The Wide House

by Taylor Caldwell

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, huskily, moving closer to them and trying to smile heartily.

  “We are listening to the thrushes,” said Angus, almost in a whisper. He pointed to the big robins hopping over the grass, and flying in the trees.

  Stuart smiled more naturally. “Oh, we don’t call them thrushes, in America. Of course, they aren’t real robins: they are really thrushes, as you say, my dear Angus. But the first English settlers were reminded, by them, of the real English robin, which is much smaller and has a redder breast. So they called them robins, too.”

  The children smiled with painful politeness, and were silent. They regarded Stuart with big and uncertain eyes. His throat began to feel dry and tight. He looked up at the sky with affected ease. “A nice evening,” he approved. He paused. “Would you like to walk down to the river with me?”

  Laurie glanced up timidly at her brother, who pressed her hand tighter. The boy said, courteously: “Yes, that would be nice, Cousin Stuart.”

  He tried to walk beside them, but they drew behind, still uncertain and afraid. So he walked ahead of them, swaggering a little in his pity and uneasiness. They looked at the back of his tall figure with its fawn fur-collared coat and high gleaming hat, and cane, and gaiters and light pantaloons. They thought him magnificent.

  In the summer, this long slope was covered by a layer of fine new grass, green and fresh. But the grass was still brown, and little trickles of black water writhed their way through it. Stuart’s polished boots, he observed ruefully, were not exactly benefited by the mud. He paused. The children splashed hopefully behind him, so he went on. Automatically he cursed the impulse which had led him through this slime and oily brownness down to the river, from whose somber gray floes a bitter wind was rising. Well, these poor little devils were used to English mud. American mud was a poor thing in comparison. He turned up his fur collar and buried his chin deeply in it.

  “Here we are,” he said, cheerfully, as he paused some fifteen feet from the bank of the rushing and grinding Niagara. The black-blue water boiled through the cakes of ice, which tumbled headlong towards the Falls, but here and there, as the floes parted momentarily, one could see that the water was the color of a gleaming turquoise. Beyond this restless but implacable heaving lay the purple smudge of the Canadian shore, and above this smudge was a band of brilliant dark fire, almost too bright for the eye. And above this band lay a lake of the purest cold green, cloudless and motionless. One could almost imagine sails gliding over this lake, so perfect was the illusion. Far above this band the sky was darkening to a dim mauve, and in its depths sparkled and burned the evening star, silent and unstill.

  High above the slope stood Stuart’s white house, and in the pure clarified air of the spring evening it gleamed like a marble temple, seeming to rise airily from its base against the sky. On either side of where Stuart and the children stood, the shore broke away in stone and mud and gravel. The land about the house was smooth and cultivated, but on either side of it the woods loomed, the upper branches of the bare trees filled with brown light.

  It was very silent here, and the savage river, the green lake in the west, the cold wind rising steadily from the floes, the distant smudge of the Canadian shore, the brightening sparkle of the star, all gave the scene a certain solemn desolation and wildness. Even the muted thunder of the rushing ice intensified the silence. Stuart, forgetting the children, looked at the river and the sky, and his warm soul became motionless and chill, filled with melancholy and unease. He began to shiver.

  Then he heard Angus’ quiet and timid voice: “It is very strange and beautiful, isn’t it, Cousin Stuart?”

  The young man smiled down at the lad; his face was stiff and numb with cold. “A damned unpleasant place, at this time of the year, my dear Angus. Wait till you see it in the summer.”

  Angus smiled politely. Little Laurie stared out at the river, and looked at the sky. Some faint beams from the fallen sun shone on her small face. The wind had whipped some color into her baby cheeks, and her blue eyes were radiant. The wind lifted locks of her golden hair and blew them over her shoulders, like strands of living brightness. Stuart could not look away from her. Her beauty pierced his heart with a kind of indescribable and aching sweetness. Almost timidly, he touched her cheek with his gloved hand, and then his fingers caressed her chin. She turned her face up to him slowly, and smiled. It was the loveliest smile he had ever seen, shy and innocent, confident and understanding.

