Captains and the Kings

by Taylor Caldwell

  Chapter 34

  Joseph Armagh never knew exactly when he had become conscious of Elizabeth Hennessey as a desirable woman. He did not ask himself, for he was no tyro at physical attraction, nor did women as people ever occur to him, except for his mother and Regina, and, perhaps, Sister Elizabeth, long since dead. When he became aware of Elizabeth his own daughter, Ann Marie, was only six years old and Kevin had just been born. Elizabeth, four years older than Bernadette, had come to live in the Hennessey house with her son, Courtney, after the senator had suffered his stroke. Though Bernadette had constantly maligned her and her "poor thing" of a son, and had resented her presence, Joseph was indifferently aware that Elizabeth was a reserved woman with beautiful manners. She was also very pretty in a cool aristocratic way which did not particularly appeal to him. He preferred stupid romping women of zest and laughter and animal ebullience who made no demands on him and who were easily forgotten. In any event he would not have, deliberately, noticed the widow of Ton Hennessey. Anyone connected with the senator held only aversion for him, including Bernadette, and, at that time, his own children, He had offered to manage Elizabeth's affairs from his own office. That had been a matter of courtesy. He had expected her to refuse. But she had accepted.

  She had a rather cold face, somewhat neutral, with a slight thin nose that occasionally had a pinched expression, a still and dimly colored mouth, and large greenish eyes flecked with gold. Her blond hair was smooth and fine but too pale to be striking. She was too slender, as well as tall, to be in fashion, yet she dressed with rich and quiet style, hardly noticeable. Her slender hands were always ringless except for her wedding ring, which she had removed lately. She looked at the world with unruffled interest and acceptance, and apparently had no attachment to anyone except her son, Courtney, and even with him she was aloof. Her son was very like her in appearance, manner, and silent movement. It was not for many years that Joseph learned that Courtney and Rory were deeply fond of each other, and that there was between them a sort of David and Jonathan affection. Certainly no two youths were ever so dissimilar in temperament, outlook, and ambitions, for Courtney, though intelligent, according to Rory, was a poor scholar and rather languid and inactive. Joseph did not notice, for a long while, that Courtney and his mother had a strange way of communicating without language. A mere exchange between those two pairs of green eyes, a slight smile, the slightest gesture of a hand, and they understood each other perfectly. But before Joseph saw this he had thought Elizabeth and her son to be strangers, uninterested in each other, and only elaborately polite when together. Courtney, according to the disdainful Bernadette, was not only a "poor thing," because he was so pallid in contrast to Rory, but he "ailed," she would say with contempt. Certainly Joseph vaguely noticed that the boy appeared to be at home too often when he, himself, arrived in Green Hills, and there had to be a tutor during the summer months for him if he were to advance in his classes in the school in Boston which Rory attended. Rory, himself, often tutored Courtney, and would sometimes mockingly call him "Uncle Courtney," which, for some peculiar reason was a source of mild hilarity to the boys. It was the only time Joseph ever heard the older boy laugh outright, and the only time he would show some animation such as striking Rory affectionately on the shoulder with his bony fist, and calling Rory "you fat Irish hooligan." Courtney, himself, was thin almost to emaciation, and Bernadette scornfully reported him as "playing with his food, and we have the best cooks in town." The presence of Elizabeth and her son in this house finally hotly infuriated Bernadette, who found Elizabeth's calm and lack of responsiveness "unnatural." Though Courtney was her half brother she could not endure him. When she learned that he wrote "poems," she nodded her head and said sagely, "Well, that's to be expected, isn't it?" as if the writing of poems was somehow unmanly and depraved. She never learned that Rory also wrote poetry, though not with the fineness and delicacy of Courtney's. It was when Courtney was about seven years old that Joseph became aware of Elizabeth Hennessey for the first time, beyond the mere fact of her quiet presence at the dining table or in passing her in the wide marble halls of the Hennessey mansion. Sometimes she would nod to him in her passage, but she rarely spoke. She was apparently as indifferent to him as he was to her and noticed him about as much. There were very large and elaborate and expensive conservatories in the rear of the Hennessey house, and attached to it, so that one walked down a short hall into muskiness and fragrance and exotic foliage and flowers at any time of the year. It was the one spot in the mansion that really attracted Joseph, and he often spent time in the conservatories, silently watching the assiduous gardeners or sitting in a corner content to breathe in the humid and perfumed air. Sometimes he did ask the name of a flower or a particularly spectacular plant. It never failed to interest him that when the winter snows lay heavily on the grounds and on the roofs the flowers bloomed in their tropical splendor as if eternal summer lay about them, and volcanic lakes. One day before the Christmas holidays Joseph strolled into the con- was a gloomy day gray snow falling outside, conservatories. It of thick and a wind that grumbled and howled in the chimneys, and dark. The conservatories were particularly fragrant just now with the scent of roses and lilies in forced bloom, and there was also a fugitive scent of almond from somewhere and a breathing of warm fecund earth. Gaslights flickered and illuminated the broad glass windows against which the snow hissed and the wind battered. Joseph thought himself alone, for this was the dinner hour of the gardeners and their day's work was done. He saw before him the long aisles between the plants and the rainbow colors of flowers, and prepared to wander among them. Then he heard another door open from another section of the house, a rapid tattoo of footsteps, and then Bernadette's loud, and now somewhat shrill voice railing in outraged anger. "Elizabeth! How dare you cut my white rosebuds! You know very well that they are for our Christmas Day diuner! Such effrontery, not even to ask me! Such-- such impudence. It was the voice she used to servants. Joseph stopped, half-hidden behind a huge tubbed plant which stood on the floor. Joseph heard a rustle of silk and then he saw Elizabeth's pale blond head rising between two aisles at his left, and at some distance. The gaslight fluttered on her white face. She said in a voice that was particularly lovely yet without real intonation, and certainly without emotion, "I am sorry, Bernadette. I wanted to ask you but you were upstairs with a headache and I didn't want to disturb you. I've only cut half a dozen, and there are so many dozens left. Courtney is in bed with that awful cold of his, and he does like white roses so, and I thought I'd cut these few for him."

