There Are Victories

by Charles Yale Harrison

  “My daughter, it has been sufficient for millions of women since the Church was founded. It should be enough for you.”

  Ruth rose to her feet; her lips were dry and her heart beat irregularly.

  “Then I will have to go elsewhere for consolation and guidance. I can live without a Church which has only this to offer.”

  The Bishop stopped toying with his beads. The heavy golden cross fell to the end of its chain and dangled there as His Grace rose.

  “My child,” he said, his voice was cold and acidulous now, “I see that God has gone out of your heart. I will not remain to listen to such—such atheism.”

  A long and painful silence fell between them and then the Bishop, having recovered his poise, held up his right hand in a pontifical manner and remarked: “You will find, my child, that my counsel is the wisest. To forsake your husband and your Church will be fatal—in that direction lies death everlasting.”

  XLV

  Above all Edgar wanted certainty. He had lost the feel of things, and situations, people, relationships, had lost their hard and certain outlines. In the trenches things were different; one knew the feel of a Mills grenade—hard, oval, segmented, pin in place, spring under the flat of one’s hand; a Lewis gun—low, squat, round, flat pan which rattled with ninety rounds of nickel-plated ammunition; a trench—musty, slithery in the winter, bulwarks, supports, sandbags. The quick murderous rush of the trench raid, bayonets on guard, sudden thrusts in the dark at shadows, moving living objects. These were intelligible.

  He poured himself a drink and sat in his room waiting for dinner to be announced. He felt lonely and defeated. His mind groped and stumbled, searching for the meaning of things:

  —After all, I lived up to my end of the bargain. I did what they wanted me to. When I came back to London on leave I was just the thing the girls wanted. Couldn’t do enough for me. All kinds—waitresses, wives, girls. And towards the end Lady Sybil. Her husband killed at Gallipoli. Great troops, the Anzacs. The water was wired and when they were waist deep in it trying to cut through, the Turks let ‘em have it from the hills. She was fine, she could understand. They had a taste of TNT in London, that’s why. She understood how a man felt coming out of the trenches and wanting a bit of dirty frigging. Why the hell couldn’t my own wife feel that way about me? And now things have gone to smash.

  He drank his whisky at a gulp and quickly poured himself another. It was not until he had had three that he felt a loosening up within him. Couldn’t live without the stuff ever since he’d been buried alive in that dug-out and his men had spent more than an hour digging him out. He had never been the same since. It was as though something had gone wrong inside his head. Lately he sat up in the middle of the night in a dead sweat imagining that he heard an H.E. shell roaring towards him and only whisky gave him a feeling of ease and well-being. Nor were things better during the day, he was bewildered, and now that Ruth had left him his evenings, too, were empty. His simple duties in the Paymaster’s Corps were becoming increasingly difficult.

  The thought of Ruth (when he was not aching for her) filled him with hatred. She symbolized the vague, indefinite things against which he could no longer cope. Even with men, especially civilians, he felt an angry impatience. Their cool ways, their timid, calculated manners infuriated him. What a man needed, he thought, was a bit of hard living. They all seemed to be living like women, careful, soft, pretty. People seemed to be scared of a little dirt.

  The whisky began to take effect; he felt as if he could take life as it came now. Things were not quite so uncertain. He rose unsteadily to his feet. At that moment the butler knocked and announced dinner.

  “I’m going out,” Edgar said, ignoring the man. “Get me my cap and stick.”

  The butler did not quite understand; his master had been waiting for dinner and now he was suddenly going out.

  “Will you be back soon, sir? Shall I keep some dinner for you?”

  To Edgar, the man’s stiffness, his pallor and frightened eyes seemed challengingly annoying.

  —That’s the way they all look at you these days. As though you didn’t know what the hell you are doing.

  “No, I’m going out, I told you. I don’t want any dinner. What the hell are you staring at?”

  “Staring, sir?”

  “Yes, staring, you idiot!”

