A Tender Victory

by Taylor Caldwell

  “Yes,” said the doctor. “And those two young people I told you of were Germans. They got into this country in 1939, eight years ago. Something to do with politics. They weren’t Nazis. Young kids then.”

  Mrs. Dietrich was entering the room again, holding the hand of a little girl about five years old, carrying a rag doll clutched to her breast. Johnny’s heart contracted in a spasm of pain. The child was a bit small for her age, but she had a chubby infant body, a round and rosy face with gay blue eyes, and a mass of auburn ringlets. She had the prettiest of pink mouths, and she was smiling unsteadily under a plump, upturned nose. Her dress was of white and black checks, with a big red sash around the protruding middle. Now, as she saw Johnny, she wet her lips with a tremulous little red tongue and clung closer to Mrs. Dietrich. But the doctor held out his arms and she squealed and ran to him, still clutching the doll. He lifted her in his arms and looked at Johnny. “This is Deborah Woltz,” he said. “What do you think of this charmer, eh? She winds me around her little finger. Here, stop looking in my pockets, you gold-digger.”

  “Where’s my candy?” asked the child, reproachfully. She peeped at Johnny slyly.

  “Never mind the candy,” said the doctor. He put the child down, and patted her head. “Mind your manners, now. This is Mr. Fletcher, a minister.”

  The child eyed Johnny with great but bashful interest. “He’s my new Papa?” she demanded.

  “Now, how can he tell?” demanded the doctor crossly. “You haven’t even shaken his hand. Go on, now, and be polite.”

  The little girl wobbled toward Johnny, almost reached him, then gave him a touching curtsy. “They bring them up well in the old countries,” said the doctor with pride. “She was born right here in Barryfield, but her parents taught her how to behave.”

  Johnny held out his hand gravely, bending toward the little one. She gave him her small fat hand, and the touch of it brought back the pain that never left him on a higher and more poignant wave. She said, “I’m in kindergarten. I can read some words, too. And I know the alphabet,” she added, hopefully.

  “That’s wonderful,” said Johnny. “I have five—I mean—I have four children. They’d like to know you, Debby. Such a smart little girl.”

  “As old as me? Five?” asked Debby, with more interest.

  Johnny was silent. He looked down at the child, and the gray hollows under his cheekbones deepened. The doctor said, “Debby’s got no one in this country, and no one in Germany, either. Everybody’s dead. When her mother died Mrs. Dietrich took her in, but the Children’s Shelter is after her.” He stared at Johnny significantly. “You know the Children’s Shelter. Place like a jail. No money. And then they’ll put her in a boarding home, and then in another foster home, and more foster homes, or maybe she’ll end up in an orphanage. You’ve seen it, son. Nice prospect for a nice little girl, isn’t it? And nobody wants, very much, to adopt a child this age.”

  He waved his hand. “Some foster homes are good, some bad. But bad in any event for a little kid. Some people take them in for the money they get from the welfare. I can tell you of some kids I’ve seen in the hospital who were brought in from boarding homes. But not a good idea at best for any kid, who’s got to have roots and a feeling she belongs. Especially girls. Girls are insane about families. Can’t stand them myself.”

  Debby was gazing at Johnny eagerly. “I take my bath, myself,” she said. “And I hang up my clothes. Mama taught me. I’m a real nice girl.” She lifted up her dress and showed Johnny, proudly, her starched petticoat and little white panties. “I keep clean,” she added. “I never bother anybody. I’m real good.”

  The doctor sighed elaborately, not looking at Johnny. “Well, hope you’ll be real good in a foster home,” he said. “Hope I don’t see you next time in a hospital, with a cracked skull. Such pretty curls, too.”

  “You’re not very subtle,” said Johnny. He sat down and held out his arms to Debby, and she bounced at once to him and jumped up on his lap. He shut his eyes and closed his arms about her, and it was like closing his arms about Emilie. He kissed her, and she hugged him vehemently. “You’re a real nice Papa,” she said.

  “No doubt this was all stage-managed beforehand,” said Johnny to the doctor.

