Captains and the Kings

by Taylor Caldwell

  The nightmare would never end. Courtney and Kevin and Elizabeth sat in a small parlor at the rear of the drawing rooms in the Armagh house, in a silence too heavy to break even by a sigh or a murmur. It was nearly midnight and the air was almost hot and had not cooled with the coming of darkness and there was a prowling sound of heated thunder in the hills but no lightning, no moon, no stars. Elizabeth was leaning back in a chair, her white face tilted towards the ceiling, her eyes closed in exhaustion, her green and brown print frock seemingly too large for her body, her pale hair disheveled. Kevin sat in ponderous black immobility, his dark curls almost on end, his olive-tinted face shut and clenched, his dark eyes staring before him. There were deep scratches on his hands and cheeks from the thorns he had encountered, and the blood was dried on them, and he had not removed his torn brown suit and his boots were still muddy and leaf mold still clung to them. Courtney sat near his mother, as quiet as she, and his face even paler with bluish shadows under his cheekbones. The small parlor was gay with the vivid colors Bernadette loved, all intense blues and scarlets and yellows, the domed ceiling painted with dancing lambs and shepherdesses in an impossible meadow of verdigris green filled with daisies. The lamps were lighted. The room was incongruous tonight, with the three silent figures within it in varicolored chairs, their motionless feet on a Chinese rug of jade and primrose and azure. Little porcelain figures danced on little round gilt tables, and an ormolu clock chimed happily on the white marble mantel, and festive and coquettish figures frolicked in paintings on the yellow silk walls and the scent of late roses blew in through the opened french windows. Three physicians were upstairs in Ann Marie's room, and her father was with them, and Bernadette was under sedation in her gaudy bedroom, and the hours passed one by one. Occasionally a maid came in with fresh tea and cinnamon toast and to remove cups which had not been touched. Famous physicians .had been summoned from Philadelphia, Boston and New York, by telegram, and would be arriving tomorrow. In the meanwhile Ann Marie was almost moribund. Everyone in the little parlor started and trembled at any nearby sound or distant voice, terrified to receive fatal news, hoping that Ann Marie still lived, that there was a chance for her life. The climb down the hill had been part of the continuing nightmare, with Ann Marie laid on a door covered by blankets and herself wrapped in them, and with Kevin and Courtney riding behind. Courtney remembered, with a shudder, how Kevin had returned to him with a rifle in his hand and had efficiently and mercifully put an end to the suffering of Ann Marie's horse. He had done it without a glance of regret or sadness; it was a task to be done and so must be done. The shot had clamored through the surly green gloom of the woods, but Ann Marie had not heard it. Then had begun the descent down the hill to the waiting victoria with a covered door hastily removed from the house, and men ready to lay the unconscious girl upon it, the men who had carefully carried her from the stubborn forest. Courtney knew that Kevin must be told, for otherwise catastrophe would result. Courtney knew all about Joseph Armagh, and of what he was capable and he guessed what he would do when he discovered who had sent Ann Marie plunging to her very probable death. Bernadette, the mother, must be warned. Her husband must never know her part in this disaster, if only for Elizabeth's sake. What had happened to Ann Marie did indeed demand vengeance, but it must not be the sort of vengeance Joseph Armagh could inflict, for Ann Marie might live and she must not be the cause of violence between her parents and the things which Joseph would undoubtedly do. And, there would be scandal. So, Kevin had to know in order to induce his mother to keep silent. Courtney doubted that Kevin and Rory had a great love for Bernadette, but they must be protected as much as possible, for they were young and had a future, and Bernadette would not hesitate even at injuring her sons--as she had destroyed her daughter--to inflict torment on her husband and avenge herself on Elizabeth. So, as the dolorous procession wound down the hill Courtney put his hand on the neck of Kevin's horse, and Kevin turned his bleak square face to the other man and his dark eyes were cold and hostile. "Are you ready to tell me?" he asked. So Courtney told him as tersely and as emotionlessly as possible, and in very few words. "There is no doubt your mother told Ann Marie, though I had warned her to wait until I was with her. I didn't know then anything about the truth; I just wanted to be beside Ann Marie when your mother was told that we--that we--were going to be married." Kevin had listened without any expression on his broad face. When Courtney had revealed