Captains and The Kings (58 page)

Marjorie would hug and kiss and console her. She feared her brother, Albert, and could not understand why Marjorie did not fear him, too. Marjorie feared nobody and nothing, except at times she feared losing Rory. She found his duality of nature infinitely fascinating, but she also mistrusted it, for a new Rory was always being presented to her and she had her family's firmness of disposition and constancy, except when she was angry, which was quite often. Once she had roundly shouted at her father, "We need new blood in this effete family!" "But not Irish blood," her father had replied. He never let her know it but Marjorie could daunt him, as could her dearly loved dead mother, and when Marjorie's eyes flashed like this and her face was fiery, he became weak with longing and grief. Marjorie did not guess, until much later, that her father would forgive her anything. After kissing Rory with enthusiasm Marjorie led him into the "back room," as Aunt Emma called it, though it was a small sitting room for the family. No one, of course, ever used the dark chill double parlors except when guests were present. Marjorie's aunt was knitting placidly, an endless pile of gray wool which was never completed. She looked at Rory and her face became rosy and pretty and she accepted his kiss like a loving mother and told him, as always, that he was "the handsomest young spark I have ever seen." He had brought her a bouquet of daffodils and narcissi -none of which would grow in Albert's wet dank garden-and had delicately refrained from bringing Marjorie the same. This was a politician's deft gesture, and Marjorie grinned wickedly. "Oh, my dear," said Aunt Emma, sniffing the bouquet and then lifting damp eyes to Rory. "How did you know they are my favorites, the bright blossoms of spring?" If Rory winced at her old-fashioned and melodramatic expression he did not show it. He said, with gallantry, "Why, dear Aunt Emma, they remind me of you." She looked at him coquettishly, and almost cried, and gave them to Marjorie to put into a vase for her. The girl returned with them and put them on a round table covered with a dark red velvet cloth and immediately the rich but drab room took on radiance and Miss Chisholm stared at them, overcome with sentimentality. "Ah me," she sighed. "They remind me of--" She touched her eyes with her handkerchief. She always wore black silk, summer and winter, as if in constant mourning. Marjorie squeezed her hand and winked at Rory. He leaned towards the lady, all earnestness, gravity and boyish sincerity. The light blue eyes were the eyes of a very young boy and his somewhat fleshy and highly colored face was very serious. This caught Aunt Emma's attention immediately. She had never seen him look so beguiling, so trustful, so pleading.
"You know, Aunt Emma," he said, "that Maggie and I love each other, don't you?" "Indeed, my dear, I do know." Miss Chisholm sighed again, deeply, re- verberatingly. It was the sort of romantic tragedy on which she doted. She thought her niece and Rory another Juliet and Romeo. "But," she added, her kind voice trembling, "Albert will never permit you to marry." "However," said Rory, watching her, and now taking her short fat hand, "we do intend to marry. Almost immediately. We are going to elope." "Oh, oh!" cried Miss Chisholm, seeing Romeo and Juliet marrying surreptitiously in some dark, candlelighted cave with only monks for witnesses, "Albert will simply never countenance that!" Rory gave Marjorie a look and she bit her lip. "Countenance that or not, that is what we are going to do, Aunt Emma." He patted her hand. Reluctantly, she removed it. Her eyes were full of tears. "But Rory, I have heard from Marjorie, herself, that your own father would be so opposed, too!" "There comes a time when children must think for themselves--if they love each other," said Rory. 'For what is more than love?" As this was Miss Chisholm's own sentiment, she hesitated and for an instant girlish delight shone on her face. But she was not a New Englander for nothing. She said, "But Marjorie will have no money until she is twenty-one, and even then she will not get it if she insists on marrying someone to whom her father objects. Then she will have to wait until she is thirty." "I know," said Rory. As he had never known poverty he said, "We don't mind being poor, Aunt Emma, for a little while, until I am graduated from law school--" "Three years," said Miss Chisholm, the New Englander dominant in her now. "And Rory, do you have anything but your allowance from your father?" Rory had always thought his father unduly penurious and suspicious of students' profligacy, and so his allowance was only fifty dollars a month. "It's enough for skylarking," Joseph had said. "I have an allowance of thirty dollars a month, just for pin money," said Marjorie. She looked at Rory with a look he could not fully interpret. "Aunt Emma, we don't intend