A Tender Victory

by Taylor Caldwell

  Is he sleeping? Johnny asked himself, watching the sick man. He did not believe it. Mr. Summerfield was thinking behind those parched eyelids that wrinkled nervously. Does he want me to go away? Johnny thought. He knows I’m here.

  Mr. Summerfield opened his eyes, and any last vestige of coldness Johnny might have been reserving against him vanished, for the eyes were Lorry’s eyes, intent and aware. “Are you still here, Mr. Fletcher?” the older man asked in a weak voice. “Why?”

  Johnny smiled. “Oh, I thought you and I would have something to say about Lorry,” he said. “Unless that sedative is acting vigorously on you.”

  Mr. Summerfield smiled faintly in answer. “I’ve been taking barbiturates for years,” he said. “Old Al didn’t know that, so his fine sedatives have just made me a little drowsy.” He paused. “I’m glad you stayed. You must have an instinct for such things.”

  “I have. I suppose every priest has. The doctor wanted me to leave and let you rest, but I knew you’d want to talk to me a little. So I stayed. After all, I’m going to marry Lorry.”

  “And it wouldn’t make any difference to either of you if I objected?”

  “No,” said Johnny frankly, “not at all. But I’d like you to be pleased.”

  Mr. Summerfield glanced at the nurse, and Johnny said at once, “Nancy, would you mind leaving us alone for about ten minutes?” The girl rose immediately, came to her patient, smiled at him, and felt his pulse. “Why, everything’s fine now,” she said. “I’ll have to ask the doctor for a stronger sedative, though, seeing this isn’t working very well. Ten minutes.” She left the room, and the two men were alone together.

  Mr. Summerfield gazed at Johnny for several long moments. “I never believed in supernatural events,” he said at last, in a stronger voice. “Everything inexplicable that happens is only coincidental, or can be explained in reasonable terms after investigation. So, you can tell me how it was, out of thousands of ministers, why you of all people—the chaplain who saved my son’s life, saved my daughter for me, and finally saved my sanity—happened to come here to Barryfield?”

  “It’s very simple,” said Johnny. “I was supposed to have a fine big parish in New York, with a salary about five times what I am getting here. And then the parish didn’t want me. Usually there are about half a dozen other vacancies at any time for ministers. But Dr. Stevens, to his surprise, could find only one. Barryfield. A week later, he wrote me, others opened up all at once. By that time I felt that I should stay in Barryfield, that I had a mission here. Coincidental, no doubt.”

  Mr. Summerfield looked away from him. Then he said, “No, not coincidental. I don’t think so.” He turned his head to Johnny and scrutinized him steadily. “I don’t think so,” he repeated. “And that’s unreasonable. Yet if you hadn’t come I’d probably be dead now; Lorry would still be a desperate and hating girl and my son would still be despising me; and my wife would no doubt have left me. Moreover, people here would still be dying from the smog, and you’d never have rescued that little girl, Debby, and old Al would still be the violent and vicious old man he was. A train of events—with a purpose. And that’s ridiculous. Isn’t it?”

  “No,” said Johnny.

  Mr. Summerfield moved uneasily on his pillows and Johnny got up at once and helped him with sure and tender hands. Lorry’s father said, “This is a long thing for a man to think about, and I’ll have time.” He added, “I never really hated you. You never met me before, but I’ve seen you on the streets many times, in your car, or walking on your rounds. I had a reporter for almost all your sermons, and I read them all. And I wanted to know you. It was like a compulsion. I thought I hated you, and I thought if you came here, on my invitation, that I’d demolish you. But I wanted you to come.”

  “I’d have come,” said Johnny, “I thought of coming, myself, several times, and—God forgive me—I stayed away. You weren’t the only one with a compulsion.”

  “You haunted me, from the day of your first sermon,” said Mr. Summerfield restlessly. “I couldn’t understand it. All my life, any strong impulse I had was attended by a more violent reaction. And always negative. Denials. My first wife stood it so long, then she left me. I married Esther shortly after the divorce. I loved her, and love her, yet I could never tell her. I’ve wanted to, desperately, and at those times I made fun of her, and rejected her. That’s the way it’s always been, since I could remember.”

