Dynasty of Death Page 7

  He thought of his sons. Did Ernest, the “lively un” think like this? Joseph, with intense disappointment, suddenly doubted it. All environments were the same to Ernest, provided they did not restrict or interfere with him and his ambitions. He was the sublime egoist, who drew the universe within himself, absorbed it, so that he was both an individual and also the universe. Without words or phrases, Joseph understood the terrible simplicity of his son’s mind. All at once he felt afraid, experienced the uneasy fear that the delicate of perception feel when brought face to face with ruthless implacability and oneness of bitter purpose. Ernest, of a sudden, seemed to his father not to be quite human. What did the lad want? Surely, at fourteen he could not fully comprehend what money could mean; he had no experiences behind him to teach him the sweet power that came with money. He could not, surety, know what power meant. Joseph did not know that intuition, or imagination, might take the place of experience. No, he thought, shaking his head, it didn’t seem quite human. The lad was down at the shop before any one else in the morning, and his father had to drive him home only a short time before he left, himself.

  George had built a small ugly clapboard house for his brother at the edge of town. It was unpainted, and its long narrow front, with its two slits of upper windows and wider door at the bottom, was like a sallow, stupid face which had been struck into a perpetual expression of amazement. The stone chimney that ran up from the ground on the outside had a slack drunken air. It was only because of Joseph’s strenuous demands that a tree was left standing, and this solitary tree, an elm, stood close to the house at the right, its branches, now golden with frost, sweeping the steep roof. The earth was sunken here in a tiny flat valley, so that a low rise swelled up from its right side, and a low drop sloped down from its left side. Despite the golden elm and the wisp of white curtain at the windows, and the bare cleanness of the brown earth in front of the house, it looked meagre and mean; the three wooden steps rising to the door were steep and narrow. There was a small garden behind the house, which Hilda had listlessly started in response to the urgings of Madam Bouchard, who had the French appreciation of a kitchen garden; in this garden grew a few potatoes, a few hills of beans, a short row or two of corn, a bed of radishes and one of onions and a square of homely herbs. Hilda had been born and bred on a small English farm, and after she had once begun the garden her old instinct returned and she almost rivalled Madam Bouchard in making her garden yield. Martin helped her, and little Florabelle was not too young to learn to weed. The family kept a goat, for the baby Dorcas had been weaned and it was difficult to secure an adequate supply of cow’s milk for her. Beyond the confines of the tidy little garden stretched a tangled wasteland of wild blackberry bushes, scrub, second growth weedy timber and tall dusty grass. Joseph and Ernest had built a rude low fence dividing the garden from this wasteland, over whose hot, lush vegetation the bees would hum like violin notes during the drowsy steaming afternoons.

  Heartsick, frightened and homesick though Hilda was, and though her gay dreams of adventure had come to nothing, her homekeeping instinct, rooted in habit, had made her try to give her poor home some semblance of comfort. She had brought her copper kettles with her, and she polished them almost as vigorously as she had always done. They hung on the bare pine boarding of the walls of the high narrow room that served as kitchen, “parlor,” and bedroom for husband and wife and the baby. There was a large fireplace, larger than the one in the house on the Common, so broad and high indeed that young Martin could have stood in it with only a slight stoop; the hearth was nagged with rough stones that Hilda scrubbed to a pale immaculateness. The bare floor was of pine boards, and these, and the boarding of the walls, with its black knotholes and resinous rings, gave out a clean turpentine smell. The table and chairs, the low wooden bed, the baby’s cradle, were all homemade, of unpainted pine. It would have been a bare and dreary place enough had it not been for the ruddy gold of Hilda’s kettles, the china cat and dog and tinkling clock on the mantelpiece, the brass andirons and polished steel stool on the hearth, and the black iron teakettle that sang a low drowsy song on the fire all the time. Hilda had learnt to braid old rags to make rugs, and now a long colorful oval lay on the hearth. Joseph, with sympathetic heartiness, loudly cheered all Hilda’s efforts to make a home of this sad place, and by doing so brought the few smiles to a face that had lost a great deal of its color and innocent animal vivacity.

