"Yes. That's the unpardonable sin you can commit against your brother: Letting him know that you know exactly what he is. Hell hate you forever."
Jonathan moved slowly toward the door. Then Marjorie said, "Will you tell your father about your experience, dear?"
He turned and looked at her and again she saw that dark and warning look in his eyes. "No. He wouldn't understand. It would hurt him. He's—kind."
And I am not, thought Marjorie as the door closed behind her son. That's what he meant: I am not kind. I only tell the truth.
"Damn this storm," said Jonathan in a slurred voice, and he set the wine bottle thumpingly on the table. "How long has it been going on; anyway? Look at that lightning."
Marjorie's mental return tonight to her pale and shining dining room was almost traumatic in its violence, for she had been so engrossed in her memories. She started. "It does seem pretty wild, doesn't it?" she said.
The fresh strawberries and cream and tea had come, and had been partially eaten and removed, Marjorie observed, though she had not the slightest memory of them. The wine bottle was empty. "Are you ready to leave?" asked Jonathan. His face was very sunken in appearance, and his eyes were glazed with alcohol, and there was a tremor about his mouth and in his hands.
"Yes, thank you," said Marjorie. He came to her chair and drew it back for her. He walked to the buffet then, leaving her standing. "I think," he said, "that I'll take a bottle of bourbon upstairs with me. A nightcap. I'm tired."
The thunderous rain was washing the tall bright windows and the wind was howling in the eaves. Jonathan was laboriously and with considerable careful difficulty fitting a crystal glass over the decanter. He was absorbed in the delicate task. Then, walking with slow caution and putting each foot down tentatively, he left the dining room. His mother heard his heavy and uncertain step on the stairs. She listened, during an interval when there was only the rain and the wind. Jonathan had gone into his father's study. She heard the solid bang of the door.
She said to herself, "Yes, dear Jon, I always told you the truth. I never lied to you. Would it have been any better if I had? I don't know. In spite of all you knew and all I told you, you became a good man and a doctor who simply could not bear pain in others. You did all you could to alleviate it It was your personal enemy. Was it because the pain was always so awful in you yourself, and you were trying to exorcise it?
"I never lied to you. Except once. By silence. But it was for your sake, Jon, for your dear sake."
It seemed a century, this evening of inner revelation and discovery, a dreadful century. Marjorie wearily climbed the stairs to her own room. She could not face downstairs tonight the lonely sofas, the empty chairs, the brilliant, lonely furniture, the glittering windows which would reflect nothing but a despairing woman's face.
By silence, I lied. Was that the better way? By not speaking I saved you so much, Jon, so much more than you have already borne. I wonder, if you knew what I know, if you'd be grateful to me? Perhaps. Would the ultimate have been better than this?
She could hear Jonathan speaking on the telephone in the study. She paused, then went to the shut door and listened. "Good, good," he was saying in the precise voice of drunkenness. "Don't let anyone in. Little sips of ice water only, or, better, little pieces of ice on her tongue. Don't let anyone in."
You never did, dear, thought Marjorie. No, you never did. Except for Mavis.
Before she fell asleep, after a long while, she repeated to herself, as if for consolation:
'"He is wounded, but not slain. Hell lay him down and bleed a while, then rise and fight again.' "
Would he? He had not forgotten Mavis, and only Marjorie knew that, Mavis the dearly beloved, and the hated.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jonathan stood drinking in his fathers study, drinking slowly and steadily, and he looked about him at the brown, golden and ruddy room, so calm and sedate under the soft light of lamps. He thought of it as an autumn room, for it was warm and quiet and gleaming, the walls hidden by bookshelves and the books, themselves, chosen, he had suspected even as a child, not for their content so much as for their tawny shining leather and their gilt. There was no dark wood here but only fruitwoods and unstained mahogany, russet and polished and lacquered, so that it glowed like brown glass. The rug was a precious Chinese Oriental, in shades of yellow, ecru, cinnamon, copper and buff. The curtains were of gold silk; all the ornaments were of bronze and very masculine in cast, and the lamps were bronze also with parchment shades. The fireplace was of brown marble, veined with yellow, and so was the hearth.
