Never Victorious, Never Defeated Read online

  Never Victorious, Never Defeated

  A Novel

  Taylor Caldwell

  For all the pastors, priests, ministers, and rabbis who all my life comforted, counseled and encouraged me.

  PROLOGUE

  It was generally agreed, and with indignation by a few, that it had been a great scandal. Cornelia deWitt Marshall had not only insulted herself, but all her friends, and the company which her grandfather had founded.

  The banquet honoring her and the one hundredth anniversary of the mighty Interstate Railroad Company was given in the main dining room of Philadelphia’s oldest and most aristocratic private club. Scores of the largest stockholders, including the younger Jay Regan of New York and one or two of the Vanderbilts, not to mention all the directors and officers of the company, were present. At the head of the table, with his mother at his right hand, sat DeWitt Marshall, president of the company, his son Rufus next to him. (Rufus was only twenty-one, but as he would one day be president himself, it was considered proper that he sit beside his father.) It was well known that Cornelia deWitt Marshall had been, and still was, “the guiding genius of the company.” The gentlemen present (and there were only gentlemen in deference to Cornelia’s aversion to women) regarded this seventy-year-old woman fondly as she sat there at the immense table in the glitter and glow of the crystal chandeliers.

  Some of the expressions of fondness might be artificial, but the respect was real enough. She was called in private “the old red hellion.” However, no one underestimated Cornelia. A masterful and powerful woman, a vindictive and humorous enemy—Cornelia.

  There she sat in her thronelike gilt chair, and she was impressive. Even sitting, she towered over her neighbors. Some of the older men, Jay Regan among them, thought of an ancient phrase: “A fine figure of a woman.” When she stood, she was five feet eight inches tall, and her figure might have been that of a woman forty years her junior. Her waist was slim, her breast full and white, though the neck above it was raddled. She could stride like a young woman, and her gestures were quick and dominant. She could ride a horse like a young man, and she often drove her own car, and engaged, at intervals, in an excellent game of tennis and golf. When she sailed on her enormous yacht, Rufus, she would often take the wheel, to the awed admiration of the captain. She could swim like a vigorous child, swear like a New York policeman, outshout anyone at a football game, and dance like an adolescent. She also had an original and very large fund of ribald stories and could outdrink almost any man. She smoked constantly.

  Seventy years old, and still full of immense vitality—Cornelia. It was amazing, thought her older male friends, some of whom tottered when they walked, and had rheumy eyes. Cornelia never forgot anything, either. Her memory was a complete library of the whole railroad business.

  The banquet was very good indeed. The chief and his assistants had outdone themselves on this occasion. Cornelia had eaten twice as much as anyone present. However, she did not appear satiated or sluggish, and she had drunk quantities of bourbon, her favorite beverage, not only before the banquet, but all through it.

  So, there she sat, smiling, tall and stately in her chair, emanating energy and liveliness. She wore a silver gown, closely fashioned in order to show off her youthful figure and splendid white shoulders. A cascade of small white orchids flowed over her breast. A diamond necklace blazed about her throat; diamonds glittered in her ears, in her hair and on her fingers, and all up and down both long white arms. It was a crude display, and the more tasteful of the guests commented on this to themselves. But then, Cornelia had never pretended to have taste. She was vulgar and raucous and coarse, and gloried in it all. She displayed her vulgarity as she displayed her diamonds: proudly, and with wicked humor.

  DeWitt, and his son Rufus, looked at Cornelia tonight with polite expressions, and murmured at her shouted remarks, which could be heard all through the banquet hall. They looked at her face; in contrast with the rest of her body it was showing her age to some extent. It was not the face of a seventy-year-old woman, but still it was a haggard face, overrouged, the red lips tight and thin, the large curved nose very conspicuous, the hazel eyes shadowed too much with gleaming lavender, the eyelashes coated and stiff. She was at the best when she smiled or laughed, for her big white teeth were her own, and perfect, and shone like polished porcelain. Then her eyes would dance, the wrinkles almost disappear, and her humor and animal roughness and vitality would accomplish the miracle of making her seem at least thirty years younger.

