“No. No, thank you,” said Stephen in a low voice. “I have a headache. Please ask them to excuse me.”
He looked at Rufus, and his small, unassuming eyes became fixed and piercing, and there was a desperate quality of supplication in them. Rufus was smiling at him with sympathy, and his thick red hair was a glow in the twilight gloom. To himself, Stephen was thinking: If only I could be sure! Is it really possible that he is trying to betray me? His collapsed body yearned for reassurance, for a desire to know that he was wrong in order that he might be comforted and he might be enabled, through faith in at least one person, to go on living.
Rufus went down the stairs, whistling softly and reflectively. It wasn’t possible for the poor fool to know anything. He, Rufus, had too much imagination. He chuckled richly at this self-flattery, and humming, reentered the drawing room, where Lydia was at the piano, entertaining guests.
Rufus smiled and twiddled his watch chain, and was tolerant. As he studied his beautiful wife at the piano, a burning attacked his heart. He could not get her out of his flesh; she was like a barbed and poisoned spearhead which never left him painless. Yet, he hated her for wounding his life. But she had been kinder to him lately, and her eyes sometimes regarded him with a sad pain of her own, as if she was infinitely sorry for him. She was almost thirty-five; she was more lovely and elusive than ever, more mysterious, and there was a sheen like a pearl over her face, a glisten on her lips, which reminded him of a Lydia of eleven years ago. She looked like a woman in love—A woman in love!
19
Like a man dying of cold loneliness and starvation, Stephen began to visit his friend Joseph Baynes with desperate regularity. He wanted nothing from him but a sense that he was loyal to him, and had affection for him, and would comfort him in the unknowable and ominous future.
Joseph Baynes, now a man in his early sixties, had changed little in ten years. He was still neat and graceful; his delicate features had not lost their sharp etching in the blur of time. He and his wife and three children lived in an old stone house in the “wrong” section of Portersville. They had practically no friends except Stephen and the Orvilles, and desired none, for they were a suspicious and envious little clan. Stephen, in his innocence, thought them “discriminating,” and in fact Joseph had often loftily remarked that he was “particular” about friendship.
Joseph always seemed to be delighted at Stephen’s visits, as did his blowsy pink-cheeked little wife, Elsa. They would stir up the fire in the tiny dank living room, seat Stephen with solicitude, and offer him sherry. It was a very bad cheap sherry, but as Stephen sat by the fire with his friends and sipped at his glass, the wine became to him the liquid of consolation and Lethe. He did not notice that lately Joseph had assumed a too obvious and false hospitality, and that Elsa, as she pushed back the untidy masses of her light brown hair, would give him sly glances. The children, more outright, were scornful of their parents’ hypocrisy. The girl, Flora, a pretty seventeen-year-old, and the boys, Duncan, twenty-two, and his brother, Shaun, nineteen, would hardly glance at Stephen when he entered, nor would they rise. This made Stephen feel very humble and distressed. He gave the ancient excuse for them that they did not “understand,” or that, naturally, they were bored with older people.
On a night in October, Stephen felt particularly beset. Uneasiness had become a restless fever in him. He walked down the mountain into the city, crossed the bridge over the black river, and entered East Town. The streets grew narrower and narrower, wound up and down small hills, descended into miniature valleys filled with a cool mist. Here the street lights were few, and reeked of oil. Above, a huge moon like a bronze plate stood in the sky of dark stone. The odor of smoke became thicker in the motionless autumn air, and dry leaves scuttled ahead of Stephen’s hurrying feet, whispered on the cobbles. Occasionally a cricket shrilled insistently.
The Baynes’s house lay on poorly tended lawns in a snarl of huge but half-dead trees. Stephen walked up the narrow grass-grown path toward the house, which showed only one yellow light. He lifted the stained knocker and struck it hesitantly. When Joseph opened the door and saw his visitor, he smiled happily, called out: “It’s Steve!” He took Stephen’s cold hand and pulled him into the house. Then, as Joseph divested Stephen of his greatcoat, Elsa entered the miniature hall, beaming. “Dear Stephen,” she said, in her high and tinkling voice. “What a surprise.” She stood on the tips of her pointed little boots and bestowed a sisterly kiss on his gray cheek. She was all curves and shapelessness and bulges, but Stephen thought her fat indicated a cheery and affectionate disposition.
