Balance Wheel

by Taylor Caldwell

  This happened in Andersburg, also, and Charles was one of the first to see it.

  Charles was a man slow to anger and to resentment, but once having become angry and resentful he was unable to free himself easily. He kept to his resolution not to borrow money from the banks, remembering old Mr. Heinz. So, he approached Mr. Holt, who at once, and with pleasure, offered to lend him the money with which to buy out Jochen. Without interest. But Charles never accepted favors. He put up his own stock in the Wittmann Machine Tool Company as collateral. He insisted on full interest. He valued the friendship of the Holts, and would not jeopardize that friendship by accepting a favor which would put him in an inferior position.

  Charles had always been very popular in Andersburg, not only with men in his own class, but with all workers and the very wealthy. He was “sound.” He was just. He was logical and honorable and trustworthy. He had, personally, preferred his own middle class above any other. But, through Wilhelm, and then through the Holts, he had become greatly admired by the “well-bred” and financially opulent of the city.

  Though not conscious of “race,” and openly ridiculing it, he had felt more at ease with those of German stock, like himself. He liked German cooking, German uprightness, German solidity. All these things had always been part of his life, and he had never been self-conscious about them, or given them much thought. The newer friends on the mountains had English and Celtic names; they had had different backgrounds. They were Americans, but their traditions were British.

  All through August he had been preoccupied with his personal problems, his fears, his dreads, his alarms, and his business. It was not until the end of August that he became aware of the change about him.

  It was very subtle, and at first he thought it was his imagination, or because he was abstracted and concerned only with his own affairs. He met his newer friends on the streets, friends with the English and the Celtic names, and they were polite, but cool, to him. He began to wonder if he had offended them in some way, and remembered that he had refused some invitations.

  One-third of the congregation of the First Lutheran Church was of English stock. These people had drifted into the church years ago, because it was a fine church and the Reverend Mr. Haas was an eloquent pastor, and there was a certain éclat in belonging to the congregation, which was composed mainly of the middle-class element. Mr. Haas believed more in the spirit of the Law than the letter, and his sermons had never been dogmatic. There was no obvious reason, then, that by the end of August, 1914, that segment of the congregation composed of non-German stock should have begun to melt away perceptibly. There was no reason why Mr. Bartlett, one of the members of the Church Board, should have resigned with the vague excuse that his health was none too excellent.

  Had the congregation which melted away not immediately joined the Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, the Baptist, and Methodist churches in the vicinity, no one would have remarked upon this phenomenon. But they did. Mr. Bartlett became Secretary of the First Presbyterian Church of Andersburg. Mr. Bartlett, meeting Charles once at the Imperial Hotel during luncheon, nodded to him coldly, then turned his back upon him. Charles was disturbed.

  Charles, as President of the Board, noticed that the roster of new names was growing in his church. They were all German names. It was nothing, of course. But one Sunday he went to the rectory and talked about the matter with Mr. Haas.

  “Are our old people moving out of the neighborhood, or something?” he asked.

  Mr. Haas looked at him sadly. “No, Charles,” he answered. “Something is happening. The war. German-Americans, in spite of all that Mr. Wilson has been saying, are becoming unpopular.”

  Charles was shocked and incredulous. “People can’t be such fools!” he exclaimed.

  Mr. Haas smiled sadly. “Folly has never been a minor vice of humanity’s,” he said.

  “I haven’t heard anyone speaking highly of England or France,” protested Charles, unwilling to believe.

  “Neither have I, Charles. But something ugly is stirring. Look at this.” And he gave Charles a cheap sheet of paper, a letter which had been addressed to him anonymously: “Dirty German! We don’t want you in America. Go back to your Kaiser and your Vaterland!”

