Mary answered the telephone and gave the ordered reply, puzzled. Jonathan looked at the instrument. He would call the
Hambledon Daily News
and report that Senator Campion had lied, that his story was false, and that he, Dr. Ferrier, would be only too happy to tell the truth if the paper would send out a reporter. He reached for the telephone, then stopped. Louis Hedler and Howard Best had betrayed him for some damnable reason or another. Whom were they protecting? Someone they feared? Campion? Then it came to Jonathan ruthlessly that they were protecting him. Again he reached for the telephone, his face flooding with blood again, and again he stopped. He had given his word to those incredible scoundrels that he would say nothing until they gave him permission.
He walked into his mother’s beautiful drawing room, and sat down on one of the silken settees, and smoked one cigarette after another, thinking furiously, filled with hate, frustration, rage, humiliation. Oh, no doubt they thought they had accomplished something very deft and clever, the bastards! Something to smooth over matters, to make everything tidy and neat and serene. To hide scandal, to prevent upheaval, and, in the meantime, to leave unpunished both Campion and Brinkerman, and, at the last, to protect the names of Mavis and Martin Eaton. Jonathan wanted to kill.
They don’t trust me, he thought, and acknowledged that they had reason not to trust him. He went into the dining room and filled a glass half full of whiskey. He stood and drank it, thinking. No, he would not let them frustrate him, keep him quiet, keep him from vengeance. They could not hide forever. They could not run from him forever. And when he got his hands on them? The explosion that would rock Hambledon would be heard from one end of the country to another, just as the ridiculous and contemptible tale had already rocked it. He would ruin Campion once and for all. He would destroy Brinkerman. Then, as the whiskey began to work in his empty stomach and the fumes rose to his head, he burst out laughing. He should thank Brinkerman! He had killed Mavis. “I should strike a medal for Mm,” he said aloud.
He looked through the window and saw Robert Morgan crossing the lawns to the Ferrier house. He watched him come, the sanctimonious red-gold bear of a Boy Scout! He had known all about it; he had read the newspaper. Jonathan drank the rest of the whiskey in his glass and waited. In
a
few minutes Mary came in and said in a whisper, “Are you home, Doctor?”
“Yes, Mary,” he said in the very gentlest voice.
“I
am always home to Dr. Morgan. Send him in here, please, and then close the door.”
The girl looked at the glass in his hand, went to bring Robert. He came in, and Jonathan, who had begun to refill his glass, saw that the young man seemed both elated and apprehensive. “Come in, Bob,” said Jonathan. “Join me?”
“At nine in the morning? No, thank you.” Robert paused and glanced at the glass, and watched Jonathan take a long swallow. “I see that you’ve read the morning newspaper.”
“Yes. Darling little story, wasn’t it? Was that Hedler’s confection?”
Robert said, “I know only what you know, what you read that night in Louis’ office. I’d heard some rumors long before that, and I finally went to Louis with them, and he knew
I
was your friend, and he took me into his confidence. My mother knows Mrs. Offerton, and I was given tidbits of little news, and I thought, finally, that Louis ought to know. He already knew more.”
“And Campion’s box of chocolates, cherries in cream?”
“I don’t know anything about it.” Robert looked at him defiantly. “But, what of it? This is the best way. Very ingenious of Louis and Howard. What did you want? Campion stamped into the mud? I admit I’d like that, too. But what would it result in for you? More scandal, libel, hate, confusion, trouble, calamity. Have you forgotten your mother?”
“Not at all. I remember her very clearly. I will always remember Mama, for what she did to me.” Jonathan’s black eyes were bloodshot and frightening. “I remember my brother, too. But I will deal with them in my own good time. First, there is Campion, and Brinkerman.”
“Louis removed Brinkerman from staff, and he has left Hambledon. Didn’t you know?”
“Yes. And all his crimes will go unpunished. It is
a
nice thought to use as a lullaby.”
“He left his wife behind, and his house. Everything. He will not be practicing medicine any longer.”
“That should console me, I suppose, for everything he tried to do to me?”
“Yes, it should. He’s a murderer and a mutilator, but he is also a doctor. Think what this will mean to him. Louis had promised him that should he hear of him practicing anywhere, he will bring out the whole story.”