A more cynical eye than Stephen’s would have detected the falseness under the emphasized cordiality. But he was too hungry for kindness to look under the surface. He entered the untidy and shabby living room and saw nothing but the fire. The children were there, glowering at their books, and did not glance up. This was nothing unusual. When Stephen greeted them timidly, they muttered something. Then, even before Stephen could take his customary seat by the fire in a battered wing chair, Shaun and his sister Flora jumped to their feet and went rapidly out of the room as if Stephen were not present at all. But Duncan remained.
Duncan, the oldest of the three children, laid his book down on his knees, folded his arms on it, and stared furiously and silently at the fire. He was a short and stocky young man with a dark, alert face in which all the sharp features expressed an immovable sullenness. His black hair had been cropped closely, revealing a round hard head.
A glass of sherry was pressed into Stephen’s hand by Joseph, who kept up a rapid and sprightly conversation. Stephen, who rarely noticed anything, saw, for the first time, that the glass was coarse and sticky and none too clean. The fire did not give out its accustomed warmth. There was wariness in the atmosphere, and in spite of Joseph’s strong assertions that Stephen looked well, very well, indeed, and in spite of Elsa’s loving expressions, Stephen became colder than ever. Perhaps it was that young man, Duncan, sitting there so unfriendly, so engrossed in hard concentration on the fire.
Joseph, sitting opposite his friend to whom he owed so much, thought: He’s only forty-two or so, but he looks over fifty. He’s gone gray and sunken. He said, “I’ve never seen you looking so well, Steve. There’s quite a color in your face. Did you walk over?”
“Yes,” said Stephen, trying to rouse himself from his uneasy contemplation of Duncan. “It’s a nice night.” He sipped at his sherry, and it nauseated him. He was suddenly obsessed with a desire for flight. He tried to control the desire; he had come to his friends for consolation. They would be hurt if he inexplicably ran away. He smiled at them feebly. Elsa had taken up her everlasting darning, but her plump face retained its automatic brightness and look of pleasure. She started to chatter about nothing at all, except that she occasionally mentioned the name of a neighbor. Then her laughing voice took on a high spitefulness and derision. Stephen began to wonder if she had always spoken so; he could not remember.
“Of course,” Elsa was saying, “we never have anything to do with these vulgar people.” She put down a thick sock and stared at Stephen with a blank brilliance in her brown eyes. “If only Joseph had been as successful as you, Stephen dear. If only he had had the opportunities! But Joseph is so upright and honorable. Joseph is a man of principle.” She sighed, picked up the sock again and attacked it vehemently.
Joseph said with gentle admonition, “But Elsa, my love, Stephen never had anything to do with Mr. Aaron’s machinations. Stephen, too, is a man of principle. And if Steve has had wonderful opportunities, well then, it is just a matter of luck and the mysterious dispensations of the Almighty. We must not complain.” He sighed, and gave Stephen a patient smile.
“But Rufus is not a man of principle,” said Elsa. She threaded her needle with black wool. “As you said, my dear, we must not complain. We are content with what we have.”
She lifted her eyes to Stephen again, and there was a cold bright accusation in them. He was alarm
ed, and suddenly overcome with guilt. Yes, it was dreadful for poor Joseph and Elsa. He wondered, desperately, what else he could do for them to relieve his guiltiness at owning a splendid home. If only I had a huge private fortune, I could do something for my poor friends, he thought unhappily. But Joseph has been so unlucky with the Locals, and he is not a businessman at all. The Panic has hit him almost mortally, even with my help.
A painful color came into his cheeks as his certainty of guilt increased. If he could obtain a sizable loan on his stocks and bonds there was a possibility that he could indeed help Joseph and Elsa and their children. He began to smile. “I have some small ideas,” he said gently. “Let me think them over for a little.”
