Answer as a Man

by Taylor Caldwell

  In America President Wilson naively drafted a new set of proposals for his “New Freedoms.” The American people had never felt such ebullience. The latest depression seemed to have ended. Even the farmers were almost contented. The summer portended unusually rich crops. There was some concern about two Mexican generals, Carranza and Villa, who were threatening war on each other. But there was much more excitement at “the hot debate” over women’s corsets. Americans were also involved in a discussion as to whether or not to permit Sunday baseball. The Reverend Billy Sunday opened a campaign in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on this sinful subject.

  These were the subjects of interest to Americans in June 1914, along with immense excitement over a series of moving pictures called The Perils of Pauline.

  Everything seemed peaceful. Millions of happy young men considered their future, made love, and attended sports events.

  Lionel visited Jason in his office this lovely June day and said, “I’m going home. It’s four o’clock. Joan will pick up Sebastian for his usual Sunday visit. Too bad you have to work.” He sat on the edge of Jason’s desk and nonchalantly lit a cigarette. He did not quite meet Jason’s eye, a habit he had acquired some time ago.

  “I forgot,” said Jason. “I thought he was going to the new park with Mr. Mulligan.”

  “He has more fun at my house, Jase.”

  “And he hasn’t any ‘fun’ at his own?” Jason leaned back in his chair.

  “I didn’t say that. You’re becoming snappish lately, Jase.”

  “And why not? We’re a year behind on the new hotel, and we’re having new difficulties getting supplies for Ipswich House and the Inn-Tavern. People are asking why.”

  Lionel shrugged. “It’s worse in other cities. It’s not just here.”

  “I know.” Jason frowned. He was not yet twenty-eight, but there were patches of gray at his temples and he appeared much older. He glanced at Lionel and noted Lionel’s resemblance to Molly. What had happened between Lionel and himself? The affection was there, but not the confiding friendship. Well, he thought, we are both growing older, and things change. But he had not changed toward Lionel. Or had he? He said, “Dan Dugan’s come back. He came in this morning.”

  “I know.” There was that new evasiveness in Lionel’s voice. He stood up. “Well. I’m going. Have a happy Sunday, working.” He waved his hand amiably.

  Why do I feel so uneasy? thought Jason, then applied himself to his work. But an image of Molly lingered in the back of his mind, and he felt both exhilaration and sadness.

  Instead of going home as he had told Jason, Lionel went to visit Chauncey Schofield in his elegant house that was the envy of half the town. They sat in the June-scented garden, which was very private and shrouded with trees. Anita Schofield sat with them working on needlepoint. In the sunlight of the garden her dyed hair took on an astonishing orange tinge. She had taken off her glasses when Lionel had arrived, and greeted him with her usual enthusiasm. “How very nice, dear Lionel!” she exclaimed, giving him both her hands. It was as if he had paid an unexpected and welcome call. “How wonderful to see you again!” She swung their hands together, and beamed. It seemed she produced affection at will, and Lionel often wondered how she contrived it. He could simulate warmth, but not as convincingly as Anita Schofield.

  He also knew that she was far shrewder than her husband, and he often marveled how he could deceive her. Then Lionel deduced that she was infatuated with him, and even the cleverest of women could be blinded by love.

  Anita was always present at business conferences, and she listened to every word, though coquettishly denying any real interest in “gentlemen’s affairs.”

  “Well,” said Chauncey after giving Lionel a large whiskey, “I’ve seen Senator Georger again. He confirmed that Jason Garrity is on Mulligan’s deed, though Jason doesn’t know it. Mulligan doesn’t want him to know it, either.”

  “So? Then what do we do?”

  “Wait.”

  “We’ve been waiting more than two years, and we’re not getting any younger.”

  Chauncey knew Lionel’s debts to the dollar. He was trying to discover some way to use that knowledge to his advantage, but so far had not succeeded. He had delicately approached Mrs. Lindon with the suggestion that she buy up Jason’s paper, but Mrs. Lindon had cryptically said, “Let’s wait and see.” Chauncey was certain that she was not moved by any consideration for Jason but by some motive of her own, and he was uneasy. But it was part of his successful facade that he never allowed his feelings to be perceptible. His air of assurance never faltered.

