Never Victorious, Never Defeated

  He smiled at his son. “My main visitors are poor Ruth, who comes for consolation, she being Miles’s wife and he having quite a way with the ladies; and Laura. Are you going to be outraged, Tony? After all, I’m in my seventies, and Laura is sixty-three. We comfort each other. Cornelia thinks it is ‘amusing.’”

  Alex said, “I am fond of Grandmother, though sometimes she is a little—overpowering. I ought not to say that, for she is very kind to me, and I think she has some affection for me. I often go to dinner at her home. Grandfather, here, pretends to be entirely indifferent about what is happening in the house on the mountain, but if I don’t give him a full accounting he is put out.”

  “I loved that house once,” said Allan, after his son had stopped chuckling. “I never cared for the other damned mausoleums in France and England and Newport and New York. But now it’s full of strangers. It’s full of people I never knew, and who never knew me: my son DeWitt, my wife, my brother-in-law Norman (who goes there regularly these days), and Mary, my daughter-in-law, and her children. Mary! That was my mother’s name, and it’s the dearest name in all the world, I’m thinking, for a woman. But my son’s wife is no Mary, for all her name.”

  They talked of the time when the government had taken over the operation of the railroads. ‘Your mother,” said Allan, “almost went out of her mind with rage. But even then I was becoming detached.”

  “That was an indication of the future,” said Tony somberly. But Allan would have no more serious conversation. He was beginning to show his age; the lamps which had been lighted—old oil lamps—revealed the seams about his mouth and eyes, the weariness like a shadow over his whole face. He began to speak of his daughter Dolores, and it was as though he were thinking aloud. Grief rose in water to his eyelids. It was then that young Alex went out and returned with a bottle of medicine and a spoon. Allan took it with surprising docility. He looked at Alex and said, “Here is all I have left—my grandson and my son.” He paused, and added softly, “And Laura. We sit on the veranda, two old people, and talk of nothing, and everything, with Alex as chaperone somewhere about.”

  Allan and Tony walked in the twilight to the road, where the limousine was waiting. They paused, and regarded each other gravely. “I often remember what Woodrow Wilson said in 1912,” said Tony. “‘The history of liberty is a history of the limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it. When we resist concentration of power, we are resisting the powers of death, because concentration of power is what always precedes the destruction of human liberties.’”

  “I shall use that on the masthead of my newspapers, which I don’t yet own, and shall order my editors to emphasize it, editors I haven’t yet hired,” replied Allan. He paused. “Tony, my little spalpeen, will you give me your blessing?”

  He watched the limousine disappear into the purple distance toward town. A glittering orange sunset shone through high black pines. Allan contemplated it for a long time, then went back to the farmhouse. Alex was waiting for him. He said, with his shy smile, “Grandfather, you look like a man of resolution again, and not a man of peace.”

  But Allan sat down in a chair, leaned back his head, and closed his eyes. He said softly, “I know it in my heart that I’ll never see my Tony again. But this time it is I who’ll be going. After my last battle.”

  Cornelia said to Tony, “There’s anything you want to drink, my dear. But, of course, seeing we have that dreadful Prohibition, and you a churchman, you won’t drink anything.” She smiled at him slyly, and touched his black sleeve. “Shouldn’t you be a cardinal, or something? By the way, you look very handsome and majestic, and such. How was your father?”

  “Very well, I’m happy to say,” replied Tony.

  “I asked Alex to come to dinner tonight, too,” said Cornelia. “But it is always ‘grandfather needs me.’ There’s something maternal about that boy. He reminds me of poor Dicky. Always seriously waiting to be of help. Tiresome people. They can never be gay or light or amusing. Your father’s like that, too. For years I tolerated it, and then it got too much. I hate morose people, not that Alex is morose, yet.”

  “I never thought of Dad as being ‘maternal,’” said Tony, smiling.

  “No, nor particularly helpful, I suppose. He was quite a man, in his young days.”

  “He is quite a man still,” said Tony in a cold voice.

