Testimony of Two Men

by Taylor Caldwell

  "Yes," said Beatrice. She sighed. "Still, one never knows, does one? Tom says—but you can't really believe that class —that he—well—rescued Francis, and then made him breathe again, and bathed his throat with cold water, and put him to bed, and left him for a moment to tell me, and then he said he had called that priest. I'm beginning to think he was insolent—"

  "Yes," said Jonathan. He was smoking now. "Tom exceeded his authority, not in calling the priest, but in saving Francis' life. Kick him out."

  "Indeed," said Beatrice. "I will consult with Kenton about discharging him—" Then she was staring at Jonathan, and her eyes were protruding glass. She gulped. "What are you saying, Jon, that Tom should have let—have let—"

  "Francis die. Of course."

  She actually jumped to her feet and the smooth forehead was bunched together like a big white whirl over her eyes. "How can you say that, Jon? Francis die! Let Francis die! Kill himself! How do you think Kenton would feel—" She was gasping. She put her hand to her high and florid bosom. "You can't mean what you said!"

  "Oh, but I did." Jonathan was pleased. He was certain that this was one of the few times in her life that Beatrice had become agitated and disturbed. "A man has the right to choose when to die, doesn't he? Francis chose to die last night. Damn that interfering Tom."

  Beatrice looked about her wildly, as if pleading with someone to reassure her that she was not hearing insane words and that everything was all right and she had just misunderstood. Then, to Jonathan's surprise and not a little to his gratification, she burst into tears, threw her hands about aimlessly, then ran heavily from the room.

  Jonathan thought, I bet that keeps her from totally enjoying her lunch, but I doubt it. He went back into the hall and there encountered Tom, the elderly servant who had been long in the Campion employ and before that had been employed by old Jasper Pike. Tom had evidently and shamelessly been listening, and Jonathan winked at him.

  "You have disturbed the madam," said Tom with a grave face.

  "So it would seem. I suggest a little soda with her lunch, just before. We can't have Mrs. Offerton not relishing her food, can we? A tragedy. Tell me, Tom, why did you send for Father McNulty before dawn? Was Francis asking for him?"

  "No, Doctor. I asked him, and he said no. But they used to be such good friends, and Mr. Francis had almost committed a mortal sin, and maybe he did commit one, even thinking about it, and I—well, I've known that boy since he was born. I know all about him."

  "I bet you do," said Jonathan, "and that makes you a minority of one. Go on. Did Francis talk to the priest when he came?"

  "No." The old man's face became sad and fallen. "Father McNulty came at once on his bicycle. It's a hard climb on a bicycle, even for a young man, and I've often wondered why none of his rich parishioners, or a few of them together, never bought him a horse and a buggy."

  "Don't look at me," said Jonathan. "I'm not one of his parishioners. Save your glares for the McNellans up here on the hill, and the Fandrusses, and the Temples, and such. So Francis wouldn't talk to the priest."

  "No, Doctor, he would not. He just lay on his bed with his face turned away and it was kind of like he was dead, not listening, not moving. Father McNulty stayed until it was almost time for Mass, and so he was tired, and hungry, too, and he made me promise not to leave Francis for long, and said he'd call you."

  The old man sighed and wrung his dry hands together. "I made Francis promise me something. I made him promise not to—not to do that again. And he said he would think about it. And, and—" Tears gleamed along the lower lids of the tired eyes. "Well, I reminded him of the stories I used to tell him when he was a little feller, and how I'd take him for walks, and bring him little delicacies to eat late at night, and how we'd cut a Christmas tree on the mountain, and how I'd bandage up his cuts and take him to the barber, and everything— And, sir, it don't sound right, seeing he's a man now, but he began to cry. I pretended not to see, not wanting to shame him when he remembered. And then he held out his hand to me and I took it, and he said, 'Tom, there is more than one way of dying, and I'll die, but I won't do it myself.'" Tom implored Jonathan with his eyes. "I don't rightly understand that, Doctor, but I did get his promise."

  Jonathan was looking down at his dusty riding boots and was hitting them idly with his crop. "Hum," he said, thinking. Tom waited. Then Jonathan said, "Any idea why he performed this caper this time, Tom?"

