Captains and The Kings (57 page)

Chapter 36
Rory and Courtney walked in Harvard Yard together in the gold and gilt of the April sun and the flowering of forsythia. Rory said, "I always thought Pa was joking when he told me he'd make me President of the United States some day. I joked with him. I told him that, of course, he would probably do that. You know Pa. He climbs mountains where other men climb anthills. But a man has to face facts. There is no more possibility of a Catholic becoming President in this country than a Negro. "Well, anyway, we're going to law school, and Pa isn't young any longer, and if we make a success in The Armagh Enterprises that will be enough for Pa. I hope," added Rory. Courtney said, with that neutral serenity so like his mother's, "Don't be too sure, Rory. What your father wants, your father gets, one way or another. Isn't he talking even now of you starting your political career as a congressman? Or do you think he just jabbers? Incidentally, men like your father never grow old. Titian, I believe, painted his most famous painting, The Assumation, when he was ninety-one years old, and Da Vinci was full steam ahead in his middle-age. It's only the young who babble, 'sound and fury--signifying nothing.'" "All right, old man," said Rory. He pondered, frowning, as he kicked a small stone from his path. You know what I'd like to do? Teach." "You're out of your mind," said Courtney, awed. He stopped. "Anyone less likely to be a teacher, or want to be, than yours" "Well," said Rory, "there's a lot of farce and lies and hypocrisy in this world, and real absurdity, and nonsense, and I suppose there always has been. We need an Aristophanes every generation to show it all up. A real farce. Of course, it's tragic, too. But people can't realize the tragedy: the hilarity of human existence. I've thought about enlightening the younger generation about that. How to laugh--Hogarthian laughter. If possible." "It isn't," said Courtney. "People--everybody--take themselves too seriously. Each generation thinks it will save the world, make a new Utopia, a new order. It ends up in the same Dismal Swamp." "It shouldn't." "But it does. Because human nature never changes. It's the one immutable in the world. It's a mess. When a full human being appears he gets crucified or laughed out of public life, or damned or ridiculed, and then everybody forgets him and goes on in the same happy stupid way. You haven't forgot your history, have you?" "A people who forget their history are doomed to repeat it, as Aristotle said. Why isn't it possible for a people to remember their history and then avoid future mistakes, Courtney?" "They are too stupid," said Courtney. "And they listen to politicians." "Then you don't believe that each generation is more intelligent than the last?" "Of course it isn't. Where are our great men, Rory? This generation has no Michelangelos, no Ciceros, no da Vincis, no Socrateses, no Platos. We're a dull drab industrial civilization, without inspiration or real joy or creativeness. It's all machines, and worship of machines. Like Karl Marx. He loves machines. He thinks they are the new Dispensation. He screams against 'business' but he's the real patron saint of business." They reached a low gray wall of stone and sat on it, smoking. Banks of bright gold forsythia rose behind them. The sky was like pale blue porcelain against which trees--filled with a tawny haze of buds stretcthed their newly flexible branches. The old gray facades of the distant buildings were showing the fresh green of young ivy. The air was warm but nimble, the grass shyly lush and fragrant and dotted with dandelions and buttercups and tiny white daisies. There was a sea wind, nostalgic and exciting. The young men on the wall smoked peacefully and looked about them and were young with the young world. Courtney glanced idly up at the sky to see the delicately shining crescent of a new moon just rising in the east. He was really wondering about Rory and his dual nature, which had always intrigued him. Rory could change from a rascal, with the rascal's joyously incredulous smile and arched eyebrows, to glum sobriety. He was at once a cynic, immune to sentimentality, and then, in an instant, he was almost naive. He could laugh heartlessly at the predicament of a classmate, and then the next moment he would lend him money, give him advice and help him. He could be ruthless and exploitative with a prostitute, and then, without warning, he would give the woman twice as much as she had asked and show her solicitude. He could lie amiably and readily, without shame or compunction, and then endanger himself with the absolute truth and show disgust with liars. He could be cruel and indifferent and shortly afterwards full of pity and kindness to the one and the same person. Was all this caprice, Courtney would think, the capriciousness of a very volatile and alert man, or was neither manifestation sincere? He finally came to the conclusion--though not always without doubts--that Rory was truly dual. For that somewhat thick red lower lip, sensual like his grandfather's, could tighten into austerity with the ascetic's rejection of sensuality. But whether he was the dedicated scholar or the thoroughgoing scoundrel, the protector of the weak or the derider of weakness, he was honest as of the moment. This very startling versatility, this changefulness, created a fascinating individual which, combined with his splendor of appearance and obvious potency, made him irresistible to both men and women. Though he seemed never to be the same--like a flashing dragonfly in the sun--there was a basic immutability in his character over