Captains and the Kings

  This appeal to Miss Chisholm's favorite saint quite undid her. She put her handkerchief to her eyes and cried a little. Never once did it occur to her that these plotters would hold any assignation before it was safe to do so. They would be married, but they would live in chastity, pure and untouched, bearing all things for love's sake, trusting in their Heavenly Father--and in fifteen million dollars, something intractable remarked in Miss Chisholm's really pragmatic mind. She said with sorrow, "I did so plan, all Marjorie's life, on a beautiful wedding, in the church in which she was baptised. Rory, you are a Roman

  -forgive me, dear, I did not intend to offend you--but will your Church approve? I understand that--" Rory said, "We will find a minister. Aunt Emma, what are trappings where Love is concerned?" But Miss Chisholm was about to suggest that the young lovers wait until poor dear Mama-- But ah, that would be most uncouth and cruel. She said, "You don't mind being married by a Protestant minister, Rory?" Rory almost said, "I'd be happy to be married before Satan, if it was to Maggie," but he rather had the thought that this would be too much for Miss Chisholm, who had weakened. He said, with a grand gesture, "Is not even a minister a Man of God? Who can deny that?" Miss Chisholm was not quite certain that she liked the "even," but did not comment. "But I will not see my dearest niece married!" "I will bring you my bouquet," said Marjorie, kissing her. They were married before a Presbyterian minister two days later, in Connecticut, in a small obscure village where the name of Armagh meant nothing, but the fifty dollars Rory gave the astounded minister quite shook the threadbare poor old man and made tears come into his eyes. This young couple was dressed so modestly and plainly. It was obvious this was a great sacrifice, and he said so to Rory, with a timid smile. "Think nothing of it," said Rory, and then when Marjorie pinched his arm warningly he added, "It is the happiest occasion of my life, and I have been saving my money for a long time for it." They returned to Cambridge discreetly and hid themselves in the dingy three rooms Rory had rented for twenty dollars a month. They had few if any amenities, but they were ecstatic. Then Marjorie said, "Are we really married, Rory? I mean, in the eyes of your Church?" Rory hesitated for but an instant, then he said, "Married? Of course we are married! Don't be an idiot, Maggie. Here, let me unbutton your dress. How beautiful your little shoulders are--and what is this I see? Now, now, aren't we married?" Never again was Rory to know such happiness as he knew in those three rooms in a poor section of Cambridge. He was to remember that to the day he died, and his last. conscious thought was, "Maggie, O dear little Maggie! My God, my darling Maggie"

  Chatter 37

  "Whatever I engage in," Mr. Carnegie had once told Joseph, "I must push inordinately. He had smiled at the younger man. "We are Celts together, are we not? We understand each other. The Anglo-Saxons are no match for us." Joseph had laughed his rough and grating laugh. "Do you remember, sir, what Samuel Pepys said in his Diary of 1661: 'But, good God! What an age is this and what a world is this! That a man cannot live without playing the knave, and dissimulation.' " Mr. Carnegie had tilted his cigar and had studied Joseph. ". Well, Joseph, did we make this world? We had to come to terms with it, and I, my lad, have no quarrel with it. I met it fairly on the field, and I won. Or, aren't you satisfied that you won, too?" Joseph said, "I have no quarrel with the world, either. I played on its fields and I won, more or less fairly." "There is one thing," said Mr. Carnegie, "if a man plays fairly he will never win. That is the way of the world, my bairn." He thought, Here is a man, a fanatic, who once had a stern goal in life, but has now forgotten it. But fanaticism is its own motive power, and so he will continue. Is that not true of us all? Who can tell what gods, or what devils, drive us? He took a liking to Joseph out of his Celtish soul. He had built his steel plant on the Monongahela River after the enormous Bessemer mills of England. He said to Joseph, "This may seem to you a small beginning in Amcrica, laddie, but I advise you to invest in it." So Joseph had invested. By 1889 his investment had increased fiftyfold. By 1895 his wealth received respect from the most powerful in Europe and in America, even though before he had been rich by general standards. Mr. Carnegie had said that the vast gaining of money was "the worst species of idolatry," with hardly a twinkle of his icy blue eyes. He stayed in his castle in Scotland, where Joseph visited him from time to time, and pretended a barelessness concerning his steel empire in America which he ruled from afar. The little Scotsman had a genius for money, and Joseph had already learned that such a genius is not acquired but is inbred. "There's many a man," said Mr. Carnegie to Joseph, "who works all his life, with intelligence and industry, and acquires never a sovereign, and other men, with a flick of a wrist