The Turnbulls

by Taylor Caldwell

  However, he had at last been won over. His correct estimations of Andrew’s character were forgotten. He responded with warmth and complete surrender. He was overwhelmingly flattered, and gave Andrew all his confidences, opening his vehement and tumultuous heart to him in a manner which would have touched a less implacable man. John did not know that Andrew hated him with a virulent hatred, and despised him for a low-bred boor and ridiculous clown. He did not know as yet that he amused Andrew, and that the latter was merely awaiting the day to visit complete discomfiture and misfortune upon him.

  Now, as they sat close together, in the little glass world which Andrew knew so well how to enclose about him, shutting out all else, John poured out to his sympathetically listening friend all the events of the morning, all his anger and restlessness and passionate emotion. Andrew inclined his pale and narrow head towards him. His light and colourless eyes were fixed on John’s face with unblinking and cool intensity. His expression was inscrutable and absorbed. John was intensely flattered and soothed. Andrew listened in silence, sometimes merely lifting a smooth pale brow, or inclining his head as if he agreed. His bloodless fingers kept up a soft and thoughtful tattoo on the polished dark table. The candlelight gleamed on his slender shining skull. He never removed his basilisk gaze from John’s vigorous and expressive dark face; he saw every flash of those stormy and mutinous black eyes.

  John began to speak of his cousin, Eugenia MacNeil. Now his face lowered, became vulgarly poignant with distress and and misery. He saw nothing, and heard nothing, of his other companions all about him; they were drinking and laughing, and flinging themselves about with abandon. But they had long ago learned that when Andrew was engrossed in one of them, he was not to be disturbed. They ignored the two as if they were not present, not even hearing the excited hoarse timbre of John’s voice.

  At the mention of Eugenia’s name, Andrew’s face changed subtly. It was not that there was an actual change in his quiet and sympathetic expression. Rather, it was as though a flash passed over it, like the reflection of bitter sunlight on arctic ice. In that flash, the thin long features of Andrew’s face seemed to become transparent, fleshless. He had met Eugenia some months ago, in his own mother’s drawing-rooms. He had attempted to approach her, strangely attracted by her calm and reserve; seeing, as few others could see, the tranquil and restrained beauty of her little face, the strength and fortitude in those bright gray eyes. Strong and lethal as he was, he had been drawn to kindred strength. But she had looked at him steadfastly, and had known him. She had withdrawn from him, and he had been unable to approach her again. Nevertheless, he never forgot her. Deep within that implacable and deadly mind a cold passion had been born. He had heard of John’s betrothal to her. On that very day he had begun to manifest evidences of friendship for John. He had long marked him as an eventual victim. Now he began to move swiftly.

  With the merest flick of his hand, not for an instant turning away from John, he had indicated to the watchful host that strong spirits be served John. So Tim, though uneasy obeyed and John was unaware, in his excitement, what he was drinking. He was accustomed to his after-dinner port with his father, and his occasional whiskey and water, also with his father, and so the acrid sting of spirits on his tongue did not warn him, even if he had been in a condition to be warned. His glass was always unobtrusively full; he gulped it, as he talked vehemently to Andrew Bollister, waving his strong dark hands in uncontrolled gesticulations.

  “I thought she would understand,” he repeated, over and over, and more hoarsely as the minutes passed, and the fixed and sympathetic gaze of those brilliant pale eyes did not leave his own.

  “I have always felt,” he cried to Andrew, “that if I should draw a deep breath, from the bottom of my lungs, that I should crack England at every worm-eaten seam! I have felt that if I stretched out my arms to their full extent, I would knock over these mean crowded buildings. There is no place to breathe in this country! I’ve got to get out, I tell you, Bollister! That is what I tried to tell Genie.” He paused, and added bitterly, after another gulp at his glass: “She advised me, in so many words, to go home and wipe my nose!”

  “Ah,” murmured Andrew, delicately fingering his glass, and frowning as if sympathetically moved by these passionate words.

  “So, I am going to America,” continued John. The tavern swam before him in long concentric circles, touched with sparks. There was a drumming in his ears; his flesh felt light and floating. He was filled with exhilaration, sudden and intoxicating.