“Louis won’t have to wait for that, Bob. When Louis returns and I’m free from my promise, I am giving the full story to the national newspapers.”
Robert sighed and sat down heavily on one of the chairs near the polished dining room table. “For what purpose?” he asked.
“Damn you, haven’t you any intelligence at all, any guts, any manhood, that you should think I should be satisfied by a creaming over of the truth, and forgive and forget?”
“If it were only you,” said Robert, “I would think it right that you expose those rascals. But there are others. Your mother, even your brother, the girls who made out affidavits to protect you, the memory of Martin Eaton. To name a few. Above all, yourself. What do you think you will accomplish by exposing yourself to new notoriety, and injuring Louis and Howard Best, your good friends? Do you think you are a little Samson?”
“Do you think
I
care for this town, for anybody in it?” Jonathan flung his glass across the room.
“No,” said Robert very slowly, “I don’t think you care about anybody or anything. Not even yourself.” He watched the rolling crystal as it moved across the thick carpet back to Jonathan. When it reached him, Jonathan smashed his foot down on it, and Robert was sickened at this display of senseless violence.
“There’s someone else, too,” he said. “Francis Campion, who came thousands of miles to help you. I’ve heard he’s tried to call you a dozen times, but you won’t answer your telephone. Do you know that he denounced his father before Louis and Howard, for your sake, and that he threatened, for your sake, to expose his father?”
“A sensible boy,” said Jonathan. “I must call and thank and encourage him.”
Robert’s mouth opened on a faint sound. “And after he does expose his father, how do you think he is going to feel?”
“Cleansed.”
“You don’t believe that, Jon. He isn’t that kind of a boy. Think if it were your father. Well. If you do what you obviously intend to do, then you will smash not only that glass there but a whole town. Yourself, above all. That is what Louis is trying to prevent. He’s willing to let Campion and Brinkerman escape to protect you—from yourself. He knows what you are.”
“As you know so much,” said Jonathan, with an expression of black ugliness on his face, “perhaps you can tell me how they managed to get Campion to pour that bucket of swill on the press.”
“Well, Howard did give me
a
hint. They threatened him. How else could they accomplish it? They wanted to clear you once and for all. Merely ruining Campion would not do that. People would still put their own interpretations on your story, and as they love Campion, and obviously don’t love you, they would finally decide he was a martyr to your vindictiveness. So, to force him into that nice and artistic concoction of lies, they outlined to him, I suppose, just what you are capable of doing, but, more important, how eagerly people would accept his story without question—to your benefit. They would love Campion for his generosity to his young friend; they would admire him more than ever. And again, you would benefit, for no one would doubt his word. They’d doubt yours, Jon.”
“So Campion is going to get his halo polished again. Is that the plan?”
“That isn’t the exact intention,” said Robert, smiling slightly. “The plan is to restore your halo, which, I may remark, is badly dented and corroded.”
“I love all this solicitude for me,” said Jonathan. “I am awed by it. But none of you has taken into consideration my feelings in the matter, and what I want, and what I deserve, and what I should have.”
“I think,” said Robert, “that all that was taken into full consideration.”
Jonathan looked at him closely. “That sounds a little ambiguous to me.”
Robert stood up. “You are always looking for
a
subtler meaning than intended.”
“When Louis and Howard return, I am going to inform the newspapers.”
“Newspapers do love resounding stories like this, full of scandal, murder, abortions, perjury, suborning of perjury, adultery, tarnishing of a public figure. I admit that, Jon. But, though the newspapers will be eager for your story, they will want evidence to prove every word. Do you have that evidence?”
Jonathan stared at him, his eyes dilating and stretching. “Evidence?”
“Yes. Affidavits. Martin Eaton’s dying affidavit, for one. The girls’ affidavits. Mrs. Beamish’s affidavit. Oh, I suppose you could get a court order to demand that Louis give them up. But what if Louis denies there were ever any such affidavits? Louis is quite a power in this town, you know, and his word will be taken before yours.”
He smiled at Jonathan’s suffused face winningly, though he was still badly frightened. “Every probability has been taken into consideration to protect only you from the possible results of your own sweet disposition and your immoderate impulses.”
