Answer as a Man

by Taylor Caldwell

Jason said, “We all cause each other’s death one way or another,” and was astonished at himself. He was beginning to sound like Da, and then he smiled. I hope so, he thought. He said, “Da left all the money he had in the world to Saul—eight hundred dollars he’d stashed away in his famous tin box under his bed. Da knew what he was doing.”

  “Senile old man,” said Patricia.

  “No one here has his acuteness, his intelligence,” said Jason. He was rarely annoyed at Patricia, but tonight he was. “And it wasn’t Saul who caused Da’s death. It was two young criminals.”

  “Just children,” said Patricia in a sentimental tone. She assumed a maternal gentleness, all soft smirks and tilted head.

  “No one is a child,” said Jason. “Da used to quote the Holy Bible. ‘A child is evil from his birth and wicked from his youth. The heart of a child is deceitful.’ Or something like that. I’m beginning to believe that, too.”

  Lionel laughed. “I’ve known that since I was a kid. I remember my thoughts even when I was five years old. Nasty. Purely evil. Well, coming back to our new chef. I heard you bullied the kitchen cooks into compliance.”

  “I didn’t threaten them. I told them they had to act like men, or quit. I also warned Patterson that he mustn’t be prejudiced, either. He has a very high opinion of himself, probably deserved.” Jason paused. “But that doesn’t give him license to patronize the other help, either, and I made that plain.”

  There was a subtle charge in the air. Jason rarely exerted his authority and had never done so before to Lionel. Now he had a cold, threatening appearance, and even Joan was impressed. A peculiar flicker appeared in Lionel’s yellow eyes as he looked at Jason, and for the first time Jason became aware of it and was confused. He knew Lionel was secretive, but this was different. It was affectionate, that flicker, but it was also enigmatic. Jason could usually read Lionel, but now he could not. Lionel was looking into his glass with a disturbing thoughtfulness.

  What a dolt my brother is, thought Joan with contempt. And to think he is over Lionel! It’s outrageous.

  Lionel replenished the contents of the glasses, moving with his usual foxlike grace. He said, “I forgot to tell you. We have two other guests tonight.”

  “Oh, no!” cried Patricia, giving her husband an accusing look. “And Jason didn’t change!”

  “Who?” asked Joan.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Chauncey Schofield.”

  Jason frowned. “I’ve heard of him. How did you meet him?”

  “At the house of friends.”

  “Wonderful people!” exclaimed Patricia, giving her dress a quick look. “Rich. Sophisticated. Cultured. From Philadelphia. I met them when I visited their daughter, Elizabeth.”

  “If they’re like that, what are they doing in this backwater?” Jason asked. “I had the impression—I don’t know where I got it—that there’s something fishy about Schofield Enterprises. What does ‘Enterprises’ mean?”

  Lionel grinned. “Only he knows, exactly, but they seem to have a lot of money and they bought a very fine house. We’ve been there. He ‘dabbles,’ he says, in real estate, politics, finance, enterprises of all sorts which will make him money. He invests in them.”

  Jason repeated, “What is he doing in Belleville, then? Nothing here to interest him.”

  Lionel shrugged. “He thinks Belleville has a future.”

  “Very interesting people,” said Joan. “Perhaps Belleville has possibilities after all. Mr. Schofield has offices in New York and Philadelphia.” She smiled. “Perhaps he likes this backwater.”

  “Patricia’s friend Elizabeth isn’t really his daughter,” said Lionel. “He’s only about thirty-two, not much older than we are. His wife is at least fifty. Old enough to be his mother. I think she is the one who had all the money to begin with. A rich widow. He used it, I suppose, to make money for himself.”

  “I’ve heard about men like that,” said Jason, and was surprised to discover he was being disagreeable. “Opportunists. Adventurers. Not nice characters at all. They marry susceptible women for their money. Mrs. Schofield is fortunate that he hasn’t run off with all of it.”

  Lionel laughed, his very endearing laugh. “She has good lawyers in New York, who administer her late husband’s estate. And she’s not as foolish as she seems. She burbles on like an idiot and is infatuated with Chauncey, but I think there’s some cunning in her, too. He’s a very attentive husband, and a charmer. And a good father to Anita’s daughter by her first husband. She takes Chauncey’s name. Elizabeth is a beauty and she’s only ten or so years younger than Chauncey. He has a great influence over her.”

