Testimony Of Two Men (39 page)

The first flush of gold grew deeper and stronger, then in the midst of it there began a palpitating, pure and august, like wings of light, endless multitudes of them, and the sky glow, spreading broader and higher and vaster into the dark sky, had intimations of grandeur beyond the experience or the imagination of those present. Yet the earth remained black and still and hushed beneath the heavens, without form or shadow or shape or sound. It appeared to wait.

Suddenly, into that throbbing gold, becoming more brilliant by the second, the scarlet trumpets of the dawn were lifted, fanned out from edge to edge of the light, and the whole mighty east glowed and quickened and it seemed to the boys that they saw great red flung banners in its midst, and the majestic rising of archangel trumpeters before the sun. The stupendous glory, so silent yet resounding as no mere exclamation or voice or drum could resound, seemed to be proclaiming the imminent arrival—of a King. But still the earth was dark and not the most fragile movement of light was yet upon it.

The schoolmaster was pleased by the struck attention of the boys, and he said, “You can almost feel, can’t you, the roll of the earth eastward toward the sun?” But some of the boys involuntarily cried out, “Hosannah!” and others shouted, “Alleluia! Alleluia!” And for the first time in their lives some fell on their knees and lifted up their hands to the dawn in reverent and exalted greeting.

Francis had listened to this recitation with an absorption even he had never felt before, and his eyes glittered with tears.

“You see,” said Jonathan, “the schoolmaster spoke logically, and he told the truth, and so he never stirred a heart or aroused a spirit. But the boys knew. They had seen something in themselves, perhaps, as well as in the sky, beyond reason, and saluted something that only divine unreason can comprehend. You can’t will faith, Francis. You can’t force yourself to believe. You learned at your seminary that faith is a gift of God only. I don’t think you ever really believed, as a man believes, but only as an infant does. Now you’ve got a great adventure ahead of you, the search for what God is, and what you are, and the meaning of your life. That should take
a
whole lifetime, at least.”

“And if I don’t find it?”

“The searching will be enough. What could be more important, more worthy of a man? Somehow, though, I think you’ll find it.” Jonathan smiled. “And when you do, tell me about it. I’d like to know myself. You see, I was one of those boys in the field, but I wasn’t one who cried ‘Hosannah!’ or ‘Alleluia!’ I had lost my faith, my child’s faith, and never did find it as a man. Maybe I didn’t look hard enough. I only know that men stood between me and what could be the only verity we need to know.” He looked, for a moment, at the crucifix on the wall.

Francis could not speak. He watched Jonathan pick up his crop and his bag, and still could not say anything. But when Jonathan reached the door, the young man said in a breaking voice, “I’d like to see Father McNulty—I think I’d like to see him.”

No one was in the corridor when Jonathan entered, spent as he had never been spent even after hours in an operating room. Slowly he went down the staircase and at the foot old Tom was waiting for him mutely. Jonathan said,
“I
think it’ll be all right. I’d like to telephone Father McNulty to come to see Francis at once. He wants to see him.”

“Oh, thank God,” said the old man. He led Jonathan to the door of the telephone booth, glass enclosed, which stood under the stairway, and Jonathan called the rectory. The priest’s elderly aunt, who kept house for him, answered frostily. “I’m sorry, Doctor, but Father was up all night, and then there were two Masses, and he’s just exhausted and is resting a little before he makes sick calls.”

Jonathan, as usual, lost his temper. “Miss McNulty,” he said in an elaborately precise tone, “I, too, have been up all night, and I’ve been working on one of Father’s pet cases, at his request, and I haven’t eaten today and I have to go to the hospital on my rounds. So kindly call him, if you please.”

Miss McNulty did not bother to reply, but in a minute or two the priest was at the telephone. “I haven’t been thrown out of this house yet,” said Jonathan, “but I expect to be any moment because of your and my impudence. The next time a parishioner of yours has a brainstorm and decides to join the great majority, please don’t interfere with his sensible decision. And don’t call me.”

“Oh, Jon,” said the priest in a stronger voice. “Then everything is well with Francis? I knew I should ask you, I knew!”