  Above this amazing face was an even more amazing pile of waved and shining red hair, interwoven with diamonds. It was not an auburn red, or a sandy red, or a golden red. It was, frankly and simply, violently red. It was the color of her youth. She had portraits to prove it. For the past thirty years, however, her hair had really been white. She did not care who knew that this redness she now displayed was only a dye. It was a work of art, and it was abundant and vigorous.

  It was almost impossible to escape the sound of that booming voice; the waiters smiled discreetly, and chuckled to themselves when they caught some of her favorite and more indelicate jokes. There was a magnetism about Cornelia to which only her son DeWitt was immune. He would sometimes condescend to explain this thoughtfully: “I suppose it’s because she’s never cared about a living thing but herself. If you love yourself sufficiently everyone else will love you. They’ll believe you must have some perfectly good reason for your opinion.”

  Father and son studied Cornelia tonight, seeing the rapt faces about her, watching her gay gestures, her swift and glittering smile, hearing her uproarious laughter and the laughter which joined hers. Rufus shifted uneasily in his seat and after a moment’s hesitation whispered, “Have you noticed, Father? There’s something diabolical about Grandmother tonight. …”

  “Nonsense,” said DeWitt with disapproval. His son, whom he considered a rather hulking masculine edition of his mother—without Cornelia’s brains, of course—subsided, and a sulky expression settled on the big mouth so like his grandmother’s. As if he felt his son’s resentment, DeWitt shifted in his seat and played with his cane. Rufus annoyed him; everybody annoyed him, except Tony, and Tony was not here. For an instant, DeWitt, to his own disgust, felt the old familiar pang of desolation.

  Old George Hill, one of the directors of the company, was lighting Cornelia’s gold-tipped cigarette. His hand shook with age. He was cackling at her last joke. Then he became sober. He was to make the speech and the presentation of the medal. He rose slowly to his feet and leaned on the table, a fat old man with glaucous eyes and a thick pink double chin. The waiters scurried from the room and closed the doors. A silence fell, and everyone waited. Cornelia blew a cloud of smoke before her face, and then another. The February night was unusually mild, and the air conditioning roared in the sudden quiet.

  Mr. Hill glanced portentously about him. “Dear friends,” he rumbled, “we’re here on a very special occasion. Such an occasion might call for long speeches. But Cornelia—Mrs. Marshall—has asked for no speech at all! Isn’t that so, my dear?” he asked, turning to Cornelia and gazing down at her affectionately.

  Cornelia waved away the smoke, nodded, laughed exuberantly. “Even a railroad must be embarrassed to be one hundred years old,” she said. Her eyes sparkled on each face, and there was something of reflection in them. Her stare came at last to her son and grandson, and her grin widened. DeWitt drew his black brows together and involuntarily stiffened. Rufus felt a curious thrill of alarm. He did not like his grandmother; he had always considered her intensely ugly, and sometimes hated his own appearance which was so like hers. His hand moved without volition, as if to touch his father’s thin arm
, then dropped on the table.

  He thought: There is no denying that the old red devil has a mind, perhaps a better mind than all of us put together. But there’s also no denying she’s a witch. He reached absently for a cigarette in a crystal box and began to puff amateurishly. There was something in the air, centered in “that old woman,” which made him angrily apprehensive. For Cornelia’s eyes had taken on a queer fixed brightness, a kind of glare, as she looked at her son, and her smile, to Rufus, was the ugliest smile in the world. The blinding light of the chandeliers shone on Mr. Hill’s bald rosy head, and Cornelia’s diamonds stunned the eye. She was one shimmer, like electricity. To Rufus she gave the impression of new balefulness, all of which was directed at DeWitt, his father.

  Then, while old Mr. Hill rumbled on with his eulogies, her gaze shifted to her grandson Rufus. He watched her; she was laughing soundlessly, he could see. Yet there was an odd sort of triumph in her eyes now. Rufus was puzzled. He was no favorite of Cornelia’s, but still there was that triumph, that assurance, in her eyes. What the hell is she up to, and how does it concern me? Rufus asked himself.

