Ceremony of the Innocent (80 page)

“Very wrong,” said her son.

“Oh, Mama,” said Gabrielle. “We are so sorry.”

“Now, don’t upset your mother too much,” said Kitty in a shrill voice and insistent. “You know how ill she still is. We must be careful.”

“Careful—of what?” asked Ellen. She remembered to be polite. “Please sit down. Tea will be here when I ring. Or would someone like sherry?”

Mr. Witcome and Mr. Spander looked like twin brothers, so uniformly dun and spectral were they, so sharp of feature yet so expressionless. They laid their briefcases on their knees and folded their hands on them. When the fire flickered on them it was as if it flickered on driftwood. Kitty had loosened her coat, but had not removed it. She looked aside; the fire jumped on her averted face, which appeared to be contorted by some grief or dire emotion. Ellen’s bewilderment grew, yet a hard sick fear began to grow in her.

She turned to her children. She had begun to tremble, as she had not trembled for a long time.

“Please,” she said to Christian. “What is the trouble? Is it the Stock Market?”

Christian’s large head bowed itself so that his chin almost rested on his chest. He wrung his hands. “No, Mama.” His voice was subdued. “What does the Market matter when we are concerned only about you?”

“Mama, dear,” said Gabrielle, and there were tears in her eyes. She put out her hand to Ellen in a pleading gesture. Ellen looked at that hand; she wanted to take it, but she could not, for some unknown reason, touch her daughter.

“Have I lost all my money?” she asked. She tried to smile. “Well, don’t worry, dears. Charles has been very careful. I am sure that there will be at least something left over. If that is all that worries you—”

“Do you think that is why we are all here?” cried Kitty in a passionate loud voice. “You insult us, Ellen! We are here just to help you, just to save you.”

“From what?” Now fright took Ellen. “Tell me what all this means. Why are you here, Christian, with your lawyers?”

“To save you,” he echoed Kitty. “From thieves, and lying doctors. From people who would steal everything from you, and have you put away—”

“Put away!” exclaimed Ellen, and now her entire body felt cold, as if it had become stone. “Please stop all this mystery and tell me what you mean!”

“Be patient, dear Mama,” said Gabrielle, crying. “You know how we love you, want to help you—”

Her mother was gazing at her with a peculiar intentness which the girl had never seen before. “Gabrielle,” she said with a new directness which startled her daughter, “was it you who suggested that I be institutionalized, a long time ago?”

“Institutionalized?” Now Gabrielle was frightened and shaken. She looked at Kitty, and then her brother. They had both suddenly stiffened in their chairs.

“Yes,” said Ellen. She turned to Kitty. “It was you who mentioned that, only recently. I asked you whose suggestion it was, and you were evasive. Now have you remembered?”

Kitty’s dark and wizened face turned an ugly scarlet. She dared not look at Christian or Gabrielle. “I don’t remember any such thing, Ellen! You are mistaken—or imagining things! Really! I am your best friend; would I lie to you? Have I ever lied to you?”

Kitty turned to the lawyers, who had become as alert as fox terriers. “Ellen herself will admit that for a long time, a very long time, she had been suffering from hallucinations and delusions, and hearing voices. She will admit it She was in the hospital for weeks, too. Isn’t that so, Ellen?”

Ellen was silent a moment, while they all awaited her answer. Then she said, “Yes, I was sick I couldn’t recover from my husband’s death. I also had made a marriage which was—unsuitable I wronged Francis. But all that is past and done with I have completely recovered my health.”

Mr. Witcome spoke in a low hoarse voice “Who told you that, Mrs. Porter?”

“My doctor, Dr. Cosgrove.”

The lawyer slowly took some papers from his briefcase “I won’t trouble you—in your present state—too long, Mrs. Porter. Believe me, I quite sympathize with you, and will spare you as much as possible. I have statements here, written long over a year ago, by Dr. Lubish and Dr. Enright, to the effect that you were seriously mentally ill, and needed to be institutionalized, if your life were to be saved. That was their informed opinion.”

Ellen was completely white and rigid. “They are no longer my physicians. I have my own doctor, Dr. Cosgrove, who has cured me.” She could hardly control her voice.

“Mama,” said Gabrielle, leaning forward, “who persuaded you to go to Dr. Cosgrove?”