get everything. Now, I'm a wee Presbyterian, and so I believe in predestination. A man's a fool or a wise man by the willing of the Almighty, and we should not quarrel. Let us thank Him that He made us clever." "By dint of hard work," said Joseph, who knew Mr. Carnegie's history. "Ah, and that we did, too, and about it," said Mr. Carnegie. "I have never been one to underrate hard work. But ye must have a mind for it, too, laddie." He thought to himself, And a bitterness besides, and do I not have it, too? Without bitterness a man canna succeed. "I am no optimist," he said, with caution, when he had advised Joseph about investments. "I just judge. Many's the optimist who never had fifty dollars, and never will, be 411 cause they are optimists. Pessimism have saved money a man from bankruptcy. By the way, laddie, I dinna care for your friends." "They care for you," said Joseph, smiling. "They think you a mighty man. "Now, is that not strange? I am no assassin." Joseph had not replied to that, for he knew too much. But he was to remember that conversation in desperate later times in his life. "A man," said Mr. Carnegie, "can be hanged for a little murder, but for big murders he will receive applause. He winked at Joseph. Or, he will be famous. At the least he will be exonerated. His masters will never be known. They are too braw for that." "You are speaking of a coup d'etat," said Joseph. "All political murders are coups d'etat," said Mr. Carnegie, and had smiled a little at Joseph's somber expression. "There was hirer a king or an emperor or a president murdered by a little caprice or temper of a little man, and that ye know, laddie." And there are other murders, thought Joseph. He had a strange dream. He lay in a warm bed in his discreet hotel with Elizabeth Hennessey, and was surfeited with peace and contentment. He slept dreamlessly for a while. Then he found himself in a green-blue twilight in a place he did not know, nor did it seem to be furnished or have any background. He saw Senator Enfield Bassett, a man of honor and sadness, and his lustrous black eyes were filled with sorrow as he looked at Joseph. "I would, if I could," he said, "withdraw the curse I laid upon you, but it is not possible. When the wronged curse, or the innocent die, it falls upon the guilty living and no one can remove it. May God have mercy upon you, for I am prohibited from mercy." Elizabeth started awake, disturbed by Joseph's choking cry, and woke him in turn. The hot dawn of a summer morning had painted gold on the dusty windows of the bedroom. Joseph sat up abruptly, sweating and livid, and stared at Elizabeth as if he did not know her or know where he was. Even his eyelids were matted and his hair, risen like a mane, framed his gaunt face in mingled faded russet and white streaks. "My dearest, what is it?" Elizabeth exclaimed, alarmed, and took his arm. Her shoulders and breasts were like sun struck marble in the early light and her pale hair streamed about her. "Nothing. Nothing. It was only a dream," he muttered, and lay down again. But she saw that he was staring fixedly at the ceiling, and remembering. "Only a nightmare," he added. "About someone--who has been dead a long time. I don't know why I should dream about him; I haven't thought of him for years." He tried to smile at her fear-filled eyes and anxious expression. "Nothing at all." But he looked again at the ceiling with that fixed look. She lay down beside him, quietly, his wet hand in hers. She could feel the bounding of his pulse and the tremor of his fingers. "I haven't thought of him for years," Joseph repeated. He tried to laugh. "I never harmed him, or at least I wouldn't have harmed him. I destroyed all evidence against him." "But why, th
en, should you be upset?" Joseph sat up again and wiped his forehead with the edge of the sheet. He said, "He wrote me a note. He said he had laid a curse upon me--and mine. I haven't even thought of that for fourteen years, or more. I'm not 'upset,' dear. I'm not superstitious." He paused, patted her shoulder. "It was a nightmare. I thought he came to me and said he would withdraw his 'curse,' but couldn't. That was all. A stupid dream." The room was already hot, the increasing light striking through the heavy lace curtains, but Elizabeth felt cold. She said, "It was so long ago and nothing has happened to you--or yours--has it? There is no accounting for dreams." She rang the bell for coffee and rolls and smiled at Joseph, then rose and put on her white peignoir, throwing back her damp hair. "I am not superstitious, either," she said. She picked up a gold-backed brush from the dressing table and began to smooth her hair. Her smiling eyes met Joseph's in the mirror. She saw that he did not return her smile and that he was abstracted. "He's dead, you say," she said. "What did he die of?" "He killed himself." Elizabeth's hand stopped, and her fingers felt cold again. She put down the brush. Joseph said, as if speaking to himself, "A man like that has no business in politics. If he can't stand the bells and the soot he should stay off the trains." "You mean," said Elizabeth, "that politics are no place for an honest