Testimony of Two Men

by Taylor Caldwell

  "Daddy's in the garden, and it's Mamie's day off," she informed him, "and Mama's downtown shopping."

  He heard her light quick step running down the porch stairs, and he was alone, and when he turned, he saw the flash of golden hair in the sun and that heart-softening chuckle. He went home. It was not until he was entering his parents' house that he was dismayed, and he stood in the cool and fragrant dusk of the beautiful hall and despised himself. His mother came in from the morning room, raising her brows in surprise. "Why, dear," she said, "I thought you had gone to see Martin Eaton. Wasn't he home?"

  Jonathan had never learned to lie very well or often, and so he said, "Yes, he was home."

  Marjorie came nearer him, and she was puzzled. "Jon, is there something wrong?"

  He was impatient. He threw his hat on a chair and it rolled off and he let it lie. Marjorie bent and picked it up and then stood with it in her hands. "What can be wrong?" he said.

  "Well," said Marjorie, who was a little worried. It had been established that Jon would do his internship under the wing of Martin Eaton's friends, and that Dr. Eaton would more than sponsor him in Hambledon. She wondered if Jonathan had quarreled with him. It was not a fatal matter but an inconvenient and anxious one. She knew Jonathan's temper, his quick and even murderous rages, his dis!ike for any quibbling or deviousness, his way of stamping a man a hypocrite under the slightest provocation, and his deadly impatience and intolerance of humbug.

  "Come into the morning room," she said. "I have some very icy lemonade and some fresh cake, which I made this afternoon. You look very hot."

  "I want a drink," he said, and his voice was rude and his manner abrupt. "And that doesn't mean lemonade."

  Jonathan did not drink regularly, as yet, but when he did, it was somewhat disturbing to his mother, for he drank as recklessly as he lived, and always under stress. She said nothing when he went into the dining room to the liquor cabinet, and she put away his hat, then stood in thought for a moment in the hall. She wanted to return to the morning room but decided that if she did, he would not accompany her but might possibly do so if she waited for him. He came back into the hall with a glass of whiskey and soda, and Marjorie noticed the darkness of the drink.

  "Where's Childe Harald?" he asked.

  "Boating," she replied. "He's gone on a picnic to Heart's Ease." She smiled. "Let's go into the morning room, shall we?" and she led the way, her slender figure floating in the light green voile of her dress, her head high. She hoped Jon would follow, and she hoped this ardently, and she let out a deep breath when she heard his following if reluctant footsteps.

  They sat down together in the pure light of the charming room, and Marjorie took up her needlework and bent her head over it. There was no use pressing Jon for an explanation, she thought. There had never been any use, even when he had been a child. He talked or did not talk, at his own pleasure. "Well, since you were so insistent on that damned lemonade, why don't you drink it yourself?" he asked, standing before her.

  "Oh. Yes. Of course. Do pour me a glass, dear."

  He poured a glass for her, then stood sipping his own, frowning into the glass. She saw that he was sallow under his tanned face, as if he had some unpleasant experience. But she merely waited. After a little he sat down but on the edge of his chair, and this time he was not so careful of the creases in his trousers.

  "A hot day," she said. "Martin doesn't like the heat, does he? I remember when we were children—"

  "A long time ago."

  Marjorie smiled. "Not so long. I was visiting his parents, with my own parents. I "was always thin, I remember, and he used to tease me, but then he was a butterball of a boy, and this is why the heat affected him so cruelly." She paused. "Today is the hottest day of the summer. Poor Martin must be suffering."

  "Oh, hell, don't beat about the bush," said Jonathan. "You want to know if I saw him and if not, why not. I didn't see him, though he was at home. I didn't want to see him."

  "I see," said Marjorie.

