Testimony of Two Men Page 6

  "But you know what you like," said Jonathan with a straight face. Robert flushed. Harald took his arm again, as if in amused consolation. "I tell you again, Bob, you mustn't listen to him. Just a rough, unpolished diamond, our dear Jon. Do you really want to see my studio? It's on the second floor with a good north light."

  He led the way up the dark and uncarpeted oaken staircase with its somber window of stained glass. Here the dankness of the air appeared concentrated and Robert was conscious of an odd feeling of oppression again. The narrow hall above was lined with heavy oaken doors, carved and cold, and the floor was covered with a narrow Oriental runner. Harald opened one door on a chill and sunless northern light, and they entered a large and bare room, the wooden walls stacked with canvases, the curtainless big window looking out on a river which appeared too cool, too broad, and empty. Some of the paintings were already hung on the walls; one large canvas was on an easel. The room smelled of paint and turpentine and wood and dust, and brackish water.

  Robert saw at once that not a single unfinished or finished painting was like anything he had remotely seen before, for none contained anything recognizable. There were whirling whorls of violent color, splashes of red with magenta and blue, black lines in geometric designs, twisting spirals in opposed hues, flat lengths of color that led to no conclusions. He was bewildered.

  "Look at this," said Jonathan, drawing his attention to the wildest hung canvas of them all. Robert dubiously approached. There was something like a scarlet sun burning in the very center, but the rays and crooked lines and whirls were violet, green, purple, pink, blue, black, yellow, and every shade in between. On the left-hand upper corner there was a splotch of enameled white dotted with staring black.

  "Magnificent, isn't it?" asked Jonathan, with an air of tremendous admiration.

  "I'm not familiar with art in this form," said Robert, trying to find some meaning in this furious and incoherent mass. "Just New York Metropolitan, I'm afraid."

  "You're provincial," said Jonathan. "Now, I'll tell you what this is. It's Harald's impression of the war, in which he wasn't engaged, he being in Paris at the time, while I was sweltering away in those damned Cuban jungles and getting malaria."

  "It does look like a jungle," said Robert, who had never seen a jungle.

  "It isn't a jungle," said Harald without annoyance. "Jon's at it again. It's my impression of American towns."

  Surely he was joking, thought Robert. Then he saw that Harald wasn't joking at all.

  "My impression of undercurrents," said Harald, "which imply vehemence and vindictiveness, bursts of witless energy, a stagnant sun which rises and falls on nothing, really, half-concealed animosities and prejudices, dirty little sins, avidity without an object—in short, almost any small American city."

  "You do," said Jonathan, tilting his head as if to study the canvas more critically, "give an impression of stench. Don't you think so, Bob?"

  "I thought you liked Hambledon," said poor Robert to Harald.

  "Oh, I do, I really do. But that doesn't prevent me from seeing it clear and seeing it whole."

  "Oh," said Robert. Jonathan burst out laughing.

  "I won a prize for this in New York," said Harald without animosity. "I was offered five hundred dollars for it, but I like it too much to part with it." He pointed to a red ribbon at the foot of the canvas. "I'm proud of it." He smiled in Jonathan's direction. "Of course, provincials don't understand, but this is the coming art-form. You'll see."

  "I shouldn't wonder," said Jonathan. "This surely will be the age of the uneducated and mentally illiterate, and artists without art, and men who never learned the discipline of art or even how to draw. It'll be the age when the color-blind will be doing most of the painting."

  "Art must shock, not soothe," said Harald, still good-tempered. "We've passed the age of complacency. And unthinking engagements in directionless activity."

  Robert was now convinced that the antagonism between the brothers lay in the fact that Jonathan had served in the recent war but that Harald had deftly evaded it. He himself had wished to serve with Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders, but his mother had hysterically objected and his teachers had earnestly assured him that his profession was even more important than patriotism.

  "The Republican Party," said Harald, leading the way down the dark staircase, "is too radical for me, too expansionist. I am working on an impression of it. I prefer the Democratic, which is conservative and which despises imperialism."

  "But you also love William Jennings Bryan," said Jonathan.