man." "Did I say he was honest?" asked Joseph, vexed with himself that he had even mentioned Senator Bassett. He put on his dressing gown, and his face was gloomy. "I think our coffee and rolls have arrived. I'll open the door." They did not speak of this again, but Elizabeth was never to forget that hot morning in New York. Two hours later Joseph went to Boston to see his son, Rory. "Now," he said, "I am all for hard work and ambition, and that you have, boyo. But why elect to attend summer classes and rush through law school like a fire engine?" Rory's amiable blue eyes had a little secrecy about them. But then he made himself look frankly at his father as they sat together in his humid room. Joseph was not deceived. "Why should I waste three years?" asked Rory. "I can do it in two. Isn't life for living? If I want to start to live a little sooner, what's wrong with that, Pa?" "I thought you were going to spend the summer on Long Island with those friends of yours, sailing and boating and what not, as you've been doing the past two years. They're important to cultivate, too." "I'd rather go on," said Rory. "Giving up all those sports you're mad about? Come on, Rory, out with it." "I'm going on twenty-two," said the young man. "I can't see myself in school until I am twenty-five or so. I told you, Pa: I want to start living as soon as possible." "And you think being one of my stable of lawyers will be 'living'?" Rory's eyes shifted. "If you want me, Pa." Joseph frowned. "You're being evasive. I never had time to live. I don't want that to happen to you." He was astonished at his own words. He looked at the signet ring on his finger which Elizabeth had given him, but he was not thinking of his mistress. "I would be the last to advise you to trifle with time and waste it, for I know how valuable it is. But on the way I'd like to know that you have been--" "Enjoying myself?" Rory was deeply touched. He drew his chair closer to his father's, and they smiled at each other. "Pa, you've made life easy for your family. Don't think we are ungrateful, Ann Marie and me, and even that black bear of a Kevin. Black Irish. You deserve having us off your hands as soon as possible." He thought of his sister, and hesitated. Joseph said quickly, "Well, what is it? Don't try to hide things from me, Rory. I always find out, you know. You've tried it in the past." "Ann Marie," said Rory. He stood up and put his big hands in his pockets and started to walk up and down the room, not slouching, but with a fast loping stride that was at once strong and graceful. "The hell," said Joseph. "What about Ann Marie?" He loved his sons dearly, and in particular Rory, but Ann Marie was his darling. "She's been looking languid lately and I've thought about it, but her mother says she is well and just moons about. Is there something wrong. Rory stood at the window and looked out. Well, he had promised Courtney and now if ever was the time, seeing Pa was in a soft mood, very rare with him. He said, "She wants to get married." "What's wrong with that?" asked Joseph. "Does her mother know? Who's the man? Somebody impossible, perhaps?" He sat up in his chair. "Somebody I'd consider very eligible," said Rory. He could feel the heat and color in his fresh face, and he waited for it to subside for he would rather have been drawn and quartered than to let his father know that he knew about him and Elizabeth. "One of your Harvard jackanapes with no money, and no family? Come on, Rory, speak up." "He has money, and comes of a good family," said Rory, and had to smile. Now he turned from the window. "Perhaps you wouldn't think so, yourself, but I do." He looked at his father and he tensed. "It's Courtney. Courtney Hennessey. Our adopted uncle," and he laughed a little. He was prepared for his father to frown, to consider, perhaps even to object for a moment or two, for men really did not want their daughters to marry. But he was not prepared for the fierce change on Joseph's face, and he could not read it, and was aghast. Did the old man consider that his mistress' son was no match for Ann Marie? Yet, he had always shown Courtney an offhand kindness and even some distant consideration and affection. Then Joseph said in so soft a voice-though his eyes were appalling- that Rory could hardly hear him. "You are out of your mind! Courtney Hennessey." They stared across the room at each other, and Joseph's face was a pallid shine in the shadow. There was a blue spark jumping in his deep-set eyes. He looked at Rory with an air of rigid shock. O God, thought Rory. What's the matter with him? What's wrong with Courtney? He said, "Pa, what's wrong with Courtney? I know that-I know that Ma hates his mother and him, and I don't know why, but then Ma hates practically everybody. You wouldn't let her objections stand in the way of Ann Marie and Courtney, would you? Ann Marie's no kid any longer, Pa. She has a right to her life." But Joseph hardly heard him. He began to speak, then gasped. He thought of Elizabeth. It came to him with stunning power that Rory, of course, believed the general story that Courtney was the son of a deceased military hero, and not, in