He heard a slight sound. He looked up to see Amalie on the threshold of the library. She was very white and still, in her gray cotton frock with the cream-colored collar and cuffs. Her black hair was rolled in a severe chignon on her neck. Her eyes were heavily shadowed, her lips without color. Jerome stood and looked at her for several moments before he said, gently: “Come in, Amalie. I must talk to you.”
He did not move towards her, but only watched her as she came farther into the room, and then sat down. Her arms lay listlessly on the arms of the red-leather chair. He sat down near her, leaned towards her, and smiled.
It seemed incredible to him that only that afternoon he had glanced about him furtively when she had entered his office, and that he had been fearful of opening doors. Fear made disgusting cravens of men, he thought. One had only to determine on battle to lose fear. Why, his incredulous thought continued, it seems that I have been afraid all my life! Afraid to live, afraid to believe anything was worth fighting for, afraid to desire, afraid to be touched by real passion and real emotion! What a skulking and ignoble creature he had been, and how lifeless, how attenuated, despite all his elegant attitudes and debonair posing!
He almost forgot the white-faced woman opposite him, in the fierce and exulting contempt he felt for himself, and so he did not see how her eyes widened with a kind of exhausted and startled wonder as she watched him and recognized that some change had come over him during the past few hours. When he reached out and took her hand, she did not shrink away, but let him have it with a tired but complete surrender, as if she felt his new strength.
“My dear,” he said, “I have been doing a lot of thinking. A very strange experience for me. And so, I’ve decided we are not to go away. This is my home. I intend to remain here, with you.”
Involuntarily, she tried to pull her hand away, but he held it more firmly. Her blanched lips moved without sound, and her eyes filled with tears.
He gazed at her steadily, with a comforting smile. “You see, love, this is my home; I know it at last. This is my father’s home, and I intend to stay near my father. You were quite right: we cannot run away like criminals. We will face it out, together. When Alfred and my father return, we will tell them of our feeling for each other, and demand your release. Alfred cannot refuse; my father, I know, will help me. It will be very disagreeable for a while, I admit, and exhausting. But in the end, all things will resolve themselves, with dignity, if we only have the firm conviction and the courage.”
She whispered: “Jerome.” She tried to smile, and he found her effort almost unbearably touching. He kissed her hand.
He exclaimed, with a sudden quickening: “My darling, do you realize how much I love you? Only now do I realize how much, myself. What at first was infatuation is now something much more steadfast and permanent, for I know now how much integrity you possess, and how much honor and courage and pride. We’ll make for ourselves a fine life, I promise you, serene and kind and strong—for us, and for our children. You do believe me, do you not, Amalie?”
“Yes.” Her voice was only a murmur, but her whole face shone vividly. After a moment, she said: “I was afraid you did not want me any longer. That was the only thing I could not have endured.”
She looked about her at the panelled walls, the books, the great fireplace, the lamplight, and her mouth shook, and she could not speak again. However, with his acuteness, he saw what she saw, and it gave him understanding contentment.
“It is only the homeless who have the capacity to love a home,” he said.
“Yes. Home.” She sighed deeply and smiled.
He took her face in his hands and kissed her lips gently, and she put her arms about his neck. They both thought how different this was from that night of storm and hunger, and how tenderness had replaced the first fury and passion.
They sat close together, and Jerome said: “I have had a letter from my father today. Alfred—” he hesitated, “is obliged to remain in New York for two or three weeks longer. My father has asked me to go to Saratoga and bring him and Philip home. It will not be too hard for you, to be alone for a few days, Amalie?”
“No.” Her face was sad again. “Philip. I love Philip so, Jerome. How can I bear to have him estranged from me? He trusts me, and loves me, and he has been so lonely.”
He was quickly jealous and frowned. “Oh, Philip. You need not fear for Philip. He has quite a mind of his own. Even his—father—could not prevent him from seeing you, if he wished. Good God, my pet, you must think only of us for a while!”
