Ceremony of the Innocent

by Taylor Caldwell

  As she looked at him now she could not help thinking that time had not gentled him or softened the outlines of his face. His air of pomposity had increased, but as he looked at Ellen there was a bitter if yearning warmth in his eyes and he even smiled a little, with unusual uncertainty. She brought his attention to her children, and his expression changed and it was even tighter than before, and colder, though he shook hands with Christian and affected to examine the baby with interest. Why, thought the astute and curious Annie, looks as if he hates the kids, and I wonder why. But he sure likes Mama, if what I saw in his eyes was really there.

  Ellen was embarrassed at this meeting, remembering their last one and Jeremy’s somewhat violent attitude towards his cousin. What had Jeremy said? “Kill, kill you.” The flush deepened on her face, and her manner became both nervous and conciliatory as she asked about his health. “You do not look too well,” he commented, and his tone was significant.

  “Oh, I am getting better every day,” responded Ellen. She thought of Francis’ father, who would be dining at her house that night. She wondered if Walter ever mentioned her to Francis.

  “You’ve been ill?” His tone was genuinely concerned.

  “Well,” Ellen said, and was helpless. The sturdy Annie said, “Mrs. Porter had a hard time with this last baby, Mr. Porter.”

  “Annie!” Ellen exclaimed, and did not know where to look. But Francis forgot that they were standing in the middle of a busy street, with pedestrians pushing impatiently around them, and he saw only Ellen and thought of Jeremy with fresh cold fury. So the brute had reduced her to this haggard and unbecoming slenderness, his beautiful Ellen. He had never forgotten her, not for single day; seeing her in person moved him as he was rarely moved and if he had been a woman he would have cried, and would have taken her in his arms. He wanted to do both.

  He said, to lighten her embarrassed confusion, “How is your aunt, Ellen?” He looked at her very keenly now, for his aunt, Mrs. Eccles, avidly kept him informed, and he knew of May’s abject letters.

  “You know she has arthritis,” said Ellen, and the sound of her voice moved him again, stronger than before, for he heard pain in it. “Otherwise, she is as well as can be expected.” She was in acute discomfort, and a slight hot sweat broke out on her forehead, and she wanted to go away as fast as possible.

  “She should never have come to New York,” he said, and it was as if he were again blaming Ellen.

  “But where should she have gone?” said Ellen. “I am—I was—the only one left in the world to her. She wouldn’t have stayed behind.”

  “No?” said Francis, and at his tone her discomfort quickened, and he tilted his head and looked at her censoriously, as at a servant who had questioned his judgment, and once again Ellen felt inferior and gauche.

  Still she said, with a little firmness, “No. She had no one else.”

  “She had my aunt,” said Francis. Ellen regarded him in silence. A few drops of dark rain began to fall, for which the girl was thankful.

  Christian had been staring at his father’s cousin with the open and unabashed blankness of children, and as he was still primitive he felt the tension between this man and his mother. Annie briskly turned the perambulator about and said, “It’s raining. We’d better hum-home before it pours.”

  “Yes,” said Ellen fervently. Again she held out her hand to Francis and he took it and held it. He said, and his voice dropped, “I think of you often, Ellen,” and his self-control wavered.

  “I—I think of you, too,” said Ellen. “Good afternoon, Mr. Francis. Remember me to Mrs. Eccles.” She caught little Christian’s hand and tugged at him urgently. Annie moved on, and Ellen quickly followed, and Francis stood there and watched them go, and the old passion was on him again, the old despair. He was jostled, and he did not feel it. He followed Ellen with his eyes until she had turned the corner and his face was no longer rigorous. It was tremulous with longing and desolation, and a deep and shaking pain.

  That night, after the guests had gone, Cuthbert accosted Jeremy and said, “May I have a word with you in the library, sir?” Jeremy raised his black eyebrows and nodded, and Cuthbert followed him into the golden warmth of the room, where a fire blew and snapped in the windy chimney. Cuthbert said, “Mrs. Porter has not told you about a certain—episode—which occurred today in her aunt’s quarters, sir?”