  "No, you don't," said Jonathan. He drank again. He turned the glass restlessly in his hands. He had never confided in his mother but twice in all his life and he did not intend to now. In fact, the very idea staggered him. What would she say if he said to her bluntly, "I saw young Mavis Eaton, and she's grown into a terrible beauty, and I wanted to drag her away somewhere and tear the clothes off her and rape her, not gently, but brutally and madly." How did a man explain bewitchment and that awful urge he had never suspected lived in him? His mother, too, was a gentlewoman and she not only would not understand but would rise and leave him with disgust and dread and with his own horror. She would not faint as it was the style for ladies to faint when they were overcome. She would not call for smelling salts and fans. But she would detest him. He had never cared what his mother's private feelings for him were, or her thoughts, or at least he had long ago assured himself he did not care. Yet the thought of her glance of repulsion made him shrink inwardly. And quite right, too, he said to himself. He stood up. "I want another drink," he said. Marjorie did not comment. She only hoped he would return. He did not for a considerable time and when he entered the room again, she more than suspected that the drink in his hand was his third, not his second.

  "Say it," he said, and sat down. " 'You drink too much, Jon, for your age and your health.' "

  "No," said Marjorie. "I promised myself a year ago I'd never say it again. After all, you are not a boy any longer, you are not a youth, either. You are twenty-three years old and so you are a man and your life is your own. And a man must do what he feels he must do."

  "Now, that's a subtle aphorism," said Jon, in the mocking voice he always used when he felt he must protect himself. '"A man must do what he feels he must do.' Martin Eaton's a sot. Everybody knows it. Is he doing what he feels he must do?"

  Marjorie put her sewing in her lap and looked at her son long and gravely. Then she said, "Yes."

  "Yes? Yes what?"

  "Just 'yes,' Jon. You aren't the only one who can be reticent, you know."

  "I'm reticent about my own affaire—"

  "So am I."

  Jon thought about that and was intrigued. Then he sat at last, grinning, "Oh, no! Not you and old Martin Eaton? Before Dad, I suppose?"

  "Martin and Flora are very happily married," said Marjorie, sipping at her own glass. "It was a very suitable marriage."

  "Imagine!" said Jonathan in a nasty tone. "He might have been my father!"

  "I never considered it seriously," said his mother, smiling a little. "It didn't happen back in the dark ages, you know, Jon. We'd known each other from childhood, and I was always fond of Martin. You wouldn't believe it, but I called him Fancy."

  Jonathan laughed. The fearful tension and sickness in him was relaxing under the drink and the soothing voice of his mother. "Fancy! Old Man Eaton!"

  "He's only twenty-five years older than you, Jon, and hardly a patriarch at forty-eight. He told me, when we were very young, that he'd wait until I had grown up, and then—"

  Very carefully Jonathan put down his glass. "Oh? And how old were you then?"

  "Eleven? Yes, I was eleven, or almost."

  "And he—"

  "Well, he was older. Sixteen, I think."

  "A man!"

  "Almost. We thought a boy of sixteen was a man in those misbegotten days, though now we don't think they are full men until they are twenty-one. It's so absurd. Men today are no younger in any way then they were then."

  But Jonathan was drinking again, though more slowly. "Sixteen," he said. "And a big sixteen, I should think. Probably had already had a roll or two— I'm sorry, Mother."

  "I'm not very shockable," said Marjorie. "Coming down to it, I should think so, about Martin. He was always a lusty boy and a lusty man. That's why I really did almost marry him, though I did not take him seriously. He was like a brother. Now, if he had not been so close to me and so brotherly all my life, I might have—"

  But Jonathan said, "And y
ou didn't know at eleven, of course."

  "Certainly I knew! A girl of eleven is really much older than a youth ten years older! It is said that all men are little boys at heart, but it is very doubtful that women were ever little girls. I knew that Martin—what is the delicate phrase? —wished to make love to me, and I thought it very exciting. Children aren't as innocent as you might think, Jon."

  "And you knew at eleven that he wanted to seduce you?"

  "Heavens, what an old-fashioned word, dear. In many ways you are quite old-fashioned and unsophisticated—"

  "Never mind analyzing me," Jon interrupted, and his mother looked at him with suddenly intent surprise. "Did you know?"

  Marjorie was thinking rapidly. It was not like Jon to engage in a long talk with her. He usually found her boring, or at least he pretended so. And it certainly was not like Jon to be so—well, almost fiercely—interested in a light and trivial conversation about her childhood and girlhood. Politeness was unknown to him. He never endured ennui or made casual chatter, especially not with her. It was not the whiskey that was speaking through him, though Marjorie suspected that it had loosened some of the harsh control he usually kept over himself. She looked at him with what deluded him was a mild interest and nothing else, but her maternal eyes were weighing and studying and coming to a startled conclusion, though she did not as yet know the object.

