This Side of Innocence

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  “Yes,” said Jerome, very quietly, and only after a long silence, “it does seem incredible to me.”

  Dorothea was more and more excited. “Not only that, Jerome! But it seems that that woman was very sly indeed. She informed Alfred that she was ill, that she had spent many nights in tending the farmer’s disgustingly ailing family. What does the infatuated man do then, pray? I will tell you. As head of the school board, he ordered the creature to remain on the farm and to rest, and he forced the board to continue to pay her salary.”

  “Was she ill, really?”

  Dorothea stared at him, frowning, evidently taken aback by this irrelevant question. She said, harshly: “That is what she told Alfred. I think she was merely indolent. After all, she is a strapping creature, full of the most odious health.” She paused. “Alfred tried to interest me in the family, and to please him, I visited them.” She coughed. “We found. Amalie in bed. She must have had a slight cold; I must be just. She did appear ill, but doubtless it was affectation. The family seemed devoted to her, but you know how that class dissembles. They were tending her. It seemed quite enough, and I cannot understand why Alfred sent nurses to care for her.”

  “How long was she ill?”

  “From Christmas until spring. She never returned to the school, except for the last month. She had become fashionably slender then, for, when I first saw her, a year ago in church, she had been of a most robust and hearty appearance.”

  Jerome stood up, and began to walk slowly up and down the room.

  “She has forgotten her old Hobson family, I presume?”

  Dorothea was again excited. “Indeed not, and that is another evidence of her low instincts! She visits them at least once a week, with baskets. She has even tried to induce me to employ the older girl as housemaid! I need not tell you my reply.” Dorothea tossed her head with grim triumph.

  “So she and Alfred are now the guardian angels of the Hobsons?” Jerome’s voice was bitterly amused, but curiously thoughtful.

  “Yes! Is it not intolerable? You can see how infatuated he is. It is not in the least like Alfred.”

  “Why does he do it?”

  “He claims he can never repay the Hobsons for their care of his dear Amalie! After all, he declares, had it not been for them, he might never have come to know her at all!” Dorothea burst into fresh tears.

  But Jerome again began his slow yet restless pacing up and down the room. Dorothea watched him, twisting her damp handkerchief in her desperate fingers. Jerome began to talk aloud, meditatively. “We must look at this reasonably,” he said, smoking as he walked. “The problem would not be settled by disposing of Miss Amalie. Alfred wants to marry. He has the urge for it. I doubt very much that we could disentangle him from this woman. But—if we did, he would find someone else.”

  “Yes,” murmured Dorothea, and her gaunt cheeks flushed.

  Jerome paused and regarded her levelly. “It might be you, eh, Dotty? Especially if you gave him a hint. Why hasn’t someone hinted, anyway?”

  Dorothea colored even deeper. She said, coldly: “Females do not ‘hint,’ as you say, Jerome.”

  “No? I’ve found them excellent hinters. You might try it, Dotty. Or, I might. I’m surprised at Papa; he understands everything, yet he has done nothing to influence Alfred. He might have said: ‘See here, my boy, Dorothea will naturally be one of my heirs. I’d like to keep the money in the family.’ Alfred may be insensitive to many things, but he is certainly not insensitive to money! So, I am surprised at Papa.”

  “You have no delicacy, Jerome!” cried Dorothea, moving vehemently on her pillows.

  “Who was ever delicate about money? Only hypocrites, or those who have more than enough. And even they can be stirred to most gratifying activity when money is involved.”

  “You wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to—interfere!” Dorothea’s words and manner were indignant and denying, but Jerome detected the faintest pleading, the faintest hope, in her voice.

  He laughed. “I might! I really might! After all, you are my sister.”

  “Oh, Jerome!” But again, Dorothea’s protesting words were gilded with pleading.

  “Really, Alfred’s an abominable fool, Dotty. Why can’t he see that you would be the best possible wife for him? Who else could do better, or be more congenial?”

  Dorothea sobbed drily. “How excessively kind of you, Jerome! But doubtless you are prejudiced.”

  He replied, gallantly: “I am, perhaps, prejudiced against Alfred. He is not good enough for you, Dotty. I can’t imagine why you are so fond of him.”

