This Side of Innocence

by Taylor Caldwell

  Jerome lifted his eyes from the letter and stared before him. For the first time his face was grim. “Damn,” he muttered, scowling. His hand fumbled absently at the silver box of cheroots at his elbow. He found a cheroot, put it to his lips, but did not light it. An excellent diamond twinkled on his hand in the lamplight. Good God! Now, this was something not to be regarded with laughter or ridicule! It was damnably serious. He cared nothing for the Bank, so long as the cheques came regularly. But—would the cheques come so regularly after Papa’s death? What a fool he was not to have thought of this before. It seemed incredible to him that he had been possessed of such folly. He was not even young; he was thirty-four. There was no excuse for such confounded lack of intelligence. An adventuress, by God! A trollop and a strumpet, entering that old house on the hill and wielding sway over the household—and over the money! What possessed that incredible ass of an Alfred? What possessed his father?

  Now his disturbed and irascible eye fell on another letter. It was from his father, he knew. He flung Dorothea’s many tissue pages upon the floor and seized eagerly on the other missive. His hands trembled somewhat, with a chronic tremor. This annoyed him, for the first time. He saw that the first two fingers of his right hand were darkly stained with tobacco, and he grimaced. His tongue was thick, his stomach nauseated. Five hundred dollars spent last night, and all he had, in return, was buckets of ice-cooled champagne, grinning strumpets, and a sojourn in a bed not his own! And now, this. He tore open his father’s sealed letter, and began to read, bent towards the light. The letter was comparatively short, and full of quiet dignity. Jerome’s livid face softened, involuntarily, as he read, and he did not notice the green slip of paper that fell from the pages. “My dear Jerome:

  “I am sending you the thousand dollars you requested, and I hope this will be enough for a time. But, dear boy, do not hesitate to ask for more if it is necessary, even though your customary allowance is not due until February.

  “I write this now to ask you to a wedding. Does this surprise you? You know I have long urged Alfred to remarry, and it had been my secret hope that he would ask for our Dorothea, who has long been the mainstay of my existence, and is eminently suited to be Alfred’s wife. I believe I do not violate her inmost heart when I suggest that she has always been very attached to Alfred, and that his marriage to Martha was a blow to her. After Martha’s death I began to hope again. She has been so devoted to young Philip, and Alfred was sincerely grateful. The marriage would have been ideal.

  “But it was not to be, evidently. He has chosen a young woman, a schoolteacher in the village. To my regret, she is not a real resident of Riversend, and has no family of position. Moreover, she is very much younger that Alfred; seventeen years, in fact. I would have chosen otherwise, had it been in my hands, but one does not quarrel with circumstance.

  “However, I am not too unhappy. Miss Amalie is a young lady of spirit and originality, she is very talented with brush and canvas, and can play the pianoforte with amazing sympathy. Her gifts are all natural, and entirely uncultivated. She has a surprising wit and intelligence, and amuses me for hours together, which is very kind of her. (I find my invalidism too confining for my taste, at times.) I might suggest that a little more restraint in her manner would be agreeable, and a little more refinement in deportment and language. But I am old, and possibly my taste is old-fashioned, also, and not modern in all particulars. Since the war, young people have developed a freedom not acceptable in my day, and the females, especially, display a certain intrepid boldness which makes one wonder. However, one cannot restrain the times. Doubtless I appeared very alarming to my own parents, and I do recall that my father regularly prophesied my doom.

  “As for Miss Amalie’s family, or lack of it, that ought not to militate against her. Is this not a country of vitality, where the strangest men rise to positions of esteem and honor? Miss Amalie’s background is not disturbing to me. She is full of health and vitality, and is very shrewd. I predict she will present me with the grandchildren I long have wanted. They will be comely, I know, and even handsome, for she is a young lady of much presence, and with the loveliest face. Though Dorothea disagrees with me vehemently, I believe I find a resemblance in Miss Amalie to that portrait of my grandmother which hangs in the library. The eyes are identical in coloring, though Grandmother had a certain gentleness of expression not possessed by Miss Amalie. The hair is amazingly the same, black and curling and luxurious, and there is a startling similarity of carriage and figure. Had you known your great-grandmother, you would agree with me, I know.