Jonathan stood up too and went for another glass and half filled that, and took a deep swallow. He looked dangerous.
Robert said, “Louis wants you to stay in Hambledon, where you were born and your people before you, Jon. He knows, even if you deny it, how you love this town and how your roots are embedded here. He knows what you’ve tried to do for Hambledon. He knows what it will mean to you if you leave here. He has done everything for you.”
“Dear Louis,” said Jonathan.
Robert hesitated. “There’s someone else I haven’t mentioned yet. Jenny Heger.”
Jonathan took the glass from his mouth. “Never mind Jenny. There’s no future for Jenny with me. I have enough presence of mind to know that, enough clarity of mind to understand how it would be for Jenny if I married her.”
“Well, women are peculiar, Jon. I hate to see a girl like Jenny marry someone like you. In fact, I don’t think I can stay in this town if you marry Jenny.” Robert was speaking very quietly. “It would hurt too much. But it would be Jenny’s choice, and she has a right to make it.”
Jonathan smiled a little. “I leave Jenny in your hands, Bob.”
“A normal man wouldn’t say that, but you aren’t normal. Besides, Jenny isn’t a commodity to be bargained over and delivered into the proper hands. She’s a human being, a woman, with her own mind and her own desires. She told me, the other day, that she would never forget you and would never marry anyone but you. Yes, indeed, women are peculiar.”
He found it unbearable to stay now that he had spoken of Jenny, and he opened the door and went out and left the house. Jonathan could see him walking across the lawns to the offices, and the bright red-gold head was bent and Robert
moved like one who was too grief-stricken to be anything but burdened and weary.
Jonathan could hear the telephone ringing, ringing, ringing, and Mary’s harassed young voice, “No, Doctor is not at home. Is there any message?”
Jonathan took the bottle of whiskey and the glass upstairs, and shut the door.
Not only Pennsylvania bad been stricken by what the people called “the yellow drought.” Parts of Virginia and Maryland and New York State were also suffering. The newspapers had laid the cause to “pressure,” which explained nothing, and now they were saying that the underlying cause was “turbulence” in the Caribbean and “incipient hurricanes.” One hurricane had already struck the west coast of Florida and another, and a fiercer one, was “moving up the east coast of the Atlantic.” There were high tides near Cape Hatteras and tides were rapidly rising as far north as Atlantic City. Communities in low-lying sections along the coast were warned of possible danger and asked to remain in readiness for evacuation. No one, of course, took this seriously. The promise of any storm, with rain and resulting coolness, was anticipated with hope.
Then even the anxiety of the farmers and the news of the approaching hurricane were forgotten entirely. President William McKinley had been shot by a would-be assassin in Buffalo, New York, at the Pan-American Exposition. Vice-President Theodore Roosevelt was on his way to Buffalo, where the stricken President lay wounded, and from which issued bulletins full of hope and assurance to the country that “all was well.”
Even Jonathan Ferrier, in his self-absorbed state of hate and lust for vengeance, and plots and plans, forgot himself for a few hours on reading the news. God save us from Teddy, he thought, Teddy with his Progressivism and his ebullience over “America’s Manifest Destiny.” A good man, Teddy, but a little simple and too much corrupted by hope and dreams and his belief that it was possible to change the nature of man, the only thing which had not changed in thousands of uncountable years, the only thing which was immutable.
The man of Plato’s day, of the earlier days of the Pharaohs, of the caves, of Rome and Greece and Byzantium, of Persia and Arabia, was the man of the present, also, with the same weaknesses and viciousness, the same desires and hatreds and longings, the same passion and the same apathy, the same nightmares and fantasies. The ancient philosophers had talked of the “changing nature of man,” but it had never changed. Only religion had sometimes breached that stubborn fortress of cruelty and poetry, of war and of greed, of childlike belief in progress and thaumaturgy, of pacification of evil gods and visions of eternal peace and brotherhood. Religion, however, had always sunken back, defeated, to await another crisis in man’s history to wash again that unchangeable battlement, to dash rainbowed foam against stony walls, to dampen the seething wrath and mindless fury that lay within.