Testimony Of Two Men by Taylor Caldwell Page A

the full smiling lips, the small but merry eyes, the gentle, sloping shoulders. Eagerness for life shone from the low wide brow, the dimpled chin, the delicate shadow under it. Mavis. Beautiful, laughing Mavis, with the womanly breast, the tiny waist, the swelling hips, the rounded arms and thighs! He took the photograph carefully from the frame and tore it to bits and threw the fragments into his wastebasket. After a moment, he dropped the frame into it, also.
    “I’m glad you’re dead, Mavis,” he said. “I often wanted to kill you.”
    The house telephone suddenly rang on his desk, and he started, for it had broken the intense and terrible silence. He lifted the receiver.
    “Jon?” said his mother. “Wouldn’t you like to have a cup of tea with Jenny and me?”
    “No, dear.”
    “I know you’re there, brooding. It isn’t good for you, Jon.”
    “It’s very good.”
    “Please come.” ,
    “Not while she’s there.”
    Marjorie sighed. “It’s getting dusk. Won’t you drive Jenny to the bank?”
    “No, Mother. I never do. What’s the matter with Jim?”
    “Nothing. But I don’t like you brooding.”
    “I’m not brooding. I don’t brood. I’m just clearing things out.”
    Marjorie sighed again. “Very well, Jon. But do come home soon. Jenny is about to leave.”
    “Give her my love.” He slammed the receiver back on the telephone. He sat staring at nothing for a long time, while the twilight deepened. A man’s whole life. The best years of his life. It had come to nothing at all. It had been destroyed in a single moment, and the years were as if they had never existed. He looked into the dark hollow place which must absorb the rest of his life. He opened another drawer and took a bottle of whiskey from it, and a glass, and began to drink.
     
    Mrs. James Morgan looked about the suite so anxiously prepared for her by her son. “It really isn’t very elegant,” she said in a discontented voice.
    “Mama, it’s the very best this town can offer. I know.”
    She leaned on her two canes and gazed with deeper discontent at everything.
    “It’s not what I’m accustomed to, in the home.”
    She turned to Robert. “Tomorrow,” she said, “if I am a little better, we must look at the four homes you mentioned, my dear.”
    He could not help himself. He said, “You mean the houses, Mama.”
    She frowned. For some reason he was not now intimidated at her frowns. “Homes, dear Robert.”
    “Mama. A house in which one lives becomes a home to those who live there. But other people’s houses are not ‘homes.’ You don’t refer to other people’s houses as ‘homes,’ only houses.” He took a deep breath. “To call other people’s houses ‘homes’ is a vulgarism.”
    “Indeed! Did you learn that silliness in this little town, which wouldn’t fit in a corner of Philadelphia?”
    “I’m learning a lot of things I never knew before—Mother. And Hambledon may be small, but it is alive.”
    “I don’t think I’m going to like it. Why do you call me ‘Mother?’ “
    “Because you are my mother, and I’m no longer a child.”
    She stared at him indomitably, but he stared back at her, smiling. “Indeed,” she said again. But she was frightened. Was she about to lose her son, as she had lost her husband? The thought was incredible and alarming. But he had become very strange and seemed taller and very male. This was revolting. “I feel faint,” she said. Robert helped her to a chair. “I could do with a glass of fresh water,” she added. Robert brought her water. He was smiling again, “I am not well,” she complained. “All this dampness—”
    “Would you like an Aspirin tablet?”
    “Robert! I never take drugs! I bear my arthritis like a Christian.”
    “Pain that can be alleviated should be. It’s not valiant to suffer unnecessary pain.”
    “How you have changed, Robert! In these few short days! I hope that horrible man, Dr. Ferrier, don’t corrupt you.”
    ”