Testimony of Two Men

by Taylor Caldwell

  "Not at all," said Robert. "He would be dead, and sometimes, during my contacts with my dear fellowman, I think that would be a delightful consummation. Seeing that you are quoting the Bible—again—let me remind you that it states that God made the creatures of the earth, the land and the sea and the sky, and forests and lakes and streams, before He inflicted man on them, and He blessed them first. If He did, indeed, give man 'dominion' over these blameless things, then it was not to incontinently destroy them or injure them but to protect them, for surely they are beautiful and man is as surely not."

  "Blasphemy!" cried Jane with horror.

  "I have begun to believe," said Robert, looking again about the large and dreary room which Jane had designated as the parlor, "that man is the blasphemy by his very existence."

  "That is not Christian, Robert!"

  Robert was enjoying himself. "It may not be Christian in your sense of the word, Mother, but it is certainly true. The cities are beginning to encroach on the countryside all over the world. If they were at least beautiful, and if they respected the world, and cherished it and guarded its resources, that would not matter too much, though I dread the thought that there won't be any quiet sanctuaries in the future, and no blessed silences, and only the discordant voices of people. However, I probably won't be here then, and that's one blessing of mortality.

  "Incidentally," said Robert, more and more enjoying himself and getting revenge for the destruction of his beautiful house, "I believe the Bible mentions that only man is corrupt, full of sin, vicious, murdering for murder's sake, and practically irredeemable. Not even the serpent or the tiger—and not even the mosquito or housefly—is condemned in such vigorous language. 'Man is wicked from his birth and evil from his youth.' I don't recall that said about tadpoles or the lowly louse or bedbug. Just about men."

  Jane had begun to smirk in a peculiar way. "I see that your friend has really changed your Christian attitude, Robert. But—and how grateful I am for this!—he won't be here much longer!"

  "True," said Robert, and it came to him that in spite of what had happened, apparently with such lightness between him and Jonathan, he would miss Jonathan more than he had thought it possible to miss another human being. As he was young and optimistic, he had almost recovered from the shock of that day's encounter, and had seen Jenny a number of times on the island, and she had been shyly kind and had welcomed him with obvious pleasure and trust. He had begun to hope. She had not spoken to him of Jonathan again, and Jonathan had not mentioned her recently.

  "A wanderer on the face of the earth. He will be that, Robert."

  "Possibly for a little while. I know that he has had many magnificent offers from New York and Philadelphia and Boston. One hospital even offered to make him Chief-of-Staff, and another of the surgical division."

  "He will never realize any of them, my dear Robert."

  Robert turned on her quickly. "What do you mean by that?"

  Jane smiled with deep satisfaction. "I do associate for your sake, Robert, to incline people to you. During those associations with the ladies in this miserable little town I have heard —hints."

  "Of what?" Now Robert was alarmed and disturbed.

  "I am not at liberty to tell you," said his mother, setting her mouth primly. "Moreover, I am not one to gossip, nor do I permit confidences."

  Robert was silent, studying her and frowning. He had felt that something was wrong concerning Jonathan in this town during the past few weeks, but he had dismissed it as his imagination. He was treated kindly by new colleagues, but he noticed that faces changed when he mentioned Jonathan, and the subject was dismissed. He had come to the conclusion that as Jonathan was leaving, he was no longer important to the medical world in which he moved in Hambledon, for it was a parochial town and concerned only with its own, and Jonathan was not now part of that closed society.

  " 'It is a fearful thing to fall into the Hands of the Living God,' " Jane quoted with pleasure.

  "It is, indeed," said Robert. "Mother, if you have heard of anything concerning Jonathan I insist that you tell me, for he is my friend."

  Jane nodded grimly. "He is no man's friend, but has set his face against everyone, and so I am most happy that he will indeed be leaving soon, or perhaps he will be forced to leave. That is what I have heard, Robert, and all I have heard, from many indignant ladies, who also hinted that never again will he be permitted to practice anywhere. Certainly—"

  "For God's sake!" Robert suddenly shouted. "What in hell are you talking about? What fool women's gossip have you been listening to?"

