Ceremony of the Innocent

  He answered Jeremy with a question of his own. “Why don’t you see your parents more often, or at least invite them to visit you?”

  “I’ve told you. There is just so much I can take from them. We usually end up quarreling. For instance, they are all for William Jennings Bryan, though his ideas are the absolute opposite of what they are, intrinsically. They think by agreeing with him and praising his Populist ideas, they lend themselves a certain style, a certain tolerance. They exhibit themselves as Good. Oh, I know, my father is a politician and has to pretend to be quivering like aspic with tender solicitude for the People, and my mother wants to have the cachet, among her friends, of being a lady full of the most Christian sensibility and compassion. But now they are beginning to take their public hypocrisy seriously, and that is what sickens me. A hypocrite who knows in his heart that he is a hypocrite, is often a likable rogue, and you can wink with him. But a hypocrite who believes his own self-advertising is despicable. If their pretensions changed the intrinsic rascality of their characters it wouldn’t be so bad. But my parents are still the same greedy and exigent people they always were, inside. They are still arrogant and grasping—What’s wrong? Did I say something you don’t like, Uncle Walter?”

  “No. It’s not that, Jerry. I’m thinking of something—someone—else. Arrogance. Yes. It’s funny, though. Arrogance isn’t solely the sin of the crafty and the hypocrites. It’s also the sin of those who call themselves humanitarians; it’s their besetting sin. Behind it is the ancient lust for power, the very dangerous lust for power over other people.”

  He stood up, his thick belly protruding, and he walked slowly to one of the large arched windows which were smothered in lace and velvet. He held the draperies aside and looked far up Fifth Avenue to the white and gray mansions of the exceedingly wealthy, with their tiny green lawns shimmering in the summer heat and surrounded by wrought-iron fences, and with their polished bronze doors. The Avenue seethed with lacquered carriages, with wagons and drays and even horsemen on fine horses, all fuming under the hot whitish sky and the glaring sun. He saw the distant church steeples, still the highest elevations in New York.

  Without turning, he said, “You didn’t enlist in the Philippine War, Jerry.”

  “No. And not for the reasons your son Francis opposed it. He could only mouth—I am sorry—about ‘war profits and imperialism.’ But I know, and I think you know, what was behind that most shameful episode, up to now, in American history. I said—up to now. But we know it is part of the conspiracy by the elite, the international elite, to consolidate the world under their own control and subjugation. I’m surprised that Frank didn’t know that, too, considering he’s ostensibly one with them. But then, he was always an innocent, and there’s nothing more perilous than an innocent who is part of a conspiracy of men who aren’t innocent at all.”

  “They recruit and use men like my son, to give them a facade of respectability and nobility.”

  “I haven’t a doubt. In fact, I know it. Have you tried to enlighten Frank?”

  “Hundreds of times. It’s no use, Jerry. He can’t, won’t, believe that men who employ the very elevated and ethereal words he does are sinister, and use the very appearance of disinterested concern to deceive, and for their own purposes. It would seem as if he thinks that the very usage of his own terms, and the honorable appearance he himself has, are credentials of simple magnanimity and love of mankind, and couldn’t possibly be used by murderers, true imperialists, and potential slave masters.”

  Still, thought Jeremy, in his conceited way Frank is really one of them, though he hasn’t the intellect to understand what it is all about. He said, “Uncle Walter, Frank, too, believes in a one-world government, under the elite. ‘The Parliament of Man’ as Tennyson called it, and Tennyson has been called, by his most eminent peers, a very stupid man, though they acknowledge the lyricism of his poetry and the purity of his ideals. The only difference between Frank and the powerful conspirators is information, and, I am sorry to say, intelligence. I’m sure that if Frank really understood he would be as aghast as the rest of us are.”

