Testimony Of Two Men (17 page)

“She’s determined to die,” said Robert

“So she is. And as for me, I’ll be glad to be the one to close her eyes and wish her Godspeed. I’ve a standing order to be called when she’s in extremis. Someone has to be on hand when the boat unfurls its sail, and cheer from the dock. Shell like that.”

A child who was dying and who should live; an old wicked man who was not dying and wished to live; an old abandoned mother who wanted to die. As Jonathan had said, “There’s no sense to anything.”

In the two last cases Robert failed to diagnose one correctly. He was slightly more successful with the last. When he went out into the sunshine, he felt he had become quite aged. He felt very old and worn and used up. He was not as yet able to be objective.

This afternoon he had to watch three operations, none of which was Jonathan’s. He watched Jonathan walk rapidly away and he said to himself, A most ambiguous man.

Four nights later, almost at midnight, Father Francis McNulty came to see Jonathan Ferrier. The lights in the big house were out, but the lights in the office were brightly shining. The moon was icy and glittering for again the weather had turned cold. The priest went to the offices, knocked and entered. He found Jonathan sprawled in a chair, more than slightly drunk, with a bottle of whiskey on the spattered desk before him. So that’s it, thought the young priest sadly, but made himself smile with a glow of his golden eyes. “Surprised to see me?” he asked, and remarked to himself how inane that was.

Jonathan, who had long ago removed his collar and tie and was now in shirtsleeves, had a rumpled and disheveled appearance. He scowled drowsily; his eyes were bloodshot. “Trust the devil to turn up when least expected,” he said. He waved at the bottle. “Have a drink. There’s an extra glass.”

“I think I will,” said the priest. He sat down. He tried to keep the dismay out of his voice, and his pity. He poured some whiskey into the glass and drank it slowly, attempting to keep Jonathan from seeing his consternation. But Jonathan was not looking at him. He was yawning heavily and glumly. He reached for the bottle. “Not just yet, Jon,” said the priest. “I want to talk to you.”

“At this hour of the night?” Jonathan looked blearily at his watch, then snapped the case shut, fumbled for the pocket, could not find it, and let the watch hang. “Where’ve you been? Carousing?” He put the bottle down. He tried to focus his eyes. “What’s up?” he asked. “Somebody died, thank God?”

“Yes.”

“Congratulations.”

“Don’t be childish, Jon—”

“If you’re going to set up a Confessional here, Frank, you can get the hell out. I’m not up to listening to some sad tale.” His voice was slurred and sluggish. “Nor are you listening to mine.” He became a little excited and his drunkenness appeared to increase. “Wasn’t it you who asked me last December over and over, if I was ‘guilty’? Yes, I’ve not forgotten, you know.”

“I only did my duty, Jon, and you know it. There was always the danger—”

“Of me hanging, in mortal sin. Now, why don’t you go home and say your prayers and let me go to bed?”

“I didn’t believe you killed Mavis—”

“Well, not after I’d finally convinced you. In the beginning, yes.”

The priest was silent. He said a private mental prayer. He said, “I want you to forgive somebody. I’d like to tell him— her—tonight that you did.”

Jonathan forced himself upright and groaned and snatched at his head. “Who, for God’s sake? And why? And what do I care? Do you mean some pigs have actually become convinced I didn’t kill Mavis and have sent you here at this hour? Can’t they fry a little in their consciences until tomorrow?”

“They’re waiting to hear, Jon. Right now. By telephone. It is bad enough for them just now. It’s worse, thinking of you.”

“Fine. Let them fry. Tell them ‘no.’”

Now he did pour more whiskey for himself and gulped it stolidly.

“Jon,” said the priest, “little Martha Best died three hours ago at the hospital.”

Jonathan lifted his heavy arms, let them drop on the desk, then dropped his head upon them. He didn’t really hear, thought the priest, with compassion. He’s fallen asleep. He looked at Jonathan’s slack head, at the dark disordered hair, at the side of the sallow cheek, which was as still as wood. Then Jonathan said in a voice that seemed to come from a long way off, “I didn’t know. I haven’t seen her for four days. They’d given orders, the Bests, and old swinish Louis Hedler, that I wasn’t to go near her. Hadn’t I ‘done enough,’ lying to them, scaring them to death, trying to make them suffer? That’s what they said. Even her nurses were forbidden to tell me anything about her.”

