The Wide House

by Taylor Caldwell

  “You come to a mad, unfounded and melodramatic conclusion. You race off to kill my client, on the alleged dying statement of a brutally beaten man, who had no real justification for his accusation. My client forgives you, for the sake of his daughter, your wife.”

  He paused. The priest had risen. His eyes were fiery. “Sir,” he said in a trembling voice, “you are condoning murder! You would have Mr. Coleman condone it, be an accessory to it.”

  Robbie eyed the priest with displeasure. “Father Houlihan,” he said sharply, “please do not be so quixotic. Surely you are not insensible to the reasonable arguments of Mr. Simon.”

  Mr. Simon raised his hand benignly. “Mr.—er—Houlihan is obviously emotionally involved with Mr. Coleman. We will let that pass, too.”

  He took a step towards Stuart, who had been listening with black stupefaction. His voice dropped, lost its pleasantness.

  “Mr. Coleman, there is another phase of this which I shall now bring up. I ask you to consider it. In your first incoherent statements to the police, you said that you had forgotten some keys which Mr. Berkowitz had asked you to take from him. Incidentally, those keys were not found on his person. You said that you returned, some ten minutes after leaving Mr. Berkowitz, and found him dying. The neighbors admit they heard nothing until you called for help, and they found Mr. Berkowitz in your arms. You told them he had been murdered. No one heard him speak again, before he died. You, Mr. Coleman,” and the lawyer pointed a merciless finger at the aghast man, “found Mr. Berkowitz dying. You were covered with his blood. And, Mr. Coleman, it has been discovered that you owe Mr. Berkowitz fourteen thousand dollars, interest on which you have never paid.”

  “Blessed Mother!” exclaimed Father Houlihan, turning as white as death. “You are not accusing Mr. Coleman of killing his friend?”

  Mr. Simon smiled. He was quite grim. “I am accusing Mr. Coleman of nothing but indiscretion and foolhardiness and obdurate blindness. I am merely pointing out to him that matters can be made very disagreeable for him, and will be made very disagreeable, if he insists upon a trial, and makes his unfounded and ridiculous accusations in Court.”

  The priest, shaking violently, turned to Robbie. “Robbie, you condone this? You approve of this?”

  Robbie regarded him coldly. “Father, I have no alternative. You have heard the facts. Allstairs will eventually be exonerated, even if Stuart persists in his folly. But Stuart will not be exonerated. He will be sentenced to a long term in prison. At the worst, he will be accused of murder. The facts are all against him. I beg you, if you are truly his friend, to persuade him to listen to reason.”

  He stood up. He glanced at his watch. “We must leave now. In an hour, we shall return. I hope, I sincerely hope, that you will have convinced him.”

  He hesitated. He looked at Stuart with grim bitterness. Stuart sat as if stunned, his hands hanging slackly between his knees, his features working and twisting. Then Robbie drew a deep breath.

  “I must ask Stuart to consider another thing. All dirty linen will be brought into public view. The people will have a Roman holiday. Quite irrelevant matters will be dragged out. Innocent people will suffer, such as Marvina and little Mary Rose, Stuart’s wife and daughter. And, very possibly, quite probably, my sister, Laurie.”

  At this, Stuart started vehemently. His eyes were no longer blind. He lifted them to Robbie, and they were filled with fierce fire. Robbie nodded. “Yes, Stuart. Every effort will be made to blacken you, to fasten your guilt in the minds of the jury. I am a lawyer, and I know. Your character will be made to appear utterly shameless. They will stop at nothing. And, if you have not, I do have some regard for my sister. I beg you also to have a little for her. She is young, and her life is before her. It is in your hands to wreck it irretrievably. And for no other fault but that she loves you.” He took Mr. Simon’s arm, and repeated, without looking back: “We shall return in an hour.”

  The turnkey opened the door, and they left the cell.

  The priest and Stuart were alone. They stared at each other for a long time. The priest slowly sank upon his stool. Across the little space, they could only regard each other in a terrible and bitter silence.

