“I have friends,” said Charles.
“So,” said Jimmy, with almost his father’s own tone and mannerism. “Besides, you’ve got Uncle Fred, and Uncle Willie’s will, and everything, behind you.”
I almost didn’t have, thought Charles. He said: “You know, Jim, that you’re your Uncle Willie’s ultimate heir—after your Aunt Phyllis. Everything. And—and—”
“My issue,” added Jimmy, unperturbed. “Yes, I know. I suppose that’s another reason why Uncle Joe wanted to ruin you, if he could.”
“Are they so determined that poor little Gerry must marry that Brinkwell feller?”
“Oh, yes. They want to announce the engagement at Christmas. She’s going away in September, you know. But we’ll see each other! Week-ends, sometimes.”
His father was looking better, much better! Good old Dad. Sometimes adults were very childish. Jimmy stood up. “Well, how about some breakfast? Want a tray up here?”
Charles was so relieved, so unaccountably relieved, that he sat up and said explosively: “No! I wouldn’t put it past you to dope the coffee, or something. Go on out, and I’ll be right down.”
Jimmy went away, whistling loudly. No dolorous music, now. Some “rag,” gay, catching, lilting. A man. No longer “Jimmy,” but “Jim.” Charles heard his son thumping away in his room.
Charles avoided glancing at his son when he called George Hadden. He said to George: “Will you do me an innocent favor? Well, innocent in a way, you Quaker! Please call Fred at his home, on some pretext. Tell him you talked to me yesterday about some matters which I am to discuss with Fred tomorrow. Tell him, as mysteriously as you can, that you gave me your ‘advice’ and that I promised to act on it.”
He turned to Jim, as he completed his call. He said: “George is vaguely alarmed. He’s afraid I’m jeopardizing his Quaker conscience. But he’ll do what I ask.”
“It’s fine to have a reputation for integrity,” said Jim, with a broad smile.
“It is, indeed,” agreed Charles, with the utmost seriousness. “By the way, did you know that within a few months or so you’ll have an Aunt Helen?”
It was wonderful to have someone in whom to confide in his own house. Father and son lingered a long time over breakfast, while Charles spoke and Jim listened. “To think,” said the boy, “that you’ve carried all this in you all this time and never talked with anyone. It must have been horrible. But here’s the tutor now. In the meantime, try to rest, Dad.”
Charles went into the garden, and stretched out in the hammock under the trees. He rocked back and forth gently, his hands clasped on his chest. He mapped out his plans. The leaf-pattern of the trees flowed over his face and his closed eyes. He was the picture of relaxation. But his mind churned. Then it was settled. There was nothing to do but to wait for tomorrow. The hammock swayed, the sweet scent of grass and roses moved in the soft breeze, the leaves fluttered, and the sun rose hotter and hotter. He stared at the shifting bits of sky which showed through the trees. He thought of the confused nightmares of the months past. In many ways I’ve been exaggerating, he said to himself. I became panic-stricken. It needs only to be thought out, and planned—any problem.
He had lunch alone, for Jim and his tutor went on with their lessons. He could hear their voices upstairs, in Jim’s room. The day was becoming very hot, and Charles was folded in a deep languor which continued when he went into the garden again. He slept. Mrs. Meyers awakened him; it was almost five. “Mr. Grimsley, of the paper, called, an hour ago,” she informed Charles. “He said was it important, and you must call back.”
But this Charles refused to do. It was something about the Park, he thought. He ate his dinner, with Jim.
At half-past six he and Jim, with Jim driving the roaring red automobile, started for the Park. A German band, drawn from some other town, hopefully had come to Andersburg. For some reason Charles had the automobile halted, and he sat and listened to the band, which was strenuously playing some old German tunes. They were the songs which Emil Wittmann had sung, and they had a sad nostalgia, keen and disturbing, to Charles. The musicians, all elderly and discouraged, and very shabby, played with a kind of frenzy directed almost exclusively to the gentlemen in the big red automobile. A small crowd of people, on their way to the Park, stopped to listen. Some of the older people began to sing bashfully, in time with the music, and the softened German gutturals also sounded sad and mournful. The sun was beginning to fall behind the distant blue mountains, and long golden shadows lay on the street under the trees. The passing of an era, thought Charles, utterly without reason, but from some instinct. The horns, big and wide-mouthed, shone in the mellow light. The old musicians’ mouths puffed at the horns, their fingers ran up and down the flutes. The drum banged with a lonely sound.