  “Without Eugenia?’ said Andrew.

  In that, he made an error. Suddenly, John put down his glass and stared at him, paling.

  “Not without Genie,” said John, with slow quiet emphasis. “When I go, she goes with me, if I have to carry her to the ship, myself. Do you think I would not?”

  He stared at Andrew, and now his black eyes were pointed.

  Andrew laughed lightly. He lifted his glass and scrutinized the golden fluid which shimmered in it.

  “That oughtn’t to be a hard job,” he said in his peculiar voice, which was toneless and shallow, without resonance or echo.

  He seemed to reflect, and his pale brows drew together in concerned meditation. Then suddenly, as John watched him, his face lightened, became boyish with assumed eagerness and pleasure. He put his fleshless hand over John’s big clenched fist which lay on the table.

  “I have it! I have a relative in New York, Richard Gorth, my mother’s brother. He is in the export trade. Cotton and such, you know. For the Manchester mills. There is a trade for you! There was a rebel, like yourself, Johnnie. When you arrive there, go to him, with my compliments.”

  John’s eyes began to glitter. He smiled. He seized Andrew’s hand and shook it violently. Now everything seemed to expand before him in seas of light. He heard far and colossal voices, shouting across roaring seas. Bursts of music seemed to crash in his brain. His exultation choked him, made his heart beat in great long thumpings. Nothing was impossible!

  “There is a world for you!” exclaimed Andrew, with enthusiasm. His gaunt face was bright with evil. “A world for a John Turnbull! If I had the guts I would go with you. But I haven’t. I’m too lazy. But go on, with my envy. There’s a lad!” And he clapped John on the shoulder and leaned back to look at him with intense admiration. John was not proof against that look from Andrew Bollister. He swelled. His face became congested. He moved it slowly and powerfully from side to side, smiling darkly. Andrew saw that power, and his thin colourless mouth drew in. So, this was no ox, then, after all. It was a wild bull, charging, ruthless and more than a little terrible. This bull would stop at nothing, would trample and gore anything that stood before his charging hoofs. The hatred that had always been amused and derisive became deadly.

  He cast around in his glittering ordered mind for the next step. In the meantime, he dexterously refilled John’s glass. The other young gentlemen had begun to throw dice. They leaned over a table, shouting and snapping their fingers, and laughing and groaning, their young handsome heads, dark and blond, close together, their shoulders pushing against each other. No one heeded these two talking so intimately in the corner, hemmed in by panelled walls and candlelight.

  A vast heat was engulfing John. His broad and vital face gleamed with drops of sweat. Colour swelled in his wide and heavy mouth and encrimsoned his cheek-bones. His black curls rose fiercely all over his big head.

  The warmth in the tavern increased. The fire rose and crackled. The air was pervaded strongly by the odours of beer and spirits. The beamed ceiling danced in the mingled light of fire and candles. The young gentlemen shouted louder. Tim watched the dice game, a white towel over his arms, grinning. Banknotes, gold and silver exchanged hands, with cries of joy, or groaning.

  Where is the fatal spot in him? thought Andrew, again filling John’s glass.

  CHAPTER 4

  In the meantime, the dull winter day was drawing to a close. The wind had increased; cataracts of si
lvery water gushed down the little panes of the tavern’s windows. In contrast, the warmth and firelight and gaiety within the tavern became closer, more intimate, as night closed in. The crowds on the streets were thinning. A lamplighter, singing, splashed through the gutters, lighting the wan lamps.

  John was drunk. But never had he been so happy, so exultant, nor felt so powerful, so unchallenged. He seemed to fill the tavern; his consciousness extended beyond it, so that he appeared to be aware of every corner of London, of the seas beyond England, of the whole world. Now everything was plain to him; he felt his strength as if it were universal. He felt that if he walked on the earth, its brittle crust would crack and splinter under his strong feet. Things which even he suppressed, beautiful, majestic and terrible things, surged into his flaming consciousness. He thought he heard marching music; there was a blaze of banners before his fiery eyes. He saw shapes and forms of loveliness. A strange emotion devoured him. Every one else about him became little and weak, even Andrew Bollister. Nothing mattered; everything changed, became insignificant, passing, trivial. Only he, John Turnbull, was immutable, indomitable, restless, a fixed and burning star in the midst of silly fireworks.