  The butler stood speechless before his master and Edgar pushed him out of the way up against the wall and walked down the staircase and out into the street. He walked east along Sherbrooke Street and at Bleury turned down the hill to St. Catherine Street. There were soldiers on the street, many of them, and it gave Edgar a satisfying feeling to have the men draw themselves up stiffly as they saluted him. His blood pulsed pleasantly through his body. The garish lights near St. Lawrence Boulevard drew him on and he turned the corner going south. He paused for a while, observing the photographs of the stripped girls outside of the tab musical show theater near Lagauchetière Street. He smiled to himself as he saw the bulging breasts of the dancers and the slapstick make-up on the faces of the comedians. That’s what a man needs, he said to himself, as he walked on, a bit of dirty frigging.

  He paused for a moment before the swinging doors of a saloon and then walked in. There were a number of soldiers in uniform at the bar. They drew up stiffly, resenting the intrusion of a commissioned officer. A corporal clicked his heels and saluted for the men present.

  “All right, men,” Edgar said smiling and swaying a little. “Stand easy—and have one on me.” He ordered drinks all round, paying with a large bill. Turning to one of the soldiers he asked: “What’s your name?”

  “Rodgers, sir.”

  He put his arm on the private’s shoulder.

  “Don’t you think, Rodgers, that what a man needs once in a while is a little dirty frigging?”

  The young soldier looked at him in amazement.

  “What do you mean, sir?”

  “I mean, don’t you ever feel that you’d like to take all the God-damned civilians and run your fist into their faces? Don’t nice, clean, respectable women drive you crazy sometimes?” His face was white and his hands trembled.

  “No, sir.”

  “You’re an idiot, do you hear?”

  The soldier drew away, frightened, and the bartender leaned forward over the bar and cautioned Edgar: “I’d be going, if I was you, sir. The M.P.’s don’t like to see officers in bars used by the men, sir.”

  “Sorry,” Edgar murmured. “Fill ‘em up again for the boys. Take it out of the change. I’m going.”

  There were strange faces about him in the darkened streets, shuffling Chinese and the gray, puffed faces of lechers. Women walked silently on the sidewalks. From behind green shutters he heard the hushed voices of women calling him: “’Allo, bebie—haf goot time? Ici, ici, come in, haf lots Fransh girls—chip, no mooch cost. ’Allo soldier boy!” A policeman stood under a greenish-yellow street-light and twirled his night-stick. He wondered what an officer was doing down in the gut of the city and saluted as the captain walked past. At the corner of Cadieux Street Edgar paused and looked up towards the lights of St. Catherine Street. He leaned against the wall of a house; he was tired with much walking. A red glow came from the transom over the door. The house seemed familiar. He lurched up the painted wooden steps and rang the bell. The little slot opened behind the wire screening and the face of a Negress appeared:

  “Are you alone, honey?”

  “I’m all alone. Come on, open up.”

  In the hall there were red lights which made the flesh-tinted picture of a reclining nude look warm and inviting. The madame piloted Edgar into the reception room. He looked about; there was something familiar about the room.

  —I guess they’re all alike.

  “Just a minute,” the madame said. She went to the foot of the stairs and called: “Laid-ees! Laid-ees.” The pointed sounds of high-heeled shoes were hea
rd in the hallway and on the stairs.

  “In the red room, girls. In the red room. The gentleman is in the red room.”

  XLVI

  After the death of her husband, more than ever before, Mrs. Throop sought grace and consolation in the spacious lap of the Church. Her days were filled with the performance of good works (her faith was never questioned); she organized charity bazaars for the orphans, she served on the board of a home for fallen women and collected funds for foreign missions. If only everyone in the world could come to realize the spiritual power and beauty of Catholicism, she thought, much of the world’s evils would be ended. She rose early in the morning, attended the seven o’clock mass, observed the least of the fast days and made the Stations of the Cross every afternoon at four. Her piety was a source of great pleasure to the Bishop, who had many fields to till and required the assistance of many workers. Her newly found tranquility, however, was disturbed by Ruth’s separation from Edgar. She discussed this, her only cross, with the Bishop.

