Answer as a Man

by Taylor Caldwell

  Patricia’s face closed, as if guarding a secret. But her eyes were stealthy and knowing.

  “Jase told me that Lionel is in love with Joan Garrity,” said Patrick, succumbing to a seventh sausage.

  Patricia suddenly exclaimed, “That’s a lie—it’s not true!” Her voice was high and emphatic, and she put her coffeecup down on its saucer with a clatter. Her father regarded her with innocent astonishment. “Lionel wouldn’t even look at that … thing!” Patricia added with more emphasis.

  “Now, then, how would you know that, love? I’ve never seen you talking to Lionel, and you know very little about that beautiful cripple. Face like an angel. Pity. Burden on poor Jase and his grandfather.”

  Daniel shrugged. “I still don’t know much about all these younger people. But I, too, have heard that Lionel is infatuated with Joan Garrity.”

  “Never!” cried Patricia, outraged.”

  “How do you know?” asked Daniel with an air of indifference. He chose another muffin and regarded it critically and so did not see the glance of hatred his cousin gave him.

  “It’s just common sense!” she said. “Lionel’s going to be quite well off when the new hotel is built. Why should he want a beggarly cripple? It’s an insult to him.”

  “Hah,” said Patrick, hovering over the basket of muffins. “Jase is going to be rich, too, and so is his sister, through him. They’ll all have money. And that lovely colleen Joan could melt any man’s wits, with that face of hers. Like an angel’s. I hear she’s very smart, too. She looks like a grand princess in church. People look at her. No holy statue is as perfect. If she hadn’t been crippled, she’d have turned the heads of crown princes.” He tapped his flushed forehead. “One thing I know, love, is people. That girl has a mind. I shouldn’t wonder the gossip about her and Lionel is true.”

  Oh, what stupid, absurd lies! thought Patricia with profound scorn. She was about to say something with furious anger when she felt an enormous wave of nausea, something she had been suffering lately. Indigestion, of course. It had been that immense dish of spareribs and sauerkraut she had eaten last night. She could never resist it. And the morning eggs and ham and bacon were frequently stale, she was sure. She had such a sensitive digestion. Anything not quite fresh always did upset her. She must speak to Dada about the kitchen, not only here but also at the Inn-Tavern. He was so careless and too amiable with the help. She would have to speak to the family doctor about her morning nausea and her frequent vomiting.

  The nausea mounted. She clapped her hand over her mouth and ran from the dining room. Patrick’s round pink face wrinkled with concern. “I don’t think my Patricia is well,” he said. “She’s run a few times after breakfast. Must call Dr. Hanrahan tomorrow.”

  Oh, my God, thought Daniel with genuine alarm. Didn’t that bastard protect her? Or is that one of his schemes? I should break his neck, thought Daniel, and maybe I will. What if he’s forced to marry that idiotic wench? That would break Uncle Pat’s heart. I know him; he’s set on Jason Garrity as a son-in-law. Good God, what a mess. What could he himself do? Nothing.

  Elsie, the crafty and inquisitive housemaid—a little sinewy girl with a vicious face—found Patricia vomiting helplessly in her bathroom, kneeling on the tile floor and clutching the seat of the commode, heaving, as Elsie thought, all her guts up. Elsie had seen this before, and had wondered. Miss Patricia was very healthy for all her skinniness, and a big eater. She said with false solicitude, “Miss Patricia? Something wrong?”

  Patricia gulped. She was very white and trembling. She wiped her mouth and looked up at the servant. “Elsie, there’s something wrong with the food! I think I have ptomaine or something.” She shivered. “I’m going to the doctor tomorrow to find out. I have a very delicate stomach.” She glared with accusation at Elsie.

  “Nobody else’s sick, Miss Patricia. Nobody’s been complaining.”

  “Nobody has a stomach like mine,” said Patricia with a touch of pride.

  “And that’s bad, isn’t it? Let me help you to bed so you can lie down.”