  For Hilda was mortally ill of this new land. Its strangeness bewildered her, its heat withered her, the cold indifferent faces frightened her. The food tasted queerly on her tongue, and the deep restless tempo of the town filled her with uneasiness. She was never to feel at home here, but as she was a simple woman, not given to complaining, she bore her simple sufferings with fortitude, except for the infrequent occasions when her sickness of heart made her burst out into gusts of wild fury. These gusts were not followed by smiles and laughter and extra affection as they had so been followed in England, but by a strange pinched pallor of the face and long silence. She saw nothing of what Joseph saw in this immense land, which to her insular ears seemed to be filled with gigantic echoes and colossal movements; she only saw that here she had no friendly gossipy neighbors who would run in for a cup of tea and bread and butter, and complain to her of the mills and of sickness and pending childbirth. There was no market-place here where chickens squawked in pens, and apples stood in heaps and suckling pigs lay, slaughtered, on wooden counters, and where one met all one’s friends and complained of the prices. There was no hearty tavern smelling of hops and scrubbed boards and sausage, with long slow sunlight falling through little latticed windows on old black wooden walls and timbered ceiling, with crackling fire, and the polished pewter mugs on the polished bar, where there was a quiet corner so that a woman could have a small glass of ale or porter with a woman friend. There was no soft gauzy sunlight, no grass that was lush and green, no cool, gentle rain, no peace, no comfort, no easiness and no kindliness. Everything, to her sick eyes, was stark and violent, greedy and hasty. Everything was flung up for a day, snuffled at hungrily, tramped upon, deserted noisily; it seemed to poor Hilda that she lived on a highway over which, and all about her, droves of hogs were driven, and when they passed she had the fearful feeling that all she possessed was eaten and defiled, and that the very house she lived in was as insecure as a temporary pen. She was the sort that is rooted to the earth, and when the roots are broken there is no happiness, no security. She cried in her sleep, and Joseph, listening to her, felt as helpless as though he were paralyzed. He told his brother of Hilda’s wretchedness, but George, who despised women because of his subjection to his wife, bluffly and impatiently assured him that all he needed was to “give the lass time.”

  The one thing that sustained Hilda, retained in her for a long time an integrity of hope and living, was her belief that within a few years they would go home. She believed this utterly, though she did not notice that as time passed Joseph spoke less and less of this. But finally, when even she realized that there was no longer any hope, she sank into a dull resignation that was like a drugged existence.

  The autumn day was very warm with a smoky languid warmth, and when Joseph opened the door of his new home the heat within seemed to rush at him smotheringly. Hilda did not believe in open windows, and the room smelled of a savory pasty, hot soup and drying diapers. Through two narrow windows on the opposite side of the room the evening sunset poured its yellow light which was full of golden dust specks. The baby crawled on the hearth rug in shrieking pursuit of little Martin who was imitating a singularly ferocious dog; in her homemade rocking chair Florabelle sang childishly to a rag doll. Hilda was slicing bread at the table, and when she saw Joseph her pale face brightened.

  “’Ullo,” said Joseph, grinning at his family, and trying not to see how much thinner Hilda was getting. He removed his hat and coat, clucked at the baby, and sniffed the food odors with ostentatious hunger. “Eh? Where’s Ernest?”

 
“He’s gone over to Armand’s to borrow something,” said Hilda indifferently.

  “Oh, yes. The new bore.” Hilda said nothing to this; she cared not a thing about bores. She spoke sharply to Martin, and the boy picked up the baby and sat down with her. He had grown weedy and taller this summer; his silver-gilt hair hung on his neck in a straight mane, and under the full white lids of his eyes the blueness was shy and sad. Joseph, sitting down with a groan at some distance from the fire, frowned as he furtively studied his younger son. More like a lass than a romping lad. He hated the shop, never came near it after one visit, and shuddered at the sight of guns. But Joseph angrily and mentally repudiated George’s contemptuous remark that Martin was feckless. Give the lad time. He was a comfort to Hilda, keeping her company, helping her with the little girls, working in the garden, running errands. Yet Joseph, stirring impatiently on his chair, did not want a son that was a comfort to his mother.