  “We were wrong, my dear Madame Throop,” he said on one occasion, “not to have encouraged her to dedicate her life to the Church. She has the warmth and devotion which, when laid at the feet of the Lord, lead to spiritual greatness, but when misdirected or poisoned by purely worldly considerations may lead to self-indulgence and sin.”

  Mrs. Throop sighed in agreement. “Quite true, Your Grace. She once spoke of having a vocation, but I was inclined to think that it was a mere childish notion. What a beautiful, soulful girl she was!”

  “She was not meant for marriage. Still, she has accepted the sacrament and she must bring all the gentleness of her character to bear upon the salvation of her husband. I would suggest that you speak kindly to her and see if you can effect a reconciliation.”

  A few days after the Armistice was signed, Mrs. Throop decided to call on her daughter. On the way up to the Ritz-Carlton from the cathedral, where she had been doing the Stations of the Cross, she felt greatly distressed over the plight in which her daughter found herself:

  —A young married woman without the restraints of a home and husband. Good heavens! What was it that Frederick used to say? A young pretty widow and a divorcée (Protestant, of course,) are fair game and no damned nonsense. Even now when men ask after her there’s an odd note in their voices.

  It was five o’clock when Mrs. Throop entered her daughter’s suite; tea was being served and soon she was comfortably settled in the corner of a settee. She was in black and was aware that she cut a smart figure.

  —The trouble I had with that tailor at Fairweather’s!

  She took a sip of tea and remarked:

  “I was thinking today how everything has changed.”

  “Yes, they have, haven’t they?”

  —What a meaningless thing to say. What is she leading up to now? Edgar, I suppose.

  “It was the war. Everything was different before the war. Poor Frederick! If the Lord had only seen fit to spare him a few more weeks. The war is over now—but he is gone. I’ve ordered a mass said for him every Thursday. Father Boniface, you remember him at the convent when you were a little girl, he’s going to do it. A devout man but without great practical wisdom.”

  —Why is it that the gentle old priest has a poverty-stricken little church in the North End while others with less grace are given positions of authority and power? Practical wisdom, even in the Church, is better than a pure heart. Dear old Father Boniface!

  “I remember him well.”

  “The Bishop said to me yesterday that he had been to see you.”

  “Yes, he called.”

  “You offended His Grace, my dear.”

  Ruth remained silent. She could not hope to justify herself in her mother’s eyes. Mrs. Throop went on:

  “Ruth, darling, how long do you think this can go on? What will become of the house? Edgar is going to pieces.”

  “I’m going to see Sir Robert about the house. Perhaps he can sell it. I don’t need it any longer. As for Edgar, I simply cannot live with him. It’s not his fault, perhaps, any more than it is mine. Things just happened that way—went to smash.”

  Mrs. Throop began to weep, quietly.

  —What a wedding! I still have the newspaper clippings. Two rows of officers forming an arch with their swords. And now, poor lad, drinking himself to death and Frederick dead. No rest or peace whichever way one turns.

  “Then one would imagine that we would try and save as much of the old life as we could.”

  “There’s none left. It’s all been smashed by the guns.”

  “What do you propose to do?”

  “I’m not sure. Go away somewhere, I suppose.”

  “And Guy?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think that other men are different?”

  “I don’t know. They’re all pretty much the same, I

  suppose.”

  “Of course, poor Frederick, God rest his soul, was trying enough, the Lord forgive me for saying it. But there’s nothing to do. They nearly all drink and do things, I suppose, all of them. The best thing to do is to close your eyes and live your own life. Close your eyes! Because if one looks too closely one sees only sin and evil. You have your home, your child, and the Church, and that should be enough to keep your mind from sin.”

  Mrs. Throop took her daughter’s hand and looked earnestly into her eyes.

  “Oh, I feel that something dreadful is happening to you. It’s nothing that the Bishop said, I assure you, but, promise me that you will not—” She hesitated to utter the thought. The threat of fire everlasting and the fumes of hell were ever-present realities to her and it was her duty to warn her only child.

