This Side of Innocence

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  Mary. Mary. But when he thought of Mary he thought of Jerome.

  What had Alfred said, pleadingly? “Philip, you are too imaginative, too sensitive. If Jerome had truly meant those wicked things he said to you, he would not have written his will like this. He reveals in every line all the trust and affection he always had for you. Poor Jerome. He thought himself the essence of self-control, but he really was the most uncontrolled of men. I prefer to think, and I believe, that this will is more the true Jerome than the one we saw in my office. You see, yourself, how implicitly he trusted you, with full acknowledgement of your wisdom and ability.

  “I have the strangest conviction that during the last minutes he spent with us something happened to Jerome. I saw something in his eyes. They had changed quite suddenly. He seemed to be listening, to be understanding. All his hatred went out of his face. When he left us, I had the certain knowledge that he was returning to Amalie and Mary, without rage, but with love and a new perception.”

  Philip had smiled at this with mournful cynicism.

  “So,” Alfred had pleaded, “go to Mary when she returns, and take up your life with her again. Don’t visit your own doubts upon that poor young creature. You can make her happy. You can make Amalie happy. Your duty to them does not end with your expert performance at Jerome’s bank, nor with your management of their estate.”

  But he never dreamt of my marrying his daughter, thought Philip. I was his friend, his confidant, his adviser. But he never saw me as the husband of his daughter. One can’t forget that.

  Nor can one forget, his dreary thoughts continued, that Mary deserves better than a deformed man so much older than herself. She deserves the glory and the-youth of life, the happiness and the gaiety. I can give her none of them. What a fool I was, from the very beginning! If I had taken only a little thought, I’d have known. But I wanted her, and to me that seemed enough.

  He went out of the house. The weight in his heart extended to his body. He walked like an old man. He stood in the road and looked far up the hill at Mary’s home. He could see the tiny glimmer of the top windows, the red roof, through the trees. All at once every instinct urged him to go up there, for the last time. It would do no, harm. After today he would never go there again, never.

  His weariness lifted. It became a passionate thirst. Just once more, just once more to see the library where Uncle William had sat, to see the garden, and the stables! It was little enough. There was no one there but the servants.

  His feet carried him up the hill. The warm October morning lay in shining wideness about him. Leaves scurried ahead of him, like small gay creatures. Golden dust followed him. Once he turned and looked at the valley below floating in a silvery morning mist. He could see in that mist the deeper nuances of smoke, and though he could not actually hear anything but the sounds of the woods about him, he thought he could discern the rumble and noisy activity of the factories and the railroad.

  He paused again, this time to look at the valley with more intentness. He thought of all that was being said about America as a “growing and maturing nation.” But all at once he felt an uneasy fear. Something was passing from America. While she grew industrially, she was losing her maturity. It was as if a giant, abnormally doubling his stature, began to suffer the dwindling of his brain. What if we become the dinosaur among nations? thought Philip. Well-armored, powerful, shaking the earth with our tread, and having the perceptions of a minute if lustful intelligence? Is it possible that we reached our maturity with Emerson and Thoreau? Is it possible that we have already lost maturity, lost ripened manhood?

  Are we “laying waste our powers in getting and spending”? Can it be that the world of the mind, so loved by Uncle William and his contemporaries, has lost prestige because of its intangibility? The plain living and high thinking of the New Englanders has degenerated, I fear, into the showy existence, and absence of any thinking at all, which betray the born plebeian, the born vulgarian.

  The human soul has fallen into disrepute in America! Philip’s melancholy thoughts continued. For lack of sustenance, it is withering. For lack of light, it is becoming blind. For lack of a vision, it is perishing. Yet that human soul wants so little, really. It wants reverence and contemplative peace. It wants books and open spaces. It wants the free sky and the wild sun. It wants a little privacy and a little music. It wants to think of God.