to tell anyone, but you. I will go on living here at home, and Rory--" Miss Chisholm was excessively shocked. She looked from Mariorie to Rory, and then back to Rory again. Her face was quite white. "But, my dears! You intend to deceive your poor parents, not tell them--" "What else can we do?" asked Marjorie now, blinking her eyes at her aunt. "We don't like it, but we have no choice." Her aunt had fallen back in her chair, horrified. "So--so deceiving, my dear children! So disrespectful! So disobedient! It would be best to tell them, keep your consciences in good order, live together openly in the sight of God and man--" "On eighty dollars a month?" asked Rosy. "We might not even have that, if we tell the old gentlemen. We might be cut off with nothing, and I wouldn't put it past my Pa to haul me out of law school, either, and set me to work at slave labor, for nothing, in one of his damned offices. As a lesson. Then Maggie and I would be parted"--he paused and looked at Miss Chisholm, weighing her--"for eternity." Miss Chisholm quivered inwardly, shuddered deliciously, dosed her eyes and let her head fall back in grief. "Like myself," she whispered. "0 God," Marjorie's naughty mouth formed the words soundlessly. "So," said Rory, "we can only necessarily--deceive our Pas until I am graduated from law school. Then we can be bold, and tell all the world." Miss Chisholm recovered and became Bostonian again. "Still," she said, opening her eyes and they were a little sharp now, "your father, Rory, might never forgive you, and then you'd have to wait until Marjorie is thirty for her money. Your father is a very rich man, Rory. A prudent young man thinks of--inheritances. He does not lightly reject them." Romeo and Juliet wistfully faded into limbo. "I do love you, Rory, but I'd feel very sad if Mariorie married a penniless--" "I'd inherit from my mother," said Rory, speaking with outward assurance but with no assurance within. He knew how besotted his mother was. She would do as Joseph told her, not out of fear for him but only to please him. "She is very rich, Rory, in her own right?" "Rolling in it," said Rory. "She inherited gobs from her mother, and her father. She owns our--mansion--in Green Hills, in Pennsylvania. You must have seen photographs of it. It frequently appears in the newspapers when Mama gives a soiree or something, for Personages. Presidents have been our guests. My grandfather was a senator, you know, and then Governor of Pennsylvania for several terms." He knew his Miss Chisholms. "Yes, yes, dear, I know. And you are your Mama's favorite child?" "Absolutely," said Rory, with never a droop of his eyelids. "Denies me nothing." "Then," said Miss Chisholm, "you must tell your Mama at once. No doubt she will come to your rescue." She spoke briskly and smiled with happiness. The sharpness of the remark caught Rory without an immediate response. Then he sighed, dropped his head, looked mournful. "Mama," he said, "is absolutely terrified of my father. She is in very poor health. An annoyed word from him would crush her, perhaps destroy her." He saw his mother's short obese body and engorged complexion and snapping eyes, and visualized her as a drooping flower. It almost made him laugh out loud. "But she has told me secretly of her will. I--I receive--though I pray that her health will improve and that God will spare her for many years to her devoted family--three-quarters of her fortune. Some"--and now Rory let his wide blue eyes wander to a musing distance--"fifteen million dollars." "Fifteen million dollars," whispered Miss Chisholm. She calculated interest. "It is invested, secure?" "Good as gold," said Rory. He resolutely would not look at Marjorie and the black mischief in her eyes. "Mama doesn't believe in using even the interest on interest, not to speak of capital, which is sacred." "She is in poor health, you say?" said Miss Chisholm in a sad voice. "Very poor. Heart, I believe." "You damned liar," mouthed Marjorie at Rory, for she had finally cornered his eye. "But if she discovers you deceived her--three years from now?" Rory gave a sigh that was almost a dry sob. "I doubt she will ever know," he said in the politician's rich and unctuous voice. He partly covered his eyes with his hand. "The doctors give us little hope. For her long survival." Miss Chisholm moistened her lips and considered, though her face was full of maternal sympathy for the rascally young man. Fifteen million dollars, at four percent, in a short time-- Possibly more, with the investments. Mr. Chisholm's fortune was much less than that, much less. And dear Rory was so intelligent. Any law firm would be overjoyed to have him grace its staff. One had only to be discreet-- How unfortunate that he was Irish, and a Papist! Were he not dear Albert would approve the match instantly. He would strut like a peacock, and boast in his genteel way. Rory's face was still partly hidden by his hand and Miss