  Involuntarily, she extended her hand to him, and he went to her bedside and took it. It was hot and parched, and again he felt for her that unfamiliar compassion. She gazed up at him with eyes that swam in suffering liquid. “Is it you, indeed, Jerome, who address these words to me? I can hardly believe it.” Her tone was actually penitent.

  Her old-fashioned phraseology touched him. He pressed her hand. “Dotty, I’m afraid you’ve always underestimated me. I’ve really been very fond of you, in my own peculiar way.” He dropped her hand. “But let’s get down to business. Let us get at the root of the matter. We must first begin with Alfred, and dissect him neatly, and discover what activates that odd mind of his.

  “Let us go back to the years when we were young. You remember Alfred’s father, our Uncle Thomas, very well?”

  “Certainly. After all, I was eighteen when he died!”

  Jerome sat near his sister. “And I was fourteen. Alfred was about your age. Let us consider Uncle Thomas, our papa’s brother. A dull and pious man, I remember. A somber failure, with no wit or mind at all. He adored Papa, but he also envied him. Papa, his senior, was, of course, the president of the Bank. Uncle Thomas was vice-president. But he was too stupid, too rigid, too lacking in imagination, to have retained any position at all with any other firm. His salary was really an annuity, granted him by Papa. We are being honest, now, so we must admit all these things.

  “Papa took Alfred into the Bank. That was when I was away at school. Alfred, in many ways, resembles his father. But he had something else, too, and this we must admit also. He was dogged, and his devotion to Papa was complete, with good reason. Papa was powerful, and this influenced Alfred. The Puritan temperament worships potency, property, and power. It worships money, for money, it believes, is ‘God’s reward’ for a life of probity, piety and consecration to duty. So Papa, according to Alfred, wore a halo of Heaven’s approval. To be just, however, Alfred accorded to Papa the love and service of a true son.

  “Alfred soon demonstrated other qualities which appealed to Papa, who is hard-headed in spite of his gentleness and patrician ways. Alfred’s love would have bored him, would have been distasteful to him, if Alfred had not had in addition a very acute mind, a natural leaning towards finance, and an impeccable and rigorous judgment Alfred, in short, was the perfect banker, and Papa was becoming anxious. There was no other perfect banker in the family. Alfred might be a little narrow, as witness that railroad business. But he subscribed to the banker’s creed: Justice without mercy or malice. Or, rather, money-lending or money-grasping, without attention to human values. To a banker, humanity operates in a sphere by itself, and never touches the rim of the orbit where banking circulates. As for myself, I confess that the cleavage between the two baffles me. But then, I’ve never considered money anything except a medium of exchange.”

  Dorothea listened, and then at Jerome’s last words her features tightened, became forbidding. Her mouth automatically opened in reproof, then she closed it, and looked away.

  “Money,” continued Jerome, intrigued by his subject, “cannot possibly exist apart from humanity. It is humanity that gives significance to money. Nothing is valuable unless men give it value. To a banker, I realize, such sentiments are blasphemous. Money is a thing in itself, a value in itself. What an amusing and preposterous ideal But there it is. Alfred is the true banker. So is Papa.

  “Papa ha
s always had a strong family feeling. But family feeling needs progeny to feed upon. Papa and Uncle Thomas were the only children of their parents. The line is not prolific. Here are you, Dotty, still a vir—, still unmarried. Here am I, unmarried, and determined to remain unmarried, with the grace of God. Papa saw these things very clearly. His two children could not be depended upon to increase the line. It was natural that he looked to Alfred, of whom he was very fond, and who was a son after his own heart. Alfred was his nephew; he was as close as a son. Formal adoption followed, after Uncle Thomas’s death.” Jerome paused. “And so, Alfred shares with us equally.” He paused again, and now the pause was significant. “Who knows? Perhaps he will have the greater share. Certainly, when Alfred remarries, he will naturally live in this house, and fill it with his brats. You will remain as housekeeper, a kind of respected upper servant, but under the thumb of the new mistress.”

  Dorothea uttered a loud, despairing cry, and tears spurted from her eyes. “I cannot bear it, Jerome! I will not endure it! I will go away; I will hide myself in some quiet little village, far from my old home, and live out my days in grief and solitude! Oh, Jerome, to be subservient to that dreadful creature, to be servant of her whims, her coarseness, her low breeding!”

