The Wide House Page 20

  In the meantime Angus had become aware of what sinfulness was transpiring near him, in the ruddy warmth of the firelight. His face became white and rigid with shock. His eyes were distended. The caresses of the dogs went unheeded. He had been right, then. This was a den of iniquity, in which his godless relative, Stuart, violated the Holy Sabbath with a black and evil priest and a Jew who had, from birth, been cast into the outer darkness. He felt appalled pity and terror for Stuart, Stuart who was too innocent and too kind to realize the fiendish nature of those who were seducing him into damnation. He wanted to cry out, to implore Stuart to flee from this fiendish place before it was too late. His agitation was so extreme that his mouth shook and tears of complete terror flooded his eyes.

  The sensitive dogs, feeling his emotion, crouched on his knees and gazed at him with their liquid eyes. They whimpered a little. Automatically, his trembling cold hand soothed them. They cowered under it, bewildered.

  “Grand-da was right,” said Angus to himself, his heart quivering with fear. He looked at the gleaming black back of the priest, at the back of the huge rosy skull, which glinted in the firelight, at Sam’s mysterious quiet face and gentle smile. They would devour poor Stuart, these two, and drag him into the pit with them. Angus clutched his Bible as though it were a talisman against the witchery of demons. His legs felt cold and paralysed. His throat and mouth were as dry as cloth.

  Stuart had forgotten him. He was absorbed in his game, his handsome and mercurial face frowning and intent. He swore softly and obscenely under his breath.

  “God damn it! You’ve never seen such cards!” he cried. He suddenly picked up Father Houlihan’s discarded cards, and glared at them suspiciously, after exclaiming: “I’ll bet you’ve got better, you scoundrel!” He added, with grudging surprise: “No, by God, you haven’t! The devil’s in it!”

  “You will think I cheat, won’t you?” remarked the priest, complacently.

  “I don’t understand it! If you aren’t lying in your teeth, the only time you get decent cards is on Wednesday. The devil’s in it!”

  The priest was smug. He said, piously: “God protects the poor.”

  Stuart savagely drew one card, then screamed. Sam laid down his cards. “A royal flush!” wept Stuart. “The first time in my life, and probably the last! And it has to happen on a Sunday!”

  The others burst out laughing. Father Houlihan leaned forward to gaze at the miracle, with reverence. He then looked at the pot. “Twenty dollars!”

  But Stuart was beside himself, now that he realized the full extent of the calamity. He pounded on the table with his fists. “A royal flush! A royal flush! The first time in a thousand years! What I could have done with that at Mrs. Sheldon’s! I’d have made a fortune! And it has to happen in this den of vice on a Sunday, for the poor box!” The chips and cards danced.

  Sam and the priest rocked with mirth at this wild-eyed grief. They clutched each other, as they were in danger of falling from their chairs. Tears spurted from the priest’s eyes. He wiped them away, and went off into the fresh paroxysms. Even the silent Jew was overcome. He laid his head on the table and sobbed weakly.

  Stuart continued to keen over his ghastly luck, and with his fresh lamentations the agonies of laughter of the others increased. The dogs began to bark. They jumped from Angus’ lap and began to cavort around, in the wildest excitement.

  It was some time before the game could continue.

  CHAPTER 22

  Comparative quietness prevailed after a while, though Stuart wailed at intervals, and cursed. They had all forgotten, in the excitement, the silent white-faced boy staring at them with his distended eyes from the corner of the fireplace.

  A soft spring rain had begun to fall. It whispered against the windows. The fire sang to itself on the hearth, and the light winked off the andirons. The little dogs slept on the hearthrug, and whimpered in their dreams. The lamplight burned with a merry glow. The comfortable little sitting-room was cloudy with smoke which poured from Stuart’s and the priest’s cheroots and from Sam’s pipe. Across one wall were several shelves of books, whose crimson and blue backs bulged from much handling. It was pleasant and full of friendliness and comfort for all in the room except Angus.

  A long time had passed, filled with the sound of spring rain, fire, the little whimperings of the dogs, and the slap of cards and clink of chips, and Stuart’s colorful curses and the laughter of the others. Angus had sat for nearly an hour in a tense and rigid state, as if in a catalepsy, his fingers like iron about his Testament. He never looked away from the players. His eyelids stung and turned red with smoke and strain. At intervals, long cold rigors ran over his emaciated young body.

