The Sound of Thunder

by Taylor Caldwell

  “Without your family being present at all?”

  “Why should they be?”

  Margaret had a few answers to this, but she was now so bemused and enthralled and joyous that the answers immediately seemed foolish.

  She was occupying the very same suite that Maggie McNulty and Mary Garrity had occupied, and it was in the little brown parlor that she received David when he came to get his answer the next night. He entered the room, and again she was struck with admiration for his elegance, poise, and grace. Yet, at the same time, he appeared too tenuous to her, in comparison with Edward, too polished, too without virility. And she resented his fine clothing, his jeweled cuff links, the pearl-and-diamond pin in his excellent tie, his narrow handmade boots. These Edward denied for himself, in order that his family might have luxuries, she thought, bitterly.

  David, the extremely sensitive, felt this elusiveness, this withdrawal. He was bewildered, and his spirits sank and his whole impressionable nature was disturbed. He took Margaret’s hand and felt its unresponsiveness. She had never seemed so beautiful and so desirable to him, and he had come to her for the warmth and gentleness and sympathy he remembered and which had alleviated the awful loneliness which he always suffered. Yet now her eyes were half averted, her coral lips set, her manner distant. She’s decided not to marry me, thought David, and he was overwhelmed with sorrow and despair.

  “Do sit down, David,” she said. “I’ve ordered tea.”

  David sat down. He had come in smiling with that half-shy, half-haughty eagerness of his which had originally attracted and moved her. Now he was looking at her, she saw, with pleading concentration. The taut skin over his fine cheekbones had become very pale under its darkness. In turn, he was apprehensively studying her tender mouth and her lovely coloring and the gleam of blue under her gilt lashes. A soft spring rain was falling outside, and the scent of living fragrance blew in through the opened windows, and it seemed to David that that fragrance was part of this girl he loved. He said to himself, Why, I’ve never loved anyone before. He wanted to stop the words he dreaded to hear from her, and so in pathetic haste he said, “I’ve been thinking of you every minute, Margaret, and counting the time until I could see you again.”

  She was touched, and vexed with herself that she was touched. She began, “David.” He broke in, “I’ve told my parents about you. I have a note here from my mother, asking you to have dinner with us tomorrow night. Margaret, will you come?”

  She suddenly blushed. The pink tide rose from her throat and covered her face. She stammered, “What did you tell your family about me?”

  “That I loved you and wanted to marry you,” he replied, and moved to the edge of his chair as if to get up. She looked fully at him now, in distress. “Do you mind? Was I too hasty?”

  But Margaret was preoccupied with her rapid thoughts. “You say your family, David. You mean, just your parents know?”

  “No. I told them all at dinner last night. My sister Sylvia, my brother Ed, and my parents.”

  Margaret looked down at the hands she had clenched together in her lap. She wore a dress of light blue silk lace and it moved agitatedly over her breast. She had never seemed so beautiful and so precious to the lonely David. “Your—sister—and your—brother—what did they say?” she asked faintly.

  She hadn’t protested, she hadn’t said no! Hope lifted again in David. “Well,” he said, with his reluctant half-laugh, “Sylvia’s been ill, as I told you, and it’s made her bitter and cynical. It must have been a nervous breakdown. She made some flippant remark and then apologized. You see, Sylvia and I have always had a lot in common and have understood each other. My father looked happy but uncertain. He was never very certain about anything as long as I remember. He’s always been overawed by Mother and her—pretensions. And then Ed had bullied him all his life. Mother? I’ve never understood my mother, except that she’s ambitious and has pride of family. She was interested; she asked me a number of questions about you. She—”

  The blush had intensified on Margaret’s face. She interrupted, “And your brother Ed. What did he say?”

  David frowned, trying to remember. His black eyes narrowed. “I don’t think he said anything, and that’s odd, for he always has an opinion and it’s usually dogmatic. He just looked at me as if he was very interested. Yes. And he smiled. Ed rarely smiles pleasantly. And this wasn’t one of the exceptions.”

