Captains and The Kings (7 page)

lies, and that I am knowing and none can tell me anything else." His mother's face, young and dying and afflicted, shone sharply before him and he squeezed his dry eyes shut for a moment. He said in himself, "Mum, I've minded them and I always will, as I promised you." He had bitten down on the pain of grief for three years now and thought he had lost the capacity to feel it, but it returned like a blow against his heart, a savage blow which rocked him in his chair and made him grip the sides as if in fear of falling from it. Then when he could he bit down on the terrible pain again and again until it was numbed. Three years, he thought. I have been in this country three years, and I've not been able to put my family in a home of my choosing, but only in an orphanage. How am I to get this famous gold that will protect us? I am trained for nothing but hard work, though I have a neat hand and could be a clerk. But none will give me such work, at better wages, because I am what I am, and what I was born. Is it always to be so? I have looked and I have thought, and there is no light and no hope. He remembered how it had been three years ago when those who were not sick or dying were permitted to enter America through Philadelphia -a very few. Father O'Leary and the Sisters had surrounded the boy and his brother and one of the nuns had carried the baby, and Father O'Leary had declared that the three orphans were in his care, and they had been admitted. But the orphanage in Philadelphia had been overflowing, and so the old priest, in the first stages of dying from deprivation and sadness, had brought the three children to this town on the stagecoach, a long and wretched journey in the midst of winter. Two of the nuns had accompanied him in order to help. Joseph had insisted on paying his own passage out of the fifteen dollars his father had sent his mother, and when they had arrived in Winfield he had but two dollars left, for food had had to be bought at taverns and inns, and milk for the baby. He, himself, had remained at the orphanage while he looked for work. "Stay with us for a year or so, Joseph," Sister Elizabeth had said, "and work for us, and we will teach you. We cannot pay you, for we are very poor and are dependent on charity." But Joseph found his first job in a stable for three dollars a week, one of which he gave to Sister Elizabeth in spite of her protests. He remembered how he had lived, in the stable with the horses, sleeping in a hayloft. When he was fourteen he knew he had to have more money and went to work in the sawmill. He was promised a dollar more a week in May. He looked at the crucifix and at the marvelously detailed and suffering Face. "No," he said again, "You have never helped anyone. How is it possible? You are only a lie." The door opened and he looked at it eagerly, for what he would see was his only comfort and the source of his desperate cold determination. But it was Sister Elizabeth who was entering and he slowly rose to his feet and his face was as neutral and closed as always.
Chapter 5
"Joseph, lad," said the nun and held out her hand to him. It was a hand callused and scored by endless hard work, but warm and strong. His own was cold and flaccid in it, and the nun was aware of the fact. But she smiled her deceptively sweet smile and blinked behind her polished glasses, and her rosy face dimpled and her face was affectionate under her coif and black veil. Though she ate less than anyone in the convent her short body was plump, which was an unending miracle to the young nuns under her care. "Where is Scan, and Regina?" Joseph asked with no replying smile. He stood before the nun in threatening challenge and the old fear returned to him. "Joey, sit down, do, and let me talk with you," said Sister Elizabeth. "Have no fear. The little ones are expecting you and they will be here presently. But I have something important to tell you." "They are sick!" said Joseph in a loud accusatory voice, and his brogue roughened it. "Not at all," said Sister Elizabeth, and no longer smiled. Her face became stern and commanding. "Stand, if you will, and not sit. You are a very stubborn lad, Joey, and I am displeased with you. I thought I would speak with you as I would speak to a sensible man but I am afraid there is little hope of that! Ah, well. "Did you notice that handsome carriage and all, outside, waiting?" "What has it to do with me?" demanded Joseph. "Or has someone a fine job to offer with good wages, Sister?" and he smiled with derision at such a golden idea. "Ah, Joey," sighed Sister Elizabeth. She loved the boy. He reminded her of her relentless brave brothers in Ireland, all of them dead now of disease and starvation. "Life is not that easy and fanciful." "You have no need to tell me that, Sister."