  At last the priest said, in a hoarse tone: “Stuart, we are undone by the powers of evil.”

  Stuart came to life, maddened. He beat his fists impotently on his knees. But he made no other sound. The priest could hear that drumming, and it seemed to him that those fists beat on his aching heart.

  He said: “We have no other refuge, no other court, but God. In that refuge, and in that court, we must rest our case. We, ourselves, can do nothing.”

  CHAPTER 67

  They stood by the month-old grave of Sam Berkowitz. The quiet cemetery was full of gentle sunlight, tawny, torn in the scarlet, green and golden foliage of autumn, lying in pale yellow shreds on thick, sweet-smelling grass, sparkling on gravelled paths, flooding the brilliant turquoise of the warm sky. Birds were singing their autumnal farewells in the trees, throwing arrow-like shadows of their winging selves over the basking earth. The wind had a melancholy singing voice as it lifted, and blew, the curled crimson and gold of falling leaves through the shining air. But there was no other sound. The mounded graves lay peacefully under the sides, under the shadows of cypresses and burning maples and dark firs. Here and there sunlight struck a pure white shaft, or glanced away from the simple bare face of a low stone, turning it white as snow.

  The priest was murmuring in a trembling voice:

  “‘The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places; how are the mighty fallen!’”

  His voice broke; he bowed his head; his eyes were brimmed with tears. Stuart stood beside him with a dark face grooved and bitter with pain, and hopeless misery. He looked down at Sam’s grave, brown and clodded in the radiant sunshine, and the blackness in him, the hatred, the despair, was like a lightless tide upon which no moon would ever shine. He moved restlessly, as though he would cry out against the priest and his mournful and tender words, and he clenched his fists as Father Houlihan resumed, as if in meditation:

  “‘Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives,

  And in their death they were not divided:

  … O Jonathan, thou wast slain in thine high places.

  I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan:

  Very pleasant hast thou been unto me:

  Thy love to me was wonderful,

  Passing the love of women—’”

  Father Houlihan had become an old man, dwindled and bent with suffering and grief, his face bearing on it resignation and bewilderment. The younger man saw his tears, his trembling clasped hands. The grave was covered with clods, but over them, almost covering them, Father Houlihan had laid the last of his garden roses, crimson, white and yellow, exhaling a swooning breath on the pungent air.

  Pray, mourn over him, thought Stuart, vengefully, but I have not done yet I will find a way.

  The priest was silent for a while, as he wept. And then, slowly, he lifted his eyes to the sky. He murmured again:

  “‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,

  From whence cometh my help.

  My help cometh from the Lord,

  Which made heaven and earth.

  He will not suffer thy foot to be moved:

  He that keepeth thee will not slumber.

  Behold, he that keepeth Israel

  Shall neither slumber nor sleep.

  The Lord is thy keeper;’

  The Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.

  The sun shall not smite thee by day,

  Nor the moon by night.

  The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil:

  He shall preserve thy soul.

  The Lord shall preserve thy going out, and thy coming in,

  From this time forth, and even for evermore.’”

  The Lord shall preserve thee! thought Stuart, with passionate scorn and desolation. But the Lord did not preserve Sam. He had let
him die, brutally, alone, an innocent man. The Lord had punished him because he had had a dream of mercy and love. Vile men had killed him for no other reason than that he had been a good man. Stuart, unable to control himself, walked away to a group of trees and sat down on a white bench under them. The very light about him, the very peace, the very soft and gentle color, enhanced his agony, so that every object was outlined as if with a livid pencil. Sam! Sam! Where are you, Sam? But you are nowhere, except under those clods. There is nothing left of you.

  There was only one certainty, and that was death. All the dreams and loves and hopes of men came to this final place, and there was nothing left of them; at the last, there was not even memory. Sam’s dream lay with him there, unfulfilled, never to be realized, a jewel encased in clay which would never be found again.

