Captains and The Kings (53 page)

--there is no color, no race. There are only Men. But the world doesn't know that, and so a man often has to protect himself from undeserved malice and cruelty. He keeps any harmful secret to himself." Joseph was moved as he had rarely been moved before. That the proud Charles Devereaux should risk telling a seventeen-year-old youth such a dangerous secret told Joseph more than anything else of Charles's loyalty to him and his attachment to his family. Joseph was not a man for gestures, but he put his hand briefly on Charles's arm. Rory was still staring at Charles, and now the stony hardness of his young and vital face softened. "By golly," he said, almost in a whisper. He thought. Then he said, "I guess I'm not the man you are, Charles." However, the secretiveness had returned to his eyes, and Charles saw it. "I reckon," Charles said, "that young Masters didn't only call your father an Irish something-or-other, but said something else about him." "Yes," said Rory, after a long pause. "It can't be very important," said Joseph, still touched. "What was it, Rory?" Rory was silent. He was staring at his boots again and the heavy flush had come back to his face. "Well?" demanded Joseph with impatience. "I can't tell you, Pa." "Is it that disgraceful?" Joseph was smiling again. "To me, it is," said Rory. "My God, lad, don't be a fool. You know what I am. I've never pretended to be anything different from what I am. I never hide anything, though I don't shout it to the skies. I'm not concerned with people's opinion of me, nor should you be." "Suppose, Mr. Armagh," Charles intervened, "that we let Rory have his own little secret. Later, he'll laugh at it. Every man is entitled to one little
secret of his own, isn't that so, Rory?" "Maybe Pa doesn't want this to be known, or talked about," said Rory and he looked at his father with such poignant love that Charles was shaken. But Joseph was curious and did not notice the emotion in his son's eyes. "If young Masters knew it, then everybody knows it," said Joseph. "But, it is a lie!" Rory cried out. "A dirty lie! I couldn't let a ie like that
pass, before the whole schooll" Something dangerous flickered between Joseph's eyelashes. He con 364 sidered his son. The truth did not occur to him. He had been most careful, most discreet, in one single area of his life, more completely secretive than ever before, and he did not think of that one area now for he believed that only he and one other knew about it. He said, "I hope you aren't turning into a dainty milksop, Rory. Lies are told by the thousands about me. It doesn't matter; I don't care. But what was this particular lie that so inflames you? We can settle it between ourselves." A look of complete despair, but of increased stubbornness, fell over Rory's face. He shook his head. "I can't, I won't, tell you, Pa." Joseph stood up so suddenly, and with so ferocious a face, that even Charles fell back. Joseph said in a quiet but terrible voice, "Don't defy me, you young jackanapes. Don't tell me you 'can't' or 'won't.' I'll not have that impudence from you, that lack of respect, that insult. Out with it!" Charles had recovered himself. He said, "Mr. Armagh, suppose you let Rory tell me what it is, between us two, and let me be the judge? Would that satisfy you, Rory?" But Rory was shaking his head. "I'd never repeat it to anyone!" Joseph hit his son fiercely across the face, the way he had hit his brother, Sean. But, unlike Sean, Rory did not collapse, did not burst into tears, did not turn away. He rocked on his heels for a moment, then straightened himself, and looked at his father steadily, almost expressionless. The mark of Joseph's hand flared out on his cheek. Regret was not a common emotion for Joseph, but all at once, as he stared at his son he felt regret and a kind of deep shame. The boy was fearlessly confronting him in silence. He would endure any punishment to protect his father, and Joseph suddenly understood that and his regret deepened to remorse. Charles stood in silence, a little aghast. But Joseph said, in his grudging tone, "All right, then, you wretched young spalpeen, you can keep your damned silly secret, and be damned to you, if your secret is so precious. Who cares about it? I thought you had more sense, and more manhood, than to be affected by lies. I never was. I have accepted humiliations you haven't heard of yet--and bided my time. There