Yes, it was very quiet. It had always been quiet and staid and spacious. Yet, curiously, in spite of the deep leather chairs, the beautifully carved old desk, the bright tables with their little Chinese boxes and ivories, the books, the general air of warmth, the broad mullioned window with its window seat covered with velvet cushions, there seemed to be no real invitation to rest here, to think, to meditate, to browse, to study. Adrian had called it his "retreat," and had spent most of his leisure here among "my beloved books, my dearest companions," yet it did not possess that peculiar atmosphere of contemplation and profound communion and repose that distinguishes the true library, the true study, of an intellectual man. In short, it was empty. It always shone; it was always beautiful; it gave the impression of invitation. The shining beauty remained after one entered here, but the superficial invitation soon vanished, for it had never been truly given. It was a harmonious shell that had never contained life even in the beginning, for Adrian Ferrier had never possessed that life to give. It was no more lifeless now than it had been in his own period of existence. It was not an abandoned room; it just had never been inhabited.
Jon had known that as a child. But from childhood he had indulged his father in Adrian's conceit that this was the throne room of a dedicated and thoughtful and contemplative man, seeking refuge from a hot and exigent world into the caverns of his own brilliant mind. "Always I am refreshed," he would say. "No matter how weary I am, I come to my retreat and think and muse and give rein to my fancy and let my thoughts soar, and soon peace comes to me and strength to bear the burdens of my life." What his burdens had been Jonathan never knew, but he implied them, sighing, and would lift a plump white hand exhaustedly for a moment and then let it drop on the arm of his chair. He would then smile pathetically at Jonathan, his big blue eyes misty and wistful.
Jonathan leaned against the oaken door of the library tonight, drinking slowly and steadfastly, and then with the strange clarity of drunkenness he began to smile and he said aloud, "Dear Papa, you were a terrible but lovable farce, and I always knew all about you. I loved you dearly and still do, and you were kind. You loved me and I never let you know what I knew about you, because I pitied and protected you from sharp and perceptive Mama even when I was a little kid. Sharp and perceptive Mama. You knew she was on to you. She didn't have the humor and compassion not to let you know. But I did. And you were grateful, and in a way you'd never understand you taught me a lot about people. You taught me, for one thing, to recognize a bore at once and to avoid him. Never mind, Papa. You were a little man, more ordinary than most, and you were very pretentious, and wouldn't Mama be surprised to know I know all this! She thinks that I thought you an Intellect, and I let her think that because it amuses me and irritates her.
"You were weak and vulnerable, and for some damned reason the weak and the vulnerable get right inside my vest and cuddle up in my viscera. Mama despises them and is impatient with them, and probably with good reason, which leaves me in somewhat of a dilemma. Am I a little weak and vulnerable, too? Was that one bond between us?"
He frowned at the glass in his hand, then took a gulp of it. He uttered a particularly foul word. "Maybe," he said. "I never thought of that before. Well, hell, Papa. Poor old boy. I knew all the time that your insistent kindness and solicitude for others was only your terrified defense against your fellow-man. You probably had a faint idea of what people are,
and so you tried to fend them off, prevent potential attacks on you with declarations of your belief in mankind, that it really is good, decent, kindly at heart, bulging with the honey of goodwill and needing only encouragement to sprout wings. You gave money to every whimpering rogue, thief and lying mendicant who asked your help—so they'd think well of you and praise you for a sensitive and compassionate man. But charitable institutions, and even the Church, rarely got a penny out of you. There you were parsimonious. Sometimes you mortified me when the priest or the Sisters came around. Even though you sent them away with a few coppers or a little silver—poor devils—they thought you were the most benign creature in existence. The funny thing is, you really were. You weren't a hypocrite at all, though I suspect dear Mama always thought you were. You dearly loved yourself, but it was an innocent love, like a child's. God, Papa, you made me ache all over when I was a kid myself and you treated me as if I were your father. Did I like that? Probably. Perhaps that was a bond between us, too.
"I knew when I was still in knickers that you were incapable of dealing, foot to foot, fist to fist, with others. At heart, you were a woman, perhaps even a girl. I don't mean that nastily, Papa. I'm a doctor, and I know that every woman has masculine qualities and every man feminine ones; that's our duality. But your feminine qualities were greater than your masculine.