  “No.” Jeremy looked more intently at his houseman. “She seemed very tired tonight, and asked to be excused half an hour ago. Is something wrong?”

  So Cuthbert told him with quiet precision and a tone that held no judgment. Jeremy listened, and his expression was harsh with dark anger. “You must pardon me, sir,” Cuthbert concluded, “and not think me impertinent, but I thought you ought to know, for Madam’s sake. She looked like death after the—episode—and looked even more distressed at dinner, if possible.”

  “Thank you, Cuthbert.” Jeremy turned quickly about and went upstairs to May’s quarters. Her door was open as usual, and Jeremy-saw that Edith, one of the housemaids, was with her. May’s gray face became furtive when she saw Jeremy, and she turned her head and stared at the fire, but not before he saw her red and swollen eyes. He motioned to Edith and the girl rose and left the room, closing the door behind her, a forced act she regretted, for the news was all over the house.

  Jeremy sat down and regarded the sick woman without mercy. There were times when he felt pity for her, though he rarely visited her. He then looked about the musty and cluttered room, and his anger grew. He said, with no casual opening words at all, “Mrs. Watson. I have just heard that you would like to return to the house of Mrs. Eccles, in Wheatfield, though she has asked an exorbitant sum for your board and room. Seventy-five dollars a week! She must really be suffering from the Panic. I will offer her thirty, and knowing Mrs. Eccles, she will take it without quibbling. I will also arrange for a nurse to attend you there. In fact, I will engage one tomorrow who will conduct you to Wheatfield and remain with you.”

  May turned her head impetuously to him and he saw that she was desperately dismayed. She said, “Ellen! What lies did she tell you?”

  “I haven’t spoken to Ellen. She did not tell me anything.” He was trying to control his temper. “Cuthbert informed me, just now.”

  “Oh, that man! He would tell you anything! Did he tell you how cruel Ellen was to poor Miss Ember and how she drove her out of this house, leaving me alone, and not caring a thing about me, me who took care of her since she was a baby and her mother died? I was more than a mother to her—how has she repaid me?” May began to cry, sobbing fitfully, but Jeremy only sat in silence and watched her.

  Then he said, “Mrs. Watson. I know you are ill, and so I don’t want to trouble you much longer. I know your illness has changed you these past years. Once you loved Ellen; once you cared about her. She loves you and always protects you and is concerned about you, even in her present condition. I am not going to ask you why you are now so estranged from her, even though she is not estranged herself. I think I know. Never mind. But I want you to know that Ellen is heartbroken, and I will not—I repeat—will not, have her made to suffer any longer. It is too much for her. So”—and he stood up—“I will send you ‘home,’ as you’ve called it many times, and I will telegraph Mrs. Eccles tonight that you have accepted her offer, and will soon arrive.”

  “No!” May cried. “I don’t want to go! Not without Ellen. Tell Ellen I want to see her at once.” She wrung her twisted hands in agony and with vehemence.

  “I will not,” said Jeremy. “I am taking her to Washington with me tomorrow. You will be gone before she returns. So I will say goodbye for her, here and now.” Then he said, “Just for my own curiosity. Why did you write Mrs. Eccles that you wanted to share her house with her?”

  May chewed her wet lips. She put her hand to her forehead and slowly shook her head from side to side. “I—don’t really know,” she whispered. “I’m a sick woman—you don’t realize.”

  “
I think I do, only too well,” said Jeremy, and the deep anger was back in his voice. “You wanted to hurt Ellen. You wanted to make her miserable and guilty. When you told her, you really had no intention of leaving my house. It was a vicious fantasy of yours—to crush Ellen.”

  “No, no. How can you say such things? I thought—I truly thought—that it would be the best thing. I even asked Miss Ember; she can tell you herself. I think I really wanted it. I’ve thought about it all the time I’ve been here, an unwanted guest, a burden. Ellen always made me feel I was imposing, that I had no right here. An unwanted guest. She never thinks of anybody but herself and her own comfort. We should never have left Wheatfield!” and she looked at Jeremy with recrimination. “You did the wrong thing, and you know it. God will—”

  “Suppose we keep God out of this,” said Jeremy.

