He stared, unbelieving. “Peter!” And then again, louder, “Peter!”
She laughed at him, with enjoyment “You look just like a stuck pig, your eyes sticking out that way! Don’t take it so serious. Well, it’s serious in a way. Young girls like that always get ideas when a Galahad, with white plumes, bursts in on them. They do love Galahads! ‘My strength is as the strength of ten, because my heart is pure!’” And her laughter ran out through all the leafy sun-torn silence of the park.
Christopher stared at her grimly. But he hardly saw her. He was thinking rapidly. She shook her finger at him with increasing derision.
“I can hear the chromium wheels turning! Isn’t it too bad that the law is so particular about murder? You could commit murder right now, couldn’t you, pet?”
His lips tightened until they were merely a pale gash. Then he rode on without her. Edith, still laughing, followed. She caught up with him. They rode out into the brilliant morning sunlight. Christopher’s face looked wizened and old and evil.
She spoke lightly to that razor-sharp profile: “You think it’s the end of the world, don’t you? For you? Well, you are an incredible ass. I know young girls; believe it or not, I was one once myself, but not such a little feeble-wit as Celeste. There is a time in a girl’s life when nothing but a haloed saint with heroic words can make the little heart go pit-a-pat. Celeste has reached that time. I’m sorry if I spoke too seriously about it. I thought you’d be sensible, and understand that something must be done before it’s too late. Peter’s just as tremulous as she is. But he’s full of honor, he is! He won’t lay a finger on the gal until the all’s-clear is sounded. You’ve got that to be thankful for.
“Be sensible. You look as if you’re about to ride up to Celeste and drag her off her horse and beat the life out of her. That won’t do at all. You’ve got to use the light touch. And humor. Make fun of Peter. Infer things. If they’re scurvy things, all the better. But make haste slowly. And for Heaven’s sake, don’t let Henri know anything.”
He relaxed. He could even smile a little, thinly. He reined in, and turned to her. “Thanks, Edith.” He smiled even more. “Maybe I’d better marry you, after all. You’re a bright girl!” He paused. His smile was almost a grin. “I’ll give the matter serious consideration—after Celeste and Henri are married.”
She raised her eyebrows quizzically. “Is that a bribe for my assistance?”
“Perhaps.”
They rode on. Celeste and Henri had stopped at some distance, and had dismounted. Henri was pointing at something with his crop, and Celeste was listening, a light graceful figure in her habit.
“Remember, move delicately,” warned Edith. “Don’t let her suspect. I have an idea the poor little thing doesn’t know what is the matter, anyway. Don’t precipitate anything by words. There’s no damage done—yet. Don’t alarm her and confer importance on Peter.”
Celeste turned her head as Christopher rode up and dismounted. She smiled at him. A moment ago he had been filled with rage against her. Now, as he saw her smile, the first pure compassion he had ever felt for anyone struck him like a physical pain. He realized how much he truly loved his young sister. His rage, deflected, turned to Peter Bouchard, who was directly responsible for this white bemused smile and those tired young eyes. For some split seconds his concern was all for Celeste, and not for himself. This gave him a curiously disoriented sensation, as though he had been disembodied.
Henri had been telling Celeste how much more pleasant the park would be if it were private. Now, the park was no fit place for decent people; it was filled at all hours with infernal brats, the children of the city scum. Barbour Park, he pointed out, had been given to the city by old Ernest Barbour as a magnanimous gift, and a perpetual fund had been established to preserve and increase its beauties. “As if scum appreciate beauty and air and space!” exclaimed Henri derisively. “From what I have heard of my illustrious ancestor, he was not afflicted with Victorian sentimentality, nor with any particular love for the ‘peepul.’ He understood them only too well. So, this Park remains a mystery to me.”
“Maybe great-grandpa had a twinge of conscience,” said Edith, yawning.
“Twinges of conscience,” said Henri, smiling, “invariably come with twinges of rheumatism.”
