Answer as a Man

by Taylor Caldwell

  “When in Rome,” he would say to Bernard, “do as the Romans do; that’s what I read. I’m American now.”

  “And Americans cook as bad as the English, I’m thinking,” said Bernard as he would spear another piece of fish. He shook his fork admonishingly at Saul. “Niver forget the ould ways. D’you want the world all one color, one culture? The good Lord never intended that, then. He wanted variety, and that he did. Think of flowers of only one color, say, purple, which I hate. Who would want a garden, if so?”

  Saul’s cheery face would grow momentarily sad. “It would be safer,” he said.

  Bernard had snorted. “And what’s a world without danger? Tell me that, bucko. Damned dull place. That’s why I niver could stomach the talk of heaven and pearly gates and streets of gold. Who would want it? Give me battle, every time.” And he thought of his youth and his fists and his sturdy kicking boot, and he smiled nostalgically. He would then talk of Ireland and the “cursed Sassenagh” and would embellish his bloody stories, relishing the many confrontations, which he usually had won. His slate-gray eyes would become like glittering stones on which lightning had suddenly struck.

  The two old gentlemen, on this warm April day, sat in peaceful silence together, Saul listening to the birds, Bernard looking up at the mountain, where, on its plateau, stood the completed hotel, Ipswich House.

  It was a sight, Bernard admitted to himself dourly, to please the most contentious eye, though he would never confess that to anyone. The architect had agreed to pale yellow brick and stucco and a red-tiled roof and bronze doors, and there the great hotel stood like an enormous U, on its noble acres, half-hidden by clusters of timber oaks and firs and maples and linden trees, with here and there a royal elm. The immense lawns were greening, as they sloped and stretched with the curve of the mountain meadow. Flowerbeds, even this early, gleamed with the satiny heads of narcissus and tulips of many colors. The hotel was open all winter, too, for the new fad of skiing, and sledding and skating, and was particularly gay at the Christmas holidays, “with guests from a dozen states,” the brochure stated proudly, exaggerating only slightly. With fires blazing in almost every room—though there were adequate coal furnaces—and holiday greens at every window and enormous Christmas trees in the public rooms dancing with tinsel and glass balls and toy reindeer and Santa Clauses, and ballroom music every night and liquors and wines donated by the management, it was a joyous and resplendent time at the resort. Only during the holidays were children permitted in any number, on the wise advice of Mrs. Lindon, who firmly believed children sabotaged any attempts at adult enjoyment. In short, Ipswich House was a haven for those males who were in flight from exigent wives and untidy offspring, and who were usually accompanied by lovely young ladies who answered to the name of “Mrs.,” though everyone knew they were not married to their escorts, Younger males, however, still filled with illusions, arrived with their legal spouses, to return every year for several years, until they, too, discreetly brought with them more amiable ladies with dash and spirit and much happy laughter.

  There had not been an empty room in summer after the first year, and guests made reservations long in advance, and returned season after season. Though it was only five years old, guests referred to it as “an institution.” The rooms were furnished as shown in the English model, all very expensive and all over the objections of the prudent Patrick Mulligan. But Jason had stubbornly insisted, and when Patrick was congratulated on the splendor and beauty of the hotel, he would say with a grand wave of his hand, “No money spared. Elegance for elegant people.” He finally included that phrase in the brochure Lionel had prepared, which was illustrated by photographs. The rates were staggering, but few complained.

  Sometimes, though not very often, Patrick forgot that this was all the doing of Jason Garrity, whom he loved more than he did his daughter and grandchildren. When his nephew Daniel reminded him of this fact, Patrick would say with irritation, “Don’t I know it, then? Am I a fool? Ah, that’s a grand bucko, my Jason.” He would pat his growing belly, now of a formidable size, and look loving and thoughtful.