  "Yes, I knew he wanted to 'seduce' me." She smiled and her slender face brightened with mirthful remembrance. "It wasn't moonlight and roses for me. as adults think it is with children. Children are earthy. It is only later that they cover the raw exigencies of nature with a pink gauze of romance and accompany it with poetry and music. Adults are really shrinking souls, but children look at life candidly and see it fully, and are not repelled by smells, nastinesses or criminal acts. That is because they have no conscience to confuse things. They are savages, and any aspects of life are always interesting to them, even those we call the dirtiest ones. Well, anyway, Martin didn't seduce me, not even when I was fourteen, fifteen, and so on. By that time he had become romantic and said he loved me."

  "You must have been a fatal woman even at eleven," said Jonathan.

  "You've been reading Marie Corelli," said Marjorie. "Let me enlighten you, dear. All women are fatal from the cradle but some more than most. The rare woman, the very rare woman, is still fatal even when she is ninety or more. But that's a different kind of fatality, thank God. I've seen only two or three women like that, and they were deadly."

  "In what way?"

  Marjorie leaned forward and put her elbows on her knees and pretended to consider. But she was thinking more rapidly than before, and she said to herself, Who, for God's sake? A very young girl? A girl hardly past childhood? Poor Jon. But it may be dangerous.

  "In what way?" she repeated thoughtfully. "A really frightful way, dear. You see, they never loved anyone in their lives. They were incapable of it. They never got over the love affair they had had with themselves in the cradle. And that made them irresistible. Men, especially, adore women incapable of loving anyone but themselves. They feel sure the women have good reason for all that passionate adoration, and they join the adorers."

  "Narcissistic, you mean?"

  "What?"

  "Oh, that's a term seeping in from Vienna or somewhere. Alienists are using it. It means being in love with yourself. A sort of mental sickness."

  "Yes. An excellent word. But those women aren't ill, Jon. You'll find they are unusually healthy and robust and have an atmosphere about them of overpowering zest and love for fife, and gusto. Everything is delightful to them, enjoyable; a relish, tang, adventure. They're never openly annoyed. They are always ready for any escapade. And they laugh—always. There's just one thing you must never do to them: You must never bore them. That's the only crime they hold against anyone."

  "The Laughing Girls," said Jonathan.

  "Exactly." Marjorie smiled, pleased, and nodded. "The Laughing Girls. And they're the only kind, no matter how beautiful, who don't arouse envy and hatred among the other women. They can bewitch women as well as men. They're absolutely female, and that's lethal. Yes. I should say their great charm is that they are entirely female, and know it and exploit it. One of the most formidable Laughing Girls I've ever known was an elderly aunt of mine, who was then at least sixty-eight. A great-aunt. She was extremely ugly, with a big wart on one cheek, a dumpy short figure like Queen Victoria, scanty white hair, piglike eyes and big thrusting lips. Absolutely no style, and little intelligence, I'm afraid. But she had a devastating effect on everybody, in spite of the fact that she was not in the least fastidious about her person and had a way of wiping her nose on the back of her hand if she couldn't find a handkerchief immediately. But everybody adored her, though she had no style and no graces. The whole family worshiped her, including me. I was still a child, however, when I knew her, and I thought the first time I saw her that she was a nasty old woman with a loud hoarse voice and vile manners and dirty fingers. Then I heard her laugh, and I was her slave thereafter, even if I knew she wasn't worth the cut fingernail of one of her five husbands—who seemed to die off very fast and leave her simply enormous bags of money.

  "It was her charm, you see, and her zest for life, and she lived to be ninety-five and passionately enjoyed every moment of it and died protesting. She loved herself completely and had a great sense of humor, brutal, but she was never humorous about herself and the things she constantly demanded for herself. There her humor ended. A very bad, wicked old woman, even from her cradle. We called her kind 'adventuresses' when they were kept women or danced on the stage and captured some bemused rich young or old man. The present favorite of the Prince of Wales, the Jersey Lily as they call her, is a good example. They all have huge appetites for everything."

