Captains and the Kings by Taylor Caldwell

  He threw the paper from him and turned away. "I feel sorry for her,"I said Bernadette. "He was all she had. My brother. I suppose I should feel sad, and I will have Masses said for his soul, but I really can't feel very / much. Not very much. Maybe Courtney, and his mother, brought the ;* curse on us." Joseph was leaving the room. "Where?" she asked him, but he did not answer. She began to cry, for she knew where he was going.

  Chapter 50

  It had been a hot July day and it was nearly sunset, but the sky was a darkish copper against which the trees were turned a fierce unnatural green, and the hills had become sharp and tawny. Everything stood out in that ominous light with a hurtful vividness and clarity and appeared too close, too insistent, too detailed. Every blade of grass was distinct, painful, like an emerald razor that could cut the foot, and the colors of the flowers in their beds had a nightmare intensity. There was a profound hush over all things; nothing moved, not a leaf, not a bud. Even the fountains in the gardens had become noiseless, and there were no birds in sight. The countryman in Joseph knew that the absence of birds at this time of the day meant a storm. He went down the gravel path to the gate and then into the road, and down the road to Elizabeth's house. The copper of the sky had taken on a sheen, to the west, like brass. A hot breath, not a breeze or a gust, touched Joseph's set face, and it smelled of sulphur to him and burning dryness. He entered the gates of Elizabeth's house. He had not seen a carriage or a person on the road. All things had taken instinctive refuge. He heard, now, the explosion of gravel under his feet and it was like a shotgun being constantly discharged, the birdshot scattering. There were white seats and tables under the heavy dark oak near the house, and there Elizabeth sat in a white dress too bright in that sinister illumination. She had a white shawl over her shoulders. Her pale soft hair, so severely dressed, her face and her still body, might have been the figure of a seated statue. She did not stir when she saw him. She only watched him leave the path and come towards her. Then, when he was almost before her she rose and threw herself soundlessly into his arms and they clung together without a word, held each other as if they were dying. Elizabeth's cold face was pressed against the side of his neck. His chest crushed her breast, his arms were like iron on her thin flesh. She held him as desperately. She did not cry or moan or utter a sound. They did not even think of watchers, of curtains being held aside, of curious eyes looking. From her own window Bernadette could see those distant figures clenched together in an agony she was not permitted to share with her husband. She dropped the lace curtain and leaned her head against the side of the latticed window and cried silently, the slow and bitter drops falling one by one down her face without a sob. It was her child who had died, but Joseph had gone to a stranger for consolation, and was holding her as if they had become one motionless upright body, Elizabeth's white dress as still as stone. For the first time Bernadette knew that Joseph would never love her, and that he would most probably leave her. She let herself fall weightily on .her knees at the window and bent her head on the marble sill and gave herself to sorrow as if she were a widow and her husband would not return. The tears made dark little stains on the marble and Bernadette pressed her open and tormented mouth against the sill, and she felt the slow agonized breaking of her heart. She had never known such abandonment, such suffering, such humble anguish, in all her life. There was no hatred in her yet, only a deep groaning.