  “And he didn’t say anything?”

  “No. Does it matter?”

  Margaret was silent. She swallowed against a lump of dry anger, and this anger was directed against Edward for the first time. He had had his opportunity, then, to speak for himself, but he had not spoken. She tried to control her emotions. After all, Edward probably had had some consideration for his brother, she told herself, struggling against her indignation. Yes, yes, that was it. She sighed in relief.

  “Does he know about your mother’s invitation to me, David?”

  “Yes. In fact, he did say something after I had finished telling the family about you, dear. It was the first and last remark he made.” David was all at once agreeably surprised. “To be perfectly truthful, it was Ed who suggested to Mother that she invite you tomorrow night.”

  “No!” cried Margaret, and she stood up in her agitation at this enormity and implied cruelty. She was struck with pain and confusion. How was it possible for a man to do this to his brother? Her eyes shimmered with tears. But of one thing she was sure: she would not meet Edward’s family the next night. No, not so soon!

  David rose, bewildered. “‘No,’ what, Margaret? Won’t you come?” He was full of dread and sorrow again. “I’d hoped you would. Ed said nothing about meeting you today, but he’s always so busy.”

  I never want to see Ed again! the girl thought passionately, gazing through her tears at David and feeling the hurt of compassion at her heart. But she knew she was lying to herself. She pressed her lips together, and again looked for an excuse for Edward, as she would look for excuses the rest of her life. He was a direct man. He wanted her to meet his parents. In some way he was planning to clear the situation between her and David once and for all. Yes, that must be it, there could be no other explanation! Yet how blunt he was, how impatient! She found herself smiling a little. He hoped, apparently, that she would play her part, too. But she did not know what her part was to be.

  “I’ll come, David,” she said.

  He smiled happily and his tired face shone. He took her hand and did not feel the slight resistance. Before he could speak she continued rapidly, “I’m sorry, though, that you made any—announcement—about—about us. I don’t know you well enough, David. You were awfully premature. I haven’t given you much encouragement, have I? You should have asked me first.”

  But David was certain now. Margaret was only showing a woman’s natural modesty and reticence. He waited until she sat down again, and he saw the soft silk mold itself around her body in exquisite lines. The lamplight glittered on her curling, light brown hair, and lay along the curve of her chin and cheek radiantly. Then he said, “Perhaps I did speak too fast, dear. But, you see, I can’t imagine living without you.”

  She turned her head quickly toward him. “David! You mustn’t say that!”

  Her color left her face, and the blueness of her eyes became intense with a return of her distress. “I never told you I’d marry you. We’ve been very good friends. I listened when you suggested marriage—”

  He was shaken again. “You didn’t refuse me, Margaret.” He looked into her eyes, bending over her to hold her attention. “You know you didn’t. You asked for time. Perhaps I haven’t given you enough time.” He wanted to touch her, to hold her, to kiss her, and the desire was almost more than he could endure. “It’s just that I haven’t given you enough time, isn’t it? That’s all it is, isn’t it, Margaret? You do like me, don’t you?” His voice broke.

  She was sick with her compassion and her guilt. She put out her hand impulsively and
rested it on the black broadcloth of his sleeve. She could feel the thinness of his bones and flesh under the material, and she bit her lip to keep from bursting out crying. “Yes, David, I do like you. I’ll always like you. But,” and she began to stammer, “I don’t think I love you, David. I don’t think I ever will.”

  He moved away from her slowly, and she saw his misery and anguish. He stood in profile to her, his head bent, his mouth drawn and pale and sunken. She wanted to console him, and cried out, “Don’t look like that, David! I’ll go and meet your parents tomorrow. I want to meet them. Oh, sit down, David. Let’s talk, at least, as we always did, as friends.”

  He turned quickly and saw the tears on her lashes, and he hoped again. “I’ve frightened you, dear, haven’t I? But I loved you from the very first time we met, in New York. I’ve been pretty wretched most of my life, and then there you were, and I had a friend. I felt I’d known you forever. No, please let me finish, and then we’ll talk about other things. I’m willing to give you as much time as you want, Margaret, if you’ll just give me a little encouragement.”