Yes, Joey, and that I know." She regarded him with hidden compassion. "Well, I must tell you. There is a beautiful lady here, young but truly genteel, the wife of a gentleman of excellent prospects. She is, herself, rich and it is her house in which they live, and her servants, and she is almost the sole support of our church in Winfield, and it is she who pays for our food and shelter and clothing and boots, and she gives to the Missions and a seminary. But there is a bottom to every purse, I have heard, and she does all she can. "She has a little daughter, the age of Mary Regina, but alas, she can have no more children. Her great heart longs for another little one, but it is not to be. It is God's will. So she wishes to adopt-" "Regina?" said Joseph in a tone like a curse. He made a wild gesture almost as if he would strike the nun before whom he still stood. "Is that what you would tell me?" "Joey-" "How dared you show Regina to her!" His voice rose to a broken shout of rage and affront. "Do I not pay for my sister? You would steal her from me, in spite of your mealy promises. You lied to me!" She reached out, her face as hard as his, and she caught his thin arm and shook him. "Speak to me not like that, Joey, or I shall leave you and say no more. In truth, I would leave you now were it not for Mary Regina and her future. I did not show your sister to this lady, whom I must call Mrs. Smith, for you are not to know her name. She saw the child on one of her missions of mercy to this orphanage, bringing us rolls of wool and flannel, and some money, and she loved the child at once and thought of her as a sister for her own little one. "Hark, Joey. Let the madness go from your mind a moment. What future has Mary Regina here, and in this city? You are only sixteen, poor lad. You are half-starved and live miserably, and though you have not told me I know. You have a brother, also. Life is not good for the Irish now in America, as you have discovered for yourself, and it may never be. Do we not have to keep the doors of the church locked except at Mass, and the doors of this orphanage, also? It was but two months ago when evil men forced their way into the church and threw down the altar and desecrated the Host, and beat Father Barton who tried, in vain, to restrain them. They stole our candlesticks and broke our crucifix and befouled the sacristy. You know of this, Joey, and I have heard it is as bad in other cities in America, against the Catholics and the Church. But a month ago the Sister Superior in her convent in Boston was beaten almost to death, and her nuns attacked, and the Hosts in the adjoining church were fed to horses, or stamped in the gutter."
She lifted her eyes to the crucrfix on the wall, and her face was pale and there were tears on her lashes. But she continued to talk quietly and resolutely. "What life opens before Mary Regina, who needs a home and a mother's love and care and a future of peace and comfort, and education? At the best you may make some higher wages, but short of a miracle you will be hard pressed to support yourself and Scan for many years. In the meantime, you will live as you live, and there will be no hope for Mary Regina, and little for yourself and Scan. "Do not the children of your dead parents deserve more than this? You are a man, Joey, and Scan will soon be a man, and life is not so hard for men as it is for women, and that we know. You will manage for yourselves. But what of Mary Regina? Do you dare deny to her what the little love may have-warmth and good clothing and care and affection, and teachers and gentility, and later a fine marriage? You would deprive her of this, Joey, and condemn her to lifelong misery instead. Have you thought what the years will inevitably bring her if she remains here? We can teach her her letters and domestic duties, but when she is fourteen we can no longer keep her here, for her place must be given to a younger girl. We have no choice. So Mary Regina, as do all our girls, must go into service and be a despised servant the rest of her life, and her way will be humble and she must bow before those who will abuse and scorn her and treat her with less kindness