Chisholm wanted to comfort him. She did touch his strong broad knee with the tips of her fingers, gently. How sad to know one's dear Mama was on the edge of her grave and none could save her! Fifteen million dollars. The lamplight made the scoundrel's head glow in red-gold. Marjorie sat primly in her chair, her eyes downcast, but the dimples rioting in her cheeks. "What can I do for you dear children?" asked Miss Chisholm. (Albert, later, would "come" around." Fifteen million dollars, with interest at four percent, was not to be despised.) Marjorie said, "We are going to elope, perhaps day after tomorrow, dearest Aunt Emma. Then we are going--" She paused. It would be indelicate to mention that Rory had already rented three furnished rooms in Cambridge. "We will be--away, for perhaps three days. It is Rory's spring vacation. Then he must visit his parents, of course. I should like you, dearest Aunt, to tell Papa that I am visiting Annabelle Towers, in Philadelphia." "Can't you tell him yourself, my cherub?" "I intend to. But you could mention to Papa that I received an invitation this morning, and then later I will speak to him." "But Marjorie, that would be a fibI" Miss Chisholm was shocked, she who was always equivocating, in fear, before her redoubtable brother. Marjorie sighed, as if dejected. "What else can we do?" she murmured. "We love each other." "I see," said Miss Chisholm, already formulating the "fib" in her mind. "And then you will return home, Marjorie, and Rory will go to his parents. You will live apart--oh my dear children!--for three long years! How will you bear it, married in the sight of God but not in the sight of men!" Then she thought again of the fifteen million dollars and the poor Mama in a dying condition, poor sweet lady. It might be only a few short months. "We will bear it," said Rory, with a very noble expression, which constituents would later learn to trust and admire. "After all, everything can be borne for Love. Didn't St. Paul say it was the greatest of all, more than faith and hope?"
This appeal to Miss Chisholm's favorite saint quite undid her. She put her handkerchief to her eyes and cried a little. Never once did it occur to her that these plotters would hold any assignation before it was safe to do so. They would be married, but they would live in chastity, pure and untouched, bearing all things for love's sake, trusting in their Heavenly Father--and in fifteen million dollars, something intractable remarked in Miss Chisholm's really pragmatic mind. She said with sorrow, "I did so plan, all Marjorie's life, on a beautiful wedding, in the church in which she was baptised. Rory, you are a Roman
-forgive me, dear, I did not intend to offend you--but will your Church approve? I understand that--" Rory said, "We will find a minister. Aunt Emma, what are trappings where Love is concerned?" But Miss Chisholm was about to suggest that the young lovers wait until poor dear Mama-- But ah, that would be most uncouth and cruel. She said, "You don't mind being married by a Protestant minister, Rory?" Rory almost said, "I'd be happy to be married before Satan, if it was to Maggie," but he rather had the thought that this would be too much for Miss Chisholm, who had weakened. He said, with a grand gesture, "Is not even a minister a Man of God? Who can deny that?" Miss Chisholm was not quite certain that she liked the "even," but did not comment. "But I will not see my dearest niece married!" "I will bring you my bouquet," said Marjorie, kissing her. They were married before a Presbyterian minister two days later, in Connecticut, in a small obscure village where the name of Armagh meant nothing, but the fifty dollars Rory gave the astounded minister quite shook the threadbare poor old man and made tears come into his eyes. This young couple was dressed so modestly and plainly. It was obvious this was a great sacrifice, and he said so to Rory, with a timid smile. "Think nothing of it," said Rory, and then when Marjorie pinched his arm warningly he added, "It is the happiest occasion of my life, and I have been saving my money for a long time for it." They returned to Cambridge discreetly and hid themselves in the dingy three rooms Rory had rented for twenty dollars a month. They had few if any amenities, but they were ecstatic. Then Marjorie said, "Are we really married, Rory? I mean, in the eyes of your Church?" Rory hesitated for but an instant, then he said, "Married? Of course we are married! Don't be an idiot, Maggie. Here, let me unbutton your dress. How beautiful your little shoulders are--and what is this I see? Now, now, aren't we married?" Never again was Rory to know such happiness as he knew in those three rooms in a poor section of Cambridge. He was to remember that to the day he died, and his last. conscious thought was, "Maggie, O dear little Maggie! My God, my darling Maggie"
Chatter 37