  Then, at last, nature came to his rescue with a loud protest at the constriction of his muscles, and he was forced to relax. Sharp and aching pains invaded his legs and arms. His back felt broken. Against his will, he leaned against the back of his comfortable wing chair. For the first time, he was conscious of the warmth of the fire. But his heart was trembling, and there was a pounding in his head. His vision dimmed, and he closed his eyes. Long slow tears ran under his shut eyelids. He was hardly more than a flat shadow in the Chair, one hand hanging vulnerably over the arm, and its whiteness was like the whiteness of death.

  He was no longer frightened. He could not have told what his emotions were. He only knew that he felt lost and most frightfully lonely, even more lonely than usual. And agonizingly weary. The Testament lay shut on his knee. Another hour ticked away.

  There was a brisk bustle at the door, and Angus, half asleep in his exhaustion, started up. The nicest little short fat woman was entering, with silvery hair and cheeks like pomegranates and a white apron over her black bombazine. She shouted: “Are you sinners ready for your supper, then?”

  “One moment, O’Keefe,” said Stuart, scowling at his cards. Sam half rose and bowed to the woman courteously. Father Houlihan was engrossed in his hand. “One moment, Sarah. Ah, no, Stuart, it’s all yours, I am afraid.”

  “It’s hotter than the bad place itself, in here,” said Mrs. O’Keefe, removing her glasses and polishing them. “And no air, by all the Saints! You’ll be smothering, that you will.”

  She went purposefully towards the window, and, as she passed Angus, she started and stared at him. “Well, well. What have we here?”

  Angus rose, though all his limbs creaked and ached. He peeped at her, prepared to be frightened again, but this little hearty woman with the wide smile and little twinkling blue eyes was no alarming spectacle. He returned her smile, and gave her his short stiff bow.

  Stuart glanced over his shoulder, and stared at Angus as if he were an apparition. He had completely forgotten about him. He said: “Oh, yes, O’Keefe, that is my cousin’s boy, Angus. Angus Cauder. This is Mrs. O’Keefe, Angus, Father Houlihan’s sister.”

  His voice was apologetic and somewhat sheepish. He rose, pushing back a lock of black hair from his damp forehead. “Whew!” he exclaimed. “I’m running with sweat. Angus, I’m sorry I neglected you so long.”

  But Angus and Mrs. O’Keefe were regarding each other in silence. The poor lamb, thought the woman, it’s feeding he needs, and a lot of it. She put her hand on the thin arm and patted it. She cocked her head and mumbled reprovingly between her lips, then said: “Well, now, it’s ashamed they should be for leaving you like this, and me dying for a bit of company upstairs alone. They should have brought you up to me.”

  Angus tried to remind himself coldly that here was another Papist, and one inevitably doomed to hideous eternal torments. But he could not retain his stiffness in the face of such warm kindness and affectionate affability. “Thank you, ma’am,” he murmured. “I—it didn’t matter, truly. I—I was just resting.”

  Mrs. O’Keefe studied him shrewdly. “It’s not resting you should be at your age, Angus, but laughing and playing.”

  Father Houlihan, feeling much distressed that he had been so remiss towards his young guest, wondered what to say.
He was much afraid of his sister, and respected her tongue. He began to clear his throat. But Mrs. O’Keefe firmly ignored him, and said to Angus: “And would you like to stretch your legs a bit and help me bring in the supper for the sinners?”

  Angus, in an agony of renewed shyness, wandered behind Mrs. O’Keefe into the brightest warmest kitchen he had ever seen, all red-tile and copper, and broad window-seats full of plants, and a black range fuming against the wall. There were platters of cold baked ham, spiced apples, cold beef, preserves, crusty white bread, and cold beer waiting.

  “There, now, the platter, my lovey, first, and yes! the cloth for the table, and the silver, and those big napkins, the one in the ring for the Father, the one folded across for Mr. Coleman, and the square one for Mr. Berkowitz. They’d be liking clean napkins every time, but that’s an extravagance. Here, lovey, another plate for you. To think they never told me, the wretches! You like ham?”