than they treat their horses and dogs. "You have told me, Joey, that when Mary Regina is fourteen you will be able to give her a good home of your own making. That is in less than eleven years. Do you believe this truly, Joey?" "Yes," said Joseph, and in the dim lamplight and half-darkness which now filled the reception room his face was the face of a man much older, and set. The nun sighed again and looked down at her clasped hands. "You do not know the world, Joey, in spite of what you have already endured. You are very young, and so to you nothing is impossible. But, Joey, almost all of the dreams of the young come to nothing, and I have seen that for myself. I have seen hundreds of high young hearts broken, and die in the breaking. And I have heard the silence of despair, more times than I dare think of." Her round voice, usually so full and assured, now sank into melancholy. "Joey," she continued after a moment, "I do not deny that you may make your way, and well. But not with a sister to care for and protect. You must also think of Scan. Do not deprive Mary Regina of the mother and the love and the home this beautiful lady has offered her out of the goodness and tenderness of her heart. You dare not, Joey." A wizened tautness drew the boy's features together and his pale cheeks seemed to sink in like the face of an old man. His deep-set blue eyes fixed themselves with unmoving intensity upon the nun, and his wide thin mouth was like a blade. He had removed his workman's cap when he had entered the room, and his ragged thatch of russet hair hung in points over his wrinkled brow, over his ears and the back of his neck. His was a face of both black desolation and concentrated anger. "Think, Joey, before you speak," said Sister Elizabeth, and her voice was gentle and moved. Joseph began to walk up and down the little room, firmly and slowly, his hands in his pockets, his stare fixed blindly ahead of him. Sister Elizabeth saw his sick pallor and his ginger freckles and his fearful thinness and shabbincss, and her heart sickened with grief and pity. So brave a lad, with so strong a soul-yet he was but a lad after all, an orphan little older than many now in this orphanage. She closed her eyes and prayed: "Dear Lord, let him make the right decision, for his sake above all others." He suddenly halted before the nun and again made that fierce and intimidating gesture. His large, almost hooked, nose was a gaunt and glistening bone in his stark face. "Let me see this precious lady," he said. Almost crying out in her joy Sister Elizabeth bounced to her feet and waddled swiftly from the room. Alone again Joseph turned and surveyed the crucifix. It seemed to flicker with life as the waning and brightening of the lamplight washed across it in waves. Joseph smiled, and he shook his head as if with somber amusement at something which had no meaning for him but which had suddenly called itself to his attention. The door opened and Sister Elizabeth entered, and a young lady with her. Joseph opened his eyes-they were sunken now as if from a profound illness. "Mrs.-Smith," said the nun. "This is Joseph Armagh, Mary Regina's brother, of whom I have told you. Joey?" She looked with dismay at the boy. Joseph was leaning against the wall and did not move and gave no response. But he was gazing with complete fixity at the young woman who stood, smiling hopefully, near Sister Elizabeth. She was young, possibly nineteen or twenty, and tall and slender, with a fine and sensitive face of rose and pearl, with large and shimmering dark eyes and a scarlet mouth like a leaf in autumn. Under a bonnet of rich pink velvet, tied with pink satin ribbons, her hair curled in tawny waves and little ringlets. She wore a short jacket of some smooth dark fur, shining and expensive, and her elegant hooped skirt was of black velvet trimmed with gilt braid. She carried a muff in her gloved hands, and the muff was of the fur of the jacket. There were diamond and ruby earrings in her cars, and a little scarlet light was reflected on her beautiful checks. Her slippers were of velvet, with low heels, and beneath her skirt there was a hint of pantalettes of lace and silk.
