Captains and The Kings (56 page)

addition she had perfumed herself with a violet scent, his favorite, though she never guessed why he preferred it. "You never grow older, my darling," he said to her, after he had removed his snowy greatcoat and hat and gloves and had kissed her with that curious reticence of his. "Yes, I do very well for an old lady of forty-four," said Elizabeth in her tranquil voice. "But then, when one is in love, and loves, one never grows old. I have a letter from Courtney, by the way. He hopes to be graduated from Harvard next June, with Rory. I hope so, too. You know how Courtney hates law. He will only take it to be with Rory." She smiled. "But how is Ann Marie? Has she recovered from her chill?" "Bernadette's still 'trying to marry her off," said Joseph, sitting down in his accustomed comfortable chair near the fire and holding out his cold lean hands to the blaze. "She is having a ball for the girl in March, on her twenty-first birthday, and Ann Marie is already cringing." He thought about his daughter, who had considerable resemblance to Regina, but thank God--if there was one--she had no inclination to the religious life. Joseph had not permitted his children to attend any schools but secular ones. "Her chill? I didn't know she'd had one, but then I haven't been in Green Hills for nearly three weeks." It was one of Elizabeth's sadnesses that she did not see Ann Marie very often, for she believed in respecting the wishes of parents and knew that Bernadette had protested Ann Marie's visits to her house. Too, it made life less harassed for the young woman, who had much to endure from a mother who disliked her and thought her "another poor thing, like Courtney Hennessey." To Bernadette gentle and retiring people, no matter their intellect or accomplisi, nents, were to be despised for "lacking character." The Armaghs, she would think, lacked character except, of course, for Joseph. Even the splendid Rory and his light inclination to be a rogue hardly inspired her affection, though she basked when compliments concerning him were made to her. "He is a true Hennessey," she would say, with meaning. "Bernadette didn't write you?" asked Elizabeth. Joseph shrugged. "Probably. I never read her letters. Charles does, and replies politely." He watched Elizabeth arrange the round table for their dining near the fire. A hotel servant could do that but she liked to preside and prepare for Joseph and he watched her with a love that had not diminished with the years but had grown more solid and rooted. In her turn, as she worked, Elizabeth gave him glances full of tenderness. The once russet hair was now heavily inlaid with whitening gray but the somber face never changed except to smile more frequently than ever before in his life. He said, "Elizabeth, I have to go again to Geneva in April. Come with me." "But doesn't Bernadette--usually go with you?" "Yes. I am ending that. Come with me." Elizabeth hesitated. She thought of Sean. She did not want to annoy Joseph just now so she said, "Please let me think about it, Joseph. I always liked Geneva." He was very pleased. "Then," he said, "it is decided." He had the sharp eyes of love. "Have you been to see your doctor? Your color has not improved and you seem thinner." "He says it is my age," replied Elizabeth. She knew her hands were almost transparent now and that an unusual weariness had been her almost constant companion during the past six months. "No consumption, if that is worrying you, Joseph. After all, years do tell, you know. He could find nothing wrong, my doctor." "Forty-four is not a great age," said Joseph, and an intense sick alarm came to him such as he had not felt since his mother had become moribund on the ship, and it dried his mouth and throat and made him cough and reach for his glass of wine. "Anemia, perhaps? All you ladies are always having anemia." What if Elizabeth was removed from his life? His old strong impulse to suicide surged into him as it always did when he was personally threatened or melancholy. Life without Elizabeth would be intolerable, for she was as entwined with his life as the roots of twin trees had become entangled. She was all the joy he had ever known, all the peace and wonder and delight. Sometimes they would sit like this for hours, he reading his books or newspapers and she reading also, and they would not speak, but the companionship was like one heart, one body, content, rich, contained. He lived, he would think, only for these occasions with Elizabeth. "I have had three chills this winter," said Elizabeth, "and I am not young any longer. That is probably the trouble. Perhaps I need a change, such as Geneva," and she smiled at him over her wineglass. "How wonderful it would be to travel in Europe with you, Joseph," and now she gave the matter sincere thought. He reached over the table and touched her hand and his small blue eyes were the eyes of a shy youth. Then she spoke with much animation. "I have just received notice that Scan Paul, the glorious Irish tenor, is coming to New York in three weeks, for a recital at the Academy of Music. I do hope, dear Joseph, that you will be able to take me."