Celeste said nothing. She gazed at the open vista of brilliant green grass and glittering trees and fountains. Children were racing round a wide marble pool, running about its brim. Their reflections raced darkly with them, gesticulated with them. Christopher was about to add his tart remarks to Henri’s, then remembered Edith’s clever advice. He put his arm about his sister, and said: “Oh, I don’t know, Henri. After all, as you know, the first fundamental of economics is that value is created by people, by the presence of people. This Park, with only a few of us attenuated anemics around, wouldn’t have much value, real or sentimental. Besides, whoever told you that the earth, and the fulness thereof, are our exclusive property?”
Henri was somewhat surprised at this Biblical dissertation, and turned to glance at his cousin. Edith, however, smiled faintly in the background.
“What the hell!” said Henri. And then he caught Christopher’s narrow eyes, and saw his imperceptible jerk of the head at Celeste. The girl had been listening to her brother; she was smiling. Henri had noticed her paleness and quietness during the last few weeks, and had been silently concerned over them, attributing them to the unusual excitement of her engagement. But he understood Christopher immediately, and he pursed his lips thoughtfully.
“Perhaps you’re right,” he said, affecting a grudging tone. “I suppose it’s just that I’ve lived too long in bloody old England.”
“You’ve lost a sense of democracy,” said Christopher. Over Celeste’s bared dark head they exchanged a quick indulgent smile and wink.
Edith’s watchful eyes narrowed, her cold expression grew even colder. She was ashamed. She felt that she had witnessed something indecent. Selfish and reserved, she nevertheless had considerable integrity. Her shame extended to herself. She had to remind herself forcibly of Peter’s imbecility before this shame receded. “Let’s go back. I’m hungry,” she said abruptly, and swung back into her saddle. She was well in advance before the others followed.
She felt that Celeste, not Henri, was profiting from the approaching marriage. He could have done better, she often told herself. Whatever sort of husband he would make, Celeste gained. Henri was a man, with something of the early Victorian’s solidity and strength and inexorableness. Other young men looked like foxes in comparison. And yet, as she rode ahead, breaking into a gallop, she wondered uneasily about Celeste. Perhaps old Adelaide was right; perhaps a marriage however desirable in point of material benefits needed something else. Henri would console himself; his sister had no doubt about it. But what about Celeste? Once trampled, would she ever revive?
Breakfast was waiting for them at Robin’s Nest. It was Sunday morning, and in an hour Celeste and Edith would go to church. They went to church once a month, for it was expected of them. Their ancestors had founded and supported it.
Henri, at breakfast, kept glancing at his morning newspaper and commenting on it to the others. Russia was buying an enormous lot of planes both from France and the United States, he said. “Of course, for Germany. But, it’ll take years before Germany is thoroughly re-armed, and ready for business.”
Celeste, who had been silently drinking coffee, her sole breakfast, asked: “Do you think there’ll ever be another war?”
Henri glanced at her with quick humor. How pretty she was, was his private commentary. Her hair was disordered; the deep pallor of her complexion made her large ringed eyes more beautifully blue than usual. He said: “Naturally, my innocent. There’ll always be wars, just as there always have been wars.”
She put down her cup, and regarded him with passionate earnestness. He was surprised and somewhat puzzled. “But —Peter says that another war will be the end of our civilization,” she sa
id.
They all laughed. Henri put his elbows on the table and looked at her affectionately, after the laughter had died down. “Don’t believe it, little lamb. There have been many wars and somehow people survived and civilization, too. In fact, they often helped civilization. The Crusades, for instance, with their wars against the Turks, and other nice little enormities, made Europeans realize what serfdom to religion can do to nations. So, out went bondage to the Church. It took centuries, but all our present-day liberalism and intellectual freedom are due to conflict, usually armed and bloody, between the people and religion. So, if we have another war, we’ll profit by it, perhaps.”
“Don’t you mean, you’ll profit by it?”
There was a moment’s silence. Henri and Christopher exchanged a glance. Henri smiled. “Of course, my dear. But so will the rest of the people. Look at our prosperity.”
“But what about Germany, Henri? What about France? Did they profit?”