"Whatever I engage in," Mr. Carnegie had once told Joseph, "I must push inordinately. He had smiled at the younger man. "We are Celts together, are we not? We understand each other. The Anglo-Saxons are no match for us." Joseph had laughed his rough and grating laugh. "Do you remember, sir, what Samuel Pepys said in his Diary of 1661: 'But, good God! What an age is this and what a world is this! That a man cannot live without playing the knave, and dissimulation.' " Mr. Carnegie had tilted his cigar and had studied Joseph. ". Well, Joseph, did we make this world? We had to come to terms with it, and I, my lad, have no quarrel with it. I met it fairly on the field, and I won. Or, aren't you satisfied that you won, too?" Joseph said, "I have no quarrel with the world, either. I played on its fields and I won, more or less fairly." "There is one thing," said Mr. Carnegie, "if a man plays fairly he will never win. That is the way of the world, my bairn." He thought, Here is a man, a fanatic, who once had a stern goal in life, but has now forgotten it. But fanaticism is its own motive power, and so he will continue. Is that not true of us all? Who can tell what gods, or what devils, drive us? He took a liking to Joseph out of his Celtish soul. He had built his steel plant on the Monongahela River after the enormous Bessemer mills of England. He said to Joseph, "This may seem to you a small beginning in Amcrica, laddie, but I advise you to invest in it." So Joseph had invested. By 1889 his investment had increased fiftyfold. By 1895 his wealth received respect from the most powerful in Europe and in America, even though before he had been rich by general standards. Mr. Carnegie had said that the vast gaining of money was "the worst species of idolatry," with hardly a twinkle of his icy blue eyes. He stayed in his castle in Scotland, where Joseph visited him from time to time, and pretended a barelessness concerning his steel empire in America which he ruled from afar. The little Scotsman had a genius for money, and Joseph had already learned that such a genius is not acquired but is inbred. "There's many a man," said Mr. Carnegie to Joseph, "who works all his life, with intelligence and industry, and acquires never a sovereign, and other men, with a flick of a wrist get everything. Now, I'm a wee Presbyterian, and so I believe in predestination. A man's a fool or a wise man by the willing of the Almighty, and we should not quarrel. Let us thank Him that He made us clever." "By dint of hard work," said Joseph, who knew Mr. Carnegie's history. "Ah, and that we did, too, and about it," said Mr. Carnegie. "I have never been one to underrate hard work. But ye must have a mind for it, too, laddie." He thought to himself, And a bitterness besides, and do I not have it, too? Without bitterness a man canna succeed. "I am no optimist," he said, with caution, when he had advised Joseph about investments. "I just judge. Many's the optimist who never had fifty dollars, and never will, be 411 cause they are optimists. Pessimism have saved money a man from bankruptcy. By the way, laddie, I dinna care for your friends." "They care for you," said Joseph, smiling. "They think you a mighty man. "Now, is that not strange? I am no assassin." Joseph had not replied to that, for he knew too much. But he was to remember that conversation in desperate later times in his life. "A man," said Mr. Carnegie, "can be hanged for a little murder, but for big murders he will receive applause. He winked at Joseph. Or, he will be famous. At the least he will be exonerated. His masters will never be known. They are too braw for that." "You are speaking of a coup d'etat," said Joseph. "All political murders are coups d'etat," said Mr. Carnegie, and had smiled a little at Joseph's somber expression. "There was hirer a king or an emperor or a president murdered by a little caprice or temper of a little man, and that ye know, laddie." And there are other murders, thought Joseph. He had a strange dream. He lay in a warm bed in his discreet hotel with Elizabeth Hennessey, and was surfeited with peace and contentment. He slept dreamlessly for a while. Then he found himself in a green-blue twilight in a place he did not know, nor did it seem to be furnished or have any background. He saw Senator Enfield Bassett, a man of honor and sadness, and his lustrous black eyes were filled with sorrow as he looked at Joseph. "I would, if I could," he said, "withdraw the curse I laid upon you, but it is not possible. When the wronged curse, or the innocent die, it falls upon the guilty living and no one can remove it. May God have mercy upon you, for I am prohibited from mercy." Elizabeth started awake, disturbed by Joseph's choking cry, and woke him in turn. The hot dawn of a summer morning had painted gold on the dusty windows of the bedroom. Joseph sat up abruptly, sweating and livid, and stared at Elizabeth as if he did not know her or know where he was. Even his eyelids were matted and his hair, risen like