  "No, Doctor, I don't, except that the boy's been miserable for over a year. He never told me why, though I asked him."

  "Perhaps he made up his mind a year ago that he wasn't cut out to be a priest, but he didn't have the courage to tell his superiors."

  "No, sir," said Tom, with sudden strong emphasis. "You don't understand Mr. Francis, Doctor. He always had courage for three boys, not just one. Living here alone, nobody caring about him, not even the servants or the gardener, he was a funny little feller, and it would've killed most kids, or they'd have gotten into bad mischief just for revenge or something. But not Mr. Francis. He was the bravest little kid I ever saw, Doctor. And a brave man. If he thought he'd made a mistake, he'd have told the Fathers right out." He paused. "I think he did this time. He didn't say, but I think he did, but he wasn't screwing up his courage for a whole year, Doctor. It was something else."

  Jonathan thought again. "All right, I'll see the patient. Having trouble swallowing?"

  "Well, sir, his throat's swole up pretty bad, and getting purple and blue, and looking nasty, but he drank some water and it didn't seem to bother him. I tell you, Doctor, when I saw him there—there was just starlight, and I didn't see him at first, and I tell you—" He bowed his head. "The first thing he said to me, 'Tom, damn you' and he meant it, Doctor. He truly meant it. He could speak, though; it was kind of a sick squeak. It's a little better now."

  They went up the enormous white marble staircase together. They stood in the long dusk of the cool and cushiony corridor, with all the carved doors shut along it, and Tom timidly put his hand on Jonathan's arm. "You'll want to see him alone, without me, Doctor," he said. "Doctor, I'd like to ask you something, and I seen you often, even when you was a little boy, and then going away to school, and they say hard things about you, that you are a hard man and a—well, Doctor, I never believed it for a minute! Never! I knew all about you, like I know all about Mr. Francis. And so I don't, I think I don't, have to ask you to be sort of patient with him, and kind. And trying to understand."

  Jonathan was moved, and angry at his sentimentality immediately afterward. He said, "You're not his father, Tom, and neither am I, but I admit he seems to need a friend or two."

  He opened the door, nodded to Tom, and then entered a large and brilliantly shining sitting room with a fine view of the purpling mountains. But the carpet had been removed from the parquetry floor, and the furniture which had been permitted to remain was small and uncomfortable and plain. Beyond lay a bright bedroom as austere as this, the walls bare except for an enormous crucifix, the furniture nothing at all but a narrow bed, a commode, a chest of drawers, a bare table, and a single chair. The floor was partly covered with a straw rug, suitable for a veranda only, and rough to the foot. The room resembled a cell. This was no new matter. The boy had insisted on such Spartan quarters from earliest youth, as Jonathan, who had been here before, knew quite well. It expressed Francis Campion's personality with fervid force, as if he had revolted against the opulence and luxury of his father's house.

  The young man was lying on his bed with the white sheet drawn up under his armpits. He was not looking at the great crucifix which faced him on the wall but through the uncurtained window at the mountains. Jonathan heard in himself, "I shall lift mine eyes to the everlasting hills, from whence cometh my strength," and then he laughed at himself. There was no strength in a man except that which he drew up from within his own being, from his experience, his character, the measure of fortitude with which he had been born.

  He saw the fine tuft of black
hair on the white pillow, the sunken pale profile of the young man, the quietness of his body, the stillness of the colorless mouth. He advanced into the room, his leather heels clacking on the bare wood. Francis Campion did not move, but Jonathan knew that he was not sleeping. His dark eyes shimmered with the light from the window. Jonathan sat down and placed his crop and bag beside him. He lit a cigarette leisurely and began to smoke. He waited. Francis did not move. Jonathan saw this was not obduracy or resentment or sullenness, or even shame. It was pure withdrawal and indifference and lack of curiosity as to who had entered this room. Francis had passed the point beyond caring who spoke to him or even who looked at him. Certainly their opinions, their thoughts of him, were of no interest to him any longer. A dead man could have been no more uncaring, and if it had not been for the sluggish blink of his eyes, Jonathan would have thought him a corpse.

