Pride House: The Quest for Vainglory

by Rob Summers

Chapter 4 The Shopping Bag Plot

  Reason had no choice but to listen to them, mother and daughter, when they fairly kidnapped her into the restaurant at the mall. She had come shopping with Doubt and Worry and had left them in order to buy a computer chess set for herself. She had finished her purchase, and had been ready to find the others and go home—she had hoped —undisturbed. Now she was in a booth with the lively Love on one side of her and a wall on the other: no escape. Love’s mother Faith sat opposite with a pile of plastic bagged purchases beside her. They had already ordered a soft drink for Reason without even asking whether she wanted it.

  Nothing annoyed Reason so much as small talk with those she hardly knew; that would be bad enough. But to make matters worse, since these were members of the Heavenite family that had been bothering Pride, they might want to unload their crazy cultish ideas on her. They might evangelize her.

  “We didn’t know we’d run into you here,” Faith said, “but it’s lucky we did since we wanted to see you anyway.”

  “You are harder to reach than a head of state,” Love chided. “We sent letter after letter.”

  Reason only smiled weakly. How could she explain that Pride had forbidden her to answer their letters or even to open them?

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Not that we’ve ever been close to you,” Love said. “We know that. You can hardly be expected to rush over to see people with whom you only have a nodding acquaintance.” She giggled quickly.

  Reason only remembered Love as the little girl who, with her older brother Joy, used to come and play with Pride. She thought that Love must be about nineteen now, ten years younger than herself. Faith must be in her forties, but her voice seemed so youthful! Though she was the mother of nine, she and Love seemed like sisters, alike in their merriment and in their slim, graceful forms. They were not at all disagreeable, but these were people Pride would not want her to be seen with. That was excuse enough to be more firm. What would Doubt say if she came by and found her talking with them?

  “Doubt and Worry expect me to meet them,” she said. “I’m afraid I can’t stay and talk.”

  “Oh, but please,” said Love, pressing her hand. “We have so many serious things to discuss. Can’t you stay just a few minutes?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t,” said Reason, shrugging and smiling. “Maybe another time.”

  Faith leaned forward into Reason’s field of vision. “But we are going to be living together in the same house. Don’t you want to hear about it? You need to know how to prepare yourself for such drastic changes.”

  Reason answered flatly, “You’re talking about those letters you keep sending Pride.”

  “Yes,” said Love, and briefly pressed her hand again. “We need your help to confiscate the house.”

  So it was evangelization. What were they doing but asking her to take their part against her cousin, to scheme with them to have him evicted from his own house? Never before having been asked to turn traitor, she had no adequate reply. Should she be angry, or icily silent, or sarcastic, or—?

  “You’re so quiet,” said Faith. “I know what a struggle it must be for you to give up on Pride, but—but he has to go.”

  Reason’s stomach knotted. These fanatics were nasty, nasty company. She had to get away from them. But the waitress arrived with their drinks and she was obliged to take hers. Should she make a scene? Could she?

  “Please,” said Faith, “we know we must sound cruel, but what else is to be done? We love that house. We aren’t trying to steal the place, we’re trying to save it. We’ll do what we can for your cousin and his wife, we’re not heartless. But—but they are. I’m afraid that you’ve suffered because of them.”

  “I know you have,” added the girl at her side, and Reason was surprised to hear a slight tremor in Love’s voice.

  “Pride prefers that I not talk with you.”

  “We know,” said Faith gently, “but talk with us anyway because your loyalty to the house should outweigh your loyalty to Pride.”

  “The house? The house is—is fine.” Reason could not conceal a tone of bewilderment.

  “Don’t you know it’s coming down?” asked Faith. “A few decades will pass quickly and there will be no more Pride place for you or Pride or anybody. You can always take a new boss, but there’s a severe housing shortage. Where will you get a new house?”

  “You don’t mean those things Miss Worry says are true?”

  “Of course, they are,” said Faith rather impatiently. “You see the deterioration of your house with your own eyes every day. You—oh, I’m sorry—I forgot about your eyes.”

  Love quietly put her arm around Reason’s shoulder. Faith took a deep breath. Love nodded to her to go on.

  “Dear friend,” said Faith, “the house will drop, and anyone who survives will be subject to the vagrancy law. That means Relocation outside the City. You’ve heard of the routine arrests that take place after a house collapses in this city. As things stand, it’s just a matter of time until you’re in their hands. Do you know where people are taken who are Relocated?”

  “Well—the City has some sort of plan to make sure that, uh, we’re all taken care of,” Reason said. “And of course it has to be outside the City because there’s no room here. We may have to put up with substandard housing, but—”

  “Wait a moment.” Faith sighed. “The City keeps it a secret, of course, but all the homeless are loaded onto trucks at night and taken right out of this country, never to return.”

  “Oh, come now,” said Reason, half smiling.

  “They’re sold to Hell as slaves.”

  “We’re not trying to scare you,” Love said, her troubled face so close that Reason could see it clearly.

