There Was a Time

by Taylor Caldwell

  He turned in his saddle and looked at Frank with a dark and kindling face full of angry disgust and furious fear. “Have you heard about the Ku Klux Klan? Well, it’s riding again, against Catholics, Jews and Negroes. The educated Southerners laugh at it and tolerate it. They think it picturesque, some of them, even when they denounce it. I tell you it’s not amusing or picturesque. It’s hideously dangerous. It reveals the diseased minds behind it, the illiterate, uninformed, blind and hating minds. Perhaps the South will put it down, as it is attempting to do just now, according to the papers I get. But it’ll wait, like an obscene beast in some slimy jungle. It’ll wait for the hour to do murder in the name of the ‘Protestant’ Bible, or white supremacy, or something. It’s a symptom of what’s wrong with the South, and perhaps with all of America, perhaps with the whole world!”

  Frank stared, confused. Then, as he listened, and as he saw Wade’s aroused face, he felt a thrill, a tingle, as though blood were beginning to force its way through numbed tissue and squeezed veins.

  Wade struck his mule vehemently on the neck, so that the startled animal jumped forward a pace or two. Then Wade contritely patted the slapped neck and went on, looking at Frank urgently: “You think I’m exaggerating. I don’t think they even know what they hate; they just hate, and they’ll find something! And then sometimes I think it isn’t just the South; it’s everywhere, that hatred of man for his fellowman. Last summer I went to Europe—”

  He sighed despairingly. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think it’s hopeless. There aren’t enough of us who seem to care anything about it or even see it. There’s a kind of fatalism in men of good will. They think the work is too vast. They think stupidity and hate and ignorance are too fundamental a part of human nature for anyone to do anything about it. They form a little cloister of their own, and preach to one another, instead of going out into the hot vineyards and waste places where the rest of the world lives. But I tell you that men of good will could save the whole world, if they tried! If only they got together and worked as a body!”

  They rode on together, in a sudden silence. Frank looked at the mountains; then it seemed to him that they enlarged, gathered substance, became significant. The sensation was tenuous; he thought: Each time it comes, it isn’t as intense. I wish I could feel—I wish I could care.

  After a while Wade said: “But I was talking about Lizzie Gratwick. She’d tried, poor soul, to infect Bobby. But he was indifferent to her religious dementia, and wasn’t tainted by it. However, he retained its emotion, shall we say, for lack of a better word. He was all out for ‘righteousness.’ I distrust his enthusiasm, which is part of his intolerance. I distrust all enthusiastic men, I’m sorry to say, unless they are great men. But great men are rarely enthusiastic, and that, perhaps, is the trouble. Bobby’s idea of ‘enlightening’ his people is to make them atheistic Puritans, completely lawabiding and rigorous, poor boy!”

  He sighed. “I’m afraid I’m not very clear. Well. There it is.”

  “I gather you don’t like Bobby,” said Frank wryly.

  Wade laughed shortly. “I don’t like his kind of mind, whether it is religious or atheistic. When you boil it down, it is the same thing.”

  “And Bobby doesn’t like you?”

  Wade considered. “Frankly, I don’t think Bobby likes anybody. I don’t think he even sees anybody, in an objective way. I only hope that marrying Betty will soften and broaden his outlook. But I’m afraid, just now, after hearing that he’s become a deputy sheriff in Paintsville. It’s just the sort of thing he’d do!”

  CHAPTER 49

  They began to climb the slope of a high hill. The heat of the day had become more intense, though it was almost November. The sky had whitened; it fumed, and the hills had turned darker yet more vivid.

  Frank thought: Why does Wade talk to me this way? He talks to me as a teacher talks to a student. He “shows me things.” Why? Why should he bother? What is he trying to do? What has he in mind about me? And why does he think I’d care, anyway? Why has he brought me out here today? He isn’t a man to waste time on just an excursion. He has something definite in mind, and he thinks, or hopes, I’ll understand.