Ellen blinked. She said, “Why, you did, Gabrielle But I found out that it was Charles’ suggestion.”

Gabrielle threw back her head and laughed bitterly. “He suggested that! What a liar he is! It was my idea, and Christian’s, for you did not seem to improve very fast.”

Ellen could not help it. Her old mistrust of Charles, and Maude, intruded itself like a sinuous finger into her heart, twisting. She clenched her hands on her knees.

“Do you believe a man like Charles Godfrey, who won’t let you have enough income, and disbelieve your own children, who love you?” asked Gabrielle. “I assure you, he would have been only too glad to have had you institutionalized so he could seize your income, too, and dole it out at his own pleasure.”

“You take his word before ours?” asked Christian, staring at her with her own large blue eyes. “Do you honestly want to think that, Mama?”

“How can you be so unjust, to your loving children?” Kitty asked.

Now the monstrous old guilt began to seep into Ellen, the old crippling guilt. She felt her chair tilting; she looked at her children and the pain of her love shattered her. They would not deceive her, her children. They wanted only the best for her. And then something moved against that guilt, like a strong repelling hand. She said, “What do you want of me, Gabrielle, Christian? What is all this leading to?”

They had never seen her like this, and had never heard her speak like this, before, and for a few moments they were hugely dismayed and helpless. Christian looked at his lawyers; they only looked back, impassively, at him, waiting.

“Mama,” Christian said, and hated her more for her strength, inimical to him, which she was displaying. “I will put it very simply. You never did understand complicated things; it’s not your fault. There is something—well, never mind. You see, someone is plotting to have you institutionalized, to claim you are insane, not in your right mind, since Papa died. We want to save you from that, and leave you in peace in your own house.”

Her great blue eyes fixed themselves brilliantly on her son.

“Who is doing this, Christian?”

“Mama, you have such faith in people who are your enemies! You must take our word for it. There is no time to lose. Tomorrow may be too late. Our lawyers, here, have papers for you to sign. Kitty will be the witness, Aunt Kitty. You assign to me, and to Gabrielle, and to our lawyers, your entire present income and your money, and your future interest in Papa’s estate, into our care and administration. We will then give you a proper income for your own use—in your own house, our father’s house, which you love—and let you live in peace, and in safety. All your lifetime, which we hope will be long and healthy—after you have recovered.”

Ellen continued to stare at him. Something enormously strange was happening to her, something like iron was expanding in her soul. It was as if she were looking at strangers. All Dr. Cosgrove’s warnings, and the priest’s warning, rushed in on her like a saving battalion, protecting her. But with it came a desolation she had never known before, even more terrible than that she had known on Jeremy’s death. She felt herself suspended over an abyss; there was no foothold. She was alone as she had never been alone before.

But she said, “I must think about all this. I must talk to Charles, to Dr. Cosgrove—”

“Your enemies,” said Gabrielle, and now her eyes were openly alive with her hatred for her mother. “You would consult with them, against us, your children? What will they do when you tell them? They will disgrace us; they could even have us arrested—and only because we love you and want to save you! Your enemies. They would destroy us, your children, who have come here tonight to help you. I can see now that you never loved us! You never loved anyone but yourself! It was always what you wanted—and the hell with anyone else! How could we have loved you so much, and so stupidly! You are no mother to us, after all. Or, tell me, Mama. Is Charlie Godfrey blackmailing you about something? Blackmail? That could be the only thing.”

Ellen had listened, aghast. “Blackmail? You are out of your mind, Gabrielle. For what should anyone blackmail me? What have I done?”

Then Christian spoke, in a soft and ugly voice, “Your past, Mama, your past. Lawyers ferret out everything. Your past, in Preston, and in Wheatfield, Mama.”

Ellen actually gaped at him, shaking her head as if to shake herself loose from a nightmare.

“My past?”

“Oh, Mama,” he said wearily. “Our grandparents in Preston told us everything, long before they died, when we visited them. If Charles Godfrey carried out his threat, you couldn’t live in New York any longer. You wouldn’t have a single friend. Your disgrace would be complete. You deceived our father that you were a nice simple little girl when you married him—our grandparents told us. But you were only a—”

“Careful,” said Mr. Witcome.