  “We all know,” said Mr. Hill, his voice trembling with emotion, “that it was Rufus deWitt, father of Mrs. Marshall, whose enterprise, vision, and determined courage—inherited from his own father, Mr. Aaron—set the Interstate Railroad Company on its path to huge success. But we also know that it was Mrs. Marshall’s genius and ambition which caused our company to assume such gigantic proportions and importance. Always, she was her father’s ‘right-hand man.’ She was the light that never dimmed; her ideas, her enthusiasms, her plannings, are unique in the history of American railroading.”

  Rufus suddenly thought of his dead grandfather, Allan Marshall. He had known little of Allan. The family did not speak of him since his death; he was a man to be forgotten as quickly as possible. But no one can forget him, commented Rufus to himself. He is here, like a ghost, forceful and passionate, and listening. Nobody can escape him.

  “I wonder what my grandfather would have thought of all this?” Rufus asked his father. But DeWitt lifted a shoulder against his son, in contempt. Rufus lit another cigarette; his red brows drew together and he bent his head.

  Mr. Hill had come to the conclusion of his rhapsodies. Everyone waited. Mr. Hill was holding a white satin box in his hand, worshipfully, as a priest would hold a chalice. Something shone in it: a big gold medal. Mr. Hill bowed, and laid the box before Cornelia, who glanced down at it with smiling tolerance. Then she looked up, and this time she did not direct her eyes to her son or grandson. She was looking at one of the sons of her cousin Laura, Miles Peale, executive vicepresident of the company. Miles returned the look with the utmost gravity, and there was no expression on his face. Cornelia smiled, and chuckled. She removed the medal and examined it critically.

  “Well, well,” she said, holding up the medal. “Look at it, everybody! It’s beautiful. On one side is our old wood-burning engine and on the other side is our latest locomotive. With cars, rounding a magnificent curve in the mountains. Wonderful. 1835 to 1935. One hundred years!”

  The banquet hall thundered with applause and loving laughter. Cornelia passed the medal to her neighbor, who passed it on. It went from reverent hand to reverent hand, and Cornelia watched its passage. She was smoking rapidly, and through the smoke her sparkling eyes were full of evil mirth.

  The medal reached young Rufus. The thing was cold and big and heavy in his hand. It represented incredible power. He passed it on to his father, who studied it closely and then seemed reluctant to pass it on. It reached Cornelia again, and her smile was very wide, as if she had noticed her son’s desire to retain the medal.

  It was then that the scandalous incident began. For Cornelia began to toss the medal in her hands, throwing it higher and higher each time. And as she did so she laughed, the laugh becoming more ribald, harsher, louder, with each burst. No one moved; no one spoke. All smiles had gone. Everyone watched the coin shining in the air, and they saw it fall, saw it rise again. They could not move even when Cornelia abruptly thrust back her chair and got to her feet, still tossing the coin, still shouting out her laughter, which now had a jeering note. A few started to rise, then froze in a half-sitting position, hypnotized by the extraordinary actions of that extraordinary woman.

  Now the medal was whirling higher in the air so that it was a yellow blur of light under the chandeliers. Mr. Hill sat in his chair, paralyzed, his mouth dropping open. Some of the men gripped the edge of the flowered table, leaning forward. DeWitt’s hands, on the table, were like clenched and fleshless bones.

  Nothing could have been more malefic or more appalling than Cornelia’s hard and blatant face, the open mouth roaring with laughter. She rocked on her high silver heels, a silver-flaming and diamond-shining figure topped by a mound of vivid red hair.

  Then, without a word, without a glance, she moved toward the door, still throwing the medal, and whooping at each rise and drop. She walked unsteadily, like one intoxicated. No one stood up, even now. No one followed her. She reached the door, flung it open as the medal spun in the air; she caught it, and passed out of the hall.

  They could hear her laughter as she retreated.

  PART ONE

  1

  For three days there had been the typical January thaw so that one might have thought spring had come.