which his attitudes and emotions merely scintillated. That stable quality, Courtney thought, is something men would reckon with in the future, to their bewilderment, and possibly to their discomfiture. Rory might be Gemini, but he was also himself, mysterious and unknowable, like his father. Courtney and Rory might be closer than brothers, trusting each other beyond the trust they gave anyone else, but even the subtle Courtney never fully guessed the personality of the other. However, Courtney had the wry conviction that Rory understood him, completely, and that Rory was never deceived as to the nature of anyone else. To those whom Rory cared little about--or those he had decided to hoodwink--he was apparently light-hearted, gay, generous, good-natured, humorous, witty, broadly tolerant and careless. To those closer to him he sometimes showed his intrepid character, his adamant ruthlessness, his staunch strange rectitude, his powerful determination, and his exigency. Once Courtney said to him, "You wear many masks," to which Rory replied, "But they are all me." "It must be tiring," said Courtney. Rory had laughed. "No, it is always interesting. I never know what I am going to do next." Courtney doubted that. There was a certain deliberation in what Rory always did, a certain calculation. However, one could always rely upon his loyalty, once given. He might say to a friend, "You've been a damned fool and deserve your punishment," but he would always help the friend to evade that punishment, cursing him meanwhile and publicly excoriating him. To the discriminating Courtney, Rory's hearty good-fellowship with the most improbable people--low mountebanks, sly reprobates, villains, rogues, unkempt and noisy ne'er-do-wells, drunkards, failures, ragtag and bobtail, and the stupidly insistent--seemed incredible and unworthy of him. For, within an hour or so Rory could be found disputing with professors in the most learned fashion and obtuseness and in the most elegant and impeccable phrases, and showing a fastidiousness in thought and argument beyond the range of most young men of his age.
But Courtney had known very few politicians. He did not guess Rory was a born politician for quite a considerable time. Rory was all placid youthfulness today when he and Courtney sat on the wall and swung their legs and smoked and idly contemplated their fellows walking in the Yard. There was nothing on Rory's vivid face which revealed his capacity for thought and reflection. He seemed a rather colorful and beefy young man with nothing on his mind but girls and whiskey and athletics and adventures, and spending unearned money. His thick thatch of red-gold hair shimmered in the frail sunlight. His handsome face was relaxed. His light blue eyes wandered with apparently no thought. Then Rory said, "I thought you and Ann Marie would be openly engaged by this time. Or, has she changed her mind?" "She's afraid to speak to her mother about it," said Courtney, and he frowned. "She knows how your mother hates my mother, and me. Ann Marie is a very timid girl, you know." "I never noticed it," said Rory, remembering the vigorous way Ann Marie would pull his hair when they were in the nursery. He smiled. "I thought it would be announced on our twenty-first birthday, but it wasn't. I've talked to her, as you suggested, but she actually quails at the idea of speaking to Ma." Then he scowled and looked down at the grass. He had never been unaware of the liaison between his father and "Aunt" Elizabeth. But he loved both, and approved of the affair which had gone on over the years. Ma was impossible. Rory did not blame his father. However, he understood his twin sister's fear of approaching their mother on the subject of an engagement to Courtney Hennessey. "I talked to my mother, about six months ago," said Courtney. Rory stared at him, surprised, raising his bronze eyebrows. "I thought she'd faint," Courtney continued. "She was very agitated. She said it was 'impossible,' and she wouldn't tell me why. Do you have an idea?" Rory considered this. "No, I don't. There is no impediment to the marriage that I can conceive of. You are the son of Everett Wickersham, your mother's first husband, and you were only adopted by my grandfather. No consanguinity to the last degree. So, that can't be it. Your mother-- likes--my father. There shouldn't be any objection there. And Ann Marie and I love your mother. So, why should Aunt Elizabeth be 'faint' at the very suggestion. "I don't know," said Courtney, feeling miserable in the fresh sunshine. "Suppose I speak to Pa?" said Rory. "He has no patience with foolishness. He likes you, too." "I should not like any disagreements in the family," said Courtney. "I am not exactly 'family' in the meaning of the word, though I was adopted by Tom Hennessey. I am not really your 'uncle,' or Bernadette's brother, except by courtesy of adoption, which means nothing. I do know, though, that my mother was very disturbed at the idea and turned very white and became upset. She told me I must put it out of my mind." Courtney grimaced. "I've wanted to marry Ann Marie since I was ten years old!" He thought again, despondently. "Since I spoke to Ma she seems to have failed in health. She is growing thin and nervous. She keeps looking at me, as if she is about to burst out crying. I just don't understand. She loves Ann Marie like a daughter--which is more than you can say for your own mother." He looked bitterly at Rory. Rory shrugged, tranquilly. "Oh, I know Ma. Maybe Aunt Elizabeth is afraid of my mother and doesn't want her to come down on Ann Marie too hard. Hatred is a very stupid thing, unless you can make it work