The Wide House

by Taylor Caldwell

  He was sorry that he had had to shatter the last hope of this poor boy. But truth was necessary. Oh, damn truth! exclaimed Stuart, inwardly.

  He said: “Let’s go back to the house.” He felt enormously tired and heavy and depressed. He wanted nothing but his solitary supper in his lovely dining-room, then an evening by the fire, drowsing and planning. He hesitated. Then he said: “Won’t you and little Laurie have supper with me, Angus?”

  CHAPTER 16

  It was a very cosy supper, and Stuart, after his first fears that Laurie might spill her milk on the Aubusson rug or stain the fine damask, felt quite happy in the presence of these children. Something childlike, vehement and simple in himself was satisfied, and warmed.

  Laurie ate like a perfect little lady, minding her manners, and sitting straight and quiet and dimpling and smiling in her chair, her golden hair framing her exquisite little face. When Stuart spoke, or her adored brother, she would turn the sparkling blue of her eyes upon him, and listen intently, whether she understood or not. As for poor Angus, his gray pinched expression was gone, and even his thin cheeks seemed rounder, and there was an eager light on his face. His eyes were quite wide and luminous, and he laughed occasionally at some droll quip or other of Stuart’s.

  A queer lad, thought Stuart, of Angus, with pity and wonder. He had half believed Janie’s stories, in spite of himself, that Angus was dull and stupid, crafty and sly, whining and psalm-singing, and an incorrigible liar. He had not taken the trouble to investigate her tales, for he had not been interested in Angus, or the other children, except to speed their going from his precious house. Now he began to doubt, and to hate Janie with fresh ardor.

  And then, to his horror and indignation, he began to learn that Angus was blindly, frightfully and incredibly devoted to Janie.

  At first, Stuart could not believe this revolting fact. Surely, a lad of Angus’ wit and penetration must know what Janie was! He had his own experience of her, of her malevolence and slyness and cruelty, and lies.

  Yet, Angus spoke of her simply and fondly, with the most touching shadow on his face. He loved his mother. That was enough for him. But why did he love her? Throughout the supper Stuart tried to fathom this puzzle. Then, slowly, he gathered that the boy was blind in many ways. He remembered only Janie’s rare kindnesses, her laughter, her wit and gaiety. He remembered her frivolity, which must have appeared to him a dear thing. Her sins he did not see. When she was cruel to him and his sister, he believed that it was in some way his own fault, his own sin, or that she did not understand. What she said was infallible, all her opinions and prejudices.

  Stuart was more and more revolted, as he listened to Angus, and more and more saddened. He saw, with a flash of intuition, that some day Janie would inevitably corrupt this simple boy, with his integrity and innocence, and that the corruption would be a most terrible thing. Yet what could he, Stuart, do? He perceived that should he begin to enlighten Angus he would only inspire distrust in him, or break his heart. Angus was the sort who must believe, and love, and who when his belief and love were betrayed would be forever shattered, and perhaps made evil, also.

  Besides, Janie was all he had. Stuart had no illusions that Angus must inevitably impress his mother with his nobility and high integrity of spirit. Rather, she would pollute and ruin him, as she must, because of her greater and harder strength and her knowledge of wickedness.

  Angus did not know that his mother hated him. He would know some day, but not yet.

  As he talked to Stuart, quite volubly, in his new trust and confidence, he expressed his interest in the shops. Nothing was more agreeable to Stuart than to talk of his darling enterprises. He elaborated at great length, while Angus listened, fascinated.

  Finally the lad remarked, wistfully: “You must be a very rich man, Cousin Stuart.”

  Stuart paused. For some reason, he frowned. He did not like Angus’ wistful references to money. It was surely not in his character.

  “What does that matter?” he asked, carelessly. “Do you like money, Angus?”

  Angus hesitated. He looked down at his blanc mange, which a servant had placed before him. “I don’t know,” he murmured, distressfully. “I never had much of it, or needed it. But mama said when someone says that money is nothing it is either because he has never felt the need of it, or never hopes to have it.”

