The Wide House

by Taylor Caldwell

They looked unwaveringly at each other for several long minutes. Laurie saw how shaken he was, how frantic, and how tormented. She sighed, inwardly, then with extreme gentleness she bent forward and kissed his drawn cheek. “Very well, Stuart, I shall not speak of it again, if you wish. I am sorry you will not let me keep my own pride, my darling. It did seem to me, however, that in this emergency you might have allowed me to return to you the money which is rightfully yours.”

  She tried to cajole him back to his former mood, but she had wounded him in some inexplicable way, and though he was all gentleness and affection as they resumed their walk by the river he was unusually taciturn and abstracted. She said at last: “Whatever I have done, Stuart, has been because you have desired it for me, not because of any desire of mine. I was a lethargic lump of a girl, all indifference and laziness. But when you spoke of my ‘future,’ I could see that such a future would make you proud of me. It was all for your sake.”

  His lacerated egotism was artlessly pleased at this, and he pressed the hand on his arm with awakening tenderness. He said: “But what am I, compared with you, my dearest love?” He awaited eagerly for her answer. She leaned her cheek against his for a moment, and said: “But without you, I should be nothing.”

  He began to speak to her of his anxieties, and she listened with the deepest and most intense sympathy and interest. Two weeks ago Father Houlihan, returning late at night from a sick call, had been set upon in the darkness by certain ruffians who had beaten him badly, had insulted him and called him the foulest names. Two nuns on their way to Mass last Sunday had been vilely accosted by two young men, and subjected to hideous advances in a spirit of obscene mockery. Another window had been broken in the church, and upon the door of the convent had been scrawled lascivious and unspeakable words. For very fear, many worshippers had been kept from their Sunday devotions, and Catholic children, returning home from school, had been accosted and threatened. Sam Berkowitz and the other one hundred Jews in Grandeville had been threatened with physical violence, and tarring and feathering. Nor did the foreign settlement escape. The “anti-alien” feeling was growing dangerously.

  “And we are in the very midst of a death-struggle for the preservation of the Republic!” exclaimed Stuart, with furious bitterness and despair. “There is a pattern here which is ominous and significant, if it could be detected.”

  Laurie tried to soothe him, though she felt no personal concern. “But I understand that Grandeville has given over 14,000 men to the Union Army, Stuart. That does not argue well for what you are hinting, of a nation-wide plot.”

  “But there is a plot, Laurie! Grandeville is not alone in this. The feeling against ‘foreigners’ is sweeping the country, South and North alike. So sinister has it become that the President, himself, addressed Congress on the subject. What is behind it? Why did it break out at this time? And, curse it, who is competent to judge what is ‘alien’ in the country, and deleterious, and what is not? Are we not all of us, foreign-born or native-born, aliens in this country? Are we not all the children of Europeans? They speak of this as a ‘new’ country. It is not. The land is new, perhaps, but the people who inhabit it are only extensions and descendents of old European strains. Americans did not spring from the soil of America, new-born, newly created, and of a new race. The land is new. But the people are old. They are tied forever to their European forebears by racial cords. But their minds ought not to be tied. We must realize that though Americans are a European people of a hundred races, we have a different destiny together, and we must be one people, whatever our blood.”

  He was much stirred. He continued impetuously: “We must have no allegiance to any potentate or prince, or to any nation, but America! The moment we call ourselves ‘English’ or ‘Irish’ or ‘German’ or God knows what, that moment we no longer are Americans. We are aliens, even if our ancestors dwelt in America for two hundred years! We have no place in America. We are Americans only, or we are not Americans at all. For nearly a hundred years the people have understood this. Now they are forgetting. Some evil men, somewhere, are whispering of old loyalties, old treacheries, old tyrannies, old oppressions and hatreds, and they have only one purpose: the destruction of the Republic and the death of America.”

  She had never seern him stirred like this, so stern, so exalted, and so passionate. She marvelled at him, and was mute. She thought to herself: But America has never meant anything to me. No other country has, either. I am just a human being.