  They had come a long way, all of them, he would think when alone in his enormous black-walnut bedroom in his own house, which was also occupied by his daughter and Jason and their three children, Sebastian, the eldest, and the twins, Nicholas and Nicole. Patricia, who endlessly read romantic novels, had picked those names for her children, much against Jason’s will. But Jason invariably pampered and indulged her, much to Bernard’s disgust and disbelief.

  They were all in debt, of course, to the two local banks and a large one in Philadelphia, but Patrick had been able to pay off the mortgage he had taken on the Inn-Tavern during the early days of financing. Mrs. Lindon had been of tremendous advantage here, and was, in her way, a partner in the profits. She had persuaded the two bankers in Belleville, her devoted friends, to sell her the extra acres needed—for cash—and had almost completely managed the financing of Ipswich House with the assistance of Daniel Dugan, who was now business administrator of the “corporation.” Bernard was not certain of all the “finagling,” as he mistrustfully called it, for he hated debt of all kinds, and “obligations,” especially to bankers, and lawyers, whom he loathed above all other men. Hadn’t they been influential in the passing of the new amendment, the Federal Reserve System, which would become active in 1913? Hadn’t they stolen the right of Congress to coin money, as asserted in the Constitution? Bernard never failed, at any opportunity, to denounce “those international robbers.” He was also aware that the “damned stupid people” had voted for the Sixteenth Amendment, a federal income tax, many times declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court. They had voted for this because of the lying promises of politicians. “They’ll know, every man jack of them,” Bernard would say, “when they, as Thomas Jefferson predicted, would eventually be taxed in their comings and their goings, with their food and their drink, their property and their shelters, and the fruits of their labor taken from them.”

  Mr. Elmer Schultz, of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, had been induced by the knowledgeable Mrs. Lindon and her banker friends to become part of the corporation and invest money, and had brought in his best architects to design Ipswich House in exact accordance with Jason’s wishes and his grandfather’s picture book detailing the English establishment. They had deplored the expense, but Jason, quoting Bernard, said, “In for a penny, in for a pound,” which Mr. Schultz had considered, and then had reluctantly agreed to.

  Jason was now manager of Ipswich House at a large salary, and in view of the fact that he had contributed his vital fourteen acres, was given fifteen percent of the net proceeds, which were growing year after year. Lionel, in charge of the dining rooms and the purchasing of foods and wine and liquors, and the supervision of the kitchens, and all those employed in the work of purveyance, also received a large salary—not as large as Jason’s, for Jason was the final authority in all things at Ipswich House, except for Patrick Mulligan, who rarely interfered. He had his own hands full with the management of the Inn-Tavern, which also was flourishing. Lionel was given, in addition to salary, one percent of the net profits and an annual bonus because of his priceless genius in stimulating business. He wrote the flamboyant brochures. He also kept the workers under his rule honest, to a great extent, and that was no light struggle.

  All concerned were ebullient and optimistic, sometimes even Jason, who had become unnaturally cautious and morose.

  Bernard knew nothing of the intricacies of mortgages and financing and bonuses and profits and expansion, and so was less than enthusiastic when Jason would attempt to enlighten him. He would wave his hand dismissingly and say, “When a man’s in partnership with bankers, he’s mortgaged himself to the Devil, and that he has. Niver was a banker a friend of man, except if that man had a lot of money and didn’t need a bank.” His mistrust had become greater the last year or so, when Jason had announced that the corporation had bought one thousand acres of
land forty miles away, also in the Poconos, for “a family hotel, for all seasons,” a hotel at least twice as large as Ipswich House. The foundation had already been dug and contractors engaged.

  “Mark my words,” Bernard had said with gloomy alarm, “you’ll all end up in debtors’ prison. And don’t tell me there are no debtors’ prisons in America! You’ll have them soon, with this new federal-income-tax business.”

  “Oh, Da,” Jason would reply. “You’re too pessimistic. Weren’t we all promised that the new federal-income-tax amendment would apply only to the very rich, and then only two or three percent? The government doesn’t want to kill the goose that lays the golden egg.”