  “It wouldn’t matter so much, but our old people, of German stock, are becoming defensive and truculent,” said Mr. Haas. “That’s natural, when you’re attacked. They’ve never thought of themselves as being Germans. They were Americans, part of everything which was American. Now they are insisting that the schools teach German again. They are singing hymns in German, a rusty German, and uncertain. Some of them have asked me to revive old German Christmas customs. Some of them have bought pictures of the Kaiser and hung them prominently in their houses, though they’ve always hated and ridiculed everything that was European-German. They’re afraid. Poor people. They are not to blame. The guilt lies with their enemies.”

  “But they’ve been Americans, and Americans only, for three, four, and even five generations!” said Charles. “They know nothing of Germany. Many of their ancestors fought in the Civil War; some of them, themselves, fought in the Spanish-American War.”

  Mr. Haas smiled wearily. “Yes. We know that. But there’s something else we must remember. I’m a minister, but I’ve never believed in the sweetness and light of the human animal. Men wish to hate; it’s part of their nature. They wish to oppress, to be cruel, to be savage, to attack. That urge is an instinctual element in all men. It lies in wait, eternally. That is the reason for periodic wars, for pogroms, for individual homicide, for hatred. It is beyond logic, for long before logic was evolved murder had rooted itself in the instincts of man.”

  He waited for Charles to speak, but Charles only stared at him grimly. Mr. Haas sighed. “Always, at the propitious moment, the animal asserts itself in a flare of surging madness. Later, the man-mind is aghast, remorseful, ashamed. But the damage has been done. We call that damage ‘history.’”

  Charles suddenly remembered how he had once wanted to kill his brother Jochen. He had had provocation yes. …

  “The Animal against God. Yes. It has always been so,” added Mr. Haas. “One has only to look at recent history. It is all part of the story of the Animal against God. And now, this war.”

  Still, Charles could not believe it. He knew it was true, but he did not want to believe it.

  Mr. Haas smiled at Charles drearily. “Do you remember that poem by Robert Southey, called ‘The Battle of Blenheim’? I don’t remember all of it, but I’ll quote what I do:

  ‘Now tell us what ’twas all about,’

  Young Peterkin he cries;

  And little Wilhelmine looks up

  With wonder-waiting eyes.

  ‘Now tell us all about the war,

  And what they fought each other for.’

  * * * * * * *

  ‘But what good came of it at last?’

  Quoth little Peterkin.

  ‘Why, that I cannot tell,’ said he;

  ‘But ’twas a famous victory.’

  Charles listened, and his face grew even more grim. Mr. Haas said: “The Animal against God has had so many ‘famous victories.’ We can only hope that the last victory is with God.”

  Mr. Haas’ sermon, the next Sunday, was announced as “The Battle of Blenheim.” The congregation went away, soberly discussing it, shaking their heads. Some of them, at home, stared at the new portraits of the Kaiser on the parlor walls. Some removed the portraits. Some retained them. They were afraid.

  America was neutral, and was determined to remain neutral. But the foul wind blew over all the cities and the people murmured restlessly.

  On September 1st, Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Hadden announced the engagement of their daughter, Helen, to Mr. Friederich Wittmann, the marriage to take place on January 15th, 1915.

  On the same day the engagement was announced, Phyllis and Mrs. Holt came home to Andersburg.

  CHAPTER XLVIII

  On the morning of Septemb
er 2nd, Charles called Phyllis. All at once, he wanted to see her. She would speak of nothing he wished to avoid speaking of, he knew. She would understand everything without a single word. She would be the very essence of comfort and serenity and consolation. He had anticipated hearing her voice with pleasure. When he actually did hear it, over the telephone, he was filled with wonder and a quick, releasing delight. He had not known how much he had missed her, and how much he loved her, until he heard her say: “Charles! Oh, Charles.”

  “Phyllis, I’m coming up to have dinner with you tonight. Alone. I want to talk—talk—”

  “Yes,” she said. “Of course. Oh, Charles.” Had her voice always been so sweet, so alive, and had it always struck at his heart like this, with such tenderness? He was sure it had not. He called his son and told him where he was going. Jim was enthusiastic. “Give Aunt Phyllis a kiss for me, Dad,” said the boy. “And tell her to hurry up and marry you.” He hung up, chuckling.