  “No, not at all,” said Faith, “but the time will come when you will need desperately a plan of escape and someplace to escape to. If you become a citizen of our country, Heaven, then when the time comes you can leave this city without any trouble from the local authorities and go with us there.”

  “You haven’t lived until you’ve seen New Jerusalem!” Love said excitedly, “—the walls and the towers and gardens and fountains. It’s so beautiful it breaks your heart. Oh, and Ambassador Grace says you can live with us in Mom and Dad’s old neighborhood there; it’s a suburb called Crown Mountain. Mom and Dad take us there for vacation trips, so I can tell you all about it.”

  Faith laughed. “Yes, when Reason has more time. But for the moment, Reason, just imagine what it would be like if the house passed into our hands. No more Doubt!”

  Reason thought nothing of their pretty stories about Heaven, still less of their scare tactics; but this last persuasion carried some weight. She tried not to show in her face how much.

  “But what about Pride?” she asked.

  Faith’s pretty hands came together on the table. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but practically speaking, there’s no hope for him. He’ll always be running after money and pretty faces and his own reputation, unless he’s totally transformed.” She smiled. “Fortunately, our government isn’t limited to what’s considered practical in this city. We’ve worked something out for him. It’s not all dark, but it’s hard to explain. Believe me,” she insisted, “you’re not betraying him.”

  “But you’re going to evict him?”

  “Well, no, it’s confiscation, not eviction,” said Love. “We want him to stay as a—well, actually, as a servant.” She giggled nervously.

  “A servant? Why, that’s ridiculous.”

  “He’d be happier than he is now,” said Faith. “You know he’s ruining himself. Look at his marriage.”

  Reason slowly digested this. She looked at her watch. They had talked long enough that, if Doubt or Worry had spotted her, she was already in deep trouble. So why not stay a bit longer, since the risk was already taken? She longed to open her heart to
someone. Her drink was unfinished and the companionship less unpleasant than she had anticipated. She folded and unfolded her napkin.

  Suddenly, she said, “I hate Doubt.”

  “So do we,” mother and daughter replied in unison, and turned to each other and laughed.

  “She’s a slimy little viper,” Faith affirmed. “Who wouldn’t hate her?”

  Reason nodded, feeling her chest quiver unexpectedly. She longed to tell them everything within the kinship of this hatred. They were the enemy, yes, but they were so concerned, so understanding.

  “Would you like to know how she got him to marry her?” she asked.

  Reason told them of how, when Pride had been a boy, his parents had assigned Conscience to be his guardian and to run the affairs of the house, and how she herself had tutored Pride as he grew. When he became a young man, however, Pride had chafed against the restrictions of Conscience and had abandoned his lessons with Reason. He had longed moreover to be free of Conscience completely.

  She had been present on the day when Pride presented his case to his parents. Neglect and Folly had visited during an interval in their frequent travels, and the foursome was having tea in the studio. In those days Reason had not yet been debased to the rank of serving girl, so as a cousin she was considered almost an equal in the conversation.

  “But you don’t much obey Uncle Conscience, anyway,” Neglect said. “What point is there in sending him away?”

  “I have to listen to him, don’t I?” Pride returned. “I have to beg him for my pocket money. I must get his permission if I want to have a party. I’m sick of his long, disapproving face and his stupid, Victorian lectures.”

  Neglect lit a cigarette. “You’re not using sense. He’s a good influence on you, and he’s very useful in running the place. Most of all, you just don’t send away relatives.”

  “You sent away Calm and Enjoyment.”

  “That’s different,” Neglect said testily.

  “After you begged him to,” Folly said to Pride with a hurt voice. “And I think the less said about that the better, with Reason here.” She turned to Reason. “Personally, dear, I’ve always thought Selfishness really did ask her to marry him, but I went along with the consensus for the sake of peace.”

  “You can’t get along without Conscience,” Neglect said to his son.

  “Then do I have to be saddled with him my whole life?”

  “Of course not,” said Folly. “We could always arrange for Uncle Conscience to retire. On the premises, of course. He’s certainly old enough.”

  “Only who would be in charge then?” Neglect asked. “Would you be able to keep your own accounts, direct the servants, manage things?”

  “With Reason to help me, yes.”

  Reason had long since become frightened at the turn things were taking. “No, not me,” she said, “I simply don’t have the authority with the servants grandfather has. They won’t accept me. The place would be out of control.”

  “Someone else then,” said Neglect. “Hmmm. Why don’t you think of getting married? No bubble headed girl, I mean, but a mature, level headed woman. Someone to bring stability to your life.”

  “You mean if I get married, you’ll let me run my own house?”

  Neglect and Folly looked at each other in not too regretful resignation.

  “Yes,” said Neglect, “we want you to be happy.”

  “But no one could replace grandfather,” Reason said in alarm.

  “We know that, dear,” said Folly, “and we have the greatest respect for him. But we want our boy to be happy, and Conscience would have to retire sooner or later.”