  “Well,” said the doctor airily, “not to the last gesture, anyway. But I’ve been telling Debby that I’d bring her a new father. If not you, then somebody else. She was to take her choice. She’s apparently chosen you. And, by the way, she’s not a pauper. Her father left five thousand dollars in insurance.” He shook a finger at Johnny admonishingly. “If Debby hadn’t like you, son, that would have been all. She had her choice.”

  Debby perched a very wet and enthusiastic kiss on Johnny’s cheek. “I like my new Papa,” she announced graciously. “And my suitcase is all packed, too.”

  Johnny’s heart was faltering. He smoothed the pretty auburn ringlets tenderly. “I—I don’t know what Mrs. Burnsdale will say,” he said. “It’s only fair to tell her first.”

  The doctor thought this a big joke. “Why, Mrs. Burnsdale’s been around three times! She and Debby get along fine. In fact, she said if you didn’t take Debby she would, and when you went into the new parsonage she’d stay with me, and maybe marry me, and we’d adopt Debby ourselves.”

  Johnny gave him an eloquent look which made the doctor and Mrs. Dietrich burst out laughing. “I’m being blackmailed,” said Johnny. “What else can I do but surrender?” He wound one of the bright ringlets about his finger, and it clung to him as Emilie’s curls always did, and for a moment he thought he would groan.

  The doctor jammed his hat on. “Well, that’s settled. I’ll take care of the formalities in Children’s Court. All right, miss, put on your hat and coat. We’re going home.”

  “Yes,” said Johnny, with the pain lifting a little in his heart. “We’re going home.”

  Dr. McManus offered a reward of $10,000 for the apprehension and conviction of the arsonist who had burned down the parsonage, and the whole city eagerly began to search.

  30

  The boys were enchanted with Debby, who, after studying them closely, apparently decided she would be able to manage them without much difficulty. Kathy was another matter. She had not succumbed to Debby’s charms and her bouncing ways and her assured prattle. She pulled Debby from the bewitched circle of the boys, in which Debby had been entertaining them with stories about her kindergarten, all lively and a little elaborated for effect. Debby fell immediately into a respectful silence, looking up at the taller girl meekly. But her blue eyes danced.

  “After Papa, and Mrs. Burnsdale, I take care of things around here,” said Kathy severely. “You’ll be our sister if you mind. I’ll teach you to wipe dishes, and dust. And I don’t like stories, either, ’specially if they are not true. Hear me?”

  “They were so true,” said Debby, looking as if about to cry with embarrassment. (“I want my Mama,” she murmured, but no one heard her.)

  “We have enough story tellers around here without another one,” said Kathy, with a quelling glance at Pietro. She scrutinized Debby. “I think you will be all right,” she added. “After you are trained well. And we can plant some trees for you—if you mind.” Then she relented, bent and kissed the younger girl. “I think we’ll love you.”

  “And I,” said Pietro grandly, “will marry you, Debby, when you are old enough.”

  “I thought you were going to marry Kathy,” said Jean.

  Pietro tossed this absurd thought away. “Gentlemen like the young girls,” he said. “Kathy is too old for me.”

  Mrs. Burnsdale and Johnny listened to this with high amusement. Then Mrs. Burnsdale said, “It’s those comics he’s always reading. And the movie magazines I get.”

  “If you think I’d marry a boy who doesn’t always tell the truth, and makes funny faces all the time, you are wrong,” said Kathy with disdain.

  Pietro eyed Debby critically. “I like her hair best,” he said.

 
Debby had her own ideas. She shook the brilliant ringlets decidedly. “I will marry my new Papa,” she announced. She gave Kathy a sly glance. “My curls are real,” she said. Kathy colored. She was putting up her hair at night, now, on Mrs. Burnsdale’s curlers. “My,” said Mrs. Burnsdale with admiration. “Imagine a baby five years old knowing anything about curls being real or not.”

  “I’m real smart,” said Debby smugly.

  “Show me how smart you are with a dish towel,” said Kathy, pushing one into Debby’s fat little hand.

  Johnny had feared that when Debby would take her place at the table he would suffer renewed sorrow. But, to his surprise, she filled the chair without giving him a single thrust of pain. It was as if Emilie were there, an Emilie grown strong, cautiously impertinent, respectful, interested, healthy, and full of laughter. It was as if Emilie had sent him this buxom child, eager for his love, this parentless child he had rescued. No more would his nights be haunted by dread, tormented by anguished and unanswered prayers. He had his five children again, and all of them bursting with vitality. Even Jean was gaining weight very fast. Johnny would think, If Emilie had lived, I’d never have known Debby, and she would be in some foster home or orphanage, and utterly abandoned. Emilie is safe; now Debby is safe.

