Testimony of Two Men

by Taylor Caldwell

  "Tie up your horse to that tree," said Jonathan. "It's a good thing she's an intelligent elderly mare, or you'd not have a horse by now. She's patient with fools, I can see." His voice echoed from the lonely land. The priest opened the broad and weathered door and they stepped into a cool and dusky hall with a bare and polished floor and a few good prints on the paneled walls and one Spanish table, dark and impressive with a mirror over it. There was a scent in the air of potpourri and wax. Jonathan looked about him with approval There was nothing vulgar or modern here, and everything expressed dignity and breeding and the self-restraint of the truly mannered person. His glance into rooms off the hall showed him the same calm and solid elegance and paucity of elaborate decoration, and the distinction of the old furniture, a mixture of early Victorian and Spanish. Whoever the McHenrys were, they were not cheap in any meaning of the word.

  At the end of the hall was a noble staircase of very dark wood, as polished and bare as the floors, and now there were hurrying footsteps coming down them and a young man appeared, very handsome, very Spanish in appearance—the Iberian complexion and features but the rugged tall breadth of the Irish—and dressed only in trousers and a white shirt without a collar. His thick black hair was rumpled and when he saw the two intruders he hastily tried to smooth it down with fine hands. Jonathan approved of him at once and shook hands with sincere appreciation when he wasNintroduced to Peter McHenry. "God answered my prayer, you see, Peter," said the priest. Jonathan winked at Peter, but Peter nodded his head with total acceptance.

  "Where is Matilda?" asked Father McNulty.

  "I persuaded her to lie down. Elinor is resting, too." The young man turned to Jonathan. "We came from Detroit be- cause of Matilda's health, you see, to a quieter place near the mountains, and not so bad a winter. So kind of you to come, Doctor. Matilda hasn't been very well since Elinor was two years old—that's seven years ago. We had a doctor in Detroit, but he was baffled."

  "I probably will be, too," said Jonathan. "You have some very good doctors in Detroit. What seems to be wrong with your wife?"

  The young man was so anxious and disturbed that he did not invite his guests into one of the rooms off the long hall. He stared at Jonathan. "The doctors can't find out. That's what's so frustrating. It isn't physical, they say, yet she has high blood pressure, at her age! She's only twenty-eight, for God's sake! She's a very equable person, Matilda, and well-controlled, and quiet, and amusing when she wants to be. She can't sleep, and she seems disturbed most of the time."

  "Hysterical, too, I suppose."

  "Hysterical? Matilda?" Peter McHenry gave a short laugh. "She never was! Never. Not even when she's most depressed."

  "Depressed, eh? And what is her chief complaint?"

  Peter hesitated. "I don't think she has any. Matilda never complains about anything. She is homesick, I know, and misses her family—wonderful people, better than mine, I'm just a Mick—but she never mentions it. She is used to the city but loves it here in the country. But sometimes she looks at me, sort of distracted, you know. Empty. Frightened. As if there was something she couldn't deal with and didn't rightly know what it was, anyway."

  Probably bored, thought Jonathan. He felt sorry for Peter McHenry and felt dislike for his wife. Mick or not, he was possibly too good for her. He looked up to meet Peter's black and shining eyes, so like his own, with the whites a brilliant gleam in the duskiness of the hall. A good and intelligent man, and his wife? A pampered, whining fool. "I'd like to see Mrs. McHenry," he said. "Though I must tell you I am no alienist—never had any patience with their magical abracadabra anyway, and their Viennese incantations, and their high priest, Freud. Certainly there is such a thing as—well—let us call it mental disturbances for the moment—but I've discovered that almost invariably they have a physical basis. To put it more crudely, a man, though of previous sound reputation, can go berserk if aroused, and almost anyone can kill under enough provocation. You see, I'm a pragmatist."

  Peter had listened seriously. "And now," said Jonathan, looking at his watch ruefully, "let's go to Mrs. McHenry. Incidentally, I'd like to see her alone after you've introduced me to her."