But her sadness was heavy in the droop of her head. “If it were only possible for us to be happy without bringing unhappiness to—others. Sometimes I think I do not have the courage to look Alfred and your father and Philip in the face, and tell them—” She drew a deep breath. “Perhaps we ought to have waited.”
“For what?” he asked, with his quick and angry impatience. He tried to control his temper. “There is no use, now, in mutual recriminations and accusations, Amalie! That will get us nowhere. We must deal with things as they are. We must look at the facts, and proceed from there. I have no doubt that matters will be mighty unpleasant, perhaps for some time, but we must face them. Are you trying to tell me you have lost your fortitude?”
“No,” she answered steadfastly. “I am only sorry that we must hurt those who trust us. If I could only be sure that they will not hate us too much!”
He smiled unpleasantly. “That is a possibility we must face also. And the sooner the better.”
She stood up and walked restlessly but slowly up and down the room, twisting her hands together. Then she stood before Jerome, and she was paler than before.
“There is another thing I must tell you, Jerome. Dorothea—knows.”
He regarded her with disbelief. “But how? That is impossible. There was no one in the house that night—”
She flushed and looked away. “Nevertheless, she knows. She knew I saw you today, and she accused me of everything.
I did not intend to tell you. But I think, now, that you should know.”
“Damn,” he said, softly. “That complicates things.” He stared at her. “So that is why you are so shaken.” He took her hand firmly. “You must tell me all about it, at once.”
She told him, in a low voice thick with shame, and he listened with increasing rage and mounting hatred for his sister. When Amalie had finished, he took several steps away from her towards the doorway, but she caught his arm.
“Wait, Jerome,” she pleaded. “I think we need not fear Dorothea. She—wants Alfred. She will gain nothing by premature accusations against us. I—I have persuaded her that the less she pretends to know—about us—the more likely it is that Alfred will turn to her. If he believes she knows too much about his humiliation, he will avoid her. She understands that now. She will say nothing. I beg of you not to speak to her, nor allow her to know that I have told you. I should not have spoken to you about it at all, except that I thought it might clear the air, and make any antagonism she displays less puzzling to you.”
“So that is why she has been so confoundedly vicious,” he said, reflectively. “The lusting old hag! Well, she deserves Alfred, and he deserves her. I could wish neither of them a better punishment.”
“Jerome!” Amalie’s voice was a cry of pain.
But he was excited. “Don’t be so damned tender-hearted, for God’s sake! Your Alfred is no saint, no man of rectitude and nobility! I have looked at his books and his ledgers. Do you know what he is doing to this community, this town? He is stifling it, throttling it! He is keeping the people half-starved and hopeless; he is driving the young men and women away to more thriving parts. He is preventing Riversend from becoming prosperous. He wishes to keep it in a kind of agricultural serfdom, for the benefit of himself and his greedy friends. The whole damn place is decaying! Oh, it is very agreeable for him, to be bowed to and scraped to as a powerful local squire, and it is agreeable for his friends! He grabs farm after farm
, forecloses mortgages ruthlessly, rents out those farms to sharecroppers whom he gouges and subjugates, and is so damned smug and righteous about it that I wish nothing more but the opportunity to bury my fist in his face! That is the pious gentleman you would spare, Amalie, and of whom you know nothing.”
She was silent. She was thinking of the stories she had heard in Riversend, when she had taught school there. She was remembering how Alfred had opposed adding another room, and more pupils, to that school, and another teacher or two. She was remembering the Hobsons, who would have been dispossessed but for her intercession. She was remembering despairing and bitter faces, the cowed faces of wretched farmers, the hunted faces of small shopkeepers in the town. And she was remembering that it was Alfred’s name that had been spoken with hatred and misery.
But Jerome misunderstood her silence.