  "A man of color. An artist, every inch of him."

  Robert did not care for Mr. Bryan. At the bottom of the staircase he said with apology, "All our friends in Philadelphia are Republicans. They seem like sober citizens to me, Harald."

  "Sorry, dear boy. They are full of what they call dynamic enthusiasm, which is only exploitation. Look what they did after the Civil War: Indiscreetly set loose a horde of ex-slaves on the population. Radicals. Vulgarians. People without conservative standards, lacking an awareness of the historical imperative."

  'He hasn't the slightest damned idea of what he's talking about," said Jonathan. "He doesn't even know who first talked about the 'historical imperative.' Karl Marx said it, in Das Kapital. But Marx, as Harald doesn't seem to know, was the worst conservative of them all, and a true hater of what he called 'the masses.' City people! As Socrates said, the most malign enemies of the people are born and bred in the cities. True. The farther you get away from the earth, the more dangerous you become."

  "You'd say that, being a farmer," said Harald, in a tone of understanding affection.

  They went out into the hot sunshine, and Robert felt relieved. He feared complexities and smothered hostilities, and he had no idea of what the brothers meant.

  He had come here, from Philadelphia and Johns Hopkins, believing that he would encounter, in Hambledon, the utmost simplicity, the heart of uninvolved America. But the conversation he had heard between these brothers had alarmed him. Small towns were not, as he thought, simple places filled with good hearts and uncomplex emotions, and bright with honest goodwill. His mother had said condescendingly, "There may be advantages in Hambledon. Fresh air, fresh places, plainness, homeliness. Natural, guileless. You can be a Great Influence, my darling in bringing urban values—in controlled measure—to the unaffected natives." What an ass his mother was! to be sure.

  Harald offered to conduct his guests down to the river and the boat, but Jonathan said, "What? In those patent-leather shoes of yours? Don't soil them, pray."

  So Harald said his good-byes at the door of the castle, waved his hand with fondness at Robert, and went inside.

  "Amiable rascal, isn't he?" asked Jonathan, as he and Robert strolled down the brick path between the lawns.

  "I think he's very kind," said Robert with some stiffness.

  "He is, he is. That he is," said Jonathan. " 'Smile and smile, and be a villain.' "

  Robert had encountered no one who was less a villain than Harald, so he said nothing in reply to this malicious remark. They came upon Jenny, who had put on her brown apron again. She was busy cultivating a rose bed, her rough blue dress hanging over her upturned heels. Jonathan strolled on, but Robert hesitatingly remained behind. The girl ignored his presence Her hands were brown with warm earth, her knees sunken in soil.

  "The roses are very beautiful," said Robert She turned her head slightly, a trowel in her hand. "Thank you," she said sullenly. Her white forehead was wet with sweat, and her full lips were very red. Her loose hair was in a rich tangle down her back.

  "I've enjoyed visiting you," Robert went on.

  Now she frankly stared at him. "Why?"

  "Well. Everything is so charming." She seemed to muse on his red-gold mustache.

  "Is it?" she asked with abruptness, and went back to her cultivating.

  Jonathan impatiently whistled to him and Robert started. He had been staring at Jenny's beautiful young body and
feeling that tingling again. "Corning," he called. Then he saw that Jenny's hands had stopped their vigorous movement and that she was gazing at Jonathan with that look of despair, or something else, that Robert had noticed before. Disturbed again, Robert went on and joined Jonathan.

  Something was very strange here, he concluded. He did not like it

  They rowed in silence across the river. Robert was conscious all the time of Jonathan's harsh study of him. Finally Robert said, "I knew we wouldn't be welcome." He was resentful.

  "Of course we were welcome. Harald loves company. He loves everybody. He says so himself."

  "There's nothing wrong with liking people," said Robert, pulling strongly on the oars.

  "I never did."

  "Then, how could you become a physician and a surgeon?"

  Jonathan laughed. "I can still feel pity. Sometimes." He stood up in the rocking boat. "Here. Let me take the oars for the last length."

  When they reached the shore, Jonathan released his horses, which he had tethered near a tiny bubbling spring in the grove of birches.