  “Lawyers or no lawyers, Mrs. Chauncey and her daughter had better watch out.”

  “You’re being uncharitable,” said Lionel, grinning. “Ah, I hear the bell. They’ve arrived.” He rose and went to greet his guests. Patricia looked at Jason inimically. “I don’t think you should judge Mr. Schofield that way. I’m beginning to think you married me for my money, yourself.”

  Jason colored, but he had no words to reply to her. He could only say, “Now, Patricia.” But he was wounded. He could never make Patricia understand that he had loved her from boyhood. She would only shrug. What did she really want? He was always trying to please her, always giving her gifts. She was never satisfied. She accepted everything as if she were doing him a favor.

  “Besides,” said Patricia with loftiness, “why shouldn’t a man marry money? Why should he marry a pauper?” And she looked at Joan, who was highly amused. Patricia fingered her jewels. Her gown no longer pleased her. She remembered that Mrs. Schofield was always magnificently dressed, and with better jewelry. Patricia was feeling her liquor.

  Jason waited, fuming. He was prepared to dislike the Schofields even before meeting them, and he did not know why. It was not like him to judge people before knowing them. But there had been something tonight … For some unrelated reason he was remembering that odd flicker in Lionel’s eyes.

  Jason could hear a man’s rich, mannered voice in the hall, accompanied by a woman’s high-pitched rush of greeting. She was expressing, Jason supposed sourly, her joy on encountering Lionel. The man with her laughed; it had an unctuous sound, and then Lionel spoke and it was his “public” voice, as Jason had once called it with mingled amusement and impatience. I’m certainly in a fine mood, he thought, and I think it is all the fault of that damned conceited stuck-up Zulu. He glanced at Patricia; he was always glancing at her. She was listening avidly, already adjusting her society expression of pleasant politeness. Poor girl, so shy, so diffident—it was difficult for her to be with strangers for long. Jason suddenly glanced at his sister. She was watching him with a faint smile of derision, as if she knew a disreputable secret about him, and he thought, as he had thought years ago with humiliation, that Joan regarded him with disdain.

  The new guests, led by Lionel, were entering the room, and Jason got to his feet. Joan thought how ponderously he moved now, and how rumpled he was, and how unkempt he looked with that faint blue-black shadow of a beard. How different he was from Lionel, who was all grace and lightness, and who appeared years younger.

  Jason looked intently at Mr. Schofield, and he knew what Lionel had meant when he had called the other man “a charmer.” He was very tall, almost as tall as Jason himself, and as lean as Lionel in his black broadcloth suit, impeccably tailored and obviously not from Belleville. He had broad fine shoulders, and his linen was beyond any criticism. But Jason noticed, with distaste, that his jewelry was a little flamboyant, including a little-finger ring with a diamond just a carat too large. He also wore a Harvard class ring and a diamond stickpin, also too conspicuous. Yes, a confidence man.

  Jason studied his face. It was large and smooth and tanned and of an extraordinary handsomeness. The nose was strong, the mouth was full, humorous and expressive, with a somewhat heavy underlip. But it was his forehead that fascinated Jason, for it sloped down like a shelf over dark brown heavy eyebrows, so that those brows seemed
pressed too closely to the eyes. Under that ledge, his green eyes, unusually large, were active and compelling. His brown hair was full and had been cleverly trimmed.

  He wore an air of extreme assurance and strength. Jason could understand why women would adore him, and even men would be attracted to all that healthy charm. He had a way of looking frankly and openly at others, as if he had never had anything to hide in his life, and it was a warm look intimating that he found nothing but friends in the world and was himself a sincere friend to all mankind. He was smiling widely now, and his teeth were big and white.

  Yes, thought Jason, a mountebank if I ever saw one, and the hairs on the back of his neck bristled.