  “Very much, thank you,” said Angus, weakly. He sighed. The warmth and brightness invaded his cold limbs. He looked at the back of Mrs. O’Keefe’s broad and active body, and for some reason the way the white apron was tied, in a huge starched bow, made him want to cry again. He winked back the tears. He swallowed. He almost whimpered: “Do they play cards—every Sunday, Mrs. O’Keefe?”

  “That they do, the abandoned wretches!” she exclaimed, fondly. Then something in the boy’s voice caught her belated attention. She turned about, quickly, and again her shrewd little blue eyes dwelt on him. “Why, lovey?”

  Angus turned crimson. The plates almost fell from his hands. “Nothing. Only, in Scotland we don’t do those things. The Sabbath is a day of rest—”

  “That it is, Angus! This is their rest, the poor darlings.” She still watched him, with growing sympathy. “You don’t like it, eh?”

  “It—it’s just that it’s strange to me,” he faltered.

  Mrs. O’Keefe observed him with kind silence. Then, in a very gentle and maternal voice, she said: “My lovey, there is something everyone should learn, very early. It is only what a man has in his heart that’s either good or bad. And if it’s bad, and wicked, and malicious, and cruel and selfish, then all the church-going in the world, and all the praying, and the observing of the holidays is nothing. Nothing. And that’s the God’s solemn truth, child.”

  Her tone took on strength and quietness, and her blue eyes were piercing. Angus gazed at her, blinking his eyelids, trying to reconcile what he had heard with what he had been taught.

  He stammered: “You mean that they—they are good men, and God will forgive them for desecrating the Sabbath?”

  “Desecrating the Sabbath!” repeated Mrs. O’Keefe, roundly. “By all the Saints! They’re doing nothing to the Sabbath except be a little happy! And that’s what God wanted us to be on the Sabbath, and every other day, my poor lambi” She added: “Did you think God wanted us to be miserable?”

  Angus stared at her. Then a curious flash passed over his face, and he said, almost incoherently: “Yes. Yes, that is what I thought! I didn’t know it before, but that is what I thought!”

  Mrs. O’Keefe, an impulsive woman, came to him then and kissed him soundly, and hugged him in her short fat arms, which were so comforting and safe. He submitted, holding the plates out of her way, and enduring the most curious sensation of sweetness and consolation. He was blinded by his pathetic emotion; he felt his Grandmother Driscoll’s arms about him, and smelled the same nostalgic odor of clean and gentle warm flesh, motherly and substantial, a help in trouble, a tenderness in pain. There was in him such a passionate hunger for love that he could hardly endure this great pang and swelling in his chest.

  He carried in the plates, then returned to the kitchen quickly. He watched Mrs. O’Keefe cutting seed-cake. He said, stammeringly: “Mrs. O’Keefe, do Catholics hate Protestants?”

  She looked at him quickly, and smiled. “I have no doubts that many of them do!” she said, vigorously. “And Protestants hate Catholics. That’s the way with silly people. We all have to hate something, it seems, don’t it? Why, I don’t know. It’s original sin, I’ll be thinking. It’s one of those things that one’s got to accept, like sickness and worry and accidents and death.”

  Angus’ mind was all chaotic. He moved closer to Mrs. O’Keefe, and alertly understanding his terrible need, she paused in her work and regarded him with compassionate gentleness. She knew the tumult in that unlearned young heart, and felt humble that it was given her to alleviate it in a measure.

  “You see,” he said timidly, his pale thin face quite scarlet and desperately earnest, “I’ve heard so many things. It—it all seemed simple to me. Good on one side, bad on the other—”

  “And the good side, of course,” said Mrs. O’Keefe, with gentle satire, “was the side of your papa and mama, and granddaddy, and England, too? And your church?”

  “Well, yes, in a way,” he said slowly, fumbling with his words as though they were unfamiliar objects, and very strange. “And it never seemed necessary to me to ask questions about it. It’s very hard, asking questions, and very sad, too, seeing that perhaps your side wasn’t right at all, and there was something to be said for the other. It—it makes things not so simple. I—I like it to be simple, you see.”

  He gazed at her with a desperate intensity. “Mrs. O’Keefe, I’ve read the books, too, how the Catholics burned and hanged the Protestants, and the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, and the persecutions of the Huguenots, in France. How does—Reverend Houlihan explain that? They aren’t lies, you know. And what Philip of Spain did to the Dutch, with the priests behind him.”

