Dynasty of Death

by Taylor Caldwell

  “And in other things, too, his influence is felt. Clean hospitals, free hospitals and medical care, good nursing, mercy, social conscience, regard for one’s fellow men, decent living conditions and wages and protection for workers: all these owe a great deal to Martin, and to the few others like him. Nothing strong and ardent and good, however small, is ever wasted. It’s like that snowball, growing bigger and heavier, and moving glaciers. Forests are begun with seeds, ma’am, and the seeds Martin has planted may take a long time to become trees, but they will become trees, eventually.”

  He was quite amazed and pleased at this rare ardor of his, this really sincere ardor, this astonishing altruism. He felt exceedingly virtuous, for he had thought that he had lost all real ability to feel sincerely long ago; he told himself that he had made the best speech of his career. He spent many days thereafter trying to recall it and write it down. But coldly transcribed, artfully written for effect, it lost its splendid glow and heroic simplicity.

  It accomplished one thing, however; it eased the ache in Amy’s heart. For she knew it was quite true. Very carefully she went through Martin’s desk, reading every scrap of paper. She was amazed at the letters written him, by those he had helped through his dozens of activities in politics and propaganda, of which he had never told her. She was ashamed and humbled by this, as though they were mute reproaches, mute accusations that there were many things which he had kept from her, fearing her lack of sympathy and trust. She made promises, vows, that she would be a good steward of what he had left in her hands.

  Fortified by this vow, released from much of her sorrow and regret, she found time to enjoy her new leisure and peace and comfort. To be sure, evidences of the war were all about her; the husbands of many of her friends had appeared briefly in the glory of blue and brass buttons, mustaches heroically curled at a fierce angle, and then had disappeared. She had talked with young men who were reported dead two weeks later; she had smiled and flirted in a mild, matronly way with other young men, who were later returned to Windsor blind and crippled, horribly mangled, old men whose youth had been blown out of them in a few short weeks. She had even been led, for just a little while, into the universal hate against the “Rebels,” who had widowed her and left her children fatherless. But on the whole the war did not touch her too sharply; she was too far removed from the lower welter of humanity from which the common private was dredged to feel war as it really was, full of agony and hunger, despair and terror. Too, the North’s prosperity was not abating. Barbour & Bourchard, opulent with military contracts, grew richer and richer. It was a fad to roll bandages and knit, now; an important pleasure to meet at friends’ houses to do these things for “our boys.” It was not too bad even to visit the clean hospital Martin had built, and look at the clean young men in their clean shirts in the clean beds. In the South, the women suffered as poignantly as did their men, deprived themselves of the little they had left, stood heroically steadfast in the dark winds of hatred and fear and bitter grief. But women like herself, daughters and wives and sisters of Northern industrialists, might know grief, but it was cushioned by security and ease, carpeted with luxury. They wept in unthreatened homes, comforted by that greatest of friends, Money. Their warm houses were hushed about them, and even sorrow must be shod in velvet before it was allowed to enter the canopied bedrooms. They might be widowed, but they had strong-boxes and secure bank accounts. Their doors were too heavy, too carefully guarded, to allow one cry, one starving hand, one dying face, to penetrate.

  Martin’s life had been like a bright and evanescent light upon her, not fierce and searing, but more like the shining of a moon at its full. Its passing did not leave her cold and lost, as the removed light of the sun would have done. It began to leave in her memory a sweet wistfulness, a not-unpleasant sorrow, a quiet happiness. She had loved him, loved him still, as one might have loved a pensive dream of some luminous man-angel. Gradually, as time went on, his humanity faded, his misty stature increased, and she remembered and loved him as one would love a fabulous and unearthly creature seen only for a brief and beautiful moment. This was partly due, perhaps, to the fact that Martin’s personality had not impressed itself too strongly upon her, and at times, in hours of self-analysis and reproach, she understood that at the last he had withdrawn from her into complete loneliness, feeling instinctively that he had lost her sympathy and trust. Sometimes, thinking of the loneliness of him, she endured some keen moments of real and intense suffering and bitter self-hatred, and for days nothing she could do relieved her grief.

