Stuart was aroused by the previous conversation to new heights of insult. “I’ve talked about it with other men, and done some questioning. All I know so far is that it is, as you have said, an anti-Catholic, an anti-foreign, organization. And a nasty, disgusting, brutal organization of cut-throats, liars, ignoramuses and dolts. Led, believe it or not, by our clergy. There have been some inflammatory sermons in the churches, even in Grandeville.”
He continued: “I know nothing about it. I know only that when the country’s seething, as this one is seething about the slavery question, lunatics try to divert the national temper by finding it an easy victim,’ one that can be murdered and hung and beaten without any bloodshed on the part of the attackers, and without danger of the law. The country’s getting roiled up about slavery, and there’ll be hell to pay very soon, I’m thinking. The powerful fellers know this; they don’t want war, or any other trouble, with the South. So they’ve thought up the Catholics to divert the people, and give both North and South something on which they can vent their rising tempers with impunity. Intolerance, as you told me, is like a leech on a bad bruise; it sucks out the blood. The powerful fellers have thought up the Know-Nothings as a leech, to keep the people from war over the blackamoors.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” said the priest, in anguish. “It is an old device of the oppressors, this diverting of the people’s righteous indignation into harmless if bloody paths, this finding of a victim whose sufferings will not matter. It is done in Russia.” He smiled up sadly at his friend. He patted one of the hands on his shoulder. “Stuart, you are a good man. I know. God bless you. Do what you can.”
When Stuart had gone, he turned to Father Billingsley, who was now at the exploding point, and he said sternly: “Our hands are not clean, Father. God knows, they are not clean. There was much in what Stuart said. Let us take it to our hearts. For the sake of our souls. For the sake, perhaps, of our very lives.” He added, in a suddenly clear and passionate voice, ringing and strong: “There is room for all of us here, all men with good will in their hearts, all the oppressed and the suffering! Let us not hate each other, and incite one against the other, because we differ in our gods and our ways of life. Who is so presumptuous as to say who is right, and who is wrong? Let us beware of hatred, lest it turn and rend us who give it birth!”
CHAPTER 28
It was not in Stuart’s nature to be meddlesome. He detested those who were continually anxious about the welfare of others. To him, that was presumption. Further, he believed that those who cannot help themselves are in some way contemptible and weak. To aid them was to increase their irresponsibility.
But Father Houlihan’s gentle, or angry and bellowing importunities (returned in furious kind by Stuart) finally reduced him to the point where he decided that he would call upon Janie to desist from her pressure upon her son. After he had made this decision, he was so enraged that he was unendurable. God knows he had troubles enough of his own, financial and private. Was he not married to humanity’s worst example of congenital idiocy? Did he not have a darling child whose health did not improve despite the waters of Saratoga and long sojourns in the mountains? Were not women hell’s own brew, exigent and bottomless and inexhaustibly rapacious? Had he not his own liver to contend with, and a damned partner who was always going over ledgers and meanly advising less borrowing and less extravagance? It was the devil’s own life. His plans were all awry. Joshua Allstairs had not relented. Stuart seldom saw him, and then only at a great distance. He heard no ominous rumors of him, but Stuart could see him, like a gray spider, crouched in his horrible house, biding his time, plotting the hour of vengeance when he could hurl Stuart down forever. It was nerve-wracking to think of him in that house, silent, watching, waiting, and sometimes the suspenseful vision was intolerable so that Stuart had wild dreams of rushing to that house and crying out that he move now, speak now, do what he would, and God damn him, anyway!
“You haf only to be calm, to be careful, not to spend foolishly, conserve and watch,” urged Sam. “Nothing can hurt you then, my Stuart.”
