The Turnbulls

by Taylor Caldwell

  He hoped, by his words, to produce a shade less of despair on his son’s countenance. But instead of that, the blackness increased. John sat upright, rigid, heavy and stonelike of attitude.

  “I had to go, father. I went to Eugenia. I asked her to marry me at once, and go away with me. She refused.”

  So, that was it! What extravagance and childishness of emotion! Mr. Turnbull was vaguely disappointed. He had believed John to be in truly dangerous trouble, a man’s trouble. And now it seemed that this young idiot had taken a silly girl’s hasty refusal to heart, and had gotten drunk, and wallowed in a gutter! What bathos! Mr. Turnbull relaxed in his chair, and spoke with cold indulgence:

  “What, then, if the child refused? She can always be made to change her mind. Trust her mother for that. As for America, we can speak of that later, when you silly children are married. I suggest you bathe, change your clothes, and bring Eugenia to me. When would you like to be married? On Saturday?”

  But John merely gazed at him steadfastly, the grimness and darkness increasing on his face, and the despair.

  “As for America,” repeated Mr. Turnbull lightly, “we can speak of that later. Yes, perhaps America would be best for you. Were you worrying about the business? Hang the business, Johnnie! I carried it on because of the curious and beautiful objects which passed through my hands. I will be glad to be rid of it. There is more than enough money—Did you believe I might roar at you because you wished no part in it?”

  But still John did not speak. Now he had clenched his fists and was beating his knees with them. Some cold doubt began to insinuate itself into Mr. Turnbull’s heart like a thin icy finger.

  “You can be married whenever you desire, Johnnie,” he said, in a somewhat weaker tone. He was conscious of the shaking of his heart.

  “It is too late, sir,” whispered John. His cracked lips had opened here and there, and Mr. Turnbull saw the tiny ooze of blood.

  “Too late!” he exclaimed, sitting upright, and staring at his son.

  John rose. He had to catch at the mantelpiece to keep himself from swaying.

  “Yes, father. Too late. I am already married.” His voice was a dull hoarse whisper.

  Mr. Turnbull shrank in his chair. His veined hands gripped the arms. From the dark depths his eyes gazed speechlessly at his son.

  “It began with Andrew Bollister,” said John. “It began yesterday afternoon.”

  Mr. Turnbull did not speak. He listened to that low hoarse voice for what seemed an eternity. Disordered, disconnected scenes passed before his fixed eyes. There was the scene with Eugenia. Then the tavern. The entrance of young Bollister, and his companions. The pretty young trollop. The confusion, the drinking. The unspeakable vulgarity of what followed. The drunkenness. John’s voice did not falter. He spoke grimly, in a man’s harsh voice, not sparing himself, lashing himself, full of hatred for himself. He had not known what had happened. He had discovered it only an hour ago, when he awoke in young Bollister’s City quarters, with the young trollop beside him in the bed. From her alone, he had learned that they had taken him for a special licence. Bollister had maneuvered it all, with his customary arrogance and assurance. There was the magistrate’s office, where John had been married to the girl. A Lilybell Botts, niece of an innkeeper.

  Suddenly, Mr. Turnbull was aware that John was not speaking, that there had been silence in the room for a long time, and that he had been unconscious of everything but his son’s appalling story.

  He looked up and studied John in profound quietness. A vast sickness churned in him. His very fragile bones were trembling. But John was calm, if his expression was coldly murderous and desperate.

  “I shall kill Bollister,” said the young man, in a low and savage voice. “After I leave this house, I shall kill him. It has all come to me: he arranged this. He wanted to ruin me. But why, I do not know. That does not matter. I shall kill him.”

  Mr. Turnbull struggled to speak. His voice came in a whisper.

  “Sit down, Johnnie. You must give me a moment.”

  John sat down. He no longer was aware of his father. His thoughts were fixed on some deadly resolve. His eyes were terrible.