  His mother rose with slow vast dignity, lowering her eyes before this violence, and, forgetting her canes for once, marched as if preceded by heralds out of the room, and in silence. Robert seethed, watching her go. He knew his mother. She would tell him nothing. He had deeply offended her. Now she would not speak to him for days except on occasions of deepest necessity, until he would be forced to apologize or she would find her own silence no longer sufferable.

  He slammed out of the house into the hot sunlight of the morning, and it was as if he had been delivered from a dank tomb. But his mind was greatly perturbed and anxious. He wondered if he should tell Jonathan. He recalled that Jonathan had lately seemed very lighthearted and pleasant and amiable, and his tongue had been less abrasive. Jonathan, who knew Hambledon, as Robert did not, would surely be aware by this time if some danger had begun to threaten him, some inconceivable danger. He decided not to repeat his mother's malignant gossip. What had she said, really, except to repeat remarks of spiteful women?

  His concern for Jonathan, however, removed the last hostility and estrangement he had felt since that day by the river, and his thoughts of him were again brotherly and full of respect. If no one else missed him in Hambledon, he would be missed by Robert Morgan. Perhaps, thought Robert, when he is established somewhere else, he will send for me. I like Hambledon very much. But if Jon asked me to join him, I would.

  Senator Kenton Campion got out of his fine 'victoria—his sister's—and looked at Dr. Martin Eaton's great and monstrously ugly house and thought, as he always thought, that if "Pike's Peak" was ridiculous for Hambledon, Dr. Eaton's house should be razed in the interest of public beauty, after public condemnation. It was no worse, he reflected, than other houses on River Road, and it did have remarkably lovely gardens and linden trees, and had a fine back view of the water and expansive grounds, but still it was hideous and an insult to an eye that winced at deformities.

  He stood on the walk and looked up at the little silly turrets and small absurd towers and the appalling stained-glass hall window that glowered in the very center of the chestnut-colored wood facade and seemed to enhance the putrid yellow hue of the shutters and shingles. Ghastly, ghastly, thought the Senator, climbing the stairs to the cool shadows of the deep long porches and pulling the bell. He was almost always good-tempered. The Eaton house increased his feeling of well-being because it was so repulsive, so rich, so pretentious and so without grace. His eyes shone like polished glass. A maid admitted him to the great parlor with all its clutter of china, elks' horns, clocks, vases and dark velvet furniture, and, of course, its shutters pulled against the radiant morning sun. It was dusky here, though not cool, and the Senator felt his way to the center of the room, considered a deep chair, then decided against it. He was too portly to sink himself into that mass.

  Flora Eaton came in hastily, in a gardening apron, her thin sallow face damp and her dark hair damper still and disheveled. She threw aside her gardening gloves and advanced into the room, her dotted cotton dress fluttering about her angular figure. "Dear, dear Kenton!" she exclaimed. "How happy I am to see you! How is darling Beatrice? Do forgive my appearance—my sweet peas, you know, in this weather, and my phlox—not doing well at all—and Martin will be so happy, too, to see you! Iced tea, Kenton, or perhaps"—and her pale lips made a naughty coy moue—"a little drop of something?"

  "A little drop of something, dear Flora," s
aid the beaming Senator, as he enfolded her thin freckled hands in his warm, fat palms. "Where is Martin?"

  Flora was breathless, as always, and she "jiggled" in the present fashionable way, all jumping fingers, nodding head, and little jerkings of her shoulders. The Senator disliked this fashion, which had been taken from the Florodora Sextette's handsome young ladies, but the lively animation was not too repellent in a girl, though tiresome. However, a lady Flora's age should know better, he commented to himself. She made him nervous. What did she remind him of—and other ladies like her? Some disease. Yes. Parkinson's.

  Flora gaspingly informed him that her husband was in his study, as he always was in the morning, but she would summon him and they would have a little cozy chat. Her big, hollow dark eyes rolled meaningly, her big white teeth glittered, her elbows, hands hips, shoulder, jiggled, and she kept rising and falling on her toes.