  Bernadette never learned that a restrained voice meant dignity and control of strong feeling or good manners, especially in women. She thought such a voice was servile, fit only for servants, and that the possessor was timid, humble, inferior, and worthy only of abuse and peremptory correction. Or worse still, afraid of her. In all these years with Elizabeth in her house she had not learned to the contrary. "Oh, you wanted them for that sickly, miserable son of yours, did you?" Bernadette shouted with coarse derision. Now Joseph could see her, in her scarlet velvet dress which was too small for her slightly obese figure, her curled head bobbing with hateful emphasis, her plump flat face distorted with contempt and ridicule. "He's always abed like a consumptive girl in a decline! Now, let me tell you something, Elizabeth Hennessey! This is my house, and I am mistress here, and you and your son are here only by my sufferance and good nature and regard for my father, and from this time hence you are to ask me for any favor, for any flowers, for any decisions, and not have the impertinence to do what you will without regard for my station!" She snorted. "And yours. If you have any, which you do not." She had never spoken so to Elizabeth like this before, and before this her voice had always been, if not polite or considerate, or least a little courteous though forced. Her spiteful remarks about Courtney and Elizabeth had never been in their presence, but only to Joseph and her friends. Elizabeth stood there in silence before this virago whose dislike and hatred and resentment
had suddenly broken forth from any controls she had heretofore kept over them for the sake of vague decency in the presence of others. "I want to tell you something else too, my woman!" Bernadette continued to shout. "I've wanted to tell you this for a long time and only refrained out of respect for my father. He never could endure you." Her face was gloating with elation and joy that she could finally vent her stifled loathing on Elizabeth. It actually shone in the gaslight. Her mouth spread in a grin of delight and her eyes glittered with glee at the thought that she was wounding and injuring Elizabeth. "He was forced to marry you and adopt your brat, because your father had more political power than he did! But I want you to know that no one really believed you were the widow of a war hero, and that Courtney is his son, miss! You were probably a wanton woman and don't even know the paternity of your son. You, with your namby-pamby ways and graces and pretensions of being a lady-you who cohabited with a man to whom you were not married and God knows how many other men! Don't you know you are the laughingstock of half a dozen cities, not to mention Green Hills? You are absolutely shameless. You go among respectable people of propriety and reputation as if you deserved to be in their company, and not on the streets where you really belong, and only the fact that you are my father's widow prevents my friends from drawing aside their skirts when you appear. You are hardly more than a strumpet, and everybody knows it!" Elizabeth's face had changed. It had become rigid and immobile. She said, in her chilly voice, "You have forgotten. Your father left me his share in this house, and your mother left you her share. I pay my portion here, and my son's expenses." She fixed the panting Bernadette with her great green eyes. "I will not reply to your filthy insinuations, which are worthy of you, Bernadette, for you are a vulgar and cruel woman. You are without sensibilities or ordinary decency, and if you are avoided by your family it is your own fault." "What!" screamed Bernadette, advancing a few more paces towards Elizabeth. "Don't come any nearer me," said Elizabeth, and now her face and voice were charged with passion. "I warn you. Don't come nearer." Joseph, to his amused amazement, saw the desire to kill on Elizabeth's face, and with it her desperate fight for control over her unbelievable rage. "I want you out of this house, my house, tomorrow!" shrieked Bernadette. "Bag and baggage, out of my house!" "This is my house, too, and I will leave it when I desire, and not before." Elizabeth's voice was louder but still under control. She held the roses tightly. "These, too, are my flowers, as well as yours, and I will cut them when I will, and not defer to you at any time, from this day forward." Bernadette raised her arm, her fist clenched, and she advanced directly in front of Elizabeth, and her face was evil with rage. But Elizabeth caught that arm in mid-air, as the fist was descending on her, and with a gesture of full loathing and disgust she flung Bernadette from her with such strength that Bernadette staggered, tried to get her balance, fell against the plants near her, then fell heavily to the floor. Instantly she yelled like a banshee, and she uttered imprecations that Joseph had not believed she knew. They were full of foul words and gaspings. Elizabeth looked down at her, then turned with dignity and scorn and moved up the aisles towards Joseph. She saw him for the first time, and stopped abruptly, and scarlet waves ran over her white face. Her green eyes were blazing with an ardor and anger he never guessed she was capable of, and her mouth was parted. Bernadette was still howling threats on the floor, and struggling to rise. Joseph smiled at Elizabeth. "I am glad you said that, and did that," he said. "I've been wanting to do the same for a long time. But after all, I am a man, and that would be improper, wouldn't it?" She stared at him. Bernadette was on her feet now, and she too stared down the aisle at her husband, her mouth slavering, tears on her cheeks.