a mane, framed his gaunt face in mingled faded russet and white streaks. "My dearest, what is it?" Elizabeth exclaimed, alarmed, and took his arm. Her shoulders and breasts were like sun struck marble in the early light and her pale hair streamed about her. "Nothing. Nothing. It was only a dream," he muttered, and lay down again. But she saw that he was staring fixedly at the ceiling, and remembering. "Only a nightmare," he added. "About someone--who has been dead a long time. I don't know why I should dream about him; I haven't thought of him for years." He tried to smile at her fear-filled eyes and anxious expression. "Nothing at all." But he looked again at the ceiling with that fixed look. She lay down beside him, quietly, his wet hand in hers. She could feel the bounding of his pulse and the tremor of his fingers. "I haven't thought of him for years," Joseph repeated. He tried to laugh. "I never harmed him, or at least I wouldn't have harmed him. I destroyed all evidence against him." "But why, then, should you be upset?" Joseph sat up again and wiped his forehead with the edge of the sheet. He said, "He wrote me a note. He said he had laid a curse upon me--and mine. I haven't even thought of that for fourteen years, or more. I'm not 'upset,' dear. I'm not superstitious." He paused, patted her shoulder. "It was a nightmare. I thought he came to me and said he would withdraw his 'curse,' but couldn't. That was all. A stupid dream." The room was already hot, the increasing light striking through the heavy lace curtains, but Elizabeth felt cold. She said, "It was so long ago and nothing has happened to you--or yours--has it? There is no accounting for dreams." She rang the bell for coffee and rolls and smiled at Joseph, then rose and put on her white peignoir, throwing back her damp hair. "I am not superstitious, either," she said. She picked up a gold-backed brush from the dressing table and began to smooth her hair. Her smiling eyes met Joseph's in the mirror. She saw that he did not return her smile and that he was abstracted. "He's dead, you say," she said. "What did he die of?" "He killed himself." Elizabeth's hand stopped, and her fingers felt cold again. She put down the brush. Joseph said, as if speaking to himself, "A man like that has no business in politics. If he can't stand the bells and the soot he should stay off the trains." "You mean," said Elizabeth, "that politics are no place for an honest man." "Did I say he was honest?" asked Joseph, vexed with himself that he had even mentioned Senator Bassett. He put on his dressing gown, and his face was gloomy. "I think our coffee and rolls have arrived. I'll open the door." They did not speak of this again, but Elizabeth was never to forget that hot morning in New York. Two hours later Joseph went to Boston to see his son, Rory. "Now," he said, "I am all for hard work and ambition, and that you have, boyo. But why elect to attend summer classes and rush through law school like a fire engine?" Rory's amiable blue eyes had a little secrecy about them. But then he made himself look frankly at his father as they sat together in his humid room. Joseph was not deceived. "Why should I waste three years?" asked Rory. "I can do it in two. Isn't life for living? If I want to start to live a little sooner, what's wrong with that, Pa?" "I thought you were going to spend the summer on Long Island with those friends of yours, sailing and boating and what not, as you've been doing the past two years. They're important to cultivate, too." "I'd rather go on," said Rory. "Giving up all those sports you're mad about? Come on, Rory, out with it." "I'm going on twenty-two," said the young man. "I can't see myself in school until I am twenty-five or so. I told you, Pa: I want to start living as soon as possible." "And you think being one of my stable of lawyers will be 'living'?" Rory's eyes shifted. "If you want me, Pa." Joseph frowned. "You're being evasive. I never had time to live. I don't want that to happen to you." He was astonished at his own words. He looked at the signet ring on his finger which Elizabeth had given him, but he was not thinking of his mistress. "I would be the last to advise you to trifle with time and waste it, for I know how valuable it is. But on the way I'd like to know that you have been--" "Enjoying myself?" Rory was deeply touched. He drew his chair closer to his father's, and they smiled at each other. "Pa, you've made life easy for your family. Don't think we are ungrateful, Ann Marie and me, and even that black bear of a Kevin. Black Irish. You deserve having us off your hands as soon as possible." He thought of his sister, and hesitated. Joseph said quickly, "Well, what is it? Don't try to hide things from me, Rory. I always find out, you know. You've tried it in the past." "Ann Marie," said Rory. He stood up and put his big hands in his pockets and started to walk up and down the room, not slouching, but