  “They always do!” shouted Bernard. “And why, tell me that, boyo! Because to tax is to ruin. Lord Acton said that himself, and even if he is a Sassenagh, he spoke truly. ‘The power to tax is the power to destroy.’ Read your history, damn you. What are you doing with all those books I gave you? No man should vote unless he knows what he’s voting for and knows what is good for his country.”

  “A new Jeremiah is heard in the land,” Jason said, but not without some uneasiness.

  “About time,” grunted Bernard. “But too late, I’m thinking.”

  “The Irish never trusted governments,” said Jason.

  “With damned good reason!”

  Beside Bernard, Saul was half-dozing in the unseasonably warm April sun. Saul had comforting silences, and Bernard reflected that he himself needed comforting. Once, a man of his years had peace. Now there was no peace anywhere. Like an Irish farmer who could smell snow long before it arrived, Bernard smelled trouble in the world, putrid trouble. Weren’t the newspapers now denouncing the German kaiser because he was building up his armed forces? “That German feller,” Bernard would confide to Saul, “knows something we don’t. But you can wager he probably has reason for his suspicions. Perhaps because Germany is so prosperous, with no slums, and the rest of us are always in and out of Panics.”

  Bernard had taken to reading Das Kapital, by Karl Marx, but no one would listen to his views on Communism but Saul Weitzman, who would nod soberly. “It’s an old tyranny,” Bernard would say. “It crops up, eventually, in every country, and that’s the end of the poor sods. Goes back to Egypt and Babylonia. I’ll give you another book. Eugene Debs, American socialist. In prison for conspiracy to kill. They do love their killings, these humanitarians. Killing’s their ultimate way of proving they love mankind.” And Bernard would laugh bitterly. “I’m glad I’m not a day younger. It’s Jason and his children I think about, and what they’re going to face. I’ll be thankfully dead.”

  Three youths wandered by, giggling among themselves as they told each other salacious stories. They kicked up the gravel and guffawed. Bernard studied them grimly. The Farrell lads—Joe and Mike and Matthew—the oldest sixteen and a worker in one of the mills, Mike, fifteen, on his first job in a new small factory, and Matt, the youngest, a hellion of about twelve. Their dada, thought Bernard, was a good and prosperous man, with a hardware store and a blacksmith shop which also catered to those who owned automobiles, and a sound little body of a wife who beamed happily at everyone. How did two such get sons like these, always in mischief. Dennis, their father, had wanted the two oldest to finish high school, but they were too dull of wit to continue, and the youngest, who was the most intelligent, was always playing truant. They had all been firmly disciplined by their father, who had been born in Ireland, and though they feared and obeyed him most of the time, they also hated him for his sternness. They despised their mother, who adored them, and exploited her generous and tender heart. Kathleen Farrell reminded Bernard of his dead daughter-in-law, Katie.

  Bad blood somewheres, Bernard would think, when he encountered them. They were afraid of Bernard, to some extent, and the cane he carried with him. They wandered off, but a moment or two later young Matt crept up behind Saul and smashed down his gay straw hat over his ears. “Kosher kike!” the boy yelled, and at a distance, his brothers laughed like jackasses. Bernard sprang to his feet, clutching his cane, but the boys ran off like hares.

  “Never mind,” said Saul, ruefully examining his ruined hat. “Only boys. They mean no harm.”

  Bernard shouted, “They don’t, eh? And it’s wrong you are. They mean only harm. They’re always in trouble, in spite of their dada’s leather belt, and it’s sorry I am for Dennis and his lady.” He sat down, breathing heavily, his grayish face mottled with dangerous color. “I’d like to beat the shit out of them, myself. Could do a better job than their dada, whose arm is always being held back by Kathleen. Wimin! They should niver have the rearing of men-children, niver. My mum niver dared raise her voice to my faether, or interfere. And many’s the time he laid us boys out, though he left the colleens to Mum.”