  “I do hope you will be able to come to Riversend for the wedding. I know that you and Alfred never possessed mutual understanding and sympathy in your youth. But I hope time has alleviated that, and that you will meet again with agreeable sensations of brotherhood. You have not seen each other for nearly five years. Am I correct in this?

  “As for myself, I have not been overly well since Mr. Lincoln’s assassination. I confess that it was a most frightful blow to me, for we were friends, if you remember. But I am able to ride in my carriage for an hour a day without too much exhaustion, and I contemplate the future of our country with more optimism than in years. We must discuss all this. I confess that I look forward eagerly to your arrival, for we have not come face to face for nearly two years, and that was when I visited you in New York.

  “You do not speak in your last letter of the old wound in your leg, and I am anxious. I have not forgotten my pride in you, when you were a captain in the New York First Infantry, nor my terrible anxiety for you in the war years. How is the leg now?

  “Dorothea is ordering your old apartments to be made ready, and I am taking it for granted that you will rejoice me by being present at the wedding. Will it be possible for you to arrive a few days before Christmas?

  “Your loving father,

  “William Lindsey.”

  Jerome put his father’s letter on the table beside him, but the palm of his tremulous hand lay gently upon it. Why, the poor old boy was all broken up! It was like him to make the best of a bad bargain, but his distress was evident in every line of this quiet letter. My God, what a calamity was this!

  Jerome stood up. He swayed a little, for a racking pain went through his head. The door opened and, as if summoned, a wizened small man appeared, with a face like a nut and a completely bald head. That face was lewd and knowing, full of slyness and humor. The man wore a quiet black livery; there was a monkeylike agility about him, a monkeylike quickness and sprightliness.

  “Jim,” said Jerome, “pack our bags. We’re off and away for a wedding, unless I can prevent it. And, damn it, I’ll prevent it or die in the attempt.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  The mild weather of the first two weeks of December had been whirled away in the smoking spirals of a fierce snowstorm. Now over a landscape that had been unreasonably green and soft gray the storm rode in on wild and tempestuous white horses. Boiling and twisting clouds rolled over the high foothills; the long low valley filled rapidly with mounds and dunes of snow, fuming as if with white sand. Ramparts of black pines groaned, bent, reared, were flung back like waves under the battering onslaughts of terrible winds, and their tortured and roaring voices were heard like bassoons over and below the screams and howlings of the gales. Everything was lost in a gray and coiling mist beneath the gigantic and tumultuous dark heavens, which reverberated like an enormous struck harp.

  Riversend (formerly River’s End, but corrupted on the lazy tongues of the local citizenry) cowered at the mouth of the valley, a huddle of small houses, miniature churches, bleak little shops and a stately mansion or two. It seemed to draw together, shivering, so that the streets appeared narrowed, closing in hour by hour, contracting like the chilled muscles of a living body. Houses dwindled, pulling in their walls upon themselves, the windows diminishing like frightened eyes. Here and there, a yellow light flickered timidly behind curtains, and the gaslamps on the corners of the streets flared an
d sank like candles in the wind, showing briefly, in their crescendoes, the sharp-edged and rising dunes of snow. Not a creature was abroad, not even a sparrow or a homeless dog. Moment by moment, the village gave the impression of sinking deeper and deeper into the drifts, like a lost thing burrowing for safety.

  The station roof was already weighted with eighteen inches of fine white snow, sparkling sugarlike in the light of the station lantern which swung high and wide near the tracks. The New York train smoldered, and belched in a muffled voice, at the platform. Its smoke lay straight back over its long black length, battered by the winds, and the sallow glow of the lights in the coaches showed faintly through streaming windows. A bell rang warningly, though only two passengers descended. Then the train seemed to gather its strength together; it shuddered; the bell raised a thin clamor, sparks flew from the smokestack, lights flared up, and with a long groan the train pushed on into the formless black-and-white dark of the night. Now the gleaming tracks were empty, and the gales took over in triumph.