It was useless to explain to anyone, and especially to Sam with his disciplined dream, that for one like Stuart to “conserve, to be careful,” to be thrifty and provident, was worse than dying, that he would choke in the atmosphere of pennywatching, that he would stifle should he have to guard his expenditures. When he merely considered that a diamond bracelet for a favorite lady might be an extravagance, or a lovely piece of French glass or an ancient rug might better not be purchased just at this time, he was thrown into a veritable frenzy of melancholy and despondency, so that he became frantic and life seemed one vast prisonhouse of crusts and water and drabness. He filled his house with gorgeous and beautiful things, feverishly piling them up as a hunted man piles furniture high against an oaken door, to prevent his pursuers from breaking in and seizing him. Only Father Houlihan and Sam knew that these were the frantic gestures of a man terribly afraid of poverty and of life, most terribly afraid of other men.
He was often completely and artlessly surprised to discover that there were other things to fear besides poverty and starvation. Incredulously, he almost believed it when it was explained to him that some men feared the loss of prestige, of love, of health, of family, of friends, of position and of power. Some men, he was hugely amused to learn, even feared the loss of the love of God!
He hated those who had no money, for they subtly threatened him, said to him silently: “So is it possible for you to be, without dignity, hope, pride or salvation, the prey of the foulest man with gold in his pockets.” And out of this hatred was born his compassion, and not paradoxically.
The more money he obtained, the wider and wilder grew his extravagances, for he needed constant assurance of his invulnerability. With this drunkard’s need upon him, and his mystic terror of Joshua, and the imbecility of his wife, and the frailty of his little daughter, and Sam’s constant and anxious cautioning, Stuart could irately, and with truth, declare that he had “enough troubles of his own, curse it, without meddling with the lives of others.”
Nevertheless, one pewter-bright December Sunday he went to Janie’s house.
He had set out calmly enough, in his carriage, grumbling and cursing under his breath, gnawing his lip and glowering about him, but able, at moments, to bow to some passing acquaintance, and to wink at some properly chaperoned young girl bowling along in her own carriage with her oblivious mama. But the closer he came to Janie s house, the more ireful he became, the more embarrassed. Finally he passed a favorite saloon. It was closed on Sundays, of course. But for regular and favored patrons it preserved a discreet backdoor. It was early, hardly four o’clock, and Stuart had grimly followed his doctor’s advice that there was to be no drinking until the evening dinner had been eaten. However, when he saw the saloon he recklessly decided that he needed a drink, several of them, before approaching Janie.
He left his carriage, went through the back alley to the rear door, knocked on it three times with his cane. It opened immediately, and he was admitted to the rear room. It was already filled with his particular cronies, who hailed him with delight.
Soothed, happy and flattered, as only a simple man can be soothed at the signs of favor of his contemporaries, Stuart seated himself at a large round table and lavishly ordered drinks for himself and the five other men about him. A violent political argument was in progress, and Stuart soon, and exuberantly, found himself participating.
He, himself, had been an ardent Whig, but had joined the new Republican Party after its formation in 1854. He had energetically campaigned for its first Republican candidate, who had been defeated a month ago by James Buchanan, Democrat, and fifteenth President of the United States. Stuart felt personally affronted and outraged by the elections, and now he darkly hinted that he was privy to some secret confidence about them. “Mind my words,” he said, glowering about him, “there was dirty work there. I’m not at liberty to reveal what was told me by an exalted p
ersonage of high importance, but I was given to understand that the South had much to do, and not honestly, with the election of a Democrat. The pro-slavery clique. That isn’t the worst of it, either. This personage, this close friend of mine, always in touch with Wall Street, earnestly assured me that next year we shall have a financial panic. We always have ’em when a Democrat is elected.”
“You mean,” said a friend cynically, “that the Democrats just come into a depression caused by your friends, the Whigs, and so get the blame for it.”
The argument became hot. This Buchanan, with his love for the Southerners, would stimulate the already inflamed ill-feeling between the Southern States and the North. Hadn’t pro-slavery men just sacked Lawrence, Kansas? Hadn’t John Brown, that madman, recently massacred five pro-slavery men by Pottawatomie Creek? How much more of this could go on without the whole country bursting into flames? It was all the doing of the Democrats of course.
“It’s your nigger-loving Republicans that’re causing all the trouble,” disagreed another man.
“I don’t love niggers!” cried Stuart, after a fiery gulp of whiskey. “But I don’t want any goddam war, and unless we keep our heads we shall have it!”