  His wife, Anita, was obviously his senior by some twenty years. As if she knew this was evident, she assumed a girlish vivacity and manner, all animation and flutterings, much smiling and laughter, and much fast chatter and breathlessness. She was of medium height and very tightly corseted so that her plumpness was well-restrained, giving her a rather nice figure in its elaborate evening dress of silver satin and lace. Her bosom was full, as were her hips, but the waist was not bulky, again due to the corsets. She had a round babyish face, with cheeks like ripe peaches under a skin only slightly webbed with little wrinkles, round blue eyes like a staring child’s that mirrored a child’s candid greed, and a mass of golden hair whose color was suspect. She glittered with a diamond necklace, diamond earrings, a diamond bracelet, and two large diamond rings.

  Compared with her, Joan was a demure Mona Lisa in her blue velvet gown and patrician aura, and Patricia was quite extinguished, like a brown hen.

  “Oh, my darling angel!” cried Mrs. Schofield, running to Joan as fast as her hobble skirt would permit. She gave Joan’s cheek an audible kiss, and Joan endured it with one of her sweetest and most affectionate smiles. “You look too heavenly for this bad, bad world! As usual!” Patricia had risen and was waiting. She had lost her style and appeared awkward, like a schoolgirl caught among adults, improperly dressed, and embarrassed.

  Mrs. Schofield became aware of Patricia. She flung out her hands to the younger woman, and Patricia timidly took them.

  “Dearest Patricia!” proclaimed Mrs. Schofield. “Elizabeth told me how sweet, positively ravishing, you looked at luncheon. You’ve been so kind to my poor lonely little girl for the three years we’ve been here. So kind! And introduced her to so many of your dear little friends! We’re so grateful.”

  Joan watched this with her faint smile. Patricia was overwhelmed. Mrs. Schofield was always cordial, but she was exceeding herself now.

  “It was nothing,” said Patricia, flushing with gratification. Her voice was barely audible. “Everyone loves Elizabeth.”

  “Yes, don’t they! She’s so ingenuous, so artless, so confiding. No guile at all! Like a baby.” Mrs. Schofield patted Patricia’s thin shoulder, and looked about her, gasping with all her efforts. Lionel had already introduced Jason to Chauncey Schofield and was busy preparing a glass of whiskey for the latter and refilling Jason’s own glass.

  What a foolish woman, Jason was thinking. Or is she? Jason remembered the lawyers in New York who guarded her inheritances. Then he caught the expression in those round blue eyes, and he changed his opinion about the intelligence of the lady. Here was no fool; there was a cunning awareness behind the apparently gullible face, a cynical shrewdness. He hated emphatic and noisy women. She and her husband were well-matched, and she was at least as crafty as he. Whatever business they are up to, thought Jason, she’s an able partner. He approached the lady. “I must be invisible,” he said. “Nobody’s introduced us. I’m Patricia’s husband, Mrs. Schofield.”

  She broke into a blazing smile. “Anita!” she cried. “I’m Anita to my friends!”

  “And I bet you don’t have an enemy in the world,” said Jason with an honest look. Joan turned and studied him sharply, and then bit her lip to keep from smiling in appreciation.

  “Oh, you are so kind!” burbled Mrs. Schofield. “The whole world is so kind, really, this great, wide, beautiful, wonderful world, as the song goes.”

  “Give love and you’ll get love,” said Jason, and again Joan bit her lip. Patricia regarded her husband with astonishment; he was actually being civilized for a change.

  “True, only too true!” cried Anita. She clapped the palms of her hands together in rapture. “You are a dear man, Mr. Garrity. I’ve heard so much of you from Lionel and Joan, so much.”

  “And all of it flattering, no doubt,” said Jason.

  “Indeed!” Now she was regarding him closely. Taking my measure, thought Jason.

  She said, “What a handsome man you are, sir! I do like big manly men. And you have a look of power, so attractive to poor women like me. We can’t resist you.”

  “Do try,” said Jason, and Joan suddenly put her fingers over her mouth. Patricia was even more astonished. How could Mrs. Schofield really be interested in Jason, who had no polish, no culture or formal education? But Mrs. Schofield was probably just being gracious and amiable, as always.