  "Why don't you join my mother and me for tea, Bob?"

  The sun was already dropping to the west and the heat was intense. The river was now pure bright gold.

  "Thank you, but no," said Robert. "I—I have a lot of things to do. Before I joined you today, I had a telegram from my mother. She is coming here four days earlier. I—I have arrangements to make. She wants a suite in the hotel."

  Jonathan's black brows drew down over his dark eyes. He

  shrugged. "Very well. Another day. My mother likes you, Bob."

  Do you? thought Robert. He got in the phaeton with Jonathan and they drove off briskly.

  Jenny Heger continued to cultivate her father's roses after the guests had left. But now there were tears on her cheeks, which she childishly wiped away with the back of her hands, leaving smudges on her skin.

  After a while she felt strong hands on her shoulders, and then fingers moving softly through the hot tangle of her black hair. She did not lift her head. She said, "I warned you not to touch me. One of these days you'll make me kill you."

  "Sweet Jenny," said Harald. "You're like a young, unbroken colt."

  "Take your hands away from me!"

  Harald stood up, sighing. "I love you, Jenny. I want to marry you. What's so offensive about that?"

  "I will really kill you," said Jenny. She sat back on her heels and regarded him with hatred, her blue eyes one savage blaze.

  "I will surely kill you," she repeated. She looked at him with all the power of her strong young body and spirit, and after a moment he strolled off.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The warm June weather had suddenly disappeared Now the sky was gray and misty and the air chill and damp. The mountains were lost in the white fog and moisture dripped from trees and shrubbery and eaves, though it was not raining.

  Jonathan Ferrier and his mother, Marjorie Ferrier, sat in the breakfast room of their sturdy red brick house with the white shutters and doors and trimmings of brass, brightly shined. The casement windows were shut tightly, the blue draperies partly drawn, the gas chandelier lit in this early morning, and a brisk little fire rustling on the white brick hearth. It was pleasant here and fragrant with potpourri and wax and coffee and burning wood, the room octagonal in shape, the walls palely painted, the furniture of light mahogany.

  Marjorie Ferrier, fifty-five years old, was tall and slender, having retained her girlhood figure and grace. She wore a well-fitting shirtwaist of white lawn and lace, the high neck boned, and a slim, long black skirt of soft silk. Her tall pompadour was black, with ribbons of gray through it, and there were small pearls at her ears. In appearance, she greatly resembled her son, Jonathan, for her complexion was dark, her face thin and planed, her mourn austere, her nose sharp and somewhat long, her black brows straight. But her eyes were brilliantly hazel, and large, like her son, Harald's, with thick short lashes. It was from his mother, the former Miss Farmington, that Jonathan had inherited his "foreign" look, and not from his father, who was of French descent. Harald resembled his father, who had been more Anglo-Saxon in appearance than his truly Anglo-Saxon wife.

  Mrs. Ferrier was a handsome woman, elegant and restrained, and only the faint pallor about her lips suggested that she was not in the best of health. She never spoke of illness or disability, for she was a lady. She rarely descended to the personal, for she was a woman of reticences. Neither of her sons knew her well at all, and Jonathan the least. It was her nature to preserve her privacy even from her children, and though she had never punished them herself, she had, in their childhood, only to give them a stern glance to quell them. In many ways they feared her. They did not know that she loved them dearly.

  It was one of her aphorisms that a man was truly the head of the household. Since her husband's death Jonathan had become that head. Gentlemen frequently read their newspapers or periodicals at the breakfast table, so she was not offended that Jonathan was reading. She was content to fill his coffee cup from her polished silver coffeepot, to touch the bell under her chair with her foot to summon fresh hot toast.

  "Hah!" exclaimed Jonathan. "Here's our nice fat Mr. Taft calling the Filipinos 'our little brown brothers!' That should make them happy, considering they have proud Spanish blood in them!" He chuckled. "And here's a parody of that, by an anonymous American soldier: 'He may be a brother of Big Bill Taft—but he ain't no brother of mine!' What nauseating condescensions politicians can spout!"

  "There do seem to be a lot of troubles going on," said Marjorie Ferrier in a mild tone. "Well, the Boer War is over, at any rate."