Another man nodded gloomily. “What about this here Dred Scott decision? Throw the whole damn country into turmoil. You’ll all see.”
“All I want is to make money, fairly, and in peace!” bellowed Stuart, banging on the table with his fist. “I don’t want to get embroiled in any sanctimonious sentimentality about the Rights of Man, and slavery, and high principles! Damn it, there’s trouble enough in the world without going out with swords and banner to find it, and all in the name of God and justice, too!”
But a young man, with a serious and lighted face cried: “That is the credo of all the bloated and selfish men in the world! ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ they asked, elbow-deep in money. ‘Go away; don’t bother me. I have my business, my shop, my factory, my mill, to attend to, and my notes to meet. God? Justice? Mercy? Decency? What are they? Will they bring me money, increase my bank account, my property? No? Then I’ll have none of them.’”
He looked at them all, somberly, at Stuart, who was grinning sardonically, and at the other three men. “And then,” he added, “comes the chaos, the ruin and the death, the just punishment for such selfishness and greed. Do not think for a moment, my friends, that when the day of reckoning comes, as it will, you will escape.”
The thought was so depressing that Stuart ordered another round of drinks. He reiterated: “I don’t want war. Who does? Why can’t fools shut their mouths? I’m not interested in slavery. I’ve never thought much about it, except as a bone of contention. I have an idea! Why don’t the sanctimonious anti-slavery fools pay every planter for his slave, a decent price, and then free the blackamoors? After all, the planters have a huge investment in their slaves. It’s wrong, and incredible, that anyone should suggest they free their slaves without just recompense. It—it’s un-Constitutional, by God!”
“Listen to the foursquare American patriot!” jeered another man. “How long’ve you been in this country anyway, Coleman? What do you know about America? You, an Irishman!”
At this insinuation as to his Americanism, Stuart started from his chair with clenched fists, his face suffused. Two of his friends rose with him, and grasped his arms. Others in the room, delightedly smelling a violent fight, stared and turned their chairs about. That Coleman! That Irishman! He couldn’t remain in a room five minutes without exploding. It was very diverting. One of the barkeeps hurried out of the room to call reinforcements.
Stuart, struggling with his captors, who exhorted him to calm himself, let his furious eyes dart about the room. And then, all at once, he was rigidly still.
At a far table, oblivious, sunken into a drunkard’s stupor, sat a very young man, his head bowed, an empty bottle and glass before him. The glimmering lamplight shone on his head of thick, light auburn curls, and on his slack and ruddy young face and closed eyes. He was a big fellow, dressed in the height of fashion in fawn-colored pantaloons and darker coat and elaborate ruffles. He sat there, in his stupor, unaware of the riot which had suddenly started at Stuart’s table. Beside the bottle lay his tall beaver hat, his cane and gloves. On his finger a rich jewel glittered.
Stuart stood and stared at him, paling, while his friends loosened their grasp on him, uneasily, and then followed his eyes. One of them began to laugh, uncomfortably.
“He’s here all the time, soaking it up,” he said. “A damn young drunkard. Spends a fortune; always alone, too. Haven’t you seen him here before, Stuart?”
But Stuart flung off the arms of those who held him, and went over to the table of the young man. The others in the room, sensing his great consternation, and seeing his grim silence, watched with intense interest. Stuart was unaware of any of them. He stood by the table and looked down at Bertie Cauder, Janie’s Benjamin, Janie’s darling, sleeping the sodden and drivelling sleep of drunkenness.
Stuart pulled out a chair and sat down. He felt sick. He had very rarely noticed Bertie, but on his infrequent encounters with the youth he had liked his debonair air, his merriment, his constantly twinkling blue eyes, his attitude that life was an extremely good joke, and very enjoyable. Nothing ever seemed to disturb him; Stuart had never seen him without a wide smile, and a laugh. He was very popular in his school; he had many friends. His ways were winning and charming, and he softened everyone, even the most suspicious and dour. He laughed at his mother’s rages; he laughed at Angus, with his solemnity, and bitter pride and silences. He laughed at his favorite brother, Robbie, and the “black one’s ambitions.” He laughed at everything. He was like a smooth silver mirror dancing in sunlight.
