the heads of young boys and girls bent seriously over the books, the teachers sitting among them, piles of neat white paper and many pencils close at hand. He went to a bookshelf and smoothed his hand over the satin finish. The wood had been donated by three friends of George Harding’s, who worked in Ben Guston’s lumber mills. He turned to them, smiling, and caught sudden and anxious expressions, before they bent their faces over their work again. “I hope it didn’t cost you fellows too much,” he said. “And I don’t have to tell you how grateful I am.”