This Side of Innocence

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  He stood, now, on the top landing, and leaned against the strong oaken railing, looking down at the duskily lit hall below. It was very strange, but he was remembering a text from his old Sunday-school lessons: “He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls.” Odd that that phrase, so meaningless to his youth, should strike him now with malignant meaning. “The city without walls.” Yes, he was like a gay and riotous and heedless city, open to attack, all its broad and colorful avenues vulnerable to the advance of an inexorable enemy.

  Whenever he was disturbed, baffled or tormented in his thoughts, he was seized with an angry melancholy, and a kind of impotence. He felt these, now. He despised sentimentality, yet he found himself thinking: I’ve been like Esau. And those two down there are going to gobble up the feast—unless I prevent them.

  Then he remembered his sister, Dorothea, and he smiled. It was most amusing that he thought of Dorothea, in this hour, as an ally. For Dorothea had not only never been his ally; she had always been his worst critic, his indomitable enemy. But enemies, when they had a common foe, frequently joined together in mutual effort.

  He began to whistle again. He walked down the vast oaken corridor, with its thick dark red carpet, and came to Dorothea’s door. He paused a moment there, before knocking, in order to fix an amiable smile on his face. It was not a difficult thing to do, for he found it very easy to dissemble, and he could simulate, sometimes even to his own inner conviction, any emotion he desired.

  Then his smile faded. He said to himself: Stop it, you fool, you actor. This is too serious. Why do I always have to place myself on a stage and stand back, fatuously admiring my own antics, as if they were too delicious for words? You confounded bore and idiot! Some day you will be the fine exquisite to your own undoing.

  He knocked abruptly on the carved panels of Dorothea’s door. He heard her voice, quiet, strong, but hoarse, now, telling him to enter. He opened the door and stepped across the threshold.

  The great room was hot and almost dark, and only the red firelight and one feeble lamp made anything within it visible. The odors of vinegar and mustard and warm wool filled the stifling air. Massive dark mahogany and carved black walnut furniture lurked about on the heavy green carpet; green velvet draperies were drawn tightly across the four windows that looked out upon the front lawns. They made a glimmering rich green wall, closed against the stormy winter night. At right angles to them was Dorothea’s large black walnut desk, neatly heaped with papers pertaining to the household affairs, for she was an excellent housekeeper. In the middle of the room stood her enormous canopied bed, all dark red comforters and pure white linen, the crimson curtains looped back to show her sitting high on her pillows. This had been her great-grandmother’s bed, and she clung to it with a kind of desperate grimness, for she preferred the past to the present, which she hated.

  “Well, Jerome,” she said, in her domineering voice. How familiar it was, even to that old and automatically inimical note with its undertone of suspicion and wariness! “Do come in and shut the door. There is such a draft.” She began to cough, painfully and hoarsely, putting her white kerchief to her lips. “And do not sit too near me. It is nonsense, of course, but Dr. Hawley insists that feverish colds are infectious, and while I disagree, I must obey his orders. There, between me and the fire, please, so I can see you without strain.”

  Brother and sister had not seen each other for five years, but Dorothea’s manner and voice would never have suggested it. He and she might have met only that morning. He sat down, arranged the dog on his knee. Dorothea said, with incredulous umbrage: “A dog? Impossible! You know I never allow dogs here, Jerome; it is most thoughtless of you, and he will have to go to the stables at once. I trust he does not bite? He has a most unpleasant growl.”

  Jerome answered amiably: “Oh, no, he’ll not go to the stables, darling Dorothea. He doesn’t bite, and he only growls because of that hideous cap he sees on your head. He is really a most agreeable little fellow. Shall I let him down, to explore?”

  “Certainly not! Dogs are so filthy. Please to take him on your knee again, though doubtless he will cover you with his hairs.”

  Jerome lifted Charlie to his knees and stroked him fondly. He said: “I really don’t care about dogs, but it is the fashion in New York. I detest the little brute, but he doesn’t seem to know it. Do you, Charlie?”

  The dog licked his cheek, then curled up on his lap, continuing, however, to regard Dorothea with a sharp and hostile and most bewildered bright gaze.

