The Strong City

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  “But Joseph has you, and my father, and Franz,” he could not resist saying.

  “And so has Sigmund! Baldur, you are being unkind.”

  He was suddenly bored with her, and wished her to leave. This foolish woman, who had come to him instinctively, in her distraction! Now he had reassured her. She was herself again. The hostility she had developed for him under Franz’s expert hands had returned. She was no longer his, Baldur’s sister. She must really leave him alone! He put up his hand to hide, not too carefully, a polite yawn. He took up his book again. Yet, he was saddened, and felt infinitely lonely

  Then he had another thought. “Franz is in Windsor for a few days, and Pittsburgh. Men dislike changes in household routine. Why don’t you discharge Matilda before he returns?” He thought to himself: Why should I still be so concerned over her, and her safety, and her sanity?

  She stood up with new briskness, smoothing the white silk of her robe. “Do you think that would be best? As you say, Baldur, dear, men dislike changes so. And upsetting.”

  “I think it would be best, indeed. If you like, I shall discharge her, saving you the disagreeable duty. Today, perhaps? Before Papa returns? After all, you are mistress of this house, and she can say nothing.”

  She sighed, contentedly. She came to him now and kissed him lightly on the forehead. He endured the caress, his frail muscles tensing with sad repulsion. She touched his cheek with her little smooth hand. He tried to smile.

  “You are so encouraging, Baldur. You have made everything right again. I even forgive you for making Sigmund such a little wretch!” She laughed archly, and before he could speak again, she had floated from the room.

  He tried to resume his calm contemplation of the autumn day. But suddenly he felt a profound revulsion, and a sickness. The book dropped from his knee to the floor.

  “We live in a kind of Walpurgis Night,” he said to himself. “And the one sane one among us, the only healthy one, is Franz Stoessel. Because he is elemental. Because he knows what he wants. Because he is a demon.”

  Sighing, he rose and pulled the bell-rope for Matilda. She entered, fat, blonde, and belligerent, disdaining an attitude of respect for this miserable cripple, so sure was she of her position. She folded her arms upon her billowing breasts, thrust out her pink and heavy under lip, cocked her head, and eyed him in impudent silence tinged with contemptuous impatience.

  Baldur regarded her calmly. He had never favored this woman even with his scorn or disgust. It was paradoxically that in spite of his universal and detached compassion for all things, he had a certain aristocratic temper that hardly admitted humanity in servants and underlings, or those in obscure positions. He would never have imposed upon them, or treated them cruelly, but for him they existed only as animals existed, in a limbo beyond his kind. He spoke to them with an indifferent and impersonal kindness. But for Matilda he did not even have this kindness; he considered her unworthy of the mechanical respect he had for all useful things.

  “Matilda,” he said, calmly, “I am sorry to tell you that we have made certain other arrangements. Mrs. Stoessel, who is alone, and in a delicate condition, has decided that she needs the care and comfort of her nearest relative, our aunt, Mrs. Trenchard. Mrs. Trenchard has been invited to live with us here, and take charge of the household. You can see, therefore, that much as we regret this, it will be necessary for you to leave us.”

  Matilda’s large fat face expressed blank consternation for a few moments. Then she flushed violently, and her eyes glinted evilly. She drew a deep loud breath. Her lip thrust itself outwards like a shelf, and she regarded Baldur with infuriated detestation.

  “I shall ask Mr. Schmidt about this!” she exclaimed. And now she smiled with deliberate obscenity, and moved towards the door.

  “A moment,” said Baldur, gently, lifting his hand. His voice, though soft, arrested her, and she swung about, baring her teeth.

  Baldur helped himself to a cigarette, lit it with quiet deliberation.

  “Matilda,” he said, “you force me to be very harsh with you, and I regret this, remembering the years you have been with us. You have had—considerable influence over Mr. Schmid—”

  At this, she grinned broadly, put her hands akimbo on her hips, tossed her head.

  “O yes!” she said, in a loud slow voice. “I have been very good to Mr. Schmidt, and he will not forget!”

  Baldur shook his head regretfully.

