There Was a Time

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  “Sometime, in between his travels, he had taken time off to marry a fine young Richmond girl, about twenty years younger than himself. He was in India, agonizing over the natives, when his wife died in childbirth, leaving him a daughter. He brought the child with him, when he came here, eighteen years ago, and a Negro couple who are still with him, and are the only Negroes in these mountains.”

  “I know!” said Frank disagreeably. “I know the rest. Our Isaac had to worship something, so he picks out Venus or Aphrodite, or what you will. He must be insane.”

  Wade rode on in silence for a few minutes, until they reached the brow of another hill. He pulled in his mule, and pointed below.

  Here there was a soft deep fold in the hills, hardly a valley. In it, as if hiding, or nestling, stood a little white house of clapboards with a stone chimney. Over it towered pines and locust trees and elms, so that only glimpses of its clean whiteness could be seen between their crowding trunks. Before it, and behind it, burst a riotous mass of color: hollyhocks, enormous daisies, salvia, zinnias and cannas, mingling together, exploding upwards in splashes of brilliance, racing one another towards the sun. It was a tiny house of enchantment, lying there between the hills, lost and dreaming in color and sunshine.

  Frank, though charmed, was also disappointed. He had half expected something on the order of Sherry’s house, or a reproduction (Mr. Saunders being a rich Virginian) of a “Southern mansion.” But this house, it was apparent, contained barely five or six small rooms, unpretentious and quiet.

  Wade was speaking again: “I met Isaac three years ago. He was then just completing his new theology. I didn’t tell you that in his youth he was quite a student of Greek mythology. Now he resurrected Isis, Astarte, Venus—the mother principle, the smiling, gentle, lovely female Spirit of the universe. Somehow, he had convinced himself that God, being male, could quite logically be the murderer and torturer of mankind, for, according to the Old Testament, did He not love blood and sacrifice and the clash of armies? Had He not invented hell and the lake of burning fire? You see, poor Isaac had a broad swath of Fundamentalism in him, in spite of his Episcopalian background. It was quite logical, in a way, that such a shy and gentle and tender man should come to love the idealized woman, the goddess, for such men as he are endowed with many feminine characteristics. The war almost killed him; I thought for a time he would go out of his mind.

  “So now Isaac worships the Female principle in the universe, the compassionate and grieving and forgiving and merciful goddess. He is also a devotee of Mary, who he claims was called Isis or Astarte, Venus or Aphrodite, ages before the male God became of any importance. It is his belief that the Female is the enemy of the male God, the Spirit of eternal light and good as opposed to the ravening Spirit who tortures men and permits wars and other horrors.”

  “And you didn’t try to introduce the Church of Latter Day Saints to him, I suppose?” asked Frank sardonically.

  But Wade said, in a gentle voice: “No. Why should I? What is the purpose of religion? To make man happy and content and hopeful. Isaac’s new religion does all that for him, so for him it is right. It doesn’t matter what name a man attaches to the Almighty, just so long as he is aware of the Almighty. Isn’t there a legend somewhere that no one knows the name of God, not even the archangels? What does it matter, then, what name man gives to Him? He remains.”

  The little house rose up to meet them as they rode slowly down the hill. Washed in magic and brightness and radiance, lapped about in silence, it took on a fairy quality for Frank. They could see the windows glittering between the trees, now, and the little white door at the front of the house.

  “I’ve told you that Isaac has quite a lot of money,” said Wade, lowering his voice. “He paid for our schoolhouse. He is going to build us a hospital. He spends almost all his income on charities, hospitals, orphan asylums, peace societies, missions of all kinds, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Mormon—anything. Priests and nuns in leper colonies pray for him. Christian missionaries in India, China and Japan write him regularly, blessing him. He isn’t concerned with their religions. He is concerned only in their lightening of human misery and pain. He aches for humanity. He loves mankind. He lives as modestly and frugally as he can. I believe he begrudges every morsel of bread he eats.”

  They were almost on a level with the house now. It lay as if deserted in the shining silence. The trees were shedding their leaves; faint rustling heaps of russet and gold and crimson had piled themselves on the tiny green lawns. The flowers were clouds of bloom foaming against the white walls. There was no sound of any human life, nor any sound of cattle or fowl. If they were there at all, they, too, dreamed in radiance.

