“Surely not,” Johnny had protested, for Charles Hartwick had been too somber. “Surely this will be the last war, the war for freedom.” The young Negro had laughed bitterly. “But all the wars men have ever fought have been for ‘freedom,’” he had said. “And they were only wars for a change of tyrannies. I hate war; I hate the people who make wars; I hate this war too. Wars are liars. You know why I enlisted? To help get rid of this tyrant. Tomorrow we’ll fight to get rid of another, and then another, and then another. Oh, like you, parson, I felt in the beginning that Hitler would be the last of the tyrants, but now I know better. It’s just the beginning, the beginning of all the reactionary tyrants. Have you taken a long look, lately, at Stalin, the greatest reactionary despot of them all? Take a look, sir, take a look.”
Johnny, then, had indeed “taken a look.” And had begun to see many other things he had never suspected before.
He said now, “When Charlie Hartwick died we lost a fighter for freedom. All the rest of us were merely patriots, and that’s not enough. Not any longer. It’s not enough for us to march in our Legion parades and show the flag and repeat the Oath of Allegiance. That’s only national. The fight is now intimately in our schools, our churches, in our homes, in our arguments with others. Men’s spirits are now engaged, not only their bodies and their arms.” He smiled tenderly at the snapshot, sighed, gave it back to Barry.
“Lorry has given me several of the books you’ve been publishing. Brave men who write them. Courageous men. Isn’t it a frightful commentary on our times that when men write and speak the truth they are persecuted in the press, and even by politicians? It used to be taken for granted that men had the freedom of the press and that it wasn’t particularly courageous of them to tackle liars. It was only their duty as Americans.”
Abstractedly, he accepted one of Barry’s cigarettes. He was thinking of his young friends who had died, and he shook his head in grief.
“You’re doing what you can,” said Barry. “Lorry quoted some of your sermons, and,” he paused, “my father’s reactions to them. But she never gave me your name. I asked a few times, and she managed to change the subject. I’m not going to forgive Lorry.”
“Did she tell you about my children?” asked Johnny hastily, for he did not like the look on the young man’s face.
“Yes, everything,” said Barry shortly. He looked intently at the minister. “That was a damned fine thing to do. You’ve influenced Lorry more than you know. What a—well, what a wretched girl she used to be, and now she’s helping the kind of children you helped. You’ve saved her life, in a way, and that’s why I came down now to see you personally, to see what sort of man could transform my sister like this. And I find you, Johnny Fletcher!” He smiled at Johnny, and his mouth twitched. “Look, perhaps I’m wrong about Lorry. Perhaps she wanted to keep you under wraps as a grand surprise for me.”
A voice squealed from the doorway, “What’s all this?” Dr. McManus stood there, in his deplorable old brown overcoat and battered hat. He tried to peer around Johnny to see the other man. Barry stood up and confronted the doctor.
“You old, lying, plotting bastard,” he said softly. “You old fraud.”
“Barry!” howled the doctor. He waddled rapidly into the room and threw his bulky arms about the young man and hugged him. “Well, damn it, it’s Barry! God, boy, I’m glad to see you. When did you get back? Let me look at you, curse it!”
He pushed Barry away from him, blinking moistly. Then he saw the expression in Barry’s eyes, and he dropped his arms. He scratched his cheek, and his color took on a purplish tint. “Um, yes,” he muttered. Then he exclaimed wrathfully, and with obvious embarrassment, “Where’s everybody? Where’s Lorry? Hey, Barry, don’t glare at me like that. Remember me? I delivered your ma of you, and you were a mean kid. Oh, you’re thinking why we didn’t tell you. It’s a long story.” He peeped at Johnny, who was again withdrawn. “Don’t you go glaring at me too, parson. Nothing against you. Sit down, sit down! You both look like you’re going to punch me in the jaw, and me an old man. As I say, it’s a long story.”
“It’d better be a good one,” said Barry.
The doctor sat bunched on a chair, while the young men stood over him menacingly. “Why don’t you sit down?” he demanded with acerbity. “And I need a drink. Several. Johnny, pull that rope over there. This calls for a celebration. None of your wine or sherry or brandy. Whisky and soda. You too, Rover boy,” he added to Johnny, with an attempt at a jeer.