  Jonathan was frowning into his glass. Marjorie studied his bent head. Dear God, she thought, where has he met one? Today?

  "I think you speak as a woman, Mother," he was saying. "There must be something else they have—besides laughter and zest—which—arouses—people."

  "True," said Marjorie. "I call it diabolism. No, wait. I don't mean they are consciously wicked. They'd be shocked to learn that others think they are, really shocked and hurt. The consciously wicked are a different matter entirely, and one gets onto them easily, you know, and avoids them. No, the Laughing Girls, as you have so cleverly called them, have a—well, an innocent diabolism. Like a force of nature. It is themselves. And diabolism—though you have always denied there is such a thing at all—has an awful charm of its own. I've always thought that Lucifer, above all else, must be a most charming angel."

  "I myself," said Jon, waving his hand in dismissal, "believe that their charm is that they are so thoroughly alive, so immediate, so eager for experience, so complete. They are full-blooded women. That's why women more anemic resent them so."

  "I don't resent them," said Marjorie. "I just know all about them, though I've met only two or three in my lifetime. I think they are interesting phenomena, like a tidal wave or a comet or a tornado." She paused. "I hope this isn't an academic discussion, Jon. You've probably met one or two yourself, and they interest you. As a future doctor."

  "Perhaps," said Jon. He stood up. He appeared irresolute. Is it possible he is going to tell me something? thought Marjorie. He said, "I think I'll have another drink."

  When he had left the room, Marjorie thought with more concentration. Jonathan had left the house in the heat of the day on his bicycle to visit Martin Eaton. He had had time only to arrive there, give or take five minutes or so, and then he had immediately returned. He had not dallied. Half an hour in all. Where could he have met one of his Laughing Girls in that short space of time, especially when he had been on his bicycle practically every moment? He had not mentioned Flora Eaton, so it was probable he had not seen her. He had not seen Martin Eaton. He had gone to the house, found the older doctor home—yet had immediately left without seeing him. Therefore, he had receive
d some kind of a shock almost at once.

  He had seen a girl. Marjorie knew the girls of all the best families in Hambledon and she skimmed their faces with her mental eyes. Nice, wholesome girls, some flirts but innocent ones, and none calculated to strike Jonathan so forcibly. Besides, he had known them all his life, these potential wives. Jonathan was stricken; there was no doubt about it. He was under some fierce and devastating spell, for his mother had never seen him drink so steadily before and so much. He was pale; he had the aspect of a man under extreme stress. His hands had trembled a few times. It was someone he had not known before, then. Dear Heaven, not some strumpet of the street! thought Marjorie, then almost, even in her distress, she laughed at herself. Jonathan was not the kind, and where would he have encountered such in half an hour, which had been spent almost entirely on a bicycle?

  Her thought returned to Martin Eaton. Had there been a young strange patient in the house or some distant visiting young relative? If so, then the bewitched Jonathan would have inevitably stayed for more bewitchment, and he would not now be so evasive. He would speak. Men do not fly from charmers on a bicycle. They stay and grovel, thought Marjorie, with some bitterness. Then stay and offer their necks for a dainty foot. Even Jonathan would do so. More brilliant men had become victims of the Laughing Girls. They loved to be victims. They dedicated their lives to the victimization and thought themselves blest. They fly only when they know the object of all that silliness and stupidity is either not for them, or beyond them, or is very dangerous to them—and often they do not flee even then. Very rarely do they flee.

  So, it must be a young girl, a very young girl. Who? Slowly Marjorie remembered something that had happened last week. She had been at the Garden Club meeting near the river, and Flora Eaton had brought her adopted daughter with her though children were invariably forbidden. "She is really so grownup and interested," Flora had apologized. The ladies had not objected after the first affronted frowns. They had been charmed within moments by Mavis Eaton, who had been so deferential, so beguiling, so lovely, so polite and eager to please. She had laughed so often too, with open delight at everything, the flight of a heron, the scuffling run of a young fox. Her delight had been something radiant and completely fascinating. And it had not been false and shown for effect. The girl was what she was. A Laughing Girl. Marjorie, of all the women there, had disliked her at once and with unusual intensity.