Charles, on an impulse, took out his wallet and removed four five-dollar bills. One of the musicians was now moving about with his hat. When Charles dropped the bills in the hat, the old man stared at them, looked at Charles. “Danke schoen,” he murmured, stunned. Charles said in German: “Come to the Park, and play there, too. There is a fireman’s band, but there’ll be hundreds of people there who will like your music.” He looked at the faded blue uniforms of the bandsmen, at their caps brave in tarnished gold. He told Jim to drive on, and he wondered why he should feel so heavy-hearted, so grieved. Nerves, he told himself.
During the last few weeks he had visited the Park regularly, to watch its progress. It was a beautiful park. Wilhelm’s plans had been followed explicitly. They had been modelled on some German park, in Munich, and they gave an impression of complete naturalness, which Charles understood to be the height of artistry. Not formal, after all. Winding crushed gravel paths led through groups of old fine trees. A spring had been trained into a fountain of white stone dolphins disporting themselves in a wide round pool. Stone and white-painted benches stood under the trees. Openings, here and there, let the river be seen beyond sloping green lawns. There was a refreshment house, discreetly hidden in a small natural wood, where sandwiches could be bought, and coffee and beer, and a band could play on Sundays and holidays. There were tables outside, on a terrace. There was a separate playground for children, with swings and slides and see-saws. Wilhelm had discarded the idea of rigid flower-beds. Flowers grew along the paths, or suddenly appeared in a blaze of color on a stretch of greensward, kindly, old-fashioned flowers, and rock gardens with mossy green plants. The sounds of the city came here muffled and gentled; high above the Park rose the mountains. It was all “foreign” and lovely and simple.
Because of the Wittmann family’s recent bereavement the ceremonies were not scheduled to be extensive. There were plenty of flags, and there was a red ribbon drawn between the two graystone gateposts at the entrance of the Park. Charles found a crowd of several thousand people already waiting for the family, and the firemen’s band was playing lustily. The old German band, Charles decided, would be requested to perform at the refreshment house, where, tonight, all the sandwiches and cakes and coffee and beer would be free. Japanese lanterns were strung through the trees, and the Park lights would not go on until tomorrow night.
Charles’ red automobile was greeted with cheers. There was a place reserved for the Wittmann family. Friederich was there, important and shining, with the Haddens and Oliver Prescott. He was too excited to sit still, and he ignored Jochen and his family, who, with the Brinkwells and other friends, deliberately ignored Friederich in return, and even Charles’ arrival. Charles saw at once that Phyllis had not come, and he was relieved. But Mrs. Holt and Braydon Holt greeted him affectionately. Mrs. Holt made a rather large fuss over him, and this was observed by Jochen and Roger Brinkwell, and their friends. Mrs. Holt sat beside Charles, and made a point of leaning animatedly towards him and talking above the music of the band. The sun, now half-fallen behind the mountains, gilded the tops of the trees.
Then all at once the band struck up “America” and everyone rose. The thickening crowds began to sing. T
he firemen, in their fine uniforms, were a brave sight, and sweated. Charles thought he had never heard a crowd sing with such fervor:
“My country, ’tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing!
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the Pilgrims’ pride,
From every mountainside
Let freedom ring!”
My country—let freedom ring! Someone was pushing towards Charles. The crowd, somewhat tentatively, were humming the other verses. Charles saw the gnarled face of Ralph Grimsley, and he motioned to the editor to stand beside him. He, too, sang, but the editor was silent. Then Charles felt him pluck at his sleeve, and he bent his head to listen.
“…called you,” said Mr. Grimsley. Charles nodded. Now the music faded from his consciousness, and all the crowds. “Didn’t have time,” muttered Charles. The little editor pulled at his lip. “It’s started,” he said. “The Archduke of Austria and his wife were murdered this morning in Sarajevo. The opening gun. Got the news a couple of hours ago, by wire, from New York. Came over the cable about three o’clock. Thought you might want to know, but keep it quiet. Getting out an extra tonight at eleven o’clock.”
