Never Victorious, Never Defeated

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  Tony’s heart became constricted. “I am looking for him now, for I must go. It’ll soon be time for Benediction.”

  Where was Dolores? There was no sign of his sister in the surging of the guests. He must leave without seeing her. He smiled at DeWitt and went through the windows and into the gardens. A trio of musicians was playing somewhere, and the jangling discord of the ragtime music offended Tony’s ears. But worse than anything else was his formless fear. What did DeWitt mean? He had not spoken with concern for his father. There had been something else in his voice, expressionless though it had been. Tony had been so detached from the family business for so many years that he had given up thinking of it seriously. Now he stood uncertainly under a great oak and frowned with concentration. Miles and Fielding. Miles’s power had been growing on the road, and he had assisted his brother to advancing power, also. Miles was married to the daughter of Jim Purcell; she must have considerable stock, and she was slavishly devoted to her young husband. Fielding had married the only grandchild of the banker Brownell, one of the directors of the road. Patrick Peale, father of Miles and Fielding, was also a director. Laura Peale, mother of the two young men, owned considerable stock—Tony was uncertain how much. On the other hand, DeWitt was not only executive vice-president now, he was married to Mary Peale, who had inherited stocks and bonds from Jim Purcell. Fifty-one per cent of the stock was held by his, Tony’s, parents. He supposed, vaguely, that the advantage lay with his own family—the Marshalls.

  Tony moved slowly down the green terraces. May had come in a tide of flowers, a sea of bursting green, spilling the overflow of rose and yellow and white and blue over the stones of the walls and the terraces and the rock gardens. The sun flung blue shadows away from the clustering trees and spread them on the young grass. It was as if the earth was rioting in joy and color, dancing in an exuberance of praise and innocence. The green mountains lifted themselves in the background, almost sparkling in the sunlight. But what of the torn fields and the broken walls of Belgium and France? What of the trampled new grain and the smashed vineyards and the ruined churches? Was there any joy in Europe now, any flowering to give gladness to the eye? Tony sighed. He did not believe that Europe was engaged in any “fight for freedom,” as was proclaimed in the British, French, Austrian, Belgian, German, and Russian press. His father had often despairingly asserted that ancient evil was again breaking out in Europe among a silent congress of men, and with it had exploded a war for the world’s markets. Yes, thought Tony, still descending the terraces to the lower gardens, all that is true, but it is something else besides. The old murderous instinct of man, atavistic, buried in him like a red seed which would not die, was leafing once more in a resurgence of unbounded death. The evil plotters could not flourish, there would be no wars for world markets without that instinct in man which impelled him to hate his brother and desire his annihilation.

  “Lord have mercy upon us—Christ have mercy upon us,” murmured Tony, thinking of the boys in the trenches of Europe, thinking of the thousands of graves, thinking of the weeping of women and children and the sound of Cain’s guns in the meadows and the forests. “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death,” he prayed. Sinners, he said to himself. We are all responsible for the riot of murder in Europe, which will never end, never end.

  He shivered as though he had heard a tremendous and warning whisper. But what can I do? he asked himself. There were some who were already scolding in the American press that “religion had failed the world.” No. Man had failed religion; he had failed God. Tony remembered the grandeur of the churches and cathedrals of Europe and America. How empty they were during holy services! How few knelt at the altars or filled the pews! The priests and the ministers were always there, anxiously waiting for millions who never came. They waited to speak of God and mercy and love and justice—but the millions never came.

  But what if the churches suddenly spoke up with a single and sonorous cry: “Thou shalt not kill!” What if the men of God stood in the trenches and commanded that all men lay down their arms? What if all priests and ministers descended in a body on The Hague and called the statesmen and the generals what they were: murderers? They could not kill us all, thought Tony with a sad smile. The women would stand beside us, and perhaps the lusting world, lifting its blood-stained guns, would be startled into hearing, and be ashamed, and the primordial instinct would wither away.