  She was accepted by the other children and she had accepted them. She abounded with curiosity, with affection, with stories that surpassed even Pietro’s. She had a fairy godmother, she announced, who kissed her every night and made her hair nicer and her eyes brighter. Johnny checked Kathy, who was about to introduce a note of dull realism into this gay fantasy. “I’m sure you have, darling,” he said. “But we call those ‘godmothers’ guardian angels.” He bought a lithograph to hang over Debby’s little bed, a picture of a benign angel with loving eyes and outstretched hands. This moved Debby, and mollified Kathy, who was such a stickler for facts. “Papa’s and Mama’s angels called them home,” said Debby, and her lip trembled, Johnny took her up in his arms, and saw her efforts to control herself, and smile. The baby is so valiant, he thought with a thrust of pain.

  He entered her name for adoption. He did not know that Dr. McManus had had a hard time arranging things, for again the Children’s Aid Society had tried to cause trouble. There was a waiting vengefulness about those people, the doctor would think. But, hell, I’ve got a lot of money, and a golden sword holds buzzards away.

  Debby, on seeing the school arrangements at home, decided that she preferred them to kindergarten. But on this Johnny was firm, despite her tears. He drove her to the school every day. She would return to the impatiently waiting children to give the most appalling account of her experiences. The teacher had pushed her; the children had tried to fight her, but she had kicked them right away, she had; she had poured water down another child’s neck; she had torn a dress; the teacher had cried; she had stamped on the crayons. Debby was a devil. Only Kathy listened with a frown. One day Johnny visited the young teacher himself, who affectionately assured him that Debby was a model child, a leader, full of bounce and vim and adored by the others. Still, Debby’s stories enlivened dinner, so he did not as yet interfere. She had a wonderful imagination, and half believed her stories, and there was no malice in them, only a desire to entertain.

  The wound was healing rapidly.

  The petitions were piling up on the mayor’s desk, much to his wrath. He cursed Johnny, the instigator. His friends upbraided him; he showed them the petitions, and the threats implicit in them.

  Mr. Summerfield’s assistant editor was unable to ignore the petitions. He had his “comedian” write light and ridiculing editorials about them. Circulation suddenly dropped off alarmingly. The “comedian” was replaced by a more sober editorial writer. He introduced the “pro” and “con” method, inviting the people to write in about the petitions. He wrote several of them on the “con” side of the petitions and put them in the “The People Write.” Unfortunately for him, his were the only contrary letters. The “people” responded with violent invective and angry replies to the fictitious initials in the column and to the editorials.

  “All the people in Barryfield are with the minister,” Lon Harding reported contentedly. “Except the ones whose old men own the factories and the mills. But they keep their mouths shut.”

  In the meantime, Johnny’s parish-hall school was booming with young boys and girls eager to learn what they could not learn in school. The old teachers, including Miss Coogan, were exhilarated with joy. It was now the end of February, and unusually warm, and people reported that when they passed the parish hall four nights a week they could hear the excited voices of the young people who were discovering the world of poetry, glory, patriotism, and literature which had been denied them, “In the interest of society, and in the cause of realistic life-adjustment.”

  The murderer of little Emilie had still not been found. Johnny did not give up hope.

  One afternoon the chief of police called Dr. McManus. “I don’t think we have something here, Al, but I thought I’d tell you about it. A woman’s here, name of Sheila Gandy, from Wilkes-Barre. She says her husband set that fire in your minister’s parsonage. He’s dying, she says. And she wants the reward, because he wants her to have the reward so she’ll have something when he’s dead. Kind of a stupid woman. Probably just another false alarm. But there was something. She told how he’d told her he’d stuffed the hot-air pipes of the furnace with gasoline rags, put strings to ’em, and then set ’em on fire and got out of the house. Got in through the cellar and hid behind the furnace when the minister was searching. That checks. And you know we did find some evidence like that. Did any of that stuff get in the newspapers?”