  Long moments passed. Mr. Turnbull laced and unlaced his shaking fingers together. He gazed at the fire. He was filled with a sinking disgust for his son. But his fondness and concern increased, also. This was just like Johnnie. He, James, ought to have realized that some day such a situation would inevitably have had to arise. He had neglected Johnnie, smiled at him, indulged him, dismissed him. They had never spoken in confidence together. Of what could they speak? They had not a single thought in common. He had provided for his son with extraordinary affection and indulgence, had granted him everything. Ah, there was his crime! He had given everything to Johnnie, hoping only to be left alone in peace with his books, his curios, his paintings, and his thoughts. To have attempted to talk with Johnnie, to have attempted to probe into that turbulent and violent young nature, would have disturbed him unduly. He had let Johnnie go his tempestuous and foolish way, congratulating himself, in his imbecility, that he was not the heavy father, the heavy-handed father, who dealt harshly and uncompromisingly with wild sons. Yes, he had congratulated himself on his tolerance! His tolerance! It had been his indifference. He saw that now. He had not interfered with Johnnie, because he did not wish to interfere, not out of noble motives, but only out of selfishness. He had wished only to cloister himself with his thoughts, to live in his own unreal peace. And his son had disastrously gone his irresponsible and silly way, with this result. He had never, in truth, had a father.

  James thought of John’s childhood years, those noisy, boisterous, and belligerent years. How the boy had bored him, and tired him. He had never tried to restrain him. He had had wisdom—(A strange thin laugh, full of acid, issued from James’ bitter lips.) Yes, he had had wisdom. But he had never tried to impart a little of that wisdom to poor Johnnie. He had persuaded himself that Johnnie would not understand it, anyway, that he would resent it. So he had “nobly” refrained from inflicting it upon the lad. Johnnie would learn, he had told himself. Yes, he would learn; had learned. But with what agony, what ruin, what despair!

  The words of a wise and tender father fell on the heaving hot soil of a lad’s mind, and were apparently lost in the chaos. But in moments of stress they gleam with a vivid light in the morass, in the crevices of earthquakes. So James thought, now. But he had never planted these little bright lights in Johnnie’s mind. He had thought himself unusually wise in not doing so. Now, he realized that he had been only too indifferent, too indolent. He had not wished to be disturbed in his cloisters. He had simply not taken the time. He had not disciplined his son. He had not warned him of the passions which await like mad beasts in the thickets of life, to destroy youth and hope and joy forever. Johnnie had gone his way, ignorant of the beasts. By his father’s guilt.

  Once James had told himself that he had too much respect for the individual soul to interfere with its thoughts, or direct its actions, or sickly it over with his own cast of pale thought. Now he saw that in thinking this he had been merely freeing himself of the necessity of disciplining his son. The human soul entered this world full of primordial instincts, passions and furies, teeming with jungle lusts, bare of fang, and Savage. Barely emerged from the ageless ooze, it had no reason, no restraint, no self-discipline. It was a stranger in a world of souls that had learned to wear pantaloons, to read, to control lusts and savagery, and to present, at least, a calm face to civilization. But he, James, had conveniently forgotten this. The face that John turned to the nineteenth century was an unbridled and vehement face, blazing with primitive passions. It was the face of a barbarian, a wearer-of-skins, a druid prancing beneath a moon.

  I ought to have taken time to thrash him, to punish him, to restrain him, to discipline, brow-beat and control him, thought James. Now he felt his old passionate and selfish repugnance for action, for invading the mind of another lest his own be inv
aded. Hermits had no right to sons. They had no right to life.

  He thought again of Johnnie’s youth. After the death of Johnnie’s mother, he had practically confined the young lad to spacious quarters on the third floor of the house on Grosvenor Square. There Johnnie had his own nurses, and later, his tutors. None dared oppose him. James recalled that a long procession of tutors had come and gone, bruised and terrified. He had only laughed indulgently. The boy had “spirit.” So long as that spirit could be kept away from his own quiet rooms, he did not care what it did. The boy would “find himself.” But souls do not find themselves in jungles; they must be led into the cities.

