Bright Flows the River

by Taylor Caldwell

  Those very small expressionless eyes focused directly on James who was again startled. “Well,” he said, “we are supposed to have a reverence for life, and to extend it as long as possible. We are supposed to alleviate pain of both the body and the mind.”

  Charles sighed. “Jerald is in pain, all right. Terrible pain. No doubt unendurable. We can’t possibly understand it. What is one man’s trivial trouble is another man’s tragedy. From what I’ve heard there’re no circumstances in his present life which have precipitated this conscious, or unconscious, drive to death. Nothing wrong anywhere. Nothing unusual has happened to him, nothing disturbing. From all accounts his outward life is serene. Emil mentioned that you told him that for a number of years his letters to you were lifeless and indifferent. That is indicative of intense depression. Yes. He has no disease which threatens his life, nor has his family. On the surface he should be the happiest of men, instead of the most wretched.”

  He waited for some comment from James, then when James remained silent Charles went on. “Have you any ideas—James?”

  “I’m sorry to say, no. None at all.” Then his vivid eyes came even more alive. “I just thought of something else!” He sat up quickly in his chair. “When we were in the war together, Jerry was very young, younger than myself. He had had, he told me, only a preparatory—high school—education, as you call it in America. But I saw he had a really tremendous mind. Actually, it was most unusual for a raw country lad, as he called himself. Or, rather, he called himself a hillbilly.” James paused, and began to frown to himself.

  “I understand he went to college under the G.I. Bill,” said Charles, and now the stony eyes were deep and interested.

  “Yes. So he wrote me. He studied architecture, I believe, though didn’t complete the course. His mind was so enormously restless. Well. We were in a little town in Germany, and resting, so we could let the Russians have the honor of being the victors.” James smiled derisively. “Those were the orders to both the Americans and the British. I was an ambulance driver, by the way. I used to race cars at home, and I suppose, in their dreamy way, the authorities considered me just the chap to drive an ambulance. Well. I always had the thought that there was something else he wanted. To study medicine. It’s a little obscure to me just now, but I think I was on the right track. That’s not the point I wanted to bring out just now, though.

  “A friend sent me a book of poems by my favorite poet, John Donne. One of the most lucid minds of his generation. Jerry would listen to me while I read the poetry to him, and I must say that he became very alert during those sessions. There was one stanza of a certain poem which he memorized, and would quote aloud, to himself:

  “Go, and catch a falling star,

  Get with child a mandrake root.

  Tell me, where all past years are,

  Or who cleft the Devil’s foot.

  “Now, why that particular stanza so fascinated him is beyond me. He never explained. It is a very eerie piece at that, and if you try to understand it precisely it escapes you. You have to know it by a supercerebral process—or something. It’s more a matter of feeling than of precision and cold reason. Some would call it extrasensory perception. At least, that’s my opinion.”

  Charles had listened closely. Then he nodded. “That’s my opinion, too. There’s a clue there.” He stopped. The three men looked at the fire, and it was as if each were entirely alone. Then Charles sighed again, and spoke as though he were reflecting aloud.

  “Contrary to the general opinion—and the opinion of psychiatrists, too—routine is not the deadening process it is ritualistically supposed to be. For the majority of us it is lifesaving, a source of unshakable security. It’s what makes most lives endurable, even significant. It keeps instinctive terror under reasonable restraint, chaos ignored, the universe comfortably explained. It is the nursemaid and the maternal protection of timid little souls.

  “But for the rare personality, security, comfort, the attainment of long objectives and ambitions, routine, can be deadly, actually killing. It can destroy life itself. An old doctor once told me, ‘When a rut becomes deep enough it becomes your grave.’ Yes. I think we have a dim clue here, though not the whole picture.”