  “You were always terribly afraid,” said Johnny. “Not only you, all of us. We are born afraid of everything. Only God can deliver us from our fear. Through love. When I was a boy I found a young robin, fallen from its nest, and abandoned by its mother. I adopted it and made a wooden cage for it. I fed it and talked to it and even sang to it.” Johnny smiled, remembering. “But it was afraid, even after two months, when it could fly around our kitchen. It knew the name I’d given it, but it wouldn’t come to me, wouldn’t eat out of my hand. If I went near it, it would rush back, huddling in its cage. And then I thought, why, that’s just like us, and God. God’s hand held out and we scuttling away from it and screaming in our blind terror, even while we accept the food and shelter and love God gave us. I asked myself whether we were as stupid as that little bird, and I came to the conclusion we were even more stupid, for we could reason. That’s when I knew I had to be a minister.”

  “What happened to the robin?” asked Mr. Summerfield. His eyes were interested and clear now.

  “Oh, I was eating breakfast one morning, before going on my paper route, and all at once I heard the bird flying around, and then it was on my shoulder and rubbing its head against my cheek. It wasn’t afraid any more.”

  Mr. Summerfield was silent. He lay and looked at Johnny, who was still smiling at the memory of the bird. Then Mr. Summerfield said, “I can’t thank you about Barry. I couldn’t insult you by thanking you.”

  But Johnny said, as if he had not heard, “The robin knew, finally, that there never had been anything to be afraid of at all. It was all in its distrustful and ignorant mind.”

  Dr. McManus, accompanied by Esther, the nurse, Barry and Lorry, came into the room. “Oho!” said the doctor, “so you’ve been taking barbiturates, have you, Mac? Kind of a desperate feller, weren’t you? But now we’ll really put you to sleep for about twelve hours.” He scowled ferociously at Johnny. “And we’ll run this gabby parson out, who’s been annoying you. Don’t know why I left him here in the first place.” The old man felt deftly for Mr. Summerfield’s pulse, nodded in satisfaction. “Parson’s a simple feller, but you’d be surprised at the things he can say. Mostly fairy stories; never did believe a word of ’em.”

  But Mr. Summerfield was looking at his daughter and his son, and they stood beside him. Barry took his father’s hand and Lorry knelt down by the bed and laid her wet cheek mutely against her father’s. Esther stood at the foot of the bed, her eyes full of vivid tears.

  Mr. Summerfield smiled at Johnny. “I’ll be well, and back again, for the wedding.” He laughed feebly. “Lorry a minister’s wife! I’m going to enjoy myself, watching.”

  But he gave Johnny his hand and the gesture was a pleading for forgiveness, and a surrendering.

  37

  April came in like the light on the wings of a dove, and it was almost Easter. Emilie’s lilacs were in full and delicate bloom in the parsonage garden, and Johnny and the children visited them often. The little fruit trees had shed their petals like fragrant snow, and the grass was greening rapidly. Lon Harding and his friends had spaded up sections for flower, beds, and had let the children assist them in the planting of perennials. Father Krupszyk brought clumps of iris and lily bulbs, and planted them himself.

  Lorry was dividing her time between Philadelphia and Barryfield. “It’s too exhausting for you, dear,” Johnny would say anxiously. But she was blooming now, and full of a rich, soft contentment. When in Barryfield she stayed with her lonely mother, and read her father’s letters to Esther. They were short, but loving and kind an
d full of an intangible sadness. They were the letters of a man who had once been mortally ill, and was only slowly returning to life. He invariably asked about Johnny.

  Another time he wrote, “Barry visited me yesterday. He is my son again.”

  Whenever Lorry came to Barryfield, with her brother, Johnny felt that his life was complete, and that all the years ahead would be one deep happiness. His children were flourishing. Jean, restored to normal, was talking of joining the basketball team of the Church of the Holy Rosary. Pietro’s voice was taking on more luster. Max was doing mysterious odd jobs for Rabbi Chortow, who found him a consolation for the children he had never had. Kathy struggled with Mrs. Burnsdale for authority, which entertained Johnny and Dr. McManus, though Kathy found no reason for amusement. “After all,” she would say coldly, “I took care of the kids before we ever saw Mrs. Burnsdale. I am closer to them.”

