Captains and The Kings (65 page)

exchange a glance. Courtney swallowed through a dry throat. He said, after apparently giving the matter consideration, "Ann Marie and I had agreed that she would not tell her mother--about us wanting to marry--unless I was with her. I have no reason to believe that Ann Marie broke that agreement. When she rode up to me, and before Missy reared and bolted, she was as always--glad to see me, eager to talk--" He could not go on. The face of Ann Marie stood before him as he had seen it this disastrous morning when she had confronted him with terror and revulsion and anguish. He bent his head. "You are sure she did not know?" "I am sure," said Courtney, when he could speak again. "I'd have known at once." Joseph put his hands on his hips, a gesture alien to the American-born, and so curiously foreign. But he looked hard into Courtney's face and he said with precision, "I think you are both lying. You are trying to protect
--somebody." Elizabeth cried, "Why would my son, and yours, lie, Joseph? What makes you think they are lying?" She was standing again and her face was like white fire in the extremity of deep indignation. Joseph's eyes went to her face and he contemplated her in silence, but his own face changed subtly. "Perhaps, Elizabeth," he said, "they have been lying to you, too." Kevin broke in. "What is all this about? What was Ann Marie going to be told? What is the mystery?" He was not prepared for his father's answer. He expected Joseph not to reply, or to turn away. But Joseph's eyes were again fixed on the youth's face and were again terrible. "No one told you that Courtney and Ann Marie could not marry? No one ever told you that Courtney is your blood uncle, your half uncle, if you will, the brother of your mother?" "Not" exclaimed Kevin, giving a great start and making his eyes bulge. "For God's sal9! I thought--I thought he was adopted by my grandfather!" He turned to Courtney and affected to give him sharp consideration and speculative conjecture. "I thought his father's name was Wickersham." Elizabeth's drawn face had deeply flushed. She turned aside, her head raised in proud defensiveness and suffering. Hell, thought Kevin, I'm sorry to have to do this to her, but my parents and my family are more to me than Elizabeth Hennessey and old Grandpa. Joseph said, watching her, and now there was a darkness of shame and regret on his face: "I'm sorry, Elizabeth. But I have to know the truth. My daughter is upstairs, probably dying, and I want to know who told her the thing which almost killed her, and drove her to this." Elizabeth turned slowly to him and audibly caught her breath and her eyes were green stone. "You were always too imaginative, Joseph," she said, and her voice was cold and steady, as if she were speaking to a servant, and he heard it and something roiled in him, galling and sickened. "I think Ann Marie has more strength than you give her credit for, and I believe that even if she had been told she would have accepted it." They regarded each other now in silence and Joseph thought, She will never forgive me, my Elizabeth. It will never again be the same between us--if there will ever be anything. Elizabeth was thinking this also, and now added to her weariness and anxiety and sympathy was an enormous pain and withdrawal, a regret that something beautiful had been shattered and even if repaired would be cracked and subtly disfigured. "You might not have humiliated my mother, before your son," said Courtney, feeling deep rage. "Would you like to give it to the newspapers, too? Shall I summon them for you in the morning--or have you already told your doctors who can spread my mother's secret far and wide?" "Courtney," said Elizabeth. "Courtney, take me home. Please. I feel we are unwelcome here." "I will take you home," said Joseph. "You will not," said Courtney. "She is my mother. What have you to do with her, anyway? She came here to a house where she is hated by your wife, and is insulted, by you, and she came only because she loved Ann Marie like a mother and because she thought she might be able to help-- help with your wife. My sister! God damn it, nay sister! The very thought is hateful to me, do you know that, Mr. Armagh? Do you know how much I despise your wife, and now despise you?" The young man's face was blazing with the fervor of his rage and his new hate. "And your wife has had the audacity, over all the years I can remember, to be insulting, ungracious, cruel, contemptible, and vulgar to nay mother! She who isn't good enough to wipe my mother's feet with her bare hands! But still my mother came to this disgusting house, again to be shamed and insulted, again to be told that her presence here is unwanted. Mother, let us go." So, thought Joseph, whose face had turned a dark crimson, there is one thing he does not know, and now he felt remorse--an emotion so strange to him that it startled him, for the last time he had felt such a thing had been when confronting