Testimony Of Two Men (56 page)

“I’m not good enough for you—is that it?” he said in a slow and malevolent voice. “It’s just for my brother, isn’t it?” And he motioned at her loins in a gesture he had never used to any woman before. “And for a few others, too?”

Jenny’s white face flushed with horror and it quivered visibly. Her mouth opened and she gasped. “Your brother?” she said. “Harald?” She could not believe it. She stared at him. She had not understood at all. And then she understood. She uttered a fierce cry. “Get out of here! Why, you murderer, you—you—! You filthy monster!”

She turned again and ran from the room, and after a second he ran after her. She ran down the corridor to the hall and reached the oaken stairway in the murky fluttering of the lamplight. She lifted her nightgown and ran up the stairs like a terrified young animal, and her long white legs flashed in rapid movement. He lunged after her, trying to catch one of her ankles or a fold of the floating nightgown. But she was faster than he, and her long hair rippled behind her like a banner.

If he had felt lust before, it was nothing to what he felt now, this urgent passion and rage, this desire not only to take her but to hurt her violently for the things she had screamed at him. She could hear his hoarse panting behind her, and she ran even faster when she reached the upper hall, and raced for her room, full of dread and fear and hate.

She reached the door of her room and pushed it open and tried to close it. But his hand flung out and held it. They struggled for the door, and Jonathan began to laugh through his teeth, wondering at her strength and sweating. They battled ridiculously for it, swinging it back and forth, Jenny on the inside pushing it toward the lock, and Jonathan on the threshold, pushing it upon the girl. Her strength continued to astonish him; she thrust her shoulder against the door and almost reached the lock, and he had considerable difficulty in preventing its closure. He could hear her loud and struggling breath, her broken exclamations, but he said nothing now, intent only on winning this battle which was beginning to appear absurd to him. His pride was turbulently affronted that she denied to him what she gave so freely to his brother. “Don’t be so coy, Jenny!” he exclaimed.

He gave an extra heave and the door flung itself back on its hinges and Jenny was also thrown back into the room, which was dimly lighted by only one lamp near her bed. Instantly Jonathan was upon her, seizing one arm. He used his other hand to grasp the neck of her nightgown and to rip it down her body to her knees. Before she could move, his hands closed about her slender damp waist and he had pulled her to him and was kissing her mouth in a rapturous storm of desire. She struggled frantically. She tried to kick him with her bare feet and he laughed, and his fingers pressed themselves into the warm flesh of her body, and his mouth held hers, forcing her lips apart. He felt her breath in his own mouth and he grunted, “Jenny! Jenny! Jenny!” His ecstasy was like an agony in his own body. He pushed her backward toward the bed, and her struggles became even more frenzied. The torn nightgown impeded him, and in one movement he tore it completely from her and she was naked.

He pushed her against the bed, and her knees bent from the pressure, and she fell backward upon the white narrowness and he fell on top of her, his mouth still holding hers. “Sweet Jenny,” he whispered, and his knee fumbled at her body, trying to separate her legs.

Then her body arched in one last desperate attempt, and so strong was that effort that he was almost flung from her. He fell beside her on the bed, still half straddling her, and the lamplight struck down on her face, and he saw it.

What he saw was utter and complete terror, unaffected terror, virginal terror. He had seen it but once before in his life, when he had been nineteen, and he never liked to recall that episode and had always felt shame at the memory. It was not to be mistaken for anything else but what it was—the affrighted woman faced with the unknown and recoiling from it and preparing to fight to the death against it.

He held her but did not move, and he looked down into her eyes and saw the awful and shivering fear there and the blue and fainting cloudiness, and he saw her stricken lips and heard the chattering of her teeth. He leaned over her, all desire gone, and with only shame and remorse.

“Jenny,” he said, “my God, Jenny.”

She looked up into his face and she lay very still and tears began to roll from her widely opened eyes and she uttered a whimpering sound of total defeat. He took the edge of the sheet and pulled it over her nakedness with tender care and shaking hands, then stood up and looked at her as she lay

with the sheet under her chin and her eyes now closed, and weeping, her girl’s young body outlined under the covering.

Dazed and infuriated with himself, and ashamed beyond anything he had ever felt before, he looked about the room and saw that it resembled a monastic cell in its small and quiet simplicity. The walls were white, the polished floor bare except for one small rug, and there were only a desk, two straight chairs, a painted wardrobe, a table, and one single lamp in the room. There were no ornaments here, no womanish daintinesses or ribbons or silks or taffetas, no intense scent of perfume. There was not even a dressing table with a mirror. In fact, there was no mirror at all. It was the cell of a nun, the bed the narrow hard bed of an ascetic woman.

If Harald had ever occupied that bed, he had occupied it alone! That was the foolish and humiliated thought that came to Jonathan as he clumsily rearranged and smoothed his clothing, which had been rumpled in his tussle with the girl and his attempted rape of her. He detested himself. He wanted to take one of Jenny’s hands, now so flaccid on the sheet, and kneel beside her and beg her pardon for his animalistic attack on her, which seemed completely monstrous and unbelievable now. How was it possible that he had tried to do this thing? How was it possible for him to have believed the lies about her? Now his hate for himself was mixed with pity for the girl, and abysmal love.