fact, his real uncle. What in God's Name can I say? thought the stricken man. Elizabeth. Why hasn't the truth been told long before this? Ann Marie, my child, my little girl. Bernadette. I know her. This will be a fine rich and vindictive joke to her, a final triumph over Elizabeth. He began to speak again and was forced to cough. "Has-anyone told your mother yet?" At least he's not raging, as he can! thought Rory, a little encouraged. He came back to his chair and regarded his father seriously, and then was more alarmed as he saw the jolting shock was increasing on Joseph's face. "No, Pa. She doesn't know-yet. Courtney has been pressing her to tell Ma, but she's afraid. Ann Marie's such a mouse. We call girls like her 'mice,' here in Harvard. You know. Soft and gentle and retiring, with nothing much to say for themselves, and always avoiding unpleasantnesses, and you know how unpleasant Ma can be." But Joseph merely stared at him blindly, desperately looking for a a way out of this dilemma, a way that would be no shame to Elizabeth and no cruelty to Ann Marie. But, what was the way but the truth? Then Joseph cursed aloud, and Rory, who thought that he knew every obscenity and invective known to the English-speaking world learned that there were others, also. He had heard his father swear before, yet never had he heard him use such foul words, and with such cold passion too. Rory was very perceptive. He knew that his father was cursing not with rage but with a sort of helpless despair and pain. Joseph finally stopped that rough hoarse stream of vilenesses, and became fully aware of Rory again. He said, "I can only say this: It is impossible. There is an--impediment. Go to any priest and ask him." "Courtney did," said Rory. "The priest had to look it up. He had his doubts for a while, but then he said that as Courtney was no in-law, really, but only the adopted son of my grandfather, the real son of a stranger--" Rory stopped, for his father even in his fixed silence was more formidable than the young man had ever seen him. Something took Rory by the throat. "I said," Joseph repeated, "that there is an impediment." "But what? If there is, Ann Marie and Courtney ought to know. If some Church authorities object--well, there are always other resources, and we aren't all that pious, either, are we?" He thought of Maggie, waiti
ng for him in those three wonderful shabby rooms. Joseph stood up. He was only in his early fifties but all at once, to Rory, he appeared old, even broken, and weakened, and this alarmed the young man more than ever. A raging Joseph was to be greatly feared, but he could be faced, as Rory had discovered before, and he could even be reasonable when his cold rage subsided. At least, sometimes. But this man was not raging. He was turning now and Rory saw his face, almost pleading and completely devastated. "I should have been told before," he said, and Rory knew that he was speaking only to himself. "I might have stopped it in the beginning." He looked at Rory with an expression in his eyes which Rory had never seen. "Believe me, Rory, there is truly an impediment. I can't tell you, but there is. You must tell Courtney--" "What?" said Rory. "What shall I tall Courtney--and Ann Marie?" When Joseph did not immediately reply Rory went on, "I promised Courtney I would try for him. I promised to find out--if there was something. But I can't go to him with a foolish vagueness. I have to have facts-- or something." Joseph still did not speak. Then Rory's mind began to whirl. How long had Pa known "Aunt" Elizabeth? How long had the liaison been in existence? Before he married his, Rory's, mother? No. He would have married Elizabeth. Courtney was no brother, thank God. But, what was he? Then Rory's thoughts came to a black dead halt and he and his father looked at each other without words. Joseph saw his son's widening shocked eyes. He nodded, and turned away. Rory stood up and said quietly, "My God. So that's it. All that cover up, all those years. Why?" "Don't be a fool," said Joseph. "There were too many to consider. Mrs. Hennessey. Courtney, himself. Your grandfather's--position. But your mother and I--we always knew. Women, before you were born, were not automatically absolved even when they married the man-- It may be different in these days. It wasn't, then. Mrs. Hennessey was not a strumpet, but she would have been branded so, marriage later or not. She had been seduced and deceived by a scoundrel, God damn his soul." Rory went and stood beside his father. He had the queerest desire to console Joseph, though why he should console him he did not know. Certainly Courtney and Ann Marie were the miserable ones, the wronged ones, and not Joseph Armagh. "What in hell am I going to tell Courtney?" Rory said in a wretched voice. He added, "I need a drink." He went to a fine walnut cabinet and brought out a bottle of whiskey which bore the seal of The Armagh Enterprises, and he twisted the cork with a desperate viciousness as if he were wringing someone's neck. He knew that Joseph did not approve of "young men in college" having whiskey in their rooms and "drinking themselves blind on the poteen," and