  “We’ll be back from our tour in a few months,” concluded Neglect, “and if you can find someone suitable by then, a girl your mother and I can approve of, then we’ll give it our blessing.”

  “And retire Uncle?”

  “Yes, yes, and retire him.”

  “And sign the house over to me?”

  Neglect smiled in admiration of his boy’s spirit. “It’s always been intended for you,” he said. “You know that. Yes, we’ll make it legal and official.”

  During his parents’ tour Pride searched for the woman who would solve his problem. She would have to be modern, unencumbered by the great wagonload of rules that he associated with Conscience. Yet she must present enough facade of the old respectability to pass his parents’ cursory inspection.

  He met Doubt in church. For Doubt was not, as one might expect, an atheist. Hers was a tolerant, a well nigh reverent unbelief that did not preclude a certain amount of listless assent to hallowed doctrines and forms which had no bearing on the way she lived. She rather liked being associated in people’s minds with high ceilinged nave, with organ and hymn book and church society. She loved the predictable yearly round of notices, chatter, committee meetings, poster pictures of starving children, debates over expenditures, gossip.

  No one ever questioned her sincerity. The trade words of the faith were in her mouth as soon as she stepped in the church door. She was a child of one of the congregation’s oldest families; she was baptized and instructed; she was a member. She was, in fact, a favorite of Pastor Hypocrisy.

  This worthy belle, once she had discovered from Arrogance and Selfishness the details of Pride’s predicament, enlisted them to plead her cause; and having been introduced to Pride, presented herself as a perfect balance of practicality and licentiousness. She yearned to be matron of his house, to have the management of its many details, and to make room there for such of her friends as would ease the stiffness of its prevailing order. She wasted little time in proposing to him.

  Over a period of weeks, the two hammered out the terms of their arrangement. They were friendly in a businesslike manner, spending many a pleasant afternoon in the shadows of Pride’s sitting room, sipping tea and eating chocolates, while the servants eyed them anxiously. In the negotiations, Pride easily gave up all points to her except one: he insisted that the house be legally his alone, to dispose of as he pleased. He had had enough of restrictions and saw to it that his marriage should free him, not tie him down. In the back of his mind, he kept the pleasant option of annulment, after his parents should see that he was capable on his own.

  In time Doubt was duly presented to Folly and Neglect, who pronounced her fully acceptable. Why, she was the Girl Next Door, a hometown child, the soul of sensibility and intelligence. She was a few years older than Pride? All the better. And Pastor Hypocrisy approved, didn’t he? Nothing more was necessary than to set a date and to inform Conscience that he was finally to begin a long overdue rest.

  Reason finished her account.

  “They retired grandfather’,” she said, “long before the wedding, and the shock of it broke his health. He’s been down in bed again these past few days, and now his voice is completely gone. As for me, Worry and Doubt are gradually taking over my responsibilities, I suppose because my eyes have been going bad for years. You know about Worry? But they do have me waiting table in the house and working part time at the Mammon Mart.”

  Mother and daughter expressed surprise at her new job.

  “Yes, said Reason, “Pride says I’m not worth my board anymore unless I work at the Mart and give most of my wages to him. I work with computers and such in the office because I’m only good for close up jobs like that. I don’t mind it so much; at least it’s a distraction. What he does with the money, I try not to think about.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Love.

  “You must look ahead,” said Faith. “You’re such an important part of our plan. If you take action now, the house will be saved and Conscience revived. You yourself could have more influence in running the place than you ever did. Won’t you trust us?”

  “No,” said Reason, lowering her voice as if to suggest that such things should not be discussed publicly. “You know I can’t. I have to be loyal to my cousin
.”

  Faith and Love exchanged glances.

  “It’s OK,” said Love with some cheer. “We’re your friends anyway, and there’s always time for you to change your mind. Now listen, we have good news for you. We’ve found someone who can cure your eyes—a man right here in this town.”

  “What?”

  “I told you we had lots of things to talk about. Well, this is another one. Soon you can be able to see clearly again.”

  “I’ve been to all the specialists and they couldn’t do anything,” Reason returned almost angrily.

  “This man can. He’s not a doctor, he’s a minister.” Love handed her the man’s calling card.

  Reason did not look at it. “Are you saying he’s a faith healer? I have no patience with that sort of thing. Look I must go now, do you understand? Let me out.”

  Love slipped quickly out of her way. “Don’t be mad. If you only knew how much we care for you.”

  “Thank you for the drink. Goodby.”

  Reason gripped her package to her side and turned to go. However, she took only one step, one sinking, mortifying step. For even her eyes could not mistake at such close distance that in the next booth, sitting primly and horribly, were Doubt and Worry.

  “I know you’re dying to ask,” said Doubt. “Yes, we have been here a long time, practically your whole conversation, I think. Won’t you sit down and explain to us, I’m sure you can, how your new friends are going to benefit Pride?”