  “My word!” he exclaimed suddenly. “Can’t you find something sturdier to do, Martin, than rocking the little lass? After all, you are a lad, y’know.”

  Martin, as if forced to do so, glanced at him timidly. He tried to smile. But before he could speak, Hilda broke in sharply: “Leave him be, Joseph. He’s a great help to me. I’d be mithered to death but for Martin.”

  “That’s not it,” explained Joseph shortly. “Mithered or no mithered, Hilda, he’s just like a lass. He ought to come to the shop sometimes, though I don’t want him working there yet. Look here, Martin, why don’t you like the shop?”

  Martin was silent a moment; he stared imploringly at the dark thin face of his young father. “I don’t like the shop,” he almost whispered. “I don’t like guns, and the gunpowder makes me sick when I smell it. It’s not,” he added with sudden eagerness, smiling, “that I really hate pistols and shotguns. They—some of them look handsome, so smooth and black and shiny and polished: I like to hold them. But I don’t like to think they are being made to kill people with. Why should anyone kill anyone else?” he added with grave simplicity.

  Joseph was taken aback for a moment; he frowned, puzzled. Then with a short laugh he reached out and pulled Martin with rough affection to his side. He held the boy’s thin forearm tightly, but he shook him as though trying to rouse him.

  “Why should any one kill any one else, eh? Ever hear of wars, Martin? You must have heard of them, you’ve read enough books. Well? Didn’t you read why men killed each other in your books?”

  Martin, frightened though he was, yet looked down at his father with white earnestness. “No, father, I never did find out why. The British had one reason, and the French had another, and I believe they both lied. And it was the same with the Romans and the Carthaginians. And the Franks and the Gauls.”

  Joseph’s frown deepened, though he felt a shamefaced pride at his little son’s astonishing learning. “Go on with you,” he said roughly. “I know nothing of this talk about the Romans, and such. They’ve been dead a long time, I suppose. And as for the Frenchies and Napoleon—why, if it hadn’t been for England the little devil would have swallowed up all of Europe. And where would we have been? Think what would have happened if England had made no pistols and shotguns and gunpowder! Why, dammit, you wouldn’t be here, now! But because Englishmen aren’t milksops there’ll be no more wars in Europe. England fought Napoleon so that Europe would have peace everlasting.”

  “Then why do you and Uncle George make pistols and gunpowder?” asked Martin simply.

  Joseph laughed. “Oh, America wants them. By the way, Hilda,” he added, turning with animation to his wife, “a Yankee General from Philadelphia wants us to send him our new pistol. Says if it is good he will see we have an Army job. That means,” he exclaimed, “that we’ll be putting on more men and building a bigger place! Damn it! Where’s Ernest? I wanted to talk to him about that new idea we had for a trigger.” He glared at the closed door, and fumed. It was some moments before he realized that he was still holding Martin’s arm, and when he did notice it he seemed surprised, and frowned again, trying to remember Martin’s last words. “Oh, yes, my lad, America wants what we can make. She’s got Indians to kill,” he added, grinning. “You see, son, the bad Indians are a nuisance, refusing to be robbed of their country peacefully. So, they’ve got to be killed. And so, we make the shotguns and gunpowder to help kill them with. But, if we didn’t make them somebody else would. And I don’t fancy starving to death, myself.”

  He released Martin, patted his shoulder. “Go on with you. Less books and more work. Look here, I heard today that there is a school opening in two weeks down the road, and perhaps I’ll get you in there. How would you like that? Looks as if you’ll be the clerk in the family, and God knows we need a clerk to keep the books neat and write the letters. Ernest’s no good at that, and Georgie is worse. Come, how would you like to be going to school again? For a few years more?”

  “We won’t be here that long!” said Hilda in the loud, menacing voice in which terror speaks when confronted by a dreadful situation, which it refuses to believe in and consider. She turned from the table and stared at Joseph with strained eyes from which all softness had gone. “We won’t be here that long,” she repeated, and now her voice had the sound of a bitter cry in it, an anguished refusal.