“You hide your whisky,” said Johnny, trying to smile, for he felt Barry’s renewed anger. “I know. I’ve looked for it. Do you think everybody’s a thief?” He pulled the bell rope.
“If you’ve been looking for the whisky, then you are a thief,” said Dr. McManus, avoiding Barry’s eyes. He threw his old hat on the floor, dragged off his coat, then sat on it. “I’m not what I used to be,” he muttered. “Almost lost this last ulcer case. Think I’ll retire. Getting too old and nervous and worn out.”
“Too bad,” said Barry. “If you’re looking for sympathy from me you won’t get it. How about a little sympathy for me?”
“I told you it’s a long story,” said the doctor testily; and now he took the offensive. “You’re too stupid to be tolerant, or you’d know that Lorry and I had a reason. Oh, there you are, May. Bring in a bottle of my Scotch—here’s my key, and bring it back—and three glasses and ice, and soda.”
They waited; the doctor blinked sullenly at Barry, like an owl. “God didn’t give you any knees, eh, so you could bend them and sit down? Look, I’m not going to say a single damn word until I’ve had a drink. I think I’m going to have a heart attack.”
“Good,” said Barry. But his deep affection for Dr. McManus was beginning to smother his angry resentment. He sat down. Johnny looked from one to the other, and then he saw that the doctor was staring at him sheepishly. There was something here he did not understand, and he was not sure he was going to like it. “Perhaps I’d better leave you two old friends alone,” he said stiffly.
The doctor cackled at Barry. “Parson’s always very touchy. Delicate, like a flower. All his emotions are pragmatic; kid stuff. No imagination. Maybe you’d better stop that wedding, Barry, or you’ll have him peering at every book you publish and screaming at some things. He’s all brotherly love; he doesn’t believe in hatchet men.”
“Then he’s considerably changed,” said Barry, seeing Johnny’s uneasiness. “Sit down, Johnny. I have an idea old Al’s story is going to be quite a revelation to you, too. Then we’ll all have a good laugh.”
The maid entered with a silver tray and bottles and glasses. She poured the drinks with a sparing hand. “I’m not broke yet, May,” said the doctor with sarcasm, “so let’s have enough. A little more, a little more. Here today, gone tomorrow. With this household you never can tell. I’m almost bankrupt, but not yet.”
He passed out the glasses; Johnny hesitated, then was annoyed at his annoyance, and took a glass. He concentrated on the adding of soda. He could hear the children’s happy, released voices in another section of the big house. Barry, hearing them too, smiled. Johnny had a proud and reserved expression, and Barry was now sorry for his tactless anger which had precipitated this misunderstanding. “All right, Uncle Al,” he said, “let’s get down to business.”
“Damned good Scotch,” said the doctor, smacking his lips. “Must be a revelation to the beer-drinking parson here, and you, Barry, with your New York martinis. Never could stand mixed drinks. Bad for your kidneys.”
“Never mind my kidneys,” said Barry. He winked at the doctor, who, glancing at Johnny again, nodded slightly.
“Where’s Lorry?” demanded the doctor.
“She went out some time ago,” replied Johnny, in a cold, abstracted voice.
“I’m going to break her neck,” said Barry easily. “Unless your story is a good one.”
“I don’t know about any story,” said Johnny, exasperated.
�
��Well, now, it’s this way,” said the doctor, tinkling the ice in his glass. “Here comes the parson in August, hell for leather. Innocent and enthusiastic as some goddam Adam fresh out of Eden. All people need, thinks he, is to be told the truth. So he carries the explosive around with him. Who told him, dammit, that people want to hear the truth anyway? So, first off, the kids get into trouble—young punks and hoods attack ’em. Long story; Lorry told you? All right. So then your dad moves in, the parson’s a menace, the parson’s a fascist, the parson’s a union buster, and enemy of the people. Oh, Lorry told you that too, did she? Don’t interrupt! The parson’s got to go. Where’s this morning’s newspaper; it was right here; you can’t keep an infernal thing in this house. Your dad’s editorial this morning accuses the parson of being a warmonger. Funny thing. Your father was all in favor of our getting into the war against Hitler, but now everybody who fights Communism is a warmonger.”
