Never Victorious, Never Defeated

by Taylor Caldwell

  Estelle, who had been trying to break into a conversation of which Jon had been oblivious until this moment, said eagerly, “Why, yes, in a way. Nothing new under the sun.” Rufus nodded his head at her with kindness; Estelle might be obvious and shallow, but one had to acknowledge her existence occasionally.

  Jon said abruptly, “You are wrong, Papa. There is something quite different in the world today, a new and growing philosophy—beyond selfishness. …”

  “I know, I know,” said Rufus, bored. “I’ve heard about it, here and there.” He glanced with a twinkle at Allan. “But it isn’t new at all, my boy. It’s as old as sin; it was conceived in sin, or ignorance, thousands of years ago by the cave man. I hope the world won’t revert to barbarism, Jon. I doubt it will; the age of tyrants has passed. The new philosophy you talk about is fossilized.”

  Allan’s black eyes sparkled with furious irateness at his wife’s half brother. “We haven’t outlived selfishness, and I hope we won’t, for it has its good facets. Such as self-esteem, self-respect, responsibility; ambition, and the drive to self-betterment. Held in control, as all human emotions have to be, they can benefit society as well as the individual.”

  He pointed his knife in a “low-bred” gesture which he sometimes could not restrain.

  ‘You, for instance, Jon. There is some emotion in you which is carrying you to dangerous extremes.”

  “Why does any family discussion always end in personalities?” murmured Estelle in despair.

  Cornelia came to her assistance robustly, “Estelle’s right. Allan, do put down that knife; you really aren’t going to stab Jon, are you? I read somewhere that gestures directed toward others are sometimes subconsciously hostile, and have the real original intention behind them.”

  Allan smiled grimly and put down the knife. “Possibly right, Cornelia. But why can’t your brother argue or talk about anything else but his infernal obsession?”

  Jon’s face flushed intensely. “You are afraid,” he said, and it was as if he was spitting at the other man. Allan regarded him scornfully. “Of what?” he asked. “Men like you?”

  Rufus put in hastily, “‘The times are out joint.’ I suppose you think that, and believe that, Jon. But they always were. Time has smoothed out the long past behind us, made it almost featureless, leveled out the volcanoes, turned the wild rivers into quiet streams … And after we, ourselves, have been forgotten, and our children’s children, too, millions of men will look back on our times and, in the midst of their own confusions, wars, and events, will say, perhaps enviously, ‘How peaceful the old days were, how leisurely and pleasant and good and tolerant.’ And it will be a lie, what they say, just as what we say about the past is a lie.”

  “But we have to deal with the present just the same, and with the idiots the present spews up!” exclaimed Allan.

  Cornelia rose briskly. “And now that the day has started out in its usual normal fashion for this family, and nothing agreeable has been said to disturb the customary pattern, I think I’ll go upstairs with Allan for a little consultation about some matters.”

  Tony, rising, laughed with Rufus and his father, and with Dolores, but his eyes were troubled. He took his sister’s hand and went with her out of the dining room. He whispered, “I must talk to you, dear. I want your advice.” She gave him a sad and fearful glance, and nodded.

  The butler drew back DeWitt’s chair, and the youth put one hand on his cane, one hand on the table, and pushed himself slowly but surely to his feet. Allan waited. He dared not offer assistance. He tried to make himself invisible as he followed the painful progress of the crippled and gnomelike figure across the heavy carpet. DeWitt ignored him, and it came to Allan again that DeWitt had not spoken a word to anyone but the servants. Was the boy retreating more and more into his silences, or was he, as usual, only observing? If I could only reach him, thought Allan, slowly moving behind his son. But I never could, and no one else has ever succeeded either, except Tony.

  DeWitt crept over the floor, his hand whitening on the cane, his small features compressed with almost superhuman determination. If he saw his father behind him, it was not evident. Estelle was standing with her sons close beside her, and was looking up at them in speechless communion, and with an air of touching helplessness.