  A wild wind suddenly rose, and there was a flash of lightning, then another, and a stunning smashing of thunder. The brazen light was swept away by the turbulence of black clouds. Lightning flashed again and again, and the trees shook their green manes at it in fury. Then the rain came, sheets of glittering silver in the glare from the sky, pounding, rushing, roaring. It shut off all visibility. Bernadette lay supine and dumb on the floor of her room near the window, staring blindly at the terrible radiance that flashed over her. Joseph and Elizabeth sat in the darkness and white fire that invaded the morning room. They sat side by side, their hands held together, staring at nothing, only half listening to the howling and raving of the storm, the wind, the thunder. They felt comfort in their nearness, and yet grief divided them so that they wanted to console each other and draw even closer. So Joseph told Elizabeth of Ann Marie's last words to him, and how she had cried out to Courtney and had appeared to "see" him, and that he had "come" for her. Elizabeth listened in silence, and now her eyes fixed themselves with a mournful absorption on Joseph's face, alternately hidden from her in darkness, and then revealed in lightning. "I am glad," she said at last in her controlled voice which trembled only slightly. "I believe-I want to believe-that my son came for your daughter. Is there any other explanation for Ann Marie's knowing, and, as you have told me, her almost joyful dying?" Joseph gently kissed her chilled cheek. He told her then of how his dying mother had apparently "seen" his dead father, who had come for her. Yet he knew surely that it had been only coincidence, the last desire of the dying. He did not tell Elizabeth this, but she sensed his resistance. "Don't you believe Courtney came for Ann Marie, Joseph?" she asked. "Don'tI you think your father came for your mother?" He did not want to add to her pain. He hesitated. "I have heard of clairvoyance," he said. "It might have been only that." "But what is clairvoyance?" she said. "It is a word, and we do have a habit of covering the inexplicable with a word and then thinking we have solved the matter by giving it a name. We have only added to the mystery. I believe-I believe- For the first time I truly believe. I have been only a ;i nominal Catholic, skeptical and aloof, smiling at reports of miracles and '? simple mysteries, and now I think I was a fool. A sophisticated silly fool, who was too stupid to marvel and wonder-and hope. You have given j me hope, Joseph, and please don't smile." "I am not smiling," he said, and she saw his face in another burst of lightning and she thought he looked very ill. He thought of the three graves in the family plot, Scan, Kevin, Ann Marie, and the black earth which had swallowed those he had loved and he knew that he could not believe that they were more than their dead flesh and that they were aware, still, and conscious in some unfathomable place beyond the stars. It was against sense, against reason. A live dog, King David had said, was better than a dead lion, for he had being, and Scan and Kevin and Ann Marie and Harry and Charles had no being any longer, and had ceased to exist. He thought of Harry, and all the vitality and zest that had been Harry's and he thought of Charles, educated and intellectual and urbane. All that had gone out in the blink of an eye and there was nothing left, and no knowledge in them that they had ever lived. A rational man had to accept that, and not reach for mist and myths out of the torture of his heart. But women were different. They had to be cosseted by comforting lies and made to believe the irrational. So Joseph said, "It may be true that they are together now, for Ann Marie had no way of knowing that Court- ney was dead-" For the very first time Joseph thought of the mother of his children, and she had lost two of them, and she had loved Kevin and had been inconsolable for months, and he could hear her crying in the night, possibly not for her daughter but for the misery of the years of her daughter. Damn, he thought. I never even considered her. She knew, I am sure, where I was going tonight. Bernadette is no fool. Perhaps she has known about Elizabeth and me all the time. She would have had to be an idiot not to know. He had felt compassion for Bernadette only on a very few occasions in their life together, a tight sour compassion. But now he felt a sick deep spasm of pity for his wife. He knew that she loved him, and really loved only him, and he revolted, as usual, against that love but now it was with pity also, even if that pity was tinged with his usual impatience. He had a horror of returning to that house and his wife, and confronting his sorrow again, his unbearable sorrow, in the silence of his rooms. He knew he would find himself listening for some sound from his daughter's suite, some childish babbling, some childish laughter, some cry or a call for him, as he had heard it for many years when he was home. But only the night would answer him. The rooms had been dismantled of their hospital equipment and utilitar
ian furniture, and had become, again, a pretty young woman's suite, to which Ann Marie would never return laughing from a ride on her horse, or singing at her little white piano, or running lightly over the polished wood. All at once the poor existing flesh which had been his daughter for years vanished from his memory, and it was the healthy shy Ann Marie he remembered now, with her soft little touches on his arm, her uplifted gentle face, her questioning dark amber eyes. At least that had returned to him like a ghost, but it did not relieve his grief. It made it worse, for it was as if Ann Marie, in full health and youth, had suddenly died and then had vanished, with her very voice in his ears and the very scent of her about him, and a last flash of her face.

  The goddamn earth is one tomb, he thought, and we the walkers on countless graves. We would have been better if none of us had ever been born, to go through this, and for what? So we can have a few days of laughing, of hope, of ambition, of striving, and then nothing? Are they worth living for? I don't think so. What had Charles called this? "The dark night of the soul." But we have dark nights of the soul for the most of our lives, and only a brief dawn or two, or a little music, or the touch of a living hand occasionally, and I, for one, don't think it is worthwhile considering the whole of existence. "Come to New York next week," he said to Elizabeth, but without urgency, for there was such a weight in his chest, such a despair. "Yes," she said, and she knew what he was experiencing, for she felt it herself.