  It was evident that Cornelia still loved this house on the mountain. The old furniture was always carefully kept in repair. It was almost as it had been when old Aaron had bought it from the artist. However, electricity had replaced oil lamps, and the great chandelier in the hall had been artfully fitted with electric candles. The effect was not so soft, and there were no gentle shadows in the corners of the hall, as Tony had remembered.

  “I’ve invited everyone of consequence in Portersville to see you tonight,” said Cornelia. “And some from New York. You see, I’m quite proud of you.” At sixty-four she was still erect and had still retained her magnificent figure, though it was deplorably dressed tonight in a glittering, very short sequin sheath, so that she looked like a tall statue clad in blue lightning. A belt of diamonds hugged her hips; her short red hair, shingled, was molded to her large head. Expert care had kept her face from becoming that of an old woman’s, but the rouge and the powder and the blazing lipstick gave her a raddled and raffish look, coarse if vibrant. Her big hands betrayed her age; they were dark, veined, and mottled, and afire with gems. Diamond bracelets, in distracting quantity, raced up and down her arms; a long string of mingled pearls and diamonds dangled from her seamed neck. She moved like a strong young woman, quickly and surely, and her laugh boomed out as in her youth. Her eyes were bits of polished amber, and they glowed with a wicked light. Tony reminded himself that he loved his mother, and he kissed her again. She smelled of expensive French scent, and the best whisky. Tony said, “Dad just drinks beer, he tells me.”

  “Well,” said Cornelia, shrugging, “that’s something to be encouraged about, anyway. He never really could drink hard liquor. It did something frightful to him.” She laughed loudly. “Did he tell you how old Laura visits him? I think it’s ridiculous. They always had a thing about each other; I knew it for years. I offered him a divorce two years ago, so he could marry her if he wanted to. He was quite outraged; so silly. But come into the living room. Everybody’s there.”

  There was a time when she loved my father more than anything in the world, probably more than the road, thought Tony. But he reverted to what he really was, and so was no longer the man she had married.

  Cornelia had linked her arm into that of her son’s, and she led him into the living room, already crowded with members of the family and a number of strangers. “My son, the archbishop, who is going to be a cardinal soon,” Cornelia introduced him. “Now, Tony, stop protesting. Why else are you going to Rome?” She turned to a short, rather stout, dark man with brilliant black eyes. “Tony, this is George Richberg, of New York, who owns all those newspapers. We call him Izzy. Don’t glare, Izzy. That was your name before you changed it to George, wasn’t it? George writes all those editorials about the ‘rising enemy in America’; you must have read some. He thinks there’re Communists and such, right here in this country, plotting in little dark holes somewhere, and especially in Washington. Of course, that’s just newspaper stuff; makes for good circulation.”

  Tony, startled, took the little man’s strong fat palm, and looked into the quick and intelligent eyes. Mr. Richberg said, “It isn’t just newspaper stuff. It’s the truth. I wonder if you know anything about it—sir?”

  Tony nodded. He was filled with excitement. “I understand running newspapers is a strenuous business,” he suggested tentatively.

  Mr. Richberg shrugged eloquently. “Terrible. I’m nearly sixty, and I had a heart attack six months ago. I wish I could sell out a couple of my papers to a younger man, who would understand our policy.”

  “I know a ‘younger man,’” said Tony, as the gues
ts moved about them. “My father. Let me give you his address. He wants to buy a newspaper or two, perhaps more.”

  “I was supposed to return to New York tonight,” said Mr. Richberg, carefully tucking away Tony’s card, on which he had scribbled Allan’s address. His eyes quickened. “Your father? Allan Marshall? He’s retired, hasn’t he? He wants to buy some newspapers? How about some magazines, too? I tell you—sir—”

  But Cornelia had returned from a brief sortie into the crowd of her guests, and had seized Tony’s arm again. Mr. Richberg lifted his hand. “I’ll stay over. I’ll go to see your father tomorrow.”