  She covered her face with her hands, and sobbed: “How can Papa be so oblivious to what all this means to his children, to me, his daughter!”

  Jerome moistened his lips. He waited until Dorothea was quiet again, weeping silently. Then, very softly, he asked: “You know nothing of Papa’s will?”

  In more guarded moments, Dorothea would have withdrawn indignantly, would have repelled her brother’s curiosity, out of loyalty to her father. But now she had lost control of herself. Speaking from behind her trembling hands, she said: “Only a little. He was kind enough to discuss—certain things with me. I do not know everything. But Papa is just. Alfred is to have this house, all this property, and all that is in it, including Mama’s and Grandmama’s and Great-grandmama’s precious things—all, all, is to be his! As for myself, I am to have one-third of the income from the Bank, for life. If I marry, my husband will inherit upon my death—or my children, whoever survives. If I die unmarried and without children, then my income reverts to the estate, and to Alfred. Alfred, himself, is to become president of the Bank. It is very involved—”

  “And I, darling Dotty?” asked Jerome, even more softly.

  Dorothea wiped her eyes. “Papa knows it is useless to try to interest you in the Bank, Jerome. You have given him your unqualified refusal, and that you know. Oh, when he explained it to me, I believed it just! Why do I no longer believe it just?” She gazed at Jerome wildly, and again extended her trembling hand to him. He took it, held it tightly. “Darling Dotty. Please tell me.”

  She said, her voice shaking hysterically: “Jerome, Papa spoke of the money Grandma left you, and you alone. Papa did not think that fair, I know. I was left nothing but her pearls. You were her favorite. Papa believed she was unduly under your influence. I do not believe it now. Papa said that with discretion that money ought to have lasted you all your life, allowing you to live in moderate comfort. And Papa told me that you had spent it all—long ago.”

  Jerome stroked his sister’s hand with his thumb. It was hypnotic in its influence upon the distraught woman, the loveless woman whose heart had burned in loneliness and hunger for thirty-eight years.

  “Yes, dear Dotty?”

  “You, Jerome, are to be paid three thousand dollars a year for life. That is all, Jerome. Upon your death, your income, too, will revert to Alfred.”

  Jerome stood up, abruptly. He looked down at his sister, and his eyes were fiery. “Three thousand dollars a year,” he said, softly. “I spend more than five times that now.” His dark face became narrow, and evil. “So, I am to have a loaf of bread, and a jug of cheap wine, and one or two stinking rooms on a back street. That is all.”

  Something in his manner affrighted his sister. She caught at his hand; it felt like cold iron in her feverish fingers. “Jerome! Do not look like that! Oh, what have I said? What have I done? Oh, Heaven forgive me! I ought not to have told you.”

  Her voice rose to a great cry, and Jerome, apprehensive, glanced at the door. He sat down, tried to soothe his sister. “There now, Dorothea, rest assured I shall not tell anyone what you have told me. Please. Here is my handkerchief. Wipe your eyes and your face. We must be sensible, Dotty. We must keep our wits about us if we are to accomplish anything at all.”

  My God, he thought, if she does not stop her idiot shrieking, we’ll have all the house about our ears! He was shaking inwardly; he was filled with hatred. He wanted to kill. His hand tightened over his sister’s hands. His voice was quiet and sedative as he murmured consoling words to her.

  “We aren’t lost yet, Dotty. We have things to do, together. Papa isn’t dead yet.” He paused. For the first time in his life, he hated his father, saw him as a malevolent and plotting devil ruining his children. “We have time, Dotty. We can do a great deal. The first step is to prevent Alfred’s marriage to that strumpet.”

  “Oh, Jerome, is that possible?”

  “We can do what we can, Dotty. I must think about it. When is the marriage to take place?”

  “December twenty-eighth.” Dorothea’s swollen eyes fixed themselves upon her brother as upon a deliverer.

  “There must be some way we can prevent it. I will think about it later. But we must remember that Alfred will look about again for a wife. We must direct his attention to you.

  “As for myself—” He paused. He stared grimly before him. “I must have a talk with darling Papa. Tonight.”