Her smile was still serene but her heart began to beat quickly. Joseph's austere face changed, darkened. "Scan Paul?" he said, lingering over the name. "I never heard of him." "He isn't young. Possibly near my own age. But he is quite celebrated in Boston, I hear. He sings Irish ballads, and operatic selections, and people are quite mad about him. He has always preferred quiet private recitals but has now been induced to give pleasure to wider audiences. I do believe I have the leaflet announcing his New York recital with me1" She rose with a rustle of green silk and disappeared into her bedroom and Joseph waited with a slowly gathering heavy anger. Nonsense, he said to himself. It couldn't be the--same. Scan had probably died of intoxication, in some nameless gutter, and good riddance to him. Then with the anger came pain and the old sense of loss and despair. Elizabeth returned with the leaflet which featured Sean's photograph, and she gave it to Joseph. He did not at first read the lyrical announcements, the quotations from music critics. He looked at the shy smiling photograph and knew that this was his brother. Feeling giddy and unreal, he then read the quotations. Again he stared at the photograph. Scan. It was truly Scan. He could not understand his emotions now, but there was a weak slackening in him, a faintness, and his eyes blurred. He put the leaflet on the table but he still stared at it and Elizabeth watched him with trepidation. He became aware that a long silence had come between him and Elizabeth. He looked at her now and saw her waiting and anticipatory smile. He said, "You never saw my brother, Scan?" "No." Now she assumed an expression of perplexity. "I only saw Regina once or twice, but not Scan." She put her hands suddenly over her mouth and pretended astonished delight and incredulousness. "Oh, Josephl Is this wonderful singer, this marvelous Irish tenor, your brother, Sean? Oh, I can't bear it! How proud you must be! How elated!" She leaned across the table and took his hand and her face shone with genuine pleasure. He made the preliminary motion of discarding her hand, so immeasurable was his enigmatic and complicated rage. But she clung to it, and he looked into her eyes and he knew he could not reject Elizabeth even with the slightest gesture. "Yes," he said. "He is my brother. But it is a long story." "Tell me about it," she said. But how could he tell her of the years she could not possibly understand? He looked again into those green eyes, and knew that he was wrong. She could understand. In short hard sentences he told her, and she never spoke nor moved, and only watched him, the light in her eyes quickening, misting, or growing tender as he talked. He had told her something of all this before, but not with such emotion, such detail. He had not spoken much, either, of his brother and sister, dismissing them only with contempt. When he had finished, Elizabeth said, "But, don't you see, Joseph? You have succeeded with Scan after all. Without the education he had received he wouldn't have known anything, really. Education, though often despised in youth, makes its importance emphatic in maturity. It makes for discrimination. Had Sean been uneducated, ignorant, he would never have understood more than saloon singing, or had any aspirations beyond that. But he knew there was something else: excellence. That you gave to him. That should be your pride and your comfort." He said nothing. He was staring at the fire now, gloomier than ever, and as unreadable. But she knew she had reached him, for she knew everything about him. She said, very softly, "You have told me many times that your father sang in the pubs in Ireland and wasted what little he had in beer and whiskey for others, and was concerned only with the pleasure and happiness he gave--to the neglect of his family. There is something in that story, dear Joseph, that is not entirely complete. He was a joy to his friends and your mother, who loved him. Sometimes I believe in fate. If it was fated for him to die as he did, and your mother, too, then it could not have been avoided, taking into consideration the circumstances of their lives." "Don't talk like a fool," said Joseph, with a roughness towards her she had never seen before. "Weren't we taught as children that there is such a thing as free will? Yes, and it is true, I am thinking. My father chose his life. Unfortunately he chose the lives of his wife and children, too." He saw that Elizabeth had become very white and that she was shrinking a little. He could not bear to hurt her in the slightest. He took her hand again and pressed it strongly in his palms and tried to smile. "Forgive me," he said, and that was the first time in his life that he had ever said those words, and he paused to recall them with astonishment. "I wouldn't hurt you for the world, Elizabeth." Elizabeth thought, "He is wounded, and almost slain," and I wonder if he ever did "rise and fight again." Yes, perhaps. But not with the same profound intensity, not with the same dedication. She moved her hand in his, and her fingers clung to his hand. "We were talking of Sean, dear Joseph, and no one else. He succeeded, thanks to you, and only because of you, where your father failed. You gave him character, persistence, determination. How proud you must be, should be, my dearest." "Why the hell