Senator Bassett. Courtney had taken his mother's arm, and she was drawing her lacy shawl over her shoulders, and Kevin was watching and listening admiringly. Joseph went and stood before Elizabeth and faced her, and she could not look away though her eyes were full of tears and her lip trembled. "I will take you home, Elizabeth," he said. "Courtney, no doubt, would like to stay here for a little while for any news of Ann Marie. Elizabeth?" "No," said Courtney. But he saw, with astonishment, that his mother and Joseph were seeing only each other, and as one who loved, himself, he knew the expressions of love, and he was aghast. He stepped back, his hands moving in a gesture of sharp repudiation, and his mouth felt suddenly scalded. He thought he would be sick. He had never seen his mother's face like this, helpless, melting, for all her pride; he saw her tears. And he saw her bow her head. He wanted to kill Joseph when Joseph gently took Elizabeth's arm and led her towards the door and looked down at her with all the solicitude and tenderness of a lover, a lover asking forgiveness and expecting it as a matter of course. Kevin had seen all this, too, and his black eyebrows had shot upwards, intrigued, amazed, and then more than a little amused in spite of all that had happened that day. So, that was the way it was, was it? He felt no condemnation for his father, no embarrassment. He was young and even his apprehension for his sister was forgotten for a few moments while he chuckled inwardly and shook his head and wondered if his mother knew. No doubt she did. No doubt that partially explained her hatred for Elizabeth. Poor old Ma. Well, compared with Aunt Elizabeth she was only a fishwife, loud, noisy, vindictive, coarse and lashing of tongue, and full of boisterous malicious laughter and exaggerated gossip, always hoping for an evil story concerning friends, always deprecating, always exercising her rowdy wit on anyone she disliked--and she disliked practically everyone (including her children) except Pa. The thought of his father as the lover of a woman made Kevin chuckle inwardly again. Even such as Joseph Armagh could be held in the hands of a woman. Let that be a lesson to you, my bucko, Kevin told himself. If a woman can do that to Pa, above all men, then what could a woman do to you, eh? He became conscious of Courtney, who had sat down again, his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands. Poor old Courtney, what shocks he had had today. Discovering Ma was his sister he had always disliked her. Knowing what he must tell Ann Marie, and he in love with her. Then, the tragedy that had. almost killed Ann Marie--of course Ma had told her; he had known that almost at once, or at least he had known that dear old Ma had done something to the girl. Then Courtney had had to tell him. Now, that was a noble old boy, Courtney. Protect Ma, who was like a rhinoceros. Talk about Sir Galahads: Old Court had the strength of twenty, not ten. Protect the whole Armagh family. If anything, Kevin felt more affection and admiration for his father than he had done before. He sat down near Courtney and said, "I am going to have a drink, and I think you need one, too, and then I'll tell one of the damned maids to bring us some sandwiches and coffee." "No," said Courtney, from behind his hands, but Kevin whistled and pulled the bell rope. "Please yourself," he said. "There isn't a funeral in this house, but even at funerals they eat baked meats, or something. You've never been to an Irish wake." Courtney dropped his hands. His face looked dull and lifeless and his pale hair was disordered, and his eyes had a defeated expression in them. But he said, "Yes, I've been to Irish wakes. You forget I'm Irish, too. I'm a Hennessey by birth as well as by name, and I wish to God I could wipe that out." A ripple of shadowy anger ran over his features, and a new bitterness, and a sorrow that he could not express. He did drink the brandy that was brought to him and Kevin, and a little color took the pallor from his cheeks, and he even ate half a sandwich and drank some coffee. In the meantime he listened to every sound. Eventually he heard Joseph come back--it was a long time to Courtney--and go upstairs again. When Courtney returned home, after hearing from a maid that Ann Marie was still "resting," and that there had been no change, he did not look for his mother. He saw a light under her door, and he felt the heat in his face. He went to his room and threw himself on his bed and a blessed numbness came to him. He never knew whether he slept or not but at least the agony had retreated, and had become mercifully unreal for a little while. But Joseph sat by his daughter, watching the faces of the physicians who ministered to her, seeing the long brown braids on her pillow, the hollow remoteness of her young profile, the arm in its sling, the bandage on her head where her hair had been shaved. He listened for her breathing. Occasionally she moaned.
