“You didn’t mention my name, I hope?” Alfred asked quickly.
“No,” lied Philip.
Alfred said: “I haven’t hated Jerome for years. Of course, we could never be friends, I suppose. We couldn’t even be speaking acquaintances. I have never forgotten Amalie. I haven’t forgotten Jerome’s blackguardly way of managing the situation. But I don’t blame either one of them now. Perhaps I am just tired.”
He added: “I have a feeling that one of these days Jerome and I shall meet, and—things—will be cleared up.”
“Yes,” said Philip, with an odd glance. “I think they will.”
Alfred went on almost mournfully: “You know, Philip, it seems very vindictive of Jerome that he never allowed Mary to visit us again. I quite loved the child, and Dorothea did, too. What harm could we have done her?”
“But you met her often on the road, quite accidentally,” Philip reminded his father, with a smile. “And at the homes of discreet and mutual friends. Mary can be quite subtle.”
“I never thought that quite honorable,” said Alfred uneasily. “If her father forbade it, perhaps she should have obeyed not only the letter of the law but its spirit.”
“Mary has a lot of sense, and she is a creature of reason,” replied Philip. He told his father of Mary’s impending return. “And I had a letter from her this morning,” he went on. “And a photograph.”
He took an envelop from his pocket, and Alfred seized the photograph eagerly. He saw that fine and delicately carved face, haughty in its youth and beauty, the wide fringed eyes full of spiritual light and resolution. The pale hair was not frizzed on the forehead; it lay over the fragile but strong contours of her head in long smooth waves, and was coiled in a thick and glistening chignon on the nape of her neck.
“What a lovely chin, so high and valorous,” said Alfred, with love. “Her nose is exactly like Uncle William’s. She has his look, too. What a sweet child.”
“She is seventeen,” said Philip. “Not a child. Not even in years, and certainly not in character.”
Alfred put on his spectacles to read the inscription on the photograph, which was written in the sharpest, smallest script: “To my darling Philip, with all my love. Mary.”
“How touching,” said Alfred. “One understands that under all that pretty coldness is a really warm heart. She is much attached to you, Philip.”
Philip took back the photograph. His expression was more odd than ever.
“And I love Mary, too,” he said very quietly.
“Who could not?” Alfred’s tone was absent. Then he said: “Philip, you are now over thirty. You never speak of marriage. You really ought to, you know. All that I have will be yours. You must have children.”
Philip smiled. “I promise you I’ll be married within two years,” he said.
Alfred was delighted and pleased. “Josephine Tayntor—I hope?” he suggested. “Of course, she is three or four years older than you, but she seems quite immature. Or Goodwin’s girl? She is only twenty-two, and you see a lot of her. She won’t have the fortune of Miss Josephine, but somehow that doesn’t seem to matter.”
“I’ve already made my choice,” said Philip. “Now, please don’t ask me, Father, but I feel you aren’t going to be disappointed.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
The endowing of twelve scholarships by Jerome Lindsey created great excitement in Riversend. All were more than pleased, until it was discovered that these scholarships were not for the exclusive benefit of the sons of the “old” families of Riversend. Indignation ran very high in several quarters when it was further discovered that seven of the scholarships went to the young sons of a machinist, two farmers, a bricklayer, a shopkeeper, a widowed seamstress, and, finally, the fourteen-year-old boy of the town drunkard. (The other five were divided among three sons of the respectable middle class and two sons of an “old” family.)
Again the cry of “nihilism, anarchism, socialism and revolutionary,” rose throughout the township.
Jerome was waited upon by several of his outraged friends. Only General Tayntor understood. The other four went away fully convinced that Jerome had some nefarious scheme to undermine orderly government.
As Jerome loved a fight, he much enjoyed these encounters.
His peace of mind would not have been much enhanced had Philip informed him that Alfred was endowing two of these scholarships, a fact which the tactful Philip discreetly kept quiet.