  Bemused, Tony permitted himself to be introduced to other curious strangers. He came here so rarely now that he wanted to steep himself in the atmosphere of the old house where his mother and he had been born. He wanted to wander out onto the terraces and smell the wood smoke. He wanted to see the fine and glimmering rooms, alone. He wanted to see how tall the poplar he had planted had grown. And, as always, he missed his sister; he kept finding himself looking for her in some corner, beautiful as a classic statue, faintly smiling and remote.

  He eventually found DeWitt sitting in a chair with his cane beside him, DeWitt who was almost forty, and “the youngest railroad president in the United States.” DeWitt was a silent gnome now, sallow-skinned, ageless, watching, his shriveled lips fixed in a cynical smile. When Tony appeared before him he said nothing, but he held out his hand. “Hello,” said Tony gently, and pressed that small hand with its fine bones. Allan had called his younger son an anachronism, and Tony unwillingly had to admit there was some truth in the remark. DeWitt, though still under forty, looked old and static and oddly out of date, too precise, too fastidious, too set. His eyes were never still, but they were cold.

  “When did I see you last?” he asked of Tony. “Never mind; don’t tell me. You aren’t interested in the family any longer.” Now his eyes changed, became accusing and strange. “I thought you’d never forget me, but you did.”

  “No,” began Tony, bending over him. But Mary Marshall, his sister-in-law, had appeared, chic and shining and perfumed, her pointed face as mischievous as ever. “Well, Tony!” she exclaimed, and her voice was derisively shrill. “You’ve come a long way, haven’t you? Don’t scowl; the clergy shouldn’t scowl. Have you seen Rufus and Shelley, our kids? They always try to slip away from us elderly folk so they can go to some nice bootleg place where they can kick their legs and drink moonshine. They tell me Rufus looks just like old Rufus deWitt, who died such ages ago; I remember him. But he certainly doesn’t have old Rufus’s personality.” She patted DeWitt carelessly on the shoulder and wandered off with a glass in her hand. DeWitt watched her go, and said nothing. His small face was inscrutable.

  He said in a very low voice, “I think I hate practically everything. But perhaps I always did. Eh, Tony?”

  “Yes, I think so,” said Tony with sadness.

  DeWitt lifted his eyes to his brother’s face, and they were the eyes of a basilisk. “Except you,” he said. “And that’s something I don’t understand. You were always such a damned prig.” He raised his cane and touched Tony’s black coat. “Miles is here, and Field. We call Miles ‘the dancer.’ I don’t know why; he never dances. I’m keeping my eye on him.” He saw Cornelia approaching in a welter of fresh guests. “Here’s the old girl again. Do you know something? I think she always tried to keep us apart when we were children. Why, I wonder?”

  But she always kept everyone apart, thought Tony. She never trusted anyone. He found himself at the long glimmering table in the dining room. He looked about him with satisfaction. Nothing had changed here. There was the same ponderous silver, the same chairs, and now again there was candlelight. A fire burned on the old hearth, and dark blue and gold draperies had been drawn against the autumn chill. Across from Tony sat Norman deWitt, queerly youthful and disarmingly smiling like a boy, though he was about fifty years old. There was no gray in his fine brown hair, no wrinkles about his wide brown eyes. No one could have looked more innocent, more gentle, more interested, than this strange man who was so dangerous. The ladies on each side of him listened to his soft voice eagerly. He spoke so winningly to them, and he spoke of nothing. But when he glanced at Tony, the corners of his eyes tightened and the pupils were as still and lifeless as stone. They had, as yet, not spoken to each other, this uncle and his nephew. Tony felt that between them lay a treacherous glacier, like a battlefield.

  Tony listened to the frivolous chatter all about him. He remembered that as a very young boy he had heard serious discussions during dinner parties in this very room. There had been good talk, intelligent and mature. But now the whole conversation revolved about the latest illegal deliveries of whisky, the newest and most flamboyant gangster (whom the ladies, young and old, declared they “adored”), the latest national or international scandal, passionate eulogies about the Prince of Wales, the newest and most notorious murder case, golf and other sports, the latest attempt of some man or woman to swim the English Channel, and similar trivialities. There was little or no mention, even among the men, about the stock market crash, and the rising tide of panic and the ominous hints of widespread depression in America. The men had their secure fortunes; they had not suffered measurably, though here and there there was an exaggerated and amusing groan about “paper profits.”

