Captains and The Kings (71 page)

chapter 42
Sean Armagh, who had continued his "professional name" of Sean Paul during his concerts and recitals, kept a suite of rooms in a Boston hotel for when he was present there, which was often. "For here it was, in this Athens of the West, where I was discovered," he would say, with a soft theatrical gesture of his thin white hand. It was not hard for him to fill his eyes with tears at will, for he was by nature emotional, and people in Boston were always touched. It was a large suite of several rooms in an old but grand hotel full of gilt and rose damask and marble stairways, and he occupied it with his business manager, Mr. Herbert Hayes, a large portly man of much presence and much brown hair and much jewelry, about forty-four years old, also a bachelor. Though considerably younger than Scan he treated Scan as if he were a child, and a not very intelligent child, and bullied him, was proud of him, and loved him. He arranged everything for his client, and Scan had nothing to do but practice and sing and enrapture audiences, and read billets-doux from ladies. (Scan, however, knew to the penny how much he had in the banks, and grew pettish over any offer that did not meet with his approval.) Joseph, not having had the advantage of an academic education, nor having ever resided in a college dormitory, nor having ever been a member of a fraternity, did not know what was "wrong" with Scan. Rory and Kevin, his sons, did and without any doubt and with such sly chucklings and lewd winks. "It was being brought up by all those nuns," said Kevin, "and never seeing any other men but priests who were cowed by the Sisters anyway." "I think," Rory had once remarked, "that Pa's character was such that a character like Sean's sort of got crushed in any encounter. Not that Uncle Scan had a character of much strength, anyway, or much resolution or manliness. Rice pudding with custard could describe Uncle Scan's spirit, to be charitable. Pa once did remark that our sweet singing uncle was 'womanish and it upset him, but he made excuses that his brother was an 'artist.' Uncle's petulant little ways were excused under the same copybook heading. 'At least,' Pa would say, 'he made something of himself with his singing and talent, which is more than could have been said about our father, whom he much resembles.' Pa must have loved his Dada once; he wouldn't have been so bitter about him if he hadn't. When Uncle Scan succeeded that made Pa forgive both his Dada and our nightingale uncle. But he has never found out about him, which is just as well. I doubt that Pa would have known what it meant, anyway." Joseph would have known. He had read too widely and too largely not to have understood if it had been put before him in plain words. But his natural Irish prudity in part insulated him from recognizing what was "wrong" with his brother. Moreover, he thought such activities not only unmentionable even when among men, but esoteric and inexplicable, and probably engaged in "only by foreigners." He never once suspected homosexualism among any of his colleagues or acquaintances, not even when it was blatant, and he certainly would not have believed it existed in his own family. He might tell Sean to "be a man," as he did whenever he encountered him, and did not know that it was impossible for Sean to "be a man." Had lie understood, Rory would sometimes think, he would probably have murdered Uncle Sean had tried to attach himself to Harry Zeff, out of both gratitude and love, but Harry had soon suspected and had abruptly removed himself as benefactor and friend. Thereafter had followed several "love affairs" between Sean and the new friends he made among the camp followers of the arts. He had finally settled on one love, his manager for a number of years, Herbert Hayes, who was also of his persuasion. It was Herbert who had taught Sean to be discreet, and not to throw his arms affectionately about other men in public-even when the gesture was comparatively innocent -and not to mention his aversion to the ladies but, on the contrary, to pretend to be a gallant and a womanizer, "like your brother." Herbert, too, had taught him to hint of an unrequited or deceased love, whom he could never forget and to whose memory he was still devoted and loyal. This was not hard for Sean to do, for he was an actor as well as a singer by birth. Herbert let him wear exotic clothing, for that was more or less expected of an artist, but he never let it get effeminate. Herbert was masculine in appearance, in manner, in dress, in voice and gesture. He loved Sean Armagh with a jealous and devastating love, and served him like a lover. Sean's interests were his interests. He had no others. He was a very competent pianist, himself, and so worked with Scan at his practice. He picked every accompanist. He arranged all tours and was so shrewd that Sean never accepted a fee lower than the most recent one, and usually it was higher. Herbert, it