And now he was here, in his drunken sleep, and evidently not for the first time. It was not to be wondered at, thought Stuart, bitterly. He had no other occupation; he had no ambitions. He was a weakling, and a sot, like many charming, laughing people, whom everyone loved.
Nevertheless, Stuart’s violent heart was stricken, for some nameless reason. He felt angered, and full of pity and disgust.
He picked up the empty bottle, and flung it from him, with a crash. He looked at the drooling, half-smiling mouth of Bertie Cauder, at the reddened and flabby cheeks. Yet all at once he was no longer angered. It was such a young face there, unconscious, fallen into a drunkard’s dream, a vulnerable face, and tragic.
He laid his hand on Bertie’s shoulder, and said in a low voice: “Come on, come on now, Bertie! Let me take you home.”
But Bertie merely tilted gently on his seat and would have fallen to the dirty floor had not Stuart caught him in his arms. The lad’s head rested against Stuart’s ruffles, like the head of a sleeping child. Stuart looked down at the moist bright curls, and he cursed inwardly, almost with a sob.
He saw the shadow of someone else beside him, and he looked up, blinking the dimness from his eyes. Bertie’s brother, “the black one,” Robbie, stood there, composed and reticent, and with such damnable and indifferent assurance. Robbie was still undersized, though he was nearly seventeen, with a mature if small dark lean face and with wise and cynical black eyes which saw everything and were disturbed by nothing. Everything in that face was delicate and attenuated, full of a peculiar aristocracy, a carved refinement. His expression was reserved, but without Angus’ harsh pride and melancholy, and his delicate mouth, mobile and thin, smiled slightly. He did not follow the prevailing mode of longish hair; his own black sleek head was cropped very short, and gleamed like a seal’s. One saw every fine bone of the thin temples and the sharp small cheeks and chin. His nose was fragile, excellently cut. In his garb, also, there was reserve and aristocracy; his pantaloons and coat were all of the best black broadcloth, his linen severe and white, without ruffles, his folded black stock without a pin.
“So,” he said, “he’s at it again. I often come here for him. There is a room at the side, Stuart, where he—‘rests’—until I can take hi
m home. With your help I’ll take him there, if you please.”
A dark flush of hatred suffused Stuart’s hot face. Robbie, as always, made him feel clumsy, too large, stupid and heavy, and very, very gaudy and absurd.
“If this has been going on, why hasn’t your blessed mama done something about it?” he shouted, oblivious of the interested audience. “And you, you popinjay! I thought he was your pet brother. Why haven’t you done something?”
Robbie looked at him with indifferent gravity. “That is what I am trying to do, Stuart,” he said quietly, with a note of reproof in his toneless voice. “If you please!”
He took one of Bertie’s arms; Stuart seized the other roughly. They hauled the unconscious Bertie to his feet. Half dragging, half carrying him, they opened a door and entered a chill dark little room in which there were a number of chairs, a table, and a sagging sofa. Robbie was all calm. He did not so much as glance once at their audience, who craned after them as they entered the outer room. His manner consigned them to the limbo of creatures who do not matter, who have no existence unless it is granted to them by those who might acknowledge it. He closed the door quietly behind him. His gestures were all authority and composure.
They sat Bertie on the sofa, his sagging back against the wall. From him came gusts of sour whiskey. He dropped his head on his chest and sighed. His hands hung down limply beside him, large white hands, jewelled and well-kept, like a woman’s.
Stuart stood helplessly beside the sofa, his disgust and rage rising. He was still burning from the hated small Robbie’s manner. Quite viciously, then, he lifted his hand and struck Bertie smartly on first one cheek then the other. “You dirty sot!” he exclaimed. “You miserable, worthless young jackanapes! You puppy! Wake up, you young dog, and be ashamed of yourself!”
Robbie seated himself on a stiff chair near by and studied Stuart with a faint dark smile. One of his little hands played with the chain of his watch, which stretched across his waistcoat of flowered black silk.
The Wide House Page 27