  Without knowing what he did, he bent and kissed her cheek, with great tenderness, and a kind of obscure sadness and love. She did not shrink, nor seem frightened. But very shyly, and with touching faith, she put her other hand in his hand, and she stood there, between her brother and Stuart, warm and trustful.

  Poor thin Angus, with his haunted gray eyes and pinched pale face, saw this, and he blinked away sudden tears as he stared determinedly at the river. He was shivering quite violently in his thin black coat, and the wind whipped his pantaloons about his legs, which, as they were so thin and long and lanky, resembled the legs of a scarecrow. He wore a tall beaver hat, which he clutched to his head with his free hand. His profile, haggard and too mature for so young a lad, was rigid with his attempt to retain his composure. His poor desolate heart was shaking in him. He suddenly loved Stuart with an awful intensity.

  His emotion, though repressed, impinged itself on Stuart, and the young man looked at him with furtive compassion. Good God! How could he have been so cruel and neglectful of these poor children, who, though unwelcome guests in his house, were there by no fault of their own! He felt a surge of angry and pitying heat in his chest. With his usual impetuousness, he vowed that he would do something to make them happy.

  In a voice of muted kindness, he said: “How do you like America, Angus?”

  The boy stared fixedly at the river, trying to control himself. He said: “I haven’t seen much of it, Cousin Stuart. But what little I’ve seen is very beautiful—like this.” He looked at Stuart timidly with his dimmed eyes. “Your house is beautiful, too. Much nicer than Grand-da’s.”

  “Do you miss your grand-da?” asked Stuart, absently. “And England?”

  Angus hesitated. He was afraid of offending Stuart, who was so kind to them all. Then he said, in a low voice: “Well, this is strange, here. We knew every lamb and every calf and horse, and all the people. We knew the kirk and the minister and the manse, and the meadows and the hills. We knew the—sound of people’s voices.”

  “Yes. I understand.” The ache in Stuart’s heart was increasing intensely. “I was homesick, for a long time. You know the house where I was born, and lived?”

  Angus brightened. “Yes. Mr. Kirkland lived there. He was Grand-da’s manager. Grand-da is getting old. Mr. Kirkland had three little girls, and an older lad. We played with them.” He added, politely: “It is a very pretty house.”

  “Would you like to go home?”

  Angus hesitated again. Then he said simply: “We’ll never go home, Cousin Stuart.”

  “Oh, now, I don’t know about that! Your mama doesn’t like America, I am afraid. She has been ill ever since she came here, and from the reports I receive from the servants, she’ll be off with you all again.”

  At the mention of his mother, Angus’ face changed subtly, and he sighed. He repeated, after a moment: “We’ll never go home again.”

  Stuart was silent. He chewed his lip. Then, with false heartiness, he said: “Well, then, we must make the best of it. You’ll go to school, the school I attended. You’ll make friends. You can go to church again, soon. America isn’t a bad place.”

  “I’d like to go to church,” murmured Angus.

  Stuart frowned a little. “Pious, psalm-singing little liar!” That is what Janie had called her eldest son. Stuart wondered if it were true. He had no high regard for truth, himself, considering it very tiresome at times, and to be used only sparingly, as one used pungent spices. People who professed a violent love for t
ruth, he had observed, were singularly unpleasant people, and were rightfully avoided by the more civilized. Nevertheless, he thought dimly, truth-telling should be planted in the hearts of the young, whether their elders approved of it or not.

  “Why should you like to go to church, eh?” he asked. “Tedious damn place, I’ll be thinking.”

  Angus was silent. Then, in the strangest loud voice, he said: “It’s peaceful in church, and God’s there, and is so kind.”

  Stuart studied him in uneasy speechlessness. He rubbed his numb cheek with his knuckles. It seemed a terrible thing to him that a child should know the want of kindness, and could find nothing of it in the world of men but must go to a church for it.