  Musing, Walter said, “Isn’t it strange that the most noble ideals can also be the most dangerous? ‘An excess of virtue,’ I think someone called it. Zeal. That’s the trouble. Remember what Talleyrand said at the Congress of Vienna: ‘No zeal, gentlemen, for God’s sake, no zeal!’ Yes. It’s the zealots you can’t overcome easily, for they believe. ‘True Believers.’ With public enlightenment and exposure, the cynical conspirators, who aren’t zealots at all, could easily be overcome. Yes. I can see why they use men like Francis. Perhaps men like Francis invented the ringing phrases the conspirators have adopted. Well, God help us all, that’s all I can say.” He added, “I’m glad I’m not a day younger. I can’t stand the thought of what is going to happen in the near future to my country.”

  “The only hope is that the American people will eventually catch on, Uncle Walter.”

  But Walter shook his head. “No hope, Jerry, no hope. People can understand wars and oppose them. But when it comes to high-souled slogans, no.”

  “Well, the United States Supreme Court did declare the federal income tax unconstitutional, Uncle Walter, in spite of all the high-flying rhetoric in behalf of it, and all the appeals of evil men to the emotions of the American people. So perhaps we can have some faith in what is called the good common sense of the average citizen.”

  Walter shook his head and slowly turned from the window. “When did common sense ever triumph over greed and envy? Common sense is a civilized latecomer into the spirit of mankind, but greed and envy are intrinsic in human nature, and primal. No, there’s no hope.”

  “Have some whiskey and soda,” said Jeremy. “‘Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.’”

  Walter smiled somberly and took the glass. He sighed, then looked about the spacious suite as if searching for comfort. All six rooms had been furnished by Jeremy himself in the slender refinement and grace of the Louis XV style; beautifully turned chairs and tables, glistening and serene, with upholstery in light yellow and greens and dim rose, and sofas of elegance and lightness, and marble pedestals of alabaster surmounted by delicate bronze figurines. His paintings were few but distinguished, Van Gogh, Manet and Monet, and others of similar celebrity. There were also cabinets of intricate and lovely Chinese design, black and scarlet, filled with objets d’art Jeremy had collected from all over the world. Walter’s smile became less somber. He looked at his nephew, and thought: He resembles a stevedore in appearance, a roughneck, as it is called, and yet he has all this discernment and discrimination which Francis, astonishingly, does not. Nature does not believe in stereotypes, it would seem. Yes.

  A shaft of hot sun struck through the western window of the parlor of the suite and brought into brilliant prominence the rose damask wall. Walter appeared to be studying it, though he was not.

  “I confess I was surprised that you took up law, finally, as well as business administration, Jerry. You never told me why.”

  “Oh, I may go into politics. I took up international law, you know, not merely corporate law, and civil and criminal law. Who knows? I may end up in the Supreme Court myself.” He laughed.

  “Francis has that idea, too.”

  “Well, if it’s only a matter of ‘the race to the swift and the battle to the strong.’ I’ll make it first. Sorry, Uncle.”

  Jeremy, too, had changed these past four years. He was leaner and tighter in appearance, and travel had darkened his already dark face; the lines in it were new, and defined, and he appeared older than his twenty-seven years. His body was still the body of a vigorous athlete, and he treated that body as a tool which must be kept honed and clean. His black hair was neater and shorter; his eyes were less gay when he laughed or made a joke, though they still had their earlier forthright and piercing regard, skeptical and disillusioned.

  “Your concern making money?” asked Walter, the businessman and industrialist.


  “Babcock, Smith and Kellogg? They certainly are. There are hints they may make me a partner—one of these days. How’s your business, Uncle?”

  “Not so good, Jerry, not so good. I think we’re going into a panic. Panics usually follow wars, don’t they? Yes. This one is on the way. I give it only three to four years to arrive. But we are all feeling the uneasiness and doubt which precedes panics. Bryan and his screams that we should go off the gold standard! The idiot doesn’t know that when that happens in a country the government issues fiat money, which has no intrinsic value at all, and ultimately leads to disastrous inflation and economic collapse. But you can never convince a zealot. Bryan’s one of your innocents, too.”

  “There’s one hope. Teddy Roosevelt, our President, isn’t a zealot, except for wars, and he’s no innocent.”

  Walter said, very suddenly, “I wish you were my son, Jerry.”