  CHAPTER LII

  Hilda’s grief at the loss of her son became heavy half-stupefaction for a long time. Even her scolding of her children and grandchildren became dull and absent. The color left her face, and its pallor was accentuated by the engorged small veins that were like red hairs upon it. She waddled about efficiently enough through the large and ornate rooms of Florabelle’s house, supervising, berating and managing, but it was a visible effort for her. Her lower lip, always slightly protuberant, but in her youth red and moist and inviting, was now faintly purple and thick, thrusting itself outwards as might a sullen child’s. The glance of her once-vivacious eye was heavy and opaque, and sometimes for hours on end she was silent, shutting herself into her room. She hardly noticed her grandchildren, and sometimes refused to come downstairs when her children called. She had always been too quick and emotional to develop the stamina that withstands the shocks of sorrow. Wounded, she was broken, and withdrew, her vitality poured out as from a shattered cup. Her hair, massy still, turned pure and lifeless white.

  But Dorcas was broken-hearted. The death of Eugene could hardly have caused her more grief. For a long time she lived in the cemetery where Martin’s body lay under wide green elms. When Amy came to that grave, Dorcas would flee, crying wildly. Her family was much disturbed, for she was about to bear her third child, who, when he was born, was named Honore. She had always had the reputation of being “deep” and secretive; her open suffering, her lack of attempt to hide her terrible sorrow, impressed her family as the grief of a more volatile nature would not have done. She withdrew from the bedroom she shared with Eugene, and for months she slept in the small chamber opposite, alone. Eugene would hear her sobs and cries night after night, but when he would tap gently on her door she would subside into a throbbing silence, pretending sleep. Once she cried out at him frenziedly: “I’ve lost the only friend I ever had!” She looked at her husband’s suddenly pale face and saddened eyes with the bitter, half-regretful grief of a sadist. Then she flung herself into his arms, and cried for hours. But she never again said what she had said. And after that night, her sorrow seemed easier for her to bear.

  When her nephew, little Honore, was four months old, May gave birth to her fifth child, a little boy they named Guy. And Florabelle Bouchard, two days before Raoul became a gay and debonair Major in the Third Infantry, produced Leon. There were fourteen children in the Barbour-Bouchard families, now, all handsome and well-bred, and more or less charming.

  Raoul’s enlistment was taken somewhat as a joke. Ernest openly accused him, with amusement, of being bored with domestic life and his elegantly casual duties as ambassador-at-large for Barbour & Bouchard. Everyone laughed, but Raoul knew, as Ernest knew, that there was much of truth in this. Raoul was the born adventurer, not the rugged type, but the silken, philandering, gracefully lustful sort. He was careful not to expose himself to much danger or hardship. He spent much of his leave in New York and Washington, where pretty ladies were plentiful and there was a great deal to drink, and a great many gay parties to attend. He was the type of Frenchman that is constitutionally unfaithful, even while his real love is entrenched in his wife and family. Scandalous tales began to drift back to Windsor, from which Florabelle was carefully guarded by her family. Only Ernest did not reproach Raoul, and that, thought Gregory contemptuously, was probably because he was himself engrossed in a rather sticky affair with one Mrs. Lydia Turnbull, the wife of an arti
llery captain. As Ernest serenely made no attempt to conceal his latest amour, the family was kept strenuously busy “protecting” May, who knew all about it, and was kept busy, in turn, concealing her knowledge from her relatives. She smiled placidly and gaily as always; kept up the front of happy domesticity. And in truth, she was not too disturbed; she knew Ernest’s affections were not really involved. Her real fear lay elsewhere, in the new and charmingly smart house in Quaker Terrace. Nothing had occurred to justify her ever-watchful terror; nothing was ever said, ever communicated to her by the lift of an eyelash. But the fear was there, immovable, self-recognized.