  Patricia’s sweat had left her face slimy and cold. She stood up, weaving. Elsie put her hand on Patricia’s shoulder with pretended concern and guided her to the bedroom. Patricia collapsed on the edge of her silk-covered bed, wiped her face with a damp handkerchief, and panted. “Maybe typhoid,” she said with terror. “There have been cases lately, in Belleville.”

  “Oh, dear,” murmured Elsie. “Here, let me take your shoes off, dearie. You do need the doctor. I’ve seen you like this other mornings.”

  “It’s Mass,” said Patricia, hitting the bed with her clenched fist. “I get so hungry. Nothing to eat from midnight Saturday until after Mass on Sunday. I get so faint. No wonder I throw up after I’ve finally eaten.”

  “Shame,” said Elsie, kneeling and taking off Patricia’s fine kid slippers with their black ribbon bows. “Thank God I’m Protestant.”

  Patricia leaned back carefully on the lace pillow shams, still gulping. She stared at the ceiling. “I must really be ill,” she said. She paused, and her pale face colored slightly. “Elsie, I … I haven’t come ‘sick’ for two months. Do you think that’s part of it?”

  Elsie’s face became alert. She sat back on her heels and looked closely at Patricia, trying not to smile. But … when? The wretched thing was always guarded by her father. But she was a sly one, she was. There were the Sundays on the bicycle. Like all servants with empty lives, Elsie was inordinately curious about her “betters,” and with vindictiveness. She pretended growing concern.

  Patricia sat up. “Do you think it’s typhoid, Elsie?” Her terror grew.

  “Could be.” At eighteen Elsie was an expert dissembler. She lowered her eyes with assumed modesty. “But I did hear … only ladies, married ladies, get this sometimes when they are going to have a … baby.”

  Patricia became rigid. Her slender throat tightened with a new convulsion. A baby! But that was impossible. A woman had to do certain things—but what were they? Surely not just … that! It had to be arranged and decided upon. But she and Lionel had neither arranged nor decided on anything much, and certainly not that. She had mentioned marriage often, and Lionel had sighed and said, “Not just yet, darling, not until I am worthy of you.”

  Patricia thought about the breakfast conversation, and her whole spirit writhed in violent denial. Lionel loved her, but she felt despair and a gigantic fright through all her body. She whispered, “What if you don’t want the … baby, Elsie?”

  Elsie grinned. “Oh, Miss Patricia! I shouldn’t be talking to you about such horrible things! But Mrs. Lindon knows; she’s got all those girls there.”

  “What does she know, Elsie?”

  “Well, there are doctors with knives … They take the baby away.”

  Patricia shuddered and was freshly nauseated. Her head whirled; she had to clutch the side of the bed to keep from falling off. Everything rocked and swayed. She felt she was in a nightmare, grotesque, ominous. But it couldn’t be! She and Lionel had done nothing to make a baby!

  “But how do you get a baby in the first place, Elsie?”

  Elsie stood up, trying not to burst into laughter. She lifted her skirts and pointed lasciviously and with certain gestures up between her legs. Patricia watched her, turning as white as snow.

  “No more than that?” she whispered.

  Elsie giggled. “It’s enough!” she said. “But what am I doing talking to a lady like you about such nasty things, Miss Patricia? Shame on me.” She bit her lip with assumed contrition. “You didn’t know about it?”

  “No. I didn’t.” Patricia’s whole body was running with sweat. “Are you sure … that’s all, Elsie?”

  “Yes, indeedy. A girl’s got to be very careful, Miss Patricia. Men ain’t no good, ever. Get a girl into trouble all the time. Sometimes they marry the girl, but not often. Just run off and let the whole town make fun of her, pointing. And sometimes she goes away and has the kid … or gets rid of it.”<
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  “But that’s murder,” said Patricia.

  Elsie shrugged. “Better than having the kid, anyways. But you got to be careful. You can die under the knives. Blood poisoning. That is, if you can get a doctor to do it. He charges a lot of money and could go to prison if he’s found out. So can the poor girl, too. It’s a shame. Men!”

