They sat on the terrace in the twilight after dinner, sipping brandy. Philip watched the lavender shadows stealing over the earth; he watched the silver curve of the moon rising over the copse of pines. The murmur of the trees was music in his ears. It did not seem possible that he must leave this dear place and go—home? This was home.
He must leave soon for his exile. He listened courteously while Jerome spoke of his children, and particularly of Mary. “The minx has quite a musical gift,” he said, with an elaborate affectation of amused indulgence.
Philip was immediately interested. “I should like to hear the child play,” he said. “But, of course, it is too late.”
Jerome rose with alacrity. “No. I don’t think so. Has she gone to bed, Amalie?”
Mary had indeed gone to bed, but Amalie went to fetch her. The girl came down swathed in the white silk ruffles of a pretty dressing gown, her blue eyes wide and bright. Philip took her hand, and speaking to her in the tone of pleading apology he might have used to a woman, said: “Mary, I am so sorry to disturb you, but I have heard that you play splendidly. Would it be too much if you played just one selection for me, before I go?”
The faintest of blushes ran over the child’s face; she dropped a small curtsey. “Thank you. It will give me pleasure,” she replied, with the artificial poise of a well-bred young girl. She smiled at Philip primly, and without embarrassment sat at the piano. A servant had lit the great gas chandelier in the music room. Philip regretted this; he much preferred the old soft candles sparkling among crystal. This bare bald light, faintly flickering, did not please him.
Mary flung back her hair with that stiff precision of hers which Philip found so enchanting. Then a look of absorption came into her eyes, a dreaming look. Her small white hands moved softly over the keys, seeking and murmuring. Philip began to recognize a theme of Chopin’s. But the child was improvising; it was as if her mind wandered among the beautiful remembered thoughts of others and was constructing from them a new pattern of her own.
Philip listened and was astonished. The technique was both childish and mature; a little run of notes here, infinitely sweet but simple and uncertain, and then a few bars, strong, sure, original, rushing from the keys with a fervent and triumphant sound as though they came from the passionate meditations of a woman. Mary’s head was thrown back; it was evident that she was not aware of her parents or of Philip. She was entranced in some dream of her own. Her delicate profile was stern and pale, almost as if hypnotized in its rigidity. It seemed hardly possible that that melodious thunder of notes came from those small frail hands. Philip drew closer to her, his head bent and listening, watching the child intently. She did not see him; she was aware of nothing but her music. Beyond the windows the night was still and warm and dark; the music invaded it like a loud and harmonious voice.
Then abruptly the piano was silent. It was as if some beautiful and violent meditation had ceased before it had come to any conclusion. Mary turned from the instrument, and her silvery curtain of hair fell shyly over her cheeks. She looked at her father.
Jerome smiled at her proudly, then turned to Philip. “Completely undisciplined, of course, but her teacher says she has talent. What do you think?”
“Extraordinary,” said Philip. He regarded the girl with gravity, then was still. She stood up, hesitated. Then she said in her soft, light voice: “My mama says you play, too. Would you play for me?”
Philip bowed. “It will give me the greatest pleasure, my dear.”
He sat down before the piano. Here was the nick he remembered, below middle C, a deep dark indentation of obscure origin in the old mahogany. The four yellowed keys in the next octave had deepened in tint. He remembered a servant attempting to bleach them with a solution of lime. He remembered, too, the rich sheen of the wood, the way the stool wabbled a little to the left, so that he had had to brace his foot to remain steady. He touched the keys, and they came to life under his fingers as if in eager response to an old friend.
He began to play the second part of the first movement of Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 in B minor, the allegro moderato. Now the keys responded with a great ardent cry, a wild and discordant imploring that tore at something primitive and terrible in the human heart. It was an invocation, threatening and savage, to primordial gods, a protest of terror and defiance both heroic and despairing. Then, mingling with these cries moved a gentler and more majestic theme, soft and compassionate, as if strange and nobler gods answered, and one saw an agonized and barbaric head turning in chaos to listen, to be silenced, to drop clenched and uplifted hands. Louder, deeper, sweeter, spoke the gods of pity and beauty and tenderness, so that the fury sank into nothingness, and the voice of barbarism, uncertain at first, entered the prayer of peace in faltering murmurs.