  She knew that Ernest rarely if ever saw Amy. Amy never came to the Sessions house. When May called upon her, she never mentioned Ernest. She knew very well that since Martin’s death, eighteen or more months ago, Amy had seen her brother-in-law only once. But the fear stood there still.

  Ernest was all May wished in a husband: considerate, courteous, fond and interested. He was affectionate to her, engrossed when he was at home, in his children, especially in little Gertrude. When he spoke of Amy, it was only very casually, and with the most brotherly of sympathy. His attitude toward his wife had not changed at all since their marriage, except that it had become more friendly and intimate, confident of her sympathy and laughter. But May looked at him mournfully and thought: He is a stranger. He has always been a stranger. We, Gregory and I, have done very wrong. He has always loved Amy, and probably always will. But she hugged the thought of him fiercely to herself, hoarded every word he said, was secretly elated each time she made him laugh. He was her husband, and that fact was a strong bolt behind which she could rest in peace, even if it were an uneasy peace. She adored him more than ever; every word and glance of his, every touch of his hand, had power to thrill her as it had done at first. Sometimes she felt that her love for him was a tangible power that nothing could successfully assail. She did not confess, even to herself, how much her safety lay in Amy’s hands.

  Then, in spite of all his care to avoid danger, a stray ball finally found the gay and indolent Raoul, and on the third of February, 1863, he died in a wretched Washington military hospital, still smiling, but a little regretful that he must leave a jovial world so soon. His fourth child, François, was born in an upper bedroom just as the muffled bell rang below for the messenger who was bringing the telegram announcing his death. They kept the news from Florabelle for nearly a month, and even then the pretty, dainty little thing almost died. Raoul had given her love and protection, gracefulness and ardor, tendernesses and gaiety; his serious lacks of character were quite forgotten by the inconsolable little widow. As for Armand, he sucked in his brown and withered lips at the death of his son, and the lips remained so, sunken, sucked in, until the end of his life. As Raoul had happily died intestate, the Court appointed Ernest Barbour administrator of his estate.

  In January, 1865, Dorcas bore her last children, twins, whom she named André and Antoinette. And May, in July of that same year, bore her last child, too: little Joseph, or Joey. The family was now complete.

  Except that Florabelle, in August of 1867, with the approval and urging of her brother, Ernest, married one Major Edward Norwood, a middle-aged but gallant bachelor, who owned, they said, “half of Windsor” and a fortune in Western silver mines. After this marriage, Florabelle bore two children, one year apart, Chandler and Betsy Norwood.

  CHAPTER LIII

  Amy had been restive for some time over the slow progress, or rather lack of progress, in the settling of Martin’s estate. Here it was, July, 1863, and the hospital was still precariously existing on the small sum donated by the Government for the care of its own wounded. The bank funds, of course, had been stopped a long time ago. But what went on behind the high walls of the Kinsolving works, and now behind the new walls that surrounded all the shops, did not as yet concern Amy. She supposed, in those cases, that the men were taking care of matters. At any rate, a vagueness possessed her when she thought about it, for she had never been in real sympathy with the idea, and still subconsciously resented the misery it had once brought upon her and her children.

  However, she received a visit one day from the Mother Superior in charge of the hospital, and from her learned the state of affairs in the Windsor hospital, and the Garnerstown hospital. The nun also told her that no payment had been made to the County orphan asylum, in accordance with Martin’s will. Various other permanent charities had received no donation for two years. Amy listened to all of this, wincing under her self-reproach. Here she had been luxuriating in her new home, sentimentally thinking of Martin and utterly ignoring his last wishes! A still bright anger burned in her when she remembered what she now knew was Gregory’s deliberate procrastinating, and this anger did not grow less at realizing he had done this for her own benefit.

  It was a hot and breathless day, but she called for her carriage, put on her hat, opened her white parasol, and started for the bank. She knew her uncle would be there, for it was his “day” to be present. But when she arrived, she was respectfully informed that “Mr. Gregory” had gone out into the country to look over some mortgaged property the bank had recently acquired, and would not return.

