The Wide House

by Taylor Caldwell

  Sam stirred again. He looked down at his folded arms. “You must,” he said, with the utmost gentleness. “I assure you, you must. For if you do not, I shall inform the proper authorities of your small traffic in the Underground. I shall inform the proper authorities that at the present moment there are twenty unfortunate negroes in a certain building known to you, owned by you, and that you haf exacted much money from these unfortunates for their passage to Canada, and that you haf made a fortune under similar conditions. Your confederates, sir, are known.”

  Had the house suddenly burst into flame about him then, had the walls and the ceilings collapsed with a thunderous sound, had Sam suddenly changed into a fiend before his eyes, Joshua could not have been more stupefied. Nor could his color have become more ghastly, nor his look more appalled. He fell back in his chair. He stared at Sam with a terrible look.

  “Yes, I must haf those notes,” said Sam, regretfully. “For if I leave this house without them, I shall go from here to the proper authorities. I had not thought I must say this to you. I thought it might all be done with kindness and understanding.”

  “You blackmailer!” whispered Joshua, and that whisper was as terrible as his look.

  “I am much afraid, sir, that I am indeed a blackmailer,” sighed Sam.

  Joshua did not speak. The little fire snarled on the dark hearth. The gloomy walls drew closer. The early April wind whined at the windows. The old man might have expired in his chair, so motionless was he; even his fixed eyes had a look of death in them. He began to whisper again. It was like the rustling of leaves, that sound, like the scrabbling of a rat through straw. Sam heard it. But he could not hear the words for several moments.

  “I have been betrayed. I have been delivered to my unbelieving enemies. I have been trapped by a godless Jew, a killer of the Christ. I, a Christian, have been delivered into the hands of the Saracen, of the abominable one, of the murderers of the beloved of the Lamb.”

  At these frightful and loathesome words, Sam was not disturbed at all, except that his eyes became brighter and clearer as he regarded Joshua steadily. His seamed face might have been a little paler, but that was all.

  He said, with his usual gentleness: “I must haf those notes. Now.”

  Now Joshua became mad. He began to shriek. He struck at Sam with his cane. Sam merely pushed his chair out of range. Joshua gibbered. His face was horrible to see. It was distorted out of all resemblance to humanity. He writhed on his chair. His head rolled sideways on his shoulders.

  He began to pant in his extremity. He screamed: “I shall have my own revenge for this! You shall not live in my country, for which my fathers died, and pollute this sacred earth any longer! I know what I know! You shall die like the Jewish dog you are!”

  Sam said: “I shall haf those notes now. Now.”

  He stood up, calmly. He took out his watch, and glanced at it. “I haf taken up too much of your time. You shall give me those notes, now.”

  He took out his book of cheques. He glanced about him for a pen and ink. Then he pointed to the bell-rope beside Joshua’s hand. There was a sudden terribleness about him, inexorable and merciless. “You will ring for ink. For a pen. I shall write you a cheque for twenty-four thousand dollars. Now,”

  CHAPTER 39

  Sam opened the door of Stuart’s office, silently, and stood on the threshold.

  Stuart had not heard him enter. In fact, had Sam entered noisily he would not have known. For he was staring at the wall above his desk with the blind dry eyes of a man in extreme desperation. A smoldering cheroot was held flaccidly in his fingers.

  Sam looked at him for a long time. He saw the haggard profile, frozen and motionless. He saw the ever increasing white threads in Stuart’s hair.

  He coughed gently. Stuart started. He turned his head slowly. Then a most painful smile touched his mouth but not his stricken eyes. “Come in, Sam,” he said, and his voice was faint and hoarse. He nodded towards a chair. Sam sat down, and regarded his friend with deep sadness and understanding.

  “You must know that this month you will not haf more than two hundred dollars from the shops?” he asked, in a low tone. “I haf just gone over the books.”

  Stuart did not speak. He had turned his head away again, and was again regarding the wall.

  Sam lifted his hands and his shoulders, in his ancient gesture, then let them drop expressively.