  But that little was rapidly being taken away from the heart and the soul of America. Goods, properties, possessions: these had usurped the place of contentment. No one could possibly belittle that self-respect which manifests itself in the making of an adequate living. But an adequate living does not demand that all a man’s heart and mind and soul be dedicated to the acquiring of mountainous possessions, more malignant trivia than ever were owned by a medieval prince. For his happiness a man’s house need not be large, and requires only a small garden behind it, and a few trees. His children will not die for the lack of expensive carpets and gilded gew-gaws. But they will surely die, and America with them, if they lack a vision.

  We have done what we could in Riversend, thought Philip, Jerome and I. Now he could think of Jerome with a faint warmth and affection which were revivifying. Yes, we have done what we could. But what of the rest of America? Who will set out to do what we have done? Who will renew the vision in our country? My country, my dear, dear country! What is to become of you, when even the poor man, the poor farmer in his field, thinks no thoughts of God and destiny and virtue and contentment, but only of acquiring money and buying malevolent nonsense with it?

  Even while Philip’s despondency grew stronger, he felt an old familiar stirring in him, as if he had tensed some strength and sternness in himself in order to give battle. Surely, he thought, I do not think these thoughts alone. Surely there are other men who believe as I do, and hope and fear as I do. I must find them!

  His mind was clear and free. He thought of Jerome with the first poignant grief and sadness he had experienced since his cousin’s death. Jerome’s vehement and confused soul had had these thoughts; he had tried to embody them in the Riversend Community. Poor Jerome! Philip said aloud: “I won’t forget, Jerome. I will try to do what you wanted to do, even though you were not certain what that thing was.”

  His step became lighter. He was not so weary. He felt wonder. Now he could lift his head and go forward with more strength. Why was this?

  He was approaching Hilltop now. The house, strong and gray against the cobalt sky, stood fully above him. It had the face of a friend. Now he saw that the windows were wide open, that smoke was blowing from a chimney or two. They were preparing for the family’s return.

  I can be strong, thought Philip, looking at that dear house, even if Mary is not with me. I can be happy, a little later, knowing she has found youth and gaiety and love, and that she is filling this house with her children.

  He moved silently along the side of the house, to look at the gardens for the last time. No one was about, but he heard the neighing of horses.

  The azure October day was all bright, still air and the last expiring glory of color and peace and sweetness. How silent was the warm and golden sun! The wall of burning trees was a tapestry of dark and pale green mixed with the blaze of maples, the yellow of elms, the crimson of oaks. Philip could not remember when the flowers had been so brilliant, so numerous, so delicate yet strong of fragrance, in their refutation of their coming death. A great bee bumbled over the calendulas and the enormous red buds of the last roses, and a white butterfly perched for an airy moment over pale daisies no more snowy than he, and was one with their petals. The red brick wall was covered with rose-canes, and over it hung the burnished fruit and the dark green leaves of apple trees. The grass was high and thick, deeper and fresher than it had been in the very heart of hot August, and the lilac trees, in the midst of their fading foliage, showed the rich green buds which would flower in the spring. A pointed hawthorn tree was dropping its leaves; in the grass lay its round fruit l
ike scarlet pearls. A few birds whistled and sang contemplatively in the mighty poplars in the near distance. Never had there been such a blue soft sky, so wide, so radiant, so nobly tender. The faint wind had a hint of chill, but it was fresh, under the warmth of the sun, and the silence was deep and all-pervading.

  They call this the season of death, thought Philip. But I know now that it is the season of the beginning of life. The pods, he saw, were full of seeds; golden-brown they lay in their fragile cases, row after row. They will soon fall to the ground, and nestle there, waiting. It is the season of life. Under all this last silence the earth is busy, seeding, planting, garnering. The squirrels, too, are busy, burying nuts which in the spring will rise into young trees. Spring is not an awakening. It is only a flowering of what has been seeded in autumn, the season of life.