  Wade was alighting from his mule, and he was whistling clearly and shrilly. The mountains echoed back the sound, repeating it over and over. There was a faint stir within the house, and a small and delicate man appeared in the doorway, holding a book in his hand. He cried: “Wade! Well, well, so you’ve come at last! Come in, come in!”

  Whatever Frank had expected, he had not expected anything so normal as Isaac Saunders, though perhaps his neat black serge suit, his white shirt, high stiff collar, black string tie and neatly polished black boots were hardly normal for the mountains. There was nothing countrified about Isaac. Isaac might have been a Virginia banker or business man, ready to step into his limousine for a quiet day among low-voiced colleagues. His small pale face, thin and fragile of bone, his clipped black mustache and neat gray hair, his white hands, his shy but steadfast brown eyes, all proclaimed the city man of aristocratic tradition and background. His voice, too, was almost sweet in its tones, and extremely gentle and soft. When introduced to Frank, he did not stare openly as Sherry had stared, but considerately averted his eyes, shook hands warmly but with reserve, and bowed a little stiffly. There was much that was old-fashioned about him. He said with dignity: “Welcome. Welcome, sir.”

  “What a happy interruption you are, my boy!” he said to Wade, as he opened the door. “I have been at my desk since dawn, and now the sunlight hurts my eyes. The shipment of food and blankets you wished arrived a few days ago. And I have a check for you.”

  Never had Frank seen so gleaming an interior, so darkly sparkling, so cool and spacious. The walls were of smooth wood stained walnut; the old wide-planked floors had been polished until they were dim mirrors. Pieces of furniture were few. Frank saw a bare planked table, shining with a dark old patina, and holding an oil lamp and a huge bowl of blazing zinnias. The wide window-seat held bowls and heaps of books. One wall was given over entirely to volumes of all sorts, many of them in precious old leathers tooled in gold. The chairs were mountain-made, rush-bottomed, straight and severe, but lovingly fashioned, stained dark, and polished. There were no rugs, no ornaments but the flowers. The casement curtains at the low old windows were of cream-colored cotton, pushed far back to admit the warm autumn air. The stone fireplace glimmered with a fading fire, and over this fireplace hung a single portrait, that of a beautiful young woman with a dreaming face, clad in white with silver ribbons binding her breast, a crown of pale lilies on her drifting, golden hair. Under this portrait stood a small silver candelabrum, where candles were dimly burning.

  The portrait was exquisitely done, and the lovely face shone like a moon in the blue clear light. Frank guessed that it represented no living woman, but a composite of what Wade had called the Female Principle of the universe. He was fascinated by the portrait; he drew near it, and looked into the tender blue eyes, so shining and level, so pure and so kind. He thought of Mr. Farley, who adored the Blessed Virgin, and he thought the sentiment a beautiful one, this adoration of the Mother, the Compassionate, the All-wise, the Merciful, Genetrix of God and men, the Female who knew birth pangs and sorrow, the agony of mankind and the suffering of children.

  With the ceremonious courtesy and sincere politeness of the aristocratic Southerner, Isaac Saunders saw to the comfort of his guests. He went into the kitchen and conducted a
fat, middle-aged Negress into the room. “Randy, our guests are here. And you may serve our dinner, if you please,” he said to the beaming woman.

  He spoke to her as to a dear friend, and she gave him a warm glance of affection before leaving the room. Then he sat down near Wade and gazed at.him fondly.

  “You must tell me everything,” he said, giving Wade his deep attention. “I want, particularly, to know of what you have been thinking, rather than what you have been doing.” He looked at Frank apologetically. “It has been so long since I have seen Wade, Mr. Clair.”

  His pale pointed face and glowing eyes aroused respect and admiration in Frank. He sat on the edge of his chair, his hands planted on his knees, and every angle of his slight body was patrician. How strange to find such a man in these barbarous and abandoned mountains! It was incredible. Frank leaned against the straight back of his chair and listened to the curious conversation now going on between the two old friends.