  But she had stopped her shrieks. There was something here that terrified her, though she had not heard Joseph's remark which had been almost inaudible except to Elizabeth. Joseph stood aside for Elizabeth to pass. She still held her roses. She began to move past him, then, without volition halted when they were only inches apart. She looked up into his ascetic face, and at a mirth in his small eyes she had never seen before. The pale gray silk over her high and beautiful breast trembled. Her eyes did not drop or falter, but now there was a film of tears over their greenness, which Joseph saw now was not a deep emerald green but a pale green like brook water which reflects grass. For the first time, looking down at her, she became a desirable woman to him, and not only a desirable woman but a woman of mind and high pride and spirit and self-respect--a truly womanly woman, such as his mother had been, and his sister, and Sister Elizabeth. "Don't leave," said Joseph to her. She gave him the very shadow of a smile. "I don't intend to," she replied, and he laughed a little and bowed to her as she went on her way. ]oseph watched her go. The gray silk dress fitted her slender figure as smoothly as a skin to where it broke, over her hips, into drapes and folds that fell classically to her feet. At the doorway she paused and glanced over her shoulder at Joseph and he could not understand her expression. He did not know until much later that she had loved him for several years. Now Bernadette was at his side, clutching him, weeping, crying out her fury at Elizabeth. He pushed her away, and she stood and looked at him with fear and suffering. "You spoke and acted like a slut, with no self-discipline at all, and no shame," he said, and his voice was harsh and brutal. "I heard it all, so don't lie as usual. Until you mend your manners, and treat Elizabeth with consideration you must not speak to me. I don't like fishwives." He added, "You owe Elizabeth an apology. I suppose it is useless to ask you for that, but you can show it in some fashion if that is possible for you." He left her then as if she had been an abominably bumptious servant, and Bernadette was left alone to cry in a lonely desolation that had nothing to do with Elizabeth. From that night on she held her tongue in the presence of the other woman, never again spoke to her directly but only obliquely, and was expansively polite to her when Joseph was in Green Hills. Six months later Elizabeth bought Joseph's first house from him and left the Hennessey mansion with her son. A month after that they became lovers. It had happened without premeditation, and without Joseph being conscious that he loved Elizabeth Hennessey.