  He took Saul’s hat from him, and cursed. Saul was a poor man; he paid Bernard eight dollars a week for six days in his shop, and could not understand why Bernard remained in the old shanty when his son, Jason, was only too anxious—as was Patrick Mulligan—to have the old man live in the ugly luxurious house where Patrick still lived with his daughter and Jason and their children—despite Patricia’s endless tears and nagging for a new home.

  “In the old country, the generations live together, and everybody is happy,” Saul would urge.

  “I doubt it,” Bernard would answer. “I’m independent, I am, and I like living alone. Niver was one for stumbling over a family.”

  He said, now, “It’s your birthday coming, Saul. I’ll buy you another hat. With a green ribbon,” and he chuckled sourly, and weighed his heavy cane in his hand with some wistfulness.

  There was a coolness these years between him and Jason. Bernard never explained why. But he would think: And it’s a grandson of mine who got his wife in the family way for two months before he married her! I thought better of Jason. Not a sneaking rascal—I thought. Not one to take advantage of a poor trusting girl—I thought. Then suddenly running off with her to a justice of the peace in Riverton one fine day, unbeknownst to poor Pat, and not a priest until two weeks later to sanctify the marriage, and hot the lovely wedding for his girl that Pat had dreamed of since she was born. Thought better of Jason. And everyone saying, and the doctors, that Sebastian was a seven-month baby, and everyone believing it but me. You don’t have a fine boy like Sebastian being born weighing over seven pounds, if he’s a seventh-month baby. But fools believe what they want to believe, and Pat’s a power in Belleville and brought prosperity here. Wonder if he’s fooled himself. Probably. But only too glad to have Jason as his son-in-law, no matter how it came about.

  Father Sweeney had remarried the two renegades—as Bernard called them—and Father Sweeney had baptized the children, and never said a word. Discreet, thought Bernard, and did not know whether to be grateful or not. But the priest had been vehement enough when he had persuaded his lordship the bishop not to inflict John Garrity on him as an assistant, after John had been ordained. There was a meek little German lad now as Father Sweeney’s assistant. The parish had grown over these years. John was assistant pastor to an old arthritic priest in Scranton, in a depressed parish, and as the old priest “had taken to the bottle, poor soul, for his pains,” and John was very vigilant and active and seemed everywhere at once, no one complained.

  Jason could not understand the coolness between him and his grandfather. As he was reticent by nature, he had not asked. Jason believed his older son to be his own, and that Sebastian was indeed a seventh-month child. He had been told so by two physicians, very prudent men who knew the truth but who were afraid of Patrick Mulligan. They too surmised that Jason had got Patricia into “a delicate condition” at least two months prior to the marriage. Patrick, the innocent, also believed in the fable of the premature baby. He would never have believed that his sheltered darling had been immoral and had bared herself, before marriage, to any man.

  Only three knew the truth: Daniel Dugan, now married to Molly Nolan, and Lionel and Joan Garrity.
Lionel had married Joan four months after he had abandoned Patricia: He adored her almost abjectly; he trusted her absolutely, and she trusted him. A cynic by nature, Joan had accepted with celestial equanimity Lionel’s confession that he most probably was Sebastian’s father. “Well, it’s over and done with,” she had said, “and the girl is a fool and always was, and because Sebastian is your own, my darling, I love him also.” This was no lie. Unable to bear children herself, she did indeed love the child, as his mother did not. He was Lionel’s. Joan did not pity her deceived brother. She had never considered him of much consequence, anyway, and had even despised him. She was totally convinced that without Lionel he would be nothing, and she resented her brother as a result, and her hatred grew with the years.

  Daniel had not told Molly of his knowledge. Molly had a sharp tongue, and under all that adorable independence and intrepid demeanor was a soul easily outraged at injustice and betrayal. Some might have blurted out the truth, and would never have understood that some things are better hidden.