  But May was now wild with fear, and excited. “I keep telling her that she’ll regret it one of these days, and then she’ll have no place to go but to me! She’ll come to her senses, I can tell you that, and the sooner the better! She wasn’t made for this kind of life, and she’s sick because she’s started to realize. In her heart, she wants to go home, too, and be what she always was, and your fine clothes and jewelry will never change her, make her happy—”

  Good God, thought Jeremy. His anger was mingled with pity for this stupid woman, for this obdurate woman whose love for her niece had changed to resentment, and perhaps even to hatred. He made himself think of her crippled condition, and her real suffering, and so he said, “You’re not yourself, Mrs. Watson. Illness affects the mind, I know. When you feel better, later, write to Ellen as affectionately as you can. She deserves it, and you know that, in spite of everything.”

  May beat her emaciated knees with her fists, and she glared at him through her tears. “She’ll be glad when I’m dead! That’s what she wants, me to be dead. As for you, sir, you’ll learn what Ellen is, in time, and I pity you.”

  He turned and left the room and all down the stairs he could hear her wretched wailing, and now he had no compassion. He went into Ellen’s bedroom and found her lying, prostrated, on the bed, her hair floating on the pillows. She was not asleep. She sat up when she saw him and her eyes were dripping tears, and she held out her arms to him, mutely. He sat on the bed beside her and took her in his arms, and his anger deepened. He said, “As you know, love, we leave for Washington tomorrow at seven o’clock in the morning.” He did not ask her why she was crying. He wiped her eyes and smiled down into them.

  “Oh, I forgot! I can’t, Jeremy! I can’t leave Aunt May. There’s something I must tell you.”

  “I know all about it. Cuthbert told me. He thought it best, to save you from having to tell me. Now then, don’t look like that, my sweet. Your aunt will be perfectly all right. Edith is giving her her sleeping draught. She will sleep late. So don’t disturb her. She needs all the rest she can get, doesn’t she? There’ll be a new and better nurse with her tomorrow.”

  “She wants to go ‘home’ to that awful house in Wheatfield. Imagine,” and Ellen smiled even as her eyes ran, and her nose.

  “Yes. Imagine,” said Jeremy. “Now, lie down, my love. Would you mind if I lay down with you, too?”

  She became almost gay and her beautiful face colored with delight. It had been a long, long wait, all those months of her recovery. She put her soft white arms about Jeremy’s neck and drew him down to her. She did not quite know why, but Jeremy’s very presence sheltered her, surrounded her like a wall. They made love for the first time in months, and it was like the first night.

  C H A P T E R 18

  KITTY WILDER’S HUSBAND, JOCHAN, an associate of Jeremy’s in his law office, had lost the major part of his fortune in the year or two before the Panic of 1907, and he was now comparatively poor. He had been optimistically invested in the market to a dangerous extent.

  Kitty, the shrewd and astute, had been more conservative. However, she too was suffering, and this both frightened and outraged her.

  Jochan was still a shy man, somewhat lissome, to Kitty’s increasing disgust, and she no longer thought his fair and candid face, a face which expressed a gentle naïveté, handsome, nor did his light and fluttering eyes intrigue her. He had retained his thick golden hair, waved and overly long; but Kitty did not like fair men. The transparency of Jochan’s delicate features, his elaborate and sincere courtesy even to servants, his engaging smile, all seemed to her to be covertly feminine. Moreover, he had long fled her bed and he kept his bedroom door locked, to Kitty’s acrid amusement. She was more like a little black cat than ever; she did not know that Jochan now found her horrendous and that, to him, she had a feral odor. She did not know that he had a complaisant and tender mistress, who loved and admired him. Had she learned about the woman, Kitty would have been incredulous and would have made a lewd remark reflecting on his manhood. Once she had said to a confidante, “Jochan is really a masculine Ellen Porter,” and had laughed gaily. “But perhaps I am exaggerating when I use the word ‘masculine’ in referring to Jochan.”