Mary had moved so close to Philip that now she almost touched him. She fixed her eyes on his face; her mouth had opened slightly, as if she found it difficult to breathe. Jerome had taken Amalie’s hand; she felt its involuntary hard pressures, its heat and tremulousness. But he, too, looked only at Philip.
The sweetness and majesty were now almost unbearable, stately and exultant. Mary’s face was wet with tears. She bent her head, and a long pale lock of her hair touched Philip’s shoulder. When he had played the last note and had turned to her, smiling, she looked into his eyes. His smile abruptly disappeared. He lifted his hand as if to touch her, but she fell back, made a faint whimpering sound, turned suddenly and ran from the room.
“I have frightened the poor little creature,” he said, rising from the stool, and looking at Amalie and Jerome with concern.
“Oh, no,” said Amalie. “She is so sensitive, and music often disturbs her. But I’ve never seen her so moved; she is such a repressed little thing.”
“All New England,” said Jerome. He seemed abstracted. “You certainly haven’t lost your gift, Philip. And now you are going into that bank!”
Philip’s expression became withdrawn and polite. “A man has to be practical,” he said, with formality.
His host and hostess regarded him in perturbed uncertainty. He drew out his watch and glanced at it. “I must really go now,” he said. “And thank you for a delightful evening.” He paused. “Are you sure I haven’t frightened the child?”
They reassured him with affection. Jerome called his carriage for Philip. They shook hands. Jerome said: “I have enjoyed your coming, Philip. Please come often. There are so many things we need to discuss. And, in the meantime, will you think of some solution to our problem?”
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
When Philip arrived home, he found his father reading in the chill library where summer heat never seemed to penetrate.
Alfred put aside his book, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, and greeted his son affectionately. Philip sat down on one of the stiff chairs, always so unfamiliar to him. Alfred suggested a glass of wine, an unusual procedure, and Philip assented. His father appeared very tired and gray, but gentle.
“I missed you tonight, Philip,” he said. He looked about at the forbidding walnut walls, at the narrow and gloomy windows, at the crimson Brussels carpet. He added, in a lower voice: “Was it so hard to come back here?”
Philip glanced at him swiftly, with hidden compassion. As his father’s character mellowed, became softer, more perceptive, less dogmatic and didactic, rounded by grief and by long secret meditations and uncertainty, Philip’s love for him increased.
He replied, with his customary simplicity: “Not too hard. You were here, waiting for me.”
Alfred turned the wineglass about in fingers that trembled slightly. Then he said, almost inaudibly: “Thank you, Philip.”
“Wherever you are, Father,” Philip continued, “will be home for me.”
Alfred said nothing. He could not speak.
After a while he put aside his glass of wine, almost untouched. He stared at it somberly. “I don’t like this house, Philip. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. When we built it,
it seemed to me that it was everything I wanted. It is my fault if it is what it is—cheerless, cold, uninviting. I don’t know how I came to arrange it so. There is not one room which I did not expressly order—”
He sighed, slowly turned his eyes from wall to ceiling to floor. He looked at every formal table, every lamp, every chair. Then he shook his head numbly.
“There are not enough people here,” said Philip, with pity. “But I am home now, for good. We must have some parties, young people and such. A house needs the sound of life.”
Alfred sighed again. “It needs life in its inhabitants.. I am afraid I have never been very alive, Philip.”
Ah, but you are now, thought Philip, with sad tenderness. It seemed to him that his father had shed some horny external skin, and had emerged vulnerable and susceptible to new winds and stronger airs.
“Is Hilltop the same as ever?” asked Alfred, in a low voice, gazing at his polished boots.