  They climbed the broad staircase in silence, came upon a long hall with six doors leading from it. Peter opened one and said with the false brightness of acute anxiety, "Darling, Father McNulty has brought his friend, Dr. Ferrier, to see you."

  The blinds had been pulled against the sun, and the big square room was partly dark, and Jonathan saw here again the elegant mixture of Victorian and Spanish furniture. A thin young woman in a flowing white dress was lying on a chaise longue, and she lifted her head quickly from a posture of utter exhaustion. Peter raised a shade and the green light outside struck her face, and Jonathan saw that Matilda McHenry vividly resembled his own mother in her youth. There were the same clear hazel eyes and fine features and the cloud of soft dark hair and the sensitive mouth and the look of pure candor, and the same restraint in dress. She held out her thin hand to Jonathan, and when she smiled, it was his mother's smile, charming and a little reserved.

  "These two shouldn't have bothered you, Doctor," she said, and smiled lovingly at her husband and the priest. "There's really nothing wrong with me except tiredness, and why I should be tired I don't know. It's gone on for years."

  "I don't have my bag with me," said Jonathan, "so there can't be much of a physical examination." He glanced at the other two men. "I'd like to be alone with Mrs. McHenry, please." When they had gone, he drew a chair close to the young woman and looked at her attentively. Too pale. The clear dark skin had no color at all, nor her lips. Anemic? He bent forward and gently turned down her eyes to examine the mucous membranes. No, not anemia. He felt her pulse. It was entirely too fast and erratic, as if she had been running for a considerable time. He repeated, "I don't have my stethoscope, so I'll have to use the old method of listening with my ear." She nodded, and he pressed his ear and cheek against her soft small breast and listened closely. The heart sounds were the sounds of a heart under stress, or hysteria.

  He asked the young woman some quick questions. She had little appetite. She could sleep very little, and only that fitfully. She tired at everything. "I was never weary before, until Elinor was about two, Doctor. And then—well, I began not to be able to manage things." She tried to laugh. "Things just seemed to slip through my hands, and those acts you do mechanically—I had to guide them consciously, the way you do when something is new to you and you aren't certain how to do it. It's very hard to explain. I was always so competent when I was a girl. Tennis. Croquet. Golf. Swimming. Quite the tomboy, my father used to say. I was never sick. And here I am now, a burden to Peter and Elinor, and I keep bursting out crying at nothing, and don't know why I am crying."

  She had a wonderful low voice, soft and clear, but now it trembled even while she tried to smile in self-deprecation. Beset, though Jonathan. Now, what in hell is besetting her?

  He said, "Does anything about your husband worry you?"

  "Only that I've become a burden to him." Tears came to her eyes and she was ashamed of her emotion and averted her head.

  "And your little girl?"

  She turned her head back quickly to him and her face suddenly glowed. "Oh, Elinor! She's a darling, though a little too sensitive. I can understand that; I'm that way, too. She's very reserved, even more than I was as a child. But so self-sufficient, and so grown-up! I worried about there not being any children here, but Elinor doesn't mind at all. She goes to a little private school just inside of Hambledon—the St. Agatha School. Do you know it, Doctor?"

  "Yes. I know it well." I ought to, he thought. I gave two thousand dollars when it was established. "A very fine school, Elinor has friends there, I suppose?"

  "Well, no. I don't think so. She never mentions them. Things that are important to other children aren't of importance to Elinor. She attends dancing school and neither likes nor dislikes it. But she prefers to play by herself. A little old lady, I often tel
l Peter."

  Jonathan did not speak. He continued to look at her attentively.

  "When Elinor was about two, I thought to myself: Oh, here's a very strange little miss, indeed! She began to resent the usual kisses and hugs mothers give their children. She even wriggled away from Peter, though I think she prefers him. He tries to play with her, too, and sometimes she obliges him." Matilda laughed feebly. "But only to oblige him! And then she goes off by herself."

  A thought came to Jonathan, a most unpleasant thought. "And Elinor's teachers?"