for you," added Rory, the politician. "How can we make the hatred between your mother and mine 'work' for us?" asked Courtney. "Let me think about it," said Rory. "Maybe I can get Pa on your side. He doesn't give a hoot for Ma's feelings or opinions." He said it without rancor. "I only know this," said Courtney. "I love your sister, and I am going to marry her even if we have to dope. But she cries at the thought. But I think I've just about persuaded her. She talks of the 'family.' So long as we have you on our side, Rory, and eventually my mother, why should we care?" To his surprise Rory did not answer for a moment. Then Rory said, "There must be something. Anyway, as Napoleon said, the difficult we can do immediately. The impossible takes just a little longer. I'll find out." But Courtney, the controlled and usually serene, felt something ominous in the air, something not to be grasped, something hidden. He was not a young man of moods, like Rory, and not given to premonitions. However, there it was: something threatening and terrible, beyond his comprehension. He tried to fix his attention on Ann Marie, her gentle pale face, her large light brown eyes like sherry, her smooth brown hair, her abashed little mannerisms, her quiet timidity, her radiant and sudden smile. He felt a sharp powerful emotion which shook him. He loved Ann Marie. Nothing, not family or anything else, would keep him from his love. There was nothing beyond it. "What's the matter?" asked Rory. "You look like death." "It's getting chilly," said Courtney, as the warmth heightened. He tried to divert himself. "How are you and Maggie Chisholm getting along?" "Her Dad won't have her marry a Catholic," said Rory, smiling with humor. "Nor an Irisher. I'm beyond the pale. Her Dad has a nose like a fox, and sniffs. When I go to see her he acts as if she had dragged something smelly from the gutter into the house. Old Boston. But, we're going to be married." Rory never confided in anyone, not even in Courtney. He smiled, Courtney thought, like a Cheshire cat, secret and knowing. And contented. I wish, thought Courtney, that I was as sure of everything as he is. "You can't be married in the Church," said Courtney, "unless Maggie agrees to it and brings up your children as Catholics." "Who says anything about the Church?" said Rory, with a magnificent gesture. "I'd marry Maggie before a Muslim priest, if it came to that. Or a justice of the peace." "Heretic," said Courtney. They heard the bells ring for dinner and slid from the wall and made their way towards Memorial Hall in the last warm rays of the sun. They locked their arms together, both aware of the deep affection between them and the trust. Courtney's premonitions receded. He acquired something of Rory's confidence in life: After all, what force was strong enough to divide those who loved each other? After dinner, and whistling happily, Rory went to call on Miss Marjorie Chisholm on Beacon Hill. Her mother was dead and the female head of the small family was a romantic and loving aunt who favored Rory and would be discreet about his forbidden visits. Marjorie's father dined at this time every week with his grim mother some distance away. The Chisholms were fairly rich and very much in social power in Boston, claiming some lateral descent from Paul Revere. Rory found their old rose- brick house narrow and dark and somewhat poor," for he was accustomed to the grandeur of his mother's house and the immense drawing rooms and domed painted ceilings and gilt and marble and fountains and statues and expensive paintings and silk walls. Here, in the Chisholm house, the windows were tall slits prim and recessed, like a spinster's mouth, the doors thick but narrow with a stained-glass fanlike window over the front entrance, the roofs of steeply pitched slate, and the shutters painted brown. It rose abruptly from the bricked street, was close to its neighbors, with a dank garden in the rear. The furniture, to Rory, was gloomy and dull, with brass pulls and dark velvet seats and glimmering tops to the tables. There were no enormous and glittering chandeliers as there were in the Hennessey house, but muted lamps of brass and china, filled with kerosene, for Mr. Chisholm did not "believe" in gas and certainly not in the new electricity which some of the more "advanced and thriftless" houses were already boasting. Once Rory had shown, with pride, some photographs of his mother's house to young Marjorie, who had studied them with an inscrutable face. She finally said, "It looks very grand --but a little formidable. What in Heaven's name do you and your family do in that gigantic place?" Rory said, "When Ma's there it doesn't seem so 'gigantic.' She's everywhere." "It seems bigger than the 'cottages' in Newport," said Marjorie. "And I always thought they were--vast." She did not add, "And somewhat tasteless." Maggie was tiny. Her head scarcely reached to Rory's shoulder, and she had a dainty little figure, delightfully doll-like. She was dark and vivacious and gay, with great black eyes almost constantly full of laughter, long black lashes and thick black brows, and black hair from which glistening ringlets were always escaping and framing her olive-tinted small and pointed face. She dressed exquisitely but demurely, and she could dance as expertly as Rory and played tennis almost as competently as did Rory, himself. She had a dark crimson mouth, with very white little teeth, and she also had a most endearing if a tenderly mocking smile. She was quite the belle of Boston, and she was nineteen years old, and intelligent and sprightly and extremely witty as well as kind. She had fallen in love with