  Andrew, watching him, seeing those dark and brutal passions passing over that wide and ruthless countenance, seeing the strange flames in those black eyes, threaded with red and congested veins, acknowledged to himself that this was not the awkward, bumbling and noisy lad he had known in Carruthers’. It would not be easy to destroy him.

  But, where was the fatal spot? Andrew looked about him with that slow and implacable authority which was so implicit in his colourless glance. His gaunt face tightened, became a pallid wedge of malignance. John still drank. He had subsided into a turbulent silence, in which his drunken breath was loud and heavy.

  It became imperative to Andrew to find the spot immediately. Not only would there be the artistic satisfaction of destroying one who represented all that he hated and despised, but there would be the reward of Eugenia MacNeil. Only one glimpse had he had of that silent and graceful little creature, with the shining and intelligent gray eyes; only a few indifferent words had he exchanged with her. But the one cold and lethal passion of Andrew’s life had been born in him in that brief interlude.

  In the midst of his intense and vicious musings, the sound of a loud and rollicking shout intruded. He looked up, frowning formidably, enraged that his courtiers dare so affront him with their bestial noise. But they did not glance at him. A pretty tall young girl was entering, her eyes downcast, her body swaying coquettishly. She carried a tray of clean glasses. Her dimples came and went demurely about her round pink mouth. She might have been a nun modestly and fearfully entering a den of carousal, conscious of chaste charms, but praying that none would observe them. The young gentlemen, jesting, crowded about her.

  Andrew stared at her with cold indifference, and with annoyance. How dared this trollop interfere with his cogitations! The glassy bell he had pulled over himself and John was shattered, letting in noise and disorder. Nevertheless, he turned to John, to resume the conversation, and to refill the other’s glass.

  He was surprised. John had half risen on his bench, supporting himself with those strong hands, which were still clenched. He had turned his big violent head in the girl’s direction. He was smiling, broadly, the nostrils in his short and powerful nose distended. Unashamed lust and admiration flamed in his congested eyes.

  Andrew looked from him to the girl, and then back again. He smiled. This, then, was the fatal spot! A whole plan, a whole design, slipped smoothly into place in his mind.

  “Lilybelle!” shouted John, standing upright, and swaying. He swung out his arm in a big drunken circle. “Come here, Lilybelle!”

  Andrew pulled him back upon the bench. John sat down, mechanically. But his face was still turned urgently towards the girl, who was coquettishly, and with giggles, fending off the lustful hands of her new admirers. She had heard John’s shout; she was peering over a gentleman’s shoulder at him, shaking her auburn curls, which danced under her fluted cap. In those shallow blue eyes was an answering urgency.

  “A fine lass, a good plump wench,” said Andrew, with admiration, to John’s swollen and sweating profile. “An excellent girl for a man’s arms. Don’t you think so, Johnnie?”

  John grunted. He did not turn his head. He had lifted his hand to the girl, with brutal command.

  In some dexterous manner, she managed to elude the imploring gentlemen, who were delighted at this new vision of youth and beauty, and she came skipping and swaying to the table, arching her head and tossing her curls and laughing coyly, her admirers thronging protestingly at her heels. John reached up, ruthlessly, and dragged her down upon his knees. She struggled with him, shrieking modestly. Other hands reached out to pull her away. Bedlam reigned. Tim, anxiously approaching, said something, but his voice was lost in the confusion.

  Andrew watched, leaning on the table with his elbows. This, then, was the proper plump pink heifer for this dark and charging bull! He missed none of the congested blackness of John’s face. In his drunken lust, he was pressing the girl’s breast with his big hands, completely ignoring the laughing others. He seemed absorbed in what he was doing, as though he and the girl were alone in a nuptial thicket designed for amorous beasts. There was a deep cleft of lecherous concentration between his swollen eyes, a lewd absorption. He did not appear to feel nor notice her light coy slaps of protestations, her attempts to leave his knees, her little shrieks which were becoming sincerely frightened. But when he buried his mouth in her soft white neck, she trembled, arched away her head, and paled noticeably. Tim appeared again in the confusion of heads and crowding shoulders. Some one swept him aside with an indulgent jeer.