  "It is customary for those who expect to die," said Jonathan at last, "that they at least make some provision for others they are leaving, that is, if they are decent. For instance, Francis, you expect to die one way or another and are planning on it. Yet, the one person who really cares about you is to be left destitute, for he will be fired from this miserable job of his, no doubt because he was indiscreet enough to save your life. You don't have one red copper. If you had, and then left it to Tom Simmons, I'd say, 'Go and God speed you, wherever you are going.' But what does Tom mean to you, anyway?"

  For a minute or two Jonathan was afraid that Francis had not heard him, that he had really removed all his senses from ordinary life, including hearing. Then the long thin head turned slowly on the pillow and Jonathan saw the deathly young face, still and rigid, and he also saw the thick and swollen bruises on the other's neck.

  "Tom?" said Francis, speaking with pain.

  "Tom. Auntie is going to boot him out because of you. Seems he was not only worried about your life, which I admit was stupid, but he was more worried about your immortal soul. That's unpardonable. So Auntie, of course, can't forgive him. Perhaps she'll be kind enough to give him a week's pay—how much is it?—in lieu of notice. After all, can't have someone around this place who is human, can you?"

  The frozen suffering on Francis' face increased to starkness. He was thinking, and the effort was apparently too terrible for him. He closed his eyes, then opened them again.

  "You don't have a cent," said Jonathan. "Your devoted Mama left every penny to your Papa. Papa would take care of their mutual darling. That's what Mama thought. Well, coming down to it, Papa hasn't exactly starved you physically, at any rate, nor beaten you physically, and he has sheltered you and clothed you and let you choose your way of life without a great deal of uproar, and probably keeps you in pocket money. Well, too bad. Perhaps I can get Tom a job as an orderly in one of the hospitals, but I don't think he'd last long at that. Too hard work, and he's pretty old, isn't he? Been with your father for twenty-five years, and then with old Jasper Pike for a quarter of a century before that. Tom must be seventy. Three score years and ten, and most of it spent in service to people like your father. And you, Francis.

  That's some sort of an epitaph, but I'm damned if I can say what kind."

  Francis was looking at him fixedly, as if the pain he was enduring, both mental and physical, was too great for speech.

  "I'm not one," Jonathan continued, "like our Teddy Roosevelt and some of his friends who seem to think that a man has a right to the fruits of the earth just for the stupid reason that his parents conceived him at an odd moment, probably without intending to, and shoved him onto the rest of us. But I have come firmly to believe that not only is a man worthy of his hire but his hire ought to be enough to keep him decently during his lifetime and permit him to save some of it for his old age or illness. And damned if an employer shouldn't be taxed, or something, to see to it that his employees have a pension for the years when they can't labor any longer to fatten up the employer's bank account and investments. Now, if Tom, when he is turned out of here—and he's lived here for nearly fifty years, hasn't he?—it would be a nice thing if your will had left him several thousand dollars, and if he knew that he would have an income besides, until he found another job, or perhaps never again a job. But he has nothing like that, of course. So, it's the poorhouse for Tom, or the state farm."

  The palest shadow of despair ran like a ripple over Francis' face and he lifted his head briefly from the pillow. "I won't let them make Tom leave," he said in a hoarse whisper. "They can't do that to him just because—"

  "Oh, but they will," said Jonathan most cheerfully. "Now, if he'd been sensible enough to close the door when he saw what you were up to and had gone cozily back to bed, you'd have been found in the morning, and some doctor who's a family friend could have been induced to sign a certificate saying you had died of 'natural causes,' and all Tom would have had to do, to live comfortably the rest of his life, probably without working, would have been to mention to Papa or Auntie, in private, that he knew what he knew and what about it? But the world's full of damn fools, isn't it, including you and me, and especially Tom?"

  The young man did not answer. But slowly and with tremendous effort, he began to raise himself up in his bed. Jonathan watched him with no sign of curiosity or interest, and waited until Francis, heaving and gasping, had pushed up his pillows, settled himself upon them in a sitting position, and was looking at him again.

