8

The great wide window of what Sophia elegantly called “the large guest chamber” looked down precipitously upon a view which was conceded to be “one of the best in the state.” The artist who had built this house had originally intended it for an upstairs study, but it had been later converted into a bedroom for the more honored guests of the deWitts. The high white walls, the carved white ceilings, the magnificent white fireplace, were backgrounds for the dimmest of blue and rose and gold Aubusson rugs, massive cherry furniture, gold-threaded rosy draperies, and gilt lamps.

For six months Stephen had occupied that big postered bed and this velvet chair by the window. For six months he had lived silently in the room, never reading, very rarely speaking, and looking down emptily at the magnificent scene far below him. For two of those six months his life had been in danger from “the lung fever” which he had hoped would kill him. For another two months he had fought his return to health, and had almost won. For the past two months his still-young body had begun to win the struggle, against all his desires, all his anguished desires. He still had a passionate will to die, and sometimes, as now on this late October afternoon, the will gained temporary ascendency over the fighting flesh.

There he sat now, in the blue velvet chair, wrapped in shawls and blankets from which his narrow head and long gray face, so emaciated and so sunken, emerged like the head of a turtle from a large shell. His skeletonlike hands lay listlessly, palms upward, on the arms of the chair. The early twilight filled the room with a cold, wan light, like the reflection of snow, and the firelight raced over the white walls and ceiling in a dance of scarlet ghosts. Near the fire, as still as Stephen himself, sat Aaron deWitt in his dressing gown, his pipe held reflectively in his hand, his eyes fixed on his son, who seemed totally unaware of his presence.

Stephen gazed down through the window, but he saw nothing. The panorama of gray and purple hills, tumbling in silent chaos in the distance, evoked no interest in him. The mountains circled toward the house and enclosed a narrow river, glinting in dull silver under a dull silver sky, which wound away mysteriously into mists toward the farther mountains. The wild autumnal color, which had earlier fired the mountains into explosions of gold and crimson and unearthly greens, had subsided into the immense grandeur of cold lavenders and mauves and cobalt blues, retreating and unreal as a dream.

It was too early for sunset; the mountains beyond had not brightened as yet. The sky above them remained silvery. The fire crackled and spluttered; Aaron smoked thoughtfully; Stephen looked down vacantly at the ghostly river between the hills. The carved marble clock ticked on the mantelpiece, but this, and the snapping of the fire, were the only sounds in the wide room. They had been the only sounds for at least two hours. No other member of the family had entered the room, and no servant. Father and son sat alone, the father watchful, the son oblivious.

The will to die became stronger in Stephen, and as if he felt that desolate urging himself, Aaron stood up. He moved quietly and slowly to the small table near Stephen and carefully mixed some medicine into a glass of port wine. Then he touched Stephen’s shoulder, and Stephen started violently.

“Your tonic, Steve,” said Aaron, and his yellow teeth gleamed between his bearded lips. Then an involuntary grimace ran over his face, and he bent a little in a kind of uncontrollable convulsion. He gave a sharp small cough, straightened, and again said, “Your tonic. Drink it down, my boy. It’s time.”

Stephen’s lassitude was too enormous for ready responsiveness of movement. His left hand rose painful inch by inch, and he took the glass. It was heavy for him, in his weakness, and so it shook in his fingers. He did not want the “tonic” and the wine; if he drank it he would feel returning strength. He let his hand droop toward the table. Aaron grinned, took the glass, and held it to Stephen’s lips. “Come on, now; let’s not be a baby,” he said, with good humor. Stephen’s mouth, cold and dry, resisted for a moment; then, without looking at his father, he drank the liquid. Aaron nodded, as if with satisfaction. He went back to his chair, refilled his pipe, and began to smoke again. Occasionally he grimaced, as he had done before, and once or twice he pressed his hand against his stomach. He had grown older and thinner and smaller these past months, to Sophia’s dismay. She had attributed this to the grief Aaron had felt for the death of Alice and the collapse and suffering of his son.