  He recalled, most painfully and vividly, a certain Sunday afternoon when Johnnie was only twelve. The latest tutor had departed with portmanteaus and black eyes. The great house was dark and quiet, with here and there only a red fire to light the gloom. James had been sitting in this very room, reading, as always, his feet on his hassock. The silence and cloistered dimness of the house, the rain-locked city outside, all contributed to the tranquillity of his mind, his enjoyment of his thoughts. He had been reading Plato. Then, he had heard a sound at the door, and had looked up, irritably, to discern young John standing diffidently in the doorway, eyeing him with mingled shyness, fear and hopefulness. He stood there, scraping one boot against his shins, his big legs already bursting the seams of his tight pantaloons, his jacket sleeves riding up the large awkward young arms. As usual, his face was dirty, his hair uncombed. It was a gawky standing there, a tiresome, hot-blooded, noisy young creature, bored with itself, restless, with no inner resources. A youth hardly emerged from childhood. A tight shudder had passed over James’ flesh at the sight of this raw and beefy youth, who appeared to make the very air about him palpitate with animal lustfulness and urgent stupidity.

  He had said to his son, without inviting him into the room, and in fact, by every psychic and mysterious compulsion, had prevented him from entering the room:

  “Well, Johnnie, have you gotten your sums for tomorrow, when Mr. Burrows is to arrive?”

  His voice had been indulgent and fond, but also withdrawn and repelling.

  Johnnie had said nothing. He had only looked a long time at his father, with a strange and miserable look, full of bleakness, wretchedness and uncertainty. Then, after a moment or two, he had backed away, had closed the door and had gone. His father had forgotten him immediately.

  Now, he wondered what would have happened if he had bid the boy enter, if he had sat him at his knee, and gently probed that festering young mind, so obviously in distress, and so bewildered. What confusions might he have, obliterated; what light he might have bestowed on that savage and pristine soul! What loneliness he might have banished. It was a strange thought, this, that Johnnie must have been lonely and beset.

  “Johnnie,” he said aloud, to the desperate young man sitting in his own ruin near him, “you must have been lonely.” And in his voice there was humility, an anguished pleading for forgiveness.

  John regarded him with blind eyes. He mumbled, as if from the very broken depths of him: “I have always been lonely.” But he hardly seemed aware of what he had said.

  James’ ascetic face grew stern. Every man was eternally lonely, he thought, walled in by his own flesh, by his own inaccessible thoughts. But others, through love, might at moments exchange a muffled greeting with the prisoner within, might feel warm flesh and eagerness even through the stones. He had never approached the prison-walls of another human being. He had made his own fortress even stronger, so that finally he heard no word, no cry, from without. He had feasted on the words of dead men, like a vulture feeding on decaying flesh. He was fillled with a terrible loathing for himself.

  How could he help Johnnie now, brought so low, to such ruin? By kindness, by further indulgence which must henceforth be suspect? No, only by the wise cruelty of making him face his acts for the first time in his life, by making him carry the weight of his own enormities on his own shoulders. If those enormities were also his father’s guilt, that could not be helped.

  He said: “Johnnie, I presume you have—cohabited—with this wench?”

  John aroused himself from his lethargy of despair with a visible effort, and looked at his father with dull and swollen eyes. Then a dusky crimson ran over his cheeks.

  “Yes,” he said, hoarsely.

  James sighed. He felt ill and disintegrating. He clasped his hands and gazed at them intently.

  “She—she is a drab?”

  John moved violently upon his chair. “No!” he cried. “She—she is a poor little creature, very young! I—I do not blame her, father. It is I who am to blame.”

  It is I who am to blame! James felt a lightening of his grief. It was a man’s cry, this, a man come to full estate. When one could cry out so, against one’s own self, then the long and agonizing journey toward redemption had begun.

  He, James, must be cruel, if Johnnie were to be saved. He saw this, now, so clearly. All his life he had been delicately cruel in his gentle selfishness. Now he must be ruthless. Or Johnnie would be forever lost.

  He made his voice calm and judicious:

  “You have been very foolish, Johnnie. But you have not murdered any one. Short of murder, a man can build his life again, if he is brave enough to accept the consequences of his own acts.”

  He paused. His calmness had affected John. He was leaning towards his father, his congested and exhausted face intent.