Duncan got to his feet clumsily but forcefully. He regarded Stephen with something like hatred. “You’ll do nothing more,” he said. “You’ve done enough to my poor father. Aren’t you satisfied that you’ve kept him in a state of chronic ruin all these years, when he might have been retired, now, on a decent income? Or earning an excellent salary in payment for his knowledge and ability?” He approached Stephen as if to strike him. “Why did you prevent him from selling out years ago to your company, and accepting a salary? I know all about that twenty-four thousand dollars you claim he owes you. Owes you! Payment for a kind of blackmail, I call it! Biding your time until you can swallow the Locals whole, and keeping that loan as a club over his head! If you were a man of any feeling you would detest yourself.” He knotted his fists. “My father ‘owes’ you nothing, and if he had any guts he would tell you so.”
Joseph and Elsa listened to this outburst in a state of appalled paralysis and horror. It was one thing for them to deceive their children; it was another thing for Stephen to learn of their treachery. Joseph cursed his son to himself in his frantic fear; Elsa turned white and her large full mouth dropped open on a gasp of terror.
Stephen could not speak; he could only regard the young man, aghast and stricken to the heart. A sudden awful silence fell over the room.
Yes, thought Stephen with almost overpowering compassion and sorrow, Joe told the boy that to preserve his pride in the eyes of his son, to keep his self-respect, to shelve up the crumbling walls of his ego.
His pity was like a crushing wound in his chest. He wished to say something to this angry and outraged young man, not in explanation, but in an attempt to keep his respect for his father intact. However, he could find no words, for he had no eloquence, and none of the oratory of deceit.
Joseph Baynes began to speak in the high and squeaking voice of demoralized panic: “Duncan, you don’t know what you’re saying! Old Steve here is my best friend—”
“Your best friend!” cried Duncan passionately. “The man who has kept you grinding away for years, paying illegal interest on his ‘loan,’ depriving you of the comfort and security you should have at your age!”
Joseph turned to Stephen pleadingly, his face silvery with sweat. “Steve, the boy doesn’t—You must forgive him, Steve.”
Stephen lifted his tired eyes to the other man, his mouth already forming words of comfort, his one desire to alleviate Joseph’s distress. And then his vision cleared, and his compassion faded away and bitterness came to him. It was all very well for a man to excuse himself to his son with face-saving lies. But there was a limit to falsehood. Stephen heard himself saying in a stifled voice, “Joe, do you remember a time when you told me that you thought suicide was the only way out for you, and I—”
“You what?” exclaimed Duncan with a fresh access of rage. “Did you drive my poor father that far?” He clenched his young and meaty fists; his black eyes glared at Stephen murderously. “Why, you contemptible wretch!” he shouted. “I ought to kill you! If it weren’t for the law … my God, Pa”—and he swung to the quaking Joseph—“you aren’t going to keep this quiet any longer! This usurer and thief you’ve called your friend all these years, this man you’ve been telling us about since we were children. …”
Usurer! Thief! Stephen thought of the noninterest-bearing notes Joseph had virtuously thrust upon him against his protest. He thought of the day—the day that Alice had died alone because of Joseph’s pressing problems—when Joseph had told him somberly that death was the only possible solution for him, and he, Stephen, had rescued him. He thought of his honor that he had sacrificed for Joseph Baynes, when he had dealt with Senator Peale. And such a sickness came to Stephen that it seemed to him that he was drowning in black vomit.
Elsa had become frenzied; she began to weep convulsively. Joseph could only stand between his son and his friend, swallowing the salt water that kept rushing into his mouth. Then he stammered desperately, “Steve, Steve, don’t blame the boy…”
“I don’t,” replied Stephen gently. He looked at Duncan, and his huge compassion returned to him in a flood. “Tell me, Duncan, what you meant by what your father has told you ever since you were a child.”
Duncan was silent, caught by the strange look on that gray face below him, that mournful and uncondemning smile. He was somewhat shaken. He glanced swiftly at his father, and now a horrible uncertainty came to the young man.
Torn between his fear and his shame, tears began to water Joseph’s eyes. “You must forgive, you mustn’t think, Steve—” he said piteously.
Stephen got slowly to his feet. He turned to the weeping Elsa; he glanced at Duncan, with his averted face; he looked at Joseph. “I know, I know,” he murmured. “It’s all right I understand.”