  The storm was passing. Elizabeth did not ask him to stay when he stood up. But she looked at him and prayed as she had not prayed since she was a child, that he would be comforted, for there was no comfort any human being could give him, just as she could not be comforted even by the tenderest words. Only the dead could comfort the living, and they were silent. But hope was like a flowering star in her. She would think for hours of Ann Marie "seeing" Courtney and running out of her mountainous flesh like a bride to join him. She knew that Joseph had told her in order to comfort her, and she took his dropped hand and pressed it to her cheek and wished that he had this frail hope also. It was only a gossamer thread to hold on to in the dark whirlpool of grief, but it shone in one's hand and in one's heart and perhaps such fragility was the truth after all. Joseph bent and kissed her with the gentleness of shared anguish, and then he went out into the warm diminishing rain and the almost violent freshness and fragrance of the new night after a storm. A full moon was now racing madly through tatters of black clouds, and Elizabeth stood at her door and watched Joseph as long as she could see him in that mingled white brilliance and utter darkness. She had willed him to come to her that night for she had been in frozen terror and despair, and she needed comforting and consolation and promises never to leave her. For she had heard, just before the news of Courtney's death, that she had inoperable cancer and that she had, at the most, only six months to live. Had not Ann Marie and Courtney died when they did she would have told him, lying in the strength and surety of his arms. But now he was as desolate as herself and he could not bear more grief at this time. She was thankful she had not told him. She would never tell him. Sharing suffering and fear did not decrease them; they only added to the burden, for then two suffered instead of one. I must have courage she said to herself, as she saw that Joseph was no longer in sight. What has to be will be and there is nothing one can do. At the end, we stand alone, just as we are born alone.

  There was no sound except of servants in that great white mansion in the new night, and Joseph went upstairs. He passed Bernadette's room. The door was open and there was no light inside. He paused. Moonlight ran into the room and then was obliterated, but not before he saw Bernadette lying on the floor near the windows, not stirring, not speaking. He went to her at once and knelt beside her and then when the moonlight flared again he saw her wet and swollen face and the yearning and grief in her eyes. He put his arms under her shoulders and drew her to him and held her, and she cried against him but said nothing, and he was ashamed and no longer impatient and he said, "There, there, my dear, it was for the best after all. Don't cry like that." But he knew that she was not at this moment crying for Ann Marie. He said, "Believe me, Bernadette, I will never leave you. I swear to God, I will never leave you." The dinner bell rang softly, and at last they went downstairs together, hand in hand, and Bernadette's large red face was brighter and younger than it had been for years. Joseph had sent a cablegram to Rory of the death of his twin sister and had urged him not to return at once, but to continue his mission. He had said in the cablegram that there was nothing Rory could do, and the death had not been unexpected, and that he was grateful that he had been in Green Hills when Ann Marie had died. Timothy Dineen, solid, gray-haired, quiet and rocklike, had taken Harry Zeff's place in Joseph's affairs and now lived in Philadelphia. He had never married. He had loved Regina Armagh unswervingly all through these years, with the stubborn dedication of the Irish. He had not known until he was in Philadelphia that she had written to her brother twice a year, and that Charles had had to destroy the letters. He had not known, either, that Charles had taken to writing her briefly a few times a year, informing her of her family. As Joseph's confidential secretary as well as henchman and manager of The Armagh Enterprises now, he opened Joseph's letters in his absence. He opened Regina's, and after all this time he recognized the light delicacy of her writing. His heart jumped. He had thought of Regina as dead long ago, for Joseph had never spoken of her, and at first he could not think of her as Sister Mary Bernarde. As he began to read the letter, shamelessly, feeling the old pain and longing, he gathered that she had not known at all that Joseph did not read her letters. She believed only that he would not answer them, himself, but delegated others to do so. Apparently, however, Bernadette as well as Charles had written to her, and Rory, her nephew. She addressed Joseph with deep love and devotion as "my dearest brother," and begged, at the end, that he would eventually find it in his heart to forgive her for "any inadvertent pain I have ever caused you, my dear Joseph, in doing what I had to do. You are always in my prayers." She wrote that Rory had written her of the deaths of Charles Devereaux and Harry Zeff and