Jerome had selected the fine private preparatory schools for his scholars. On this occasion he had another struggle on his hands. The fine schools were at first adamant in their refusal to take the sons of nameless workers and drunkards. Jerome enlisted the aid of his powerful friends in Boston and New York. He succeeded, but the newspapers were again acrid in their comments.
“The schools I selected are the most excellent ones for the preparation of young men for their duty to their country,” said Jerome to Philip. “But they have somewhere gotten the erroneous idea that such men should come from well-founded and prosperous families. It was hard to convince them that perhaps the working classes might be able to produce their quota of leaders. I quoted Abraham Lincoln to them by the yard, and they quoted George Washington back at me with equal dexterity. They also quoted Alexander Hamilton, and his remark that the people were ‘a great beast.’ I told them that Hamilton didn’t mean just the people who worked with their hands. They told me there was no evidence he didn’t mean just that. But the prexies, in the main, were sensible men. They don’t like novelty; it upsets them, and there’s nothing so obstinate as a pedant when something out of the ordinary happens.”
Mary and Amalie had returned to Riversend. Jerome invited Philip to dinner, to celebrate the homecoming. He himself was in a buoyant mood, and it annoyed him to discover that Amalie was curiously quiet and heavy of eye. “I thought you liked Philip,” he said impatiently when she displayed no animation at his news. “If you wish, we can be rude and send him a message not to come.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Amalie. There was a grayish shadow about her mouth. “Of course, I’m very fond of Philip, and am very glad that he is coming. But it just happens that I feel slightly depressed. Are you the only one in the household entitled to moods?”
Jerome smiled broadly. “There isn’t enough room in this house for two moods. And I like the moods of others to coincide with mine.”
“Egotistic, as usual,” commented Amalie. She aroused herself a little. “Don’t mind me. But did I ever tell you I don’t like the town down there? I oughtn’t ever to visit it. However, it was necessary. There was a length of lace that I needed, and it so happened that Rogers’ had the only match.”
Jerome looked at her penetratingly. So the poor darling had been snubbed again, had she? It was oddly puerile of him to believe that such “snubbing” could depress one as strong as Amalie, but believe it he did. He kissed her fondly and consolingly and could not understand why she so suddenly clung to him and cried a little. It would have amazed him had he known that there was now no comfort in his caresses.
For, that afternoon, in Riversend, Amalie had come face to face with Alfred.
She had indeed gone to Rogers’. She left the shop, holding high her parasol of black lace, and lifting her mauve silk skirts from the dust. Her bonnet of yellow silk was tied with mauve ribbons, and she looked unusually handsome and young. She strode across the narrow sidewalk towards her carriage, and collided with someone quite violently.
“I beg your pardon,” said the gentleman, with distressed courtesy. “My fault, ma’am.”
“So heedless of me,” murmured Amalie graciously. She glanced up with a smile and encountered Alfred’s shocked hazel eyes.
They were alone on the sidewalk, as it was three o’clock in the afternoon, and extremely hot, and the usual crowd of shoppers had not yet appeared. Those who passed were comparative strangers to Riversend and recognized neither Amalie nor Alfred. So they stood and looked at each other in
a sort of paralysis, unaware of the few men and women who brushed by them.
It was only necessary for Alfred to lift his hat politely and pass on. It was only necessary for Amalie to murmur a single word and go to her carriage. But neither could move. They could only look speechlessly into each other’s eyes. Amalie’s face whitened under the shade of the parasol; even her lips lost color. Alfred turned quite pale.
They stood so close that Alfred could see the trembling in Amalie’s throat, the pulsing in her temples. But eighteen years, like a swift rush of impassable water, had run between them, eighteen years of suffering and loneliness for Alfred, eighteen years of anxiety and feverish restlessness and perplexity for Amalie.