He went toward the hall and Joseph followed him. Once in the hall Joseph pleaded again, “Steve, you are my friend. Tell me you’ll always be my friend. The boy is confused; he did not know what he was saying. I never—”
Stephen, in his mercy, lifted his hand. He could not endure it that Joseph should lie to him, should imply that his son was a liar. “It’s all right, Joe,” he repeated.
He touched Joseph on the shoulder, and the other man bowed his head and his whole body shook. Then Stephen went away, walking like an old man. Joseph watched him until he had disappeared up the street. Then he returned to his sobbing wife and harsh-faced son. He cried out in a tormented and womanish anguish, “Why did you tell him those things? What are you trying to do to me; ruin me? He was my guest, my friend, in this house, and you—”
Duncan stood up, and his strong limbs took on the contours of iron. An enormous loathing glittered in his eyes. “Why,” he said, in a wondering tight voice, “you are a liar, aren’t you? You lied all the time to us, didn’t you? Why?”
Elsa broke in: “Speak to him, Joseph. Tell him you just tried to spare Stephen, though he doesn’t deserve it.”
Duncan waited, and then as his father did not answer, he smiled somberly. “No, don’t speak, Pa. I’ll think better of you if you don’t.”
There is no place for me to go, thought Stephen, plodding weakly up and down the cobbled streets. No place to go. No surcease for a man. No comfort, no kindness. It was all lies; he had lied to himself all his life. No one ever had a friend. It was so plain now, the awful treachery that lived in every man’s heart, the eager betrayal, the ravening envy, the greed, the pitilessness, the gloating joy at another’s pain.
Step by step he passed under the high and lonely lamps, and his footsteps rang back dully to him. The houses had turned dark, had retreated into the night. Mists floated up from the damp cobblestones, twirled about the lamps, drifted off over silent lawns. Even the crickets were silent. The moon had dwindled to a round white ball, hard and compact as snow, rolling through streamers of black cloud.
All at once Stephen felt he could not take another step. He came to a horse trough and leaned against it, panting. He tried to call up some strength. He said to himself: I mustn’t blame old Joe. What else could he do but lie to his children? But the agony would not release Stephen.
He did not even start when he felt someone grasp his arm strongly and roughly. It took all his strength to lift his head. Someone towered over him like a crudely fashioned dark statue in a bulky
coat. “Saw you leave Baynes’s house,” said Jim Purcell. “Followed you to see if you might want a lift. Got my buggy here. Hop in, Steve.” But Stephen had to be half-lifted into the scratched and battered buggy. He found himself lolling on the broken leather cushions. The buggy moved on and Purcell smoked silently. Then he said, “Cold out tonight. Why didn’t you take one of those damn fancy gigs or carriages of yours? What you need is a drink. Lots of it. We’ll go to my house.”
The buggy rattled and squeaked through the streets, the mists rolling about it. Stephen could make no sound; profound exhaustion kept him silent. It did not matter where he went now. He was only faintly aware of rumbling across the river. He had begun to shiver and his teeth were chattering. Purcell did not look at him; he drove his ancient horse, flapping the reins on its back, and clucking.
Purcell’s house in West Town was as large a mansion as that of the Assistant Secretary of State’s (formerly Senator Peale), and it was on River Road. But it was an ugly square house of yellow brick, the top story jutting out over those below in a curving ridge. Thin slits of windows with oval tops pierced it, the draperies invisible from the outside. So close together were all these windows, four stories of them, that they imparted a barrackslike look to the house, a staring, bleak, and contemptuous look. No trees softened the outline of the unprepossessing building, and no shrubbery gentled it with surrounding masses. It stood on its wide cropped lawns, and there was something stark about it, something implacable.
Stephen had entered this house a few times before, reluctantly. It revolted him, its enormous rooms badly furnished with mammoth mahogany furniture covered with dark tapestry or horsehair, its glaring mirrors hung without taste, its sprawling rugs of Brussels roses and green leaves, its marbletopped tables, its badly hung draperies of crimson or blue velvet, its velvet-draped fireplaces, its narrow halls and heavy doors and eternally burning great lamps. Purcell, who noticed nothing except human beings, and his business, was indifferent to any dust that gathered, and his servants took advantage of this.