Ann Marie some time before, but that she, herself, had been ill for a number of months and could not send a letter of condolence. She did not mention the nature of her affliction, but here and there her writing wavered as if she were still weak and tremulous. Her whole letter was full of love and tenderness and consolation, and a simple faith which even Timothy found somewhat naive and girlish. She did not mourn the dead, but only pitied the living for their loss. "The souls of those we love have ascended into the care and mercy of God," she wrote. "We must not trouble them with our tears and our grief. We must only pray for them and trust that they pray for us." Timothy did not see the face of a woman of fifty-five, but the face of the young Regina, beautiful beyond believing, with that shining regard which was so moving and touching, and the mass of glossy black hair. He thought, She never lived in this world at all, at any time, and still does not live in it, but is kept from it not only by her cloister but by her innocence and faith. Perhaps only by her innocence. He saw that even if she had not lived in a convent when she was a child she would inevitably have been drawn to this life of seclusion-and flight. The world was no place for such as Regina Armagh. He thought of some of the nuns he had known during his own childhood, nuns like Regina. Perhaps the Church knew of these women and in mercy offered them a refuge from a battle and a struggle they could never have survived, for they were the eternal "little ones," in spite of intelligence and resolution. So the chronic yearning Timothy had known all this time lifted at last, and he answered Regina's letter as if he j were a kindly older brother and said that Joseph was well. He took the simple holy card with its prayer, which Regina had sent to Joseph, and gently put it in his wallet. He leaned back in his chair cautiously, for he was portly now, and he considered a rumor he had heard recently, that the Armagh family was "cursed." He could not remember who had mentioned this, and had laughed at it. All families, as they matured,
suffered misfortunes and j deaths, except for the very fortunate who were few. He smiled as he 'f thought-I only hope the "curse" doesn't extend to me, as it seems to have done to Harry and Charles, who were outside the family! He chuckled j as he blessed himself. As for Joseph, the extent of his fortune was staggering, even among his fellow "robber barons." That must be its own consolation, thought Timothy-to achieve what you have set out to achieve. It was probably the only consolation the world had to offer. He considered again what Joseph had said to him a few days ago: "It is not too early to begin a boom for Rory for President in 1911. So, I want you to gather a competent staff in his behalf. No money will be spared. You have only to ask for it. You will manage his tours and go with him to the primaries. You will need several publicity men-hire them. And public relations men, too. Secretaries. Various subsidiary campaigners, who will arrange dinners, speeches, meetings with the public and politicians in all the big cities, and the smaller ones, too. Slogans. Posters. Interviews. Rory is personable. It is unfortunate that women can't vote, but men like him, too. He must be shown as the friend of the people- The brother of a war hero. Steve Worthington is boosting him from within-" Joseph paused and looked at Timothy narrowly, but Timothy's strong face was carefully bland. "You know what to do," said Joseph. "Every Irishman instinctively is a politician." "It will cost a lot of money," said Timothy. "And you know, Joe, that the country is very 'anti-Papist.' Let just a whisper get out that Rory is going to strive for the nomination of our Party and there will be a national flood of vicious smears and hysterical accusations and denunciations. It will be worse than the anti-British propaganda in the country, and God knows that is violent and suspicious and hating enough. I've been doing a little quiet investigating myself, knowing that you've had the intention of Rory trying for the nomination of our Party. I've dropped hints here and there in Chicago, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Newark, everywhere. And the response was very-shall we say-strenuous in opposition, even among the politicians in our Party, and even among Catholics. 'Does Armagh want to ruin our Party?' I've been asked. I've even been asked if you want to precipitate a religious war in this free land of ours. The prejudice is now even worse than it was thirty, twenty years ago, but you know that. We just aren't loved, Joe." "I know," said Joseph with impatience. "But you've forgotten the priceless ingredient of any campaign: money. I'm willing to spend twenty, thirty, forty, fifty million dollars, and more if necessary, to make my son President of the United States of America. Even the Rockefellers wouldn't put up that much money for any of their sons. What do you think I've been living and working for?" Timothy was startled at the angry question. He had often wondered what drove Joseph Armagh, and now he had an idea. It was a tight vengeful face that looked into