Their mutual shock held them in their paralysis. Amalie might have broken the enchantment, and, in fact, made a slight attempt to do so. But Alfred’s eyes paralyzed her. They had become vivid with hunger and grief and mournful passion, and something that could only be urgent and pathetic tenderness. She felt something turn and twist in her at what she saw so simply and tragically revealed. She put out her hand to him, not so much in greeting and politeness as in an imploring gesture, utterly impulsive and involuntary.
He looked down at her hand as if he could not believe it. And then he took it and held it. He said faintly: “You haven’t changed, Amalie.”
“Oh, yes,” she heard herself saying on a slight rush of breath. “I’ve changed. Oh, yes.” And then her face was scarlet and shaken.
He listened to her gravely, as if what she had said was of profound importance to him. “I have changed, too,” he said, after a moment.
His hand was warm and strong and very gentle. It let go her own. She was still conscious of the warmth and strength and gentleness.
She saw how tired and quiet he was, and how still. He had always been stolid; but he had never been still like this. It was the sort of stillness that hung over and about Hilltop, steadfast and comforting and safe. He had aged, she saw, but he had the dignity of wisdom now, and not the old self-conscious dignity of a man unsure of himself.
He could see that the strength that had always been in Amalie’s face had become a taut rigidity, as if the bones and muscles had tightened in a permanently tense pattern. Between her eyes, which were tired and anxious, there was a single deep cleft. But she was beautiful. She would always be beautiful. He would never forget her, nor the way she smiled, the way her lips broadened at the corners rather than thinned.
“You have a dear girl—Mary,” he said. “A very dear girl. She must make you very happy, Amalie.”
“Yes,” she murmured. Then she said, in a louder voice: “And you have Philip.”
What were they saying to each other? They were speaking as if in condolences! Her heart was beating too fast. The warmth of Alfred’s touch was still in her hand. She could feel a burning along her eyelids.
Now he was taking her elbow very lightly. “Your carriage?” he was saying.
He helped her in. She stumbled over the mauve ruffles of her skirt. He waited until she was seated. His bare head was white in the hot sun, and he was still looking at her searchingly.
“Good-bye,” she said, trying to smile again.
“Good afternoon,” he replied.
He watched her as she was driven away. The street seemed to grow darker all about him. At the corner, she turned her head and glanced back. He waved his hat at her, and she tilted her parasol in answer.
The shock remained with her all the way back to Hilltop. She could not understand it. It was like a numbness all along her nerves, a darkness in her mind.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Jerome’s mood that night was one of exhilaration. It was as if he had had a secret triumph over a detested enemy. Philip listened with sympathy and with an air of kind reflection. Amalie, who usually entered into any conversation with spirit, was somewhat quiet, as if very tired. But Mary, turning her sparkling blue eyes first upon her father and then upon Philip, was absorbed. Her glance, however, was a little longer upon the younger man and sometimes the radiant paleness of her face appeared to reflect a faint color. Sometimes, too, her mouth had a passing expression of sternness and resolution, which immediately melted into a warm smile when Philip turned to her.
She would look at his hand, as it touched silver or glass, with a still intensity. She would look at his profile, and draw in her breath. Then that expression of sternness and resolution would harden her face, and her fair head would lift.
It was some time before Amalie finally became aware of all this. When she did so, she was incredulous and stunned. She would shake her head slightly, in dazed denial. It was not possible! Mary was only a child. She saw Philip’s gentle and tender glance at Mary, and there was nothing in his eyes that confirmed the preposterous suspicion in Amalie’s mind. However, Amalie was only slightly reassured. Philip might be as detached and abstracted as he pleased. Amalie could read her daughter’s expression, could feel her tenseness.
Amalie was frightened and filled with sudden maternal protectiveness for her daughter. She knew Mary very well now. She knew that the girl was not given to sudden whims, and that her mind, once made up, was as inflexible as stone. If Mary loved Philip, she would never forget him. Nor would she keep the matter a secret For a moment Amalie smiled involuntarily. However he tried, or even if he did not love her in return, Philip would not escape Mary. Or, if he did escape, Mary would be mutilated for life, some virtue in her forever amputated.