  But not Lionel, not her beloved Lionel. All at once Patricia experienced a spasm of overwhelming joy. She would tell Lionel today. And they would be married. Her eyes began to sparkle with brown lights. She smiled feebly. She looked through the window. There was pale yellow sunlight peeping through the eddying clouds. Lionel. But how should she tell him? She turned crimson with shame. She and Lionel had never discussed what had happened during their rendezvous in the glade. It was too precious, too exciting, too ecstatic. It was … sacred.

  Lionel would marry her. She almost laughed in a sudden huge delight. She would whisper to him … Her color deepened. He would be so happy. They would tell no one, no one, until they were married. Of course Dada would go out of his mind. But he loved his daughter, and he would be reconciled. But he mustn’t know what had brought about the marriage. He wouldn’t believe it, anyway.

  “Are you sure, Elsie?” she asked, with a, great hope that it was true.

  “Sure.” She watched Patricia sit up and run the bag of rice powder over her flushed face. She watched as Patricia smoothed down her navy-blue skirt with the rows of black silk braid just over the instep. What was the crazy thing thinking now? The rich ought to be shot. They had everything. The poor had nothing. It wasn’t fair. Elsie wished she could tell the other servants. But she would lose her job, and jobs were hard to find.

  Patricia went downstairs and found her father dozing over his newspaper in the library, which was filled with books no one ever read. “Dada,” she said, and he started awake and beamed at her fondly.

  “Dada, I don’t think I should go to the Inn-Tavern with you today.” The very thought of food made her retch again. “I think I should just rest. And then, when I feel better, I’ll go to see Amy Comstock and her sisters.”

  “Good,” said Patrick. “Rest. Ladies are very weak, need all the rest they can get. But take the buggy today. There’s a cold wind up.”

  “Yes, Dada,” said Patricia.

  Later, she wheeled out her bicycle. The day was too threatening for many people to be on the road. The dun-colored sky was darkened rather than lightened by the intermittent thin yellow sun. It was also sharply windy, and the trees moved restlessly from side to side. Patricia’s felt hat veiled her face; the mackintosh was none too warm even over her dark blue wool suit with the white silk shirtwaist; the thin black kid gloves could not seem to keep out the chill. She pedaled fast against the wind. She began to plot what she would say to Lionel. It was only when she thought of him that her body warmed.

  She glanced anxiously at the sky. “Oh, please don’t let it rain!” she said aloud. She was glad that when she was married they would no longer have to be out in the open for love, but safe in the rich house her father would build for her. In the meantime she and Lionel would live with her father. She gave little or no thought to the child slumbering in her womb; she felt no maternal thrill or anticipation. There was only Lionel. Like a colossus he stood astride her soul; she was possessed by him. As she pedaled eagerly to the rendezvous, he filled her entire universe. “Please don’t let it rain!” she prayed to some amorphous deity. If it rained, Lionel would not come. The very thought was devastating. She hungered and ached for him with the most powerful desire she had ever known and would ever know. Not for an instant did she believe he would abandon her. He had assured her too often of his deep love. No. Rain or not, he would come, for he would know she was waiting for him. He would be as desirous of meeting as she was.

  She came to the break in the blowing trees and pushed her bicycle through the brush. Nettles caught at her silken ankles; she hardly felt them. When she saw Lionel’s bicycle against a tree, she laughed aloud in joy. She stood her own beside his, then ran into the glade. He was there, standing and smoking and looking up at the sky, his hands in his pockets, his hair a ruddy glow in the increasing gloom. To Patricia he seemed like a god, tall, restless, beautiful beyond describing. Her heart clenched with rapture and adoration and she sang, “Lionel! Lionel!”

  He turned. He was frowning. He was thinking: So, the little idiot came on a day like this. I should have known. She hasn’t any sense at all. He smiled and opened his arms, and she ran into them and nestled her face against his shoulder and clutched her hands behind his neck, murmuring incoherently.

  He was wary at once. Never before had she greeted him with such a fierce display of emotion. He pushed her face from his shoulder and looked down at her. Her cheeks were flushed under the dark blue veil, her eyes glittering as if with a fever. His alertness increased, and his self-protectiveness closed about him. He said, “What’s the matter, dear? Didn’t you think I’d come on this kind of day?”

