Never Victorious, Never Defeated

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  “I think they’re pretty,” said his sister. Her pale hair, moistened by perspiration, curled about her beautiful young face, so classically perfect in all its features. Her white frock, billowing yards of voile with insertions of real lace, enhanced her delicacy. She had perfect legs; the sunlight glanced from her alabaster calves and patent-leather slippers. Allan sometimes found it incredible that Cornelia was her mother, Cornelia who sometimes appeared larger than life-size, all color, all blaze, all movement. Allan looked at her twin brother; her replica, he thought with tenderness. All at once these two children were dearer to him than all life, dearer than himself and Cornelia, dearer than anything he had gained in all his years.

  “I never told you,” said Allan. “I have a father and mother, too. That is where we are going—to see them.”

  Tony and Dolores stared at him with astonishment. He could not meet the crystal shine of their eyes. He tried to smile at DeWitt instead, who could be depended upon, Allan knew now with some bitterness, not to be surprised at anything. DeWitt was smirking. But Tony stammered, a little aloofly, “Daddy, you never told us you had a father and—and a mother.”

  “You’re such a ninny,” said DeWitt, and pushed a sharp elbow into his brother’s ribs, not so much with malice as with disgust. “Why shouldn’t he have? Everybody has.”

  Dolores saw the color creeping over her father’s thin face, and said quickly, “Maybe Daddy had a reason.”

  “Oh, maybe he had,” DeWitt said. And he turned the narrow glitter of his eyes jeeringly on his father. “Everybody’s got a reason, don’t they, Daddy?”

  Tony regarded his brother sternly. “Perhaps people have, DeWitt.” It was seldom that the kindly boy could bring himself to rebuke anyone, but when he did, he received respect, even from DeWitt. “And its nobody’s business but Daddy’s.”

  “Look here,” remarked Allan uncomfortably. “There’s no mystery about it. I had a quarrel with them a long time ago.”

  “What was it?” DeWitt, after a sullen glance at Tony, looked interested.

  Allan did not answer. The carriage turned up a short country road, emerged on a broader stretch. It was windier and brighter here, and the two boys clutched at their stiff straw hats and brushed the dust from their blue serge jackets and short trousers. Tony’s broad white collar was somewhat crumpled, because heat affected him adversely, but little DeWitt looped all neat edges and unperturbed nattiness. Dolores, who was becoming excited, fluffed out her dress and rearranged her sash and shook back her flowing hair. “I hope they like us,” said Dolores.

  “My darling, they could not help it,” said Allan gently. Tony was silent. His profile, so like his sister’s, was more than a trifle severe, but DeWitt had a gloating look about him.

  Allan knew that the farm had only eighteen acres, but it was enough for a cow, a horse, a few pigs, and some chickens. The fields were rich and green; Timothy Marshall had a “hired man.” Here was a stretch of glittering ripe wheat, and another of oats, and a stand of yellow corn. Here was a good woods of first-growth timber, and ,a brook, from which a very fat cow was drinking contentedly. She raised her mild brown eyes as the carriage twinkled past. All was shining silence in the August sun; trees stood in utter quiet, crowned with light, under the pale hot sky. The carriage turned a slight bend in the road, and now the farmhouse came into view, white and snug and neat, with green shutters and a red-shingled roof. A garden of flowers sprawled before it, and a box hedge outlined the scattered flagstones leading to the green door, which stood open. Behind the house stood the redpainted bam, tidy and large. Beyond the buildings and the sweet-smelling acres the mountains rose in warm and deepening purple and green.

  “Here?” cried Dolores eagerly, as the carriage stopped at the walk. “Here,” said Allan, and sat uncomfortably, watching the open door. He saw no one beyond it, though the small hallway glimmered with sunlight and the polished wooden floor was like a brown mirror. He did not know what to do now. He became aware, after a minute or so, that his children were watching him and waiting, Tony and Dolores with surprise at the delay, and DeWitt with knowing interest. Then, just as Allan was about to give the order to turn about and drive away, his father appeared in the doorway, smiling, with his wife behind him. For a moment Tim paused, beaming, unsurprised, his thick white curls bright in the sunlight, his square face contented and happy, his blue eyes sparkling. He wore a very respectable black Sunday suit. Mary, his wife, was dressed in thin black silk, with a golden cross hanging on her flat bosom. In that clear light Allan could see her distinctly, could see the slight flush of color on the cheekbones. She seemed younger and even more gentle, though time and illness and trouble had scribbled her calm face over with fine wrinkles.