But she is very young, thought Amalie, trying to reassure herself. She might forget him. After all, she has seen few young men. She has no judgment.
In order to distract her disturbing thoughts she tried to interest herself in the conversation between Jerome and Philip. Jerome was in one of his scoffing moods when he derided the world and all in it. It was his usual reaction to a personal victory. His was the derision of one who had triumphed. It did not matter how small or great the triumph, and Amalie in the beginning never knew whether he had merely won a point over one of the directors of the bank or had succeeded in accomplishing something of profound importance.
He had been relating to Philip his conquest of the pedants in the matter of the scholarships. Amalie began to feel embarrassed. Such a small conquest! She could see those timid and desiccated old men, finally overcome by the determined and brilliant arguments of the excited Jerome. Amalie felt pity for the old men. Her embarrassment grew, and she could not look at Philip for fear she might see amusement in his attentive smile. But Philip was not amused; he was only compassionate. Was it possible that Jerome had lost that delicate sense of proportion which had seemed one of his most conspicuous virtues? Or was there a bedevilling something in him which distorted that virtue at times, and then almost always on some insignificant occasion?
“It is amazing how much importance these pedagogues arrogate to themselves,” said Jerome contemptuously. “They appear to believe that their musty little studies are the colonnades in which Socrates sat, and that their pronouncements on petty matters are the ultimates of wisdom. I could not refrain from quoting to one of them a certain phrase from Goldsmith’s ‘The Citizen of the World’: ‘—minims, the tenants of an atom, thus arrogating a partnership in the creation of universal Nature!’”
“That floored him, I suppose,” said Philip, smiling. “Or did he quote right back at you Pascal’s little paragraph: ‘Man—is a thinking reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him. A vapor, a drop of water, suffices to kill him. All our dignity, then, consists in thought. By it we must elevate ourselves, and not by space and time, which we cannot fill. By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; by thought I comprehend the world.’”
“They comprehend nothing,” said Jerome derisively. “They are unable to think. When I explained to them that I wish my boys to have a foundation in the practical sciences, they were aghast. Learning is nothing, I told them, if it is not utilitarian. Classical education has no part in a very realistic world, or,
at the most, a minor part.”
You did not always think so, thought Philip. And do you, in fact, really think so now? He said: “I still believe in solid learning of the academic sort. Only by understanding the long old thoughts of men can men of today understand themselves and their place in nature. Socrates is as fresh and vivid today as he was a couple of thousand years ago. The mind of man is the only constant, the only verity. Do you remember what Bacon said? ‘Let men only consider: if they would apply only a small portion of the infinite expenditure of talent, time, and fortune now given to matters and studies of far inferior importance and value, to sound and solid learning, it would be sufficient to overcome every difficulty.’ In other words, man can really add cubits to his stature by the exercise of his mind. Jesus was only cynical when he pretended to doubt the efficacy of thought.”
Jerome was restless. Puffs of quick smoke issued from his cigar. He said: “Our conversation tonight is strangely familiar. My father and I used to spend hours hurling contradictory quotations at each other.” He paused. “Sometimes I almost believe that there will be no place in the future for any man except the man who has excluded from his personal world everything but science and scientific evidence.”
You don’t believe that either, thought Philip.
They went into the library for brandy and coffee. The heat of the day had softened into a light silvery rain which whispered at the windows. Philip could hear the gentle scraping of the elm bough at the eaves. Lavender shadows filled the quiet room. Jerome had suddenly lost his usual airy volubility. He sat smoking in somber silence, frowning to himself, moving restlessly in his chair. Amalie embroidered. Mary sat and looked at Philip. Philip, as he sipped his coffee, was conscious of a growing uneasiness. There was in this murmuring atmosphere a tenseness which he could not understand.
A servant entered to light a lamp, which glowed like a small amber moon in the closing dusk. The rain had stopped. But all the world was musically adrip with sweet fresh sounds. The gentle evening sky had turned lilac and silver.