She studied Joseph with almost his own concentration, and her timid smile disappeared and her delicate face became beseeching and diffident. Joseph had never seen any woman so lovely, no, not even his mother, nor one so richly clad. A faint odor of violets floated from her, and his nostrils distended, and not with pleasure. She was as far removed from him as any point in space that he could think of, and as alien as another species. He hated her and the hatred was like acid in his throat. So, it was her money that could buy flesh and blood, was it, like some well-fed and brocaded Sassenagh who bargained for the hands and back of a starving Irishman for his mines and his armies and his manufactories, and left nothing but dead bones behind. The two young people regarded each other in silence, and Sister Elizabeth looked earnestly from one to the other and prayed inwardly. Then Joseph said: "And so you would buy my sister?" Sister Elizabeth caught her breath, and Mrs. Smith turned to her impulsively and with a kind of timorous fear that implored help and made her look like a young and frightened girl. Sister Elizabeth, responding, took her hand and held it encouragingly. "Joey," she said with quiet sternness, "that is most uncivil and wicked. There has been no talk of 'buying,' and that you know." She tried to meet Joseph's eyes to command and reprove him, but he did not look away from Mrs. Smith. It was as if he had not heard. He lifted himself from against the wall and folded his lean arms across his chest and they could see his red wrists and the scars upon them and upon his long thin hands. "Would you have my sister as a toy, a servant, for your own child?" Joseph asked. "A Topsy, as it was written in that book I have been reading about the slaves? Uncle Tom's Cabin, is it?" Sister Elizabeth was aghast. Her round full face deepened in color and her eyes were wide behind her glasses. But Mrs. Smith, to her amazement, pleadingly touched her arm and said, "Sister, I will answer Mr. Armagh," and the nun was more amazed than ever that this shy creature had suddenly become so bold. Mrs. Smith faced Joseph again and drew a long breath and her eyes met his widely. "Not as a toy, that dear child, but as my own loved little daughter, sister to my own little Bernadette, cherished, guarded, protected with tenderness and devotion. She will inherit as my daughter will inherit. I have seen her but once and I loved her immediately, and it seemed to me that she was my very own, Mr. Armagh, and my arms ached for her, and all my heart. Beyond that, I can say no more." Joseph's pale mouth opened to speak, and then he said nothing for several moments while the women waited. The falling and rising lamplight rippled over his tight features. A spasm distorted his face, as if he were in extreme pain. But his voice was quiet. "Then, you will give me a paper," he said, "written as I say, or there will be no more talk. My sister will keep her name, though you take her, for it is a great name in Ireland and proud I am of it, and my sister will be proud. She must always know that she has two brothers, and that one day we will claim her, and until that day I must see her as I see her now, and Scan must see her also. I will lend her, then, for the advantages you can give her now, as a companion to your own child, but only lend her." "But that is impossible!" exclaimed Sister Elizabeth. "An adopted child takes the name of the adoptive parents and her new sister, and she is of the family and has no other, and must know no other! It is a protection for the child, herself, so that her heart is not divided nor her thoughts troubled. You must understand that, Joey." Joseph turned to the nun with huge repudiation. "It is my flesh and blood we are speaking of, is it not, Sister? The flesh and blood of my own parents, the body of my sister Regina! It is you who cannot understand, I am thinking. A man does not give away what is of his flesh and blood and turn and never see it again, as if it was the family pig or goat going off to market! I swore to my sainted mother, on her deathbed, that I would mind the little ones and never leave them, and I will not break my word. Regina is mine, as Scan is mine, and we belong to each other and never shall we be parted from each other. That is my final say, Sister, and if Mrs. Smith refuses, then that is the end of it." Mrs. Smith spoke again in her timid and imploring voice. "You must not think me insensible, Mr. Armagh, or a female fool. I know how it will tear your soul to part with your sister. But consider what she will possess, which you cannot give her; consider what your own mother would desire. I was not always rich. My mother and father went to the Territories, for the lumber, and they lived in squalor, as my father told me, and when I was but a babe in arms my mother died of cold and homesickness and destitution. It was not until I was ten years old that my father made his money, and I was left with strangers when