  A sick and heavy lassitude crept over Stuart. He thought as he had never thought before in his life, and his thoughts brought him nothing but torture and despair. All desire had left him. Sam is dead, but I am dead, too, he said to himself. All at once he envied his friend, who did not carry this burning stone in his chest.

  Father Houlihan wiped his eyes, and looked about him. He saw Stuart under the trees, staring before him fixedly. The priest sighed. Sam was at rest, but this poor man was in hell. He went to his friend and sat down beside him. He began to speak, softly, as if meditating aloud:

  “Do not think that he is dead, Stuart. He is more alive than we. I know this, not by faith, but with an inner conviction. Do not think his dream died with his body. The dream of liberation and love and security and peace is a lantern which is handed to the living by the dead, and which goes down the ages forever, glimmering, fainting, blazing out, dimmed, hidden by rocks and the shoulders of mountains, by the shadow of black trees, by fogs and storms—but never extinguished, never broken upon the ground. For the light of God is in the lantern, and who can ash it out? Sam knew this; he knows it even better now. Do not think his work is done. He has only gone to a larger place, where he will labor endlessly, and joyously, with countless others, to fulfil his dream.”

  He looked at the deepening sky, and smiled tremulously. “Work, Sam. Pray, Sam. We will pray with you, giving you our faint and uncertain prayers, our feeble hopes. We will watch with you, guarding the little light you gave us. We, will not forget. Do not forget us, Sam. Be with us when our faith becomes weak, and our eyes are blinded with despair. Do not forget us. Be with us, for we loved you.”

  Stuart’s mouth twisted darkly. He pointed to Sam’s grave. “There he lies, and in your heart you know he is there, and nowhere else. In spite of your pious mumbo-jumbo.”

  “No,” said the priest, quietly and firmly, his clasped hands tightening on his knees. “He is not there. He is with us, all about us. Can’t you feel him, Stuart? When I spoke over his grave, I saw him so clearly, but so much younger and stronger, and with such peace in his eyes. I could even hear his voice. He prayed with me.”

  Stuart began to speak, and then was silent. A faint shiver ran over him. He said, loudly: “You may feel as you say, but I feel that he is completely dead. I have never doubted it.” He added, in a hurried voice: “I hope he is dead. That is the only peace he could have, for if he remembered at all, he could not endure it.”

  When the priest did not answer, Stuart continued: “I have a much better way than murmuring maudlin pravers over a grave. I, at least, haven’t forgotten. Look at this,” and he thrust a handbill into Father Houlihan’s hand.

  The priest read: “Ten thousand dollars reward for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of the murderers of one Samuel Berkowitz, who was killed in Grandeville, N.Y. on September the 18th, 1863. Signed, Stuart Coleman, River Road, Grandeville.”

  “I have had five thousand of these printed, and there will be more. They will be broadcast all over the State, and into Pennsylvania and Ohio. This same advertisement will be published in twenty newspapers in the larger cities. I, too, have a ‘conviction.’ I believe I shall get results.”

  The priest said: “Ten thousand dollars. Who can resist ten thousand dollars? Yes, Stuart, I know you will get results.” His dimmed blue eyes suddenly sparkled with fervor. “Yes, yes! You will get results, God grant!”

  Stuart smiled bleakly. “At first, when Sam’s will was read, and I knew that he had left me this money: ‘If I have died before the purchase of River Island, ten thousand dollars is to be paid to my dear friend, Stuart Coleman,’ I thought of carrying out Sam’s plan for the Island. But, as you know, it was sold immediately to that viper, Allstairs.” Stuart’s fist clenched murderously. “They lost no time in closing the transaction. So, it was no use. I couldn’t take that money. I have laid it aside to be paid when I have information about Sam’s murderers.”

  And badly as you, yourself, needed that money, thought Father Houlihan. He laid his hand on Stuart’s arm. “Good, good,” he said. “Yes, you will get results.”

  He continued, gently: “It was good of Sam to leave both of us his shares in the shops, equally divided. God bless you, Sam. Stuart, Sam knew that we needed an extension to the hospital. I shall use the income from my shares to build a new operating room, and to pay the salary of an expert surgeon from New York. I have thought of a young man whom Sam knew well, a Dr. Israel Goodman. I have already written to him.”