was only one thing I could never have accepted, and that would have been a filthiness against my parents, my father or my mother." Rory looked aside. He did not speak. Charles saw that his cheek was quivering. Joseph tried to smile. "There is very little, my son, that woukL be a real calumny against me. So, take it with more ease than you did tlris time. Very well. You may go." Rory bowed shortly to his father and then to Charles. It was at Charles that he looked directly, and it was with great respect and a glint of admiration. Then he left the room, walking stitty, his head held high, his shoulders squared. When he had gone Joseph shook his head and laughed his grating laugh. "It seems that no matter what I've told him, and let him know, about myself, he still is squeamish. I don't like that, Charles." "He has courage, and that is a rare virtue," said Charles. "He is like a rock. He won't give way; he won't crumble. It's not so much a matter of rectitude, but of honor." Joseph was pleased. But he shrugged. "There's no place for honor in this world," he said. "My father never understood that, and so he perished. Well, then. Let us get on withthe matter of the Honorable Mr. Masters." He looked at Charles. "Yes, the lad has courage, hasn't he? I hope it is the right kind. What do you think young Masters said about me, Charles?" But Charles did not know. However, he wondered how Anthony Masters had come by his knowledge. Someone had been indiscreet. Charles did not know that it was Bernadette who had babbled to her "dear friend, Enma Masters," in a moment of wine-induced lachrymose confidence, and the meek pious Emma, always avid for tidbits which could injure others, had told her husband, and her son had overheard. Like all well- kept secrets, it had been simple to discover. Bernadette did not even remember that hazy evening and the false sympathy of which she had been the victim. Had she remembered she would have been terrified of Joseph's knowing, but that was the only thing that was important about the matter. Besides, she would have thought, Joseph's infidelities were well known. One more was insignificant, though this was the most unbearable of all. She had discovered it when she was the least aware of discovering anything. The affair of Mr. Burney Masters was absurdly easy for Charles to conclude, far easier than many others he had concluded. He did it with almost immediate dispatch. "Old Syrup," the Mayor of Boston, was happy to receive a communication from his dear friend, Joseph Armagh--"We got to stick together, us .Irish, for damn me if anyone else will ever stick with us"--which implied that if it was his Honor's desire to be governor Mr. Armagh would oblige him with a breath-taking campaign contribution, or, better still, if he desired to be a senator Mr. Armagh was on the most amiable terms with many of the Massachusetts members of the legislature. In fact, Mr. Ar- mah's influence in Washington, itself, was stupendous. "Old Syrup" enthusiastically hated the Brahmins of Boston who had tried to defeat him, had humiliated him and despised him during his struggling and desperate political career, and had exploited him and starved him in their manufactories and mills in his earliest youth. He gave Charles Devereaux a quick and friendly vignette of those days, as they sat together drinking brandy and smoking cigars in the mayor's lavish offices in City Hall. His first young wife had died of "the consumption" for lack of food and warmth and adequate shelter. During her funeral Mass the church had been invaded by street vandals--inflamed by their masters--and her very Poor wooden coffin had been befouled, as well as the Host. The priest had been beaten unconscious, and the mourners scattered with blows. "Even the little colleens." "I tell you, sir," said the mayor to Charles Devereaux, "not even the darkies in the South was ever treated the way us Irish was treated in this country, I am thinking. You're a Southerner, sir? I heard it in your voice. Slaveowners, eh? But you took care of them.. You've got to be oppressed, Mr. Devereaux sir, or your people oppressed, to know what it's like." He looked at Charles's patrician face and fine clothing with a sort of belligerence. "But, you don't know, do you?" "I have some imagination, your Honor," said Charles, with a smile. "Well, your Dada and your Mum was probably rich plantation owners. Don't matter. I don't hold grudges. Well, not