  Stuart frowned again. “Your mama has a very high regard for money, hasn’t she?”

  Angus looked up and smiled radiantly. “Yes. Mama says you might as well be dead and buried if you haven’t it. And that you must work very hard to see that you have it, lots of it. Or other people will hate you, and not let you in their houses, and that even God despises a man who hasn’t the gumption to work and get money.”

  “Why should God despise such a man?”

  But Angus was quite illuminated. “There is the story of the talents, you remember, Cousin Stuart. One man had four talents, and buried them, another had two or three, and returned them without increase to his master, and another had only one, and made it produce more. God loved that man, and threw the others into the outer darkness, because they hadn’t made them increase.”

  Stuart was highly irritated. “I don’t think those ‘talents’ meant money at all!” he exclaimed, irately. “I don’t recall that God was ever in the banking business.”

  Angus shook his head, humbly. “Yes, they were, Cousin Stuart. They were a Hebrew coin.”

  Stuart had an inspiration. Suddenly it seemed very necessary to him to set this boy right, to keep him from the path of destruction. He said: “Well, then, it was used as a parable, that story of the talents. To make it clear to the people. I think it meant gifts of God, such as ability and goodness and faith and charity.”

  But Angus was very literal in interpreting the Bible. “Talents were Hebrew coins, Cousin Stuart.”

  Stuart was baffled. He was also very confused. He had the highest regard for money, himself, and thought it Heaven’s supreme blessing and benediction on men. He had long ago determined that nothing should prevent him from getting it, in any way possible, and he had adhered to that determination. Nevertheless, there was something in him which was revolted and enraged at the spectacle of this boy’s incipient corruption.

  He said, darkly, feeling himself very puerile: “Money is an explosive, Angus. It can do the most awful things. It can devastate and destroy.”

  Angus smiled at him, and Stuart was confirmed in his own suspicion that he was puerile. For that smile was singularly adult and indulgent. Stuart was angered, and got up abruptly from the table, quite disliking Angus.

  The children followed him docilely into the drawing-room. He had not bargained for this. He felt very tired. But he could not rudely dismiss them. They hungered after him as those who are chilled hunger for a fire. Laurie, in fact, came beside him, and took his hand trustingly.

  He sighed. He sat down in his chair. Then, after a look into the little girl’s lovely and shining face, he impulsively took her on his knee and began to twine her golden curls over his fingers. He kissed her. “You will be a heartbreaker one of these days, darling,” he said.

  Angus sat near him on the hearth, on a footstool. The warm and ruddy firelight fell on them comfortably. Fingers of red light danced and glided over the edges of exquisite sofas and chairs, and formed deep shining pools on the polished tables. The draperies had been drawn over the windows, and their folds glistened. The wind of the early evening had risen to a deep and minatory roar, shouting of strange places and strange lands.

  Stuart listened to the wind. His Celtish soul was made restless and vaguely enormous. He saw the wind sweeping over the sea, roaring westwards, and his ancient blood was stirred.

  It was this that made him say to Laurie, with great tenderness, looking into her eyes: “Would you like me to tell you a story, my love?”

  “Oh, yes, yes!” she whispered, with shy eagerness, adoring him.

  Stuart, coming to consciousness, was ann
oyed. The wind, for an instant, became only a disturbance at the windows and among the bare trees. Then its voice penetrated, again, every tumultuous cell of his body.

  Stuart pondered. What was that strange story his grandmother had once told him, when he was scarcely older than Laurie? It was only the ghost, the mood of a tale, but he had not completely forgotten it, and it had strange meanings hidden in it somewhere. Stuart did not rightly know the meanings, but he had felt them. Angus, deeply interested and ardent, looked at him, waiting.

  Stuart, with sudden inner clarity, saw his grandmother in her warm chimney corner, her shawl over her shoulders, her smoking pipe in her sunken mouth. He saw the dark and glimmering firelight on the red tile floors, the stained darkness of wooden walls, the gleam of polished brass andirons. He saw how the tiny diamond-panes of the high sunken windows trembled in the wind outside, and how, at times, the candlelight flickered as it was disturbed on each pane, so that it momentarily shone like a small dark mirror. It was a wild night outside, that old dead night, and there was a turbulent wailing in the trees so that they groaned mysteriously.