“Yes. I know, Jon. I know. But after the first shock of her death Howard and Beth said to me, ‘Can he possibly forgive us?’ I said I didn’t know. And they asked me to come now, not tomorrow. They can’t bear waiting. They’ve got to know.”

“At this time, when Martha’s just died? They can think of that now?” He lifted his head and his face was changed and distorted. “What’s the matter with them?”

“They knew this morning that she was dying. It was obvious. But you weren’t in the hospital then. They looked for you.”

Jonathan wet his dried and swollen lips. His eyes seemed full of blood. “So, it seems you’ve got a Mass of the Angels to celebrate.”

“Jonathan, please.”

Jonathan said, “Don’t talk like that to me, in that pained tone of voice! As for Martha, she’s well out of it What does anyone have to live for?”

“You don’t know what they’re suffering, Jon.”

He stared at the priest in an ugly fashion. “Let them get their consolations from that old fraud, Louis.”

The priest stood up, sighing. “So, you won’t forgive them?”

He waited. But Jonathan said nothing. However, in a moment he did speak. “I’m to be the saint, am I, forgiving every son of a bitch who digs into my bowels and turns the knife? Why? Just tell me why.”

“Because, Jon, though you’ve turned away, you are still
a
Christian. And, I hope, a man.”

Jonathan laughed. “Words, words.” He waved heavily at the telephone. “All right. Tell them. Tell them that I grovel before them and beg their forgiveness—” He stopped. “Hell. Tell them that my heart is broken for them, and then get the hell out of here.”

Marjorie Ferrier sat with her son Harald in her small and private sitting room on the second floor of the great old house. Here no one came except by her invitation. She would quote, without apology, ” ‘In solitude, when we are least alone.’” Jonathan understood this, but Harald would remark in the new jargon, “It is really selfishness and an indifference to others.” He had made this remark, regrettably, to Jonathan, who had snorted. ” ‘I to myself am dearer than a friend,’ Shakespeare. A man never betrays himself unless he is a fool or a saint, and what’s the difference? Mother can’t really stand people, which shows that she is a very wise woman, indeed.”

The soft June rain was falling again, but as it was warm, Marjorie’s casement windows were open to the air and the piercing scent of roses blew into the cozy little room. She was knitting serenely; she made many woolen garments each year for her sons and friends, and for the indigent. Harald sipped brandy; he had refused the tea, which stood on the low marble table near his mother. He did not like this small room, with the white paneled walls, the ruffled voile curtains, the rose-colored rug and the delicate mahogany furniture. It reminded him too keenly of the times Marjorie had brought him here as a child to speak to him quietly and firmly after some transgression. It had made him cringe, for she had known him only too well. He preferred his father’s infrequent cuffings; at least the old boy didn’t understand his children and that had been a blessing.

Harald looked at his mother, at her aloof face, her patrician features, her smooth duck skirt and her severe white-silk

shirtwaist. She wore a brown belt about her narrow waist; her clever hands flashed with needles and with her engagement ring. The long lashes of her hazel eyes, so like Harald’s, fluttered duskily on her pale cheek. Her dark head was slightly bent. She might have been alone.

But she said, “You know, dear, as I’ve told you before, I’ve asked Jenny to come here and live with me. She refuses.”

“I know. Well, the island was her father’s dream and delight.” He spoke with light bitterness. “She has a passion about it. She thinks I’m a dastardly intruder.” He smiled. “I hate the damned pretentious place, and she knows it, and she knows that I don’t dare stay away from it more than five months out of a year. I bet she counts each day! More than five months, even a couple of hours—” He moved his finger across his throat in a slicing gesture.

“It was a silly will,” said Marjorie. Now she looked at her son. “Jenny believes you overheard her mother say to Jenny, just before she died, that she was about to make a new will.”