  He said, awkwardly: “Then, you must meet my dear friend, Father Houlihan. He is a good and gentle man, Angus, and loves young people, and all young creatures.” Some iron sadness in him relaxed. That was it! Grundy must know these pathetic and desolate children. He had the holy gift of kindness.

  But Angus was regarding him with round and solemn eyes. “He is a Papist, Cousin Stuart. Papists worship strange gods and idols. Grand-da said they were pagans and heathens. I don’t know as I would like—Father Houlihan.”

  Stuart was suddenly furious. He shouted: “What damned nonsense! Your Grand-da’s a fool, you poor little idiot! Grun—Father Houlihan is one of God’s good men, with a heart of gold! Be thankful that ye’ll know him, if ye ever will!”

  Angus shrank back a little. “I’m sorry, Cousin Stuart. I didn’t mean to offend you. I never knew any Papists. Perhaps Grand-da was wrong.”

  Stuart was immediately remorseful. He grinned, though his ruddy color was still high. “There, now, don’t mind me. But it fair enrages me to listen to the prejudices of stupid people.” He paused, then lifted his hand and pointed far over the floes of ice. “Look there, to my right, down the river. What do you see?”

  Angus strained his eyes in the gathering dusk. Far down the river some two miles, hardly discernible in the twilight, was a vague dark bulk, right in the middle of the churning floes. “It looks like an island, Cousin Stuart.”

  “It is. It is called River Island. Quite a fair piece of land, full of woods and meadows and flat rich earth. Only a few people live there, a farmer or two, and some squatters. It is entirely undeveloped.”

  He paused. “You have heard me speak, no doubt, of my friend and business manager and partner, Mr. Sam Berkowitz?”

  Angus murmured something politely.

  Stuart pondered in his mind, briefly. “Well, let me tell you something about this world, Angus, especially what we call the Old World. It seems that in some countries, a man is hated if he has a nose of a different shape from that of the other men about him, or if his hair is a different color, or his ways are strange, or if he worships in a different way.”

  Angus interrupted eagerly, wishing to please Stuart with his own fund of knowledge. “I know! Grand-da told me how the Papists used to burn the Protestants at the stake, and about the Crusades, how the Crusaders used to kill and hang the Saracens.”

  Stuart frowned a little. “Well, yes, that’s what I mean. In a way. It’s all stupidity. It’s beyond human comprehension, I’m afraid. We all kill what we are afraid of, and we are always afraid of a man who is slightly different from us. Why, I don’t know. It’s Original Sin, I suppose.

  “Well, then, Mr. Berkowitz came from a country where he and his people were hated because they worshipped God in an old and ancient way. It was a country where the rich and powerful men oppressed the people, and wanted to keep them oppressed, for their own gain and profit, and to keep their rich fine houses and their silver. They were afraid of the people; they were afraid that some day the people might think, and they might ask themselves: “Why shouldn’t we, too, have roofs that do not leak, and tables that are filled with good bread and wine and meat? Don’t we work hard enough for it? Aren’t they our hands that till these fields, and our labor which builds these rich houses, and our sweat that waters the grain?”

  As Stuart said these things, in a loud and ringing voice, he saw the face of Father Houlihan, and his lips moving in these very words.

  Angus was watching him with eager closeness. Even little Laurie lifted her face in the gathering darkness, and listened, her mouth dropping open.

  “Well,” continued Stuart, with gathering ardor, “this was the way it was in Mr. Berkowitz’ country. The people began to think, and to get restless, and to look about them, muttering in their throats. Their hearts were hot with a knowledge of injustice and cruelty and hopelessness. And so their voices became louder and more threatening, and the rich and powerful men were afraid.

  “So they looked about them for some way to satisfy the people, who were so wretched and hungry and oppressed. They were too greedy and cruel to give the people bread and freedom and hope. That would have been money out of their pockets. And then their eyes lighted on Sam’s people, who were poorer and more oppressed than the others. Sam’s people weren’t liked in his country, because they didn’t believe in the prevailing faith, and because stupid people had attached all kinds of cruel and lying legends to them.