  The two passengers bent their heads and bodies against the wind and scrambled into the odoriferous warm shelter of the station, stamping their boots, wiping their eyes, rubbing their stung cheeks. One of them was a tall young man in furred greatcoat and high hat and furred gloves. He carried a whimpering little dog under his arm. The other man, much older and smaller, and less elegantly dressed, set down numerous bags on the tobacco-stained floor. He went at once to the potbellied coal stove, took off his cap, and shook it, hissing, near the fuming heat. The younger man put down the little dog, who whimpered and trembled near his polished boots.

  “Well,” said the young man, looking about him with disfavor, “no one’s here to meet us, I see. They must have received my telegram. I sent it two days ago.” He scowled at the empty counter. “Not even the damned stationmaster.”

  He turned to the older man, who was shaking the collar of his coat, bending sideways. “Jim, you remember the telegram?”

  “Yes, sir, I do that. You went out especially, I remember. You said: ‘Expect me and man on Tuesday, on the evening train—’” He paused, gaping monkeylike at his master. “It was Tuesday you said, warn’t it, sir?”

  “Tuesday it was, Jim.”

  Jim chuckled hoarsely. “Well, ’tis Monday now, sir. Tuesday’s tomorrow.”

  The young man stared at his servant, emptily. Then he said softly: “Well, I’ll be damned. Why didn’t you remember what day it was, Jim?”

  The nutlike face of the other wrinkled into its usual monkeyish expression. “Sir, it warn’t until we was almost here that you mentioned—begging your pardon, sir—that the telegram said Tuesday. I allus thought it was Monday, until on the train you mentioned it.”

  The young man somberly regarded the little dog writhing miserably at his feet. “Shut up, Charlie,” he remarked absently. Then he began to laugh. “We’ve gotten ourselves into a fix, it seems.” He raised his voice and shouted. “Where’s that damned stationmaster?”

  The door opened on a blast of wind and snow, and a short and sturdy man entered, swearing. He was a stranger, unknown to the passengers. The younger man said abruptly, as the stationmaster paused and stared at them with surprise: “Where’s old Thompson?”

  The other replied: “Why, sir, he died a year ago. I’m his nephew, takin’ over. You got off the train, sir?”

  “No, we blew in on the wind, from the North Pole. Look here, my man, there’s been some mistake. I was to be met by a carriage from Hilltop. I’m Jerome Lindsey. But there’s no one here.”

  The man hastily pulled off his cap with a servile gesture. “Well, now, sir, it’s glad to see you I am, though we’ve never met before. But I know all the folks on Hilltop. They was to meet you, you say? Ain’t seen any sign of a rig about.” He trotted to a window, rubbed the steaming pane, and peered into the night. “No, sir, no rig—nothing. And it’s five miles to Hilltop, and there’s no one to send to notify ’em.” He turned helplessly and apologetically from the window. “You can’t walk it, neither, sir. Not in this storm, through the snow.” Jerome lifted his coattails slowly and elaborately, examined the single bench with suspicion, and sat down. The little dog promptly sprang upon his knees, huddling against him. The creature was snuff-colored, with long silky hair and bloodshot bad-tempered eyes. He snarled at the stationmaster from his safety. “Nice little beast,” offered the man, lamely. He sighed. “No, sir, not in this storm and dark.”

  Jerome glanced pointedly at his servant, who blandly ignored his look and made much ado over rubbing his hands at the stove. “Never was here, myself, unfortunatelike. Wouldn’t know the way. I’d be fair swamped before quarter of a mile. They’d be digging out my cor’se at dawn.”

  The stationmaster suddenly brightened, and snapped his fingers. “I have it, sir! Hobson’s wagon’ll be here in half an hour or so, with the milk, for the Syracuse train. He never misses, come hell nor high water. Course, the wagon’s open, and it’ll be a nasty ride, in the wind and snow, but it’s better than nothin’, ain’t it? He has a farm one mile from Hilltop, and for a little consideration he’ll take you to the Hill. Couldn’t climb it, though, the weather bein’ what it is.”

  “Pleasant prospect,” remarked Jerome, frowning. He stroked the dog’s wet head. “But we can’t sit here until tomorrow night, either. I know! Your friend Hobson could notify Mr. Lindsey, and then they could send a carriage for us at once.”