  "Damn you," said Francis Campion, struggling for breath. "Damn everybody. No one's going to hurt poor old Tom. If —they do—I'll let the whole damned world know why—"

  "Good," said Jonathan. "You might mention that to Papa and Auntie first, though. Save a lot of trouble. By the way, your father ought to be here in a couple of hours. He's making his usual trumpet speech in Hambledon on the Fourth, and, as usual, you won't be there."

  He wondered if he had lost the youth again, for Francis' face had become expressionless and remote again, as if he were engrossed in unearthly thoughts. Then, to Jonathan's pleasure, Francis began to smile. It was not a bright and gleeful smile, but, as smiles go, it was at least visible, if faintly. "No," he said, "I won't be there." Then he frowned.

  "Unfortunately I will," said Jonathan.

  Now Francis was looking at him sharply, for he was remembering that he had not seen Jonathan since the doctor's indictment and trial and acquittal, and he was remembering other things.

  "If I were you," said Francis, and now there was actual life in that dim voice, "I wouldn't go anywhere, I wouldn't see anyone in this town, and I'd tell them all to go to hell."

  "Nice sentiments for a budding priest," said Jonathan. "But I quite agree with you. However, unlike you, I do have thoughts for others I'd leave behind. I am staying here until my replacement is broken in, for I am not irresponsible like you. I want to make certain that my old patients aren't going to be carved up by some diploma-mill hack or be treated by some nature lover with 'true-blue-pure-herbs-from-nature's-fields-and-dells.' Now, if you were in my place, this town would have seen the backs of your heels a long time ago, and be damned to your patients. That's right, isn't it?"

  "You have a sweet opinion of me," said Francis Campion. Jonathan saw that every word caused him pain to speak and that his voice was rough with effort.

  "Not as bad as the opinion you ought to have of yourself. Francis, I'm not lecturing you. I don't care if you string yourself up again five minutes after I leave here. But you don't have a right to cause poor old Tom misery, no matter what trouble, real or imagined, decided you last night to spit in the face of God and man and get the hell out of here."

  The thin and attenuated nostrils of Francis' nose tightened, and Jonathan was alarmed to see how emaciated the young man was. He had never been buxom and had always been inclined to slenderness, but now most of his bones were visible under the pallid skin, and his fallen upper lip was indented by the teeth beneath. Whatever had driven Francis Campion to this point in time and space was no trivial thing.

  But Francis was faintly smilin
g again. "What if I get myself a job, make enough money to leave Tom in comparative comfort—and then decide—"

  "You have my congratulations in advance," said Jonathan. "Cigarette?"

  Francis stretched out his hand and took a cigarette from Jonathan's silver case, and Jonathan struck a match and lit it. "However," said Jonathan, watching carefully to see that Francis' swollen throat did not close at the entrance of the smoke, as it was likely to, "that will take a considerable time, seeing that you are not possessed of a profession or a trade and are just about as helpless as Tom is himself. Perhaps, though, you could borrow a few thousand dollars. I'm sure Papa would repay the debt after you had been neatly laid away, with a sigh of relief."

  "Maybe you'd lend it to me," said Francis. "I'll give you my note."

  "Not I. By the way, you understand I am supposed to report your case to the police, don't you?"

  The thin white skin of the boy's forehead wrinkled in dismal wretchedness.

  "That would just about fix Papa's little railway express wagon," said Jonathan. "Especially if you try it again."

  The boy smoked a minute. Then he said, "For God's sake, don't tempt me!"

  Jonathan began to laugh, and after a painful second Francis gave a thin answering croak. He began to cough and his cheeks turned scarlet; he choked. Then he drew a deep crowing breath. "Don't struggle," said Jonathan, alert on his chair. "Let nature take her course, and she'll do the job for you without you lifting a hand."

  The crowing and heaving continued for a few minutes longer, until Francis' face was dusky and his eyes starting, and just when Jonathan was about to go to the rescue, the crowing stopped, and Francis wiped his wet eyes. He put the cigarette aside. He said in a strangled voice, "But you won't tell the police."

  "I don't know. I ought to, I suppose. However, you didn't send for me, Auntie didn't send for me, and I'm not really the family physician. I'm attending nobody here, so, by a technicality this is none of my damned business. Ill have to look it up in Medical Ethics."