Harald hesitated. He took another gloomy sip from his glass. “Well. I did. She’s quite right. But I didn’t know that she knew I’d overheard. I was glad, Mother. I knew the terms of Myrtle’s old will. I hated them. I thought perhaps she’d come to her senses, after my long arguments with her. So Jenny knew I’d heard, eh? What did she tell you?”

But his mother was regarding him with an intense if secret expression. “She only mentioned it, Harald. She, too, thought it was a stupid will, and unfair—to her.”

“Well, it was. Myrtle ought to have divided the money equally between us. I could have left then, kissing Hambledon good-bye forever, and Jenny could have had her damned island all alone and live like the recluse she really is.”

Marjorie was still watching him. Harald did not hear her faint sigh. He was pouring a little more brandy into his glass. He was the more handsome of Marjorie’s sons, as everyone was constantly pointing out. “You know,” he said, “I’ve wanted Jenny to marry me, Mother.”

“Yes, dear. She told me.” . “It’s not the money, Mother. After all, what does she have until I die or something? One hundred wretched dollars
a
month. I love Jenny; I want her.”

“Yes,” said Marjorie. She paused. “Who do you think is spreading nasty tales about you and Jenny, Harald?”

He did not answer for a moment, and Marjorie became
a
little sick. Why, Harald, she said to herself. You did! You

want to force Jenny to make her position there with you less scandalous! Oh, Harald, you were always a devious little boy! But this is dreadful. She felt very ill.

“I don’t know,” said Harald.

“But everyone believes them.”

He shrugged. “More fools they. How could anyone believe anything disgusting about poor Jenny? She’s about as seductive as a prim stone statue.”

“Jon believes those stories, Harald.”

“Oh, Jon. He always believes the worst of everybody. He always did.” He smiled at her winningly. “When we were kids, he never asked who broke something of his. He took it for granted that I did, and hit first and asked questions afterward. Not that he was invariably wrong. I did like to tease him; he was so solemn most of the time.”

Marjorie let the knitting fall to her knees. “Jon was a relentless little boy, dear. To him things were either totally black or totally white. He never saw the gray places. There was a kind of fierceness about him. He could never compromise. Once betrayed, he never forgave. Now you—”

“I live in the gray places. Like you, Mother. Like everybody who’s sensible.”

“Yes.”

He smiled at her affectionately. “If he were a fool, I could understand. But he isn’t. Well, not much, anyway. I could forgive and forget. My father always preferred him, though, even if the old boy was more tolerant and understanding. He’d sometimes forget I was alive. It was ‘Jon this, and Jon that. My son Jonathan.’” Harald still smiled, but the smile had subtly changed. “My father never took me seriously.”

“Perhaps not, Harald. Your father was a very serious man himself.”

Harald yawned elaborately. “I know. He was always quoting Thomas a Kempis: ‘Everywhere I have sought rest and found it not except sitting apart in a nook with a little book.’ He and his little ‘nooks!’ He’d pull Jon into them with him for hours. Perhaps that is what is wrong with my glum-faced brother.”

Marjorie’s hands were very still on her fallen knitting. “Let’s not belittle Jon’s troubles. After all, there was Mavis, and the—the—”

Harald looked thoughtfully at the open casement windows. Twilight, purple and vague, was beginning to tinge the raining sky. “He never knew anything about Mavis at all. He’d known her almost from the moment she had been born. But he never saw her in reality. I did. She was shallow and stupid and plotting and frivolous and sly. You know that, Mother. You never said anything, but I know you could not endure him marrying her. However, there’s something to be said in Mavis’ defense, too. Jon had set up an impossible standard for her. She was suddenly to acquire intelligence and patience and devotion, and she couldn’t do it. She’d lived for Mavis Eaton all her life and now she was expected to live for Jon and his interests! She was to acquire a taste for books and science and for that boring hackneyed art he loves, the pre-Raphaelites. She was to grow four inches taller, at least, metaphorically speaking. But all the time she only wanted to dance, gossip, discuss clothes and people, travel, sing, play, and have a good time generally. If Jon had his complaints, Mavis had them, too, and I think I pitied her the most. Butterflies have to live, too, as well as granite busts.”