  “Nobody ever saw the whole picture of anyone else,” said James, “That’s what makes life so dangerous, so intriguing, so poignant, and interesting. We move about like blind beasts in a forest at midnight, without a star or a moon, sensing the presence of each other, feeling terrified, running, avoiding, and sometimes, pathetically, trying to make contact with another frightened warm body. That’s what bothers me about a lot of my fellow psychiatrists. Many superbly feel they understand everything about the human psyche; they carve slots for others to neatly fit in. That’s arrogance of the worst kind, and the most blasphemous. We can only fumble about, hoping to touch others once in a while, or hear an answering voice. Pardon me. I am riding my favorite hobby-horse—”

  Now a smile of deep sweetness appeared astonishingly on Charles’s face. “I think,” he said, “you’ll be very good for Guy Jerald. What do you think, Emil?”

  “I’m sure of it,” said Emil, standing up. “Now, it’s agreed that James shall be alone with Guy, completely alone, and for as long and as frequently as possible.”

  4

  Emil and James were almost literally wafted to the fifth floor on velvet ropes. A few men and women occupied the elevator with them, all nicely clothed in country tweeds or trim city garb. All seemed preoccupied but none appeared distressed. They murmured together in calm tones, and no one fidgeted or showed any agitation. James pondered on this. Either mental illness was comfortably accepted as almost normal among the rich, or they honestly did not give a damn for those unfortunates whom they were about to visit. Either attitude was depressing to him.

  Then he noticed a woman at the rear of the elevator who did not resemble the others at all. She was unusually tall for a woman, and thin nearly to the point of emaciation. She seemed to be a woman approaching fifty, and obviously not as well-to-do as the other occupants of the elevator. She was adequately clothed against the weather in a heavy brown wool coat with large black buttons, and she wore a green tam-o’-shanter on a rather disheveled mass of fine and brilliantly copper hair, straight and hastily pinned at the temples. Her boots were sturdy and there were evidences of mud about the soles. Her gloves were brown wool; she held them in her right hand and James saw that her hands, surprisingly classical and slender, were red and rough about the knuckles, and the nails were clean but unvarnished. James was firmly convinced that he could tell the character and status of people by their clothing, and their attitude towards life, and he found himself thinking: Why, here is a typical English lady in for a few hours from the country. Not too horsy, but very much county, and an obvious dog lover. She makes the other women in this elevator look like the pretentiously genteel, the lowbred nouveau riche. A fine woman.

  He stared openly and with increasing interest at the lady, who was not in the least “glamorous” or even pretty in the American sense of the term. Her face was too thin and too strongly marked with intelligent and indomitable character, though the features were delicate and sensitive. She was in profile to James, and he saw that that profile had a certain humorous pugnacity about it, accompanied by a subtle blend of irony and challenge. Here was a woman who tolerated no nonsense. She wore no cosmetics: her skin was fair but heavily layered with bright freckles. Her nose was blunt and upturned and a trifle fleshy with flaring nostrils. Her mouth was very pale but beautifully formed, and her chin small and firm. She seemed intent on some deep thought, for the coppery eyelashes, fine but thick, scarcely moved in any blinking. She was at once very plain yet fascinating, and her appearance was unusual and well bred.

  She must have felt James’s concentrated regard, for she suddenly turned full face to him as if he had addressed her. And so he saw her eyes, startlingly large and full and radiant with intelligence. They were the color of a certain Hungari
an wine he particularly liked, Tokay, tawny and sparkling and inclined to be heady. They were most aware and perceptive, and suddenly, to James, she was beautiful in spite of her lack of artifice, in spite of her frank plainness; in spite of her extreme thinness and lack of feminine hips. He also saw, in a flash, that here was a most sensual and passionate woman, and he was stirred to a deeper admiration.

  Then he heard Emil say, “Good morning.”

  She smiled at Emil, a faint smile both remote and polite, and she also said, “Good morning—Doctor.” Her voice was unexpectedly warm and deep, if reserved.

  Emil was hesitating. Then the door opened and they all trooped out. James lifted his eyebrows inquiringly, but Emil only shrugged and waited until the woman had approached the receptionist’s desk, which was manned by two pretty nurses in smart uniforms. Then Emil said in a low voice, “We don’t know who the hell she is, but she comes at least once a week to ask about Jerald. She’s given only her name. Just calls herself a ‘friend.’ The girls have been trained not to give out information to unidentified people about any patient, but there’s something about this woman—I usually leave a message for her, as reassuring as possible.”