  A deep and tender comfort filled Philip, a comfort as rich and full as the October day. Whatever came to him now he could bear with strength and peace. Somewhere in America, the seeds of good men’s thoughts had fallen on fertile ground. Somewhere, some day, those seeds would be trees, sure and high and invulnerable, to keep the desert of materialism from parching America, to hold the desert at bay, to protect the soil from erosion, and to offer shelter to the tired souls of men, and fruit to their thirsty lips.

  He bent and picked a last yellow rosebud, and held the sweet flower to his nose and mouth. He looked about him with contentment. Though he would never see it again, he would always remember this garden. To him, it was a holy place.

  He felt the lightest touch on his arm. He had heard no one approaching him. He turned quickly, to see Mary.

  She stood there, her silvery blond head bare to the sun, her fine clear face smiling, her blue eyes full of tears. She waited for him to speak; there was a breathlessness about her, a gentle and valiant glory.

  “Mary,” he murmured. “Mary, my dear.”

  She laughed a little then. “Philip. Oh, Philip. We came home last night! How did you know?”

  I did not know, he thought. Or did I know instinctively?

  She saw that he was looking at her gravely, almost somberly, his dark eyes steady and withdrawn. And then she knew he was in trouble. Yes, she knew he was in trouble, and understood, fully, what it was.

  She took his hand. She looked straight at him. “Philip,” she said, “when we found Papa that night, in that terrible ditch, he wasn’t dead. We brought him home. He—died late, at midnight. But before he died, he whispered to me: ‘Send for Philip. I want to see Philip. I want to see you two together, you and Philip.’”

  Her eyes widened. “You didn’t know, did you! But I thought you did!”

  She held his hand in both of hers, and he felt the sweetness of her flesh, the strength, the sadness. She cried: “Is that why your letters were so strange?”

  “I didn’t know,” he said. And then again: “I didn’t know!”

  The brilliant air brightened so strongly that it blinded him. He kissed her hands and her wrists. This was wrong, wrong! and then, all at once, he knew it was right.

  “Mary!”

  She bent her head and put her lips simply and gently upon his own.

  “Come in, dear. Mama wants to see you. She wants to talk to you, Philip.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  Alfred exclaimed, out of his pain: “No, Amalie must not do that! She cannot do that! Leave Hilltop? That’s impossible. It is her home. There is plenty of room there for you and Mary and Amalie.”

  “That is what I told her,” said Philip sadly. “But it was no use. She said that the house had never ‘accepted’ her, that there was no peace for her inside its walls. So she insists upon giving me her share of it as a wedding present. She will live in a little house somewhere in Riversend, she says.”

  He and his father were sitting in the garden in the mauve twilight.

  “You would hardly know Amalie,” continued Philip, with increasing sadness. “She is so thin and white, and so feverish. But she is calm. It is almost the calmness of despair. It is, I feel, more than grief for Jerome. Sometimes she subsides into a kind of numbness and abstraction. Poor Amalie. I cannot remember when I have seen her happy. Was she ever happy? I don’t know.”

  “But she cannot leave Hilltop!” said Alfred. Then he added, with pathetic simplicity: “I couldn’t bear to think of Hilltop, and Amalie not there.”

  He waited, and his voice trembled when he next spoke: “Philip, tell me: Is she grieving very much for Jerome?”

  Philip sighed, over and over. “I don’t know. She is grieved, of course. But I think it is something else too. I think it is the culmination of a whole life of insecurity and bewilderment and confusion. I don’t know what it is.”

  Alfred was silent. In the dusk, he could feel, rather than see, his son. He felt Philip’s happiness, which was like a glow, and his renewed strength and life. God be thanked for that! God bless that sweet girl! She and Philip would live at Hilltop together. He, Alfred, might see them there occasionally. At this thought, something lifted and brightened in Alfred.

  He stood up. By straining his eyes, he could catch a glimmer of light far upon the hill. Hilltop! Now, in a way, it was home for him again.