“I tell you,” he said, with grim determination, “that I will do all I can to frustrate him! You may as well know that now. I am his enemy. I will remain here, and work, and will gain friends who hate him, and everything that he has done will be undone.”
She lifted her head and regarded him fixedly.
“Yes, you may look at me, my dear, as if I had stuck a knife into your darling! But you must understand what I intend to do.”
She put out her hand and laid it on his arm. “Jerome!” she cried, softly. “Do you mean that? That is why you are staying? You really wish to help Riversend, and the farmers? You are not just staying—for your inheritance? You really want to do all this?”
They looked into each other’s eyes. Then Jerome smiled. He put his hand strongly over the hand on his arm.
“Yes, dear,” he said.
She began to cry again, and he knew she was crying with joy and amazement. He took her in his arms and pressed her cheek against his. She clung to him quite wildly.
“You don’t know how happy you have made me, Jerome. And there is so much I can tell you, from my own experience.”
Still almost afraid to believe him, she drew back so she could see his face.
“It is like a dream,” she said. “I did not know that you thought these things about Riversend. I thought it was just hatred for Alfred. I’ve misjudged you, Jerome. Forgive me.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Dorothea Lindsey was having a very strange dream.
It was half memory, that dream. She was sitting in her mother’s room, a young girl again, and there was a child in her arms, and that child was Jerome, dark and restless and vigorous in a Scotch-plaid silk frock with a white lace collar. He had not yet been promoted to bifurcated garments, and apparently resented the fact, for he was screaming: “Pant’loons!” at the top of a very loud and disagreeable voice. Dorothea was struggling with him and scolding him and hearing soft and lilting laughter. She heard a rustle and saw her mother again, young and fragile and very sweet-faced.
Her mother wore white silk and lace, with a violet shawl over her shoulders. Her hair lay in heavy ringlets over that shawl and in a mass down her back. Dorothea felt a pang of adoration and sadness as she looked at her mother’s face. The room seemed to darken, and her mother’s voice came as if from a far and echoing distance, full of sorrow: “Dorothea, my love, you must care for your little brother, if I am called away. I know I can trust you, my dearest one.”
Dorothea heard her own voice, faint with despairing premonition: “Yes. Oh, yes, Mama.”
The room steadily darkened, and now her mother was only a white and spectral shadow in the dim room, only the faintest of rustles. Terror seized Dorothea; Jerome was no longer on her knees. He had disappeared, yet she knew he was somewhere near, watching with cold and inimical eyes, full of mockery and hatred. Dorothea’s mother began to speak, and her voice was chill and far-off, filled with urgent grief and pleading: “You must care for your brother, my love. You must remember me. For my sake, you must not desert nor injure him.”
Dorothea cried out: “Oh, Mama, you do not know Jerome! He has hurt us all so terribly! You must not ask this of me, Mama!”
But her mother’s voice, dimmer now, far off as the stars, pleaded: “You must help your brother, Dorothea.”
Dorothea woke, trembling and chilled and sick. Her room was in deep darkness. Trees rustled against her windows; she saw the sharp fingers of moonlight through the draperies. She sat up in bed, struck a match and lighted her bedside lamp. It was then that she became aware that she had heard a low but insistent knocking for some time, and that this had apparently awakened her. She glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was midnight.
She caught up her shawl which lay at the foot of the bed and flung it about her shoulders. She called out huskily: “Who is it?”
“Jerome.”
Dorothea stared at the shut door. Her heart pained her with its sudden swift beating. She looked about the room. Her mother had gone yet she seemed to be present, her large eyes imploring. Dorothea moistened her parched lips and said: “Come in.” She lifted herself up on her pillows, ran cold bands over her dark and graying hair, flung back her heavy braids. The door opened and Jerome entered, closing the door behind him.
The urgency of the dream was heavy upon Dorothea, and she could only regard her brother with confusion and wretchedness rather than with her old wary antagonism. He came towards the bed, found an old rocker and sat down. He began to rock slowly. His expression was alert, narrowed with malevolence. He studied his sister fixedly without speaking.