  “No!” squealed the doctor. “What a hell of a memory you have! Nobody let it out, except that maybe one of your boys did, but I don’t see why. Your department kept it quiet. Did she say that Communists told him to do it?”

  The chief paused. “No, she didn’t. Why don’t you come down and bring the minister, right now?”

  The doctor had just come from the operating room. Tired though he was, he told a nurse to call Johnny and tell him to appear at the office of the chief of police.

  Johnny came, as white as death, trembling and speechless. “Don’t get your hopes up, son,” said Dr. McManus. “The chief thinks this is just a false alarm. He’s told me about a lot of others and we decided not to bother you, for they were fakes. This has something that sounds a little like it, but not much. Try to control youself.”

  “I think this is it,” said Johnny in a stifled voice.

  “Well, don’t fly off half cocked, as usual. I know women. They get hysterical, and I hate hysterical women.”

  They went into the chief’s dusty and gritty office, which was crowded with files and ancient furniture. Beside his desk sat a big, fat woman with a face like dough, thin black hair floating about her face, clumsy limbs, worn clothing, and a cautious, belligerent expression on her shapeless features. Her large hands, in black cotton gloves, were tightly clasped together. She stared at Johnny and the doctor with no pleasure. “Why the minister?” she demanded sullenly. “You just said two friends, chief.” Then her expression changed, became charged with alarm. “Is this the minister, huh?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Gandy,” said the chief of police. He nodded to the young policeman who sat at the end of the battered desk, and who held his pencil poised over a notebook. “Mr. Fletcher, this is Sergeant Batson. He’s been taking notes. Sergeant, read them off, will you?”

  Mrs. Gandy said in a faltering voice to Johnny, “Gee, parson, I’m terrible sorry—about that little girl. But my man—”

  Johnny looked at her without speaking, and she flinched and turned away from him. Dr. McManus sat down. “All right,” he said, “go right along, sergeant.”

  Mrs. Gandy listened, and now her round black eyes became defiant, and she set her head at an arrogant angle and listened as intently as did the others.

  Merrill Gandy, her husband, was now thirty-ni
ne years old; she was forty-two. They resided in the city of Wilkes-Barre. Her husband had been drafted in 1944. They had no children, and Merrill had been a machinist. They had been married in 1939, and at the time of the draft they had had but two hundred dollars saved. “What could you expect, with the depression?” Mrs. Gandy had asked. They lived on a mean street, and had no friends. They had never had time to make them. Mrs. Gandy worked in a bakery and, during the war, in a war plant. They still had a little money by the end of the war. “Well, we got a new radio set, some furniture, and a used car, and went out bowling a lot, and made some friends, and the money went,” Mrs. Gandy had said resentfully. “Beer and clothes and things cost a lot.”

  Merrill was discharged from the Army in the spring of 1946. He went back to work in his factory. In August, 1946, several months later, he complained of his back. He thought at first that it was due to “heavy liftin’.” But the plant physician said it was an old injury, four ruptured discs in his spine. Then Merrill, frustrated at not collecting workmen’s compensation, suddenly remembered that he had sustained the injury in the Army. He had never gone overseas. He had remained in the same camp where his talents as a machinist were appreciated—Air Force. “Lots of men comin’ and goin’,” Mrs. Gandy had said. One day he was standing behind an open engine he was working on, and “some smart aleck” got in the seat, and started it up, and the two right wheels ran right over Mr. Merrill’s body, “hurtin’ his spine.”

  The chief of police had asked why he had not reported it immediately. The reply was that he had done this, and had been treated in the infirmary. But Merrill could remember nothing of the doctor’s name, or the names of any of the nurses, or the “smart aleck.” “Whole place too crowded, and everybody comin’ and goin’.” Merrill had remained in the camp, after apparently recovering. “Trouble didn’t show up until he got to workin’ on heavy stuff in the factories,” said Mrs. Gandy. Then he could not work. He applied to the Veterans Administration for compensation, but they could find no records. The bureau acknowledged that during the confusion of the war years such things very often happened. He had been hospitalized in a veterans’ hospital. While the administration again searched records, and investigated, they took X rays. They told Merrill that they could do nothing about compensation until his case was approved to be service-connected.