  “Promise me that you will not live in sin with another man.”

  “Mother, what are you talking about?”

  “Promise me, Ruth, darling.”

  “I can’t get a divorce, can I?”

  “Ruth, what are you saying?”

  “I’ll be excommunicated if I do. If I fall in love with another man I must strangle all my natural feelings so as not to live in sin. Isn’t that so?”

  Mrs. Throop buried her face in her hands and wept aloud. A cold, sadistic anger seized Ruth as she went on: “At the moment I don’t want to see another man as long as I live. But I can’t promise for the future. Anyhow, I’m not afraid of hell any longer. I have had a taste of it for the past four years. Besides I don’t think that God would make a hell any more than he made the war. He couldn’t be nearly as cruel and murderous as men—slaughtering each other, tearing each other’s hearts out.”

  “Ruth, you don’t know what you’re saying!”

  “Don’t I? Well, perhaps you can tell me why they took Edgar and made a horrible wreck of him so that he’ll never be able to go back to the old way of living again—made him a foul, filthy beast. Now, please don’t talk to me about sin and hell. I’m not frightened of either any longer.”

  Then as her mother continued to weep, Ruth put her arms about her and kissed her. But to Mrs. Throop it was the kiss of Judas, tainted with sin and betrayal, reeking with the sulphurous odors of hell.

  XLVII

  Then one day old Father Boniface called upon Ruth. His Grace had suggested that he call. It gladdened the priest’s heart to see so many of the convent girls now grown to womanhood.

  “I should have known you by your hair, my child. You look tired.”

  “I am tired, father.”

  He had heard that she had left Edgar. It was too bad, too bad. How had it happened? And as Ruth replied, the aged priest sat silently and listened. His teeth were nearly all gone and his mouth, following his receding gums, gave him the appearance of an old woman. His yellow, thin hands rested heavily on the polished knob of his stout blackthorn stick. In the room beyond, Guy was talking to Marie and Ruth lowered her voice as she took issue with her mother, the Bishop, the Church. When she ha
d finished, Father Boniface sat without speaking for a long time.

  “It is strange,” he finally said, “how life leads us into unknown paths. I remember when I was a little boy living in Quebec (he pronounced it Kebek) that one bright Spring morning we were playing soldiers near the Plain of Abraham where General Wolfe’s armies vanquished the soldiers of Montcalm. We were divided into two armies, the English and the French, and I, naturally, was the commander of the French forces. I remember how, ignoring history, and the outcome of the battle, I led my forces and completely routed my foes. General Wolfe, who was a pugnacious little fellow of about ten (he went into business when he grew up and became successful), kept crying that if I were Montcalm it wasn’t fair for me to win the battle. And I resolved that day that I would become a great soldier like Montcalm who, but for the interference of the Governor-General, would have kept Canada for the French.”

  Father Boniface smiled and looked out of the window at the mountain. It was late afternoon and it was rapidly growing dark. The story seemed pointless to Ruth. The old man was apparently senile and appeared to have forgotten what he set out to say. After a moment’s embarrassed silence she called Marie and asked to have tea served. Guy came running into the room and stood close to his mother, one arm on her shoulder, and regarded the priest with open inquisitive eyes.

  As he sipped his tea his face suddenly brightened.

  “Oh, yes, I remember,” he said. “We were playing soldiers and I had scored a victory. Yes, yes, I remember. Well, Montcalm, the real Montcalm, not I, started in the army and was buried at the Ursuline Convent in Quebec and as for me, I started on the Plains of Abraham and ended in the Church. So you see, we all come to the same end though by different paths. That was what I wanted to say.”

  He got up to go, looking with feeble eyes for his hat and stick. In the electric light Ruth saw that his cassock was faded and shabby, worn to a rusty brown.

  “I am happy you called, Father Boniface. It brought back the old convent. It seems so long ago.”