  “You haf not taken my advice,” he said.

  Stuart groaned. He put his hands to his face. There was silence in the office. Beyond the door there was that heavy and listless silence of shops which are empty. Sam could hear the murmur of frightened clerks and the shuffling of their feet as they dusted counters already dusted that day. He knew that they would wander to the windows and stare eagerly at any chance passerby, in the pitiful hope that she would enter.

  Stuart said thickly: “There’s no use. The people have no money, or no confidence. Our trade is steadily dropping.”

  “It is no worse than last month. And it is better than three months ago,” Sam remarked, sighing. “We begin to see light.”

  Stuart turned to him with furious despair. “‘See light!’ But not soon enough to save me! No, not even if business recovered completely in six, five, four months!”

  Sam said nothing. Stuart sprang to his feet, knocking over his chair. He began to walk up and down the office with distracted steps, pushing his hands repeatedly through his hair, and sometimes pulling it. He sighed. Sam watched him, not moving. Back and forth went the heavy and lumbering steps, quickening as his disordered thoughts quickened. Stuart stopped before his friend and cried out: “It is nothing to you, of course! Why should it be? But why must you sit there like a bloody image and watch me die? Are you gloating over me, by any chance?”

  Sam said with extreme calm: “I haf said, Stuart that we are recovering. Very slowly. Most slowly. But, we are recovering. We are paying off our debts. Each month sees us meet our debts completely, if painfully. We are acquiring no others. In two months, we shall be even. Does that not give you some joy?”

  Stuart was silent. But as he stood there before Sam, he looked violent. He still ran his hands through his hair. Then, with slow blind movements, he felt for his chair and fell into it. But he did not glance away from Sam.

  “Yes, what you say is true,” he said in a muffled voice. “About the shops. But not about my private debts. I owe money. You must have guessed that”

  Sam looked at the floor, and waited.

  Stuart began to laugh, and it was not a pleasant wound. “Did you think I was living off the shops?” he asked wildly. “If you did, you were a fool! But you always were a fool, Sam.”

  Sam glanced up quickly. Now real anger flashed in his eyes, real disgust. He pushed back his chair as if he could not restrain a violence of his own. The gesture was instinctive. He said sternly: “I am tired of this, of being called a fool! I shall not haf it. It is finished. It is enough.”

  He stood up, also. He faced Stuart, who had begun to pale. Then Stuart turned from him. “Forgive me,” he said, in that thick voice. His hand fell on his desk. “I don’t know what I am saying. But you don’t know—”

  He fell again into Ids chair. He covered his eyes with his hands.

  Sam stood behind him. He began to speak in a strangely quiet yet strangely passionate voice:

  “Always, they say ‘forgive me,’ when they haf had their way with us. Always, when they haf taken our substance, and our blood, our labor, and even our lives. Always, when they haf defiled us, and degraded us, and used us, and inflicted suffering upon us, and driven us away into darkness and exile and pain. Always, when they haf struck us in the face, and trampled upon our children. Always, we must be subject to their madness and their hate, their superstition and their greed, their cruelty and their abominations! Always, when they haf glutted themselves upon us, and they haf become tired of the poor sport, and their own terribleness has frightened them they say ‘forgive me.’”

/>   Stuart dropped his hand. He turned in his chair and looked at Sam. He saw his friend’s face as he had never seen it before, moved, stricken, but most enormously stern and unrelenting.

  Sam raised his hand as if in invocation. He said: “‘Forgive me!’ And always, we answer: ‘Father; forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ But I say that you know what you do! You always know what you do! And because you know, you lift your hand again and again, and we die under it, world without end!

  “But I say now that some day we shall cease to forgive. Some day, when the burden you haf put upon us is too heavy, we shall cry out to God, and there shall be only anger in our hearts, and not our long patience. And then, and then,” he continued, his voice dropping into deep quietness, “God will answer us, and look upon our afflictions, and do His justice.”