“Careful, hell,” said Christian. “You can see the truth on her face now. Well, that’s all past and gone. We didn’t want to bring this up, but we had to. To warn her that there are—people—who are not only ready to blackmail her but to put her away for life. I’m sorry this all had to come out, but it was necessary.” He looked at Ellen again. “Think what that would do to my poor father’s reputation! He has enemies enough, even now. Why, the whole city would laugh at him! His reputation. I suppose you haven’t given a thought to that, Mama. Now, will you sign these papers?”

Ellen’s mouth felt like thick clumsy soap, and she was sick as never she had been sick before, not even when she had been on the point of dying. “It is all money, isn’t it?”

The lawyers were surprised. They had been led to believe that she was an illiterate former housemaid, unacquainted with reality and with money, a stupid, half-insane woman who needed institutionalizing, who was still mentally disturbed, and worse, and a former girl whose reputation had been infamous, and who had beguiled a susceptible man into marriage. Well, it was obvious that she had once been very beautiful, and men were men, and such women had made fools of men like her husband before, and always would. Now, the lawyers looked at each other doubtfully. They looked at Kitty, who was breathing fast and whose face was malign. They had many such cases before; they were careful men. They wanted to be very certain of their ground before acting.

“Things seem very confused,” Mr. Spander said. “Perhaps we should consult further with you, Mr. Porter, and Miss Porter. There seems to be more here than the necessity to institutionalize your mother, or to persuade her—in her own interests—to sign these papers.”

They turned to Ellen. But she was as rigid as the tragic marble she now resembled, and as unmoving. Only her eyes were animated; they gleamed with blue fire, and yet her features expressed such grief that it was almost beyond human flesh to endure. It was rare for them to feel pity. They felt pity for Ellen now. They were also uncomfortable. They stood up.

“We will meet with you, Mr. Porter, whenever you desire. In the meantime—”

But Christian was shouting at his mother, and his hatred was naked. “Think what it will do to Gabrielle and me—when it comes out about your past! When it comes out that you were treated for a long time by psychiatrists—because you are crazy! Crazy! Mad! Not only you will be driven out of New York, but we, too. Our futures ruined. A whole city, laughing, just when I am establishing myself! Do you think of that, dear Mama! Or, as always, are you just thinking of yourself, your own greed, your own stupid wishes?”

Ellen continued to look at him, then she turned slowly to Gabrielle. “Yes, I was wrong, all your lives. You hated me, even when you were children. I see it all; I tried to hide from the truth, the truth your father hinted. I always tried to hide from the truth.”

Her voice was very calm. No one could know the hollow emptiness in her, the sorrow which was more than sorrow, the grief that was more than grief, the sickness that was mortal Her face had become small and shriveled, but her eyes were huge and blazing.

“I always loved and trusted the wrong people—except your father. I mistrusted my true friends, and disliked them. I am not very bright, am I, to have believed the lies of my children, to have loved them? You have tried to make me feel guilty—for your own reasons, which are quite clear to me now. But I don’t feel guilty, except for the guilt I feel concerning Maude and Charles Godfrey, because I did not believe they were my friends.” She drew a deep and shuddering breath. “How can I live with this, knowing what you are, my children? Ah, but I will live with it; I will live it down. You are not going to destroy me, as you wish to do. God has given me strength to resist you, to put you out of my memory, to forget you forever.”

But great tears rushed into her eyes and fell in a cascade over her quiet cheeks. “I have no children. You were never mine.”

The lawyers unobtrusively withdrew and left the house, but no one heard them go. Ellen turned to Kitty.

“As for you—my friend, I was warned. By Jeremy, by Francis himself, by Charles and Dr. Cosgrove. It is all plain to me now, and I can look back over my life since I have known you, Kitty Wilder. You were my enemy from the start. I don’t know why you have always hated me; I was devoted to you. But hate me you did. I don’t know the answer; I don’t care to know.”

“But, you must know!” Kitty grinned at her with savage glee. “I put up with you, as did your other friends, because of Jeremy, poor deceived Jeremy! I tried to civilize you, to make you a lady, for Jeremy’s sake. It was all wasted, wasn’t it? Your place is in the kitchen, my girl, and always will be. There! You have the truth at last!”