“Yes. Just the same. I expected you to come into the library or the dining-room at any moment. It seemed wrong that you were not there. I sat in your place.”
To his first surprise, then not at all to his surprise, Alfred looked up swiftly, and he smiled. “Good. I am glad of that, Philip. Yes, I am very glad of that. It seems proper.”
His square, strong face had brightened. His tired hazel eyes beamed. “It was probably an accident, of course. I can hardly think—they—did it by design.”
Philip told another of his compassionate lies: “On the contrary, they pointed the fact out to me, called my attention to it.”
The light in Alfred’s eyes increased. “Ah, she would do that! It is just like her. She always understood. I didn’t, then. But—Amalie—could always be relied upon for the delicate and sympathetic touch. Yes, she always understood.”
Philip had not thought so in the least, but now he began to wonder.
“Uncle William always remarked on Amalie’s subtlety,” continued Alfred, with rising animation. “I didn’t understand at all. I am afraid I was a heavy, dull fool, Philip. If I had had any perception at all, any delicacy, things might have—” Now his face clouded with its old somber grief.
Alfred stood up. He walked up and down several times, slowly and ponderously, his hands in his pockets. “In those days, I thought only of success, of making money, of—of—” He stared at his son with acute astonishment. “Of ‘justifying’ myself, of ‘proving’ myself. What was I trying to prove? It seems very vague to me now, very puerile. You see, I always felt so insecure, so inferior. I think I wanted to prove to Uncle William that he was not making a mistake in me.”
He paused by the table near his chair, lifted the wineglass, drank quickly. Philip sensed an excitement in him, an involuntary compulsion.
“Only a very strong, a very wise man, Philip, can rise above his early beginnings, rid himself of the wisps of self-doubr, the heart-burnings and struggling ambition. Only such a man can go on, forgetting; only he can grow and expand in character. I was not such a man. I could only remember how poor my father was, how vague and chronically unsuccessful, and how he was Uncle William’s beneficiary. I remember my shame, in my boyhood, that I had a father who received what was virtual charity from his brother. And I think I felt that I—must have some of his character in me. When Uncle William gave me my opportunity, I wanted to show him that I wasn’t such another as my father but had something of Uncle William himself in me. I—I tried too hard, Philip. I could never forget. I had only one drive in me. I drove myself too much, too fast, too mercilessly.”
He lifted the decanter of wine and poured his empty glass full again. He held the glass in his hand. He regarded his son with oddly fervid eyes.
“Every other potentiality I had was suppressed in the one vehement desire to please Uncle William, to make up to him for his disappointment in Jerome. That is what I thought then. But now I know it was to hide my secret fear of my own lack of confidence, my own insecurity, my own belief that I wasn’t much of a man, after all. Not endowed above the average with brains. Not imaginative. Only a dull, dull fool, obdurate and greedy.”
Philip leaned back in his chair and listened quietly and with profound attention. Alfred saw the love and comprehension in his dark eyes, and something rose up in his throat. His voice was thick when he went on:
“That was behind my hatred for Jerome. It seems so odd to me now, knowing this, after all these years. Jerome had self-confidence; he always knew what he wanted. He—he was strong, Philip. Nothing external mattered to him, neither money, nor ‘self-proof nor ‘making his mark.’ He was secure in himself.”
Philip stirred. “No. I know now that that is a fallacious idea.”
Alfred stared at him. He seemed about to protest, then was silent. He looked at the ruby fluid in the glass he held. “I see,” he said softly. “Yes, I think I see.”
He glanced about the room, slowly, thoughtfully, “It is very strange. I don’t seem to want anything very much any longer, Philip.”
He added, trying to smile: “Is it because I am getting old, my dear boy, or just very tired?”
Philip shook his head. “You aren’t fifty yet. You are neither old nor tired. I just think that you have become strong and wise. Uncle William had that strength and wisdom.”
Alfred did not speak for a moment, then he said: “Thank you, Philip. Thank you. I have never heard anything so kind before.”
