Pearl Buck - Gods Men

Jeremy, Martin Rosvaine, and Seth James met sometimes to talk of the papers and of William. They were awed by his genius while they grew more and more afraid of him.

“In another ten years William will be telling the world what to think and nobody will know it,” Martin said. “Of course Aunt Rosamond simply loves it. She won’t let him pay her back her hundred thousand.”

Aunt Rosamond, as soon as she heard that Roger Cameron had given William a hundred thousand dollars, had insisted on matching it. William had returned Roger’s money but it was true that Aunt Rosamond refused any such return.

“The interest is my annuity, William, dear boy,” Aunt Rosamond cackled in her hoarse old voice. She was almost blind but now and again she insisted upon a visit from William, and he treated her half affectionately. There was something he liked in the rude, ruthless, selfish old woman who enjoyed his success and laughed at his newspapers.

“Wonderful trash,” she called them when they were alone, and gave him a dig in the ribs with her sharp old elbow.

Upon the three young men, however, William’s monstrous and increasing success was beginning to have effect. Martin had attacks of conscience, irritated by Aunt Rosamond’s greed, Seth threatened rebellion against William’s interference with copy, and Jeremy had begun to drink. The long indecision about Ruth, the months when they were half engaged, the months when he felt he did not want to marry anybody, other months when it was Ruth he did not want, had become years. Through it all her unchanging patience, her unfailing sweetness and faithful love had never let him go. In the end Ruth had won.

A month ago Candace thought Jeremy had softened and become more like the boy she had always known, a moody boy, gay with a gaiety she disliked, but capable of times of thoughtful gravity, hours when he could talk with her, moments out of which he sometimes brought a handful of verses to be cherished. He had not written poetry for years, but now perhaps he would again and she hoped he would, for it was good for him to write poetry. Something in him was crystalized and so became permanent.

She thought she understood the change in him when he told her that he had made up his mind to marry Ruth. He had really fallen in love with Ruth at last, she believed, though Jeremy gave as his reason when he told her so that Ruth was the opposite of William and therefore he could not help loving her.

“But you did like William in college,” Candace said.

“I got to depend on him,” Jeremy said. “I couldn’t have passed my exams without him. I have the same feeling now.”

“You don’t have to work at all,” Candace said. “You and Ruth could live somewhere quite happily. Father wouldn’t mind.”

He looked at her with bewildered eyes. “I don’t know why I can’t do that,” he said.

Only then did she really begin to think about Ruth. “Jeremy, I haven’t said I’m glad. But I think I am. Will William like it?”

“Of course he won’t,” Jeremy said. “Even Ruth thinks that.”

“Oh, why not?”

“He has an instinct to deny everybody except himself. He likes to feel he has no flesh and blood of his own. He’d like to have a myth about him that he was born without parents — pure son of God.”

Candace was shocked. “That’s a mean thing to say when I’m going to have a baby.”

“Oh, the baby will certainly be another son of God,” Jeremy had said too flippantly. He had been lying on his back on the grass, his body limp, his voice lazy, staring at patches of sky between the leaves of the maples. Candace had not answered him.

“William,” she now said, “I want to tell you something.”

William folded the letters from China. “Well?”

“Jeremy and Ruth are engaged at last,” she said baldly. “I’m glad. It’s been on and off for years — he couldn’t make up his mind.” She turned her head to look at William and saw a bluish flush upon his face.

“When did this take place?” he asked.

“About a month ago.”

“And you have known all this time?”

“Not quite all.”

She waited for his anger but it did not fall. The bluish flush died away and he was more ashen than ever.

“Don’t you think it’s rather nice?” she asked.

He got up, his letters in his hand. “I don’t think one way or the other about it,” he said. “It seems to me a matter of no importance at all.”

“Then you won’t mind her being married here?”

“I suppose not.”

“I’d like to make it a pretty wedding — soon, before I get too clumsy. They don’t want to wait.”

“Do as you please,” William said. He hesitated a moment and then went on rather abruptly. “These letters give me an idea for an editorial I’d like to write for tomorrow. I hope you won’t mind if I don’t show up for dinner.”

“I’ll miss you,” she said with her coaxing smile.

“I’m sorry,” he said rather formally. He bent over her, however, and kissed her hair before he went his way. She watched him as he walked and seeing his bent head, his hands holding the letters clasped behind his back, she thought suddenly that he looked like a priest. That, perhaps, was what William should have been.

Ruth was married on New Year’s Eve and Henrietta was her maid of honor. Upon this Ruth had insisted, and Candace had chosen the wedding garments. Ruth of course must wear white satin, but Candace designed for Henrietta a thick, clinging silk of daffodil yellow to be worn with a wide green sash. Henrietta’s darkness was made to glow. She did not protest. Holding within her breast the ineffable secret of Clem, she allowed herself to be dressed for the first time in her life with purpose for beauty.

She was twice in William’s house, and the first time was after the fitting of her dress, when Candace brought both young women home for luncheon. William was not there, but Jeremy was. He had left the office brazenly early, without telling anybody.

“What is the use of being William’s brother-in-law if I have to be afraid of him?” he inquired of them. “He can’t fire me.”

“Oh, Jeremy,” Ruth cried, softly shocked.

“Jeremy is not to be taken seriously since he grew up,”

Candace told Henrietta. “He used to be quite serious when he was a little boy.”

They were at the long table in the big dining room, and the mahogany shone through Italian lace. They sat two by two, Henrietta beside Candace, and the ends of the table were empty, though the butler had set William’s place. His place was always set, whether he came or not.

“When I was a little boy I was serious because I thought I was going to die,” Jeremy said, tilting his wine glass as closely as he could without spilling the red wine. “Now I know I have to live. One has to be gay when one cannot escape life. Eh, Ruthie?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ruth cried happily.

The wedding was beautiful. William gave Ruth away since their father was in Peking, and against his dignity her white softness was the contrast of a rose against rock. The wedding was in William’s house, although Ruth had wanted a church wedding, and had thought that it would be in St. John’s where William and Candace went regularly on Sunday mornings. So it had been planned. But William, at Christmastime, had come into some strange conflict with the rector, which he had never explained, and had withdrawn his membership. He went to church no more and it would have been too conspicuous to have allowed the wedding to take place somewhere else. It was only a small wedding. Ruth had never come out, and she knew few people. There was no reason, William told Candace, why his friends, or hers either, should be invited to come to see a young woman married of whose existence they had only accidentally heard.