  He was speaking again, with anger: “Do you know what the Germans in this city have been doing, Laurie? They have actually told their men that if they enlisted in the Army, they would find themselves destitute and unemployed after the war! Oh, they have been very circumspect and discreet in their treachery and disloyalty! They have used brutal hints. So many men who would naturally have enlisted have refrained out of fear for their families. However, the draft has begun. The draft! Is it not a horrible thing this country, conceived in the blood of resolute, and martyred men, nourished by their hearts and their ideals, blessed by their prayers and their faith, must resort to a draft to fill the ranks of an Army which ought to have been filled three times over by devoted men? To such a pass has America come, that not even this mortal threat to her very existence can stir the sluggish pulse and the dead souls of her people. If I did not love her so much I would say: ‘Let her die, and let these swine die in her death!’”

  She was ashamed, and alarmed. She looked at the river, the earth at her feet This was America. She had never known it before, nor cared to know it. There was a quickening in her blood, a flush on her face.

  “I have tried to enlist,” said Stuart bitterly. “But they would not take me. I might have had a commission, but they said my health was precarious. My God! I am a healthy man, full-blooded and strong. It is true I have gout, and a rumbling heart, but my resolution would overcome them, I know.”

  He looked at her. “Your brothers: have they spoken of joining the Army?”

  Laurie gave him a twisted smile. “They have all bought alternates, I think.”

  Stuart groaned in his huge contempt and disgust. “Alternates! Pay a desperate man money to die in your stead, while you fatten on the profits of war! Buy your safety with his life, so that you may continue to lie in a soft bed and breed weaklings, cowards and traitors like yourself!”

  Laurie frowned a little. She had very little family loyalty, but the tone of Stuart’s voice and words offended her. One did not like to realize that one was related to “weaklings, cowards and traitors.” She said: “Perhaps you are not aware of all the circumstances, Stuart.”

  “Circumstances! There is only one circumstance, and that is the danger to the Republic. There is nothing else.”

  They walked back towards the house. The mauve twilight, drained and misty, had settled over the river and the earth.

  Stuart, with his subtle intuition, felt that Laurie had become cold and distrait. He was filled with compunction, though his unsteady heart was paining him enormous. On the path that led to the house he put his arms about her and embraced her with sad ardor. “Have I offended you, my love?”

  She hesitated. Offended her? How could he offend her? The loved one could never offend beyond forgiveness and forgetting. She seized his sleeves and pressed herself to him passionately.

  “Offend me? How could you? There is nothing you could do, Stuart, that I could not forgive, or forget, or understand.”

  CHAPTER 60

  Mayor Cummings sat with Robbie Cauder over their after-dinner glass of port.

  They were very fond of each other, and it was this fondness that had made Robbie consent to occupy the second floor of the pretty mansion on Delaware Avenue. The Mayor felt that he had indeed acquired a son in this small, neat, black-eyed and subtle Scotsman, who, though so reticent and reserved, had a kind of wholeness and ironic integrity which pleased his father-in-law. Robbie had become the Mayor’s complete confidant, and the older man found it inexpressibly relie
ving to discuss with him his troubles and tribulations of office.

  The Mayor was discussing the powerful upper clique of Grandeville, and it was evident that he did not like them. “They have consistently opposed the coming of various manufactories into the city,” he said. “Look at Detroit, Chicago. How fast they are growing, and how progressive they are! But not so with Grandeville, apparently. It is growing reluctantly, but only reluctantly. We have a pack of old fuddy-duddies here, who like dirty cobbled streets, ugly houses and dank lawns, and what they call ‘peace.’ They live in an orbit of their own. The ‘masses,’ as they call them, do not exist in their elegant consciousness.”

  The Mayor smiled wryly. “In a feudal society, which these grand ladies and gentlemen who are the offspring of sausage-makers, slaughter-house owners and tanners would adore, the clique could operate with safety. But we have no knouts here, no fawning police, no subduing clergy, no Praetorian guard or military caste, which would keep the people oppressed and silent. We have a republican society, and fools who isolate themselves from the growth of a republic, or of a city, are in danger of losing not only their properties, but their lives. They stagnate a city; they destroy its potentialities. In a republic, a people must grow or they will die. Dozens of manufactories could come to Grandeville, but the simpering sons of the abattoirs and stinking tanneries say: ‘Oh, no! Let us keep dear Grandeville as it was when we were children!’ So industry moves westward, to the smug pleasure of Detroit and Chicago.”