“You did, eh? Let me tell you something, Father. I didn’t examine him. I wasn’t called by anyone but you. I have no position in this house, I am not their doctor. So, I didn’t examine the boy for the reason that if I’d laid a hand on him or looked at his throat, I’d then have been the attending physician and I’d then have to report the attempted suicide to the police. But you didn’t think of that, did you?”

“I knew you could manage it somehow, Jon.”

“Then, you knew something I didn’t. All right, he wants you, as soon as possible, and as he is now in a very emotional mood, you should come at once before the tears dry and he gets fresh ideas. May I offer some ecclesiastical advice? Don’t quote platitudes to him. Don’t express any horror about what he tried. Don’t, for God’s sake, talk about sin. That boy has encountered enough sin in the past few years to keep a whole Curia busy. Don’t mouth doctrine or dogma. He’s heard nothing but that for years, now. No aphorisms. No cant. You’ll only make him desperate. Come to him as a friend who really cares about him, and keep your mouth shut as much as possible, and just listen if he talks, and if he doesn’t talk, don’t talk either. Get the thought through to him, if you can, that you suffer with him as a man suffers with a brother, and that’s a platitude, too, for it’s the rare brother who cares a damn about his own flesh and blood. Do you understand me?”

“I understand, Jon,” said the priest gently. He hesitated. “He definitely has left the seminary?”

“Yes, and I think it’s a fine idea. Later, you can suggest to him that he take a trip around the world or something, and go down into those dens of vice you fellers are always talking about, and kick up his heels and sow several fields of wild oats. What are you laughing about?”

“Nothing. Go on, Jon.”

“Let him see something of the world, and the girls, especially. You remember what St. Augustine prayed: ‘Make me chaste, O Lord, but not yet!’ That’s what Francis needs. Afterward, he may decide to go back to the seminary, or maybe he won’t, but in either case he’ll be a man.”

“Like you, Jon. I hope, in any event, he’ll be like you.”

“That’s a Christian thought. Well, I’m going home now and you get here as fast as you can. On your bicycle. By the way, I thought you ought to know that he’s lost something he calls his faith, so don’t approach him through that, and don’t bring any little holy tokens, either. He’s growing up now; in fact, he’s just about grown up.”

The priest said, “God bless—” But Jonathan hung up the receiver. It was stifling in the hot booth. He wiped his exhausted face and hands, opened the door and confronted, with an inner curse, Senator Kenton Campion and Beatrice Offerton. He had hoped to leave the house unnoticed, and there they were, the Senator beaming like a golden sun and extending his hand, and Beatrice standing in the background, her big face still pale and her eyes somewhat reddened. As much as she could, she was registering not only disapproval of Jonathan but fear and resentment and indignation.

“Dear boy!” exclaimed the Senator, taking Jonathan’s hand in both his plump warm palms and speaking in his consciously organ tones. “How good of you to come! I arrived less than an hour ago, and Beatrice has told me how you hurried to us in our—ahem—unnerving situation! How can I thank you? And how fortunate it was you instead of someone else—”

“It was,” said Jonathan. “Your regular physician would have had to report it to the police, and such things have a stink about them. As it is, I am in a difficult situation, for I am a doctor even if not yours, and Francis was once my patient. But if no one talks, and if you and Mrs. Offerton look only astonished if there is any mention of it, and if you still have your old hold on the police chief here, perhaps it’ll all die down. I take it the servants don’t know exactly what happened?”

The Senator was less golden and beaming. He said, “Only old Tom, and Beatrice is going to discharge him immediately for disturbing the household for—ah—nothing.”

Jonathan wanted to hit him. “Nothing, eh? Is that all you can say, and promise, about an old man who saved your son’s life? I know you don’t give a damn about Francis. It’s been town-talk for years. But what if Tom hadn’t saved him? Do you think your friend the Governor, who comes up for reelection this fall, or your friends in Washington, would still think you were a mighty fine specimen of a gentleman, or would they ask what kind of a father would have a son who committed suicide? Your political career would be over. At the very least the gossips would say that there ‘must be insanity in the family,’ and though there’s plenty of insanity in Washington these days, they just don’t want to add to it overtly. Now, what are you going to do about Tom?”