  The mother hesitated. "Well, they all say Elinor is very advanced for her age. An excellent scholar. But the past year or so—she seems to have slipped back a little. Much less interest in books. The teachers don't know about the slipping, for we've been here just two months. But I've observed it myself, though Peter hasn't. Perhaps it is just my imagination." Her young face was tight with suddenly desperate strain.

  "Does the child seem contented?"

  "Yes. At least, she is healthy, though a little thin, and has never been ill, not even the children's diseases. Contented? I never thought of it before, but I don't think so!" She sat up suddenly and stared at Jonathan with increasing bafflement and misery. "It's not just what she does and says. She seems —dissatisfied. She sits for hours, it seems, sometimes, and just doesn't move a finger."

  "Does she seem lonely?"

  "Oh, never. I told you: So self-sufficient, even when she was just a baby."

  The unpleasant thought was growing in Jonathan's mind. He said, "And she never speaks of her schoolmates or teachers?"

  "Well, sometimes." A little uneasiness came to the lovely voice. "It's not that she whines or complains. Elinor isn't a talker, Doctor. But I've thought, once or twice, that she was unjust to—others. She accuses—no, accuses is too definite and harsh a word—she speaks of the other children and her teachers as if they didn't like her, and she gives me the impression that Sister Mary Frances, her mathematics teacher, is persecuting her. Of course, that's absurd. Children do get strange ideas. Strange, strange," repeated Matilda to herself, hardly audible. "Always such a strange child. Just a week ago she told me that 'Daddy was watching her and thinking unkind things about her.' Why, Peter adores the child and indulges her all the time!"

  "And your husband doesn't think the girl is strange, too?"

  "No, not at all." Her voice became emphatic. "I mentioned it once, but Peter said she's just like his grandmother, quiet, retiring, thoughtful. I think he even admires it."

  "And you don't?"

  Mrs. McHenry looked at him with wide tight eyes for a moment, as if the question had alarmed her. Then she shook her head. "I suppose I don't understand Elinor. I have the

  feeling, and that is silly, that she doesn't love us at all. Isn't that ridiculous?"

  Jonathan reached for the thin wrist. The pulse was bounding furiously, and the pretty breast was rising and falling rapidly. She looked at him with desperate pleading, and he looked away in pity. He laid the hand down gently and said, "If you don't mind, I'd like to see your little girl, Mrs. McHenry."

  She brightened again. "Oh, would you? How kind! So few people like children, do they, though everyone is now affirming madly, over and over, that they 'love children.' They don't really. It's just a modern pose and very tiresome. But you'll love Elinor, Doctor. Most adults do."

  "Probably because she doesn't annoy them with loud ways or loud chatterings," said Jonathan, smiling.

  "Elinor was never like that. We didn't use any strictness with her. It wasn't necessary. She's most obedient." She paused. "And I—is there something seriously wrong with me, Doctor?"

  "No, I don't think so." Jonathan stood up and stared at the glittering green leaves at the window. "I think it is just your emotions. Very common. So far as I can see, you're a perfectly healthy young woman, but that was just a cursory examination. Suppose we leave it at that for a little while. In the meantime I'll see your daughter. No, just rest there."

  "How really kind of you, Doctor. Sometimes I think Elinor is worried about me. She'd never say so. She should have had her nap by this time. She naps on Saturday afternoons because we take her into town later for a little recreation." She smiled at him winningly. "Please tell Elinor that Mother is perfectly well, won't you?"

  Jonathan went out into the hall, where the priest and Peter McHenry were waiting for him. He closed the door and said quietly, "I couldn't give your wife a thorough examination, Mr. McHenry, for obvious reasons. But there seems no physical complaint at all, either on what examination I did and her own words. She's under stress of some kind, and I don't think she even knows that. But, what are the words that the alienists are using so lavishly these days? Yes. 'Feelings of inadequacy. And guilt.' No, they don't mean much to me, either."

  Peter's quick Irish temper came boiling to the surface at once. "Matilda? Inadequate? Guilty? Guilty! Of what is she guilty, for God's sake?"

  Jonathan held up a calming palm. "You misunderstood.