  She gulped with sudden jubilation. “Oh, I knew you’d come. You knew I would be coming!”

  She was still clutching him, still breathing as if she had run all the way. He had decided this would be the last time he would meet her. It was too damned dangerous. He had been rehearsing, just before she came, what to say to leave her with her dignity—so that she would not be vengeful and ruin him—to give her the impression that she had relinquished him, not he her. He had abandoned his plan to use her, though she had caused his wages to be substantially increased. For only yesterday Patrick Mulligan, in a fit of expansiveness, had mentioned positively that he would marry his daughter off to Jason Garrity very soon.

  It was odd that Lionel, the exigent, had wanted to say, “No, not Jase for your daughter! Jase is my friend. He deserves better.” He had been both aghast and amused at his impulse; he had not thought he loved Jason that much. Human entanglements. They could raise hell with a man.

  He gently removed Patricia’s arms from his neck and looked critically about him. “Do you think we ought to stay?” he asked, pretending concern for her. “It looks like rain, and you wouldn’t want to get lung fever. I should have got word to you not to come—”

  “Oh, I don’t care about the rain!” cried Patricia, her eyes glowing with passionate love. “Storm, wind, snow, rain—it doesn’t matter so long as I’m with you, Lionel! Nothing matters!”

  His uneasiness heightened to alarm. He saw she was trembling. His lips felt cold and stiff, and he looked at her with something like ferocity, trying to discover the reason for her sudden wildness, the shaking of her mouth, the fast rise and fall of her breast. That she was exultant and elated frightened him even more.

  He said with caution, “You act as if you’ve got a wonderful secret. What is it, darling?” He forced himself to smile.

  She clapped her gloved hands together in joy, and her smile was wide. “I have, I have!”

  “Tell me,” he said, and wanted to slap the silly fool. An awful premonition came to him. There had been that one time, just that one accident. Though one time was enough to knock a woman up.

  “We’re going to be married!” she exclaimed, and now tears rushed into her eyes, tears of happiness. “Right away!”

  He said, and even his knees felt cold with fear, “Right away?”

  She wanted to say, “We’re going to have a baby.”

  But she could not. Her throat worked, but a hot shame came to her, an enormous embarrassment, a trepidation. He would want to know how she knew, and she simply could not explain her new knowledge. It would be shameful, unladylike, obscene. Good girls never talked of things like that to a man, even a man one was going to marry. She had heard some whispers in her aunt’s house to the fact that young Mrs. So-and-So was “enceinte,” but even women alone together did not speak openly of such things. She was appalled at the thought of telling Lionel, like a disgusting shopgirl. Her face turned red, and seeing that, Lionel was aghast. He thought of Patrick Mulligan. He wa
s ruined, ruined, because of this idiot, this … creature. He wanted to kill her! He lusted to take her by the throat and strangle her, and leave her here alone in the glade for animals to find. But he would not give up his last hope. He said, and his voice was hoarse, “You haven’t told anyone of this … have you?”

  “No, no. Not yet. Not until after we are married.”

  He breathed a little easier and studied her with an intensity filled with hatred and disgust. But he forced himself to take her face in his hands. She turned her head suddenly and kissed one of his palms. He shuddered. He wanted only to leave her, to forget that she ever lived and that he had been fool enough to get embroiled with her.

  He forced himself to speak tenderly. “Your father would never permit it, Patsy. You know that. He wants you to marry Jason Garrity.”

  “Oh, I know, I know!” she cried. “But I’d never do that. I love only you. Lionel, and he is only a clodhopper. He’s got Dada mesmerized, the crafty thing! Lionel, we’ll go away somewhere, tomorrow perhaps, to a little town—how about Spring Valley?—and we’ll find a minister to marry us at once, and then when it’s done we’ll come back and tell Dada, and he’ll forget all about Jason and be so pleased for us. After all, he’s so fond of you already; you know that’s true.”

  “A minister?” said Lionel incredulously. “Why, we’re Catholic, Patsy. We can’t do that. And you know how priests are. They want to know everything, and ask lots of questions, and they’d want to talk to your father first.”