with a fast loping stride that was at once strong and graceful. "The hell," said Joseph. "What about Ann Marie?" He loved his sons dearly, and in particular Rory, but Ann Marie was his darling. "She's been looking languid lately and I've thought about it, but her mother says she is well and just moons about. Is there something wrong. Rory stood at the window and looked out. Well, he had promised Courtney and now if ever was the time, seeing Pa was in a soft mood, very rare with him. He said, "She wants to get married." "What's wrong with that?" asked Joseph. "Does her mother know? Who's the man? Somebody impossible, perhaps?" He sat up in his chair. "Somebody I'd consider very eligible," said Rory. He could feel the heat and color in his fresh face, and he waited for it to subside for he would rather have been drawn and quartered than to let his father know that he knew about him and Elizabeth. "One of your Harvard jackanapes with no money, and no family? Come on, Rory, speak up." "He has money, and comes of a good family," said Rory, and had to smile. Now he turned from the window. "Perhaps you wouldn't think so, yourself, but I do." He looked at his father and he tensed. "It's Courtney. Courtney Hennessey. Our adopted uncle," and he laughed a little. He was prepared for his father to frown, to consider, perhaps even to object for a moment or two, for men really did not want their daughters to marry. But he was not prepared for the fierce change on Joseph's face, and he could not read it, and was aghast. Did the old man consider that his mistress' son was no match for Ann Marie? Yet, he had always shown Courtney an offhand kindness and even some distant consideration and affection. Then Joseph said in so soft a voice-though his eyes were appalling- that Rory could hardly hear him. "You are out of your mind! Courtney Hennessey." They stared across the room at each other, and Joseph's face was a pallid shine in the shadow. There was a blue spark jumping in his deep-set eyes. He looked at Rory with an air of rigid shock. O God, thought Rory. What's the matter with him? What's wrong with Courtney? He said, "Pa, what's wrong with Courtney? I know that-I know that Ma hates his mother and him, and I don't know why, but then Ma hates practically everybody. You wouldn't let her objections stand in the way of Ann Marie and Courtney, would you? Ann Marie's no kid any longer, Pa. She has a right to her life." But Joseph hardly heard him. He began to speak, then gasped. He thought of Elizabeth. It came to him with stunning power that Rory, of course, believed the general story that Courtney was the son of a deceased military hero, and not, in fact, his real uncle. What in God's Name can I say? thought the stricken man. Elizabeth. Why hasn't the truth been told long before this? Ann Marie, my child, my little girl. Bernadette. I know her. This will be a fine rich and vindictive joke to her, a final triumph over Elizabeth. He began to speak again and was forced to cough. "Has-anyone told your mother yet?" At least he's not raging, as he can! thought Rory, a little encouraged. He came back to his chair and regarded his father seriously, and then was more alarmed as he saw the jolting shock was increasing on Joseph's face. "No, Pa. She doesn't know-yet. Courtney has been pressing her to tell Ma, but she's afraid. Ann Marie's such a mouse. We call girls like her 'mice,' here in Harvard. You know. Soft and gentle and retiring, with nothing much to say for themselves, and always avoiding unpleasantnesses, and you know how unpleasant Ma can be." But Joseph merely stared at him blindly, desperately looking for a a way out of this dilemma, a way that would be no shame to Elizabeth and no cruelty to Ann Marie. But, what was the way but the truth? Then Joseph cursed aloud, and Rory, who thought that he knew every obscenity and invective known to the English-speaking world learned that there were others, also. He had heard his father swear before, yet never had he heard him use such foul words, and with such cold passion too. Rory was very perceptive. He knew that his father was cursing not with rage but with a sort of helpless despair and pain. Joseph finally stopped that rough hoarse stream of vilenesses, and became fully aware of Rory again. He said, "I can only say this: It is impossible. There is an--impediment. Go to any priest and ask him." "Courtney did," said Rory. "The priest had to look it up. He had his doubts for a while, but then he said that as Courtney was no in-law, really, but only the adopted son of my grandfather, the real son of a stranger--" Rory stopped, for his father even in his fixed silence was more formidable than the young man had ever seen him. Something took Rory by the throat. "I said," Joseph repeated, "that there is an impediment." "But what? If there is, Ann Marie and Courtney ought to know. If some Church authorities object--well, there are always other resources, and we aren't