  He stood up. He forced himself to smile. “I think I shall have that talk now, Dotty.”

  He bent over her and kissed her wet and wrinkled forehead. He touched her head lightly with his hand. “Dear Dotty. Trust me. Leave it all to me. Promise me that.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  He first went to his own rooms, carrying his dog, whistling tonelessly. These were his old apartments, which he had occupied, when at home, from the day he had been graduated from the nursery on the third floor. (That nursery, designed for a dozen children, and occupied by only two! In a way, it was a judgment on the old devil.)

  The apartments consisted of a snug warm sitting-room, somewhat small, adjoining a larger bedroom which looked out upon the side grounds. Next to it was a tiny lavatory, placed there upon his own insistence ten years ago.

  He had chosen his own furniture from his grandmother’s property, and he had displayed fastidious taste. He had been glad that the mantelpiece was delicately carved white marble, hearth and all. Here he had placed his grandmother’s fire-tools of pale steel, handwrought, and polished to the patina and lustre and color of old silver. The walls were panelled in light wood, a circumstance which had annoyed Dorothea and had made her voluble on the subject of “fancifulness and pretension.” A dim and exquisite Aubusson rug covered the floor, all its tints faded and soft. Not for Jerome the heavy black furniture of the other rooms: he must have light and lovely pieces, covered with rose, pale green and gold damask, all from his grandmother’s impeccable store. The lamps were of crystal and old gilt, shimmering like jewels when lit. Against one wall was a bookcase of pale wood, filled with wonderfully tooled volumes in crimson and dark-blue leather.

  Alfred had called all this “woman’s rooms,” and had indicated that Jerome must be lacking in virility. “I am not one that prefers a rhinoceros to a swan,” Jerome had replied, touching the little crystal and enameled boxes on the delicate tables, and glancing at the priceless Dresden figurines and ivory articles which filled his buhl cabinet.

  The bedroom was similar, in its furnishings, to the sitting-room. Even the draperies at the many wide windows were light and airy, of pale colors and lovely soft patterns. He had few pictures, and though Alfred found them decadent and disgusting, Jerome knew them to be charming and perfect and very valuable.

  A warm and quiet fire burne
d on the marble hearth tonight. Jim was sleeping contentedly in a Louis XV chair before the fluttering coals, his mouth open, and snoring merrily. A single lamp had been lit on a table near the window. Jerome glanced into his bedroom. The satiny white linen had been folded back; his silk nightshirt was lying there in readiness. Charlie barked at Jim, and the valet stirred, groaned, then sat upright. Jerome dropped the dog, who ran to Jim and climbed upon his lap.

  “Well, we seem comfortable,” said Jerome. “Hope you enjoyed your nap.”

  Jim got to his feet. “I have that, sir. Just drowsed off, waitin’. Bed, sir?”

  “No, not yet. Where are you sleeping, Jim?”

  “On the third floor.” The wizened little nut of a man winked. “A fine room next to a fine wench, beggin’ your pardon, sir.”

  Jerome laughed. “Remember, we’re virtuous in this house, Jim. No larking about. You may go to bed now, and take Charlie with you.”

  “You won’t need me, Mr. Lindsey? I’ve done what I could; got everythin’ settled.”

  “No, just go to bed. And thanks.”

  Jim carried the dog from the room, closed the door softly behind him. Jerome looked about his apartments. In the end, he had come to hate them as he did the rest of the house. They had been a prison for him, a prison of decorum and quietness and stately living. They had smothered him. The long and precise routine of the days had driven him frantic. Even his beloved books could not quell his restlessness, or give him contentment. Contentment. He had never been content. He had been a brazier of coals. He had carried that brazier away from this peaceful and somber house, and had never desired to return to it.

  But now everything looked lovely and desirable to him. With a kind of fierceness, he walked through the rooms. No doubt they would be occupied by that trollop. She would lie in that swan-shaped bed; she would look at her impudent interloper’s face in that long pier-glass between the windows. She would touch these precious books, sit in that little gilt chair beside the bed. Her trumpery gowns would fill his wardrobe; she would draw aside those light and gleaming draperies at the windows and look down the majestic sloping grounds to that copse of pines which had been so dear to him.