  “I can’t,” she whispered, and twisted her hands together in her lap. “I honestly can’t, David.”

  “I’ll wait,” he pleaded. “Years, if necessary.” Then he paused, ill with a powerful premonition. “Margaret, there isn’t anyone else, is there? You told me, weeks ago, that there wasn’t.”

  “There is,” she said, despairingly. “I’m terribly sorry, David, but there is. I met him—recently.”

  He sat down abruptly. “I can’t believe it, Margaret! I got your last letter only a week ago. You didn’t mention it then. You couldn’t just have met another man in the last few days—”

  “I did.”

  “But you’ve accepted my mother’s invitation!”

  What did Ed want her to do? He knew his brother was visiting her tonight. He knew that David would speak urgently. She put her hand to her forehead and rubbed it in a stronger agitation than before. David was staring at her, disbelieving, and waiting.

  “We’ve been good friends,” she faltered. “And I thought—I thought perhaps I’d like to meet your family. I think I’ve made a mistake in accepting.”

  There was something here he did not understand, David reflected. Something too baffling to understand. “Do I know the man?” he asked, and his face was full of suffering.

  Margaret was quiet. She dropped her eyes, for she could not bear looking at David. If she lied to him now, that would be unpardonable. He would hate her all his life, afterwards. She did not want him to hate her, not Edward’s brother! Such a thing could cause bitter enmity in a family forever. So she said, “Yes, you know him. But do we have to talk about this now, please?”

  “I think so,” he said. He still could not believe it. It was true that he had loved Margaret from the first moment he had seen her, and he did not reject the idea that another man might have the same reaction. But Margaret was reserved, he remembered. It hardly seemed possible that she would have an overwhelming passion for anyone met so recently. He had detected, in the very beginning, a kind of fear and remoteness in her, a shyness and unsurety, such as were in himself and which had originally drawn them together in mute comprehension.

  “I don’t know many people in spite of my touring,” he said, pleadingly. “I can’t remember any man we’ve met together who might interest you, Margaret. You always seemed so distant and uninterested in people.”

  “I told you I met him recently!” Margaret cried. “David, do let me alone.”

  But his love and grief made him relentless. “Someone I know. Do I know him well? You owe that much to me, to tell me, Margaret.”

  Yes, she owed him that, she acknowledged, dejectedly. Her meetings with him, the long hours she had spent with him in pleasant affection, her implied acceptance of him, though hesitant, in all her letters, the hope she had given him, the comfort she had offered him when he was most dispirited, were debts of the utmost urgency.

  “Yes, David, you know him well. No, I can’t tell you his name, not yet.”

  “Why not?”

  She was silent. She did not know that tears were running over her pale cheeks. She did not move or start when he gently took her hand. “Don’t cry, dear,” he said, with great tenderness and with pity for her misery. He wanted only to comfort her now. “If you don’t want to tell me, it’s all right. But I can’t believe it, Margaret. It’s probably only a passing infatuation. You aren’t the kind to fall in love with someone all at once, without knowing everything about him. And so I’ll go on hoping, if you’ll let me, and I’ll go on hoping, even if you won’t let me.”

  She looked at his hand, the long sensitive fingers, the whitened knuckles, and she could feel his love for her and his desire to console and protect her from her own pain.

  He could hardly hear her when she spoke. “David, I’ve not just met him. I’ve known him almost all my life, since I was ten years old. I must tell you that. He was the first person who was ever kind to me. You know I lived in Waterford until the Baumers took me to that farm near Albany. I never forgot—him. I thought I did, but now I know I’ve been looking for him for over ten years. I did forget his name, except the first one, and when I saw him—I didn’t know him at first. But he remembered me.”

  “A boy from the orphanage, Margaret?” His voice was very kind and steady.

  “No, David. Not from the orphanage.”