  Those are psychiatric words, and pretty nonsensical, in my opinion. They don't really explain. But it is quite true that very often people take on a job too big for them, and they aren't up to some of the demands of their circumstances and environment or work, or they feel inferior to a brother or a sister, or to anyone for that matter, and so they are 'inadequate.' I think that's the general explanation. The funny thing is that in nine cases out of ten they really are inadequate, and nothing else, and no mystery about it. They just need advice to lower their sights and think more highly of themselves, that's all, or get an easier job, or spruce up, or buy a hat more often and sometimes—it is as simple as that—win a few dollars at a horse race. We all feel inadequate very often. It's only when it gets chronic that it is disturbing to one's emotions and can get out of hand and make you pretty damned miserable."

  Peter was listening with bewilderment. "But that doesn't describe Matilda."

  "No. Well. Sometimes there's a subtler feeling of inadequacy, which the sufferer doesn't recognize at all. As for the guilt feelings I mentioned, darling favorites of the alienists: Don't we all feel guilty at times? Sometimes we have damned good reason to feel that way! We can overcome it by doing recompense one way or another—or we can hate the person we injured more than ever and persuade ourselves that the reason we ruined him or treated him unjustly was that he really deserved it, after all. There's many a way of washing your hands, including the one Pilate used.

  "But there's a subtler kind of guilt which sensitive and intelligent and gentle people often suffer, without knowing they are suffering it. They do their very best, with love and kindness and fervor—and it isn't successful with a person or a situation. So, being conscientious people, they feel it is their fault and it devastates them. Now, what's the matter?"

  For Peter's face had darkened with anger. "I don't understand a word of this gibberish, sir! I appreciate everything Matilda does, even when she gives me a smile or touches me! She is the whole world to me, far more than Elinor is, or anything else. She hasn't any reason to feel I don't love her and appreciate her! What gave you that damned idea?"

  "Why, nothing at all." Jonathan smiled easily. "I was merely being didactic, like the alienist boys. Well, there's nothing really physically wrong with your wife. But she is under stress. I'd like to find out what it is. I'd like to talk to

  your child. Children are far more perceptive than adults," said Jonathan, still operating under his pet delusion.

  "Very well," said Peter, inflamed and belligerent. He marched down the hall and knocked at the door and called his daughter. The door opened at once to show a thin but almost beautiful little girl with her parents' thick dark hair, her father's Spanish face and features, her mother's air of elegance, and her meticulous dress. "Yes, Daddy?" she said.

  Her frock was of lace and lawn, covering her slender knees and flaring out, and her hair was tied with a huge blue ribbon and she wore blue socks and little white shoes. Jonathan thought, A little love—and t
ried to suppress his ominous conjecture. He went to the door of the child's bedroom and she looked up at him with her large moist eyes in their masses of long dark lashes, and at once he was chilled. He had seen that look before, that "strange," eerie look, in hospitals but never before in a child. He felt cold even in the warmth of the hall, and he held out his hand.

  "I'm Dr. Ferrier, Elinor," he said, "and I've just seen your mother, who isn't well, and she told me about you, and I said I'd like to meet you. I hope you are liking to meet me, too." He felt sick, and his love for children made him even sicker.

  She curtsied and said with the utmost gravity, "Poor Mummy. She is sick, isn't she? I knew it all the time. That's why she's so cross and sometimes mean and says terrible things to me."

  "Elinor!" Peter was stunned. "You know that isn't true!"

  She gave him a sly and sliding look and said, "Oh, but, Daddy, not when you're here."

  Peter turned to Jonathan in agitation. "The child imagines it!"

  Yes, thought Jonathan, I know that, my friend. He said, "I'd still like to talk alone with Elinor, please."

  "Not if she's going to—to lie like that!" Peter was now furious. "Elinor, you never bed to anyone before. What's wrong with you today?"

  "It's very hot, isn't it?" said the child in her dainty voice, and touched her forehead.

  "You know Mummy never even slapped you in her life," went on Peter.

  "I think I'd like some lemonade, Daddy."

  "Elinor! Answer me! Did Mummy ever once spank you or scold you?"

  "I think I'll go downstairs," said Elinor.