  The little rotund Mayor puffed impatiently at his cheroot. “I might forgive them if they had an authentic aristocratic tradition. Their souls smell of the tanneries and the offal heaps. I could laugh at them, but when I see that Grandeville could become the gateway to the West, a vast industrial center of prosperity and hope, then I do not laugh at all. I despise them, and their pretensions.”

  He stood up, put his fat little hands under his coat-tails, and walked up and down the pleasant dining-room, from which the ladies had retired. “More than all this, I am worried over the situations they are creating. It is true that anti-Catholic and anti-‘foreigner’ riots are rampant over the country. But they are especially bad in Grandeville. Why? Because, perhaps, the people hatingly resent the fact that they are despised and ostracized, that their opportunities are limited, the situation hopeless. It is in the nature of humanity to hate something, always. But instead of hating the injustices and tragedies which have caused this war, and the men who have profited by these things, they must hate something more immediate. A man cannot harbor abstract hatred, though he ought to try to for the good of his soul. He cannot hate cruelties to other men, and intolerances, though again, he ought to try. He cannot be a full human being unless he possesses this salutary hatred. But it is easier for him to hate his neighbor, and oppress him, particularly if that neighbor is weaker and more defenseless than himself.”

  The Mayor sat down and frowned anxiously at Robbie. “I’m worried, for instance, about old Houlihan, to come back to immediate matters. He was forced to come to me for protection. Last month he delivered a fervid sermon to his congregation on the subject of passionate patriotism. America, he said, has grown upon the bones of devoted and dedicated men, and has been nourished by their blood and their faith. She is deserving of every heart-beat of every man, of every hand, and every soul. If her children desert her, then she must die, and the guilt will be upon us all. He urged every man in his congregation not to wait for the draft, but to enlist at once. He castigated the devourers and the traitors, the evaders and the indifferent. He spoke of the draft riots in New York, and declared that they were a shame and a crime before the face of God. A crime against America, he said, was a crime against all humanity, for in America was the hope of the world. Who betrayed America betrayed all the martyrs throughout the ages.

  “Oh, apparently it was a passionate sermon! So passionate, so fervid, that he was met on a dark street one night and again severely beaten. By whom? By those who hate America, of course. Ruffians hired by our Schnitzels and our Schnickelburgers and our Zimmermanns, who hate liberty and tolerance and justice, who hate the common man and his hope for life and dignity. Scoundrels armed by our Kents, our Hamiltons, our Brewsters, and all the ‘aristocratic’ clique who wish to acquire property and serfs to cultivate and extend that property. To me, the worst of all is that these very ruffians and scoundrels are the oppressed, themselves!”

  He resumed: “When a man speaks of preserving America for Americans, he means preserving America for his private exploitation and greed and hatred.”

  “Poor old Father Houlihan,” said Robbie. “There’s a firebrand for you. Frankly, I’ve never given much thought to America. But when one meets such a rip-roaring and bellicose patriot it makes one stop and think. He has courage, too. Can you extend any protection to him?”

  “I’ve tried. But there are forces here that frighten me. I’m not liked, you know, Robbie, though I’ve managed to be reelected frequently,” and he smiled.

  He went on: “The poor old priest is getting himself thoroughly hated not only by those he attacks, but even by those he defends! It is the history of martyrs, but it never fails to surprise and stun me by its very colossal stupidity and incredible blindness. I understand that some of his wealthier parisioners have even gone to the bishop with a demand that he be removed. The wealthier parishioners prefer that cold white stick of a Billingsley, who has a proper regard for the vested interests. So far as Father Houlihan is concerned, bless his naïve soul, the vested interests consist of God and the people, an error for which he has paid, and will continue to pay.”

  The Mayor sighed. “If I didn’t have some conscience, and some admiration for hot-headed innocents like Father Houlihand, I could be a happy man,” he said ruefully.