  Mrs. O’Keefe laid down her knife, and slowly took Angus’ cold thin hand. Her kind face was very grave. She said, slowly: “It’s true, perhaps, what you say, poor lad. But the Protestants did that to the Catholics, too, you see. They did it to each other, in their hateful ignorance and folly. What does the Father say? He knows all these things, what the Church has done, and its cruel old priests. But the priests were human. They aren’t above other men, in spite of their frocks and collars.” She drew a deep, sorrowful breath; her bright blue eyes were stern and quiet. “The Father knows it all. But he has his faith, not only in God, but in all mankind, that someday it will be kind and gentle and full of love and pity. It was only last week that he said to dear Stuart: “I’ve been asked why I am a priest in a Church that has so bad a history for blood and persecution and intolerance. And now I ask you why you belong to the Republican Party, and are now a citizen of the United States. Is the Republican Party without fault? Are the hands of America clean of all aggression and conquest and war, and other ugliness? If a man will not join a Party, or a Church, or a country unless it be without fault and without stain, then that man will join none of them, and he will stand alone in the world! No, we cannot be such fools. We cannot doubt the good in a Church, a Party or a nation because it has had its dark histories, and its wickedness. We can only try to help it develop its good, and overcome its evil. By our faith, and our daily acts, we can make a sweeter history, and a force that will help in the liberation of mankind through the long ages to come.’”

  Angus was silent. He looked into the good woman’s tender eyes. His hand slowly warmed in hers. They stood like this for several moments, smiling faintly at each other.

  Then Angus said, softly: “Father—Houlihan—he is a very good man. I’m glad Stuart brought me tonight, Mrs. O’Keefe. I’m glad I know you, too.”

  An expression of light and peace came into the poor boy’s face. He smiled again, and sighed. He carried more food into the other room, moving as if in a dream. Mrs. O’Keefe watched him go, with tears in her eyes.

  Stuart was ruefully putting his winnings into the poor box, and making loud and bitter protests. But among them he dropped several gold pieces, surreptitiously. He said, darkly: “Grundy, I’m going to watch what you do with all this money, some day. I believe you put it in your skirts, and smack your chops over it.”

  “Never mind,”
said the priest, soothingly. “Perhaps your inordinate luck will be excellent next Wednesday, my Stuart. Perhaps another miracle, eh?”

  They all sat down to eat in the firelight. The fire sparkled on the silver and fresh whiteness of the cloth. Sam Berkowitz helped himself to the cold beef Father Houlihan winked at Stuart, then said to Sam: “Now, then, why be intolerant, my dear Sam? Why do you not taste of this delicious ham, which Sarah has so kindly baked for us?”

  Sam smiled slowly. A look of dark humor came over his features. “I shall no longer be intolerant, Father. Next Friday evening I shall join you over a plate of ham, and we shall eat it together.”

  Father Houlihan laughed uproariously, beating his fork handle on the table. “You have me there, Sam, you devil, you! It is worth a special dispensation, by all the Saints!”

  The chatter became loud, sometimes acrimonious, sometimes violent, sometimes punctuated with bursts of laughter, sometimes turning serious and somber. Angus listened in a daze. He had entered a strange, warm Never-Never Land, which was bewildering but oddly comforting. He watched the three men, and Mrs. O’Keefe, drinking their beer on this Sabbath evening, and it no longer seemed sinful to him, but kind and harmless. He listened to political arguments, and when slavery was discussed he stopped his eating, and was all painful attention.

  Father Houlihan pointed his knife at Stuart, who had just vociferously disagreed with him. “I tell you, Stuart, we shall have a frightful war over this question. I know it, like a seer. Nothing can avert it. The tempers of men are too high and too violent. There are large interests in the North which cannot compete in the labor markets against the South, with its slave labor. The cause of abolition is holy. Then, though the war will be fought, not as a holy crusade (though the people will believe that), but actually in the cause of economics, slavery will be abolished. Out of the greed of men a great wrong is often righted. I must disagree with Holy Writ in this one thing: a thistle can sometimes bear good fruit. Stones can become bread.”