  Timothy, so amazingly unsurprised, burst from the doorway and came on a trot to the carriage. He shouted, “You’re latel Two hours late, and the tea waitin’! Aloysius, my boy, and these are the young ones, I’m thinkin’!”

  Allan was stupefied. He could only sit among his silent children and stare at his father. “You were expecting us, Dad?” he finally asked, as Tim completed his joyous survey of his grandchildren. Tim did not answer at once. He was looking at Dolores, and the blue of his eyes was dimmed with tears. Then he took the little girl’s hand, and she bent over the side of the carriage and kissed him. He put his arms about her and lifted her down to the ground. Mary was at his side now, and she knelt down on the stones and embraced Dolores, murmuring into the silvery curls. Tim next turned his attention to Tony, who was smiling uncertainly. “Ah, a fine lad, and a twin it is,” said Tim. “Come to your granddad, my lad. Ah, the good face, the good eyes, the good mouth. Sure, and he and his sister look like the angels out of the holy pictures. Not a kiss for me, but the hand? No, a kiss it will be, from the little gentleman. And here’s the grandma, waiting.”

  “You were expecting us?” asked Allan again, feebly.

  But still Tim did not appear to have heard him. He had become silent, and the trembling smile was seeping out of the rugged folds of his face. He was looking at DeWitt, who returned his gaze in cool dark silence. Tim’s calloused hands suddenly gripped the side of the carriage, and old man and child studied each other. Then Tim said, as if to himself, “And this little one—it is the stranger.” He opened the carriage door and DeWitt, composed and fastidious as always, climbed out and set his small polished boots on the ground. It was then that Tim turned his attention to his son.

  He saw everything, and what he saw evidently grieved him. He smiled again, a forced smile. “‘Expectin’ us,’ he says. Sure, and why not? Didn’t I have the letter from Mike, in North Dakota, among the wild Indians, only the other day, sayin’ ye would all come on Sunday? And is not Mike the saint, and does he not know?”

  He extended his hand to Allan, and the smile became deep with pity. “And was it not Mike who wrote us ye had bought this fine place for us, Aloysius? We niver knew, till then, for even old Dan Boyle was not tellin’ us, even to the day he died, and left me the twenty-thousand dollars. But come in, come in. The tea is gettin’ cool, and your mother made the wonderful cakes for the children. Come in. My son.”

  There were too many years between; too much had happened for conversation and reminiscences, except the most casual. So Allan’s parents accepted the situation as though they had never been parted from their son. They appeared, in their tranquillity, to have known all about him in these years, and Allan began to suspect that they did indeed know. He walked about the small house, genuinely admiring what his father had done to make it charming and beautiful. PridefuUy, Tim showed his son the fine furniture he had made himself, the simple polished pieces of black walnut and maple. It was he who had made the brick kitchen, with its rows of gleaming copper kettles hanging on the walls. He had added the two small bedrooms upstairs, with their bright floors, their four-poster beds, their solid walls clothed in paper roses and lilies. Almost singlehandedly, he had built the red barn and put up the few necessary fences. “You’ll be
knowin’, I’m thinkin’, that I’ve not been the engineer for three long years,” he said. “I lost the heart in it. But the good acres fed us and comforted us.” He put his hand briefly on Allan’s arm. “It was hard, but it was good, with God’s grace. And now, look: we’re lace-curtain Irish!”

  The children were with them in the tour of the house. Tony and Dolores listened in pleased and respectful silence, earnestly studying everything. DeWitt, so withdrawn, so dignified, made no remark, glanced at the things presented without interest.

  Tony said, “Grandpa, what is ‘lace-curtain Irish’?” He stood beside Tim and looked at him with shy affection. Tim put his arm about the boy’s shoulder, and winked at Allan. “It is what we are, and what your Dad is. Irish with a little money.” He put his other arm about Dolores, for whom he seemed to have a special tenderness, and the two children regarded him with their beautiful Renaissance faces upturned trustfully.