  Wade told Mr. Saunders of his belief that the safety and peace of the world depended on international law powerfully enforced, stringently administered. Mr. Saunders, his head bent courteously, listened intently to every word. Then he got up and trotted across the bare polished floor to his bookcase, returning with a volume through which he thumbed rapidly. He began to read from Spengler:

  “‘But a law consisting merely of a series of figures read off an instrument’ (or a law of words written on smooth paper) ‘cannot even as an intellectual operation be completely effective in this pure state.’

  “Wade, before the law must be the desire. Before the desire, must be the thoughtful conviction of men. Before the conviction, must be the emotion, a love of justice and mercy. A group of idealistic men may, as they sit in conclave in Geneva, pass a thousand international laws to safeguard the world, but unless the whole of mankind feels in itself a hatred for war and injustice and cruelty, the laws are impotent. The cornerstone of all law is man’s heart. Without that cornerstone, the whole arch must collapse into a heap of rubble.”

  Wade sighed. “But it is impossible to teach the millions of men all over the world that hatred is their own death.”

  “Wade, as the Chinese say, a thousand-mile journey is begun with the first step. I grant you that it will take many generations to enlighten all mankind. But this very minute is not too soon to begin. First of all, we must teach each child in every school that any religion which teaches hatred of another religion, or intolerance, is his enemy, and that any government which extolls its own people above all others, its political system as the best, is a band of murderers. The world was created for man; if man dies, there will be no world.”

  He saw Wade’s dark smile, and again hastily thumbed through his book. “You smile at my anthropomorphic notions. But listen to this: ‘We are presumptuous and no less in supposing that we can ever set up “The Truth” in the place of anthropomorphic conceptions, for no other conceptions but these exist at all.’ Man’s eye and man’s ear project a dream into reality, Wade. Without man, there is not even a dream. The universe would cease to exist.”

  Frank thought suddenly of Irving Schultz, and he did not know why there was such an acute and immediate pain in him.

  He broke into the conversation, with a loud stammer: “Mr. Saunders. I—I have a friend, back—home. He says that man is the only reality, and that he gives substance to nothingness, and—and—being to—God.” He saw Wade’s quizzical eyes, and flushed and despised himself. Then he saw Mr. Saunders’ shining intentness, and went on: “I—I mean that without man’s awareness of God, God Himself would have no existence. No. Perhaps I don’t have that right, or something—”

  Mr. Saunders smiled gently and eagerly. “I think you have. Words aren’t adequate, are they? But you mean that when man is aware of—the Divine Principle, then that Divine Principle becomes a reality, and potent?”

  Frank nodded, his face still burning.

  Mr. Saunders tented his delicate fingers, and seemed to lose himself in contemplation. Then he said softly: “When man becomes aware of his awareness of the Divine Principle, then he becomes aware that other men are part of himself. How can a man hate others, then? He can only love them, as participants in his own life. But first of all must come man’s complete awareness of the Divine Principle.”

  Peace and sweetness seemed to stand in the room like pure water, unruffled and tranquil. But Frank was already ashamed of his own words, and he drew back inside himself as a snail draws back into darkness under a leaf. What a fool Wade must think him! He did not see Wade’s surprised and satisfied expression or his secret smile of content.

  They rode home together in the purple haze that hung over the mountains. They hardly spoke. They paused for a long time to watch the sunset flaming above the hills. Streamers of long magenta fire were blown out against a sky of the deepest and most translucent turquoise. The hills crouched in dark and formless ridges, like the backs of enormous slumbering animals.

  After such a day, it was a relief to Frank to return to the raucous company of the Cunninghams, to sit with them on the steps of the tent in the twilight, and to listen to Ira’s strumming on a guitar and his singing of spirituals. He told himself that he had participated in a grotesque dream, and he turned away from the memory of the Hempsteads and of Isaac Saunders with aversion. He felt that Wade had inflicted this lonely disorientation upon him impertinently. I could go insane, myself, thinking of those people, he thought resentfully. A murderer, a demented woman, and a worshipper of Aphrodite! These had no part in the real raw world of Benton, the oil wells, the happy moronic company of the Cunninghams. Ira was singing:

  “In the evening, by the moonlight,

  You can hear those banjos ringing!”