  “Jerry’s mistress, perhaps?”

  Emil laughed shortly. “I don’t think so. Not his type, from what I’ve heard and obviously too old for him. No charm; no seductiveness; nothing coquettish, nothing overtly sexual. All we know of her is that she is a Mrs. or Miss Turner.”

  The woman was leaning over the desk and one of the nurses was apparently giving her the message Emil had left for her yesterday. She was listening with a profound attention. She showed no emotion. Then she left the desk and was coming towards the two psychiatrists, and the elevator. She looked paler than before. She was so preoccupied that she almost collided with the two men. Emil gently caught, her arm and she uttered a faint sound.

  She said, “He isn’t getting better, is he?”

  Emil hesitated. “Miss Turner, these illnesses take time to heal. He’s no worse, let us say. His condition is stationary. We hope for some improvement soon.”

  “That really means nothing, does it?”

  James smiled. Yes, the challenge was there and the impatience of a challenger. Emil said, “It means something to me. Miss Turner, why do you refuse to let me tell Mr. Jerald you come here to find out how he is? It might help him.”

  She shook her head and a strand of that violently red-copper hair fell across her face and she pushed it back. “No. He has to ask for me himself. He knows where to find me. He must make up his own mind.”

  “About what, Miss Turner?” Emil spoke gently but with interest.

  “About many things. Until he does he will be ill.”

  “Really? What makes you come to that conclusion?”

  “I know. That’s all I can tell you.” At once those tawny eyes were dark with pain. “And I have your promise that he mustn’t know I come here.” It was almost a stern admonition. “It could only make him worse.”

  She nodded quickly and went into the elevator. Emil said, “Quite a mystery, isn’t it?”

  “The lady intrigues me,” said James. “I know her sort well. She is a rarity in America, I’m sure. I’d wager she never told a lie in her life, not because she has principles against lying but simply because she is incapable of it. Noblesse oblige, courtesy of nature.”

  “She doesn’t look very prosperous, James.”

  “One can’t be sure of that. She dresses exactly like the county ladies in England, no fuss and feathers, just plain common sense and sturdiness. All utility. I’m positive she could afford fashionable clothes, if she liked. But she doesn’t ‘like.’ What cheekbones she has, broad and almost transparent. An aristocratic face, imperious, gaunt, dauntless, intrepid—totally brave and heroic. I think there’s more to this situation than meets the eye.”

  Emil said again, “From what I’ve heard, she isn’t Jerald’s type. I went into that thoroughly. About half the women he’d had all over the state, and in New York and points east and west, north and south, oddly resemble his wife. Just sheer vapid prettiness. The other half—well you can find them in the less expensive bordellos. Coarse, rowdy, stupid, and oozing raw sex. Miss Turner, or Mrs. Turner, if that’s really her name, doesn’t look like his wife or his whores. There’s nothing very attractive about her, though I admit she has extraordinary eyes and a certain air.”

  They were walking down a broad corridor handsomely paved with thick lengths of oriental rugs in very vivid colors. Small crystal chandeliers dripped twinkling light from the high arched ceiling. The corridor was lined with carved oaken doors, solid and closed. There was nothing institutional about this corridor. Nurses passed them, but they moved in sedate silence, no bustling, no hurry. Doctors gravely consulted each other outside of those mute doors, or had retired to an occasional bay-windowed alcove filled with excellent furniture. One could not tell, from looking at the tall windows, that they were barred. They merely seemed latticed. A gentle warmth flowed down the corridor. As usual, everything’s overheated in America, thought James. He felt uncomfortable in his thick tweeds.

  “There are only suites on this floor,” Emil said. “This is the most expensive section of Mountain Valleys. Only private nurses in attendance. Guy has three of them, all around the clock. As he never stops smoking, they are necessary. Not that there is much danger of suicide—but we take precautions. Guy is never alone. I have the impression that that infuriates him, but you can’t tell.”