  Debby, of the bright auburn hair and impudent eyes, was Kathy’s particular cross, for the boys adored her. She could even flout Mrs. Burnsdale. It was then that Kathy became Mrs. Burnsdale’s supporter. “That child,” Kathy would say severely, “needs discipline. But who around here will give her that?” It was Kathy’s opinion that the household was managed very laxly indeed. She took out her frustration on the little girls in her Sunday school class, who feared and respected her.

  Pietro had tried to persuade Lorry to marry Johnny before September. “Why wait, when there is love?” he would ask her slyly. She would look at him reproachfully, and reply, half smiling, “But duty comes first, doesn’t it?” Pietro was not quite sure about this. Duty seemed a very drab thing to him, particularly when it interfered with festivities.

  “Peace, it’s wonderful,” Dr. McManus would say. Then he would turn to Johnny with a threatening look. “Just so long as you keep out of things.”

  Barry had promised Johnny that he would be in Barryfield for Easter. The devotion between the two young men was so profound that it touched even Dr. McManus. “I keep remembering the day he rushed to this town,” said the doctor. “You two fell into each other’s arms like fools. Blubbering.”

  It was Barry who insisted on furnishing the parsonage, which would be ready in June. Johnny had protested at the expense, but his friend had said, “You haven’t seen the Madison Avenue shops. They’re full of treasures. And after all, Lorry is my sister.”

  “Peace, it’s wonderful,” the doctor said. It was very peaceful until Holy Thursday, the day Barry arrived and went to his stepmother’s house. He was fond of Esther, and pitied her courageous loneliness.

  Barry Summerfield came in late on Holy Thursday afternoon, with his sister, Lorry. “In a way,” said Esther, kissing them, “this is going to be one of the happiest Easters of my life.” She had forgotten the pleasant Easters of her youth, before she had married MacDonald Summerfield, but Lorry had heard her speak of them, and she was remorseful. We certainly made her life miserable, she thought.

  “Your father always thought it debasing for me to cook,” said Esther. “But I am going to prepare the Easter dinner myself! We always had a lot of money, but Mother thought any girl who could not cook and make her own clothing was a useless sort of female.”

  She still looked exotic, for she was an exotic woman, though she now wore quiet and conventional clothing, and was considering another redecorating of the house in an acceptable style. Her daughter and her stepson regarded her with affection, as she talked with wit and penetration at dinner. No one looked at Mr. Summerfield’s chair, but he was in their thoughts. Someday he would sit there again, full of health, his soul healed and quieted, and they all knew that but for John Fletcher he might have been dead now—for they had found tentative suicide notes in his desk. Johnny leaves his imprint everywhere, thought Lorry with love, whether he knows it or not.

  The windows were open to the green and lavender mountains and the scent of mountain shrubs and trees. The edge of a moon shook like silver fire over the top of the nearest hill. Esther suddenly yawned, and laughingly apologized. “I work in the garden now,” she said. “Your father would never let me do it. I get up at six; it’s best then, clear and cool, and the earth is fresh. So in about an hour you children will have to excuse me.” She smiled at them with content.

  She left them at half-past nine. Lorry and Barry sat alone in the Hindustani living room, and pretended the furniture was not there. “The new editors I hired are very good,” Lorry said to her brother. “The people in Barryfield are respecting our papers again. And our circulation has jumped a third! Imagine that.”

  She regarded her brother affectionately. He might have been her father in his early thirties, because of his great resemblance. “Your editorials for our papers, when you can spare time for a few, are very tactful,” she went on, and she sighed a little. “Oh, yes, I know we can’t suddenly reverse the usual line; it has to be done gradually. But you’re doing it, and that’s why we’re gaining circulation. Of course everybody knows about Dad, and there’s some cynicism over our new policy. And—Dad’s last remarks about Johnny didn’t do Johnny any good. At least, though, he isn’t mentioned in the papers, except just an occasional quote from his sermons. We don’t publish the few ugly letters that still come in about him.” She did not mention that those letters were sometimes violent and incoherent, testifying to the mad hatred a considerable segment of Barryfield held for Johnny because of her father’s malignant attacks on him in the past. Many people, she thought dismally, must hate something, or someone, in order to make their lives significant to themselves. Invariably they hated the wrong things and the wrong men, with a singular perversity. Perhaps, in their hearts, they knew this and attacked out of pure evil.