  He said, “Mulligan and Jason know very well by now that it wouldn’t be profitable to build another hotel right next to ours—that’s why we built so close to the line. That’s why Mulligan is so mad at Jason. By the way, I have the plans now for our hotel ‘cottages, luxurious homes away from home.’ For guests wanting a great deal of privacy—where they can hold consultations in peace. Businessmen do like retreats, you know.”

  “Away from their wives.” Anita smiled.

  “Can’t we get through to Dan Dugan?” asked Lionel.

  Chauncey sighed. “We already have, don’t you remember? At least we tried. He’s all for selling us those acres—but there is the deed. I thought it wasn’t wise to tell Dan that my good friends are behind the delays in delivering the supplies for Mulligan’s new hotel. After all, he is involved in it.”

  “So am I,” said Lionel.

  “So are the local banks, and Mrs. Lindon.”

  Lionel’s eyes were narrow slits as he studied his friend. “I need money,” he said.

  “Don’t we all!” Chauncey laughed. Then he said, “My friend in Washington hinted there’ll be some ‘disturbance’ in Europe that will affect all of us.”

  Lionel snorted. “Doomsday Downers! You all sound like Jason.”

  Chauncey was alerted. “What does he say?”

  “That there’ll be a war!” Lionel laughed.

  But Chauncey leaned forward, and there was no smile on his face now. “What makes him think so?”

  “He gets all the newspapers and business magazines. He says he ‘reads between the lines.’ He keeps clippings, and almost has me convinced.”

  “There’s been a rumor of a big European war for a long time. France wants Alsace back.”

  “Well,” said Lionel, “I can’t imagine why France’s affairs would push the whole continent into war.”

  But Chauncey only smiled. “Buy munitions stocks.”

  “What with?” Lionel had just bought Joan a necklace of opals in New York.

  “Borrow, if you have to. I’m giving you inside advice.”

  Lionel was gloomy. There was no question of his borrowing.

  Chauncey asked, “Is Jason buying munitions stocks?”

  “No. He says wars are immoral and aren’t fought for what politicians say they are. He thinks there’s a conspiracy behind modern wars, that they are organized by bankers rather than governments:” Lionel stood up. “Oh, hell. I always thought Jase had his head on right. Now I’m not so sure.”

  He paused. “Do you think there is going to be a war?”

  Chauncey made a disarming gesture. “I’m just guessing. I read the newspapers too.… It’s just a hunch. Probably just another Balkan tempest in a teapot, as the saying goes.” Chauncey stood up also and put his hand on Lionel’s shoulder. “Let things work themselves out. I’m optimistic about the hotel and the land. We’ll get the acreage one way or another. Just takes a little time.” He assumed an expression of concern. “Does Jason know a lot of people who think as he does?”

  “Some. Of course, most are like old Saul, and he hardly counts.” Lionel laughed and said good-bye.

  As soon as he left, Anita turned to her husband and said seriously, “Can’t they be stopped?”

  “‘Freedom of speech,’” said Chauncey. “But no one listens to them. Nobody in their right mind.” He walked into the house and went to his library. He called a
private number in Washington. “We might run into trouble here, right in Belleville,” he said. “A man named Garrity.… Yes, you helped delay supplies for the hotel he’s building.”

  Joan sent the automobile for Sebastian. She no longer called for him and accompanied him to her house, for she wished no encounter with Patricia or with her brother. But she sat at her window waiting impatiently. When the automobile drove up, she struggled with her canes and crept into the hall, her face shining with anticipation and love. She embraced the boy, and he clung to her as she murmured, “My little darling.” There was a fragrance of lilies about her, and her smile lit up her face.