  Each day everybody prophesied snow for the morrow. But the snow did not come. Instead, the grass turned bright green, and the perennials in the gardens were brilliant with life against the wet black ground. The snow retreated like a white wave against walls and huddled in the hollows in the woods. A pale bright sun burnished the naked limbs of trees and struck the sides of houses with a glow. The river swelled darkly, and mists rolled down the mountains at sunset, and the sky became a soft and tender blue.

  It might have been spring except that the earth gave out no scent and the balmy air and winds were sterile of all sweetness, and though the grass was green it had an artificial quality. No tree toads sang at twilight; no bird-song struck the ear. People looked uneasily at the sky or watched the rising river which threatened the valley.

  On the fourth night rain began to fall, and there was an ashen look in the sky which slowly took on a pinkish color. Black clouds began to drift rapidly against this eerie background, and suddenly vivid lightning slashed through them. A burst of thunder followed. The storm broke furiously over the countryside, and the bare trees lashed the roaring air, and mountain and valley quivered in the wild blazes of light and seemed to shake in the thunder. The river, illuminated with white flame one moment, then dark the next, tumbled in flight between the hills. It was eleven o’clock, and in the midst of the storm, when Lydia deWitt rose slowly through the oblivion which had engulfed her for hours. Her dazed ears became aware of the battering against the windows, and then her eyes, feeble and still dim, caught the glare of the lightning between the folds of the red velvet curtains. She was very confused. She could not remember where she was. She heard the thunder and asked herself weakly: Is it summer? What has happened to me? The gutter streamed with water, and she could hear it, like a small cataract. Then she saw the lamplight in the room and tried to raise her head.

  “Well!” exclaimed a hearty male voice. “She’s awake at last! Our Liddie’s awake!” The solid floor, heavily carpeted, shook slightly under someone’s footsteps. The lamplight flickered before Lydia’s vision, and she closed her eyes again. A woman was speaking now, in soft and servile tones: “She’s all right now, Mr. deWitt. Our lady is all right. Aren’t you, Mrs. deWitt?”

  Lydia kept her eyes closed and swallowed against her nausea. She shivered when a violent peal of thunder exploded over the house. It was a great and sturdy house, but it trembled under that assault.

  “A wonderful baby, Liddie!” said the male voice. “Won’t you open your eyes again, and the nurse will bring her in.”

  Lydia sighed. Her lashes fluttered open. “A girl?” she whispered.r />
  “A lovely girl,” said the voice exuberantly. “Bright red hair. Cornelia! Yes, that’s what we’ll call her.”

  Cornelia. A hard and rocky name. Lydia lay flat in the huge bed and looked at her husband. She looked at him, and hated him, and turned aside her head. But he continued to stand near her, smiling, tall, wide, and strong, his red and waving hair afire in the lamplight. She could see him as he stood there, though her head was averted. She could see the massiveness of him, and his fine black broadcloth suit, and his black cravat with the pearl pin. She could see his large and ruddy face, his beaming hazel eyes, his thick lips parting widely over big white teeth. His hands were large and white and soft, and he wore a fine signet ring.

  She could feel the magnetism that crackled about him, and his health and vitality. She knew he was still broadly smiling. She knew many more things about him, and her loathing mounted in her until she was afraid she would shriek. Her flesh turned hot and she clenched her hands. Her eyes fixed themselves intensely on the fire which spluttered and rose in golden sparks in the throat of the chimney. Then a stiff white skirt and apron intervened between her and the fire, and the voice of Mrs. Brunt, her nurse, spoke again: “I’ll bring in the sweet baby for you to see, Mrs. deWitt. Such a beautiful baby girl!”

  No, thought Lydia. I don’t want it. I don’t want to see it. A hand touched the long sweep of her dark hair which coiled on the pillows, and she winced.

  “Such a hard time our girl had,” said her husband murmurously, continuing to stroke her hair. “But everything’s well now. Did you have a good sleep, darling?”

  Lydia drew in an exhausted breath. She wondered if she could not throw herself back into that darkness forever. Someone kissed her cheek, and she shrank away. The presence of her husband overpowered her, and her flesh prickled. “Don’t,” she muttered. “Please don’t, Rufus.”