  DeWitt spoke for the first time, with cool hauteur, “We have more than just a little money, sir. And we’re not Irish—foreigners. We’re Americans.”

  “So are we all,” said Allan with annoyance. “Your governess tells us you are a very sharp boy, DeWitt. But I think you are a little fool.”

  DeWitt did not move; he only gave the impression that he had removed himself. He stood there, slight for his age, reserved and distant, and silent. Allan was immediately contrite. A peculiar little boy, but his child. He reached out his hand, but DeWitt automatically stepped back to preserve himself from any undesired caress or unsolicited touch.

  DeWitt remarked, without impudence, “You talk funny—Grandpa. We don’t talk like that.”

  Tim bent, his horny hands on his knees. He smiled at the boy. “You’ll learn, child. There’s more than one tongue in the world. But it’s the baby you are, and it’s not hurt by your words I am.”

  Tony said severely, “Your manners, DeWitt.” But DeWitt ignored him.

  “It’s not bad manners he has, Tony,” said Tim. “He’s not the lad to have bad manners, ever. A gentleman. Never the one to have tempers, without a purpose, and never will the purpose be a little one, but calculated. Our Lord makes many different kinds of people, and sometimes it is a wonder to us simple folk.”

  Allan was disturbed. “They say DeWitt resembles me,” he remarked.

  Tim shook his head. “It is the coloring. But not the soul. But we should not be talking about the child in his presence. Though I doubt it will ever hurt him. He is a law to himself.” He studied DeWitt somewhat sadly. “Does he ever smile?”

  DeWitt answered composedly: “Yes. When there’s something to smile about. Should I smile now, sir?”

  “You see,” said Tim, still smiling at the boy, but speaking to Allan. “There must always be a purpose in everything. Even for love.”

  It had never occurred to Allan before, and now he thought: DeWitt loves nobody. And yet, and yet, Allan’s disturbed thoughts ran on, when Tony is stern with him, when Tony reveals something strange to him, something, perhaps, of integrity and inner power and character which can’t be shaken, then he regards Tony with respect and gravity. Perhaps it is the unconscious homage the unrighteous involuntarily tender the righteous.

  The bedrooms blew with hot wind and sun. Tim was lifting a photograph from a tall chest of drawers, and Tony and Dolores were waiting courteously to be shown. DeWitt stood apart, his eyes on the floor, his small pale underlip thrust out, a mannerism he had when thinking secret thoughts which Allan doubted were childlike. Allan said in a low voice, “Don’t sulk, DeWitt.” There was a plea under his words.

  “But I’m not sulking, Daddy,” replied DeWitt with genuine surprise. He suddenly smiled, and the sallow face became, for an instant, almost engaging.

  “And this is your Uncle Mike, Brother Michael it is,” Tim was saying, showing the photograph to the twins. “See, among the Indian children, teaching them, caring for them, in their wild heathen country, where the government keeps them. See how they gather about his knee, the little ones, listening to his stories.”

  “But why does he wear those clothes?” asked Tony. He held the photograph in his hands, and showed it first to Dolores and then to DeWitt, who had moved silently to his side. It never seemed to surprise Tony that DeWitt, in spite of his usual derision and his hostility toward his brother, should still manage to be with him, unsought and uncalled.

  Tim did not glance at his son. He only said, “It’s the holy monk he is, a Franciscan brother. A man in the service of God. You’ll be knowing about God, I’m thinkin’?”

  “Oh, yes,” replied Tony, puzzled, and examining the photograph closer while Dolores peered over his shoulder. “My tutor and Dolores’s taught us the Lord’s Prayer, and we say it every morning, and we have Bible stories and history. But how is—Uncle Mike—in the service of God?”

  “He gave up his life to God. But that is a story your Dada must tell you. You see, my loves, there are men who would rather work for Our Lord, among His poor creatures, than work for themselves. You must ask your Dada.” Tim gazed down at his grandchildren with sorrow and anxiety. He took the photograph and extended it to Allan, who examined it without expression. Michael radiated peace and happiness upon the young Indians grouped about him; a small child sat upon his knee. He was the earth and holiness and all repose, and the bend of his stout body was implicit with protection and love. Now Allan saw why he had seemed ridiculous and plebeian in the clothing of ordinary men. The habit he wore gave him stature, was part of himself, and it had permitted that which was in him to emerge with grace.