his own blood relationship to Kevin the younger man's eyes had flickered and widened and he had stared at Courtney intently, but had said nothing. If he thought anything at all about Courtney's reddened and mortified look he did not show it. They rode on slowly, when Courtney had finished, and Kevin had looked straight ahead. "We must learn our own story, that no one said anything to Ann Marie, and that her horse had been frightened by something--a rabbit, a squirrel, a distant hunter's shot--whatever--and had bolted into the woods. We both saw it. That is our story." Kevin had nodded briefly and the strong hard jaw became harder and his somewhat heavy lips had tightened. He had said, at last, "But what if Ann Marie becomes conscious, and tells him. "I don't think she will," said Courtney, and he bent his head. "She is too kind, too gentle, too understanding. She would not hurt either of her parents, not even if she died for it." Then Kevin said, "I'm sorry. I'm damned sorry, Courtney." He had looked then at his young uncle and with awkward commiseration. They had not spoken again. But when the house had been reached, a house in waiting noisy turmoil, Kevin had gone to his mother and had taken her forcibly upstairs while she wailed and wept, and had pushed her to her room and had shut the door. He did not come downstairs for a long time. When he did he had grown older and his look was closed and compact and he had greeted Elizabeth, when she came into the house, with mature kindness and courtesy. He had answered all her anxious questions with such steadiness and surety that Courtney, who could not speak, could only admire him for his new manhood and his manifest strength of character. Elizabeth found an occasion to whisper to her son, "Ann Marie--she never knew, you never had the opportunity to tell her?" "No," said Courtney, and looked at her directly and she believed him. "I had no chance. Her horse bolted before I could say a word." "Then we have had a reprieve," said his mother, and she had begun to cry. "The poor child, the poor little girl. How fortunate for everyone that Kevin had decided to meet you with her, to ask you something about Rory. Is anything wrong with Rory?" Courtney only shook his head, and then they had begun their long vigil. Joseph had been met at the depot by Kevin, and Joseph had entered the house and had gone immediately upstairs to Ann Marie and her doctors who were fighting for her life. Silent at last, Bernadette slept a drugged sleep. The great gilt and teakwood clock in the hall chimed half-past twelve. The thunderous prowling in the hills came no nearer, did not retreat, but the heat of the night intensified. No one in that room had eaten a dinner, and none had been offered by the housekeeper or cook. It was as if everything had withdrawn, in that house, to one room on the second floor. The huge glittering chandelier in the hall looked down on desertion. Then they all heard slow steps on the marble stairs and Courtney and Kevin stood up and the two young men clenched their hands and stared at the door, afraid to go into the corridor that led to the hall, and afraid not to. Then Joseph appeared in the doorway and they saw his face, grown old with anxiety and fear and dread, and his hair which appeared to be a ragged patch of tangled russet and whitish gray. But his eyes were more alive than any of those present had seen them before. It was as if a fire burned behind their bitter and starting blue, and his wide thin mouth curved inwards. It was at Elizabeth that he looked first, and she slowly rose and said, "Joseph? How is Ann Marie?" Her own eyes were strained and brilliantly green in the lamplight:, and her mouth shook. He said to her in a rusty voice, "She is alive, but that is all. She has not regained consciousness. They are afraid her skull is fractured and that she is bleeding internally. No bones were broken, except for her left arm. One doctor has left; the others will remain until the specialists
arrive tomorrow. She will have nurses then, too. They have been sent for." He paused. "We can only hope that she will survive the first shock." Elizabeth sat down abruptly, for she was weak and worn, but the two young men faced Joseph in silence and it was at them that he now looked and the bluish fire in his eyes brightened ominously. He said to Kevin, "I should like to hear your story again." It took all Kevin's will power not to glance at Courtney. The dear darkness of his face had turned sallow during these hours. He said, "I told you, Pa, on the way home from the depot, but I will tell you again. I met Ann Marie at the stables. I had just returned from a gallop. She said that she was going to meet Courtney in their 'usual place,' and that he had arrived that morning. There was something I wanted to ask Courtney--about Rory--and I asked Ann Marie if she would mind my coming for a few minutes, and she said that of course I could come." Here Kevin decided a little improvisation