  They reached the brow of the hill. Wade reined in his mule and pointed below. Far down lay a valley broader than the others, a green and smiling valley floating in a frail mist. It was dominated by a farmhouse which was so foreign to the log cabins in other sections that Frank was amazed. He saw the big white house with its minute green shutters, its red roof, its chimney with its plume of smoke. He saw the great barns, the red silo, the neat, white-fenced lawns, the well-tended barnyards, the patterned fields and meadows with their toy Holstein cattle browsing in the heat of the day. He saw clumps of mighty oaks and elms bordering the meadows, casting blue shadows on the warm greenness of the earth.

  “Sherry Hempstead lives there,” said Wade. “He is a very prosperous farmer. Besides, he owns a large tract of land near Benton, where the best wells have been found. I want you to know Sherry.” He paused and looked at Frank meditatively.

  “A Mormon?”

  “No. A Gentile.” Wade smiled. “But a good friend of mine, as far as friends go. We have a lot in common, and he is generous with the ‘victuals’ when I want them for the half starved people around Benton. He laughs at me, but he gives, out of his liking for me, for he has only contempt for the others. He is a very intelligent, shrewd man, hard as nails, and completely ruthless, and he has considerable education, most of which he acquired himself.”

  Wade paused. There was something peculiar in his manner, and, puzzled, Frank looked down at the farm and its wonderful green, brown, red and yellow fields. He did not know how it was, but suddenly he thought the serene and shining scene below had acquired a sinister air, something fateful and secret and foreboding. He shrugged off the impression and waited for Wade to go on, as he was evidently about to do.

  “Sherry is about fifty. He has no children, but he has a wife. She is a very lovely lady, and was educated in an Eastern college. Her father owned that farm, and it passed to Sherry, who had considerable money even then, when he married Mary Wilcox. Mary is about forty-five.” He paused again.

  “How can she stand being so isolated?” asked Frank.

  Wade abstractedly stroked his mule’s neck. “She couldn’t stand it. But she stands it now.” His manner and voice were more peculiar than ever. He went on: “There is a strange story about Sherry and Mary. They say she liked him when she married him. Of course, I didn’t know them when they were young. They must have got along all right. Then, one day, a minister began to ride through the hills. From what I heard from the contemptuous mountaineers, he was an ‘eddicated’ young fellow from Louisville, and he thought he’d do something for the people here. The story is that he and Mary fell in love and eloped.”

  And again Wade paused. “I don’t know. I can only tell you the story, which is that Sherry went after them. They say that after riding two days, with three of his farm hands—mind you—they found Mary half-dead in the bottom of an old abandoned well, somewhere in the mountains. The farm hands who were with Sherry testified later that that was how it was, and nothing more. The young minister had vanished—they said. There was only Mary, in the well. No one ever saw the minister again. There was some curiosity about it in the cities, for the boy came of a somewhat rich and prominent family in Louisville, and they didn’t let the matter rest. They sent swarms of deputies through the hills, questioning everybody, and most of all questioning Sherry and the farm hands. But no one ever saw the minister again.”

  “Well?” demanded Frank when Wade paused again. “What happened to Mary?”

  Wade flapped his reins. “Sherry brought her back. He apparently forgave her. But she was out of her mind, stark, raving mad. He had to put her in a private sanitorium in one of the cities, they say. She was there for three years. Then she was discharged as cured. Sherry brought her home. They live together now, and the story’s almost forgotten. I me
t both of them about three years ago. Mary is still beautiful, and one of the gentlest, sweetest women I ever met.”

  “Didn’t she ever tell anybody what happened?”

  “If she did,” said Wade slowly, “I never heard of it. I don’t think so. Perhaps she’s forgotten, herself.”

  They began to ride down the steep slope, Frank slightly in the rear, the mule and the mare sliding cautiously down the stone-strewn earth, tearing up little clods of grass with their hoofs. Clouds of yellow dust followed them. Then Frank rode abreast of Wade, and said: “But look here, could they believe the farm hands? Maybe Sherry bribed them—What happened to them?”