was, who gave newspaper interviews, or sat vigilantly near Sean when Sean gave them. Herbert arranged the repertoire. Herbert wrote the brochures. Herbert bullied concert hall managers and accompanists. Herbert arranged the lighting, and coached Sean in the most effective postures. Not being a fool, in spite of his love for Sean, he had demanded, and had got, a very sizable salary and occasional lavish gifts, and traveled always with his client. They both loved luxury, though Sean did not care much for paying for it, being under the impression that all hotel suites should be donated by "the management." Herbert arranged for the constant singing teachers and listened to them with the acuteness of a bird listening for a worm in the ground. He also arranged that those teachers would not have his and Sean's propensities. Rory and Kevin often idly sought "reasons for Unkie's conduct," and all of them were, of course, fallacious: Too much feminine company in youth; a too strong and dominant brother; the lack of a father in his childhood and youth; his early orphaned condition and his early dependence on women. A too gentle character, too soft, too weak, too bending, too unable to resist perversions. Too unworldly. Too easily influenced by evil men whom he encountered, who intimidated him. The fact that his "condition" was intrinsic to him, had been his from birth, would have been disbelieved by his young nephews, who alternately pitied or despised him. They might laugh at him between themselves but they were scrupulous in pretending, when with Sean, to believe him entirely average or what the}' considered average. That, to Sean, his propensity for his own sex seemed quite normal, would have inspired the utmost incredulity in Rory and Kevin, in spite of their academic sophistication. Sometimes Sean was repulsive to them and they kept a wary distance from him. As a person, he was liked by them, with his gentle manners, his high musical voice, his air of eternal youthfulness, his hatred for the violent word or gesture, and, curiously, his bland innocence. They preferred to blame Herbert Hayes, and they loathed him, which was eminently unfair. The general public did not know about Sean's "conduct for Herbert was sedulous about this, knowing the calamitous consequences, legal and public, if it should become generally known. It disturbed him that Sean's nephews appeared to know, but they would certainly not betray their own uncle. His one terror was that Joseph Armagh might learn of his brother's aberration. He had met Joseph on many occasions, in dressing rooms and in hotel suites, and Joseph affrighted him, for he knew that here was a man of no compromises, no deviations, and of an absolutely rigid character, and that to him a man like Sean would have appeared totally criminal, worthy of exposure and exile, if not death. Joseph's powerful personality overwhelmed Herbert Hayes, the direct fierceness of his eye made him quail. He mentioned this once to Sean, and Sean had sighed gently, assumed a pathetic expression, bowed his head and had murmured, "True. True. You have no true conception, dear Herbert, of the agonies of my young childhood, which Joe inflicted upon me, the abandonment, the heartless indifference, while he pursued money for his own aggrandizement and importance. He detested everyone, and was not happy unless all those about him flinched when he entered a room. Ah, if my poor sister were only here! She could tell you a sorry tale of Joseph's abuse of us when we were mere babes." He had persuaded himself that all this was true, long before he had fallen with tears and cries of emotion upon Joseph's chest when Joseph had first visited him to offer congratulations on his success. The girlish malice he had felt for Joseph, the deep envy and resentment of his potency, his quality of manhood, had inspired in Sean a hidden hatred he disguised in the form of contempt. "It is my sensitivity," he would say to Herbert, "the sensibilities of a born artist, which were so affronted by my brother's very person and temperament. I know it is wrong, but how can I change my nature?" He would look at his friend, pleading for absolution, his light eyes swimming in liquid. "Joe is so coarse, so unfeeling, not unable to experience true human attachment and the spirit of sacrifice. A gross man, I am afraid." Had Sean heard anyone call him a liar he would have been-almost- genuinely horrified. For he had pushed from his remembrance all that he knew of his brother and that brother's desperate struggle for the younger members of his family. To acknowledge that struggle, to express gratitude, to feel any pity or understanding at all, would have lowered Sean in his own estimation. Maligning Joseph, he could acquire self-esteem and elevate himself above his feared brother. Rory had guessed this a few years ago, and for his uncle he felt good- tempered derision and amused tolerance. He also thought Sean pitiable, as well as revolting. But Joseph