Dorothea heard herself saying confusedly: “I was dreaming about our mother and us.” She pressed her fingers against her eyes as if to shut out the memory. She shivered. She said, her fingers still against her eyes: “You were screaming about pantaloons. You were always screaming about something, Jerry.” For the first time in years, now, the old childish nickname slipped out, and it was said with weary softness.
Jerome said nothing. He casually and deliberately lit a cheroot, crossed his legs, regarded the ceiling. Dorothea dropped her hands and saw her brother clearly. Her heart was still beating with swift pain, and its tremors shook all her body. Tears moistened her eyelids. She remembered the dream and the voice of her mother. She cried out: “Jerome! Mother asked me years ago to care for you, always. She asked me again, tonight.”
Jerome smiled unpleasantly, still regarding the ceiling. “Yet you intended to do a very bad job of it, didn’t you? You intended to injure me as much as possible. That is why I came to see you tonight, at this ungodly hour.”
Dorothea was silent. But her hands seized and clutched the bed-coverings.
“Let’s not be sentimental, my dear Dorothea,” said Jerome. “Let’s speak outright. You’ve been my enemy for years. I was never yours, for I never considered you important enough. But you’ve become important just now. And so, I’ve come here now to warn you to leave Amalie alone, to keep your mouth shut, and to let me manage my affairs in my own way. If you don’t—then I’ll find means to make you very sorry indeed.”
Dorothea drew a sharp dry breath. Her hands tightened on the bed-coverings and twisted them. But she could not rid herself of her dream. She felt faint and sick and full of terror.
She said, almost indistinctly: “Then she has told you I know?”
“Yes.” Jerome stood up. “She has also told me how you assaulted her, struck her. And so, I must remind you that our affairs are our own, not yours. If necessary, I shall be forced to make that very clear to you.”
Dorothea murmured: “She is a wicked woman, and you are a wicked man.” But her voice was low and exhausted.
Jerome eyed her curiously. There was something here he could not understand. He had expected his sister to shriek accusations at him, to denounce him with viciousness and fury. But she only leaned back against her pillows, her gaunt face quite haggard and ashen, and her eyes were dim.
To his surprise, she lifted her hands slowly and, with their palms up, seemed to be extending them to him. He saw tears on her lined cheeks.
“Jerome,” she whisp
ered. “Will you listen to me a moment? Perhaps I have been too rigorous towards you in the past. Perhaps I have been too stern. I thought it necessary, my duty. Perhaps I was wrong; I might have been a little softer, a little kinder.” She swallowed and for a moment could not continue.
Jerome came and leaned against the carved post at the foot of the bed. His face was expressionless, but he watched his sister intently.
“I tried to do my duty,” she went on, still in that husky whisper. “I may have expected too much, been too censorious. There were times when I forgot you were my brother. But you made me feel that you were my enemy. We never understood each other.”
Jerome shifted a little, but his curiosity increased. Also, he felt a slight compassion and shame for his sister. This annoyed him. He had come here ready for battle and threat, and she was disarming him.
“I ought to have remembered, at all times, that we are both the children of our parents, and that our blood is the same,” continued Dorothea weakly, her head drooping towards her breast. “But we were by nature antagonistic. I am the elder, and so the onus of our estrangement is upon me.”
She lifted her head, and now her wet eyes flashed and deepened with strong pleading. “Jerome, let us not forget it again, that we are brother and sister. Nothing else must matter, must it?” She shifted towards him a trifle. “We are all one family, Father, you and I, Alfred and Philip, and no stranger must separate us! Tell me you understand, that you agree? Let that—woman—go. She is anxious to go, as she told me. Let us forget her, all of us, as we might forget a hateful dream. Let us all be together again, friends under one roof. And I swear to you, Jerome, that no word of all this horror shall ever come from me, to anyone.”
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