Captains and The Kings (45 page)

was very still, standing there in her brown linen frock which, all at once, looked like a habit to him, loathsome and ugly beyond anything he had ever seen. He wanted to hit Regina, to strike her to the floor, and as he felt the impulse he also felt a squeezing of intolerable anguish in himself, a disintegrating grief. It was also familiar, and because it brought memories of two other women he stammered roughly, "I'd rather see you in your coffin! I'd rather see you dead!" She heard the torment in his voice, the despair, the frantic suffering, and she looked up and her face was full of compassion and love as well as fear. "Joe, you don't understand. I love-I want to serve, if only with prayers. I love-Joe." "Love what?" he exclaimed, with another ruthless gesture. "What God? What witlessness is that? There is no God, you damned fool of a maudlin woman! There is nothing to serve, nothing to pray to, nothing that hears, nothing that has mercy. I know. My father lies in potter's field, in an unmarked grave, and my mother's bones lie in the sea-for all their prayers and all their faith and all their charity. I saw hundreds die of the Famine, men, women, children, infants, old grandmothers-lying in the ditches of the roadways, biting their hands in their last convulsions of hunger. Did your God hear, or care, or send His angels to feed those innocents? Those of us who survived were turned away from the ports of this country, either to return to Ireland to starve to death or wander like vagabonds on vagabond ships hoping for harbor, for a crust of bread-literally, a crust of bread. "Oh, you irrational fool! You don't know anything of this world! Where do you suppose a lot of my money comes from? From conspiratorial wars, from planned wars. Have you ever been in a hospital for wounded or dying soldiers, younger than yourself? Have you tended them and bound up their wounds? What do you know of this accursed world? I tell you it is hell, and the slaughter of the innocents goes on every clay, in every nation. And no God cares, no God helps, no God hears. And that, by Christ, is what you want to serve-a lie, a superstition, a myth, a monumental hoax and fraud, something that never existed and does not exist!" Then Regina said, in that brownly gleaming room which echoed with shouting, "It is for such a world that I must pray, and serve with my prayers. Why do you execrate God for the wickedness of man? Man has his choices. If he chooses evil that is free will and not even God will, or can, interfere. I know you have no faith, clear Joe. It would be useless for me to try to convince you-for who can speak of the knowledge of the heart and the soul? It is only there. I have pity for this world. You think I know nothing." Her mouth trembled but her eyes held his resolutely. "But I know too much, Joe. Who am I to reproach you, who did all things for your family? I don't think even God reproaches you-too much. In a way, Joe, your whole life has been a prayer-for those who did not deserve such a sacrifice-Sean and me. No, no. We did not deserve it. I doubt anyone deserves such selflessness." Joseph was taken aback, even in his fury and contempt and rage. He forced himself to stop panting. He could not stop the hard roar of his heart, but he spoke with reasonable quiet, "If you think and believe that, how can you bring yourself to want to leave me, desert me, betray me, for a nothingness, for a lie, for emptiness?" "I'm not really leaving you, Joe, nor deserting nor betraying you. You will never be outside my prayers, my love. I will only love you more deeply, and be even more grateful to you. You will always be in my thoughts, for, in this world, you are the only dear thing to me." She stood before him, tall and slender and lovely, her face very pale, her beautiful eyes shining and now unafraid, and he had a sudden abhorrent vision of all that glory immured behind stone walls, and that voice raised only mutedly in prayer, and that soft flesh lying on stone in an ecstatic prostration before-insanity. He felt an almost voluptuous sense of horror and revulsion, and it showed in his expression and again Regina took a step backward with renewed fear. "I will not let you go. I won't let you destroy yourself," he said. "I will not be destroying myself. I will be saving myself, Joe." But now she could only helplessly shake her head, over and over, as if she had no control of her own movements. He watched her and he wanted to take her in his arms and hold her savagely and he also wanted to kill her. She finally said, "I wanted you to understand how I feel, dear Joe. I knew it would cause you grief and make you angry. But I thought you'd understand, a little, about my own happiness, for there is no happiness for me in this world and never will be.