  “I think today would be best,” said Dolores to her brother, as they sat in the snowy dusk of her small sitting room. “Daddy is feeling and looking so well lately; though he has not stopped drinking.” She sighed mournfully. “Then, the family is coming for dinner, and I’ve noticed that he doesn’t do too much drinking before parties, except that he can’t stand Uncle Patrick and is sometimes—careless. Then, having to appear on holidays, at dinner, he is restrained by not wanting to be a spectacle before his own children.”

  “But we understand,” said Tony.

  “Yes, dear. However, he has his pride to consider, and he still believes he is hiding it from us. So, even if you disturb him, he won’t—he won’t. …”

  Tony pressed his hands over his eyes and his face with a slow movement of distress. “What if our father should be thrown back into what he was, by me? I can’t have that on my conscience.”

  Dolores smiled sadly. “Nobody really throws anyone ‘back.’ You can only precipitate what was already there, and waiting. And you have yourself to consider, too, and your whole life.” She touched his shoulder again comfortingly. “For good or evil, we are always influencing someone, every day of our lives, and they are influencing us. Do you remember telling me how you first knew what you wanted to do? You were walking along a back road in Cannes, and you suddenly came upon a white wall covered with magenta bougainvillaea, and the sun struck it and you stopped, and all at once you knew. The light on the flowers—it was just a precipitating factor.”

  Tony stood up, put his hand lovingly on his sister’s fair head, and she looked up at him with gravely smiling eyes. He nodded, and left her. The corridor outside shifted with grayish light from the raving sky. Everyone would have luncheon in his room; so the servants could lay the table for the Thanksgiving dinner. Tony could hear no one about upstairs. He walked soberly down the hallway, then stopped at the door of his brother’s room. He hesitated, then opened it. DeWitt was resting on his bed, reading. He regarded Tony with dark coldness, and retained the book in his hands. “I didn’t hear you knock,” he said.

  “If I had knocked, you wouldn’t have said ‘come in.’ You would have said, ‘Who is it?’ And if I’d told you, you would have answered that you’re ‘busy.’ And I would have had to go away, and I don’t want to go away.”

  The nearest grimace to a smile which DeWitt ever allowed himself glimmered about his tight lips. He put down the book. “All right, sit down, make it brief. I suppose you’ve got something to tell me.”

  Only the lamp by the bed had been lighted, and it threw golden shadows on the white ceiling, shadows which were joined by the crimson shafts of the fire. Tony sat down near the bed and gazed silently at his brother.

  The fire fluttered on the hearth and the windows moaned with the wind. The two young men regarded each other without speaking for some time. Then Tony said, “I hope you won’t think me mad or something, but I am going to be a priest.”

  He waited. DeWitt’s expression did not change in the least. He merely put down the book beside him. “Do you think that is news?” he asked. “I’ve suspected it for over a year. And, incidentally, Ma knows, too. I told her.”

  Tony was incredulous, and DeWitt gave his small grunt of laughter. “She didn’t believe it, and she laughed, and made some sort of coarse comment, I think, but she wasn’t disturbed. I have reminded her once or twice since the first time, and now she is beginning to accept it, in her sort of way. But she is afraid, I’m sure, that it will upset darling Papa.”

  “Do you think she has told Grandpa?” Tony was still incredulous.

  DeWitt shrugged. “Doesn’t she always tell him everything?”

  Tony was so astoni
shed at all this that he blurted, “Do they know I am a Catholic now?”

  DeWitt thought this naïve. “Possibly. They aren’t fools, you know. Besides, she’s just found out that there are Catholics in that pecky Englishman’s family, and, best of all, a bishop in the background. A wealthy bishop, with a title in his own name.”

  Tony said, “But, of course, Dolores isn’t going to marry Dicky.”

  DeWitt yawned. “Does she know that? Ma doesn’t. And that’s all that matters.”

  Tony got up, immensely disturbed, forgetting his own troubles. He used a poker on the fire, swept up some ashes, walked to the windows for a moment, then returned to his chair. He repeated, “Dolores isn’t going to marry him. I know. She dislikes him very much. And she isn’t a weakling.”