Henri’s voice was patient, the voice of a teacher explaining to a child. “Does one care what happened to Germany? She deserved what she got—”
“Do you believe that, Henri?” To his amazement, the girl’s eyes were full of tears, and her mouth was shaken with anger.
Henri’s smile faded. He decided to take a serious view of this foolishness. He said gravely: “Look here, Celeste, some idiot has been tampering with your common sense. Let’s be reasonable. Wars, like any other business, are run for profit. They’re no longer conflicts between ideologies. And we’re realistic enough, these days, to understand that profits and economic advantages are the only things worth fighting for. They’re the only things we ever did fight for, really, but the people had to be fooled with pretty slogans and such assininities. Now, they’re enlightened; most of them, anyway. We’ve still got tin trumpets for the fools, but the others believe their bellies are more important than their souls. Germany, in the last war, was not defeated on the battlefields. She was defeated in Jay Regan’s office, and in the offices of Wall Street and of the Bank of England, and the Bank of Paris, and even of the Bank of Berlin.”
Celeste’s face was very white, but her eyes were steady and resolute. “And you don’t think problems like economics and private profits can be settled by conference and negotiation?”
Henri laughed with returned indulgence. “Don’t be silly; pf course not. What! Rob the dear people of a chance to cut each other’s throats? Rob them of the chance to stop struggling for existence in factories, and to rely upon the government, and wear pretty uniforms and be told what to do? Dear child, you don’t know human nature at all. Oh, I’ve heard Peter’s arguments before. But they’re highfalutin’ and silly. Ask the average man which he would prefer: to negotiate fairly for a profit with an antagonist, or to murder him and take it all.”
Celeste was silent a moment, and then she said: “Suppose this is so: are we, then, to be at the will of moron mobs, who prefer killing to negotiation?”
Christopher, with gratification, realized that this was no lesson from Peter, and he was pleased with Celeste’s astuteness.
Henri shrugged. He lifted his hands and let them drop. “Why not, honey? Let them kill; after all, as Christopher said just this morning, the people are entitled to their pleasure, too. And our pleasure consists in profits. Everybody’s satisfied.”
Celeste bent her head. “There is something wrong with your argument, Henri. It seems to me we ought to go to work and eliminate killers from society—”
“We do,” he replied, with another wink at Christopher. “We let them have wars, and they kill each other off. It saves the rest of us a lot of trouble.”
But Celeste’s resolute eyes were lifted to his face again, and she pursued with quiet tenacity: “But what about the rest of us, who aren’t killers? And the children who are bombed in cities?”
“That,” said Henri with great seriousness, “is too bad. I admit it. But who is the minority, to prevent the majority from having their fun? I’m afraid you aren’t very democratic, pet.”
Edith’s cool laughter filled the breakfast room, and the canaries in their cages near the window responded with excited twitterings. But Celeste did not laugh. She looked slowly from one smiling face to the other. Now she was white to the lips.
“You almost make me believe that the world is composed of feeble-minded killers, and the clever ones who profit by the killings,” she said.
“Quite true. It’s always been true,” said Henri. “You’ve got to accept things as they are, Celeste. If you don’t, you’ll never be happy.”
Celeste turned her beautiful head and gazed through the windows. Christopher frowned. He had never seen this expression on the girl’s face before, so meditative, and so sad, and yet, so understanding. “I’ve never been happy,” she said. “I didn’t understand anything. I—I wasn’t really conscious. Unconsciousness isn’t happiness; if it were, only the unborn and the dead are happy. And I can’t accept ‘things as they are,’ Henri. I don’t believe ‘they are.’ You call it realism; I call it fatalism. I prefer to believe you can make the things ‘that are,’ the things they should be. If this belief will make me unhappy, I would rather not be what you call ‘happy.’”
Christopher thought it time to interpose. “Don’t take things so seriously, Celeste. Henri is just teasing you. After all, we are all civilized, and we don’t want wars any more than you do. Or Peter does. I hope you haven’t believed his ridiculous accusations against us? Celeste?” he added in a louder tone, when she did not answer.