his, the deep-set small blue eyes filled with fire and determination. Joseph's hair might be white, but it was still thick and vital, and the face was the face of a young man, and invincible. Timothy's father had been a jovial laughing Irishman, small and rotund and jolly, but he had often mentioned, with sad shakings of his head, the "black Irish," who had no humor but were relentless, full of mysticism, and imperious. "They never forget, Tim," his father would say. "Come what may, we never forget-a friend or an enemy. It's wise to keep out of our way, I am thinking, my bucko." But they have a terrible fascination, thought Timothy. They never surrender and so in a way they have grandeur as well as the Devil's own pride. The Irish kings must have been like this, until they were murdered by the English. Timothy, who had never known want or adversity or starvation or cold or great sorrow or unbearable despair, suddenly understood and for the first time he was proud of his race who had survived all these things. He, himself, was somewhat of an Anglophile, and had felt himself congenial with the English, and England, when he had gone abroad. He had liked' the aura of the enormous potency of the British Empire which he had detected in London. He liked the realism of the English, their drive for conquest and rule. He had admired the sensation of immutability in London, the incredible power, and the serenity which only power can bring. The English literally dominated the world. Gentlemen they might be, in their government and ruling classes, but they had an admirable sense of the realities and money and dominance, knowing they were unchallenged in the world. Unshakable materialists, they had created the industrial revolution. The throne of England was the center of man's universe, and * the English did not care a damn for the opinion of "those lesser breeds outside the law." They preferred, if necessary, to be hated and feared than loved and merely accepted. Such pragmatism had appealed to Timothy. Yet now, looking at Joseph Armagh, Timothy told himself that the Irish had all the qualities of the hated English, and something else that was intangible, but as formidable. It, perhaps, was the refusal to accept what others called the inevitable, and "limits." To the Irishmen-at least it was so in the case of many-there were no boundaries that could not be passed, no aspirations that could not be satisfied if one willed them strongly enough and never deviated or hesitated. Joseph Armagh was one such and Timothy began to believe that it was entirely possible that Rory Daniel Armagh could become President of the United States if his father wanted it. Joseph wanted it. "I have half of Washington in my hand," Joseph said, and smiled sourly. "You know that, Tim. So, let us get busy. Money can buy anything. Do you think I've been idle all these years? I know what I know. So, get to,{ work, Tim, and ask for anything you need." I "The Mugwumps and the Populists in Washington don't like Rory," said Timothy. "They call him a Monarchist, and worse. He has never yet supported a measure 'for the public weal,' as the Socialists call it. He has i been accused of being an aristocratic 'member of the ruling classes.' He ' opposed the Child Labor bill and the unions, among other things." ) "Now he is going to out-Bryan Bryan," said Joseph. "From this day on. Social legislation is going to be supported with zeal-and eloquence-by Senator Armagh. He isn't vulnerable like Bryan. He isn't a fool-and we have money. There is nothing about Ron- which anyone can laugh at; he never makes an idiot of himself. He can't be lampooned; he lampoons back admirably. He has wit and appearance and intelligence-and money. "Now, for our first move we will begin a campaign against prejudice- against any man by reason of race or religion. We will appeal to the famous sense of fair play in Americans. We will publish that Rory had been invited to meet the Pope-and Rory declined. Yes, I know that won't be true, but it will have an impact on Americans. Rory will mention that he is not in favor of 'parochial education,' though it should be tolerated in the name of freedom of choice. Rory will attack the men of great fortunes, 'who have no sense of obligation to their country and the Poor.' Rory will be the champion of the workingman, and social justice. He will be fervent. The people won't laugh. He has money. He has learned much. It is time for him to help himself, according to the advice I have recently received. "Rory," said Joseph, looking aside, his voice neutral, "will have the support of many of my friends. I can promise that. Rory will be more American than the average American. He will be as American as-" "A five-cent glass of beer," said Timothy. Joseph laughed, his low hard laugh. "Yes. Well, get to work as soon as possible, Tim. I've done a lot of the groundwork myself, over many years. Don't forget to mention Tom Hennessey, 'the friend of the people, the enemy of privilege,' Rory's grandfather." He stood up. "I can tell you this again-my friends support Rory. They know what I want." Timothy had known Rory from early childhood. He wondered if Joseph Armagh really knew his own son.