might help and he made himself smile quickly. "I knew I wasn't very welcome, but I went, just the same. She rode just ahead of me up the hill. I don't think I was twenty feet behind. I--I noticed that Missy seemed a little nervous, but Ann Marie said she was always skittish the first few minutes or so. "Ann Marie raced ahead as we came near the top of the hill. I reached the top just in time to see her rein in Missy in front of Courtney's horse, and then--I don't know just what happened. Perhaps it was a rabbit, or a squirrel. I did think I heard a gun go of on the other side of the hill. But Missy reared up and whinnied--you know how unpredictable horses are--" "No, I don't," said Joseph. He was watching his son's face with an eagle's predatory concentration, watching for the slightest sign of a falsehood, embarrassment, or obvious elaboration, and Kevin felt the sweat start out between his shoulder blades, for he knew his father and his ability to fathom the minds of others. "But, go on," said Joseph. "I think Ann Marie cried out, or something, but the horse was too much for her though she's had her two years. Anyway, the horse circled around on her hind legs, dropped down, and bolted for the woods. Courtney and I ran after her. We found Ann" Marie, and Courtney stayed with her while I went for help. That's all, Pa." Joseph regarded his son in impassive silence, his eyes moving over the youth's face, studying every line, every feature, peering into his eyes, his own face darkening as that relentless probing went on moment by moment and there was only the sound of the distant thunder and the disturbed muttering of the trees outside. "And that's all?" he said finally. "You have told me everything?" It was hard for Kevin to dissemble and to lie, for he had had no occasion in his life before to do so. He did not have Rory's style and flair and color and easy ability to deceive and tease and evade with a look of artlessness. His face was visibly wet now, but he forced himself to speak, to choose every word. He wrinkled his forehead. He pretended to be examining his memory while that thin and implacable man waited in a terrible silence. Then Kevin spread out his hands and shook his head. "I can't think of another thing, Pa. I'm not good at describing things, I know, or giving them drama, but that is truly all that happened." And now he pretended at weary exasperation. "Pa, we are the ones who saw it all, Courtney and I, and spent those hours with Ann Marie before you arrived home We've had hell beaten out of us, and I don't understand why this inquisition. But Joseph slowly looked away from Kevin and turned to Elizabeth. His voice changed to the sharpened ears of the young men. He said, "Elizabeth, you had something to tell Courtney this morning, didn't you? I asked you to do it. Did you tell him?" Elizabeth's eyes were a momentary green flash at her son and then she said sadly, "Yes. I told him. At breakfast." She stopped. "We agreed that he would tell Ann Marie some story that would not be the truth, but would hurt her as little as possible." "What story?" asked Kevin, with an air of rejuvenated interest. "Is there a secret?" "Be quiet," said Joseph. Now he turned to Courtney and Courtney was horrified to see the powerful and senseless hatred in Joseph's eyes, the coldly violent force of his expression. "What were you going to tell my daughter?" he asked, and his voice was harsh and menacing. Courtney could not understand why this heightened concentration should be directed on him, this sudden deadly passion, and for the first time he could completely understand why so many potent men had cowered before this man. But after his first stunned reaction Courtney stood up tall and straight in hauteur, and he answered: "I hadn't made up my mind which story would hurt her the least. Frankly, I've never dreaded anything so much in my life. You must remember, Uncle Joseph, that this was a stunning revelation to me, that I love Ann Marie, that it had shaken my whole life, all my hopes, apart. It was like an earthquake--it was like death, itself. I know you are thinking of Ann Marie, and what it would mean to her, but she was not alone, Uncle Joseph. I'd like you to remember that." Kevin drew nearer. He put on an avid look and leaned forward like a youth dying to be informed. But when Joseph gave him a fierce glance he drew back a step. "Now," said Joseph, "tell me what happened." "I have nothing to add to Kevin's account, not a word. Ann Marie just rode up, her horse reared, made a circle on her hind legs, whinnied, and bolted into the woods. Ann Marie and I didn't exchange a single word, not one, though I think I greeted her. I can't remember. It all happened so suddenly. It was all so fast that I didn't immediately see Kevin right behind her on his own horse. There is nothing else." "So, my daughter never knew?" "No. Not to my knowledge. Who was there to tell her but me?" "There was her mother," said Joseph, and he saw the