  Lionel had been listening intently, and his red brows had risen and his foxlike grin had widened. Mr. Schofield was also studying Jason with enormous concentration, and kept a smile on his face, even though suddenly convinced that Jason was not quite so stupid as Joan had intimated. Chauncey, whose business was the manipulation of others, became cautious the more he scrutinized Jason. Lionel was right. There was more to this bumbling Irishman than appeared to the casual eye. The Irish might be violent and sentimental and quick to take offense, but there was something disconcertingly deep about them. Lionel was Irish, too, but he was quite open in his villainy when it came to business. He had said of Jason, “Don’t underestimate my brother-in-law when you meet him. He could disagreeably surprise you.” Anita’s right, thought Chauncey. There is a look of power about him. Bitter power. And he looks older than he is.

  “He’s a man of principle, God help him,” Lionel had said. “But far from a lump. He was a trusting kid when we were at school together, but something happened to him later. I don’t know what it was. He’s hard to know now; even I can’t always figure him out. I’ve even suspected a latent ruthlessness. But he’d never do anything he’d consider dishonorable.”

  “Ah,” Chauncey had replied. “Men like that can be easily fooled.”

  “Well, good luck, Chauncey, but don’t be too confident.”

  Chauncey had given Lionel his wide-eyed sincere look, and then they had laughed together.

  The little maid appeared and in a frightened voice announced dinner. Joan said, “Corned beef and cabbage. And boiled potatoes. Jason loves it.” Jason looked at her incredulously. He had not eaten this since his mother had died, remembering, with pain, his birthday party and Kate’s fever-flushed and loving face. Mrs. Schofield clapped her hands in delight. “I love it, too!” Patricia, who loathed it, said eagerly to her friend’s mother, “So do I.” She was almost fawning, and this discomfited Jason and made him feel vaguely ashamed for her.

  The large dining room was brightly lit by a very expensive crystal chandelier with electric candles. The furniture was an expert reproduction of Sheraton, and there was a genuine lace tablecloth and much silver, crystal, and fine china. Jason was bemused. He had watched Lionel pick up Joan in his arms as if she were a child. He had seen Joan put her little arms softly about her husband’s neck; he had seen them look deeply at each other, forgetting everyone else. Joan’s eyes, so transparently blue, had gazed into Lionel’s for a long moment and her face was suffused with an unearthly light, and Lionel had looked back and there was a tremulousness on his face. Jason had always believed that only the good could love profoundly, but now he saw love in all its tremendous passion. Patricia, he thought, never gazed at him like that, and coming down to it, he had never responded the way Lionel had responded to Joan. For a little it was as if the two knew there was no one else in the world but each other. God might be love, he commented to himself, but it seems Satan can love
, too, and perhaps more abundantly, and with selflessness.

  Lionel tenderly deposited Joan at the foot of the table. They touched each other’s hands before Lionel went to the head of the table and waited until the ladies had been seated before seating himself. Mrs. Schofield was on his right; Patricia, his left. Then the men sat down and Jason felt as if his weight would crush the delicate chair under him. Suddenly he hated this house and did not know why. He wanted another drink, and not wine, and a slight film of sweat dampened his forehead.

  The dinner might have been plebeian, but it was served superbly, and everyone talked pleasantly and laughed. But Jason felt danger in the atmosphere, as if inimical eyes were watching, and waiting, and all directed at him. He tried to divert his thoughts. Lionel’s income was far less than his, and Lionel had house expenses, which Jason did not. Patricia had her own large income, left to her by her mother, but Joan had married with very little, and that given to her by Jason, who had had not much himself then. For the first time Jason wondered how Lionel could handle the big house and the maid and cook and the new automobile. Debt, probably, he thought with gloom, for he himself had the austere Irishman’s detestation of debt. He became more and more uneasy. He kept glancing at Chauncey, and said little himself. The food reminded him of his grandfather, and his pain increased. Da, he thought, I wish to God you were here, and perhaps you could tell me why I feel so wary. Why was I invited tonight with these strangers? He did not yet suspect Lionel of ulterior motives; he did not doubt Lionel’s affection for him. Lionel was exigent, and had always admitted it, but his dealings with Jason had been open and untarnished. Never once had he taken advantage of his friend. He might be devious with others, but never with Jason. Until now? Jason became deeply depressed. He found a fresh glass of whiskey at his elbow. He drank it gratefully. Patricia gave him an admonishing glance, but he noticed that she was drinking the wine, and that her voice had risen to a higher and more insistent pitch, and that she was laughing too much and looking only at Lionel.