Strange Yesterday (16 page)

He went to the Steer's Head, climbing it for the first time in four years; and, at the top, he cast himself face down in the long grass. And in that manner he lay until the sun set, unmoving. When he returned to the inn, you would not have known, from his face, that he was anything but happy.

16

T
HE
following summer, John Preswick married the daughter of a neighboring farmer: a stout, rosy-cheeked girl called Pauline, and in time she bore him a child, a boy whom they called John Preswick after his father. The marriage was a year old when Peter died; and then John Preswick donned the white apron and took over the duties of innkeeper. And with the apron, he adopted, without realizing it, the habitual, fawning manner, although there always remained in his eyes the former, flickering pride, especially when he read the reports of the war on the sea and of Jackson's tragic stand at New Orleans. He grew settled in his ways, and he drank wine with his guests, and each evening he took his ale from a high-rimmed tankard, goat-covered, after which he would bank the fire and go upstairs, the thought of his wife, full-breasted and welcoming, and the warm bed cheering him. It was the same old four-poster bed that had been his grandfather's and his grandmother's. His wife, Pauline, was an excellent cook, and beneath her hand a roast or a fat goose became a work of art. He was not to blame in that he ate overmuch or that he drank too freely of the splendid ale his wife brewed. His paunch began to bulge. He took on weight about the shoulders and about the waist; his complexion turned from brown to pink; and his blue eyes began to recede into sockets of fat.

He forgot too. Once, so long ago, when he had been young and another, he had said that he never would forget—but he forgot. The years slid by, and with Pauline, and the roasts, and the inn, it was easy to forget. When he was young, he had seen old soldiers and wondered that their eyes were so lackluster, that there was no spring to their steps; but now—

That was the bitterest part of all—his forgetting. Five, and then ten years went past; and he was forty and large and fat as any innkeeper should properly be. It was after eight years of this marriage that the child came, renewing his waning faith in Pauline.

Very soon after he had returned to the Steer's Horn, he went to find a Mr. Kwalkee, whom he had once sworn to kill. But he found that Mr. Kwalkee's inn had burnt to the ground some years past, and the whereabouts of Mr. Kwalkee no one seemed to know.

But then, after all the years, walking through the streets of Charleston on one of his not infrequent errands there, he came face to face with this same Mr, Kwalkee, older, but much the same Mr. Kwalkee. And John Preswick, who was fat, whose cheeks were pink, whose paunch bulged, laid hands upon Mr. Kwalkee and strangled him to death, there, in the center of the street, while people danced screaming about them and strove to pull them apart. For though John Preswick was fat, he had not lost his strength. Only when Mr. Kwalkee was limp in his hands, face black, eyes bulging, tongue out, did John Preswick release him and step back—dazed.

He did not clearly know what had happened. Something red had flashed across his brain; something tore away his reason, making of him another man. Now he could not comprehend it. What was this thing at his feet?—and why were these people all screaming?—and why were they holding him like a common thief, his hands behind his back?—and what had prompted him to do this thing, if, indeed, he had done it, as they were saying?

Like a man in a dream, he was led to prison.

And then there were trials, endless trials, endless procedure, endless bickering, long nights in a small, wretched, vermin-infested cell, sieges with his wife during which she sobbed over something he could not quite gather.

What was it all? His head ached intolerably.

They read the sentence, and they condemned him to be hanged by the neck until dead.

In his fortieth year, John Preswick died upon the gallows in Charleston.

PART III

1848–1970

THE GARDEN

THE GARDEN

1

D
R
. F
ELIX
V
AN
A
URSTCHEN
waxed philosophical—in his own, slightly ponderous manner. But at the very most, he was philosophical; triumphant he was not, nor was he even glad in his assurance. If anything, he was affected by the sadness which invariably descended upon him when another page bearing upon the impotence of man opened. Dr. Felix had seen much of life, and he did not bear with it. Most of it he forgave—as a jest, but the jest was far too practical for him to take any pleasure in being a part of it. He had not found it easy to bite into life through medicine; yet it had never occurred to him to step out. And since he was a sensitive man, life was much of a shambles.