Edith was no longer smiling. She had leaned back in her chair. Her quick dark eyes studied each one in turn. Her expression was somber. When her eye touched Celeste it quickened into uneasy pity.
Celeste replied at last, in her strange meditative voice: “I do believe him when he says that the next war will almost, if not quite, kill our civilization. It will be the most terrible war of all.”
Christopher fumed. “But, Celeste, Henri has just told you: war has never ended any civilizations; it has merely replaced outworn ones with new ones. And so far as I can see, the new has been an improvement.”
Celeste sighed. “Peter has been travelling ever since the War. He says the next will be the end, because there’s something missing in all people now. Even in the Middle Ages, there were some conscience and some compassion and goodness. But now, there aren’t. It seems as if all the good men have been killed, or imprisoned. Our civilization, Peter says, has failed, because it has discarded all belief in the progress of the mind, and has lost all reverence for the good. Oh, I know you’ll say we’re not worse than other generations. But we are, you know,” she said simply. “We really are.”
The others stared at each other blankly. “Of all the imbecility!” exclaimed Christopher, coldly infuriated. “But that comes of your association with Peter the Dim-Wit! I’m surprised at you, Celeste. You’re not a child, and ought to have more intelligence.”
But Henri felt that something important, something which threatened him, was working in this young girl’s clear and seeking mind. He ignored Christopher’s anger, and spoke gently and seriously: “You’re so inexperienced, Celeste. Peter’s been putting half-baked ideas into your head. You’re just like a child who’s been drinking on the sly. For instance, your idea that the people today are worse than their ancestors: that’s ridiculous. We’re not. We’re better in some ways. Suppose there is a war; we’ll survive. Our civilization will benefit. We don’t have racial and religious persecutions, for instance, as we had only a century or so ago. We don’t have pogroms and massacres in the name of religion or race. No man is persecuted today, for being what he is by birth. Don’t you think that is a gain? And don’t you think that past wars for freedom have had something to do with this?”
Celeste gazed at him with passionate concentration. He looked into her eyes, so young, so intense, so beautiful. His own eyes suddenly flickered, moved slightly from focus. But he smiled.
“And you don’t think religi
ous and racial persecutions will ever come again, Henri?” she asked.
“Of course they won’t, sweetheart. They can’t. They’ve been fought against for centuries, and tolerance has finally won. You’ve got to thank wars for that, you see—”
Celeste said with merciless and youthful logic: “If this is so, and we don’t have racial antagonisms any more, how can you make future wars, then?”
Henri threw up his hands and laughed helplessly. “I give up! You ought to have been a lawyer. Besides, who said I make ‘future wars’? I’m not interested in wars. Besides, I’m bored. Let’s change the subject.”
Edith moved back her chair. “I’m, too. Celeste, if we’re going to church, we’d better hurry.” She stood up. Henri and Christopher stood up, also. But Celeste still sat. Her eyes still had their passionate concentration as she looked only at Henri.
“Do you know why I said I’d marry you, Henri? Because you weren’t connected with Bouchard.”
Henri was taken aback. His brows drew together. Then he looked at Christopher. He smiled, laid his hand on Celeste’s shoulder.
“All right, dear. I’m not connected with Bouchard—actively. And now, are you going to church, or not?”
Celeste sat with Edith in the family pew in the small but exquisite church which Ernest Barbour had built. It was dim in here, but the handsome stained-glass windows were brilliant with colored light. The upper columns moved in a sort of misty radiance. Few people were in church, for the day was warm and inviting. The minister in his pulpit was a dull figure, without inspiration, and had bored Celeste all her life. He believed ardently in private property and the sacrosanct qualities of those who possessed it. He was their priest, and this church was their altar. He never forgot the family who supported it and himself.
Celeste sat quietly. She did not move. Her pale face was an absorbed and saddened disk in the musty gloom. She did not know that Edith was watching her with furtive intentness. Her hands lay quietly on her knee, and she hardly seemed to breathe. She was not listening to the minister but to her own thoughts.
The Eagles Gather Page 31