  Then he stood very still, his hands at his sides, his heart hammering. He said, abruptly, in a smothered voice: “I must go out for a while, Philip. Just for an hour. Wait here for me.”

  There was no moon, but the stars were so bright that a long spectral shadow of frail silver lay over the earth and the hill. Alfred climbed slowly. He had to pause to rest a heart that persisted in pounding and palpitating. The way was so familiar. He knew every great tree that fluttered its dim outline over the road. He passed the deep ditch where Jerome had been mortally hurt. He stood and looked at it. Now he was flooded with pain and regret.

  He went on. The windows of Hilltop glimmered more clearly. How often he had seen them like this, full of golden light! He never could forget them. He felt as if his uncle were waiting there, in the library. Philip had told him that things had changed very little in the house. It was like—coming home.

  The night was cool, but Alfred’s face was damp, and in him there was a prolonged trembling. When he reached the gates, he did not go in immediately. He stood and looked at the house. He saw the old familiar brass lamp shining softly in one of the library windows. Surely Uncle William was sitting under that lamp, reading.

  When he lifted the brass knocker on the oak door, the sound came back to him across the years. He touched the gray stones on either side of the door as he waited. They were warm and old and strong against his hand.

  The door opened and a maid admitted him to the big hall. A fire was burning on the hearth. The grandfather clock struck nine, with its old resonant notes. Firelight and lamplight gleamed on the panelled walls. Why, he had been here only yesterday, only this morning! The clock was his friend, the fire welcomed him. He was conducted to the library, and he looked at the tiers of books, at the low fire, at the dark leather chairs. He saw his uncle’s chair, waiting; he saw his pipes. Something pent and tight in Alfred relaxed and warmed.

  He stood before the hearth and saw the brass andirons. Nothing had changed. But why should it? He had never left this house. It was home.

  He heard a faint rustling sound, and again his heart began that strong sure beating. He turned slowly. Amalie was near him. But it was an Amalie grown thin and white and withdrawn, with a numb and exhausted face and purple eyes that had wept too many tears. It was an Amalie with a snowy lock of hair running from her forehead to her nape.

  In silence they stood and looked at each other. Amalie’s black gown shimmered in the lamplight, revealing her still splendid figure, her dignity, her grace. She was holding out her hand to him, and there was no emotion in her eyes except endless weariness and dullness.

  “Alfred,” she said.

  He took her hand. He felt dazed, stricken, overcome with love and compassion.

  “Amalie,” he murmured.

  She w
ithdrew her hand. “Please sit down, Alfred,” she said. Her voice sounded faint and without its old rich timbre. She sat down across from him, where so often she had sat before, and they looked at each other without speaking.

  At first her eyes remained dull and empty. Then they began to see him. She saw his strength, she saw his maturity, she saw the peace that had finally come to him across years of pain and suffering comprehension. Wonder touched her face, the wonder of a weary child. Something flowed from him to her, something reassuring and steadfast and full of compassionate understanding.

  She said dimly: “You have changed, Alfred.”

  “Yes,” he said, with softness, “I think I have, Amalie.” It was intolerable to him, to see her like this. He wanted to go to her, to press that stark face into his shoulder, to hold her to him, and comfort her. “You see, Amalie, I know so many things I never knew—before.”

  She twisted her hands together on her knee, and he remembered that old gesture of restlessness. He saw her breast swell, as if drawing in a heavy breath: “Alfred. I think I know why you came here. It was to say that you do not approve of Philip marrying Mary?”

  He was so astounded that he could not speak. Now she was leaning towards him, her eyes full of desperate pleading: “Don’t say it, Alfred! Let them be happy! They love each other.”

  His voice trembled when he replied: “My dear, I didn’t come to say that. I am glad about Philip and Mary. I hope you are glad, too.”

  She was amazed. She sank back in her chair. Then he saw tears in her eyes. She was trying to smile. “I am, I am, Alfred,” she said softly. She turned aside her head. “And I know that Jerome, too, is glad.”