There was a stern rustle at the door, and Dorothea entered the library. Philip-rose. But Dorothea ignored him, outraged as she was.
“It is getting late, Alfred,” she said. “You know you will have one of your headaches if you don’t go to bed at once. You mustn’t let those who are so inconsiderate of your feelings and desires impose upon you.”
She stood there, tall, gaunt, stately, her accusing gaze fastened implacably upon Alfred, and waited. She was accustomed to having Alfred say, almost with meekness: “You are right, Dorothea.”
But Alfred only smiled at her fondly. “I am not in the least tired, Dorothea, and I don’t think I shall have a headache. It is not eleven o’clock yet. I am quite wide awake.”
Dorothea’s eyelids flickered. Philip was watching her with amusement.
“And Philip is not imposing upon me, my dear. He and I were having a most interesting discussion.”
“Doubtless,” said Dorothea, with acid irony. “But I am not interested in the ‘interesting discussions’ of those who have so little proper regard for their fathers, so little understanding of propriety and decency. I refuse to acknowledge their existence. They are outside the pale of my understanding.”
Philip, the tactful, did not attempt to protest. He knew that Dorothea was impatiently awaiting an opportunity to turn upon him, to upbraid and denounce him. When he did not give her this opportunity, she was nonplussed and angered. She tossed her graying head.
“Are you going upstairs now, Alfred? I should like to turn off the gas. One cannot leave such things to ignorant servants.”
Philip waited with quite an absurd anxiety. Would his father, as usual, see the “justice” of Dorothea’s remarks, and give in?
Then Alfred spoke, and Philip felt an almost equally absurd relief. “Now, Dorothea, I think I am quite capable of turning off the gas. I won’t blow it out, I promise you. Philip and I haven’t finished our discussion. But, please don’t trouble yourself to wait until we go up. You get up early, and I think you ought to retire now.”
Dorothea drew in her breath. Then she turned rigidly, lifted her head high, and went out of the room.
Alfred watched her go. He was smiling. He said: “Dorothea is a good woman, bless her, but somewhat inflexible. Sit down, Philip, and tell me more about Hilltop. Have they changed the gardens, or cut down that old elm that used to scrape the roof on windy nights?”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
The winter day was all fiery blue and white. The holidays, long since over, had been forgotten, and the townsmen looked forward to the spring. Jerome, fr
om his office windows, could see the thick white plush of the snow on the great lawns which surrounded the bank. The two cypresses stood, dark green pillars, against all that purity and blueness, like guardians at a temple.
The office was warm and pleasant, spluttering logs of apple-wood roaring in the fireplace. Jerome and Philip and General Tayntor sat at a small table and sipped brandy. Papers were spread upon the table, papers which the General was regarding skeptically, his white brows raised high towards the thin white hairline above his wrinkled forehead.
The General had weathered, rather than aged. His long and emaciated body had lost little of its soldierly erectness, its hard and bony contours. His wicked and ruddy face had thinned, but it still wore its air of twinkling cunning and knowingness, and his tiny blue eyes were still vivid and sparkling.
He tapped the papers with a lean finger. “This will cost a lot of money, this infernal ‘Riversend Community’ of yours,” he said. “Who’s to foot the bill, eh? Ho! ‘Riversend Community,’ by God! What for? Nonsense. Who cares?”
He said, leaning forward to accept a light for his cigar from Philip: “A lot of money. There’ll be rumors about the bank. Can’t afford it. No bank can afford it.”
Philip glanced humorously at Jerome, who said: “You’ve got a lot of money, General. You’re almost a millionaire, and you have me to thank for it, to a great extent. What the hell do you want with all that money, anyway?”
The General grinned. “You mean, I’m an old man, and I’ve got enough? Nobody ever has enough. Money’s a fine substitute for what sentimentalists think children are. Children! Waste of time. Wish I’d known it before. What use are children to a man?”
He turned to Philip. “What’s all this? What does your dad think of this, your being here as cosy as a bug in a rug?”
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