  To Stuart’s memory, that room with its ancient woman by the fire had taken on an occult agelessness, so that it all seemed more of a fairy tale than any real remembrance. So it was that as he told Laurie the tale, his eye was wide and dim, seeing his grandmother and the fire, and hearing the wind.

  The story was really nothing, after all, but moods and dreams.

  There was a small girl, homeless and wandering, who after many footsore days of travel, and much hunger and loneliness and sadness, came to the high wall of a strange garden. Over the top of that wall she could see the branches of the oddest trees, each leaf shining and polished like metal, and bearing among them round and golden fruit of the most uncommon kind. Birds sat among the leaves, motionless and dreaming, plumaged in yellow and red and blue and purple. The little girl longed for the fruit, and looked about her for a gate. She found it, sunken in the stones, and with fear, pushed it open. It made no sound. She entered the garden. There was no sound in it at all, and here the sunlight had a faint and gauzy light, as in a dream. Not a leaf fluttered. There was no breeze. The birds sat in the trees and slept. There were many flowers here, drooping in the dim but mysteriously clear radiance, which was like that hour just before dusk. The little girl saw roses, and pansies, and great lilies with open striped yellow throats, and hanging leaves. Paths wound among the flowers, paths of scattered stones, between which the thick green moss was growing.

  The air, drowsy and dreaming, was filled with the most entrancing odors of flowers and shrubs, so heavy that the little girl could hardly breathe. There was the old and bewitched perfume of elderberry blossoms too, sweeter and more swooning than all the others. The little girl wandered down the paths, and looked at the sundials, and was vaguely surprised that, though the light was both soft and transparent, the sundials did not show the time. There was no shadow on them. Indeed, there were no shadows at all in this garden. Everything stood, soundless and breathless, in this garden without time. Everything slept. There was no wind, but the elderberry scent came and went in long sweet puffs as if disturbed. Not a bird uttered a cry, or broke the silence with the rustle of a wing.

  The little girl came to a pond, sunken in the thick green moss. It was like a round shield of glimmering pewter, and nothing disturbed it, not a ripple or the shadow of a fish or the flight of an insect. Two swans, white and still, slept on its surface, which reflected the pale blue sky. Beyond the pond, the trees were thick and dark and ancient, bending their heads and showing their golden fruit, which shone like little yellow suns in the half-light.

  And then the little girl was very frightened. She knew that she must leave this spellbound garden at once, and find her way back to the sunken gate and the highway. Perhaps her guardian angel had whispered to her urgently. And then she cried out that she was very tired and thirsty and hungry, and must eat of that golden fruit and rest a little. After that, she would resume her journey, and look for a home.

  She climbed the branches of the nearest tree and plucked the fruit, and sank her little white teeth into it. She sat there in the branches, while the strange and beautifully-hued birds slept motionless near her, like fruit, themselves. The fruit was very sweet and juicy and delicious. It tasted like honey and wine, and its flesh was as satisfying as bread. And below the little girl lay the wide garden of flowers and pond and swans and trees, drifting in a faint and luminous mist like pearl and last sunlight, with the odor of elderberry sweet and swooning on the warm air.

  The little girl, satisfied and rested, climbed down the tree and stood beneath it. “I must go,” she said aloud. She hardly heard her voice, which seemed to drown on the air. And then she became very sleepy, as if overpowered. She sank down on the warm thick moss and slept.

  She must not have slept long, or another day had come, for when she awoke, the garden was just the same as she remembered. She arose. She looked about her, dreamily. But she had forgotten who she was, and from whence she had come, and where she was going. She remembered nothing but the garden, enchanted and timeless, full of sleep.

  Laurie and Angus had listened to this tale breathlessly. Laurie’s blue eyes were like still fire in the soft dusk of the room.

  “Didn’t the little girl ever leave the garden?” asked Laurie, and now there were tears of pity for the child who remembered nothing but enchantment and dreams.