Stephen’s thoughts, as always, were vague and confused cloud-shapes in his mind. He could not follow a thought through; it ran from him like a dissolving dream. He could think only of Alice with any clarity, and then the thought was an exquisite agony. Over and over he would say to himself: I didn’t know. I left her. I was helping. … There was the rain, and the river, and there wasn’t a hack—just the wind. I couldn’t run. But then, she was already dead. She was lying there, waiting for me. Alice.

He knew that he had been unconscious in that bed yonder when his wife had been buried. He had not as yet seen her grave. He had no desire to see it. Alice had gone; she was nowhere in the world. She would never enter through that door, nor stand beside him looking down at the river. She no longer existed. She had left him as if she had never known him. There was only an emptiness left, filled with unbearable pain. The pain did not lessen as the months went by; there was no dulling of the torture, no surcease. There was no consolation. His body might have grown stronger but his spirit lay in him bleeding and stricken to the death.

“He is making no real effort. I’m very disappointed,” the doctor had confided to Aaron and Sophia. “If he goes on this way—and I had hopes for him a few weeks ago—he will die. That’s what he wants. Medicine can only give him temporary strength, which he fights.”

Sophia, whose sympathy and imagination were so small, had become impatient. After all, she would say to Aaron, Stephen was still a young man. There were other nice young women in the world. And there was work to do. It was really dreadful that poor Rufus should be so burdened, now that he had to do his own work and Stephen’s. Had Aaron noticed how tired the boy seemed these days? It was a pity. Stephen should have some understanding of the hardship his brother was enduring. He should make an effort, especially since he knew very well that his father was still unable to return to his offices.

Lydia had given the baby her mother’s name, Laura. Did Aaron remember the embarrassing day when friends had called upon Stephen, and had mentioned the child by name? He had looked at them vacantly, and had murmured, “Laura? Who is Laura?” Truly, Stephen was inflicting too much on his family.

Aaron had looked at her with his quick and evil smile. “Truly,” he had repeated solemnly. Sophia had colored angrily, then wondered if indeed Aaron was mocking her, and if so, why? He, who had always so derided Stephen and his tiresome gray ways, who had overlooked him in his childhood and his youth, and who had laughed at him so openly, could not possibly be mocking his wife when she had made a sensible complaint against their son.

Aaron had added no other comment to his single word, but had gone upstairs as usual to sit with Stephen. This baffled Sophia. It was so unlike Aaron. A few times she had crept to the door of the “guest chamber” and had listened. However, she never heard either man speak. Hours later, Aaron would emerge, go downstairs for a glass of whisky, or retire to his own room. Many times Sophia would desire to ask her husband why he stayed with Stephen for so long, but something prevented her from speaking. It was part of the tedious pattern of these months, and Sophia’s impatience became mixed with sullen anger against her stricken son. A nebulous uneasiness began to pervade the days for her, a kind of foreboding of some danger.

Today, Sophia, who was in her bed with a “chill,” was again uneasy. Aaron had not come into her room to enquire as to her state of health. He was with Stephen again, in the fine chamber which he had insisted Stephen occupy, though the south bedroom was quite adequate. Were father and son speaking at last? She listened intently. Once she thought she had heard Aaron murmur something. She sat up in bed and listened intensely. If Aaron had spoken, Stephen had not replied. Sighing with vexation, Sophia lay down again. Why wasn’t it obvious to everyone as well as herself that Stephen was just indulging in self-pity?

The medicine and the tonic slowly relaxed Stephen’s cramped and aching body. He saw the faint pink flush over the mountains deepen into a brighter rose, cold and without warmth. The mountains turned a darker purple, came into sharper focus. The river took on clearer tints of silver and scarlet. Mists began to rise on the narrow and hurrying waters, and they reflected the sunset in their passage through the close blue chasm.