many, anyway. We Irish got long memories. We don't forget easy. Well. So Joe wants to put a hard hand on Burney Masters, does he?" Charles had laid a thick sheaf of gold banknotes on the desk at the very beginning, and in some admirable fashion they had disappeared as if into blank air. Nothing was said about them, out of respect, not even a word of thanks. Mr. Burney Masters, about four years ago, had been caught in ttagrante delicto with a pretty young shoeshine lad only twelve years old. "Right there, in his own garden, on Beacon Hill," said the fat mayor, with glowing satisfaction and many chuckles. "I'd bin havin' him watched for a long time. He had that sweet pursy look that men like him have, that lovin' look. I'd met his kind before. You wouldn't think it now, sir, but I was a good-lookin' lad, meself, and was approached by the Masters, many the time. Right in the mills. They got the certain look: Anxious. Tender. Lookin' out for your interests. Always talkin' concern, and the like, and helpin' a lad out, advance himself. Soft gentle hands. Writin' letters to the newspapers, deplorin'-like 'exploited labor.' Gettin' themselves a reputation for Good Deeds. Sufferin' for The People. Good causes. Whigs. Busy like bees, protestin'. Now, I don't say every man like that is what Masters is, but a hell of a lot of them are. They don't care much for the wimmin, and the girls. Just lads." The mayor shook his huge head deploringly. "Scholars, a lot of them. Some of them write books, exposin' one thing or another. Gives me pleasure, sometimes, to expose 'em, too." It seems that the shoeshine lad was not the only one. There was also a very young handyman in the Masters' household who, with a little urging, revealed considerable data concerning himself and other boys and Mr. Burney Masters. "So," said the mayor, leaning back in his chair, "we had him. A word or two. And that's how he lost the election. Well, glad to mention it to Mr. Masters, in Joe's behalf, and that Rory of his. Consider it settled." It was. Within a few days Rory was back at his school. Young Anthony Masters, from his infirmary bed, confessed he had "unbearably provoked" Rory by "defaming his father." "Something," Mr. Armstead said virtuously, "no manly youth could, endure, and certainly no gentleman. We are sad that it led to bad temper and violence, but One can Understand. The Age of Chivalry and Honor has not yet departed." Rory, resentful inwardly but smiling outwardly, was graduated with honors in June. He did not know how it had all come about but he knew his father was potent. He would have preferred to have beaten young Anthony Masters all over again, but, because of Joseph, Rory restrained himself and kept his eyes fixed ahead, though Anthony stood beside him. Rory was valedictorian of his class, something he had earned himself, and something he did not owe his father. He and Joseph were both proud, and even Bernadette shed a few public tears and almost forgave Rory for his father's love. In September Rory entered Harvard. He was to graduate four years later summa cum laude.
Chapter 34
Joseph Armagh never knew exactly when he had become conscious of Elizabeth Hennessey as a desirable woman. He did not ask himself, for he was no tyro at physical attraction, nor did women as people ever occur to him, except for his mother and Regina, and, perhaps, Sister Elizabeth, long since dead. When he became aware of Elizabeth his own daughter, Ann Marie, was only six years old and Kevin had just been born. Elizabeth, four years older than Bernadette, had come to live in the Hennessey house with her son, Courtney, after the senator had suffered his stroke. Though Bernadette had constantly maligned her and her "poor thing" of a son, and had resented her presence, Joseph was indifferently aware that Elizabeth was a reserved woman with beautiful manners. She was also very pretty in a cool aristocratic way which did not particularly appeal to him. He preferred stupid romping women of zest and laughter and animal ebullience who made no demands on him and who were easily forgotten. In any event he would not have, deliberately, noticed the widow of Ton Hennessey. Anyone connected with the senator held only aversion for him, including Bernadette, and, at that time, his own children, He had offered to manage Elizabeth's affairs from his own office. That had been a matter of courtesy. He had expected her to refuse. But she had accepted.