  “And, we have not forgotten, Matilda.” He eyed her deliberately. “There is also something else I, myself, have not forgotten, though Mrs. Stoessel is happily ignorant of the matter. I remember, for instance, that Mr. Stoessel spent an evening with you, in your apartment. It was, no doubt, a very agreeable and very innocent evening, but Mrs. Stoessel might misunderstand this. And Mr. Schmidt, also.”

  A deep and dusky tide flowed over Matilda’s face. Her jaw fell open. She stared at Baldur with hatred and terror.

  But Baldur regarded the fingernails of his right hand meditatively.

  “Mr. Schmdt,” he went on, “has forgotten your existence for some time, Matilda. Nevertheless, he would be considerably annoyed if I told him of that very innocent and pleasant evening, Old gentlemen are peculiar about these things.” He paused. “In fact, if you should go to him, protesting about Mrs. Stoessel’s decision, I should be obliged to discuss the matter with him.”

  “He would not believe you!” she shouted, but she glanced fearfully over her shoulder.

  “Indeed he would,” said Baldur, with a regretful smile. “He knows that I have never lied to him. Moreover, I might even be obliged to accuse Mr. Stoessel in Mr. Schmidt’s presence, and that would make matters even more disagreeable. In the end, to restore family peace, you would have to leave, anyway. And, without the thousand dollars I am willing to give you now as a little remembrance for your years of good service. And without a character, which would hamper you in obtaining another position.”

  He continued, while she looked at him, distraught, at bay, and full of murderous rage:

  “There is also the matter of one of my mother’s diamond brooches. It has been missing since her death. Mrs. Stoessel has often wondered what became of it. Now, no doubt you know nothing about it, but the police would question you, and this, added to the fact that you would have no character references, would prevent you from finding another position.”

  “You are accusing me of stealing?” she demanded, now white as death, and consumed with terror. All her hatred was gone, and there was only shock remaining. Baldur felt some compunction. He had never believed for a moment that Matilda had been a thief. Nevertheless, he forced himself to be merciless. He shrugged.

  “Who knows?” he murmured. “A woman who has occupied a position such as you have occupied is always open to suspicion. I fear that prospective employers might take this into consideration.”

  She leaned against the wall, trembling, honestly overcome and brutally shocked. Baldur rose and went to his desk. He wrote a check, handed it to the quivering woman.

  “A thousand dollars,” he said, softly. “It is a lot of money. You have also received considerable money from my father, and many gifts. This should enable you to go to Pittsburgh, or Philadelphia, and establish yourself. Mrs. Stoessel, I know, will be glad to give you an excellent reference.”

  She stared blindly at the check. Her heavy features worked. She burst into tears. Then, without another word, she fumbled for the handle of the door, opened it, and left the room, walking as if dazed.

  Ruthlessness, thought Baldur, with a wry smile, has its uses, especially when dealing with the ruthless.

  CHAPTER 11

  One evening, just before Christmas, Hans Schmidt, old, feeble, silent and hesitating, came into the vast dim diningroom where his daughter and son were already at the table, waiting for him. He walked with a slow uncertain step, peering about him, like a man half-blind, through his spectacles, frowning with only a shadow of his old formidable glance. He fumbled for hi
s chair with such a helpless seeking hand that Baldur, against all the memories of his father’s brutality, derision and hate, rose quickly and helped him into his seat. He expected a look of repudiation and detestation, a brusque waving aside, as though Baldur had offered him pollution.

  But Baldur, already beginning to shrink instinctively, and with apprehension, for these expected manifestations, was astounded to observe that his father, from his chair, looked up at him with strange and suddenly awakening eyes. Those eyes held the crippled man, and his hand remained on the back of the chair while he looked down with quick attentiveness at his father.

  “You are well, my father?” he asked, in Hans’s beloved German. It was not often that he spoke in this language to Hans. When alone, he loved the sound of his father’s tongue. When with Hans, he loathed it, never spoke it, and even, with rare malice, used complicated English terms in order to bemuddle the old man. That was the only method in which he could employ delicate revenge for a whole lifetime of vicious enmity and persecution.