  He looked down and saw DeWitt scrutinizing him with an odd mixture of amusement and curiosity. He felt naked under that wise old regard on a very young child’s face. He turned away. He had imagined what he had seen; five-year-old boys were still hardly more than infants. They did not have Satanic eyes. There was something wrong with a father who believed they had.

  Tim led the way into his and his wife’s bedroom, and proudly exhibited the chests he had made. On one of them was an object which Allan recognized, for he had given it to his parents two Christmases before. It was an alabaster statue about sixteen inches high, made in Italy. The image stood in an arched grotto, the wall of which was carved with a minute rosebush. It was a lovely thing, and light poured through its luminosity. Before it burned a candle in a red glass. Tony and Dolores exclaimed with pleasure as they stood before it. “Our Lady of Lourdes,” said Tim. Again, he did not glance at Allan. “Your Dada gave it to us. You must ask him about it.” Tony looked over his shoulder at Allan. “But who is she, Daddy?” he asked. Allan hesitated. Tim said very gently, “She is the Mother of God. She is your mother, too. She loves you very much.”

  Tony asked no more questions. I should never have brought them here, thought Allan. I was a fool.

  They went downstairs to the brick kitchen with its cool floor of yellow stone, its wide windows, homely table, black stove, and rocking chairs. They could see the trunks and branches of old elms and oaks outside, dappled and streaked with sun, the pleasant dim lawns, the wide fields, wide sky, and far mountains. There is a difference between the mere absence of sound, and encompassing peace, thought Allan. His mother was pouring hot water from a copper kettle; it was like a small patch of sunlight in the kitchen. She had kept the teapot he had given her when he had been twenty years old, a dark brown thing with little clusters of white porcelain flowers scattered over it. She had set the table with a stiff white cloth, thick and unpretentious china, thin polished spoons which she had brought with her from Ireland, little sandwiches of watercress and ham, and the cakes which her family had loved, plain fat circles with a rich taste. She smiled timidly and shyly as the family came in, and with a gesture of her worn hand, she indicated places at the table.

  His mother had never seemed full-bodied to Allan. He had thought of her as a shadow in the background of his life, always gentle and loving, but retreating. He could not recall that she had ever advanced an opinion; for the first time
he wondered if she was able to read and write, for there was no memory in him of a book or a newspaper in her hands. Yet, thought Allan, I never knew it until now: she was all comfort and all serenity, all through the damnable years of poverty and hunger and pain and fear.

  He was glad that his children had been trained not to chatter. Jon and Norman, Estelle’s boys, though seventeen and fifteen respectively, babbled like very young children when they were home from their school. They skylarked, pouted, had tantrums, shrilled, stamped, and ran like colts through the house—and competed for their mother. They appeared like giant but retarded infants, when with their nephews and niece, a ludicrous contrast painfully evident to Rufus. Yet, they were not really stupid young men; they led their classes at Groton in all their studies.

  Tony, Dolores, and DeWitt sat sedately at the kitchen table in Tim’s house, and Mary Marshall smiled faintly at them, her brown eyes softly beaming. She did not speak; she only passed cups and plates; she seemed to notice nothing. She listened to her husband as he spoke to her son of crops, of old Dan Boyle, of Michael. His voice was hearty and warm; occasionally he would run his rough hand tenderly over Dolores’s long hair, smile at Tony, and glance with troubled question at DeWitt Speech was not an urgent matter to Mary; she rarely found it necessary to talk. A smile was a substitute for a laugh, and when she smiled her tired face became radiant and alive.

  But Mary saw and understood everything. If there was pain in her as she gazed briefly and intermittently at her son, she revealed no sign of it. There Allan sat in his long, thin elegance, his striped white-and-blue blazer open over his lean body, listening with absent respect to his father. She refilled his half-empty teacup and appeared not to notice that he was eating nothing. But she thought to herself: He is not yet forty, my son, but there is a whiteness at his temples, and an agony in the lines of his face, and his shoulders are tired and his hands tremble. He is old with suffering.