he, Rory, had heretofore been discreet. He looked over his shoulder at Joseph and said, "I think you need one too, "That I do," said Joseph, and now his old almost obliterated brogue came back in his voice. "Several, I am thinking." He almost fell into his chair. Rory put a fine engraved glass into his hand, then stood before his father. They both drank deeply, as if dying of thirst. Rory looked down into the glass. He said, "There were the old Pharaohs--they married their sisters. It went on for centuries, dynasty after dynasty. It was accepted. It was even the law.. Courtney--he's only half an uncle," and Rory tried for a small and dismal laugh. "He needn't know. Ann Marie needn't know. There aren't any inherited diseases in the family that I heard of. Pa, I don't find the idea repulsive. No one would ever know." "You've forgotten your mother," said Joseph. "She knows. She's denied Courtney's blood tie often to me, because she hates Elizabeth and would have her a trollop if she could. But--she knows well enough. And, she'd tell Ann Marie at once, with pleasure, to hurt Elizabeth. And Courtney. And me." "I don't think--" Rory began, and then actually blushed and seeing this Joseph was faintly and ironically amused. He thought of the day he had struck Rory', only a few years ago, and he knew now, with a sudden enlightenment, that Rory had not wanted to "shame" his father by letting him know that he knew of him and Elizabeth, and that others knew, also. He reached out and awkwardly touched his son's hanging hand, then withdrew it in embarrassment. He was a stranger to such gestures. "How she found out I don't know," said Joseph. "But she did. I can sec it in her face when she speaks of Elizabeth. She would kill her if she dared. It doesn't concern me. Your mother knows that I married her, not for money, not after seduction, but for a reason I prefer to keep to myself. It happened a long time ago. I am entirely indifferent to what your mother wants, and I was always indifferent to her. I never deceived her about nay feelings, so I am not guilty of anything but marrying her. Perhaps I should not have done so. But I did. I don't regret it now. I have nay children." "Pa," Rory began. Then he saw that his father was merely being factual and not sentimental. Joseph continued. "It was to protect Elizabeth that I took as many precautions as I could, and not to protect your mother. Perhaps I should feel sorry for your mother, and sometimes I think I do, but that is of no importance either. The important thing is the impediment which stands in the way of Courtney and Ann Marie. It is not only an impediment, it is highly illegal, and punishable by law, and be sure your mother would see to that! You and your Pharaohs. I can see that you are a born lawyer." But Rory did not smile. Not asking, he refilled their glasses and they drank again. Even little Marjorie was temporarily forgotten in this extremity. "What shall I tell Courtney?" Rory asked, wincing inside. "Suppose his mother could be persuaded to tell him the truth? I'd rather he wouldn't tell Ann Marie though." "He'd hate his mother, and his father. His father! My grandfatherl Isn't that the damnedest thing?" "I doubt he'd hate his mother," but Joseph thought, with a sick wrench, of Elizabeth, and the deep love between her and her son. "Perhaps she can explain it so that he will understand. Don't you tell him, though, for God's sake. The fewer people he thinks know about this the better he will eventually feel." "Courtney's already told her about Ann Marie, and wanting to marry her," said Rory. Joseph looked up, freshly shocked. "And Aunt Elizabeth, he said, got damned agitated and became sick, and thin, and told him it was 'impossible.' She wouldn't talk about it any longer to him." So, that is what has been hurting my love, thought Joseph. I'll suggest to Elizabeth that she tell Courtney," said Joseph. "You had better tell him to visit her in a few days. Give me a week. I hear he is staying the summer with you at law school. I never thought he'd been an extraordinary lawyer, but I suppose you two can't be separated." For the first time Rory showed bitterness. "It seems there is something more between Courtney and me than mere 'friendship,'" he said. "Well, nothing can be changed now. It's a terrible mess." He suddenly remembered Marjorie and swore under his breath. "I have to write a note to somebody, and send it, if you'll excuse me. I'm breaking an engagement. I want to be with you for a little longer, Pa. Let's go out to dinner together." Joseph had frequently suggested dinner with his son in the past but sometimes Rory had not been very enthusiastic, and never had he invited his father before. Joseph looked at his son again and Rory returned the look, then all at once they simultaneously extended their hands to each other and shook them. "And for an encore, let us go hear your Uncle Sean on his last recital of the season," said Joseph. "I haven't seen him since he returned from Europe two months ago. Why doesn't he get married, or something?" But Rory knew, if Joseph did not, and Rory went to write his note to Marjorie. His young mind was full of misery.