  Sebastian thought his aunt the most beautiful woman in the world, and the most kind and loving. Once Nicole had been included in the invitations, for she amused Joan, but recently she had declined. Sebastian got no satisfactory reply from his sister except that she was “needed to take care of Nick.” That had to content Sebastian, for Sundays were Mr. Doherty’s days off and Sebastian finally conceded that in the absence of his father, Nicole was indeed needed. There were times when the little boy ran screaming through the house like a young colt. He sometimes knocked ornaments from tables and cabinets in a wild frenzy of destruction, and even Nicole was unable to stop him. He never appeared to understand that this was “wrong.” When a servant reprimanded him, he would only stare in confusion. Later, if Nicole corrected him, he would burst into tears and hide.

  Patrick had finally come to the conclusion that the boy needed institutional care, but there was Patricia who must be considered. When he mentioned the matter to Jason, his son-in-law had said, “What about Patricia? Let her try Lourdes. Then perhaps …”

  Sebastian was pleased to be away from the tension.

  When he visited his aunt, Joan would always search him for resemblances to Lionel. She often wondered why Jason did not see them and she was gratified when strangers remarked on the resemblance and were surprised when Joan informed them that Lionel was “not a blood relative,” and that the boy was her nephew. She held the secret carefully, in protection of the only two people she had ever loved. But she rejoiced when she found some new attribute which linked Sebastian to Lionel, either in character or appearance.

  She held his hand in the sitting room, now, and listened to his every word. She thought that Sebastian’s voice had taken on Lionel’s intonations. My child, my child, she said to herself, and held the boy’s hand more tightly. Her emotion conveyed itself to Sebastian, who looked at her wonderingly. She was smiling like an angel. Then she felt the old despair that Sebastian was not her son. Had she not already hated Patricia, she would have hated her now.

  A bright red fire burned in the crest of the trees. The Sunday quiet came clamorously alive with bells for early service, each competing with each other. Joan said, “My dearest, do you go to Mass regularly?”

  “Yes, Aunt Joan. And so does Nickie. Sometimes Grandpa takes us, sometimes Mr. Doherty when he stays home.”

  Joan, who had a great sense of humor, laughed at herself. She was pleased, and relieved, that Sebastian attended Mass, though she and Lionel considered themselves atheists, except in the presence of Father John Garrity. She squeezed the boy’s hand and said sincerely, “That’s good.”

  She did not see the quizzical and loving glance Sebastian gave her; she was everything that was beautiful, wise and desirable in a woman, as Lionel was everything that was strong and interesting in a man. But he detected subtle ironies. He said, “Aunt Joan, when Father Sweeney came to see you and Uncle Lionel a month ago, he asked you why you don’t attend Mass or at least make your Easter duty.”

  Joan was an expert in dissimulation, but she never lied to Lionel or Sebastian. She uncomfortably deliberated on her reply. She considered Sebastian as an adult who deserved respect. Finally she decided to answer with humor. “I think your Uncle Lionel and I are perfect!” Then, seeing the boy remained serious, she said, “We aren’t good Catholics, I’m afraid.”

  “Why?” The boy was interested.

  “Why? I don’t really know. You remember your great-grandfather? He wasn’t either. It must run in the family. Skeptics.”

  “And Papa doesn’t go.”

  “You see? It runs in the family. The Irish are either very, very religious, or they are complete skeptics. No halfway with us. We go to Mass with absolute faith or we don’t go at all.” She looked at him fondly.

  “Mama doesn’t attend Mass either anymore, not even if Grandpa scolds,” said Sebastian. “But then, she’s so sick.”

  “More than usual?”

  Sebastian hesitated. He was always reticent when it came to his mother. “Sometimes,” he said. He was sharply intuitive. He had learned much earlier that Joan detested Patricia and that his mother disliked his aunt with an almost insane hatred. She never referred to Joan except as that “repulsive cripple.” He had also learned that no love existed between Jason and Joan. The families visited each other, but there was an antipathy between aunt and mother that was almost visible. Patricia, as an antagonist, was no rival of Joan’s. Joan could reduce Patricia’s arguments to incoherence in minutes, even if the disagreement were only over a popular song. And Joan was quietly mirthful at her success in goading Patricia, and would glance at Lionel in a droll fashion which did not escape Sebastian and made him miserable. Why did not Mama and Aunt Joan like each other? Papa also looked wretched and often motioned with his head for Uncle Lionel to retreat to another room with him. This then left the child in limbo until Joan would call him to her, take his hand, or give him a kiss.