  “Now,” said Wade reflectively, with a glance at the farmhouse rising to meet them, “that’s a strange thing. A series of coincidences, I suppose. But one was killed when the tree he was felling toppled the wrong way. Another was kicked to death by one of Sherry’s mules, an ornery cuss. Another was poisoned by spoiled meat; I suppose we’d call it ptomaine poisoning. That was before my time. I only know the reports.”

  “And it all happened on Sherry’s property?”

  “Yes.” Wade’s voice was a little tight. “On Sherry’s property, and all within six months after they had found Mary.” He rode on quickly, halted, slowed down, spoke without turning his head. “You’ll like Sherry. He’s much respected in this county. I like him. Very much. It’s tragic. He’s devoted to Mary, and always has been, and he’s spent a fortune curing her.”

  “But what do the mountaineers think of the whole thing, and the deaths of the farm bands?”

  “After twenty years, they still think Mary’s a bad woman, but they never see her. She never leaves the farm, and hasn’t since she was brought home. The farm hands? Well, the folks say the farm is ‘hexed,’ that there is a ‘curse’ on it, for some reason, probably from Mary’s ‘sin.’ Sherry couldn’t get hands if he didn’t pay enormous wages. Pay for hands is about ohe dollar a day hereabouts; Sherry pays three, with board. But none of the men will sleep on the place.”

  Frank, annoyed at Wade’s curious new reticence, said bluntly: “I think your friend murdered the minister, had his farm hands bury the corpse, and bribed them to keep their mouths shut. Then, afraid that someday they might talk, he killed them, one by one. I think Mary saw her lover murdered and buried, threw herself down the well, and went out of her mind. That’s what I think. And I think it’s rotten that the scoundrel isn’t arrested and hanged.”

  “Wait until you see Sherry,” said Wade quietly. He went on, after a moment: “The strange thing is Ronald Truesdale turned out to have been an old friend of Sherry’s. He offered a reward to anyone finding a trace of Ronald, and it was a big reward. The mountaineers combed the hills for miles around, and they have woodsmen’s eyes, and they’d have found any trace of a hasty grave.”

  “Well, what do you think?” demanded Frank challengingly.

  “I have a theory.” said Wade in a low and troubled tone. “It might be that Ronald Truesdale repented, or something, when he and Mary had been riding for two days over the mountains. It might be that he threw Mary into the well, and believing her dead, ran away and changed his identity, and still sentimentally, repentant, or thinking he was a murderer, hid himself in a distant city.”

  Frank was silent a few minutes. “But you don’t believe that, do you?”

  Wade did not reply. He just rode on and Frank followed, seething with irritation.

  The farmhouse lay before them now, in the center of the valley, serene, placid and peaceful, the lawns and the fields fat and rich in the cataract of sunlight. Dogs raced out to meet them, barking happily. Field hands lifted their heads and stared. The barking of the dogs echoed from hill to hill in the warm silence, and somewhere a man called, a horse neighed, chickens clucked. The windows of the large white house glanced brightly in the sun, and the chimney fumed gently. A curious flock of guinea fowl, gray, spotted with white, rushed to the white picket fence with calls of “pitty-querk, pitty-querk!” The sunlight made the silo a tall pillar of flame.

  There was a low deep piazza around the front of the house, filled with potted ferns and other plants, and comfortable rocking chairs. A man rose slowly from one of the chairs as Wade and Frank hitched their animals to a post, and when he recognized Wade, the man came quickly down the three low steps, shouting merrily and waving his hand. “Wade! You old son-of-a-gun, you! Howdy! Where’ve you been, anyway?”

  With distrust, Frank watched the man approach. But no one could have resembled a “murderer” less than did Sherry Hempstead. He was a tall and handsome man of some fifty years, broad, agile and swift of step, with a mass of thick white hair above a very wide brown forehead and square brown face. Here was no peasant, but a man of excellent blood, virile and alert, intelligent and pleasant of expression, with a broad strong nose, a humorous smiling mouth filled with fine white teeth, a square jaw and the merriest, brightest blue eyes Frank had ever seen. Everything about him was hearty and bluff, shrewd and quick, and the handgrasp he gave Frank was firm and warm and steady. He did not wear the usual garb of the mountains, galluses, blue shirt and brass-buttoned “jeans.” His shirt was white and starched, open at the neckline to show his pillar of a brown throat; his trousers were of a soft gray flannel, and he wore brown oxfords, well-polished. He had acknowledged the introduction to Frank with grave and friendly courtesy, and the steadfast manner in which he fixed his blue eyes upon the stranger was very reassuring and agreeable. Here, then, was the real Southerner, polite, hospitable and kind. “Any friend of Wade’s a friend of mine,” he said sincerely, and smiled his charming smile.