  The last of the whippoorwills called in the dark woods. The katydids shrilled. The autumn moon rose in yellow splendor over the trees. Frank sat, wrapped about in silence, and knew again that dreadful loneliness and abandonment of his childhood.

  CHAPTER 51

  With the coming of winter, the Cunninghams and Frank moved down into the valley, and set up housekeeping in an ancient and abandoned log cabin. The Cunninghams would have been content to see their cots anywhere, and to have lived in happy unawareness of the hoary filth and grime all about them. But Frank, to their amusement, began to scrub and clean, to bleach the splintered plank floors with lye, to paper the rough wood walls with pages from the Sears, Roebuck catalogues. Somehow, he managed to get glass and to putty it into the empty window-frames. He cut out large rectangles of black oilcloth, purchased from Sears, Roebuck, and placed them over the cots, so that they gave a grotesque formality to the large dark room. For some reason, Frank could not endure the sight of tumbled brown blankets and striped ticking, and the oilcloth inhibited the happy Cunninghams from messing up their beds. They were too lazy to remove the oilcloth during the day, or perhaps they were too polite. For the sake of his cooking, and because, in spite of his sullen silences and heavy despondencies, they liked him, they had learned to humor Frank.

  Frank built a long wooden table, which he bleached spotlessly white; he also fashioned long benches, which he arranged around the table, refectory-wise. Procuring more odd lumber, he hammered a rude food “safe” into being, and painted it walnut. He even went so far as to order some cheap rag rugs from Sears, Roebuck, and he put up a shelf for his books. Then he bought a bright kerosene lamp, and paid a “soup-driver” to bring in the necessary fluid from the “settlements.”

  The Cunninghams were proud of him. It was pleasant to come in out of the raw winter rain, to hang up wet clothing under Frank’s stern eye, and sit down by the fireplace and have a heartening drink while Frank placed steaming bowls of exotic canned food on the table. He had even ordered several cans of whale meat, which looked like “cow-beef” and had a faint fishy odor. But this was not a success with the Cunninghams, who had trustingly sampled the stewed dish. They thought Frank had gone a little too far this time, and their simple eyes were reproachful. Th
eir ideal standard meal, morning, noon and night, consisted of fried bacon, fried potatoes, corn pone and butter, apple butter, coffee and fried pie. Frank played themes on these dishes, to his friends’ delight.

  He was forced to content himself with the bare shining cleanliness all about him, and with the loads of books arriving haphazardly from Chicago and from Wade O’Leary. He read with increasing passion and avarice: biography, history, new fiction, old classics, poetry, and religious works which the catalogue had piously declared were the “fruits” of “old masters.” When better fare was lacking, Frank was often reduced to reading such things. But he made the acquaintance of Quo Vadis and Ben Hur and of Tolstoi’s War and Peace, among other things. He memorized great poetry. He read and reread the complete works of Shakespeare, with which Wade had presented him, and much of the stately grandeur of the poetry remained with him. His hunger being catholic, he could read Tennyson and Keats with equal pleasure, Hall Caine and Walter Scott, Thackeray and Mrs. Humphry Ward. He thirsted after the printed word, and when he had nothing else, he even read The Gospel Trumpet, which could always be obtained from the wife of the foreman of the more prosperous wells. This lady lived in a neat converted railroad car—how such a thing could have been hauled into the hills remained an eternal mystery.

  Then, for Christmas, Wade gave him The Golden Bough, complete and unabridged, and Frank, engrossed and enchanted, became acquainted with the world’s multitudinous living and dead religions. Peter O’Leary, less exotic of mind, kept Frank supplied with every known magazine, then artlessly added some “Mormon” literature.

  The cold wet winter had set in relentlessly. The Cunninghams, lovers of the sun, would have contentedly abandoned all well-drilling until March, but Frank, like an inexorable conscience, kept them at their work. The last well had produced a dribble of eight meagre barrels a day, and only Frank’s insistence and his letters of honeyed persuasion to the Indian Pipe Line Company had added this well to the local flood.