  Then Mama would look very strange, smiling a vicious smile as if she possessed a dreadful secret. She appeared to be “making fun” of Aunt Joan in an ugly way, and Aunt Joan was seemingly ignorant of it. After kissing Sebastian, she would turn to Mama in the most tranquil way and say in her lovely voice, “Let’s not quarrel, Patricia, over such a silly thing.”

  The boy received undercurrents, but what they were, he did not know. Once Patricia was particularly excited and when Joan mentioned “a silly thing,” Patricia had said loudly, “Yes, a silly thing, a silly thing!” and she had cried, “A stupid thing!” and had glanced maliciously at Sebastian. This had puzzled the child, for he had not been the object of conversation, and Lionel had thought: The goddamn bitch! She’ll blurt out everything one of these days and the fat’ll be in the fire. He and Joan talked of it later, and Joan had said, “Oh, she’s insane and drunk, but she’s very self-protective. She might, at times, want to destroy Jason and Sebastian and me, especially me, but she knows it’ll be the end of her if she does.” She had added, as she always did, with sincere passion, “How I wish Sebastian was my child!” Her eyes would fill with tears.

  Now Sebastian said in a low voice, “I want to tell you something, Aunt Joan. I … I want to be a priest. I think I have a vocation.”

  Joan had marvelous self-control. She only said, “Why? You haven’t even made your First Communion. So how could you know?” But beneath the blue silk of her dress, she clenched her hands together.

  “I just know, Aunt Joan. I haven’t told anyone yet but you.”

  “Do you want to be like your Uncle John?”

  Sebastian gave her a somber glance. Then he said, “No.”

  Joan was not deluded by her brother; she knew all his faults, though she loved him deeply. She said, “Then who?”

  “I just want to be a priest.”

  “What gave you that idea?”

  “I just have it. Ever since … I don’t know just when, but it was a long time ago.”

  She looked at his young profile, the beautiful lips set firmly, the grave expression, the long lashes shading the agate eyes, the soft hair turning redder through the years to red, the set of his shoulders so like Lionel’s, and the hands, above all, like Lionel’s, eloquent, yet restrained, as Lionel’s were not. Impulsively she held his hand to her cheek, too moved to answer immediately. She was not touched, but alarmed, at the idea of the child becoming a priest.


  “You must give it a lot of thought,” she said, telling herself that all Irish lads wanted to be priests at some time in their lives. It was the national affliction. Only Lionel had not claimed it. “Every Irish boy wants to be a priest. We’re a priestly people.” She smiled, but Sebastian did not smile.

  The charming house always affected Sebastian deeply; he often felt he had come home, and was immediately guilty that he had felt so. He sat at the dining-room table, though at home he did not, except on holidays, with the other children. Lionel would glance at him with genial affection and would sometimes touch the boy’s cheek. Then the atmosphere would become charged with a feeling of love and security that Sebastian never knew in his own house, not even with Jason, for whom he felt such devotion. It was not that Sebastian was deceived by Lionel; he sensed what he was, though he had not yet put it into words. But he encountered acceptance in this house, total acceptance, from everybody. His mother tainted the other atmosphere for him. Even Patrick would give him a dubious glance from time to time when Patricia had been more than usually accusatory. According to Patrick, it was not “natural” for a mother to hate her child without some definite reason, and so he wondered about Sebastian. Patricia often said, with anger at her father’s defense of the child, “Oh, he’s deep! Sly, like Jason!”

  Patrick also wondered if Jason had discovered that he was on his father-in-law’s deed, and the conviction had inserted itself into his affection, like a thin, poisonous blade.

  But in Lionel’s house tonight there was no question that Sebastian was sincerely loved. When it was time for Lionel to drive him home, Joan was reluctant to part with him. Lionel did not speak much on the journey, but Sebastian basked in what he knew as his uncle’s great affection and understanding. Sometimes Lionel teased the boy for being an “old man,” but Sebastian never doubted that Lionel loved him.