  “As long as he doesn’t become passive—” James suggested.

  “Well, sometimes he doesn’t move for hours, but there’s nothing passive about him. That lady we just encountered knows more than we do. She’s come to the same conclusion about him without having seen him since he was brought here. Damn it, I wish she’d open her mouth and tell us! Looks like a schoolteacher, to me.”

  They were passing another alcove. Emil paused and looked within. A tall old priest with a very angry face was standing in the center of the alcove, and was moving his arms rapidly if stiffly, emphasizing what he was saying in a rude rough voice. His tone was not only enraged but disgusted. Facing him, and seated, were two silent and richly suited ladies in their thirties. One wore a sable jacket, the other a short white mink coat. Their brown heads were smoothly coiffed, as if made of polished wood, their cheeks daintily tinted, their mouths sad and deliberately meek, their gloved hands folded over each other. They greatly resembled each other and James judged them to be sisters. They had nothing of the splendor of Miss—or Mrs.—Turner about them.

  The strong old priest was not using any profanities, yet his voice and gestures expressed pure and raging profanity, “Psychiatric care!” he was shouting. “And you offering to pay for it for him, when he should be hanged from the highest tree! Damned if I wouldn’t like to pull the trap myself!” There was a hint of Irish brogue in his roaring voice.

  One of the women spoke in a dolorous voice whining with piety, “Father, Edith and I suggested it out of compassion. We don’t bear any malice—”

  The priest came to sudden halt in both speech and gesture. He bent forward to scrutinize the lady who had spoken and his long hard face tightened. “And why, may I ask, Gertie, why don’t you?”

  The other woman, Edith, spoke. “Father, that’s a strange question. Gertrude and I are only trying to be truly Christian—compassionate—understanding.”

  The priest turned his small fierce blue eyes on her. “Now, is that so, Edith? ‘Compassionate!’ What a weasely word. Compassion for the man who murdered your mother? Why haven’t you been compassionate about her, Edie? And your father, dying of grief behind that door there? Haven’t you any blood or guts or life, you girls? Or—is there something else?” He was studying them with increased ferocity, and he looked very formidable. The two women shrank.

  “I don’t know what you mean, Father,” said Gertrude. “Certainly we grieve for our mother; certainly we pray for our father and hope he will regain hi
s senses. But—will revenge restore Mama or cure Dad? Will one evil cure the first?”

  “It’s words like that which keep our streets running with murderers and other criminals,” said the priest, and he was angrier than ever. “It’s words like them which make the poor po-lice blasphemous. It’s people like you who’ve corrupted our judges with sweetness and light and got them ro release fiends on us again. And where did you pick up that nonsense, that wicked, dangerous nonsense?”

  A glint of absolute malice blinked in Edith’s eyes. “Father Gurney speaks about it often, Father McQuire.”

  Again the priest seemed about to erupt into profanity. “Ah, yes,” he bellowed. “Little young Christian martyr Jack Meany! Of sweet and modern and aggiornamento St. Catherine of Sienna Church! I know him well!” The brogue was thick in his words now, almost stammering with his anger. “At least your mother didn’t suffer the Mass of Christian Burial from that spalpeen! It was from my church that your mother was conveyed to her grave, God rest her good soul! Not from Jack’s.” The old priest’s face was swollen and scarlet, and he shuddered.

  He then noticed the two men who were listening, James with fascination. An enraged priest was something new in his experience, except for his late mother’s confessor. Emil said, “Good morning, Father McQuire. May I introduce Dr. James Meyer, from London, a colleague of mine?”

  The priest’s face candidly said, “What the hell are you interrupting for?” and James pressed his lips together to keep from smiling. The clergyman’s engorged color did not fade when he grunted his acknowledgment of the introduction, but his big hand was clammy and tremulous and James was concerned. Hypertension there, he thought, and no wonder. The ladies, happy for this interruption, swiftly got to their feet, murmuring, and hurriedly brushed past the three men in flight. The priest followed them with his infuriated blue eyes, then he sighed.