He said to Johnny with bitterness, “Well, fill up my glass, will you? If I conk off, where’ll you and those kids be? In the poorhouse, that’s where.”
Johnny, a little mollified now, filled up the doctor’s glass. Dr. McManus peered up at him, and Johnny smiled slightly at the fierce, affectionate eyes.
“One thing you can’t be in this world, boys, is consistent. You’ve got to keep changing your line to meet the howling demands of the maniacs. One war’s good, the other’s bad, depending on who in power wants war, or who’ll profit from it, or what minority yells for it. You know what I’d do? I’d denaturalize every bastard in this country who screams he’s a minority. I’d send him off to where he’d be a majority, and then who’d he blame? A man’s an American, or he ain’t. Simple. …
“Well, anyway. What do we do in here, sit in the dark? Turn on a lamp, somebody. So, the parson gives a rousing sermon first off, and Lorry comes out, all powder and lipstick and cynicism and jauntiness, to get a story from the parson, and he won’t give it, because God did give him a little sense—but not much, mind you. And then, all at once, something comes to Lorry, and to me too, while we’re in the parsonage, that the parson’s your Johnny Fletcher, and Lorry gets hysterical. Yes she did, Barry, and stop that damned interrupting! She wants to tell the parson. But I’ve got an idea. We’ll save you to clobber your dad with, when the time comes.”
“What!” cried Johnny, outraged.
“So,” said Barry, “I’m the club to knock my father’s teeth in. What melodrama. It would’ve been much more sensible if you or Lorry had told him, and then perhaps some of the things that have happened wouldn’t have happened. I suppose you never thought of that.”
He looked up at Johnny, who was standing with his fists clenched.
Barry added, “Look, Johnny, it’s obvious that both the doc here and Lorry are imbeciles. The doc’s senile, and Lorry listened to him, and she was always a romantic, anyway. Can you forgive them? I already have. You don’t get furious at retarded children, do you?”
“It was because of your father’s attacks on me that my parsonage was burned, and my child murdered,” said Johnny, and his voice was weak. Barry was silent.
The doctor reached hurriedly for the whisky bottle. He said, “Of course you always were an idiot. You started the whole thing with your infernal truth. If it hadn’t been Mac, it would have been word of mouth through the Communists. Besides, the poor baby was dying, anyway. And haven’t you got Debby, who needs you? Two months, three months, a year later, and it would’ve been too late for Debby. And you’re getting a mansion for a parsonage, and you’ve got Lorry. But you’re one of those who’re never satisfied.”
Johnny bent his head and looked at his feet. After a moment he said, “I sound ungrateful. Perhaps I am. But everything else aside, I don’t like the idea of my being made an instrument to hit any man, even Mr. Summerfield.” But he was becoming calm again, and the sick tension in him was relaxing. So Lorry had not been ashamed of him after all, as he had secretly feared. She had kept his name from her brother for her own purposes, at the doctor’s insistence. He smiled in spite of his efforts to remain stern. The doctor chuckled, and pointed at him.
“He thought, because he’s so stupid, that Lorry didn’t tell you because she believed you’d think a parson wasn’t good enough for her. How can a grown man be so dense?”
Mrs. Burnsdale came to the door of the library, hesitantly. “Miss Lorry hasn’t come back yet,” she said, “and it’s getting dark. I’m a little worried.”
The doctor pushed himself out of his chair, went to Mrs. Burnsdale, and took her hand. “Barry,” he said grandly, “I want you to meet my fiancee. A damn fine woman. We’d all have fallen apart without her, and that includes the parson.”
Mrs. Burnsdale blushed as Barry shook her hand. “You know how the doctor exaggerates,” she said. She looked at Barry with interest. “Aren’t you Miss Lorry’s brother? One of the maids said you were. I’m Mrs. Burnsdale.”
“Lorry’s told me all about you,” he said kindly. “I’m Barry Lowell.” She studied him and said, “You look like Miss Lorry’s twin brother.”
The doctor put his hand on her shoulder, proudly. “She’s going to marry me,” he said. “I had to propose out of self-defense, or she’d have bankrupted me for the parson. Now the money’ll all be in the family. Hell what a man has to do to protect himself, isn’t it?”