Jonathan, the Senator saw, looked dangerous and ugly, and he was swinging his crop in a very nasty and rapid way, as if he were longing to use it. The Senator coughed. He put his hand, his large white fat hand, on Jonathan’s dusty sleeve.

“Now, Jon. I spoke without thinking. Why, old Tom will have my eternal gratitude! Old faithful family retainer, and all that. It was just my natural, paternal agitation—Forgive me, a stricken father. I became quite faint when Beatrice told me.”

“From what I can smell,” said Jonathan, “several big belts of bourbon revived you.”

The Senator smiled his rich smile. “And from what I see, several such belts would help you, too, Jon. Do come into my study.”

There was nothing more which Jonathan desired at that moment than whiskey, for he had developed an internal trembling in the last few minutes and his head was throbbing again and his mouth and throat were dry. But he looked at the Senator and thought, This bastard is really the cause of Francis’ misery and attempt to die. And he hasn’t as yet asked me how the boy is!

He said, “No, thanks. I am going home and will try to rest for an hour or so, and then I have hospital calls. I’m glad to see you’re so concerned and crushed about Francis, but don’t grieve too much.”

The florid Senator colored and his blue eyes had a wicked and malignant gleam for a moment as he stood smiling benignly at Jonathan.

“Certainly, certainly, a dreadful shock, the only son, with such hopes for him, and everything, a fine character, it doesn’t seem possible, it must have been what the French call a
crise
de nerves.
One doesn’t know what is happening to the young people these days. So nervous, so agitated, so restless, so dissatisfied. They fly from place to place, without knowing where they really wish to go. Very unsettling to parents, very disturbing. One does one’s best—It truly is discouraging, discouraging. A Christian life, upbringing—it all seems to come to nothing. Duty is rejected, and honor, too, and sobriety, and responsibility, and regard for family name. Well. These are things we must endure in this new century, I suppose.”

“Yes, mustn’t we?” said Jonathan. The vast marble hall, full of the blazing shine of the sun, was making his head ache abominably, and he was now sick at his stomach and shaking internally with rage. He had a thought. “By the way, it was

Father McNulty who called me.” To think that his golden son of politics had not even asked how his son will be, and if he is badly injured!

“Ah, yes, yes, yes,” said the Senator in a crooning voice. “Very good of the young man, very good. I must remember to send him a little gift.”

“Say five hundred dollars,” said Jonathan. “That will help toward the horse and buggy he so badly needs. He’ll be here soon—on his bicycle—climbing in this heat, and I know, to show your gratitude to him and perhaps to me, that you’ll have your check ready.”

The Senator’s large rich mouth fell open, and his eyes started. “Five hundred dollars!” he repeated.

“Little enough to pay for discretion, isn’t it?”

The Senator struggled for lofty rectitude. “I know that the clergy are always discreet. They don’t bruit about private matters they encounter. Really, Jon.”

“But I’m not a clergyman, and as a doctor I am supposed to report this.”

“You—” exclaimed the Senator.

“That I am. I’m a bad, mean, contemptible, corrupt, degenerate character, Senator, as no doubt you have always heard in Hambledon, and I have no scruples at all, and you don’t strike my heart with the slightest pity. If Father McNulty doesn’t inform me joyously soon of your magnificent generosity, then I’m afraid.” He shook his narrow dark head and Mrs. Offerton gasped in the background and put her hand on her breast. “I’m putting myself in a very precarious position by keeping my mouth shut, you will understand.”

“Are you sure,” said the Senator in a silky voice, “that you wouldn’t prefer the five hundred for yourself, Jon?”

Jonathan stared at him. He half lifted his crop, and the Senator stepped back in horror and indignation. Jonathan dropped the crop. He said, “I know three Senators in Washington, Kenton, three fine men. Friends of mine. I saved the life of the daughter of one. One word from me, Kenton, and a word to the Governor, and a few more to the State Legislature, and you’ll be gracefully, more or less, resigning. Do
I
make myself very, very clear?”