  "No, no, dear Flora!" cried the jovial Senator. "I wouldn't take you from your beautiful garden for a moment! I should have called first. I'll go to Martin's study. Dull business, y'know, my dear, dull business, not fit for a lady's ears. I know the way! Don't bother, my dear, don't bother!" He tapped her affectionately on her sharp shoulder and went off very fast for a gentleman of his girth and size. Flora looked after him languishingly. He was so good, so kind, so sweet, so distinguished. She found her gloves and raced back to her garden, which she was preparing for a tea that afternoon.

  The Senator climbed the stairs. Here again all was shuttered and dim, and the shut air smelled of wax and heated varnish and aromatic dust. He passed room after room, with closed doors, until he came to the study, on which he knocked quickly. He said, "Martin? Kent Campion here. Can you see me for a few minutes?"

  He heard a creak, a hoarse mutter, then a shuffling, which came toward him. The door opened and the tall and shrunken figure of the sick doctor stood on the threshold, staring at him dully. The once fat face was fat no longer; it had sunken in one year. His bald head no longer shone; the skin was yellowed and parched. The once kind blue eyes had faded and were slitted. Only the big nose and the thick lips remained, ruins among ruins. Martin leaned on two canes, and his left side was almost completely paralyzed.

  He wore a wool morning coat, for all the heat, and wrinkled trousers, and a collarless shirt striped in white and gray, and suspenders. He trembled as he stood with the aid of his strong canes. He said slowly and precisely, "Good morning, Kent. Come in." He had regained a good measure of his speech. He shuffled slowly back into the dusky room, which was filled with Mission oak furniture, leather chairs, ugly lamps, and dark blue silk draperies. Here he had held consulfations with lesser doctors on important matters concerning an obscure case or a rich patient. Now his precious medical library, which lined the oak walls, was dusty and unused. The rug held no footprints, for few came here any longer. Martin, since his niece's tragic death, had become a recluse, drinking in lonely silence in this room and reading "light" books and magazines, and thinking, thinking, thinking, his own desolate and anguished thoughts.

  The Senator glanced about him. Pity was not one of his virtues, but he felt pity now. He remembered hearty convivial days in this library, or study, and manly jokes and chuckles, when a big fire was laid on that black marble hearth and the winter snow hissed on the long windows. There were only echoes here now, and on that desk, once weighted with medical books and folders, stood only a bottle and a glass and a pitcher of water.

  The Senator, still beaming, seated himself near the desk and thought, but only for an instant, that he was on dirty business and he wished it was not necessary. However, it indeed was necessary. Besides, in a way, he was doing Martin a favor. No doubt the shattered doctor had been dreaming, for a year, almost, of revenge, and had broken because he could not attain it. His dear friend, Kent Campion, would put it in his hands. So the Senator became cheerful again. "Yes, yes, Martin, I will indeed have a drink. Thank you." He watched the crippled man reach for another glass, survey it for dregs, and then fill it with whiskey and water. "Thank you," repeated the Senator, and leaned forward and took the glass. "How are you, dear old friend?"

  "Waiting for death," said Martin very slowly.

  The Senator laughed heartily. "Oh, dear me, how morbid you are! But, of course, you are joking. You're a young man yet, Martin. World before you. Two years younger than me. Why aren't you sitting out in the garden, your wonderful gardens? So pleasant in this weather, with cool breezes from the river."

  The doctor had painfully and carefully seated himself. He put aside his canes. He folded his right hand over his paralyzed left one, which now resembled a claw. He gazed at the Senator with eyes so sunken and so narrowed that they appeared lifeless and of no color at all.

  "I care for nothing," he said. He lifted the bottle. When the Senator would have helped him, he waved him aside exhaustedly. He filled his glass, added only a dash of water, then put the glass to his lips and drank like a man dying of thirst. The Senator watched him, marveling that he could drink so much, and not for the first time today, either.

  He said with his usual buoyancy, "Now, Martin, we must pull ourselves together, we really must. For the sake of our— er—friends. Our—er—community. Our—er—loved ones. We owe it to ourselves, to others. We are not unimportant. We are revered, admired, needed, We—"

  "Shut up, Kent," said the weary voice, and the right hand tilted the bottle over the glass again. "What do you want? You always want something."