  “And I wish you were my dad, Uncle Walter. Frank is more to the taste of my parents. Incidentally, my father never got over not being appointed by the Pennsylvania legislature to the Senate. Now he’s all for having Senators elected by the People, and he’s working with an organization for an amendment to the Constitution to that effect, as well as for an amendment to bring about the federal income tax.”

  “That’s what the international conspirators are after, Jerry, as you know. They know that those amendments, if attached to the Constitution, will mean the beginning of the end of America as a sovereign free country. She’ll become part of their wanted ‘Parliament of Man,’ and be just another enslaved nation, bankrupt and dependent on her masters. Well. Let’s change the subject. It’s depressing. I know you want to know about that little girl, Ellen Watson.”

  Jeremy looked into his glass. “I know considerable. I’ve employed investigators, who often go to Wheatfield. But the only thing I’ve been able to find out definitely is that she is well, more beautiful than ever, and is apparently content as a servant, and that she dresses, as they call it, in a manner becoming her station. That is, drab if wearable, and extremely discreet and modest. Fitting to her class, as Frank would say. I even know where she takes her walks on her few hours off, at her mistress’s discretion. And that isn’t very often.”

  “Well. My sister-in-law, Hortense Eccles, is really a good woman, Jerry. Quite intelligent, and shrewd. Since she became a widow she has managed her husband’s estate remarkably well, and increased it considerably. She has the respect of her brokers and bankers. She can turn a keen penny, believe me. She advised me on some investments and I took her advice and they’re the only ones paying substantial dividends. She is sometimes kind, and I think she is truly interested in Ellen, that is, in making her an able and competent servant. And Ellen’s become exactly that. Since her aunt, May Watson, was stricken with arthritis, poor soul, and stays in bed most of the day, Ellen has taken over entirely, almost entirely, except for the cooking, which May does. Yes, indeed, a very competent servant.”

  “Now, isn’t that jim-dandy,” said Jerry, with a hard look settling on his face. “A girl like Ellen—a servant.”

  “I never told you, Jerry, but I had a friend when I was young, a John Widdimer, of Philadelphia, very good old family. His father had married a beautiful girl, an Amy Sheldon, of even more distinction than the Widdimers. She died when Johnny was very young. There was a portrait of her, as a young woman, in the Widdimer drawing room. Ellen resembles that portrait amazingly. I was struck by that when I first saw the girl, and even your father, who doesn’t have too much imagination, also was. I’ve often wondered—”

  “The resemblance could be coincidence,” said Jerry, but he was interested.

  “I don’t know. If it was an ordinary kind of beauty, the accepted standard of beauty—which it isn’t—I’d believe it was coincidence. But how often do you see hair like Amy’s and Ellen’s, and eyes of such extraordinary brilliance and color, and such molding of the face and mouth? Amy was a tall woman, and so is Ellen. Even the figures are almost identical. The hands, the throat, the shoulders, too. And the lovely innocent expression, the simple sweetness, the innocence above all. John’s father said that Amy believed everything she heard, and had the utmost charity of spirit. An angel, he called her. Innocent as a lamb, he said. And very intelligent, which is almost unbelievable in the innocent. I’ve never seen anyone like Amy, that is, anyone so like her portrait, except Ellen. Do you know? There were many people who didn’t consider Amy a beauty; some even thought she was homely.”

  “Urn,” said Jeremy. “Tell me more about your friend John.”

  “Well, he was a womanizer. Like you, Jerry.” Walter smiled. “A discreet womanizer. No coarse random females. So, perhaps—”

  “If he was so discriminating, how could he have tampered with a servant? Presuming Ellen is his daughter, which I can’t believe. May Watson is a servant; therefore her sister must have been one, too. I must investigate this. But somewhere I heard, probably from my mother, that Ellen was born in Erie, and so was May, and so, apparently, was May’s sister. Very humble people, to quote Frank.”

  “Ellen’s mother could have been a servant in the Widdimer household. And if she had been beautiful and gentle and fairly intelligent, John wouldn’t have balked at a servant. He never married, incidentally. And he was at least thirty-eight when he was killed by a horse. I don’t know.”