  Hans did not reply. He still continued to regard Baldur with that long strange look, which his son, in spite of his usual astuteness and sharpness of perception, could not interpret.

  Ernestine, who was inspecting the beef-broth with assumed criticalness, glanced up, concerned. “Papa, you are feeling better today?”

  Hans, slowly and with great effort, turned his eyes away from his son and regarded her blankly. He began to blink. He had been at home, now, for nearly a week, mumbling something about his headaches, backaches, and rheumatism. But he had spent his days locked in his room, refusing medical treatment. What he did in his rooms no one knew. He appeared at meals, and sat through them, silent, hardly eating. Only when Franz entered did he come alive, and then with a watchful aliveness in which there was no affection or interest, but only the attitude of a threatened and helpless animal.

  Tonight, Franz had not appeared. He had left a message in the morning that he “might” go to Windsor to see Mr. Jules Bouchard, and “might” be delayed until the next day. As he made frequent short journeys away from Nazareth, the family was accustomed to these absences.

  Ernestine began to prattle with the high light nervousness which was now habitual to her.

  “I shall be so glad when Aunt Elizabeth comes after Christmas,” she said, trying to make conversation in the immense and hollow gloom, which was only dimly lighted by the great crystal chandeliers. “Since Matilda left, I am in such a muddle. So distressing. The servants do as they wish, serve what they wish.”

  “You have only to give orders to Mrs. Flaherty,” said Baldur.

  Ernestine raised her finely marked dark brows helplessly. “But I can see that she thinks I am incompetent,” she protested. “I order goose, and chicken appears. ‘Geese are not good this time of year,’ she will say, without apology. It is very disturbing.”

  There was a little rattle of china, as Hans’s thick blind hand missed the saucer with his cup. A long thin stream of coffee trailed across the white cloth. Ernestine saw this. She pressed her pale lips together in a thin line, and gave her brother a tight exasperated look. Gillespie came forward quickly, slipped a napkin under Hans’s plate. The old man watched him dully; his eyes moved like those of an infant’s, mechanically, without comprehension. His fat body had fallen together, pulplike, these last few months, until it was a shapeless mass. His chins hung flabbily on his chest, his cravat awry. His fat square hands trembled continuously. There was a blankness, an abstraction about him, as though he were drugged. His broadcloth, his linen, always so immaculate, now were dusty and stained and wrinkled. His fingernails were dirt-rimmed. But it was his expression that was so marked, so blank was it, so helplessly abstracted, so lightless, so thickened, so dull. Ernestine saw nothing of it. She only knew, vaguely, that her father had no vitality any longer, no fierceness, no vehemence or violence. In a way, she considered this an improvement. He was becoming a proper, “nice” old man. Besides, Papa was really growing old. Franz had so kindly expressed his concern to her. Papa, he would say, with a disturbed look, had worked too hard all his life. It was time that he should rest, remain at home with his daughter and his grandchildren. He was exhausted. There was a time when a man must retire. But, he, Franz, would be the last to suggest this to Ernestine’s father, who, like many tiresome old men, believed himself indispensable. “And dear Franz so considerate, so competent, so well able to take care of dull business matters himself,” Ernestine would mourn to her brother, with more than a little impatience and bewilderment. “Papa ought to realize that the mills can be in no better hands. He ought to realize that he is too old to make decisions, and he should be thankful that he has some one like Franz to assume responsibility and management.” She added: “I have suggested to Franz that he speak to Papa, himself, but he is so considerate, so careful of others’ feelings.”

  To this, Baldur had said nothing. But he remembered. He particularly remembered, tonight, after his father had given him that long strange regard, blind, yet oddly seeing. His own expression became dark and somber, and he ate silently.