  "Is that kind?" said Kenton Campion, chuckling richly. He drank of his own glass and tried not to notice the mass of fingerprints on it. "We've had many a happy hour in this room, dear Martin, many a happy hour. We miss you. We miss those hours. We shall have them again. I promise you that—when all this is forgotten, and —er—consummated."

  One lean broad shoulder rose and fell under the morning coat. But now the dying eyes fixed themselves attentively on the politician. They actually peered in the dusk, and the Senator, perceptive as were all politicians, was aware of a concentration on him, a sudden watchfulness. He pulled his chair closer to the desk. "I am here to bring you the satisfaction you've been dreaming of for months, Martin, for months. And then a miracle will happen, and your heart will be at peace, and your health restored."

  "Go on," said the faltering voice, but it had quickened.

  "Jonathan Ferrier," said the Senator.

  He expected some show of emotion now, at the sound of that hated name, a quickening, a trembling of the side of the face which was not paralyzed, an exclamation, a faint cry, perhaps, a clenching of the living hand, an involuntary movement. But nothing of this occurred. Martin Eaton continued to stare at him with those frightening eyes for several long moments, and he said not a word. Finally he stiffly turned his big head, with its glinting yellowish baldness, and he looked at the shuttered windows. He appeared to have forgotten the visitor.

  "Jonathan Ferrier," said the Senator, wondering if Martin's mind had gone also, and if he had forgotten that name.

  "I heard you," said Martin, and still looked at the windows and did not move.

  The Senator coughed. "The man we all still believe killed your niece and her unborn child." (What the hell was the matter with him, anyway?)

  Martin said in a vague and distant voice, "They believe that still?"

  "Indeed, indeed, dear friend! They never believed he was innocent. There are rumors he bought some members of the jury."

  Martin closed his right hand over his left again. He rubbed the dead flesh slowly, slowly, and did not look at the Senator. His ash-colored mouth fluttered uncontrollably, and the Senator was pleased, for now he was surely expressing his grief and inconsolable sorrow. Then Martin said, "He did not buy the jurors. They were honest men."

  The Senator frowned. "Ah, well, you know rumors, Martin. I never heed them myself. But who can stop tongues? And—old stories? But we know Ferrier was guilty. You know, too. Didn't you stand up in the courtroom, when the verdict was given, and didn't you cry
out, 'No! No! No!' "

  The fallen chest, once so massive and strong, heaved visibly, and the Senator smiled a little. So, the old hatred still burned there, in spite of the dead and passive face, the averted head, the hidden eyes.

  "Yes," said Martin. "I did."

  "So you know he was guilty."

  There was a long sick silence. Then Martin mumbled, "He was guilty."

  "Well, then," said Campion, freshly pleased. "And now I have some news for you. Do you hear me, Martin? Yes. I hear that Ferrier has decided to remain in Hambledon after all, to destroy and injure at will. To flaunt his crimes in our faces. But—we, shall we say 'we' at present?—have decided that this little city must no longer be defamed and shamed by his presence. We—have been working not only to revoke his license in the whole state but to revoke it permanently, and everywhere. Who will give him shelter and privileges when the sovereign Commonwealth of Pennsylvania will no longer permit him to practice but will drive him out?"

  Now the ruined face turned almost quickly to the Senator and for the first time there was a sharp burning deep within the hollows of the lost eyes, an intense and focused burning. The Senator nodded richly.

  "Yes, dear old friend, yes."

  "He is a doctor," said Martin.

  This was not exactly the reply the Senator had expected.

  "Well," he said, waving his hand. "He soon will not be." He watched Martin as he lit one of his heavy cigars and then deposited the match in a bronze tray. Martin watched his every movement as if powerfully fascinated. "With your help, Martin."

  Martin had fixed his gaze on the cigar. The lips were shaking again. The Senator said, "All you have suffered in your sorrow will be avenged. Poor lovely Mavis will be avenged. I promise you that, my friend, I promise you that."