  They do not know, thought Tony, that America stands at the door of doom. If some know, they do not care. They have fortunes tucked away in invincible places; their businesses will not collapse. But what of the millions of the foolish, who invested earnings as clerks and mechanics, as bookkeepers and cashiers, in the monstrous bubble of the market? One can pity them even while censuring these poor creatures, who had not had the intelligence to know that Santa Claus does not exist. And what of the slowly closing factories, the scent of disaster in the air, the dawning of the age of the evil men? Who knew, or knowing, cared?

  Tony, with another part of his mind, noticed that, as usual, his mother’s incredible magnetism drew involuntary glances even amidst the feverish chatter about the table. Her flair made other women appear colorless and two-dimensional. Her voice caught the ear in fascination, for all its husky ribaldry. Vulgar as she was, and shouting frivolously, there was yet a pungency and meaning in her remarks absent in the conversation of other women. Sometimes she caught Tony looking at her; she winked at him humorously. It is possible, then, to despise people and yet inspire their devotion, thought Tony. He then reflected on Mussolini and Stalin. They, too, had this diabolical gift. Who, in the America of the near future, would appear with the same endowment?

  Cornelia suddenly shouted down the table to her son: “Tony! I thought archbishops traveled with entourages. Where’s yours?”

  He answered uncomfortably: “Monsignor Burke and my two secretaries are waiting for me at the Philadelphia House, Mother.” He added, “We leave at midnight for New York.”

  Cornelia winked at her guests. “That remark means he is bored,” she said.

  They all looked at him with their blank or curious faces. I ought not to have come, thought Tony. But my mother invited me—and I love her, in spite of everything. He began to flush. He saw Miles smiling at him cryptically, as if in sympathy, and all at once Tony lost his dislike of his kinsman. He knew all the stories about Miles, about his debonair and very calm unfaithfulness to his fifty-one-year-old wife Ruth, who sat in such pale silence far down the table, her golden hair heavily streaked with gray, her head bent timidly, her features wretchedly sharpened with the years and with grief. He knew with all surety that Miles would never relent until he had what he wanted, and suddenly Tony knew that he would get it. There was such strong and masculine youth about Miles, such poised ruthlessness, such quiet, such intelligence.

  Tony saw DeWitt watching Miles, with still, dark hatred. DeWitt will lose, inevitably, thought Tony, and he was sorrowful for his brother. He glanced at Fielding Peale, so lanky, so yellow, so ugly. Fielding was enjoying his dinner and
ignoring everyone else. Yet there emanated from him a primordial strength.

  Norman deWitt spoke to his nephew for the first time: “Tony, I hear that the influence of religion is steadily disappearing in these happy and prosperous times. Can it flourish only during misery?” His eyes were as shining and as interested as a very young man’s, and his expression was friendly. Tony regarded him without answering for a moment, and all the ascetic planes of his face sprang out clearly.

  He remembered what an old priest had once told him: “Only an inspired saint can dispute with an evil man effectively. Such men argue from materialistic premises, with which all are familiar, and which appear valid. But you would have to argue from spiritual premises, which are strange to most men, invalid to many more, and ridiculous to the socalled intellectual.”

  Tony said, “Norman, in the first place I dispute your premises. The times are neither happy nor prosperous. They never were, except for a few. If religion is not ‘flourishing,’ as you say, it is because men have ignored or rejected the moral law of God. These occasions, or crises, occur throughout history, and men pay for them in blood and despair.”

  “What a gloomy prophecyl” cried Cornelia. She lifted her wine glass and screamed with laughter. “To doomsday!” she shouted. “To doomsday!” the others responded, and lifted their glasses, and laughed with jeering politeness. But Tony and Norman stared at each other across the table and neither laughed nor drank. “The moral law of God,” Norman repeated softly, and smiled. “What is it?”