"I think it was your terror of people that made you love
harmless things, birds and trees and gardens. They never threatened you. Of what were you afraid, Papa? I don't think you ever knew. I don't think you even had the slightest suspicion. You just didn't want to be hurt. Who does? Unfortunately, all of us can't run away, as you ran away all your life. You did have loving and tender parents, so they never scared the hell out of you. You were born as you were born, with all your trembling genes and your fear. You couldn't help it. But Mama thought you could."
Jonathan took another big swallow. The glittering surfaces in the room dazzled him. Cautiously he extended a hand and eased himself into a chair. Some whiskey spilled on his knee, and he cursed abstractedly.
"Poor Pa," he said. "Your parents and your friends protected you. Everybody did. You were so easy to be fond of, with your gentle platitudes and cliches; you never said a word to offend anyone. You couldn't imagine speaking harshly, and I doubt you ever had a mean thought, either. You just weren't bright enough, Papa. The only one who refused to protect and shelter you was dear Mama. I think you came close to hating her, as close as you could hate anyone. You ran away from her. She probably impressed you as a gentle and understanding girl when you were both young, and here was a new Mama already made to replace the one you had lost. But Mama never really was a Mama, though she bore you two sons. Except, of course, for darling Harald, the apple of her eye."
There was one last boom of thunder and then the storm retreated and now the rain was steady and swishing against the glass and the wind had died.
"You know," said Jonathan, smiling at the chair where his father used to sit "to receive my child's closest confidences,"
"I don't think you really knew a bad poem from a good one, a stinker of a picture from a fine one. But you tried. I think that's damned touching, and always did. I particularly hated The Storm,' over the fireplace, but you adored it, and though I never looked at it if I could avoid it, I knew that you loved if and found it beautiful. It was just like you, Papa.
"Yes, Papa, you were sweet and kind. Above all, you were harmless, and that's a damned rare and precious quality in humanity. Harmlessness. I cherished that in you. And I never let you know one single infernal thing about me. It would have scared the dung out of you, and I loved you too much, and had too much tenderness for you, to tell you the truth. You couldn't have stood it. So I invented dear little boyish troubles which you could handle nicely with aphorisms and strokings of my head and soothing murmurs. It made you happy. You died thinking kids are innocent lambs, trailing clouds of glory.' That's from your pet poet, Wordsworth, and he makes me ill."
Jonathan filled his glass solemnly. He toasted his father's empty chair. "I miss you like hell," he said. "I miss your harmlessness. You were the only harmless creature I ever knew. Papa, your health, wherever you are."
He laughed a little and sprawled in his chair. "Papa, if there is anything to immortality, I just know what you are now and what you are doing. You are wandering around the blue and shining halls of heaven with a feather duster in your hands, and all the angels pat you on the head as they hurry about their business. You are probably about seven years old. God must love you particularly. I bet you never committed a mortal sin in your life. The capital sins were only words to you, weren't they? What did you tell the priests in the Confessional, Papa? Did you have to invent little venial sins? The sins of a child?
"You never knew what Mavis was. You loved her always, didn't you? You didn't live to see us married. You spoke of her as a 'dear girl, a treasure, a love.' Yes, Papa, she was indeed. Indeed. I'm glad you never knew how many times I came close to killing her. I thought of a thousand ways—"
The glass slipped from his inert hand and dropped to the floor and spilled its contents. He neither knew nor cared. He was fully drunk. He stared blankly before him, but his thoughts were not blank. His exhausted face took on the dark shadow of agony.
Mavis, Mavis, Mavis, he thought. Oh, my God, Mavis! Mavis!
He had been twenty-three years old, two years in medical school, when he had first become aware of Mavis Eaton, niece and adopted daughter of Dr. Martin Eaton and his wife, Flora. Certainly, he had seen the little girl from babyhood, then as a toddler, then a running child shrill and insistent, for she was very spoiled. (Her uncle and aunt invariably referred to her, even after they had adopted her, as "That sweet, motherless, fatherless little one!") But so small a child hardly could inspire a boy and a youth with tenderness except in an academic way, for Jonathan even so young liked children. So, he had seen her, had absently noted her, had thought she was exceptionally handsome for a child, had idly admired her, but had not been attracted by her pert ways, her open rudeness to her adoring uncle and adopted father, and her loud and unexpected outbursts of somewhat rough laughter. There had been a period when she had been grubby, and Jonathan, even hardly past puberty, had disliked grubbiness. Still later, she had lost her baby teeth, and her hair appeared lank and uncombed, and though he was polite to her in her uncle's house —which he visited often—she appeared to him to have lost the shining and spotless and rounded sweetness of earlier years.