  Certainly the woman in the bed was formidable enough in appearance. It was evident that she was tall, and imposing, for all her thinness. She wore a dressing gown of red wool over her ruffled linen nightdress, whose collar was tied high over her throat. A thick gray woolen shawl huddled in folds about her shoulders. On her dark straight masses of hair, threaded with coarse gray, was her ruffled high nightcap, tied under her chin with immaculate white strings. It was like a stiff crown, and was hardly different from the caps she invariably wore when going about her household duties.

  Her complexion, like Jerome’s, was dark, and her eyes were dark, also, but somewhat small, and very intimidating and harsh of expression. Her nose was long and thin, quite aquiline, with arrogant nostrils. Her mouth, intolerant and without the slightest feminine softness, had a rigorous look, and its thin pallor was drawn together in a stringent pucker. Everything about her was gaunt and repellent, yet she had a high dignity, and always commanded fear and respect. One knew instantly that here was a woman of principle and integrity, without imagination or gentleness or much compassion. She even had a kind of handsomeness, and could be impressive by sheer force of her austere and excessively stern character. Jerome had always considered her very amusing, and was the only one who had ever dared to laugh in her very face. Even her father, to whom she was so devoted, lived in quiet awe of her, and though it was not possible for him to displease her (for she loved him so), he tried never to disagree with her but to appease her. He considered, regretfully, that Dorothea was almost always right.

  She was the sort who never forgave nor forgot, and her opinions, once formed, were incapable of change. If other evidence was inexorably presented to her, she was personally affronted, and still retained her former judgment, certain that she was being deceived deliberately. If Dorothea had ever lied, neither she nor others were aware of it, and she considered a falsehood little better than a murder. Yet, like many of her kind, she could be ingenuous, and was susceptible to flattery. However, only Jerome knew this, and, without conscience, often took advantage of it. Once, when he had needed some money for a shameful debt, he had told her she was an “aristocrat,” and, as she secretly believed this, she had disgorged a considerable sum for him from her own pocket.

  She firmly believed that her way was best, and was relentless in imposing that way, for the “good” of others. As she was usually right, this did not endear her to her victims. Religious, creaking with probity, she could not endure the easy of character, the benign of judgment. She believed these things to be weaknesses. It was not hard to imagine, then, that the pastor of the village Episcopal church found her a very pillar of fortitude and support.

  Jerome had always been her curse and her cross. From his earliest childhood he had opposed her, had laughed at her, with impunity. Her strictest punishments had made no impression on him at all. He slipped from her control, from her grasp, like a greased eel. She had never understood him, and because she had never been able to dominate or intimidate him, her bafflement had reached the heights of secret and unacknowledged hate.

  They looked at each other across the dimly flickering path of red light from the fire, and thought of these things. Dorothea’s stern eyes were pink of rim, and Jerome reflected that more than this “cold” had brought that betraying color to them.

  Dorothea was suffering. She saw his faintly smiling scrutiny, and lifted her head with hauteur. She said: “You seem well, J
erome.” She paused. “I am glad to see you home again.”

  “And I,” he said gently, “am glad to be home.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. Then a flash of surprise appeared on her face, as she saw that he was not lying. She fumbled for her handkerchief, and blew her nose loudly and unaffectedly. Then she dropped her hands and stared down at them. All at once she appeared helpless and without defense, as if she were alone and could be herself.

  She said, her voice catching as if her control had slipped: “You ought to have come home before. I—I’ve needed you.”

  Jerome regarded her in intent silence, and feeling it, she looked up quickly. He then said: “Yes. Yes, I know. You are right, Dotty.”

  Her features automatically winced at this hated nickname, and then, amazingly, she must have felt its casual affection, its implications of family solidarity, for she winked rapidly over and over, and averted her gaunt profile. She murmured: “I’m glad. Thank you, Jerome.”

  Jerome stood up and poked the fire to a higher blaze. His sister watched him; her lips worked, as if she were struggling to keep herself from weeping. Her long fingers twisted together convulsively.