It was almost dawn when--as if in a vision that stood before him in unwavering light--he saw the face of Senator Bassett and remembered the curse that unfortunate man had laid upon the family and person of Joseph Armagh, and remembered his own dream. It was ridiculous, even to remember. It was, this superstition, fit only for old wives in chimney corners, cackling of banshees and the little people and omens and visitations, and moldv curses. But Joseph sat by his daughter and he thought of Senator Bassett whom he had murdered as surely as any assassin. Chapter There was not a night that Elizabeth Hennessey did not sit upstairs at her bedroom window and watch the Armagh house. It was January now, and the lawns and the trees were filled up with snow and there was a wide desolation on the sky near sunset, when a lavender shadow ran over the whiteness of the earth and the steepled spruces and the pines stood black against a coldly sparkling orange west. Not even at Christmas had lights been lit in that house, except for the upper servants' quarters, and no movement could be seen at black windows, and no coming or going. No sleigh bells scattered thin music in the silence, chimneys smoked but desultorily; the roofs were marble under the moon. The New Year came and went, and there were no yellow opened doors, no laughter, no guests, no ball as usual. For Joseph and Bernadette had taken their daughter, Ann Marie, to Europe the last of September for a hopeless round of celebrated neurologists in Geneva, Paris, Rome and London, and brain specialists. Kevin and Rory were at their university, and did not come home for the holidays. Courtney had accompanied Joseph and Bernadette during their desperate hegira until Bernadette had more than made it plain that he was unwanted and unwelcome. He was now in Amalfi and gave his mother no indication of when he would return. Elizabeth guessed that he knew of her liaison with Joseph Armagh, and that in some way, in his grief-stricken misery and confusion, he blamed her for his birth, Ann Marie's condition, and the final humiliation of her affair. Some day, she knew, when his grief was less, he would see more clearly. In the meantime she had to be satisfied with his brief cold notes to which she replied with maternal warmth and love. It was Rory who kept her informed of the family, from letters from his mother, Joseph's letters to her were abrupt with sorrow and despair, and. she knew she must not reply to them. Ann Marie could walk now, feed herself, help a nurse to dress and bathe her, but beyond that she had been reduced to the intelligence of a child of less than three, and had no memory of her past life, no memory of Elizabeth and Courtney Hennessey, and did not remember her brothers from visit to visit. She had lost the years of her education and her experience. The only clue that sometimes heartened the family was an awful and unremitting fear of horses and terror of even a small copse of trees. But as the months passed these fears began to abate so that the parents were able to take her, without a blindfold, into a carriage. So, the last hope was dwindling out, and Joseph was tr3ing to reconcile himself to the fact that his shy and timid young daughter would remain an infant for the rest of her life. Once only he wrote to Elizabeth: "It were better if she had died, for though her bodily health has been restored and she is becoming quite plump, her mental faculties do not increase. The only consolation I have is that she is seemingly contented, as she was as a very young child, and laughs and plays as that child, and is docile and affectionate, and, above all, happy with the innocence of childhood. Her lineaments and color are those of a young child. Who knows but what this is kinder to her than maturity, and growing old and bitter and disillusioned and sad, and full of the fears of maturity'? At least she will never know these, never know loss or discontent or wretchedness. She is in the Limbo about which we were taught by the priests, that is, in a state of 'natural' happiness where there is no darkness, no fright, no longing, but only affection and kind words and care." Rory wrote Elizabeth that the family expected to return in the spring with Ann Marie. Doctors had strongly' urged that the girl be placed in "a comfortable retreat with those other unfortunates who had been born in that condition, where she will receive professional solicitude and taught simple tasks and be among her own kind." Bernadette had eagerly agreed, thinking of the melancholy presence of her daughter in her house, with attendant nurses and constant comings and goings of physicians, and "disruptions," as Rory quoted his mother. But Joseph had refused. His daughter would live and die in her home. Elizabeth, against her will, sympathized with Bernadette. It was all very well for Joseph, who was rarely in Green Hills, except for an occasional weekend and holidays. His would not be the daily depression of the sight of nurses and the bulletins of physicians, tie would not have to see Ann Marie daily, and remember her as she was. He would not have to deal with recalcitrant servants, who resented the darkening presence of an invalid and the special meals and the authority of bustling nurses, who could be arrogant. All this would be the province of the gregarious, lively and active Bernadette, who hated responsibility and especially hated the very sight and smell of illness either in herself or others. If Ann Marie, in her present state, were deeply attached to her parents, the matter would be different, but Elizabeth gathered that she was equally happy with nurses and servants abroad, did not miss anyone who did not appear as usual, and hardly recognized Bernadette or