  The stationmaster shook his head dolorously. “The storm like it is, sir, and getting worse by the minute, the rig’d never make it. At the best it’d be hours, and then how’d they get back? No, sir, best to go with Hobson, before the storm gets worse.”

  He threw a scuttle of coal into the stove. This frightened Charlie, the dog, to such an extent that he went off into a hysteria of barking. “Give him some meat,” said Jerome, wearily. Jim opened a wicker basket, brought out a paper parcel of liver and assorted dainties, and offered a few morsels to the dog in his brown and shriveled hand. But the dog was so disturbed that he snapped viciously at the man’s fingers and refused the delicacies. “Filthy little devil,” said Jerome, stroking him fondly. “Shut up, Charlie.”

  The coal-oil lamp swayed fitfully from the dirty ceiling. The stove crackled. The wind beat heavily against the windows. They could see the high rim of the snow on the sills. The glass was rapidly frosting, and the traceries of white ferns spread higher and higher by the moment. Now icy fingers of cold blew through the small and fetid room, and Jerome shivered. Seeing this, the stationmaster remarked dolefully: “Temperature’s dropping, too. It’s only three above zero. In an hour it’ll be worse. Freeze the heart out of you soon.”

  He lifted the granite pot which was steaming on top of the stove, and remarked with more brightness: “Coffee’s ready, sir! You’ll have a cup, against the weather?”

  Jerome frowned at the pot, but sniffed. “Thanks, I will.” He rubbed his lip with his gloved hand. “Looks as if we have no other choice but going with Hobson. If this isn’t hell—”

  He threw back his richly furred coat, scowling, and plucked a few dog hairs from his fine black broadcloth pantaloons. The stationmaster, while washing a cracked cup in the bucket of water near his counter, peeped at him curiously. This would be the New York son, then, the one that was rumored to be so gay and spending, the artist. The one that never came home to see the old gentleman, but let that stiff-necked cousin of his take over with all the money. A bad-tempered devil, from the looks of him, and his manners so hoity-toity and elegant. Citified. Look at that greatcoat, now, brown like a leaf, with all that fur, like a woman’s. And lined with fur, too, by God. And the gloves, and the polished pointed boots, and the gray gaiters. And that cane, there, with the gold head, leaning beside him as if it knew it was too good for the likes of us. And, if it isn’t diamonds all over his fingers, now he’s taking his gloves off. These city men, with their ways! And a servant he’s got, too. A valley, they call ’em.

  The stationmaster wiped the c
up furtively with a dingy piece of cloth. His study of Jerome concentrated as he saw that the young man had sunken into his scowling thoughts. Yep, a bad-tempered cuss. And dark as if he’d worked in the fields, but half-starved for good wholesome farm food, looks like. Thin as a fence rail. No meat on his legs or on his face, which looks like it’s been whittled out of brown oak. And those black thick eyebrows pulled together in a frown that’s fastened there permanent. I don’t like his eyes, though I guess the women-folk’d think them very fine and black and sparkling, and they’d love them small flat ears of his, and all that black curlin’ hair. No, sir, I don’t like them eyes. He’d be bad with a horse, or a man, if he got in his way. And where’d he get that thin beak of a nose, like a hawk’s? The old gentleman, bless him, don’t have such a nose, and neither does Miss Dorothea. He’s got a mouth like a hawk’s, too, for all it smiles easy. I suppose he thinks he’s the fine elegant figure of a man, with his white hands with the rings, and his high-toned way of talkin’, and his languid ways that’s all put on. He’s the kind like a whip, lashin’ out unexpected, and no mercy, either. That color on his cheekbones, too: water never put it there. I’ve seen drinkers in my time.

  Jerome was gazing somberly at the fire. He did not turn his head. But he said quietly: “I hope you like what you see, my man.”

  The stationmaster, dumbfounded, flushed, and stared. Jim, at the stove, chuckled with hoarse malice, glancing over his neat small shoulder at the discomfited man. Jerome continued to regard the stove, not moving except for the rhythmic stroking of his dog.