  Tony found himself standing beside the glittering poplar he had planted as a child. He looked up into its high branches in which birds were nesting. The pointed tree seemed to turn on its trunk like a gigantic green candle in the soft wind and under the sun. How many millions of Europeans—young men like himself—had planted trees about their own peaceful little homes! And now the trees were blackened stumps and the birds had gone. For what? For what? “Defense of country?” “Liberty?” Lies, lies. There was only Cain, at the beginning, and at the last.

  The grotto, green-walled, stood before the young priest, and he pushed aside the thick shrubbery and entered. There, as he had feared, sat his father on an old marble bench, drinking. A bottle stood beside him; there was a glass in his hand. His whitened head was bent, and he slumped on the bench like a motionless and emaciated statue of despair. He did not look up as Tony approached him; his stained eyelids had closed over his sunken eyes; his mouth sagged with agony. Tony sat down near his father and said very softly, “Tell me about it, Dad.”

  Allan stirred. Slowly, he lifted his head, and as he looked at his son, Tony knew that he did not see him. He was away in some terrible dream of his own, and was only barely conscious that someone was with him, and listening. He said thickly, “It was that Christmas—they broke the windows.” He raised his hand and clenched it and brought it down on his knee with heavy and measured strokes like the beat of a heart. “The stone fell on the crèche. The Christ Child was smashed in His cradle.” He peered at Tony as if trying to see him. “I had known all the time what men are like, from the time I was a lad. But, sure, and that stone brought it home to me. I nailed up the window with the hammer, and I was striking at the rascals. …” He dragged his hands over his haggard face and stared off into the distance with bloodshot eyes. “And I've been striking at them all my life, I’m thinking, and hating them. …”

  Tony said very gently, and with love and pity, “No, you’ve been hating the evil in them, but not the men themselves. Didn’t you know?”

  Allan was shaking his head. It was apparent that a few of his son’s words had penetrated into the black storminess of his drugged mind. “The evil is man, and man is the evil. The sin is man, and man is the sin. If there was a God, man would never have been created.”

  His livid face was covered with cold moisture. Tony took out his handkerchief and wiped it away. What could assuage this anguish and this grief? Tony put his hand on the top of that bowed head, and prayed. Again he wiped away his father’s sweat, which seemed to stream from his soul like blood. Tony thought of his mother, and he thought with bitterness. She had only careless scorn for her husband now; her eyes, when they stared at him, were calculating and thoughtful. She could do so much for him! thought Tony sorrowfully. She could comfort him. Did she still love her husband? Now, for the first time, Tony began to doubt. Once, perhaps, she had loved him. Had his drinking revolted her? No, it was something else. Cornelia wanted something.

  I’m imagining things, Tony thought. Such cruelty isn’t possible. But he knew it was possible, for Cornelia. He recalled a letter she had written him before Christmas, a ruthless and derisive letter: “Your father grows more violent and incompetent every day. I don’t know what is to become of us. He is quite a fool, as you know, my dear.”

  She had added brutally: “I had often heard that the Irish are a gay and lively people. I don’t believe it. They’re belligerent and somber. … I saw them, when we were last in Ireland, gloomily drinking their grog in their pubs, not speaking for a long time, and then begin
ning to shout, and sometimes fight, wildly. Politics—‘wrongs’—the landlords—anything as long as they could indulge their moroseness. And your father is just like them.”

  What had the strong, realistic, and buoyant Cornelia to do with the sepulchral Celts, who had one foot precariously on earth and the other deep in mysticism? To her, they were ridiculous. The one to whom she was married was the most ridiculous of them all. She was pretending, less and less, to be concerned about him.

  If only I could take him away! thought Tony. If he could only go into retreat somewhere, where he could be healed. But there was no retreat for a man who had lost his faith.

  “The farm,” Tony said urgently to Allan. “Dad, can you hear me? The farm.”

  But his father was muttering in his slurred voice, “Dolores, my baby, my love, my little colleen. It’s leaving the child with us she is. But she must return to England. Duty, says she. Responsibilities. Her husband is gone—a good lad, that Dick, and it’s hoping, I am, that he won’t be killed. But he will! My soul is telling me. It was last night I heard the banshees, but Cornelia laughed and said it was the hoot owls. Why did my colleen leave me?”