The crowds were humming loudly, the band was coming, with a flourish, to its final crashing. Everywhere was a sea of women’s gay hats, men’s stiff straw hats. Laughter, song, and music. The Mayor was rising, importantly, to speak, and Friederich stood beside him. All at once, everything was artificial to Charles, tinted with nightmare, unreal, terrible, desolate.
“It might not mean anything,” he said to the editor.
“It does, it does,” said Mr. Grimsley.
“They wouldn’t—dare,” said Charles. He looked over at Jochen and the Brinkwells. Their faces were blurred for him. He saw only one face, sharply, young Geraldine’s young features under a flower-burdened hat. She was smiling slightly, and she was looking at Jim.
Oh, yes, “they’d” dare. Charles knew it. It had begun. The end of the world had begun.
CHAPTER XLIII
The mayor, poor fellow, isn’t really as boring as all that, thought Mrs. Holt, noticing Charles’ set face, clamped mouth, and fixed eyes. Tedious, yes; but he certainly was not expressing any opinions that Charlie might dislike; after all, Charlie helped to elect him, and would probably help to elect him this fall, too. Mrs. Holt nudged Charles’ arm, and said: “Bored?”
Charles started. And then she knew that he had heard nothing of the prosy sonorousness of the Mayor’s pronouncements, that the majestic tributes being paid by “his honor” to the Wittmann family had literally fallen upon one set of closed ears, at least. Concerned, but inquisitive, Mrs. Holt peered around Charles and saw the little spidery form and face of Ralph Grimsley, who was also staring sightlessly at the crowds. Mrs. Holt’s heart jumped. Something had happened, something terrible. Charles turned away from her, unaware that she had even spoken to him.
The Mayor tossed his leonine head. The crowd moved restively, but with good humor. All politicians talked; it was too bad that they never said anything worth listening to. Charles’ eyes moved slowly over the thousands of faces which stretched everywhere. He picked out a few, automatically; Mr. Haas was here, not far away, on a special bench with his family: his wife, the sober young Walter, and the three little girls; there were members of the Church Board with them. Then, not on a seat, but in the ranks of the crowd, the eager but serious young priest, Father Hagerty. His eyes met Charles’ eyes. It was impossible for the priest to know anything yet, but Charles looked at him and the priest looked back, and Father Hagerty thought, as Mrs. Holt had thought: Something terrible has happened.
The sky became a lake of lemon-yellow over the western mountains, and the tops of the trees turned yellow, also, and the faces of the people. There was a polite clapping of hands, and the Mayor, flushed and triumphant, sat down in stately grandeur. Now Friederich was rising, and this time Jochen and the Brinkwells and their friends looked at him, and their expressions became smilingly contemptuous. It had been a surprise that Charles was not to speak. Jochen whispered to Roger: “Look what he’s picked out! Now we’ll have a dissertation on social justice, or something!”
Charles began to stare intently at his brother Jochen and Roger Brinkwell, when Friederich started to speak. He was only faintly aware that the crowd was no longer restive, and that his brother’s voice had a deep and reaching quality, loud and fervent in the silence. He looked at Roger Brinkwell, and he thought: He knows! He looked at Jochen, and now his bitter eyes became speculative, and then startled. Jochen did not know. Charles saw his brother’s fat and ruddy cheeks, his double chin, his massive body leaning indolently back in his seat, his thick arms folded over his big chest, his legs crossed, his hat tilted forward over his brow. Why, thought Charles, the fool, the cunning, plotting fool! He knows nothing of what is going on, or what has happened. The simpleton has been plotting childishly in the shadow of death and never knew what it was that was looking over his shoulder all the time.
Charles hated Jochen with fresh violence, remembering the scandal his brother had spread about him. But, to his own amazement, and disgust, he also felt a wondering and compassionate contempt. He was not shaken in his purpose; Jochen, in his ignorant stupidity, was as dangerous as if he knew. However, there was this sick pity in Charles, this sensation of helplessness.