I must go where there is peace and prayer and penance. It is all I want; there is nothing else. If you understood, even that little, you would say, 'Go, my sister. Everyone must find happiness, or at least peace, in his own way.'" "Happiness!" he exclaimed, with new and overpowering disgust. "What fool talks of happiness? There never was such a thing except for hypocrites and liars and the mad. There never was any peace, and never will there be in this world, and this world is all we know and all we'll ever know. We must make our own compromises with it, and accept it. But you want to run from it! If that isn't weakness and cowardice I'd like to know what it is." Again she shook her head hopelessly. She could not speak of the great love in her soul, her great and humble acceptance and joy in that acceptance, for it would only infuriate her brother more. She said at last, "I must go, dearest Joe. I have already made the arrangements. I leave tomorrow night. I did not tell you before, because I was afraid-afraid of my own vacillation-that you would persuade me- But nothing can turn me aside, now. Nothing. Not even you, Joe." She looked at him but he only stared at her with raw hate, a man betrayed and, he thought, betrayed with malice and smug satisfaction. He thought of Sean who had accused him with a cruelty surpassing his own, and had deserted him. So he said in so quiet a voice that Regina could hardly hear him, "Go, and go to hell, you slut. Go, the both of you. You weren't worth a year of my life. You weren't worth even one hour-either of you." "I know. Only I know, Joe," said Regina, and walked silently from the room. He watched her go. He had thought he had known all the desolation it was possible for a man to endure, but this was the worst of all. Now he would not put out his hand to stop his sister, even if he could have stopped her. She had become as dead to him as his brother, and as hateful. Regina went to her own room and knelt on her prie-dieu before the Crucifix on the wall, and she cried silently and tried to pray but there was only pain in her now and a last remembrance of her brother's face. Bernadette had been aroused in her room by the loud exclamations and shouts of her husband and had tiptoed into the long warm hall to listen. She had heard most of the conversation between Joseph and Regina, and she had felt a huge leap of exultation. Now she would be rid of that simpleton, Regina, and Joseph would finally realize that he had no one in the world but his wife, faithful, devoted, endlessly loving. Joseph did not appear the next day at all. When Regina, weeping, confided in Bernadette that she must go, and why, Bernadette made large dry eyes of sympathy and uttered the most tender words of encouragement and gave Regina the warmest embraces. "Of course I understand, love!" she cried. "I never knew anyone who had a vocation before, but I understand! You can't resist it. It would be a sin to resist. Don't worry about Joe. I will console him, and he'll come to accept it all, himself." So Regina was comforted and never knew she had been comforted by a young woman who despised her and was glad to see the last of her, and that her consolations had been false and hypocritical. The girl left in more peace than she had believed possible, clinging for a last moment to Bernadette, who accompanied her to the depot with her small luggage. She already looks like a nun, the dunce, thought Bernadette, as she murmured against Regina's cheek and uttered the most extravagant promises, with elation in her heart and the deepest relief. When Joseph finally appeared the day after Regina had left Bernadette was all indignation against Regina, and sympathy, but he looked at her and said, "We will not speak of her again, if you please."
Chapter 30
Joseph received an interesting letter from Mr. Spaulding one cool September day, addressed to the house in Green Hills. After its effusions of friendship and attachment, it said, with the utmost delicacy: Our friends accepted the contribution to the Party with grateful astonishment for your unequaled generosity, which, they declared, demonstrates your concern for the Commonwealth and her weal. They will at once attend to the other matters which 1 earnestly brought to their attention, and trust you will be gratified at the result. After loving inquiries concerning Joseph's family, Mr. Spaulding added the following: I should not be surprised if a mutual friend visited you almost immediately. If so, extend to him my obedient regard. Joseph immediately destroyed the letter. But he sat and considered the import with black and vengeful satisfaction. He needed that satisfaction for his life had become barely tolerable since Regina's "desertion," which was now but one piece with Sean's cruel accusations and flight. He felt alone as he had never felt alone in all his life before, and had some sentimentalist archly pointed out to him his wealth, his wife and his children, he would have burst out laughing and the sound would not have been pleasant. He had never before thought of using his family as a source of revenge, but in these days he thought of it constantly. Often, in the past, he had contemplated suicide, but only as a random if acute and very brief impulse. Now it intruded several times a day, and with it a passing but enticing sense of relief. He knew at last that a man should find his motivation for living in himself and not for others who could and would betray without any hesitation at all, and even with malevolence. Some men lived for their country, some for some incredible God, some for their families. But Joseph had come to realize that all these were externals, and had no identity with a man's own identity, except, possibly, he would think with wryness, that God who had-or the myth of Him- seduced his sister from her brother's house. That, to Joseph, was the utmost madness and the utmost secret betrayal of one's integrity. No abstract had verity in man's immediacy of needs and hungers and survival. Call this animalism, if you wish, Joseph would think. But what is there in man's history-except for a few demented saints who never knew the world anyway -but animalism? He had come