Joseph. Once Joseph had had to be in London for three weeks--he had taken Rory with him--and when he went to Ann Marie on his return the girl had not recognized him at all, and had been shy with him for nearly a week. That, thought Elizabeth, must have been devastating. Is he punishing Bernadette for what he suspects, but does not know? Elizabeth would ask herself. Is he punishing her because Bernadette was never fond of the poor child, and is this his revenge? Even Elizabeth who knew him better than anyone else in the world could not answer her own questions. When she thought of Ann Marie it was like thinking of the dead, for the girl was now no longer a young adult, and could no longer take her place with the living. What lived in Ann Marie was not the thinking and speculating and wondering soul, alive to experience and joy, and even sorrow. It was a simple, natural, animal spirit which would never grow older, never develop, never know love, never miss anyone, never rejoice. Sometimes Elizabeth thought: Is Ann Marie's brain permanently damaged, or is she in retreat from life and will not return to it? There were some gentle people who once cruelly injured could no longer face existence as it was, and is, and develop loss of memory or fly back into a childhood which was less painful, less agonizing, less demanding of acceptance. Once again on that rose-island full of unending sunlight they would never return. No one could answer Elizabeth's conjectures, for no one knew. Had Bernadette driven her daughter back into those infantile days--be- cause the present and the future were too direful to face for one like Ann Marie--or had it all been truly an "accident"? Bernadette would not speak, of course, if she knew anything at all, and Courtney and Kevin had been explicit enough and their stories had never varied. Yet Elizabeth, highly intuitive, had the strangest conviction that both the young men had not spoken of an enlightening incident. She remembered that Courtney had said that Ann Marie had regained consciousness briefly in the woods, had recognized him and had spoken to him, had asked where she was and how she had come to be there, and had told him that she loved him. Yet, later, when Elizabeth had asked him to repeat that to her he had looked at her with green eyes newly chill and remote and had said, "Mother, you must have imagined it, or mistaken what I said. I only said that she opened her eyes once; whether she knew me or not I don't know. She immediately lapsed into a coma again." So, Courtney, who never lied, had lied to his mother. The reason could only be guessed by intuition, and intuition could be wrong. At any rate the strong deep bond between mother and son had been destroyed. Whether or not it would regrow was only a conjecture. The loss was greater to Elizabeth than the thought of Ann Marie, who at least did not know pain and would never know it in the future. In the meantime Elizabeth watched the slow and desolate winter days come and go, and at last the clear cold light of February, the dark storms of March. Spring always comes, she would comfort herself, though it is not the springs we knew in our past. Life is not really renewed. It only rises from dead leaves of sorrow and loss and suffering, and it is stained by them so that each new spring brings its own sad remembrance, its old yearning, its old spasms of pain, and is dimmed inexorably so that the last spring is full of shadows and without color, without meaning, and the farewell is without regret. the best hope given to man in the Bible was, "In the grave there is no remembrance." Elizabeth's own house was as silent and deserted as the Armagh house, for no longer were there joyous anticipations of meeting Joseph in New York, no laughing excursions with him, no long talks before a comforting fire, no lying with him in a warm bed entwined like two trees, no morning sight of his face, no leaping of the heart at the sound of his voice. Only in love is there a real springtime, she would sadly reflect. Only love makes us immortal and immune to living; only in love is there youth and hope. Without it, we are blasted trees in an ashy forest where nothing moves or has a significant being, and where there is no sunset and no rising of tile sun, but only a smoky twilight. Elizabeth did not go to New York for concerts and the theater or for shopping. She was not the sort to make friends readily, or keep them close to her, for she was essentially dependent upon men and had little regard for women as confidantes or companions. So she sat in her deserted house and watched the weeks go by, and lived only for the spring when Joseph would return. In the meantime her own life was in abeyance. Would she and Joseph ever know again the profound intimacy of trust, of love given with abandon? Or would the memory of that hot disastrous night slide in the midst of their love like a doubting traitor? It doesn't matter, Elizabeth would think. So long as he is within sight and sound, nothing will matter to me. Is it only women who are abject in love? We can forgive everything, even betrayal, even insult and neglect and unfounded accusations . Men are more to us than women are to men, I seem to remember, and that is probably our curse. I try to feel pride and I can only wallow in my longing to see him again. Had I mortified him as he mortified me he would never look at me all the rest of my life, but all I desire is embracing him once more. When lye took me home that night I could think of nothing but asking him to love me for forgiving him. But then, suppose it had been my own child and not Ann Marie? I remember that, and that is my own excuse to myself, for I love and so am without self- respect and am willing to condone.