  “But if he remembered you, and you didn’t remember him, he must be too old for you. He must have been a man, even when you were a child.”

  Her throat felt thick and stiff, and she was crying again. But honesty was one of her strongest characteristics. “He is about four or five years older than I am, David.” She closed her wet eyes. “And he told me that though he’d forgotten my name, too, he hadn’t forgotten me and had been looking for me everywhere. You mustn’t hate him, David. It’s terribly necessary for you not to hate him.”

  “Why, Margaret?” he asked, quietly.

  She did not answer him. Her hand lay in his like the hand of a desolate child. He began to think. Margaret had arrived in Waterford this morning. She had told him that she had never returned to this city before. The man lived in Waterford. Who had Margaret seen today? She had written him that she was to be here to settle her affairs and sell her two acres of land—the land his brother Edward had wanted.

  A sudden and intolerable blow struck at David’s heart. A sudden and intolerable knowledge which made him open his mouth in an expression of agony. He dropped her hand, and both his hands fell slackly between his knees. Not Ed! Oh, God, not Ed, his brother! Anyone else but Ed, please God, anyone else but Ed! He swallowed convulsively. He had the wildest thought that his head was flying apart in splinters and that each splinter was a fragment of anguish. No, no! Ed was not the only person she had met today. She could have seen, encountered, dozens of men. He, David, could stand anyone but Ed, anyone at all, and feel that he had escaped some terror. He would be grieved, but grief would be a relief, if it was someone else but his brother.

  Margaret opened her eyes and she knew at once what he suspected, and she was overcome. She jumped to her feet as if to run, to run from the sight of this young and stricken man who loved her and who had guessed. She even caught up her skirts in the instinct for flight. And so when David raised his eyes and saw her in that position, saw her fear and her pallor, her desperate expression, he knew without any doubt.

  He stood slowly. He stretched out his hands and took her shoulders in them. She was trembling, and the trembling passed from his hands to his arms and then to his whole body, and he trembled in reply.

  “Where did you meet Ed for the first time, Margaret?”

  She tried to pull away from him, but he tightened his hands, and she had no strength to resist or struggle. He was looking at her with a most terrible intensity, and his eyes were stark and bright.

  “In your father’s shop,” she whispered. “When I was ten years old. He gave me
something to eat. I was hungry.”

  She had betrayed Ed after all, and he would never forgive her. She sobbed weakly and felt almost crushed under the weight of David’s gripping hands. Even when he dropped his hands and turned away from her, she could still feel that weight.

  “I didn’t want to hurt you, David, believe me, I didn’t want to hurt you!” she cried. “Please believe me.”

  “And he knew all the time, all the time, while I was talking tonight,” said David in a sick and wondering tone. “And he never said a word. And he suggested that you come to dinner. Why? Why did he do that to me? Why didn’t he say something about you and him? That you’d met today?”

  So, in spite of all that she had done, David hated her and his brother. The hatred would last forever. David would forget what he owed Edward; David would forget a lifetime of sacrifice in his behalf. To spite Edward, he might repudiate him and go his own way, and destroy all Edward’s work. Margaret’s frantic thoughts were like a scattering of terrorized birds.

  “You’re unfair, you’re cruel!” Margaret exclaimed in frenzy. “Do you think he wanted to do this to you? We talked it over for hours today! I gave him your letter, but he wouldn’t read it. He asked me not to tell you about us; he just wanted me to discourage you, and then after a while we would be married quietly, after you had forgotten all about me. That’s why he didn’t speak tonight. It was you he was thinking about!”

  David stared down at his feet. He was sick to the point of violent nausea. “I suppose you believe that, Margaret. Yes, I suppose you believe that. I’m sorry, but I don’t. You see, I know all about Ed now. I think I always knew, and that’s why I am sorry for him.”

  “You never knew anything about him, none of you!” Margaret was scarlet with anger and resentment. “You never even tried to know! He gave all of you his whole life, and you repaid him with contempt, and took all he had to give!”