  Tony turned to his father. He had believed what his mother had told him, that his father had desired this marriage, had urged it on his daughter. Lies! Lies! His. mother must always have her way; nothing could turn her from it. Tony’s breath came fast. Dolores had been deceived; she had tried to please her father, to do what he wished. But he had never wished it. No wonder, now, that Dolores was so cold and withdrawn, and why she would not speak with her father and her brother.

  “Dolores loves you, Dad,” said Tony, full of despairing pity. “She will come back. She trusts you. She is leaving little Alex with you. You must take him to the farm.”

  Allan cried, “God, God, God!” Someone was shaking him, but he was in darkness again. Someone was calling him, and he struggled to answer. It was becoming light; the sun was everywhere, and the sound of the spring wind in the trees was the sound of surf. He came to himself with lightning sobriety, his heart shaking and a long shiver passing over his flesh. His son Tony was beside him, his anxious face turned to him, his hands on his father’s shoulders. “What is it, Dad?” he asked. “Why did you shout? Can you hear me?”

  “Yes, yes, I hear,” said Allan faintly. His face was dripping. Tony dried it tenderly. “You must have fallen asleep for a few minutes, Dad,” he said. His father had called to God in a voice of the utmost extremity, in his nightmare. Tony put his arm about his father’s shoulders and thought: He has come almost to the end. “I was talking about Dolores,” he said. “She is leaving little Alex with you.”

  Allan threw off his son’s arm violently and half-rose. “No!” he cried. “She can’t go back! The whole damn sea’s infested with submarines! The Germany Embassy has been warning the idiot Americans to stay off British ships, but still they go, thinking it all wonderful fun, and exciting. Tony! Dolores must stay with us.”

  Tony frowned anxiously. “But Dad, she came on the Lusitania, and she’s returning on it tomorrow. It’ll be convoyed, just as all the other British ships are convoyed. She’ll be perfectly safe. Why scores of Americans will be on it … the Germans wouldn’t dare—”

  “The Germans!” exclaimed Allan, more and more excited, and almost violent now, in his passion of fear. “Who said anything about the Germans? We need an ‘incident.’ Can’t you understand? The American people don’t want war, but something must be done to make them want it. I tell you, I had a dream!” He stood up, and staggered, and Tony stood up also, and caught his father’s arm. “The Lusitania won’t be convoyed, not this time! Not this time!”

  Tony said imploringly, “Dad, Dad, listen to me. Do you think the Germans would sink the Lusitania—Almighty God forbid it!—just to get us into the war against them? It doesn’t make sense. Think a moment. They’d be more anxious not to sink it.”

  Allan was wringing his hands, and he was breathing like a man just rescued from death. He regarded his son with the wildest eyes. “I’ve tried to tell you, but it does no good. You only listen with your ears, Tony. If a great ship like the Lusitania is sunk, with many Americans, yes, it will be a German torpedo. But who will give the order to loose that torpedo? The German government alone? No, I tell you! It will be many others, here in America, in England … men you can’t see, won’t ever see, safe men who’ve been plotting all this for many years, fanatical-men—” His arms fell to his sides, and he shook his head over and over. “It’s no use. You’ll never understand, in spite of all I’ve told you all these years.”

  “I believe what you’ve told me; you had the proof,” said Tony, frightened for his father. “What shall we do? Ask Dolores not to sail? Mama told me that Dolores must return to England. We can only pray.”

  Allan slowly looked about him at the earth and then at the sky. Then he said in a strange voice of the utmost bitterness, “To whom? To what?” Tony was silent, and Allan studied him with narrowed eyes. “No, I shouldn’t have asked you, boy. You have the stock answers, don’t you? Or you think I would turn away from you. Tony, I can’t talk to Dolores. You must; she is your twin. Tell her she can’t go, in the name of God.”