  Jerome sat down again. She forced herself to some measure of her usual calm. “You have dined, Jerome? Your old rooms are comfortable?”

  “Yes. Yes. Thank you, Dotty.” His tone was still gentle. He drew his chair a trifle closer to her.

  They looked at each other again, in a long silence. Then Dorothea whispered hoarsely: “After all, you are my brother, and I am your sister. Who else is there, especially in time of trouble?”

  Jerome said nothing. He took out his thin silver cheroot case. Dorothea watched him. Then she compelled herself to say: “Please smoke, Jerome, if it pleases you, but blow the smoke towards the fire.” She sighed. He lit the cheroot with a “lucifer,” and leaned back in his chair, smoking contentedly.

  Poor old girl, he thought, with unusual understanding and pity. It surprised him that he could feel compassion for Dorothea. But, he reflected wryly, it is amazing how much sympathy and human emotion we can feel for an old enemy who is about to become an ally. Why such an enemy becomes actually flesh and blood, like one’s self, actually a fellow creature! There is nothing like a common threat, and a common hatred, to stimulate nice sentiments of brotherly love between foes.

  But, he saw with shrewdness, she was not Alfred’s enemy; at least, not yet. Alfred’s blank unawareness of her passion for him, and her devotion, had not enraged or humiliated her, or inspired in her a hunger for revenge. He had taken her love and consecration for granted, and had given her strong affection in return, purely fraternal affection. Though they were almost the same age, Alfred considered her much his senior, and often felt for her a filial respect and attachment. His obtuseness was amusing to Jerome, saddening to Mr. Lindsey. Both knew that Dorothea had firmly believed that Alfred might come to love her, and both knew that she had lived for this. If, first, there had been the timid little Martha, and now this new and dreadful woman, Dorothea did not blame Alfred. He had only been the victim of designing women, had fallen helplessly before their “wiles.” She felt for him, still, only a passionately burning protectiveness, fierce in its strength.

  So, thought Jerome, eying his sister with deliberate friendliness and sympathy, we must still not attack that damned Alfred. He wondered, with amusement, why Alfred had never discerned that Dorothea was the perfect wife for him. They were a pair. Yet Alfred had gone skittering after innocent little Martha, from Saratoga. One could understand that, in a measure. Martha was an heiress, and Alfred loved money, in his religious and reverent fashion. Had he loved the small and fragile creature? Yes, it was very possible. Certainly, he had been stricken for years over her death, and had forgiven her the crippled Philip. But why this terrible and ruthless passion for that strumpet, a strumpet who was penniless, and of an unsavory reputation to boot? It was not consistent.

  But Jerome had lived long enough to know that nothing in life is consistent, and that the impulses which drive men are inexplicable. Passion and lust and insane desire had come late to Alfred Lindsey, and, like late springs which release long-frozen rivers, they came tumultuously, and with devastating force. The frozen river which was Alfred’s nature was in full and destroying spate. Jerome had seen that, less than an hour ago. Alfred’s reason had been torn from its reluctantly thawing banks; his self-protectiveness and ancient caution were whirling in the foam of his furious infatuation. He wanted that woman, and his desire, raw and red and mad, was tearing at his cold flesh. Nothing could stop him now.

  Jerome stroked his dog’s head, as he waited for Dorothea to speak again. And then, all at once, he was overwhelmed by a sudden and nameless desolation, by an ache like unappeased hunger. He was amazed at this. His hand slowed; he stared before him, forgetting his sister. What was wrong with him? He could feel his misery sharp within him, like an evil tooth. This was new in his experience. He had always lived lightly, and wretchedness was a new sensation and a sickening one. He said again, to himself: What is wrong with me? Am I tired of this place so soon? He moved as if to get to his feet, so urgent was this unfamiliar emotion.

  Dorothea was speaking. “Have you seen that—that woman, Jerome?” Her voice was quiet, yet it rang with pain and loathing.

  He said: “Yes.”

  She leaned towards him, quickly. “Am I right, Jerome? Was I unjust about her?”

  He thought: Am I sickening with something? Was that damned ride in the wagon too much for me? He stood up, stood with his back to the fire, his head bent. He said: “You are right, Dotty. You weren’t unjust, I’m sorry to say.”