The sleepless agony quickened in Stephen. He turned his head in a spasm of suffering. His eyes inadvertently fell on his father, sitting so quietly smoking by the fire. For the first time Stephen’s absent gaze did not move away from Aaron. Reluctantly, he continued to observe his father, and now there was the dimmest stirring of anxious curiosity in him. Why was Aaron here? Why did he come, day after day, to remain hour after hour, rarely speaking, not reading, not moving?

Aaron suddenly turned his head and the two men looked at each other in a long silence. The room was darkening, though the sky outside was a flow of brilliant magenta over the mountains. The window flamed in it; red shadows struck the white ceiling, so that it seemed afire. Across the breadth of the room Aaron and Stephen gazed at each other through the dusk, and did not speak.

Then Aaron got to his feet and deliberately put down his pipe. He thrust his little hands in his pockets, teetered on his heels, and regarded the window reflectively. Stephen might not have been in the room at all. Aaron began to hum, hoarsely, a mannerism he had when he was alone. Then he pursed up his lips and whistled softly, a wandering tune such as a man makes when his mind is deeply occupied. He started to walk up and down the room, his head bent, his steps short and slow and feeble. His pointed beard caught the firelight as he passed to and fro before it. There were gray hollows in his face, but Stephen could see the alert gleam of his eyes as the firelight struck them.

Then he felt his father beside him. Aaron stood near his son’s shoulder and looked at the sky also, rocking on his heels, his mouth pursed up soundlessly. Stephen wanted to ask about his health, with awkward uncertainty, but he was too tired. However, some discomfort came to him as his father continued to stand so near him in the thickening twilight.

There was a sound of carriage wheels outside, and Aaron shrugged. He said casually, “Well, Job, I see your three comforters have arrived again for their weekly visit.” He laughed shortly, and then chuckled to himself. He went back to his chair, dipped a lucifer into the fire and relit his pipe. He had crossed his small legs, and he swayed one of them up and down. He appeared deeply amused. Stephen’s hands moved restlessly on the arms of his chair. He wondered why his father often remained when Jim Purcell, Joseph Baynes, and Tom Orville visited him. He would not comment, or speak, unless appealed to directly, but he listened, and he would laugh soundlessly, to Stephen’s embarrassed discomfiture.

Job. Aaron had called him Job. Was not Job the man of many afflictions, whom God and Satan had tested, and who had triumphed over his sufferings and his disasters? Why had Aaron spoken so jocularly of Job? What had Job to do with him, Stephen deWitt? Had there been cruelty, as usual, in Aaron’s remark, or mockery? Stephen knew that his friends were not at ease in Aaron’s company, or at least, Tom and Joseph were not. It was impossible to know what Jim Purcell thought, and it was even more impossible to know why he came to see Stephen at all. What few words he grunted added nothing to the general talk; he would sit, thought Stephen, startled into opening his eyes, as Aaron sat: listening, sometimes oblivious, and swinging one big leg as Aaron was swinging his small one now.

They were coming down the long wide corridor now, three dissimilar men. Tom Orville and Joseph Baynes were old friends and, with Stephen, they formed a close companionship. Like Stephen, they had known Jim Purcell all their lives, and they did not like him. He had been a big lump of a boy, and he was a huge lump of a man now, very rich, unmarried, coarse in his manners, grotesque in appearance, and in so far as his acquaintances knew, he had little wit and no subtlety. His life was restricted to the one urge of becoming the wealthiest man in the community. He had attached himself to Stephen when Stephen had been only nine years old, and he twelve. Even the very young Stephen had wondered why, and he still wondered.

There was a discreet knock on the door, and Aaron said jovially, “Come in, gentlemen, come in.” The door opened, and the three men filed soberly into the room, glancing at Aaron with strained politeness, and, in the case of two of them, with constraint and fear. Aaron nodded at chairs; his yellow teeth glistened in the firelight.

“Welcome, good comforters,” he said serenely. He settled himself deeper into his chair, with an expression of anticipatory enjoyment. He pulled the bell rope. “Whisky again, no doubt?” he remarked affably.