  “So the rich men had a very clever idea. Why not tell their people that their suffering and coldness and hunger was the fault of Sam’s poor people?”

  “But the people wouldn’t believe anything so silly!” cried Angus, surging closer to Stuart with a sort of eager impetuousness. “They couldn’t diddle the people like that!”

  Stuart nodded his head slowly. “But they did,” he said, grimly. “You see, my dear Angus, the people believe anything, if they are in pain. They are blind and stupid, too, and in the mass they are crueller and more ferocious than any animals. They believed. Perhaps they wanted to believe. It gave them an excuse to murder and plunder Sam’s helpless people. Besides, it was safer to do this than to revolt against the real cause of their suffering: their masters. None of their own blood would be shed, as it would be shed if they turned their hatred against those who oppressed them. In truth, they had the approval of their masters.”

  He could hardly see Angus’ face in the dusk, but he felt the young boy’s wild and horrified emotions, his incredulity and terror, his unreasoning fright in the face of his first knowledge of the enormity of the world of men. Something in him was profoundly shaken and broken.

  He said, aloud: “The world’s not what you believe, Angus. It’s an evil place, filled with evil men. It’s each man’s duty to help in the fight against that evil.” His heart soared with the strangest exhilaration at his own words. “We blunder, we go astray, but if we have faith that evil can be destroyed, we shall win. Perhaps not now, not in five hundred years. But sometime. Please God.”

  Angus was quieter. Stuart resumed. “But let me get on with my story. It is almost night now, and this damned wind is getting stronger. Pull up your collar, Angus.

  “So the people in Sam’s country turned against his people, in their pain and hunger and blindness, and the rich men sat back, smiling, smug and safe in their warm houses and before their fires, and eating from their silver dishes. The wrath of the people had been turned away from the real murderers and thieves. So—Sam left his country, and came here, penniless, with only his hands and his faith—”

  “In God!” cried Angus.

  Stuart said testily: “Well, then, in God, if you must. I really meant: his faith that somewhere in the world there was safety for the oppressed. He thought he had found it in America, where we believe, or profess to believe, that all men are equal. Except the Negroes, of course. And Sam came to Grandeville.

  “One day, he looked out at River Island, down there, and had a wonderful idea. It was quite mad, of course, but it was beautiful. Why couldn’t that big and unsettled island be made into a colony for others of his people who must leave their own countries to get away from the suffering mobs and the cruel masters? For, Angus, you must know that what happened in Sam’s country has happened before in many other countries, and is ha
ppening now, and will happen again.

  “Sam was quite taken with his idea. It became a dream to him, a wonderful dream. He talked to me and to Father Houlihan, and Father Houlihan thought it wonderful, too. He and Sam went to the Mayor, and talked about it to him. You see, that island is American land, and is owned by a handful of people who would be only too willing to sell it at a reasonable price. Sam and Father Houlihan went to these people, after talking to the Mayor, and they have named a price. And so Sam is working very hard to get this money. And one of these days, he hopes, he can give it to his people for their home.”

  It was so dark now that he could see the children’s faces only as dim blurs in the heavy purple dusk. But he felt Angus’ trembling intensity and eagerness.

  “Mr. Berkowitz is a Jew, isn’t he, Cousin Stuart?”

  “Yes.”

  Angus was silent, but his emotions appeared to grow, and vibrate. Then he heaved a deep sigh, and said the strangest thing, in a shaking voice: “Thank you, Cousin Stuart.”

  Stuart was unbearably touched, but he did not quite know why. He pressed his hand on Angus’ shoulder. The boy strained his eyes in the darkness towards the river.

  He said: “But why does Mr. Berkowitz want that island, Cousin Stuart? America is free for all men, isn’t it? He is safe here, he and his people?”

  Stuart said with loud irony: “Oh, yes, indeed. Land of the free and home of the brave. We don’t hate anyone here, except the Catholics and the Jews and the poor slaving blackamoors. America is free for all men, provided they are exactly the kind that is already here. Father Houlihan could tell you a pretty story.”