to hate himself in that he had deprived his own youth of any joy or adventure or investigation into available pleasures, for his family. He wondered, sometimes, if he had not been a little mad, himself, in regarding his own existence as valuable only as it related to Regina and Sean, and that, in his personal individual self it was worthless. He would often think of Mr. Healey, who had lived only for himself and so had found life interesting, exciting, and rewarding, and had died in bliss. Mr. Healey had not died in sorrow, and not with black vengeance in his soul. Mr. Healey had never dedicated his life and his labor to others, had never considered others more meritorious than himself or more deserving, or that they should be served first before he was served. Consequently he had never been betrayed-he had never given others an advantage over him-and had never found a need to hate nor been provoked to hatred. So, by first thinking of himself and serving himself, he could be kind and often just and solicitous to others. In short, Mr. Healey had had self-esteem, which was an entirely different thing from pride, for which Joseph had never wanted. A man who lived for "others" killed the only thing which was valid in a man-his own consciousness of himself and his own identity. Self- obliteration was a crime against life. Joseph now held Sean and Regina as adversaries who had destroyed him, one with selfish cruelty, the other by finding Someone who needed her more than had her brother. "I do not understand you these days," Bernadette complained. "You were never a fatuous husband or father at any time, nor attentive to me as are other husbands to their wives. Do you not know that I love you dearly, and need you and your strength and comfort? You avoid me; you rarely speak, never smile. Who else do I have but you?" For an instant this shook Joseph out of his black thoughts and meditations. It was with harsh pity that he said to Bernadette: "Don't be a fool! Live for yourself, not for me or anyone else! You have-yourself. That is more important than your husband or your children. Never be dependent on anyone for anything. That is disastrous." Bernadette was taken aback, and she stared, her eyes filling with tears. "What does a woman have but her family-her husband?" Joseph had made a short but distracted gesture. "Think what that did to your mother," he said, and left his wife, who, for the first time in her young life felt the coldness of desolation, the terrible bleakness of it. Not even her father's "defection," as she called it, had stricken her like this. Her emotions, except for her passion for Joseph, were more or less superficial and explosive and short-lived, and could easily be placated or deflected. Now she wept as a woman and not as a child. Governor Tom Hennessey sent a brief telegram to his son-in-law. EXPECT ME IN GREEN HILLS ON THURSDAY INST FOR BUSINESS CONSULTATION. On reading this telegram Joseph smiled a little in exultation. He informed Bernadette who was aroused out of her own doldrums since that last conversation with her husband. "We shall have a party!" she exclaimed. But Joseph said, "My love, let us first find out how long your father can remain with us. He may have to leave for Philadelphia almost at once." A carriage was sent to the depot for the governor, and Bernadette was in it. She would talk to Papa privately before arriving back home, and he would, no doubt, explain to her exactly what Joseph had meant and how she could overcome it. But the governor was unusually taciturn with his daughter. He seemed pale and preoccupied, and there were deep clefts in his usually robust and florid face, and his eyes appeared turned inwards and haunted. He mumbled, "My darling, your husband is not a leisurely gallant nor dilettante nor idler. He has problems, like myself. Like myself," he added, and looked at Bernadette impatiently, willing her to stop her chatter. "Did you think he has nothing to do but dance attendance on you and play with your children? A man's life is apart from these, and greater than these, though this may offend you and your vanity." He patted Bernadette's small gloved hands, for she was about to cry. "Surely you remember what Byron said: 'Man's love is of his life apart. 'Tis woman's whole existence.' It is quite true, and women should remember that and not prattle and complain." "I only want him to love me," Bernadette said, gulping down a sob. "I am sure he does," said her father, and hoped to God that was somewhat true. "Why else would he have married you? He was rich in his own right, richer than I ever dreamed. He did not marry you for money." (What the hell had he married the girl for? the governor asked himself, who had never been deceived that Joseph had felt any grand passion for Bernadette.) He went immediately to Joseph's rooms, and into the large room which Joseph now used as a study and which had once been the governor's flamboyant bedroom. Joseph met him there with a quiet word and an offer of an immediate drink, which the governor accepted with gratitude. "A large whiskey," he said. "Perhaps you'd better have one, too. I have bad news." Joseph had never been an accomplished actor at any time. He thought, How did a man arrange his face so that it expressed apprehension-even if no apprehension was felt-and what did he put in his voice? Joseph saw Mr. Montrose's expressive countenance, and so made his own a passable facsimile of concern and attentive solicitude. He tried for Mr. Mont- rose's flexibility of voice, and said, "Have you, then? Then we must talk about it. Now. I hope it does not concern any punitive coming legislation against the alleged atrocities of the railroaders? Don't they understand that men do not run railroads so that the Molly Maguires and their fellow strikers and anarchists may live luxuriously, with no profits to the men who have risked everything? And who had the brains to create railroads in the first place?" The governor said, and for the first time he smiled cynically, "Haven't I, at your suggestion, Joe, expressed my solicitude many times for those wretches-and so got their votes-and managed to defeat any legislation which would help them?"