And he loved Inez. He loved her, and he had lost, and, as is the way with men of his type, he continued to love her. Much of the world—his world—was bound up in the little good he could do, the rest in Inez Demity. Martin Demity was one of his closest friends, so he felt, at times, that after all it could hardly have been a great deal better. One loves, he would reflect, and if one wins, one loves for but a while, but if one loses, one loves forever. Half wistfully, he knew that he was doomed to love forever.

Now he said, his face longer than ever, his dark eyes clouded: “You will have to learn, you men of wealth, that there is one thing your money cannot buy. That is life. Everything else is yours by divine right—everything. But, my friends, you cannot buy life.”

There were four of them closeted in his office, which was in a small white and brown house upon the edge of Gramercy Park. His was a discreet office, with a discreet waiting-room opening to one side of it and an operating room—one of the newer type with all the imported porcelain furbelows—opening to the other. He, Dr. Felix, sat behind his desk, upon which he rested with his elbows, for he was as tired and weary with life as he had ever been. And they sat before him, one directly in front, Martin Demity, and upon the left Fredric Thatcher, Demity's father-in-law, and on the right, his lawyer, Carl Stadter. They were all of them intent upon the doctor, their countenances matching the gravity of his, although the wistfulness was lacking.

As though it were any use to plead! The doctor watched Martin Demity as he leaned towards him, and looked into his face. “Felix,” whispered Martin Demity, “I used to imagine that you loved her as I do. I never thought, Felix—”

The doctor stopped him with a quick hand. “Please,” he said slowly, as if the words themselves hesitated, “we will not speak of that. I have done—all that I can.”

“To what end—?”

“I am sorry, Martin.”

“If it is any question of money—” Fredric Thatcher began.

“I know—I know. If it is money, you have all there is in the world. You are a millionaire, and your daughter is in her own name, and your daughter's husband is. I have heard all that before, and I have told you before that I cannot do anything. If you wish to place your faith in another physician—”

“Now, Felix,” Carl Stacker interrupted gently.

“I am tired,” he apologized. “Forgive me.”

And again they sat in silence, while a breeze stirred through the open window, while the night closed down, taking what small light there was in the room. They were all of them intent upon their thoughts, unaware that the room was becoming darker each moment. On the desk there was an oil lamp, but the doctor made no move to light it. Perhaps he preferred the darkness. At last he said:

“Some day men will understand this, as they will understand other things, and then we will not have to blunder about in darkness. As the matter stands, it is beyond me, beyond our knowledge. Your wife, Martin, is a lovely and perfect woman; but her perfection is in her spirit; her body is dying. For years now, I have seen the thing under my eyes. It is not a disease of her lungs, although at first I feared that. It is simply that her body lacks something necessary to life. Yes, I realize that is not a very scientific diagnosis—but it is all I can tell you. In some ways the matter presents an analogy to the royal families of Europe, where continuous interbreeding of the same blood has destroyed all virility in the stock. Undoubtedly the thing is genital. Remember, her grandmother was a Jewess of the successive Spanish-Portuguese-Dutch derivation, a small group that first in Europe and then for perhaps a hundred years in New York bred entirely within itself; and even before that it must have mingled with the old Castilian, which was none too hardy in itself. I have studied what I could glean of the genealogy. All along the stock is, what, in your lips, would be termed good, and in mine—if you will pardon my speaking frankly—degenerate. It is in a process of decay; the pity being that the body goes first, while the mind attempts to live its life in a vehicle that is rotten even though beautiful.”

Closing his eyes, he bent his head, while Martin Demity muttered: “I see, Felix.”

“But don't misunderstand me!” he snapped. “I am not speaking of Inez—as Inez. I am not speaking of what will come after this! I am only speaking of what has already been, and what cannot be undone.”