  Joseph did not turn in her direction; he looked at the fire, but when he spoke after a moment he spoke gently and slowly. “A year or two is not long, lass. You must be patient.” He must give her time.

  Hilda could not speak; she put her hand to the side of her face. After a while she turned back to the table. Oo, this was no way to talk to one’s man; men tired of tears and naggings. She must be careful. She loved him so, this Joseph with his narrow back and straight small shoulders and lean dark face. She would die if he went womanizing, as so many men did these days. She had heard from Madam Bouchard, who spoke of these things indifferently, that Georgie visited Mrs. Marsdon and her girls on Shipman Road. Hilda had not recovered from her horror at this news, to the vast amusement of Madam Bouchard. But she could hardly bear this dull aching pain under her left breast, which was like tears that had turned to iron.

  Joseph’s last words seemed to have infused an air of finality into the room. Florabelle stopped crooning to her doll, the baby stopped her crooning. Martin still stood by his father’s side, but his face was averted. His whole body seemed to shake in sympathy with Hilda’s silent despair.

  Ernest suddenly opened the door and entered the room. He did not enter noisily and vigorously, closing the door after him with a resounding bang. He opened the door almost noiselessly but with a swift decisive movement that used sufficient energy but not an overabundance, and closed it after him with a rapidity which made one expect a crash, but it was as if it were sheathed in velvet.

  He had begun to lose the apple-cheeked roundness of early boyhood, and his face was beginning to show the large starkness and cold strength that was to command admiration and fear in his manhood. His eyes were preoccupied, his movements, as he came to his father without a glance for his mother and brother and sisters, controlled and swift.

  “Pa,” he said, without a word of preparation, “Armand thinks the steel rifled inner tube in a wrought-iron cannon would be practical. He thinks it can be done.”

  Joseph lifted his brilliant eyes and regarded the severe young face above him with a faint and quizzical expression. Ernest amused him, which Ernest, for all his astuteness, never suspected, though when he saw that quizzical expression it annoyed him as all things he considered irrelevant annoyed him.

  “Come,” said Joseph, “we have a shop as large as a dog kennel, and you talk of cannon!” His voice was teasing, but proud of his son.

  Ernest made a short impatient movement of his hand. “You were talking of it today,” he reminded his father with asperity. He would never acknowledge that talk might be idle and merely speculative. If one talked of a thing the talk was merely a necessary preliminary, a laying of plans before action.

&nb
sp; “Oh, talk!” said Joseph, bent on teasing. Ernest suddenly pressed his hand on his father’s shoulder as if to reach something stern and serious that lay under the lightness.

  “I’ve talked to Armand,” he said with a tense quietness. “He’s sick of Uncle George’s cautious ways and tightness and smallness. He’s ready to pull out his money and go into something really worth while with you—with us. Like cannon, and seeing people about Government contracts. He says the Government is looking for someone who can supply arms and gunpowder cheaply. With your gunpowder, Armand says, and someone to go to Washington and tell the Secretary of War about it, the Government might even lend us money—”

  Joseph shook off the hand, his face flaring into anger. “What kind of talk is this!” he shouted, half rising from his chair under the impulse of wrath. “Look here, I don’t believe Armand said a word to you about doing Georgie in that way, you confounded young rascal, you! I believe that’s all your own scoundrelly idea. Wherever did I get such a son! Have you forgotten that your Uncle George sent us tickets, gave me a chance to try out my gunpowder, gave us a roof to cover us and fed us for two months?”

  Ernest scowled, pressed his lips together. He was not frightened at his father’s anger; he was merely burningly irritated because Joseph was using words and phrases and emotions he considered childish and irrelevant. He flamed with his desire to pursue relevant and important things.

  “Yes, yes, Pa,” he said, “I suppose that’s all so. But Uncle George helped us because he thought you could give him something worth while. But let’s not talk about that.” He had great courage, but it was a courage born of what he considered relevant and irrefutable, and not a reckless or conscious courage. “It’s true that Armand did actually say he would pull out his money and leave Uncle George in the lurch at a word from you, but he didn’t need to say it. I knew it. Words aren’t always necessary. And then, when I talked to him about the cannon idea you and I had—”