he was in the forests for a very long time, and I did not know him when he returned for me. So I know the sensibilities of a homeless child. Do you think, Mr. Armagh, that you are being just to Regina to condemn her to live in an orphanage with no hope for her future? Do you think your mother would wish that?" "My mother would wish her children to know each other and remain together," said Joseph, and he made a rude gesture of dismissal of the two women. "Wait. Please," said Mrs. Smith, and she put out her small gloved hand to him. "My husband and I-we are leaving Winfiekl, and it may be that we shall never return. We are going to-to a distant city-for my husband is a man of consequence and has many ambitions. Regina would have to go with us-" "No," said Joseph and his voice was rigorous and loud. "We have talked too much. I have nothing more to say. I am here to see my brother and my sister, and I will see them alone-if you please." Mrs. Smith bent her head, fumbled in her muff and brought forth a scented handkerchief which she put to her eyes. She burst into soft weeping. "Joey," said Sister Elizabeth, and she was very touched. "It's a proud lad you are, and of proud blood as you have said yourself. But be careful that it does not lead you astray. And now, you cannot dispose of Mary Regina's fate as lightly as this." The boy said with ridicule, "There is more than money, Sister, and is it I who should tell you that? There is a man's family, and he does not sell that family. I have nothing more to say." Sister Elizabeth put her arm about the sobbing young woman and led her away, murmuring consoling words. But Mrs. Smith would not be consoled, and Joseph heard her grieved cries and muffled protests in the hall, and he smiled darkly to himself. He sat down again on the stiff chair and gripped his raw hands on his knees, and waited. His exhaustion became deeper. His body shivered and trembled, and it was not fear again that he felt for himself but for Scan and Regina. The door opened and the two children came in, running, and calling his name, and he could not get up as yet to greet them, but held out his arms to them without a word and they ran to him. He lifted, with an enormous effort, the little girl to his knee and put an arm about Scan, Scan tall and very thin and fair and nine years old, and Regina but three. "They made us wait a long time to see you, Joey," said Scan, and leaned against his brother's shoulder. He had the beguiling and enchanting voice of his father, and his father's endearing smile and Daniel's dimpled cheek and large shining eyes, pale and blue, and his fair hair curled over his head and ears and nape. He wore the poor coarse garments of the orphaned children, clean and patched, and he wore them like a knight in silk and velvet. His tilted nose gave his face a gay expression even when he was wretched, which was not often, for he possessed his father's optimistic and hopeful character and was rarely in tears or sulks. Joseph, as usual, could not prevent himself from smiling, and remembering, and he hugged Sean closer to him, then pushed him off with gruff affection. "I had affairs to discuss with Sister," he said, and turned all his attention to Regina, and his deep-set dark-blue eyes softened. For Regina, as the Sisters all said, was "a little love," a delightful grave child who seldom smiled, and who was unusually beautiful, with her long mop of curling and glossy black hair, white skin and rosy cheeks and lips, and eyes as dark a blue as Joseph's, but larger and rounder. She seemed to understand almost everything that was said, and appeared to reflect on it, and so the nuns said "she is listening to the angels, that darling one, who is an angel, herself." They found it of portent that the child's lashes were a vivid gold, unlike her hair, and the unusual color gave her a shining regard. Her expression was not childlike, but was often somber, and she was usually very quiet, though not retiring, and liked to play by herself. Her face was the face, not of a very young child, but of a girl approaching puberty, and very thoughtful, and at times sad and remote. She was, to Joseph, dear above all other things in the world, dearer even than Scan, and far dearer than his own life. Her small body was thin, as all the orphans' bodies were thin, and she wore a brown woolen frock much too large for her, a donation of some charitable mother to the orphanage. The material had chafed the silken whiteness of her little neck, and her stockings had been knitted of black wool by the nuns and her shoes were too big and she had to wiggle her toes constantly to keep them on her feet. As if she knew that Joseph had undergone some recent travail she looked up silently into his face, and then she touched his cheek lightly. Scan was moving restlessly up and down the room, and endlessly chattering and questioning, but Joseph held his sister to him and felt that he had rescued her from something direful, and the very thought