  Amy fumed with impatience and impotent anger. She left the President’s office in a flurry of hoops and head-tossing, ignoring his invitation to rest awhile in the cool dimness of the room. She emerged into the stony quietness of the bank and started for the street door. But before she reached it, it opened and Ernest entered.

  He was still dazzled by the heat and brilliance of the summer day outside, and so did not see her at first, but she saw him at once. It seemed to her that all her blood rushed in a dark and chokingly hot tide to her heart, and her knees trembled weakly under her. She had seen him three times during the past year or so, four times in all since Martin’s death. Two of the times she had seen him in Florabelle’s house at Christmas, and then only in a room full of people and for just a casual, friendly moment. Once she had met him at a ball given for a soldiers’ benefit; she had been in charge of a booth, and he had bought a cravat from her. May had been with him, and they had all laughed a little, joked a little, indifferently, for exactly three minutes. Then Ernest had excused himself, and had left May behind with her cousin. But though May came often to the charming white-pillared house in Quaker Terrace, she came alone or with her children. Everyone in the family, even among their more intimate friends, knew that there had been “something” at some time between Gregory and Ernest, and it was tacitly understood that no questions were to be asked. Gregory and Ernest met only with the greatest and coolest formality in their respective offices, and at the bank. Socially, they avoided each other. May often packed up Amy’s children, of whom she was quite fond, and piled them into her carriage for a day at the Sessions house. But Ernest had never yet entered Amy’s new home, and no one questioned why this was.

  This was the first time since Martin’s death that Amy had accosted her brother-in-law alone, and for one disordered moment she thought of turning and running. But he had already seen her. He had stopped short for a single breath, staring at her across the white marble space between them. He had actually hesitated, she saw. And then, smilingly, coolly, he came forward to her and held out his hand. She looked up into his face, and could only think that it was much changed, graver, thinner, lined; his hair, too, light though it was, and still thick, was noticeably gray at the forehead and temples. During their past casual meetings she had been too confused, too hurried, to see much; now, she saw it all, clearly, vividly. He was thirty-seven and appeared much older, for his body had become lean and compact and somewhat stiff, and the moulding of his large, arrogant features was harsher and bolder. She saw that his pale and relentless eyes had narrowed, and that through their lids they darted out coldly and watchfully. The aura of power about him had increased to a formidable degree; always forbidding, he had acquired a presence that aroused fear, distrust and respect. His broad shoulders, the posture of his unusually la
rge head, the dilated nostrils in his short and powerful nose, the certainty of his step and carriage, struck vividly and breathlessly upon Amy. His grasp on her hand was strong and warm, possessive, and it seemed to her that fierce electrical shocks, burning and weakening, ran from that grasp up her arm and flowed into her body. He was smiling down at her in the friendliest way, and into his implacable eyes came something hot and passionate, though wary.

  “Well, Amy,” he said, still smiling, still holding her hand.

  “Well—Ernest,” she answered, with a flutter in her voice.

  She stood there before him, the color high in her cheeks, quickening and fading and quickening again; the redness in her gentle mouth was as fresh and moist as that of a young girl’s lips. Her eyes, clear and lambently brown, shone with a light of their own under the wide and drooping shadow of her white straw hat with its floating ribbons. Her dress, yards upon yards of filmy, cloudy muslin ruffles draped over her hoops, was tied at the slender waist with pale blue ribbon. In her white gloved hands she carried her ruffled parasol. Despite the moulded sadness of her expression in repose, the cast of maturity upon her pretty features, and a certain nobility in the directness of her eyes, she did not look like the mother of four children, and a widow. Her integrity and straightness of mind gave her an appearance of untouched youth. Yet Ernest, the observant, thought that in some way she appeared to be much older than the woman he had gone to comfort that wretched autumn day a long time ago.