  “I’m going to investigate this,” said Jeremy. “It would be interesting, at least. By the way, does Frank see Ellen often?”

  “Quite often. Perhaps every month or so. But not with coupling in mind,” and Walter laughed, not very heartily. “Purely altruistic, he tells me. He also tells me, with approval, that Ellen has become a very able and trustworthy and respected servant.”

  “Of course, he would think that is fine,” said Jeremy, and his face changed dangerously. “I wanted to send Ellen to school, to bring out her potentialities as a lady, and an educated lady. Then it was my intention to marry her.”

  “No!” said Walter in surprise.

  Jeremy nodded. “It is still my intention. That is, if Frank doesn’t snatch her for his kitchen before I can accomplish it. No sign of his marrying yet?”

  “No, though he has his own house in Scranton now. We were both quarreling too much. A very modest house, even if he has quite a fortune of his own, of which he will spend hardly a cent.” Walter paused, and his expression became somber again. “Did I tell you that he has joined that Marxist society, called ‘The League of Just Men?’”

  “No, you didn’t tell me. But it is just like him, isn’t it? The international conspirators, the ‘elite,’ aren’t Marxists. They just use some of Marx’s ideas, and are trying to bring more and more countries into Socialism, for their own ends.” He stood up. He repeated, “I am going to marry Ellen, and very soon, even if she’s forgot all about me, which I doubt. By the way, what’s Frank’s house like?”

  “Very modest, as I said. You won’t believe it, but it is furnished in odds and ends, some secondhand, and I don’t mean antiques. Very spare.”

  “You mean cheap.”

  “Well. Yes. Fill my glass again, Jerry. And again, I wish you were my son.” He added, “You know, Francis is doing very well as a lawyer. And he charges very well. Even his beloved ‘poor.’”

  The Eccles house in Wheatfield, while not the mansion the mistress believed it to be was a square Georgian house of yellow field-stone, substantial and dull and heavy, with four white pillars outside on four wide stairs facing double oak doors. It had many small windows and many rooms. The third floor was reserved for servants, of which there were two, May Watson and Ellen, her niece. The gardens were severe and the grass apparently cut with scissors. The furniture of the house was almost as ponderous as in the Porter house but somewhat more expensive, and the draperies were heavy, of dark blue and brown. The servants’ quarters were bare and contained only the necessities, for Mrs. Eccles, who was a worthy woman in the estimation of her friends, herself, and her pastor, did not
believe in “pampering the lower orders.” It disrupted discipline, and Mrs. Eccles heartily believed in discipline for others, except for herself. She was a short stout woman, with a round plump face, shrewd brown eyes, and a sleek mass of brown hair. She was also very stylish and knew, secretly, that she had obtained a bargain in May Watson, who was not only an excellent cook, when she could painfully crawl down to the kitchen, but an experienced seamstress into the bargain. Therefore, Mrs. Eccles had brought herself, in spite of her convictions and her desire not to “corrupt” the “servant class,” to give May an extra dollar a month for each of the four years she had served her mistress. She had also given Ellen an extra dollar a month, and advised saving.

  Nevertheless, she was in her keen and alert way a just woman almost most of the time. She would praise an especially fine dish, and would sometimes smile sweetly at Ellen, though deploring her hair and her height regularly. (“One must keep them humble, for the sake of their souls.”) She would sometimes express solicitude for May and her pains, and on one occasion had called her own physician to attend her. “But one must be strong, my dear,” she often lectured May. “One must not give in, you know. That is weakness.” Mrs. Eccles always “gave in” to her appetite and devoured twice the amount of food her dependents ate. However, she never forced them to eat scraps from her table. She was, in her partially tolerant way, also a martinet. Nothing must be out of order or disarranged, and she regularly inspected her house for dust, and once a week she also inspected the servants’ quarters. On Christmas Day she would give May two dollars, and Ellen one. May thought her mistress a veritable benevolent queen, and constantly praised her to her niece.