  He fumbled absently at the seals on his watch-chain. He stared at the vague pattern of the carpet. A new sensation had him now, a kind of wild rage and hatred. He said, still looking at the carpet: “We’ve got to stop it.”

  She fell back against the pillows, and now she cried unashamedly, rubbing her eyes with her handkerchief. “But how, Jerome? What can we do?”

  He said, in a loud and angry voice: “I don’t know! Why haven’t you and Papa done anything before this? You must have seen it coming. It didn’t fall from the blue, did it?”

  He pushed his chair rudely towards his sister, and sat down again. “I want to know all about it. How can I do anything, or suggest anything, unless I know? How did he meet her? You wrote me something about her appealing to him for money.”

  She had never seen him so concerned and so genuinely agitated, and though warmed by this, she was also made timid. She spoke, almost apologetically, as if pleading for his forgiveness in advance: “Jerome, you must not blame me too much. Perhaps I was a little obtuse. But how was I to dream? Whoever would have thought poor Alfred to be so flagrantly lacking in judgment? Certainly, Papa could not know, either.”

  She paused. “It was all so sudden. You know that Alfred is on the school board. He must have met that woman some time ago. But he never mentioned her.”

  “So, he’s a sly devil, after all,” Jerome interrupted, grimly.

  “Oh, no, no! I beg of you, Jerome, to withhold your condemnation! It is unfair to Alfred. She must have made no impression on him at all, at first.”

  He watched her and was abstractedly surprised that she flushed suddenly. She looked away from him. She said lamely: “Perhaps I am being a little unjust. I must be just, even to her. You see, she didn’t actually appeal to him for money, for herself.” Her voice dropped, became hoarser, and she coughed. “It seems that she was boarding with a farmer. Their name is Hobson, or something equally odious. Very impecunious and worthless people, doubtless, for they could not meet the payments on the mortgage, which is held by our Bank. Hobson had appealed to poor Alfred before. There were so many children, he pleaded, as if those children were Alfred’s fault.”

  At this, Jerome could not help smiling.

  Dorothea continued, with gathering indignation: “Alfred tried to be just. But what could he do? Payments had fallen
far behind. Alfred had a duty to his depositors, and he knew his duty. He informed the farmer, regretfully, that the Bank must foreclose. But he was generous, too. The Bank would not foreclose until the harvest was in—”

  “My God,” said Jerome. “So, the Bank ‘would not foreclose until the harvest was in’! How very, very generous of dear Alfred!”

  Dorothea’s harsh face flushed, and she bridled. “I don’t understand your tone, Jerome. After all, as I have said, Alfred had a duty to his depositors, and the harvest appeared very promising. In the meantime, of course, the farmer and his family had a roof over their heads, and it was only right that the abominable man should bring in the harvest and pay something on his indebtedness. He owed the Bank over three hundred dollars.”

  She waited for Jerome’s comment, but his smile was dark and unpleasant. She continued, with rising heat: “The man had the effrontery to suggest to Alfred that he be allowed to remain, as a tenant, working the farm on a share basis. But Alfred already had a buyer for the farm. He saw his duty.”

  Jerome looked down at his cheroot, and watched the gray smoke coil away. “I see,” he said softly. “So Miss Amalie came to Alfred and begged for mercy.”

  “How did you know?” asked Dorothea, with ingenuous surprise.

  Jerome laughed. “Oh, I’m very astute. I was always a subtle devil. So, that is how it was. What interests me now is this: Did Alfred thaw out and extend the mercy?”

  Dorothea’s face changed, became thinly violent. “Yes! You can see how he is in her power! How she flattered and deceived and influenced him! That is what is so terrible, so hard to understand. Defying his sense of duty, he permitted the farmer to remain, after her blandishments. Not only that—and I do not expect you to believe me, Jerome—he extended the mortgage; actually gave Hobson money for his sick wife and children, bought them a wagonload of clothing, filled their larder with food, and sent them a physician, one no less than our own Dr. Hawley! Does it seem incredible to you?”