She had a rather cold face, somewhat neutral, with a slight thin nose that occasionally had a pinched expression, a still and dimly colored mouth, and large greenish eyes flecked with gold. Her blond hair was smooth and fine but too pale to be striking. She was too slender, as well as tall, to be in fashion, yet she dressed with rich and quiet style, hardly noticeable. Her slender hands were always ringless except for her wedding ring, which she had removed lately. She looked at the world with unruffled interest and acceptance, and apparently had no attachment to anyone except her son, Courtney, and even with him she was aloof. Her son was very like her in appearance, manner, and silent movement. It was not for many years that Joseph learned that Courtney and Rory were deeply fond of each other, and that there was between them a sort of David and Jonathan affection. Certainly no two youths were ever so dissimilar in temperament, outlook, and ambitions, for Courtney, though intelligent, according to Rory, was a poor scholar and rather languid and inactive. Joseph did not notice, for a long while, that Courtney and his mother had a strange way of communicating without language. A mere exchange between those two pairs of green eyes, a slight smile, the slightest gesture of a hand, and they understood each other perfectly. But before Joseph saw this he had thought Elizabeth and her son to be strangers, uninterested in each other, and only elaborately polite when together. Courtney, according to the disdainful Bernadette, was not only a "poor thing," because he was so pallid in contrast to Rory, but he "ailed," she would say with contempt. Certainly Joseph vaguely noticed that the boy appeared to be at home too often when he, himself, arrived in Green Hills, and there had to be a tutor during the summer months for him if he were to advance in his classes in the school in Boston which Rory attended. Rory, himself, often tutored Courtney, and would sometimes mockingly call him "Uncle Courtney," which, for some peculiar reason was a source of mild hilarity to the boys. It was the only time Joseph ever heard the older boy laugh outright, and the only time he would show some animation such as striking Rory affectionately on the shoulder with his bony fist, and calling Rory "you fat Irish hooligan." Courtney, himself, was thin almost to emaciation, and Bernadette scornfully reported him as "playing with his food, and we have the best cooks in town." The presence of Elizabeth and her son in this house finally hotly infuriated Bernadette, who found Elizabeth's calm and lack of responsiveness "unnatural." Though Courtney was her half brother she could not endure him. When she learned that he wrote "poems," she nodded her head and said sagely, "Well, that's to be expected, isn't it?" as if the writing of poems was somehow unmanly and depraved. She never learned that Rory also wrote poetry, though not with the fineness and delicacy of Courtney's. It was when Courtney was about seven years old that Joseph became aware of Elizabeth Hennessey for the first time, beyond the mere fact of her quiet presence at the dining table or in passing her in the wide marble halls of the Hennessey mansion. Sometimes she would nod to him in her passage, but she rarely spoke. She was apparently as indifferent to him as he was to her and noticed him about as much. There were very large and elaborate and expensive conservatories in the rear of the Hennessey house, and attached to it, so that one walked down a short hall into muskiness and fragrance and exotic foliage and flowers at any time of the year. It was the one spot in the mansion that really attracted Joseph, and he often spent time in the conservatories, silently watching the assiduous gardeners or sitting in a corner content to breathe in the humid and perfumed air. Sometimes he did ask the name of a flower or a particularly spectacular plant. It never failed to interest him that when the winter snows lay heavily on the grounds and on the roofs the flowers bloomed in their tropical splendor as if eternal summer lay about them, and volcanic lakes. One day before the Christmas holidays Joseph strolled into the con- was a gloomy day gray snow falling outside, conservatories. It of thick and a wind that grumbled and howled in the chimneys, and dark. The conservatories were particularly fragrant just now with the scent of roses and lilies in forced bloom, and there was also a fugitive scent of almond from somewhere and a breathing of warm fecund earth. Gaslights flickered and illuminated the broad glass windows against which the snow hissed and the wind battered. Joseph thought himself alone, for this was the dinner hour of the gardeners and their day's work was done. He saw before him the long aisles between the plants and the rainbow colors of flowers, and prepared to wander among them. Then he heard another door open from another section of the house, a rapid tattoo of footsteps, and then Bernadette's loud, and now somewhat shrill voice railing in outraged anger. "Elizabeth! How dare you cut my white rosebuds! You know very well that they are for our Christmas Day diuner! Such effrontery, not even to ask me! Such-- such impudence. It was the voice she used to servants. Joseph stopped, half-hidden behind a huge tubbed plant which stood on the floor. Joseph heard a rustle of silk and then he saw Elizabeth's pale blond head rising between two aisles at his left, and at some distance. The gaslight fluttered on her white face. She said in a voice that was particularly lovely yet without real intonation, and certainly without emotion, "I am sorry, Bernadette. I wanted to ask you but you were upstairs with a headache and I didn't want to disturb you. I've only cut half a dozen, and there are so many dozens left. Courtney is in bed with that awful cold of his, and he does like white roses so, and I thought I'd cut these few for him."