had appeared to believe that it was Rory's "duty" to be loyal to his family, and so had repeatedly asked both his sons to visit their uncle when he was in Boston. But Sean was not asked to Green Hills more than once, for Bernadette had made it plain that she thought him detestable, and had resented him. She was not aware of his propensities, and had never heard of such things, but some uneasy revulsion stirred in her when she saw Sean. She thought him very ladylike and pretentious and affected, though she kept this opinion from Joseph. Sean, in his turn, had hated her anew, remembering his earlier impression of her as a "loud, bouncing woman." It had been Herbert Hayes who, from prison, had sent Rory the telegram announcing Sean's death. For Herbert had murdered him. Sean had fallen wildly in love with a new young accompanist, and had told Herbert of his passion, and had asked Herbert to remain as his business manager but to cut "all ties of affection with me." Herbert, betrayed, desperate, crushed and then made nearly insane, had simply strangled the man to whom he had given so much and with such devotion and dedication, and then had called the police. All this Rory discovered from the police, themselves, when he went to his uncle's suite. They were callously locking up all the dainty treasures with which Sean traveled, and they were not deferential to the stunned young man but cynically, and half-laughing, gave him full information. "Yes, yes, I know what my uncle was," said Rory, looking about him dazedly. "Poor Herbert. I suppose he will be hanged. I wonder what the hell I am going to tell my father." The newspapers solved his problem in large black headlines, in Boston and New York and Philadelphia and Washington, and other large cities. They were most discreet, and coyly so, but a knowledgeable person could guess at once the import of their insinuations. Rory kept the newspapers for his father, who had cabled he would return to America at once to take charge of matters, and the funeral. In the meantime, out of pity, Rory visited Herbert in prison where he was awaiting indictment, and he found him whitely calm and despairing. He was piteously grateful for Rory's visit. "After all, I went out of my mind and killed your uncle, such a genius, such a spirit, such a voice. I can't tell you why. I prefer to bury the secret with me." Rory mentioned that he knew many fine lawyers in Boston, but Herbert shook his head and looked like death. "I want to die, too," he said. "Your uncle was my whole life, and now I have nothing left." But Rory got a good lawyer for him. He read the newspapers with dismay and thought of Albert Chisholm and what he would say to his daughter about "that Armagh family." Mr. Chisholm would have no illusions though he would delicately refrain from enlightening Marjorie, of course. Joseph took the fastest liner out of Southampton for New York almost immediately. He was alone and isolated, for neither Harry Zeff nor Charles Devereaux had accompanied him to Europe this time on the dismal hegira in behalf of Ann Marie, and they were needed by The Armagh Enterprises. The journey was like a more ghastly repetition of his first journey to America, to Joseph, with the boiling and livid seas, the harsh winds, the sleet, the snowstorms, and the wailing of the horns in the fogs. He shivered in his warm and luxurious stateroom. He tried to keep from thinking. Rory's cable had not informed him of the manner of Sean's death, and he assumed it was "a weakness of the lungs," from which Sean had always suffered. It was, he thought, one of the plagues that harassed the Irish. He tried to read. It was hopeless. He had left misery behind him, and misery waited for him, and fresh sorrow and loss. But he would not let himself think. Ron met him in New York, alone. The young man thought this best. When Joseph immediately demanded of him the cause of Sean's death Rory replied, "Let us get out of this hack and into the hotel. I have the newspapers for you." Snow and wind lashed the windows of the cab, and Joseph, with a sense of calamity, could only stare at Rory's set face and could only think how much older the young man seemed. Rory did say that all funeral arrangements had been left in abeyance awaiting Joseph's return. "Good," said Joseph. He thought of Sean, not as the middle-aged singer of much acclaim and success, but as little Sean with the light and petulant eyes and the lovely childish voice, and his eyes felt dry and parched. "It is as it was only yesterday, himself singing in the steerage to lighten our mother's pain and wretchedness," he said to Rory, who was surprised at this sentimentality on the part of his father. His voice had actually taken on a lilting brogue, as if he were a child again. He shook his head, somberly, and kept wetting his lips. "The priest bought him an apple on the docks of New York, where no one wanted us, and he'd never eaten an apple, they all rotting in Ireland along with the potatoes.