  Stuart stared at him. And then a deep wash of color ran over his face, and his eyes fell. He said: “There is nothing that I can say. Except that I am ashamed. I shall not ask your pardon, Sam. That would be insulting you.” Again, he covered his face with his hand, as if to hide himself.

  After a long moment, Sam sat down near him. His tired face was very pale. Wearily, he brought out a few sheafs of paper and laid them near Stuart’s elbow. “Are these the things which are worrying you?” he asked sternly.

  With exhausted abstraction, Stuart dropped his hand and looked down at the notes beside him. Then suddenly he became rigid. He turned very white. He sat in stupefied silence, his eyes fixed. Then, still not looking away from the notes, he muttered: “Where did you get these?”

  Sam said coldly: “From our friend, Mr. Joshua Allstairs.”

  Stuart came to life. He swung violently upon his friend. “From Allstairs! From Allstairs!”

  “Yes,” said Sam, undisturbed. “From Mr. Allstairs. I bought them from him yesterday. For twenty-four thousand dollars. He had purchased them from the banks for much less.”

  Stuart put his hand to his forehead, and rubbed it savagely, as if to awaken himself from an impossible dream. He stared dazedly at Sam. And Sam returned his dilated regard impassively.

  Slowly, then, Stuart began to realize. He whispered: “He bought them. He bought them to do me in. He intended to ruin me. That is what he was plotting.”

  “Doubtless,” agreed Sam.

  “And—he would have done it.”

  “Doubtless.”

  Stuart glanced down at the notes again, in stupefaction. He picked them up, examined them, as if incredulous. He dropped them on the desk. Very slowly he turned to Sam. He tried to speak.

  Sam picked up the notes with measured movements, tore them neatly across, walked over to the fireplace, and dropped the fragments into the fire. He watched the flames devour the paper. In a moment there was not even an ash.

  Stuart looked at Sam’s back. He tried to walk. He put out his hand and caught the back of his chair. He was trembling uncontrollably.

  “Sam,” he whispered.

  But Sam did not turn.

  Stuart passed his shaking hands over his face. When he had withdrawn them his eyes were full of tears.

  “It was the money for the Island,” he said. “For your—people.”

  “Yes.”

  Stuart’s throat and mouth were, dry as death.

  “You did that, for me,” he said.

  Sam turned from the fire. He was faintly smiling, though he appeared sad. “Yes, for you. You are a fool, Stuart.”

  They looked at each other. Sam’s tired smile grew broader. He shook his head.

  “Forgive me,” he murmured.

  Stuart sat down. He put his arms on the desk, and his head bowed on them. There was no sound from him.

  Sam hesitated. He looked down at this broken man whom he had saved from complete ruin, at such a terrible and heart-breaking expense to himself. He tried to speak. But he could not.

  Very quietly, then, he turned and left the room.

  CHAPTER 40

  River Island was afire with crimson, amber, scarlet, gold and bronze, under a sky of brilliant Chinese blue-green that appeared painted with an enormous flat brush against a high and arching dome. The few white clouds in it were white and carved and still, their edges outlined in sharp light. The river, a shining jade green, translucent and soft, lapped the grassy banks gently, on all sides. The Island, itself, was all flat wooded land, burning with color in this early November. Winter had been delayed. The land was basking in a golden Indian summer, and the mild air, soft and scented with woodsmoke, was filled with a dreamlike haze in which the far reaches of the river were lost and only its murmuring voice was heard. Dreamlike, too, was the enveloping peace. The autumn sun possessed a gentle warmth, though the light wind was cool and fresh. Sometimes the haze lifted a little, so that the streaked jade waters could be seen running swiftly towards the Falls. The American shore, on the left, the Canadian shore on the right, were only soft green-and-scarlet blurs beyond the waters that enveloped the Island.