  Stuart smiled grimly. But he held back the words: “Don’t count too much on the ‘income.’ There may not be any, soon.”

  They were silent again, looking at Sam’s grave.

  Then at last Father Houlihan said gently: “There are always periods of unreason, cruelty and intolerance in mankind, as if a madness had seized on the race of men. These things are like storms, blowing up from the bottomless pits of hell, and spreading over the world. In each generation, these storms come, devastating, devouring, burning, laying waste. But after they pass, God and men remain, wounded and gasping and bleeding, but still with faith, still with hope. Nothing can destroy the dream of God, a dream of eternal peace and love and work and brotherhood upon the world. We must know this. We must understand this. ‘I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: My God; in him will I trust.—His truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.’ Stuart, Sam was a soldier in the Armies of the Lord. He fell in battle, yes. But he did not fight in vain. His dream, the dream of all good men, goes marching on, triumphant. Some day it will be fulfilled upon the earth, and the whole world will be a shelter and a refuge, filled with understanding and brotherhood.”

  “I only know that Sam is dead,” said Stuart, in a hard and stony voice.

  “I only know that Sam is living,” said the priest, with gentle surety.

  They walked slowly together to the gates of the cemetery. They passed mourners kneeling and weeping at graves, and the priest raised his hand in tender benediction as he walked by them. Some of them looked after him with tear-dimmed eyes.

  They turned for a last look at Sam’s grave, a mound in the distance, covered with roses, slumbering in the last sunlight.

  Again the priest raised his hand, and said, softly:

  “‘The Lord bless thee and keep thee:

  The Lord make his face shine upon thee,

  And be gracious unto thee:

  The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee,

  And give thee peace.’”

  But Stuart said aloud, with hatred: “I won’t forget, Sam. I will find them. What justice could not do, ten thousand dollars will do!”

  CHAPTER 68

  As man is prone, in his anthropomorphic egotism, to believe that nature, herself, partakes of his racial cataclysms, and surges with his own passions, and that the very “signs” of heaven are concerned with him, so did the inhabitants of the North country dimly suspect that the terrible rigors of the winter of 1863-64 were in some way a manifestation of the
forces of nature convulsed by man’s own convulsions.

  At any rate, it was the opinion of the people that “never had there been such an awful winter.” Uneasy, alarmed, bereft, often hungry, always deprived, terrified at the prospects of an unending war which would drain them of sons, money, property and security, the common comforts and decencies of life, they looked out on a winter which in gloom, sunlessness, snow and desolation was an extension of their own misery and darkness of soul.

  Coal was “short,” food was becoming scarce, the shops were almost empty of materials, oil for lamps was low, money had mysteriously “tightened,” and always, always, the young men marched away in their sturdy blue and were not seen again. But the hospital which Stuart had built was now filled with the wounded and the dying, and the nuns worked with pale exhausted faces, tender hands, and uncomplaining voices. The sullen restlessness of hatred and revolt had overcome the apathy of the people. They hated the President, many of them, cursed him for the war which had brought this suffering upon them. But they hated the South more, for being the cause of the war. In the universal hatred, then, the issues of the war were forgotten, and the people settled down to somber endurance of suffering, of privation and hopelessness. The survival of the Union, the Emancipation Proclamation, the suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus, the new huge taxes, the draft, were regarded by them with heavy apathy.

  “Unless we can fuse together these many alien minds and hearts,” said Mayor Cummings to Robbie Cauder on one melancholy evening, “unless we can remove from their consciousness the memories of Europe and the adherence to foreign tongues and ways, the Republic will again, and again, in future years, be in mortal danger. We must make them understand, by a method which is beyond my knowledge now, that America is a new race composed of all races, one people, and that any foreign allegiance whatsoever is not only traitorous, but means dissolution of the very nation, itself, and the end of a long dream.”