  Yet, thought Frank uncertainly, he was probably a murderer.

  Sherry invited them into the house, his arm strongly wrapped around Wade’s shoulder, his loud but musical voice affectionately abusing the young minister for his long neglect. Frank was extremely surprised, for the house was beautifully, if quietly, furnished. The hall, with polished wood floor and polished panelled walls, was gracious and dignified, and an ancient grandfather clock chimed melodiously in the cool blue quiet. A white stairway floated and coiled to a second floor, and it was so exquisitely and airily wrought and carved that it seemed formed of snow held a moment before falling. Doors opened off the hall, and Sherry led his guests into a parlor, where the gleaming floor was covered with small Persian rugs, and a white marble fireplace was surmounted by a glittering crystal candelabrum very elaborately chased, and filled with white candles. On each side was a cloisonné bowl, cobalt blue and mounted on carved wooden legs, and the walls echoed the same color in a softer tone. One wall was given up to walnut shelves filled with books, scores of books in fine leather, and many in dust jackets signifying their newness. Frank saw the furniture, all precious antiques, well restored: a Queen Anne sofa, several small carved chairs in damask, blue and coral and rose and red, a number of Duncan Phyfe round mahogany tables with brass feet, and, on the walls, one or two fine old landscapes and portraits. Here too was a novelty: brocade draperies repeating the colors of the chairs and tied back with tassels. Really wonderful lamps, globe-shaped and painted, or sparkling with prisms, stood about on the tables.

  Frank could not believe his eyes. He sat down, completely confused by Sherry’s cordial and friendly invitation. He listened as Wade and Sherry exchanged badinage and affectionate insults, and he was reluctantly charmed by Sherry’s mellifluous and silken voice. He was more than charmed by the elegance and grace of the large parlor and its furnishings, and his cramped and miserable spirit involuntarily relaxed. Here was the room and the house of which he had dreamed all his life, set in smiling fields, with burnished hills shutting it away from an ugly world and enclosing it in a gleaming circle of sunny silence and peace.

  Sherry called, and a moment later a mountain girl in a clean blue dress and white apron, with her pretty feet innocently bare, scurried into the room. “Fix up a couple of glasses, Sal,” said Sherry, “three of ’em. And don’t spare the whiskey.” He waved her awa
y and resumed his eager and affectionate conversation with Wade. As in the cabin home of Eli Gratwick, Frank was momentarily forgotten. He got up inconspicuously and examined the books. He found everything from Plato to Santayana, from Shakespeare to Galsworthy, from Dickens to Gene Stratton Porter, Harold Bell Wright and Michael Arlen. He opened a few books furtively, and saw that they had been read, for the corners were turned down and there was scribbling on some of the margins in a bold masculine hand. But the house had belonged to Mary’s father, and this man probably did not read. Frank glanced around and saw several books scattered on a low bright table, and several magazines ranging from the Literary Digest to The Country Gentleman, and a newspaper, the Louisville Times, dated a few days back.

  Frank sat down and listened to the talk between Wade O’Leary and Sherry Hempstead. Sherry dominated the conversation, and it was evident that he was starved for intelligent talk and companionship. After his first bluff but sincere personalities, he had launched into a discussion of national politics, and the past war. He spoke with verve and energy, with imagination and fire, and it was more than evident that he was well informed. As he spoke, using his hands in a lively fashion to emphasize his words, his brilliant blue eyes flashed and sparkled and glittered. Wade leaned back in his chair, indolently graceful and intent.