hasn't he written to me?" asked Joseph, and Elizabeth knew she was succeeding and closed her eyes for a moment. "Perhaps he was ashamed, remembering all you had done for him. Perhaps he knew you would remember your father, and his singing, and he didn't want to anger you more than you were already angered. You are quite an inexorable character, you know, my dear, and I have a feeling you always frightened your family." "Hah," said Joseph. He took up the leaflet again and studied it. He turned it over: "My dear benefactor, one whom I shall call Mr. Harry, came to my assistance when I most needed it. To him, then, and to a relative I do not care to name at this time, I owe my success and the adulations I have received. I dedicate my New York recital to them, as I do all .my prayers." Joseph rose suddenly, and his face was one Elizabeth had never seen before and she was aghast. He said in a terrible voice, "Harry Zeff. He did this behind my back. He never came to me and said, 'Your brother has been found and needs your help.' No. He preferred to wait to mortify me with my brother's--success. Gloating. Throwing it into my face that he could do more for Scan than I could! Laughing at me--behind my back. Why? Why? I made his fortune for him. But, what could I ever expect but ingratitude and slyness and treachery? And a murderous envy?" Elizabeth stood up also, trembling. She put her hand on his arm and for the first time he pushed that hand aside. He was aglow with rage and humiliation. "This is the end--for Harry," he said in that frightening voice. Elizabeth said, "Will you listen to me for one moment, Joseph? If you do not, then we must not meet again, even if I die of it. I could not bear to see you." Even in his monstrous rage he heard her, and knew that she meant it, and he stood still and waited, his hands clenched. "Do you honestly believe," said Elizabeth, in a marveling voice, "that Harry Zeff would ever do anything to mortify or injure you, or gloat over you? Gloat over you! My God, Joseph! I don't believe it, that you should think so. Why, you must be out of your mind! But Harry knows you, and fears you. He knows what you had planned for Sean. He knows how Sean --deserted--you. He knows what you must have suffered. Please try to understand, though I doubt you ever understood anyone in your life, even me, who loves you. "Yes, he helped Sean. He believed in Sean. He encouraged Sean to make the most of his voice, and paid for it, himself. Did you ever ask yourself why? It is because Harry loves you, Joseph. He didn't want that part of your life to be defeated, to have come to nothing. Sean has made a wonderful success. He owes that mostly to you. Harry only helped him to achieve it and enhance what you had already given." Joseph heard her. Then, when she had finished he glowered so that his eyes disappeared. "Now, then," he said, "how do you know all this, Elizabeth, about Harry and my brother? Have I been led up the garden path?" Elizabeth put her hands tightly over her face for a moment. When she dropped her hands she looked thinner and more exhausted than before and Joseph saw it and the awful alarm returned to him. "Please sit down, Joseph," she said, and her tone was so quiet he could hardly hear her. He sat down, rigidly, perched on his chair and Elizabeth sat down also. She knew that Joseph could bear only the truth, and that even if the truth destroyed him he must have it. There was nothing else to do and so she told him the complete story, with candor and in that newly exhausted voice full of pleading and love. When she had finished she lay back in her chair with closed eyes as if she were asleep or had fainted. Joseph looked at her face and it was for her that he felt compassion. He knelt down beside her and took her in his arms and kissed her forehead and her cheek, and then she was clinging to him, crying. "Why is it," she wept, "that you reject love and tenderness so? Oh, I know, my dearest. Your life has been so dreadful, so barren, and you have known betrayal and misery. You are wary now, and who can blame you? Harry would have told you, but he was afraid, for you are no gentle character, my darling. You struck fear in your brother, too, and in Regina, though you perhaps never knew it. Do you know how frightful it is to have others fear you?" He said, "Elizabeth, are you afraid of me?" She put her wet cheek against his, and her arms about his neck. "No, my love. I do not have any fear of you. You see, I know all about you and with love and understanding everything else is nothing. Isn't that what St. Paul said? Yes." A few days later Joseph walked into Harry Zeff's offices and said with what for him passed as a genial smile, "By the way, my brother, Sean, is singing in New York on Friday and Saturday. I know you don't like music very much, you heathen, but I should like to have you and Liza join me in New York, at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, as my guests. I have a box at the Academy of Music, and I insist you be there. After all, it isn't every day that a man has a famous Irish tenor as a brother, is it? After the recital we'll have a gala." Harry slowly stood up, his black eyes fixed on Joseph. He could not speak. He could only extend his hand and Joseph took it. Joseph said, in a very soft voice, "You son of a bitch. You sentimental son of a bitch, Harry."