She had not liked him. Other visiting young men, studying medicine, had deferred to her ostentatiously so that the formidable, rich and famous Dr. Eaton would look upon them kindly and, possibly, in the future, sponsor them. But Jonathan Ferrier was aloof and independent, and these the ten-year-old Mavis interpreted as "stuck-up" and "thinks right well of himself, and he's so homely, too." He never brought her little gifts to flourish above her eager hands in the presence of the smiling Dr. Eaton and her Aunt Flora. On several occasions, annoyed at her vexation that her uncle and Jonathan were going into his study, where they would close the doors, Jonathan had said to her in a peremptory way she hated, "Run along, little girl, and play with your dolls or pester someone else." This seemed outrageous to Mavis, for had not her uncle intended to take her for a ride to the ice cream parlor before "the prig" had appeared? She came to hate him.
When she was between the ages of ten and twelve, Jonathan had rarely, if ever, even seen her, probably because when he was at home, he contrived to visit the house when she was at school, or bicycling or away on the interminable picnics with which her generation were engrossed. He would sometimes hear her demanding voice in the kitchen or in the halls, but he never encountered her in them.
The Eaton house was on a street broad, spacious and filled with trees and exceptionally wide even for Hambledon, which was famous for its expansive thoroughfares. It stood on two acres of land, far back from the street and cloistered in a heavy stand of linden trees, a tree
not common in town. It was said that the whole of Hambledon was fragrant when they bloomed, and certainly a warm damp wind carried their scent for long distances. The house rose above all its neighbors, for Dr. Eaton's father had fancied a tall knoll, and so it overlooked the roofs of other houses, and the upper windows, where the servants slept, stared at distant streets and had a long close look at the river. In fact, the deep and rambling rear gardens sloped down to the river promenade, as the townsfolk liked to call the smooth, silvery gray planks that ran at the rear of the big houses very close to the water. But every house's rear gardens were guarded by low fences with doors in them, usually locked, though a tall youth or man could easily have jumped over them.
Jonathan Ferrier thought the house and its neighbors were hideous, though they were considered very stylish with their wide shadowy verandas and shutters and little turrets and small silly towers and fretwork and stained-glass hall windows and double oaken doors leading to small vestibules and to another door. "Dripping with tortured cellulose," he would say of them. "Well, I suppose it gives jig-cutters employment, but that is about all you can say for all that wooden lace drooping from every possible knothole and eave." The Eaton house had even more "wooden lace" than its neighbors, and was made of wood painted a particularly—to Jonathan—repulsive chestnut brown, with bright yellow shutters and yellow shingles. It had two towers in front, one at each end, and the dormer windows of the second and third floors had tiny little spires rising from them, intricately carved, and not only was there a stained-glass window in the front hall door but a huge one, at least twelve feet high and eight across, in the exact middle of the house, indicating the spiral staircase inside.
It was called a "mansion," for it had eighteen rooms and even one referred to as a "ballroom," though it was hardly that even in size. (It became a "ballroom," when Mavis was older.) Its rooms were long, narrow and gloomy even on the brightest day, but that was the style, to preserve the glow of wood and the fabric of expensive brocade draperies and the shimmer of Aubusson and Oriental rugs. When the walls were not paneled, they were hung, in the drawing room (no "parlors" for the Batons!) with crimson rose damask, and in the dining room, golden damask. Even so, so fearful was Mrs. Eaton and her generation of the burning rays of the incontient sun that all the windows, except the servants', could be found at least half shuttered even in winter, except on the very darkest days. The fear of the sun and its "harmful propensities" was not the only reason for the murkiness of the house's interior. There was also a belief, generally held, that only the vulgar threw open windows and shatters all the time —such as servants—and "had no respect for their privacy." Servants, of course, were not genteel. They had no private lives.