Mrs. Burnsdale touched his cheek shyly. “I never knew that such wonderful people lived in this world,” she said. “I never knew any before I met Mr. Fletcher and the doctor.” She looked at Johnny, and was concerned. He seemed restless and anxious. At that moment the telephone rang and the doctor, cursing, took up the receiver and squawked, “Take some aspirin!” Then he was silent, listening, and his grayish face went deathly white. He kept glancing at Barry, then at Johnny, and was speechless.
After a little he said gently, “All right, Lorry. Keep calm. I’ll come right away. Lorry? Your brother’s here. Yes, I mean Barry, who else? Yes. Now look, honey, calm down. I’m on my way now.”
He put down the receiver and snatched up his coat and hat. Barry had moved to his side. The doctor shook his head. “Come on, boys, we’ve got work to do. All three of us. And we don’t have a minute to waste.”
“Lorry!” exclaimed Johnny, with the familiar sinking of terror.
“Nothing’s wrong with Lorry,” said the doctor ferociously. “Don’t worry about her. It’s something she’s done, the half-wit.”
35
Esther Summerfield sauntered, swaying, into her husband’s study, her Hindustani sari floating about her. It was pale blue, with silver tracings. Her dark face and tilted eyes had a musing, casual expression. She was carrying a tray holding a cocktail shaker and two glasses. “Time for our martinis, MacDonald,” she said, and sank into a fine antique chair. She looked about the study, furnished in the most exquisite period furniture, and wrinkled her long nose. She saw the white shoulder of a mountain through a window draped in rose velvet, and thought to herself, it must be my imagination that he isn’t well, even though he now stays home so much.
The early evening sky was a medieval blue after the snow. Mr. Summerfield continued to write. His wife said, “That article for the New York Gazette-Express? Is it so important? You’re writing furiously, dear.” (Why was he so pale these days, and his eyes so exhausted?)
“It’s very important,” he replied impatiently. “They’re going to feature it for the Sunday edition. Don’t interrupt, Esther.”
She got up languidly, and poured him a cocktail. “You look so pleased, dear, that I want you to be more pleased. I made these cocktails myself. Very dry.” She looked down at the desk, and her smiling mouth tightened. She recognized the heap of pages there, in Dr. Somer Granger’s rounded, almost unformed hand, the hand of an extroverted, malicious child, thought Esther, who had recently taken up the science of graphology. A mean child, she commented; a child who is cruel because of the exaltation and power cruelty gives him. She saw that, as usual, her husband was usin
g these notes as a basis for his article. Her swift eye caught a few lines: “The reactionary believes he is acting on ‘American principles’ when he denounces a progressive man for his democratic ideology. But his ‘patriotism,’ as the reactionary calls his aberration, is purely a paranoid fear of anything which threatens his security in the status quo. In many instances the reactionary’s violent rejection of progressive ideas is based on subconscious hostility to a parent during childhood. The very young child is ritualistic; any departure from comfortable ritualism, even though departure is necessary for growth, arouses his fear and hatred for the unknown. … The reactionary, then, is in fact an emotionally and mentally disturbed person, and in need of psychiatric treatment to relieve his tensions and hostilities and to restore him to a happy adjustment.”
Esther stood at her husband’s elbow and reread that paragraph aloud, in a musing voice, much to her husband’s annoyance. She laughed with contempt. “Granger means calm and accepting attitudes toward Communism. He has never fooled me. But now he’s beginning to frighten me. He is the kind of psychiatrist who thinks of himself as a progressive. But he’s not, really. He is one of the real reactionaries. He wants power, the power to create a mindless helot state, with himself among the elite. I told Granger that. That’s why he hates me, and tries to persuade our friends and acquaintances, and you too, that I’m a fool of a woman, faddish and superficial. He’s succeeding, too. He knows I know all about him.”
Esther sat down, and her dark face was drawn with anger and anxiety. Her husband looked at her with sudden interest, as if seeing her after a long absence. “I look into the pit of his mind and I see all hell,” she went on. “No wonder the Russians use psychiatrists like Granger all the time. What is happening in the world now is the supreme sacrilege, the assault on men’s souls by men who are trying to play God. It never happened before in all the world’s history. Antichrist at last.”
A Tender Victory Page 52