  The July night was hot and sultry. Sheets of heat lightning lit up the western horizon against which trees restlessly swayed their black plumes in uneasy and disordered rhythm.

  The Mayor said, as he stood before a long french window and breathed deeply of the freshening wind: “And there’s Stuart. I’m worried about Stuart. Things are getting bad in the country. The sudden prosperity is subsiding. The people are beginning to look wan and peaked. It was bad enough for Stuart when the shops were crowded. I’m afraid it is much worse, now that the whole national economy is tightening as the war proceeds.”

  “Perhaps it will soon be over—the war,” said Robbie, watching his father-in-law with affection. The old man, himself, was looking “wan and peaked” these days. What a thing it was to have a conscience. Apparently the little “voice of God” was a disquieting thing to possess, and made for unhappiness and spiritual torment “The war can’t go on much longer, Father. We’ve captured Vicksburg, and the South must see that the whole thing is hopeless, now. We’ve got Port Hudson, and as Mr. Lincoln says: ‘The Confederacy is cut in twain. The Father of Waters now rolls unvexed to the sea.’”

  He added: “Don’t worry about Stuart. He is always saved in the nick of time, both from himself and from bankruptcy.”

  The Mayor hesitated. He peeped at Robbie over his spectacles. He rubbed his chin. He said: “By the way, how is Laurie coming along these days?”

  “She is knee-deep in rehearsals. She opens the Astor Place Opera House in November with an opera called Tannhaiiser, I believe. Written by some impossible old German, Wagner. She sent us some New York newspapers, and New York is purported to be very excited over it. We may go down to New York to hear her, though it is such a distance and not to be undertaken lightly.”

  He watched the Mayor closely, for the old man was palpably uneasy. He coughed a little.

  “Laurie will go far,” said Mr. Cummings. “What a sensation she made in Grandeville! They are still discussing it, with venom. Laurie violated all conventions about females when she demonstrated what a voice she has. Her ways, too, are very brusque.”

  He was still uneasy. Robbie watched him with sudden wariness. But the old man did not speak again, but on
ly eyed his son-in-law with apologetic anxiety.

  “Laurie,” said Robbie, “will always do the thing good for Laurie. You can depend on that.”

  The Mayor stopped a gaze at some wax fruit and flowers under a glass dome. They were excellently done, but he had seen them often, too often to be absorbed in them now with such concentration. He rubbed a blunt forefinger over the shining glass. Finally he said: “Where is Stuart these days, Robbie? In New York?”

  Robbie’s eyes narrowed. He replied casually: “Yes. I believe he is. There is some chance that an English shipment-will be coming in for him.”

  The Mayor was silent. Then Robbie said smoothly: “You mean, do you not, Father, that there is some talk about Stuart and Laurie?”

  The old man actually blushed. He wiped his forehead, rubbed his kerchief between his stock and his wrinkled neck. Then he said frankly: “Yes, Robbie. I do mean that. Oh, please don’t misunderstand me! I know there is nothing-wrong. But people are talking that they were seen together too frequently, alone, near the river, when she was here, and that one day, the day before she left, they drove together down to Niagara Falls, and spent the night at the Cataract House. That is a canard, a vile canard! I know that, and I’ve combated the scandal as well as I could. I said that if this were so, her mother accompanied her.”

  Robbie smiled behind his hand. “Laurie is beyond scandal,” he remarked. “Unfortunately Grandeville doesn’t concede that, being so provincial. After all, too, Stuart has been like a father to us.” The Mayor did not see Robbie’s cynical smile. “He is our mother’s cousin, and without him Laurie could have accomplished nothing. He gave Angus his position, and worked to have me elected judge. He has devoted much time to Bertie, too. However, people will talk.”

  The Mayor swallowed. “Yes. Yes, of course. But—but friends of people here have written from New York that Stuart is seen everywhere in that city with Laurie, and that they appear quite—quite loverlike. New York is charmed, they say. But Grandeville isn’t charmed, unfortunately. Stuart must live here. He has his wife and child here, and his business. It might be—unpleasant for him.”