young men exchange a glance. Courtney swallowed through a dry throat. He said, after apparently giving the matter consideration, "Ann Marie and I had agreed that she would not tell her mother--about us wanting to marry--unless I was with her. I have no reason to believe that Ann Marie broke that agreement. When she rode up to me, and before Missy reared and bolted, she was as always--glad to see me, eager to talk--" He could not go on. The face of Ann Marie stood before him as he had seen it this disastrous morning when she had confronted him with terror and revulsion and anguish. He bent his head. "You are sure she did not know?" "I am sure," said Courtney, when he could speak again. "I'd have known at once." Joseph put his hands on his hips, a gesture alien to the American-born, and so curiously foreign. But he looked hard into Courtney's face and he said with precision, "I think you are both lying. You are trying to protect

  --somebody." Elizabeth cried, "Why would my son, and yours, lie, Joseph? What makes you think they are lying?" She was standing again and her face was like white fire in the extremity of deep indignation. Joseph's eyes went to her face and he contemplated her in silence, but his own face changed subtly. "Perhaps, Elizabeth," he said, "they have been lying to you, too." Kevin broke in. "What is all this about? What was Ann Marie going to be told? What is the mystery?" He was not prepared for his father's answer. He expected Joseph not to reply, or to turn away. But Joseph's eyes were again fixed on the youth's face and were again terrible. "No one told you that Courtney and Ann Marie could not marry? No one ever told you that Courtney is your blood uncle, your half uncle, if you will, the brother of your mother?" "Not" exclaimed Kevin, giving a great start and making his eyes bulge. "For God's sal9! I thought--I thought he was adopted by my grandfather!" He turned to Courtney and affected to give him sharp consideration and speculative conjecture. "I thought his father's name was Wickersham." Elizabeth's drawn face had deeply flushed. She turned aside, her head raised in proud defensiveness and suffering. Hell, thought Kevin, I'm sorry to have to do this to her, but my parents and my family are more to me than Elizabeth Hennessey and old Grandpa. Joseph said, watching her, and now there was a darkness of shame and regret on his face: "I'm sorry, Elizabeth. But I have to know the truth. My daughter is upstairs, probably dying, and I want to know who told her the thing which almost killed her, and drove her to this." Elizabeth turned slowly to him and audibly caught her breath and her eyes were green stone. "You were always too imaginative, Joseph," she said, and her voice was cold and steady, as if she were speaking to a servant, and he heard it and something roiled in him, galling and sickened. "I think Ann Marie has more strength than you give her credit for, and I believe that even if she had been tol
d she would have accepted it." They regarded each other now in silence and Joseph thought, She will never forgive me, my Elizabeth. It will never again be the same between us--if there will ever be anything. Elizabeth was thinking this also, and now added to her weariness and anxiety and sympathy was an enormous pain and withdrawal, a regret that something beautiful had been shattered and even if repaired would be cracked and subtly disfigured. "You might not have humiliated my mother, before your son," said Courtney, feeling deep rage. "Would you like to give it to the newspapers, too? Shall I summon them for you in the morning--or have you already told your doctors who can spread my mother's secret far and wide?" "Courtney," said Elizabeth. "Courtney, take me home. Please. I feel we are unwelcome here." "I will take you home," said Joseph. "You will not," said Courtney. "She is my mother. What have you to do with her, anyway? She came here to a house where she is hated by your wife, and is insulted, by you, and she came only because she loved Ann Marie like a mother and because she thought she might be able to help-- help with your wife. My sister! God damn it, nay sister! The very thought is hateful to me, do you know that, Mr. Armagh? Do you know how much I despise your wife, and now despise you?" The young man's face was blazing with the fervor of his rage and his new hate. "And your wife has had the audacity, over all the years I can remember, to be insulting, ungracious, cruel, contemptible, and vulgar to nay mother! She who isn't good enough to wipe my mother's feet with her bare hands! But still my mother came to this disgusting house, again to be shamed and insulted, again to be told that her presence here is unwanted. Mother, let us go." So, thought Joseph, whose face had turned a dark crimson, there is one thing he does not know, and now he felt remorse--an emotion so strange to him that it startled him, for the last time he had felt such a thing had been when confronting Senator