  Tony found his sister Dolores in her sitting room with her three-year-old boy in her arms. A nurse stood nearby while Dolores rocked and murmured to the child, and kissed him and begged him to be “very good while Mama is away for a little while.” The little fellow listened to her obediently, his light brown eyes, so serious and glistening, fixed on his mother. No one noticed Tony for a few minutes. He thought he had never seen so beautiful a picture in that early twilight. Dolores, in a long and flowing gown of blue, had let down her masses of pale hair and had tied them back from her face with a blue ribbon. She seemed, to Tony, to be the very embodiment of the Madonna, all youth and grace and loveliness, bending over her child tenderly, her mouth gentle yet stern with anxiety for him, her eyes shining with love.

  “You will be so happy with Grandma and Grandpa,” she was saying. “And Alex must be away from the awful Zeppelins, and then he shall come home to Mama and Papa.” Her voice had already acquired an English inflection, and Tony reflected that his sister had gone far from him. She was, to everyone but her child, cold and distant and indifferent, as if nothing held interest for her anywhere in the world.

  He spoke up now: “A very nice little boy, Dolores. I’ve only seen him once or twice.”

  Dolores glanced up and he saw the sweetness of her eyes harden. Tony sat down on his heels and held out his arms to Alexander. “I’m your uncle, child,” he said. “Won’t you come to me?”

  The boy hesitated, staring at the strange young man in his priestly black. He peeped up at his mother. She did not move, though she had relaxed her arms. She neither urged him nor detained him, and her face was fixed and expressionless. “Come, dear,” said Tony urgently. Again the child hesitated, then he suddenly smiled and his small and slender face became radiant. He slipped from his mother’s lap and ran to Tony and shyly put his arms about his uncle’s neck. Tony rose with him, holding him tightly, and looked at Dolores above his head. He was too moved to speak. But Dolores said to the nurse, “You may take Alexander in a few moments.” Her voice was as cold as her eyes. She folded her hands on her knees and gazed at the windows, which were turning a deep turquoise.

  Tony fondled his nephew and kissed him. He ruffled the feathery brown hair on the child’s head. “Such a nice boy,” he said helplessly. “Alex. I’ll come to see you often.”

  Alexander nestled against his uncle, then stirred with childish restlessness, eager to return to his mother. Tony reluctantly set him down and the child ran to Dolores, who gave him to his nurse. She waited until the woman and the boy had left the room and then said, still gazing at the windows, “I suppose you came to say good-by, Tony.” Her profile was as lifeless and impervious as marble in the evening light.

  He sat down near her and fumbled for his pipe. He took considerable time
filling and lighting it. He puffed at it for a minute or two. He said at last, “No. I came to ask you not to go back to England until the war is over.”

  She slowly turned to him and smiled faintly. “That is out of the question. Dick has only an old senile uncle and a distant cousin. Neither could manage his affairs in England. I’m needed there. I can’t run away like a coward. There are the people, our tenants, our dependents. It is impossible to desert them. Dick relies on me.” She smoothed a fold of her gown in her white fingers. “I am sailing tomorrow, as you know, on the Lusitania.” Her smile was a little mocking now. “Why should any of you be afraid? The Lusitania was convoyed by British destroyers coming over; it will be convoyed on the way back.”

  Tony said, out of his hopelessness, “Dad told me this afternoon that he thinks that this time it won’t be.”

  Dolores laughed stiffly. “How ridiculous. How could he know? I understand that many Americans will be on board. Who would dare kill them? Germany? Tony, that sounds very foolish.”

  Tony lifted his hands and let them drop on his knees. “I’ve had a lot of talks with Dad. He has convinced me that something is brewing in the world, something deathly. And that to bring it about they will stop at nothing.”

  “Who are ‘they’?” asked Dolores with a light note of derision in her voice. “Dad has changed for the worst in the past years. He’s haunted by unreal fears. Possibly because of his constant drinking; he must be having hallucinations. If you were about your business, Tony, you’d be helping him overcome his alcoholism, and getting him to overcome his unhealthy delusions.” She lightly threw the fold of her dress from her. “I’m really very vexed; Dad even convinced Dick with his fantasies.”