  Phyllis was waiting for him at the gate where he had once left her. He saw her long before he reached her, a slender figure in mauve voile, waving to him. The early September evening flooded the mountains with warm blue light, and it seemed to Charles that the last sun was all concentrated on Phyllis’ hair. He had walked, for in walking he had found some escape from his awful and harassing thoughts, and now he walked faster, waving his straw hat at her, and she waved again and took a few steps into the road. Behind her, the white house stood bright against the green slope, silent but no longer mysterious and retreating.

  Charles looked for some change in Phyllis, and found it. Her face was not so tense, now, and not so thin, and there was a vividness in her eyes and in her smile which he had not seen since she had been very young. She appeared very beautiful to him, and all that he had ever wanted; her blue eyes shone at him with unspeakable love. She gave him her hand, and, as she had done the last time he had seen her, she put her head on his shoulder, simply and naturally. There was just one moment when he glanced discreetly at the house, then he recklessly put his arms around her and held her to him. They said nothing. They stood like that for a long time, and Charles knew the first peace he had known for more than a year. She was living and slender in his arms; he kissed her hair, and touched it with his hand. The memory of Wilhelm and Mary was the memory of friends, affectionate and devoted, mourned and loved. But only friends.

  They went up the private road to the house, hand in hand, as they had often walked when they had been engaged, swinging their locked hands a little, and smiling at each other. They did not look at the staircase where Wilhelm had fallen to his death. There were no ghosts here, watchful and unfriendly. Just friends. Charles did not glance around instinctively for his brother, as he had done before. Still, Charles was sad, and for an instant or two he could feel a sudden hatred for Jochen, who had caused Wilhelm such suffering.

  They went into the music room, and Charles remembered: Etude. Yes: finished, fulfilled, complete in itself. The flowerbeds outside glimmered with color in the first twilight; the trees stood still in silence. A few birds were drinking from the white baths on the heavy green grass. The doors were open to the freshness of the evening, and the faint sound of the mountain breeze. Charles and Phyllis lingered on the threshold and looked at the garden. He had his arm about her, holding her close to him, and his tension went from him completely.

  Phyllis brought his favorite whiskey and soda, and a glass of wine for herself. They sat near the doors and studied each other, smiling. Charles thought: It’s a lovely place, up here, but I don’t think she’d mind leaving it. We’ll build somewhere. We’ll start out fresh, new. He said: “When are you going to marry me, Phyllis?”

  She laughed gently. “Next summer. Jimmy will be home then, from Harvard.”

  Of course. A year must go by. Willie had been dead hardly four months. Charles looked at his glass. He wanted to say: “Not next summer. Now. My son’s going away. How can I be alone—with everything?” Then some of his pain came back.

  “Yes. Jimmy’s going away. I know it’s just to school. But it’ll be the first time he’s left me. Yes, he’ll be back for vacations, and in the summers. But it’s a going away, after all. It’s a change, and even though he’ll come back, he’s really on his way out of my life. It’s nothing to him; it’s a beginning. For me, it’s an end.” He added: “All summer, we’ve been making plans, and being glad that he’s been accepted, and we thought it’d be all right. Perhaps it is, for Jimmy. I wish I’d had more children.”

  Phyllis regarded him with compassion. “Yes, I know,” she said. Then she colored brightly. He wondered at this. Then he thought: I’ve forgotten. Phyllis is still a young woman. There could be children. She’s always wanted them, I know. We can have them. I’m not so old, after all. I’m only forty-one. Lots of men have children in their forties. I could have another son, and perhaps a daughter. He looked at Phyllis shyly. She put out her hand and he took it. The pain retreated.

  “This seems—just right. You and me, here,” said Charles hopefully.

  “Of course, Charles.” Her fingers were warm and firm in his. She smiled.