  DeWitt smiled his saturnine smile and made no answer.

  Tony’s thoughts were distracted, and he tugged at his ear. His brother watched him, his small black eyes faintly curious. “I suppose,” said Tony, “that you wouldn’t like to know my reasons for my decision?”

  “Not particularly.”

  But Tony clasped his knees with his hands and stared at his brother with deep earnestness. “I’ve got to tell you. I want to be of some use in this world; I want to serve God.”

  “Good,” said deWitt, with not even a hint of irony in his voice.

  “You really don’t understand. I have a vocation. I’ve known it for years. There has to be a call, to serve Him.”

  DeWitt shifted on his pillows. “I suppose you believe so. Who am I to judge?” The curiosity became sharper in his eyes, but Tony saw that the boy was not ridiculing him, as he had feared. “I wish,” he said very softly, “that there had been some religion in this family.”

  “Why? Why should we delude ourselves, if we don’t want to?”

  “Delusion? DeWitt, it’s the only reality.”

  DeWitt again shifted on his pillows, and now his whole diminutive body expressed impatience. “That’s your delusion, Tony. My reality is my own. I’m not going to talk metaphysics with you; you’d only bore me. I’m old enough to choose who shall bore me, and you aren’t my choice just now.”

  In spite of himself, Tony laughed. The odd rapport which had always existed between the two established itself, and after a moment, DeWitt laughed also. Then he became gloomy. “Tony, I’ve always believed you were the only honest person in this damned family. You never pretended, out of sickly affection or slyness. At any rate, I’ve always respected you. It’s sometimes necessary for everyone to be with someone honest, if only for a unique experience.”

  Tony laughed again, got up, and rumpled the fine dark hair on his brother’s head. DeWitt did not automatically shrink as he did from a touch from others. In fact, he sat very still, and it was not until Tony had seated himself again that he fastidiously smoothed down his hair. The line of pain between his eyes disappeared, and he looked thoughtfully at the fire.

  “You aren’t as bad, or as sophisticated, or as contained, as you thing you are,” said Tony, affectionately.

  “I never dissect myself,” replied DeWitt. “Don’t be soulful, Tony.”

  But Tony said, “Don’t forget me, kid.”

  DeWitt turned his head and regarded his brother with a peculiar expression.

  “I shouldn’t have been any good in the railroad business,” Tony went on. “But you will.”

  “Certainly,” said DeWitt.

  “I hope others will agree with you.”

  “You won’t have a hard time convincing anyone about your decision, except our dear Papa,” DeWitt remarked after a short pause.

  Tony sighed. “I wish I could hope you’d comfort him, DeWitt.”

  DeWitt glanced at him out of the corner of his eyes, and for the first time Tony thought of evil, and he was shocked. He leaned forward to study his brother. Was it possible that DeWitt hated their father? Envy, resentment the scorn of a self-sufficient and narrow soul for a man who could never be self-sufficient and who was a tumult of dynamism, emotional storms, and upheavals? Tony said, “So few understand Dad. He is a giant of power and genius, and no one can oppose him when he makes up his mind to something. Men like him are sometimes ridiculed by those whose own experiences have been superficial or uneventful or fortunate.”

  DeWitt clasped his thin fingers together and let them drop on the sheet. He made no comment, though Tony waited for a long time. Then the young man said, “DeWitt, our father went through hells no one knows about to get where he is.”

  DeWitt was speaking: “And now you’ve come to your own conclusions. About me and our father. You want me to ‘comfort’ him. I can promise you this: I won’t disappoint him. Is that enough?”

  “I suppose it’ll have to be.” A sense of sorrowful frustration overwhelmed Tony. He stood up. “A man can’t promise to do what he can’t do. But there’s something else I wanted to say to you. You’re only fifteen, and it will be years, yet, before you can take over from Dad. In the meantime, there are others. …”

  DeWitt looked bored. “You mean Miles and Fielding.”