  “You have married this—girl, Johnnie. From what you say, she is no strumpet. Not of your class, perhaps. That is, she was, no doubt, brought up in poverty and ignorance. That can be remedied—by your own hands, if you are strong enough, and wise enough. Too, the girl is probably healthy. That is an excellent thing in a wife. She must be somewhat of your own kind, or you would never have been drawn to her in the very beginning. There were times when I did not think that Eugenia—”

  He paused, for John had uttered a truly agonized sound, and had gotten to his feet. He dropped his arms on the mantelpiece; he lowered his head upon them.

  James stood up. He put his hand on his son’s head, with speechless sympathy. John was unaware of him. He was swallowed up in his abysmal grief. So, thought James, he loved that pale cold little piece, who seemed more my own daughter than Johnnie seemed my son.

  “Johnnie,” he said at last, when the sobs were quieter, “let us be as calm as possible. Let us think, and talk.”

  John lifted his head from his arms. His face was bruised and contorted, streaked with scarlet. He fell in his chair as if his big shapely legs could not support him any longer.

  They sat across from each other with the firelight on their faces.

  “Johnnie,” said James, “I have never tried to restrain you, to force you to face your own consequences. Now, you must restrain yourself, and take up your own responsibilities. I have never taught you this. It is late, but perhaps not too late, to force you to do this now. It will be very hard for you. I could have made it easier, so that at your age self-restraint would have become a habit. It is too late to regret the past. We must go on from today.”

  He paused. John listened.

  Now it was becoming difficult. “You are a man, Johnnie. You are nineteen years old. Many young men of your age are already married, and have a child. With my stupid assistance, you have prolonged your childhood into manhood. In some wild and precipitous fashion, you have escaped my folly and have burst into full estate. You think you have done this disastrously. But perhaps this is not so. Perhaps the future will prove that you have been wise, even in your ignorance.”

  John muttered hoarsely: “I don’t understand, father. Is there no way to get out of this abominable marriage?” A pale flash of hope appeared in his desperate eyes.

  James was silent. Most certainly, there were many ways, for men of wealth and substance, and especially for the son of James Turnbull. For a moment James’ aching heart betrayed him. It would be such an easy thing to accomplish, this. Bu
t to what end? What would Johnnie gain? It would only topple him from his new and precarious manhood, back into the tinkling foolishness and tempestuous folly of childhood. From this scrape he would learn that he need not restrain himself, that always there would be some one to rescue him from his own folly in the nick of time. The ruin of his life would throw this smaller ruin into significance. There would be no end to the ruin.

  No, from this youthful wreckage he must salvage what he could to raise a firmer and stronger house in which to live. It would be hard; it would be heart-breaking. But if Johnnie were to be saved, he must face what he had done.

  “No, Johnnie,” said James, in a firm low voice, “there is no way. You have done this. From this place you must go on.”

  The wild hope that had flashed in John’s eyes was quenched. Now they were just dull black circles, in the suffused flesh of his face.

  “I can’t go on,” he stammered, brokenly.

  James smiled. “We can always go on, just one more step, one more mile. Nonsense, Johnnie! You will remember this lesson: that what seems impossible is not impossible for the wise man. Only fools cringe and whine. You are not a fool, Johnnie, though you are considerable of an ass.”

  That calm and quiet voice had its effect on the young man. Unconsciously his bowed shoulders straightened. The slack hands on his knees tightened a trifle.

  “I will see this girl—your wife—in a few moments, Johnnie. Doubtless she is strong and young, and very healthy. It may be best for you, after all. You must forget everything else.

  “The day after tomorrow, there is a packet sailing from Liverpool, the Ann of Argyle. To America. You, and the girl, will be on that packet. I shall give you one hundred pounds, and one hundred pounds only. Go to America. You have wanted this. I can see now that it will be most excellent for you. You will make your mark there. Of that I am very sure.

  “Yes, we have been dead a long time in England. Before very long the stench of our decay will fill the world. So far, we have befooled the world that we are still alive. But, we are not, our Queen to the contrary.—I believe that in America the world has had a rebirth of youth and strength and limitless power. It is a land for young men, for men like you, Johnnie. Go there, with my blessing.