“Yes,” admitted old Fredric Thatcher, “it cannot be undone.” He was tired too, and he knew what the others could only surmise.

“I love her,” Martin Demity said simply. “If she had not borne me a child, it would have been otherwise—so the fault is mine. But I love her, and, Felix, you love her too. You will try to save her, Felix.”

“I cannot. If you were not my friend, I should lie to you. But I can neither lie nor save her. It is only a matter of time.”

He did his best to speak impersonally, as a physician rightly should, but it was difficult, and it took the heart from him. He thought of the last time he had bled her, of the deathly whiteness of her pointed, lovely face, of the subdued pain in her wide eyes. It was the curse of this family to have beauty—with the other. They were all beautiful in a narrow, feline manner: her mother, her grandmother—he had known both well—and they were much the same constitutionally. Only she, Inez Demity, was the frailest, and at the same time the loveliest. And, as in the case of her mother, she had given most of herself to the bearing of her single child, a girl, whom they had religiously called Inez. That was five years ago, and since then she had been living her death. He thought that if it were over soon it would be the kinder way—for Inez Demity; but, as with Martin Demity, he loved her.

“I will not bleed her again,” he stated. “She cannot stand it. The only possibility left is a change of climate; that is a chance.”

“That she will live?”

“It may extend her life—for years, perhaps. More than that I cannot say.”

“And where,” Martin Demity asked, a trace of hope springing into his eyes, “would you suggest?”

“Only the South. Winters cut into what little reserve she has. New York weather is particularly miserable.”

“Possibly Maryland?” Fredric Thatcher suggested. He had a bit of property in Baltimore.

“Even worse. I would avoid Virginia too.”

“Carolina?”

“Perhaps.”

Martin Demity shrugged his shoulders. He was still staring at Dr. Felix, and something flashed in the meeting of their eyes, something that told him more than he had ever before suspected; and he wondered, as many before him had wondered—for even Fredric Thatcher surmised, though he was aware of much—what there was tangled up in the web of this family into which he had married.

“Yes,” said he, bowing his head, “if that is all, then we shall do it. It will mean leaving New York, leaving other things; but it may mean that she will live. As to the place, I have never been South. Mr. Stadter has been there often, and I dare say I can leave the matter in his hands. Of course, that is if he wishes to go South—?”

“I think that can be arranged,” the lawyer said.

“Then you will take care of it—quickly? If, as the doctor says, it is a matter of time—”

“A matter of time,” Dr. Felix assented, looking keenly at Martin Demity.

Fredric Thatcher said reflectively: “The
Monsoon
is in the bay ready to drop canvas. I will give her odds against any clipper on this side of the Atlantic. She'll sail tonight for Charleston—if you can settle your affairs in that time, Mr. Stadter.”

“I can.”

“Thank you. And now, Doctor, you will pardon me. The
Monsoon
is cargoed for Southampton. I'll have her drop everything but a fraction of her ballast.” He was unnecessarily bluff and hard-voiced.

That same night Carl Stadter sailed for Charleston upon the
Monsoon.
He was a thorough and businesslike man, Mr. Stadter, and upon arriving in Charleston he did not waste any time. Pausing only to find himself a bed for the night—a good, solid bed, for he was no sailor—he went to the head assessor's office and described to him his needs. When he was through, the assessor smiled and nodded profusely.

“A splendid time—” he said—“you have chosen a splendid time to acquire a piece of property, if you go about it right, what with all these feather-headed fools leaving for California on the spur of a rumor that is not worth a continental to a man who thinks twice before he plunges. But, mind you, only if you go about it right. There is the Southland there is the South, and there is property, and there is property; and the entire business requires a calculating and knowable mind. Of course I judge you to be a man of affairs. I judge you to be a man of experience, a man with a broad and enlightened mind. But I have seen men—not men of your type, of course, but vastly intelligent men in their own way-taken in like children where real estate is concerned. Now one does not take a commission from both the buyer and the seller,” he finished wisely.

Lawyer Stadter nodded sagely.