  Tony was surprised, and this made DeWitt smile. “It’s so obvious, Tony, that it almost hits you in the face. Uncle Pat is out for blood—Dad’s blood—and always has been. And how can he ruin Dad, and with what weapons? His sons. They are the grandsons of Stephen deWitt, and the stories about our great-uncle still circulate. Oh, it is all very righteous in Uncle Pat’s mind; just retribution or something. He’d had years to think it all out By the way, are you afraid of them, for me?”

  “Why, yes,” stammered Tony. He blushed. “Uncharitable, perhaps, but I know them. And I know what stock they have. I’m thinking not only of you, but of Dad.”

  DeWitt raised his black eyebrows. “Did you know that one move in the game is Dolores? Miles not only wants her, because he wants her, but he also wants the future Marshall heiress.”

  He nodded at his speechless brother. “Don’t worry about that too much. Ma dislikes him, and so does Dolores. But he’s still dangerous, I admit, and so is Field. I’ve got a card against them, though. When we’re old enough, I’m going to marry Mary.”

  Tony shook his head, dazed. “You can’t,” he muttered. I’m afraid to go away.”

  DeWitt was amused. “And what could you do? By the way, weren’t you going to see someone else this afternoon? Better hurry; it’s already four o’clock, and the Peales are coming at six.”

  He smiled into Tony’s startled eyes, and picked up his book again. “I think you’re beginning to bore me. Run along.”

  Tony went downstairs in the warm dusk, looking for his father. He could see the thundering grayness gathering force against all the windows; a gray and spectral light glimmered through the snow, but not sufficiently to give any signs that beyond the house lay anything but crepuscular mounds and drifts. The doors of the dining room were shut, and from behind them came the comfortable sound of silver and china being laid, a reassuring sound in a silence otherwise unbroken except for the booming of the wind against the house and the wail of it under the eaves. Every room had its fire blazing and roaring, and scarlet shafts fell intermittently over silent furniture and colored rugs and white walls and ceilings.

  Allan, Tony knew, was nowhere upstairs; Cornelia was napping and so was her father. So Tony glanced into the drawing room downstairs and even in the breakfast room. He wandered through the halls. There was one door he had not yet approached, but he knew it was shut, and he shrank from it: the library. Over and over he told himself that his father was doubtlessly working on business papers, as he usually did when at home, and that there was no occasion to worry. However, there was something ominously familiar about that shut door, some emanation which Tony caught. He knocked softly. Allan’s voice, dull and lifeless and thick, came to him. “Who is it? What do you want?”

  Dear Mother of God, help me, prayed Tony, and answered as lightly as possible, “Tony, Dad. May I see you for a few minutes? It’s very important.”

  The wi
nd rose on a howling note and the great house trembled. Tony waited, praying feverishly. Then he heard a chair pushed back, and Allan’s voice was nearer: “Go away, Tony, I’m busy.”

  “I know,” said Tony. “But this is very important, Dad. I can’t talk about it later. Please, Dad.”

  From behind the door he heard a groan, then there were slow and dragging footsteps, the shooting of a bolt. The door opened and Allan stood there in his shirt sleeves, his tie unknotted, his hair disheveled. Tony could, very dimly, see his face, dark and distracted and tensed, and he could smell the odor of whisky. The boy’s courage was shaken; this was very bad. It had not been so bad for a long time. He went into the library. There was no light but from a dying fire, and a glass and a bottle of whisky stood on a table near the hearth.

  “Why do you want to talk to me now?” asked Allan in the harsh voice of a man filled with shame and despair. “Yes, that’s whisky. Damnable day, all that yelling of the wind. And thinking of Pat Peale always drives me to the bottle.” He tried to smile. Tony smiled as if he understood and it was all very amusing. Allan fell back into his chair, and his hands clutched the arms as he tried to control himself. “Well, well,” he said indulgently. “Want a drink with me, to toast the weather and hope nobody will be able to get up here today?”

  He was watching Tony suspiciously through his bloodshot eyes. Tony said, “To tell the truth, I would like a drink. I thought I might share your drink, and have a talk, just the two of us alone. Got any brandy down here?”