  "Remember what Life said about that war? 'A small boy with diamonds is no match for a large burglar with experience.'"

  "I never cared for the Boers," said Marjorie, refilling Jonathan's cup.

  "No, I suppose you didn't. You are one of the few admirers of the resounding British Empire."

  "Oh, Jon, come! The British Empire is the balance wheel in the world. Don't you remember that cartoon in that London newspaper, the Times, I think, last year, of Russia and the United States jointly seizing a globe of the world, with Britain reduced to a tiny figurine beneath it? Oh, dear, I hope not! Not so long as Britain is strong, at any rate." Her voice had Jonathan's deep timbre, but was lighter and gentler.

  Jonathan put down his newspaper and then looked at it gloomily. "There was an earlier cartoon; I saw a reproduction of it. First published in the New York Herald, I think, 1857. Thomas Nast? Wonderful cartoonist. He depicted, then, forty-four years ago, that old bearded Ivan and America would one day be struggling to divide the world between them."

  "Absurd," said Marjorie. She rang for more hot toast. "Why should America have imperialistic ambitions? Absurd. And that barbarous Russia, with her Czars, has enough trouble subduing her own people and keeping them from revolt. She is a very mysterious Oriental nation, isn't she? Why in the world should America ever come into contact with her, except perhaps in trade, and we do very little of that? There's no point of real contact between our country and Russia."

  "You never can tell about the future," said Jonathan. His mother laughed a little.

  "We are a big nation," said Marjorie, "and we haven't even begun to develop it. We still have Territories which are not yet States. It will take centuries, really, to fill America from

  coast to coast. We have quite enough to do without any foreign ambitions or any alliances with anyone!"

  "You never can tell," repeated Jonathan. "What makes you think we won't have 'ambitions,' say in twenty-five or fifty years? If we don't, we'll be unique in the history of the world, and of mankind."

  "We are unique," said Marjorie in a tranquil tone. "We had no ambitions, not even in the last war. We'll be giving Cuba her freedom soon."

  Jonathan thoughtfully sipped at his fresh coffee. "Unique," he repeated. He shook his head. "No, we're not. We began as ancient Rome began. Well probably end as she did, too, in a bloody despotism,
with dictators, and perhaps Caesars, finally."

  "How morbid you are this morning," said Marjorie. "But, then, you were always a solemn little boy, too." She smiled at him fondly, a smile he did not see.

  "There's one thing you can always be certain of," said Jonathan, "that it's very unwise not to underestimate the goodwill of mankind. We haven't honestly taken one step forward to true manhood in five thousand years. We're the same old murdering bas—" He stopped. But Marjorie only smiled.

  "Not America," she said. "The Spanish-American War wasn't really a war in the full sense. We've been at peace since 1865, over thirty-five years. We'll never have the wars Europeans have, thank God."

  "Don't be too sure. We'll begin to feel our oats. It's human nature."

  "But, we have two large oceans protecting and isolating us, and again, thank God."

  "Oceans can shrink. The Greeks and the Egyptians found that out, and so did Egypt and Palestine, when Rome began to stretch her muscles and look around for new worlds to conquer and exploit."

  Marjorie gave him the jam pot. "Jon, dear, you really are morbid. You haven't any faith in your own country. Did I tell you that Jenny is having tea with me today?"

  "Dear, sweet Jenny," said Jonathan, and made an ugly grimace.

  "Now, Jon. I do hope Harald will bring her. It's such a nasty day, and it's a long row across the river."

  "Darling Harald," said Jonathan. "How's the scandal running in the town lately?"

  Marjorie was distressed. "Isn't it horrible? Such evil-minded people."

  "You can't blame them, when it comes to our Harald."

  "Jon, I do wish you'd stop, your everlasting sneering at your brother."

  He looked at her sharply. "I forgot. He was always your pet, wasn't he?"

  No, thought Marjorie, with deep sadness. She said, "Harald doesn't have a very strong character. I thought, when he married, he'd choose a firm-minded girl, who would direct him and guide him. But he married Myrtle."