Bassett. Courtney had taken his mother's arm, and she was drawing her lacy shawl over her shoulders, and Kevin was watching and listening admiringly. Joseph went and stood before Elizabeth and faced her, and she could not look away though her eyes were full of tears and her lip trembled. "I will take you home, Elizabeth," he said. "Courtney, no doubt, would like to stay here for a little while for any news of Ann Marie. Elizabeth?" "No," said Courtney. But he saw, with astonishment, that his mother and Joseph were seeing only each other, and as one who loved, himself, he knew the expressions of love, and he was aghast. He stepped back, his hands moving in a gesture of sharp repudiation, and his mouth felt suddenly scalded. He thought he would be sick. He had never seen his mother's face like this, helpless, melting, for all her pride; he saw her tears. And he saw her bow her head. He wanted to kill Joseph when Joseph gently took Elizabeth's arm and led her towards the door and looked down at her with all the solicitude and tenderness of a lover, a lover asking forgiveness and expecting it as a matter of course. Kevin had seen all this, too, and his black eyebrows had shot upwards, intrigued, amazed, and then more than a little amused in spite of all that had happened that day. So, that was the way it was, was it? He felt no condemnation for his father, no embarrassment. He was young and even his apprehension for his sister was forgotten for a few moments while he chuckled inwardly and shook his head and wondered if his mother knew. No doubt she did. No doubt that partially explained her hatred for Elizabeth. Poor old Ma. Well, compared with Aunt Elizabeth she was only a fishwife, loud, noisy, vindictive, coarse and lashing of tongue, and full of boisterous malicious laughter and exaggerated gossip, always hoping for an evil story concerning friends, always deprecating, always exercising her rowdy wit on anyone she disliked--and she disliked practically everyone (including her children) except Pa. The thought of his father as the lover of a woman made Kevin chuckle inwardly again. Even such as Joseph Armagh could be held in the hands of a woman. Let that be a lesson to you, my bucko, Kevin told himself. If a woman can do that to Pa, above all men, then what could a woman do to you, eh? He became conscious of Courtney, who had sat down again, his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands. Poor old Courtney, what shocks he had had today. Discovering Ma was his sister he had always disliked her. Knowing what he must tell Ann Marie, and he in love with her. Then, the tragedy that had. almost killed Ann Marie--of course Ma had told her; he had known that almost at once, or at least he had known that dear old Ma had done something to the girl. Then Courtney had had to tell him. Now, that was a noble old boy, Courtney. Protect Ma, who was like a rhinoceros. Talk about Sir Galahads: Old Court had the strength of twenty, not ten. Protect the whole Armagh family. If anything, Kevin felt more affection and admiration for his father than he had done before. He sat down near Courtney and said, "I am going to have a drink, and I think you need one, too, and then I'll tell one of the damned maids to bring us some sandwiches and coffee." "No," said Courtney, from behind his hands, but Kevin whistled and pulled the bell rope. "Please yourself," he said. "There isn't a funeral in this house, but even at funerals they eat baked meats, or something. You've never been to an Irish wake." Courtney dropped his hands. His face looked dull and lifeless and his pale hair was disordered, and his eyes had a defeated expression in them. But he said, "Yes, I've been to Irish wakes. You forget I'm Irish, too. I'm a Hennessey by birth as well as by name, and I wish to God I could wipe that out." A ripple of shadowy anger ran over his features, and a new bitterness, and a sorrow that he could not express. He did drink the brandy that was brought to him and Kevin, and a little color took the pallor from his cheeks, and he even ate half a sandwich and drank some coffee. In the meantime he listened to every sound. Eventually he heard Joseph come back--it was a long time to Courtney--and go upstairs again. When Courtney returned home, after hearing from a maid that Ann Marie was still "resting," and that there had been no change, he did not look for his mother. He saw a light under her door, and he felt the heat in his face. He went to his room and threw himself on his bed and a blessed numbness came to him. He never knew whether he slept or not but at least the agony had retreated, and had become mercifully unreal for a little while. But Joseph sat by his daughter, watching the faces of the physicians who ministered to her, seeing the long brown braids on her pillow, the hollow remoteness of her young profile, the arm in its sling, the bandage on her head where her hair had been shaved. He listened for her breathing. Occasionally she moaned.