  Barry said, “Johnny’s told me that a number of his members have left the church since Dad’s last little gem. He’s tried to talk to them, but it’s no use. We’ll just have to go on being tactful, I suppose.” He then spoke of a new author he had “snared” in England, for he saw that his sister was looking depressed. “I persuaded him we could do better for him than his old publisher.” He laughed. “Higher royalties were never even mentioned, though it was tacitly understood. We talked only of wider distribution and bringing the man’s message to a larger audience. Nothing so gross as money, naturally. We Americans are direct about it; it offends Europeans, especially artists. But they certainly go over our royalty reports with a microsocope!”

  Lorry began to laugh. Then they heard the most sinister sound that can be heard in an area where coal mining is important. Sirens were suddenly clamoring in short quick blasts of panic, pausing a moment, then blasting again, calling for help. Lorry and Barry had heard it only once or twice before in their lives, and they looked at each other in consternation. The mechanical cries rose thinly and clearly to them, even up on the mountainside. “An explosion!” cried Lorry. “They must be working at night again! Those calls are for help of any kind. I wonder how many men—”

  “I’m going down,” said Barry, standing up determinedly. “I don’t know what help I can give, but I’m a newspaperman at heart and I’ll get a story, anyway. Listen to those sirens scream! All hell must have broken loose. Poor devils. Some of those mines should have been closed down long ago, or the walls shored up. Don’t wait up for me, Lorry.”

  Johnny was working on his Easter sermon with dissatisfaction a few minutes before the mine explosion. Everything he wrote seemed inadequate, banal. He paused, tapping his pen against his teeth. The God of all the endless constellations, galaxies, and universes had looked down on one small grain of dust fluttering in the timeless trail of dazzling suns and millions of swinging worlds vaster far than it could ever dream of, and He had descended upon it with His radiant feet and had died upon it in His human flesh. Why? Oh, the Bible explained, but the mystery was still, to Johnny, unsolved. And then, after His death, He had risen from the dead, to bring life to the little crawling creatures known as men—why? “Not a sparrow falls”—but we are less innocent, less harmless, even less beautiful
, than sparrows, thought Johnny. And less useful. And we are murderers. The mark of Cain is on our faces.

  The big old house was very quiet. The old doctor had been tired, and had gone to bed. The children were asleep, Johnny hoped. The floors and the walls creaked faintly in the warm and pleasant night. Then, all at once, they shuddered.

  The mines again, thought Johnny uneasily. He stood up, without aim, and went to a window and looked out. He did not expect to see anything; he just wanted the reassurance of the calm street lamps. No one walked nearby; only an occasional automobile rolled past the house. Then he started. The sirens were beginning, suddenly, violently, in a clamor of desperate pleading for help.

  He knew those sirens. He began to tremble with the dread only a miner can feel. He could, he believed, actually smell the gas, the acrid odor of coal beginning to burn, and could hear the beating of terrified hearts stricken with dread far underground. He knew it all well; he had experienced it himself. Now he was no longer a priest but a miner. The women, the children. The hammering of anguished feet running to the mines, the calls of terror, the screaming for mercy, the cries to God. And the ambulances, the lights, the rescuers. … He was halfway to the door when he saw Dr. McManus coming pounding down the staircase, struggling into his clothing.

  Dr. McManus saw Johnny and stopped, fastening a last button. “What—look here, they won’t let you near the shaft. Only doctors. Hear those damn sirens! I know all the calls; this must be bad. Look, there’s wire fences around the shafts, to keep away busybodies and the women and children, and they lock the gates; rescuers can’t be hampered. They want every doctor they can reach tonight. You’ll just be in the way, you’re a—”

  “You forget,” said Johnny, pale and distracted. “I’m also a miner. I know how to rescue miners; I was rescued once myself. You don’t know what it’s like down there—I do. I felt the blast; there’re more coming. You’ve got to work fast in times like these.”