  Stuart hesitated. “Well, yes, she did.”

  The little girl lived in the garden for a long time, but she never remembered the days, and there were no nights, except for the pearly mist which drifted through the trees. She was very happy, this child in a dream. She ate of the fruit, and slept, and talked to the flowers and the silent swans, and smelled the elderberry. She looked down the tawny throats of the lilies, and stroked the roses, which had no thorns and never faded. She walked over the winding paths, and gazed up at the birds.

  And then one day, she found the old sunken gate again. She was very surprised to see it. She did not remember it. She pushed on it and it opened soundlessly. She stepped out onto the rutted road. She looked behind her. The garden was hardly to be seen, now. The pearly mist had fallen over it like a translucent cloud. And from somewhere the little girl heard the wind of Heaven, for the first time in endless ages. It was a loud and thundering sound, and it frightened her. She wanted to run back into the warm and silent garden, but the gate gently pulled itself from her hand and closed. She put her hands on it and tore frantically at it, but it would not open. She tried to climb it, but it seemed to grow higher and higher, and to be filled with wounding sharp edges. Finally, she fell down upon the ground, tired out, and memory came back to her, and she wept long and deeply, until she was exhausted.

  And then she discovered that she was no longer a child, but a woman, full-grown. She got to her feet, and walked away down the highway. And it was winter now, cold and raw, with snow flying and the trees blasted and black, and not a bird to be seen.

  “Did she find a home, and someone to love her?” cried little Laurie, quite pale, and very eager.

  Stuart hesitated again. It was the strangest tale, he remembered, and it was not clear to him. He wondered, with mysterious intuition, whether he should tell the children the rest.

  “No,” he said, gently, looking into Laurie’s wet eyes, “she never did find a home. She never did find anyone who really loved her. Not as she wanted to be loved, I am afraid. Worst of all, after the garden the world seemed very ugly and noisy and cruel and fierce to the girl. She could never get used to it. And one day she tried to find her way back to the garden and the elderberry scent and the golden fruit of dreams.

  “She never did. And so she died of a broken heart, in the snow.”

  Again, he looked into Laurie’s eyes. And then he had the strangest thought. He saw the garden reflected in her eyes.

  Angus was silent. He had made no comment on the story. Stuart felt suddenly very tired and s
tupid. He gently set Laurie back on her feet.

  “Bed time, my love,” he said, and kissed her cheek.

  CHAPTER 17

  Janie recovered from her influenza far sooner than did her sons, Bertie and Robbie. While the two boys still lay in bed, coughing miserably, and threatened with lung fever, Janie had risen gaily, and was sitting by her window, where she could look out over the greening slope and the river with its churning cakes of ice. She thought the sight forbidding, but her naturally vivacious spirits did not permit of any sense of desolation.

  Dressed in a rich black velvet peignoir, bordered with white fur, her little feet on a white hassock, she looked with sparkling green eyes upon the water, her busy mind engaged with plots and counterplots. Again, her reddish hair had been tortured into ringlets, and she had applied rouge and powder to her sallow, freckled face. Despite her thinness, the result of her influenza, she appeared quite avid and animated. The April sun came through the bright windows and lay on her shoulders comfortingly. She could hear the strong, almost arctic wind, of this Northern spring, but it was safely shut out from her. She looked out, her wide thin mouth, painted and mobile, smiling faintly.

  For Stuart had requested a few minutes with her. She lifted her mirror and studied her face. Not handsome, she reflected, but spirited and lively, as her dear mama had often said. And full of sprightliness and interest. Ah, if it were not for those freckles, and the big Roman nose with the predatory nostrils! She arranged her head in the proper attitude to minimize the nose. She had drenched herself with musk, and the deep dusky odor permeated the large and perfectly appointed room with its white walls, iron candlesticks, white doors and fireplace, delicate mahogany chests and wardrobe, round soft rug, white canopied bed and little pale blue-and-rose damask chairs. Her sense of luxury, very well developed, was complacently satisfied with what she saw.