  Ernestine had become a pale, thin, shrewish woman, with restless eyes and a nervous, irritable manner. Everything annoyed her, except Franz, whom she adored with a slavish preoccupation. She was large with child, and her sallow skin was threaded with visible veins. Her small hands, delicate and uncertain, had become brownish in tint, and spotted. She brushed her dark curly hair severely about her head, and piled it on top, unbecomingly. She wore “wrappers” at home, of dull brown silk or deep blue, severe of line, though ruffled with lace at the throat. She imagined that she had become a competent wife and mother, and her petulant severity with the servants would have sent them packing their bags, had they not been so long in the service of the Schmidts. As it was, Mrs. Flaherty, who had assumed the position of temporary housekeeper, found it difficult to keep parlor- and chambermaids, who all complained of Ernestine’s peevishness and unpredictability and irritable impatience. They disliked her, while not respecting her. Her contradictory orders, her flurries, her complaints, her disorder of mind, impressed them with her futility and lack of sense. The children’s governess, Miss Hortense Whitmore, an Englishwoman, definitely despised her.

  Ernestine was certain that she, herself, was a brisk competent woman, continually frustrated and beset by a family that was most unsatisfactory. There was Papa, who was so tiresome, and worse than a child himself, and becoming so feeble and obstinate. There was Baldur, locked in his rooms, shutting out poor Franz, who loved music so, and being so uncivil and sardonic with Franz during their encounters at the dining table. And worse then all, upholding that horrible little Sigmund in his tantrums and his moods, and brooding over the child as though he were persecuted and misunderstood, instead of having a Mama who really lived only for her family. Baldur was really impossible, she had concluded, angrily. Truly, it was disgusting, the way he smirked at Franz, when Franz attempted a brotherly friendliness and amiability, and tried to draw Baldur into a discussion of politics, or music, or literature. It was as though Baldur were amused by Franz, an impossible and outrageous situation! And really cruel of them all, in view of her present condition. She was so overburdened! The servants were not like the servants of her girlhood, swift, respectful, competent, obedient. They were impudent, and given to flouncing out of the house. One of them had even been guilty of slapping dear little Joseph vigorously, when he playfully bit her on the arm. Servants had no understanding of children, no tenderness. Simply animals. She had had to discharge one governess, who had soundly trounced Joseph for beating Sigmund. Children must learn to fight their own battles, she had said largely and indignantly to Franz, that night. Miss Schultz was a brute. There was actually a mark on little Joseph’s cheek, where the bestial woman had struck him. And it was certainly high time that Sigmund learned to be a little man, instead of a whining little creature, who frequently flew into impotent rages. Miss Whitmore had reported that on one occasion he had taken a h
eavy iron figurine and had begun to attack Joseph with it when the poor child had only meant a little playful teasing. Only in Franz and Joseph did she find comfort and sustenance, she would complain.

  It was a relief to her when Franz, always so considerate, packed her and the child and the governess and two maids off to Asbury Park, or the mountains, or Atlantic City in the summer. And he was so pleased by the coming of Aunt Elizabeth. She spoke of this often to Baldur, with a smiling, childlike complacency, completely forgetting that it was her brother who had suggested this originally. Franz always wanted to spare her, she would assert. She had apparently forgotten the dream her more intelligent soul had forced upwards into her conscious mind.

  It was Franz, too, who agreed with her that this horrible old house was no longer a fit place for the family. The street was definitely deteriorating. Why, there was actually a Hungarian doctor in the next block, and a coarse German scientist who had been imported to teach at Nazareth’s new medical college! Such an impossible boorish man, not a German like dear Franz or Papa. Possibly even a Jew! Then, the mansion itself had seemed to grow gloomier, darker and more inconvenient. Papa disliked gas so, and consequently it was rarely used in the house. He loved his smelly old oil lamps and candles. The old were so tedious and lacked progressive thoughts, and distrusted the new. When she, Ernestine, had installed a telephone, he had raged for days, and literally screamed profane remarks when its tinkle sounded through the rooms.

  But Franz was so considerate, dear Franz! He had gently explained to her that it would be cruel to insist on detaching the old man from the mansion which represented to him his lifetime of work and success. (As if the “success” were not entirely of Franz’s doing! But then, Franz was so modest, so dear, so good!) “He is old, and hasn’t so much more time to live,” he would say to Ernestine, fondly smoothing her hair, or her hand. “Let him live in peace. When he has gone, then we shall consider a fine new house in the suburbs, more in keeping with our position.”