made him shiver again. He took her little hand and felt its chapped roughness and he saw the small broken nails, but when he looked at her face again she smiled at him suddenly and it was like light to him and a blessed consolation. He pressed her almost violently to his own body, and though she must have felt considerable discomfort she did not protest, but nestled against him. My darling, my darling, said the boy to himself. And they would take you from me, would they? But never, until I die. So help me God, never until I die. Scan stopped before his brother, jealously. "And where is that fine home you have been promising us, Joey?" he demanded. His tone was light and wheedling. "Soon," said Joseph, and he thought of the three years he had been in this country. Three years, and there was no home as he had promised his mother and then these children, but only an orphanage for Scan and Regina, and only a miserable tiny room for himself under the eaves of a widow's decaying house more than a mile from the orphanage. He was one of her three roomers, and he paid her a dollar a week for the bed in that room, clean but sagging with its old straw mattress on a web of rope, a chair and a commode which held all he possessed. It had no heat even in the winter, and no curtains at the one small window, and no rug on the cold floor, but it was all he could afford, and more. It took all his fortitude, now, thinking of that room, thinking of his brother and sister in this destitute orphanage, to keep from breaking down in despair. The old priest and the nuns always said, steadfastly, that honesty would be rewarded by God, and faith would never be disappointed, and a man of industry and integrity would rise to riches and to honor before his fellowmen. Sometimes, when he remembered those innocent aphorisms, Joseph would suddenly laugh aloud, his brief fierce laughter in which there was no merriment but only a bitterness. To Joseph Armagh the naive were not pathetic. They were contemptible. They made a parody of reality. At these times Joseph would remember his father, but not with love. He remembered that next Sunday he would receive four dollars for twelve hours of somewhat dangerous work, and he felt a sudden relief. He said to Scan again, "Soon. It will not be long, now. I will bring you a cake next Sunday, and a cake for Regina." He put his arm about Sean again and held him to his side, and he held Regina to him also, and the children were silent now, watching him with quiet curiosity for they felt the hard concentration in him and Sean, more volatile than his sister, became afraid as often he was afraid of Joseph. None heard the door open and none saw Sister Elizabeth for a moment or two, on the threshold, and she stood there and watched that pathetic tableau and her eyes burned with tears. Then she said briskly, "And it's still up, are you, Sean and Mary Regina, when you should be in bed? Off with you, and kiss your brother good night for he is tired, too." She bustled into the room keeping her mouth pressed tightly together for fear of its trembling, and she ruffled Scan's light hair with her plump hand, affectionately, and smoothed Regina's curls. She was not a woman to show sentimentality but suddenly she bent and kissed the two children, then as if annoyed with herself she hurried them out and closed the door smartly after them, grumbling. She had placed two parcels on one chair as she had entered. Joseph stood before her with cold and silent hostility, and she sighed. "Well, Joey, all's been said that could be said, and I pray that you will not be regretting it. And now, we are not going to be silly tonight, are we, and refuse the little dinner Sister Mary Margaret packed for you, saying you are not hungry when I know you are, and raising the pride up in you again. For it's very thin and sickly you are, with your cold, and if you fall ill who then will care for the little ones?" It was an artful plea and Joseph glanced at the parcel on the chair and tried to prevent himself from shivering. "And I have the usual books for you, too, Joey, left for you by a good man." Joseph went to the parcel and tried to ignore the thick bread and cheese and slice of fried pork fat, though his mouth watered for them instantly. He looked at the books in their separate parcel, wrapped in newspaper. There were four of them. There was always at least one every Sunday, and some he sold for a penny or two after he had read them and some he kept for rereading. Tonight the parcel contained a book of pious reading with a frontispiece of a group of asexual angels standing on a pillar of white fire, a volume of Shakespeare's sonnets, thin and worn, Charles Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle, almost new which he examined with sharp intentness, and the fourth was a volume of the philosophies of Descartes, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Hobbes. As always, he felt a deep thrill of anticipation and excitement at the sight of