  The trees rustled faintly, with a dry sound, and now and then an amber or crimson leaf floated through the air. In the thick brush and thickets and woods, rabbits and squirrels scampered through the heaps of vivid leaves already fallen. Horse-chestnuts lay in the high and fading grass, moist and brightly brown in their open green shells. Red flowering vines climbed over stones, and little yellow wild-flowers grew in warm spots. The robins and other summer birds had incontinently flown, but gulls with glittering wings swept over the river and the banks, and uttered their melancholy cries, and sparrows were still brisk in the blazing trees. Sometimes, carried a long distance by the wind and water, one could hear the long whistle of the little ferry-boat, and hear its minute chugging.

  Sam Berkowitz and Father Houlihan were walking on the Island this late Sabbath afternoon. They walked alone. The Island was quite large. Once or twice they saw the gray clapboards of a lonely farmhouse, heard a distant dog, or the rumbling of a wooden cart. But even these were lost as they plunged into the woods and came out on the north side of the Island where there was nothing to be seen or heard but the Canadian shore and the jade river. Here, on a small knoll, they sat down.

  There was a deep understanding between these two friends that needed few words. Both might love Stuart with a paternal passion, and yearn to protect him. But for each other they cherished a long, compassionate and complete friendship, as equals, as men.

  The priest removed his flat black hat and began to fan himself with it, for his girth had not decreased with the years. Also, his bunions hurt him. He rubbed them frankly, and frowned at his dusty boots. His great bald head glimmered in the reflected light under the trees. His big pink face was beaded with sweat. But there was a look of peace and meditation in his strenuous blue eyes.

  Sam, in dusty brown, stretched out his long lean legs, and lay back on his propped elbows. His seamed gaunt face was tired and very quiet. His white hair lifted in the sweet breeze. A squirrel ran near their feet, carrying a bright chestnut in his mouth. He paused to look with wild and glancing eyes at the two men under the trees.

  “It’s four o’clock,” said Father Houlihan, examining his huge silver watch. “How long will the boatman wait for us?”

  “Until five, Father.”

  “Yes. Yes. Of course. In the meantime, we have nearly an hour.” He sighed with peace. “It is very pleasant here.”

  And then he was sad. He glanced sideways, quickly, at Sam, who remained silent. Sam looked at the water. He sat up and plucked a few blades of grass, absently. He and Father Houlihan often walked here on the Island, full of plans for the things about which they would talk. But they never talked much, orally. However, their minds exchanged profound conversations, and they invariably left the Island refreshed and further confirmed in their affection and joy in each other.

  But today Father Houlihan was very sad. He wanted to speak to Sam, and fumbled in his mind for words. But he had no words, and as he possessed great delicacy, he hesitated to speak of what was in his sore and s
imple heart.

  So he looked out over the river, pursing his wide red lips, and praying a little. Sometimes he glanced furtively at his friend, on whose tired face there was a large resignation and despondency. Father Houlihan sighed, over and over, wrinkling his eyes, struggling in himself, praying to his favorite saint for the proper phrases in which to comfort the other man, who had not spoken, or told of the enormous trouble in himself.

  Then the priest cleared his throat, and said casually: “Of the Old Testament, the Psalms are my favorite.”

  Sam looked at him courteously, but with abstraction. There was no interest in his eyes.

  The priest clasped his hands on his knees and looked thoughtfully at the river that shone and sparkled with emerald lights. “There is one Psalm that always makes me think of you, Sam.”

  “Yes?”

  The priest smiled, with a shy and childlike look, almost pleading. “Do you mind if I repeat it? Of course, it is very familiar to you.

  “‘Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill?

  “‘He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart.

  “‘He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbor, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor.

  “‘In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoreth them that fear the Lord. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.

  “‘He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved.’”

  He repeated the majestic words slowly, with deep and subdued passion, and his voice was like a gentle prayer. At the end, his eyes were dazzled with moisture. He put out his warm hand and touched Sam on the shoulder.

  Sam’s face was unreadable. He did not look at the priest. He stared somberly at the river. Then, very wearily, he smiled. “That is so good of you, Father. But it is not true. There is no man like that, nowhere in the world. Except you.”