  Jochan was distressed at the loss of the major part of his fortune, for now he could not spend as much on his mistress. She assured him it did not matter. But it mattered to Jochan, who adored her. So when Jeremy, after his first year in Washington, asked him to be his assistant there at a more than generous salary, Jochan was overwhelmed with gratitude. He felt, for Jeremy, the devotion and admiration the less assertive feel for the man who possesses great personal authority, and never doubts his puissance. Jochan doubted his, for Kitty had been very frank on the subject over the years of their married life, and he had a deplorable habit of self-deprecation. Jeremy, who knew Jochan’s dedicated character, was fond of his friend.

  So Kitty, elated, and Jochan, anxious to be of the utmost assistance to Jeremy, moved to Washington, and settled in a small but charming house in Georgetown very near to the Porters’ larger and more elaborate establishment. Kitty, the socialite, soon made friends among Jeremy’s colleagues and their wives, and they were fascinated by her, as they were not by Ellen. Her worldliness, her startling wit, her original bons mots, her gracious desire to please—she was an expert at this when it was to her advantage—and her obvious sophistication, made her very popular almost immediately. Moreover, she had acquaintances in many of the embassies, and often spoke of her father, “the Senator.” She had ease and grace, gaiety and captivating manners, and her taste in clothes and jewelry and furnishings soon became famous, and she was consulted on dress even by the wives of Senators and ambassadors, and once the First Lady had asked her advice before a ball.

  Kitty was jubilant over all this. She felt herself to be in her rightful milieu, among the potent and influential people of America. She loved the strong scent of power; it was more exhilarating to her than wine or fine dinners. She often regretted that women could not vote, and believed that if they were given the vote she would herself be a member of Congress.

  She never stopped assiduously courting and deferring to Jeremy, who was, at last, becoming amused by her and more tolerant. She was now, more than ever, the confidante, guide, and devoted friend of Ellen, who was frightened by Washington and felt uneasy in assemblies, and trembled when invited to a large party in the White House. Ellen relied on her more and more, a trend which Kitty carefully cultivated. Kitty happily spent half her time in Washington, and half in New York, and could not understand Ellen’s dislike of the capital. “My dear,” she would say, “here is the very heart of the law of America. How is it possible you are not excited by all this?” Ellen was definitely not excited. She would look about her in strange fear during churning parties, and she rarely spoke, while Kitty moved about sinuously and rapidly, exquisitely arrayed, her conversation glittering and full of humor. She was a great favorite with the gentlemen, but she was very careful to bewitch their wives, too. No one noticed that she was really ugly; her vivacity even overcame the enormous white teeth which usually filled her small dark face. There were some who,
first calling those teeth “horse’s fangs,” came to admire them and consider them very attractive. Ellen would watch and listen to her with awe, and would feel crude and clumsy and stupidly mute.

  Kitty had been deeply tempted, at first, to guide Ellen in the purchasing of unbecoming clothes, clothes too tawdry and “actressy,” so that Ellen would be even less popular than she already was, and would be severely criticized. Then Kitty’s clever mind dissuaded her. She knew that Jeremy would be the first to notice and would blame her at once. Jeremy’s goodwill was the most vital element in her existence, both for her ambition and for her lust. However, most skillfully, she was undermining what little self-confidence the girl possessed, so that Ellen could hardly endure her brief visits to Washington, and came to believe that her presence there was detrimental to Jeremy’s career.

  When Ellen was absent, in New York, especially during the months of her second pregnancy, Kitty would give faultlessly appointed dinners for Jeremy in her Georgetown house. Even Jeremy was astonished at her range of acquaintances and friends. She was careful to flatter him and admire him in the presence of others, who would otherwise have been alienated by his “queer ideas” and his brusqueness, and as her flattery and admiration were quite sincere, and she daintily avoided fulsome obsequiousness and servility, even Senators began to approve of him, if with some caution and reservations. Because of Kitty—and this also amused Jeremy—he was invited to houses where he otherwise would not be a guest, and he was grateful to her for this. He, too, had ambitions, not entirely for himself but for his country. When President Roosevelt singled her out and called her “Kitty,” Jeremy thought that she deserved some little cultivation from him, if only in gratitude.