Rory Armagh the moment she had met him, and as she had an iron will under all that gay and effervescent exterior she had decided, within five minutes, that she would marry him. It took Rory a month to decide that for himself. Mr. Albert Chisholm had felt contempt for Rory on the very first meeting, for he knew all about Joseph Armagh. He was an upright man because he had never been tempted to be anything else, and had never known poverty or anxiety. To Mr. Chisholm, Rory was not only an undesirable suitor for his only daughter because of his, Rory's, father and his "nefarious enterprises and engagements in Despicable Politics," but because of Rory, himself. He thought Rory too "light-minded," too "undependable," too careless, too brash. But then, he would say to his daughter with disdain, he was Irish and everyone knew what the Irish "were." No man of propriety or position had anything to do with them, or admitted them to his house. They were born without conscience or compunction or morals or firmness of character. They "pushed" themselves, even worse than did the Jews, and tried to invade decent society which had a Duty to morality and to the country. "Yet, Daddy, your trusted secretary is a Jew," said Marjorie. "My dear girl, Bernard is entirely different from the average Jew! Surely you must have seen that for yourself. But this young Armagh--he is typical of the Irish. No, he must never enter this house again. I forbid you to see him." Naturally, Marjorie saw Rory at least twice and sometimes even three times a week. They were now at the stage where they were seriously discussing an elopement. "You think your Pa is against us," said Rory. "But it would be nothing compared to what my own Pa would say, my sweetheart. He'd look once at your Pa, with his white sideburns and mustache and his air of smelling something foul all the time, and he'd laugh at him. Now, Pa has no religion, but let someone say anything about the 'Papists' and he'll have that man's lights and livers. And Pa mistrusts men like your father. He calls them hypocrites and names I wouldn't repeat to your darling innocent ears--he's met too many of them in his lifetime. And demolished too many of them. Not out of resentment for the superior way they've acted towards him, but just because he knew what they were and despised them." Marjorie had a temper, and loyalty. She flared up and bridled and her pretty dark face flushed. "Sir, just what is my Daddy?" "Oh, come on, Maggie. I'm not trying to offend you. I'm just saying what my Pa would think of yours. Pa eats men like your progenitor alive, for breakfast. Pa's no easy boy. He's got a back stiffer than your father's. In fact, your Pa is a willow branch compared to Pa. Besides, Pa wants me to marry an heiress, rich in her own right, someone whose father is powerful internationally, like himself, who is known, to quote him." "Somebody flamboyant and vulgarl" cried young Marjorie. "Well, not exactly," said Rory, admiring the fire in the big black eyes. "A lady, too. Not a Back Bay girl of a family that doesn't have much influence in Washington, for instance. And my Pa would think your father's money mere wooden nickels." "Indeed!" exclaimed Marjorie, her little rounded breast heaving. "Perhaps you had better, sir, start searching for that American princess of yours and leave this insignificant Bostonian chit alone!" "I happen to love 'this insignificant Bostonian chit,'" said Rory, and took her in his long strong arms and kissed her soundly, and she became weak and trembling. "Ah, love," said Rory, "what does it matter what they think?" She nestled her head against his shoulder, and clung to him, her ringlets brushing his mouth. But she was also practical. "You have your law school to go through," she said, in a shaking voice. "Years! I'll be old, old, and so will you." "We'll elope, quietly; to some other state, and no one will know, and when I've been graduated we'll tell them all to go to hell." "But we wouldn't be able to--to--" and Marjorie blushed furiously and dropped her eyes. "Sleep together?" said Rory kindly, kissing her again. "Of course we will! I have it all figured out. I will get a small apartment in Cambridge and we can meet there without anyone knowing. And you needn't worry about any--consequences. I know how to protect you." His mouth parted hers and sought, and she thought she would faint. She pulled her lips from his. Marjorie was very red now. But she pressed her head against the region where she imagined his heart to be and murmured, "Ah, Rory, Rory." Her little body was wincing with inexplicable thrills, and she was at once ashamed and hungry. Tonight they had decided to take Aunt Emma into their confidence. If she refused to be an accomplice she would at least not mention anything to her brother. She adored young Maggie, and was very fond of Rory, and she was always reminding them to be "prudent." She thought this clandestine romance very exciting, for she had had none in her own life, and she was by nature romantic. She was always reading "French" novels, which her brother found reprehensible, and which she was always trying to hide from him. She was as small as Marjorie, but very fat and rosy and sweet of face, and somewhat untidy and over elaborate in dress, and she could never seem to arrange her brown-gray hair neatly. It was always spilling down her neck and about her ears, and she was always thrusting hairpins into it, and laughing. There had never been any suitor in her years as a girl and a young woman-she was now fifty-but she frequently hinted at some tragic love affair, and would sigh over it with moist eyes, and murmur something about "Papa," and