There was Isabel, handsomely coquettish under her big straw hat, and in her white linen frock, talking to Pauline Brinkwell, all gray chiffon and elegance. There was young Kenneth Brinkwell, whispering to Geraldine, who nodded and smiled, and looked only at Jimmy. There were Ethel and May, Jochen’s younger daughters, blooming and buxom, like their mother. There was Brinkwell, slight, black, and dapper, smoking languidly, yet emanating to Charles, even at this distance of some sixty feet, something alert and vicious.
Then Charles became conscious of the deepening attention of the crowd, and Friederich’s intense and soaring voice.
“So,” Friederich said, and Charles, who had never heard his brother speak, was amazed at the infinite range and eloquence of his voice: “that while every man, everywhere, dies a little when any other man dies, and every man everywhere is guilty of the crime of every other man, so all of us share, collectively, in the good which any single man does, and we are part of the virtue of every saint who has ever lived or will live. While we must cry ‘Mea culpa!’ when murder is done anywhere in the world, so we may cry ‘Eureka!’ when we hear of a noble deed or a kindness, or some compassionate act. Not only are we guilty of everything evil, but we share in every heroism and in every justice.”
What had he said, before, which had led up to this? Charles did not know, and he did not care. He only listened, and looked at his brother. The lemon-yellow light lay on Friederich’s face, and it was the inspired and kindling face of a prophet, and all his mediocrity was gone.
Now Friederich’s voice dropped, became deep and portentous: “When Armageddon comes, and it is almost here, then we must say to ourselves, every man singly: ‘I have done this.’ And when we fight for honor and peace, we must say to ourselves, and every man singly: ‘I have done an evil thing, but I have died for mankind, also.’”
He sat down, and the silence was an almost ringing thing over the heads of the crowd. No one applauded; but everyone looked at Friederich. Even Jochen looked, and there was a puzzled frown on his large fat face. Only one smiled contemptuously, and that one was Roger Brinkwell. Roger leaned towards Jochen and whispered jocularly: “Now, let us pray!” But Jochen looked at Friederich.
Now the crowd was moving uneasily, like a herd of sheep that had smelled an ominous wind and had heard an ominous sound. The Mayor, always a politician, rose at once and announced that Mr. Charles Wittmann would cut the ribbon and admit the people to “their Park.” As if he, himself, and he only, were the beginning and the end of this beneficence, he smiled proudly at the crowds, and waved his large white hand. The crowds began to sur
ge towards the gates, like those delivered from some prophesied horror from which they had just escaped.
Charles left as soon as he could, having seen to it that the timorous German band had been firmly established near the terrace of the refreshment house and had begun their sweet German airs. The lanterns had been lit; the crowds were walking along the softly illuminated gravel paths, laughing and admiring, and eventually finding their way to the sandwiches and beer and coffee and cakes. Charles had insisted that Jim stay. He, himself, wanted to walk home, quietly. He unobtrusively avoided every familiar face, and walked out of the Park.
The river flowed in dark gold past the city; the mountains stood in dark blue majesty in the distance. Charles left the music and the laughter and the voices, and walked through the quiet streets. The lavender twilight was flooding in, everywhere, under the trees, like velvet water. Charles’ footsteps echoed. He was in a deserted town, full of dreaming silence. Church bells began to ring, in a warm entrancement.
So, it had come at last, after all the dreadful fear and the waiting. It had come in confusion, and there would be no sharp drawing of lines, no good, no definite evil. The iniquity of man had created this impending death and ruin; this iniquity would blur every issue, make it impossible to say “this is right” or “this is wrong.” The collective iniquity of all men, everywhere, had done this thing to the world. The collective and enormous greed, the stupidity, the monstrous blindness!
Ralph Grimsley had said to Charles when he had seen Charles about to leave: “Perhaps we’re wrong. Let’s hope so. Perhaps Sarajevo will be forgotten in a few days, or weeks. Perhaps we’re just having private nightmares.” Charles had said nothing. He had just gone away.
Charles walked on, and now he began to hurry, over-whelmed with catastrophe. His heels were loud and sharp on the pavements. No one was about.
Balance Wheel Page 47