  Two years from now, I could have another son, Charles thought again. He drank his whiskey, to hide his elation. He was conscious of an unfamiliar recklessness. He wanted to say, again; Not next summer. Now. Afraid that she would know what he was thinking, he asked her about California, and all the other places where she had been, and she told him some amusing stories about Mrs. Holt in Hollywood, and how Mrs. Holt was so gratified that her friend, Cecil deMille, had allowed her to be part of a mob scene. They said nothing about the war; they did not speak of Jochen, and what had happened during those terrible months Phyllis had been away.

  Charles found that Phyllis expected him to sit in Wilhelm’s place. He hesitated only briefly, then felt once more that this is what his brother would have wished. The dinner was good and simple, with no wine sauces, no lobster, no consommé. Charles said, as he carved the roast beef: “Willie never liked what he called ‘raw blood.’” They laughed. Charles thought: We’ll call the boy Wilhelm. Willie’d like that.

  Later, Charles asked: “We’ll find a place to build, Phyllis? A nice house. Solid. Substantial. We’ll look around, very soon, so the house will be ready for us.”

  Had he said something wrong? For Phyllis was looking troubled and uncertain. She lifted her eyes, and they were blue light in the glow of the candles. “Charles, I’ve thought I’d like to live in your house. I like it. I couldn’t imagine you—us—anywhere else.”

  “That house?” said Charles, amazed. He glanced about the beautiful dining-room. “You can’t really mean that, Phyllis.” He hardly believed it, and he wondered why he should feel so relieved, so delighted.

  “I do mean it. Honestly, my dear. You are part of the house; you were born there. Jimmy was born there. I’ve always loved it. No, it isn’t ‘ugly.’ It’s kind and old. It’s a home. Oh, I’ll do all sorts of frightful things to it, of course! Fresh bright paper, and new rugs and quite a lot of my furniture and pictures, and things. You’ll be horrified.” She laughed at him, gayly. “But we’ll keep the house, and all those old apple and peach trees, and the garden. I’m homesick for it.”

  He knew now that it would have been unbearably painful for him to leave his home. He wanted to stay there, to wait for Jim to come back from school. He wanted to sit on the wide verandah, with Phyllis, and hear the summer voices passing in the street. There was so much in that house, so much of his life. He knew, all at once, that Phyllis had never really lived in this lovely house which his brother had built. She had never been happy here. He said: “Has there ever been any time when we haven’t loved each other, Phyllis?”

  Yes, she thought. There were years when you hardly thought of me. You had Mary, and Jimmy, and you were contented. But I always loved you. She said: “I can’t think of a time when we didn’t love each other.” And she smiled, sadly.

  They went to sit on the terrace in the still
darkness. A moon stood over the great trees. Charles was drinking another whiskey and soda. He had not wanted to talk of what had happened in the last months. But she was sitting close to him, and their hands were together, and he began to talk. The moonlight lay on her quiet and listening face. Charles talked on and on, as he had never talked to anyone before. He could not help himself. Sometimes he clutched Phyllis’ hand so that her fingers were bruised. But she said nothing, and only listened.

  “I wouldn’t be able to stand it, if we got into this war—Jimmy’d be just old enough—they’d take him—I don’t understand, Phyllis—I’ve seen the photographs of the English and French and Russian and German troops—boys—laughing, singing, shouting—I don’t understand—I suppose I never understood anything—the boys don’t know either—”

  He went on and on, at times incoherent, passionate, and desperate. He could hide nothing from her now. He could not control himself. He found words, stumbled over some, shook his head numbly. The moon rode higher over the trees, brilliant, swimming in its own light. Crickets were shrilling in the grass. Phyllis listened, aching, but still silent, sometimes putting her head on his shoulder, sometimes watching his face in the white radiance, sometimes sighing. Was this frantic man, speaking so loudly, so bitterly, so despairingly, the old stolid Charles, the “sensible” Charles of the Wittmann Machine Tool Company, the “reliable” and moderating Charles everyone knew? No, this was the real Charles, the Charles kept hidden for over forty years. She lifted his hand to her lips, to comfort him, but he only looked at her for a moment, dazed, then went on talking.