  Still frowning in a business-like and absorbed way, indecent to see, obscene in its implications, John was now bent on further explorations. What a bestial lack of control, what a display of animal urgency and swift animal purpose! thought Andrew. He leaned forward curiously, the better to see.

  “Ho!” shouted the others, beside themselves with laughter.

  John pulled up the girl’s skirt. Her plump legs in their white stockings were displayed. She kicked impotently. Somewhere in the background of riotous noise there was a thin and angry voice, helplessly protesting and threatening. The candlelight shone and wavered on a ring of lecherous young faces, sweating, nostril and eye dilated, mouths open on laughter and caught breaths. But John still appeared unaware of them. When the girl continued her struggles, desperate now, he frowned with enraged impatience, struck away her hands savagely.

  He was insanely drunk. He was mad with the sensations of his new power, with desire that would not be restrained, with primitive purpose. The others no longer existed for him, were not even present. They were only the sound of trees in a forest, their faces struck with light beating down through thick crowding leaves. He was alone with young woman-flesh, and his hunger was a devouring madness in him. And with it was a wild desperation for which he had no name, only an awareness.

  “Here!” said Andrew, suddenly, in a quiet but penetrating voice. This was really becoming too much, even in a joke. He stood up and literally tore the girl from John. He would not have succeeded, but obeying their leader’s gesture, the others assisted. The girl, dishevelled, half-crying, her bodice torn, her skirts rumpled, her hair on her shoulders, (one of which was entrancingly bare) was literally lifted from John’s arms and set down upon her feet. She pulled at her bodice and sleeve. She cried, and stamped her slippered foot. Several laughing young gentlemen were forcibly restraining John, who was cursing and flailing about him with strong arms.

  “Gad,” said Andrew, with contempt, even while he smiled. His loathing for John became a mortal disgust.

  John’s black eyes suddenly, in the midst of his violent struggles, encountered Andrew’s glance. And at that encounter with that pale and polished eye, John abruptly subsided. It was as if a bludgeon had been brought down with terrific
force upon his skull, shattering his consciousness, reducing him to sprawling incoherence. Fear in the physical sense had rarely assailed John Turnbull. He had the brutal courage of the sanguine temperament, the confidence that issues from strong muscles, excellent health and omnipotent youth. But now a most horrible and nameless fear beset him at Andrew’s look, and a long shivering passed over his collapsed body.

  Andrew seated himself composedly, and with a wave of his thin white hand dismissed his grinning subordinates, who retired to the bar where they offered their amorous consolations to the weeping and stamping Lilybelle. She was quite dramatic, vowing vengeance, pleading with her admirers to avenge the insults upon her virginal person, weeping most entrancingly as she did so, and tossing her auburn curls with quite a devastating air of tearful rage. In short, she was enjoying herself lavishly. Her uncle hovered near her, but when he attempted to disband the consolers, she flashed him an angry glance, and he retreated once more, shaking his head and mumbling to himself.

  Andrew leaned his thin sharp elbows upon the table, and continued to survey John with his strange half-smile, secret and malignant. Fresh whiskey appeared, and Andrew, with those elegant gestures which were so much a part of him, poured a prodigious amount into John’s tankard. He indicated the vessel, with an inclination of his head, and like one drugged, John lifted it and drank again, deeply, feverishly, like one running away mentally from an ominous foe.

  And now Andrew spoke in his light low voice close to John’s ear, and with indulgence: “That was a display very interesting to observe, my Johnnie. I can’t blame you, however. It is a bewitching piece, eh? She is much taken with you, too. Look what glances she flashes you, the minx!”

  John looked up, obediently, and indeed Lilybelle was gazing at him over an admirer’s shoulder. Encountering his look, she tossed her head quite vigorously, so that the swinging lamp overhead danced on every shining curl. She smiled a little, through her tears.