“Jenny,” he said. “I wouldn’t blame you if you never forgave me. No, don’t ever forgive me. I’m so ashamed, Jenny.” His voice was humble as his voice had never been humble before in all his self-confident and self-assured life. “Jenny, I wish there were some way I could tell you— But I suppose there isn’t.”

He leaned his palms on the bed beside her and stiffened his arms and bent over her. She continued to cry helplessly with her eyes shut. “Jenny, I want to say just one thing: I love you, darling. I’ve always loved you, since that day in the garden, when you were sixteen. Think about that, dear, and perhaps you’ll be able to forgive me, someday, sometime.” But she continued to cry silently, far removed from him.

“Jenny? I really love you, my darling. That’s no excuse for what I—well, what I tried to do. Don’t be afraid, Jenny. I’m going away now. Watch for my lantern through your window,” and he glanced at the little bare casement, innocent of any draperies at all “Then when you see I’ve gone, go downstairs and lock the door. Jenny?”

But she did not answer him. She only lay there rigidly, her black hair flung about her in complete disorder. There was a growing bruise near her mouth and when he saw it, he hated himself more than ever and he had to hold back to keep from bending and kissing it gently. He wanted to do this with a passion greater than any lust he had felt for her, and he hesitated. Then he straightened up and went from the room.

Jenny heard his footsteps dragging slowly and wearily down the stairs. She heard them echoing in the hall. Then the bronze doors opened, and she could hear him close them behind him. She saw the faint reflection of the lantern on her window, and then she heard him going down the flagged marble of the walk, and finally she could hear him no more.

She sat up in bed, then sprang from it and ran to her casement window and flung it open. She saw the flickering lantern light retreating down the length of the island, twinkling through bushes and trees, dying away into the distance.

When Jonathan let himself quietly into his father’s house, he hoped that his mother had gone to bed, but he was no sooner in the soft and silvery hall than he heard her voice from the morning room. “Jon? Is that you? I’m in here, having a cup of tea. Do have one with me.”

He cursed silently to himself, and hesitated. Then he went into the dining room, and by a very dim light he filled a glass full of whiskey and soda and carried it into the room where his mother was waiting for him. She looked extremely fatigued, but she smiled at him affectionately. “Was everything safe on the island?” she asked. Then she uttered a consternated exclamation. “Jon! What’s wrong with your cheek, all puffed and red, and with that long scratch on it?”

Lies were unfamiliar things to him, and so he felt his face and tried to think of one. He finally said, “Oh, that. I bumped into something in the infernal dark on the island.”

Marjorie stared at him thoughtfully, and then she smiled inwardly. Jenny! She felt a real pang of happiness. Was it really possible that at last he had admitted to himself what

she had known of him and Jenny for several years? Her tired hazel eyes began to shine. “Do sit down, dear, and talk to me for a minute before I go to bed. I just didn’t have the strength to move until I had some tea and a little quiet. What a noisy day, wasn’t it?”

He had seated himself reluctantly on a chair in this charming and restful room, but he could not force himself to look at his mother, so he examined the contents of his glass and frowned at it. “Awful day,” he said.

“I do believe,” said Marjorie, “that your young Robert has what we used to call a crush on Jenny, but Jenny is oblivious. Such an innocent girl. She never learned to flirt or be young or gay or lighthearted. Poor child. It was that awful Peter Heger, you know. Wouldn’t it be nice if Robert and she—What’s the matter, Jon?”

“That’s nonsense,” said Jonathan. The little white ridges had come out about his mouth. “Mother, you know Jenny well. She’s often here. Is there anyone?”

Marjorie made her eyes very artless. “Oh, yes, indeed. There is someone she dearly cares about. Quite a bit older than herself, of course, but eminently suitable. She’s loved him a long time. I know you don’t like the word ‘love,’ Jon, and think it is absurd and that there’s no such thing, but only ‘love’ can describe the way Jenny feels about that certain man.”

“What’s his name?” asked Jonathan. “Do I know him?”

“She never mentioned his name, and I never asked, and I only know about it because I am a woman, too, though that, too, will probably surprise you, my dear. But there are certain things a woman can’t conceal from another woman, and among them is when she is in love. I know all the signs.”

Jonathan drank half his glass of whiskey and soda in one breath. He shook the glass. His black brows drew together. It was unbearable to think of Jenny in love with a stranger. He had tried to take her forcibly tonight, had intolerably insulted and attacked her, had gone away certain that he would never be allowed to see her again and knew it was all he deserved.

“It’s possible that you’re mistaken, Mother. Do you have any idea who he is?”

“Yes.”

He stared at her formidably. “Who?”

“Why don’t you ask Jenny yourself?” He stood up and began to walk slowly up and down the room. “If she never told you, she certainly would never tell me. That’s ridiculous. Does Harald know?”

“No,” said Marjorie, with slowness. “He doesn’t. As I’ve told you before, he wants to marry Jenny. But you always laughed when I told you.”

Jonathan stopped and looked at her. “Mother, who has been spreading those disgusting lies about Jenny in Hambledon?”

If Marjorie had had any doubts before, she did not have them now and she almost laughed with joy. “I don’t know, Jon.” But she dropped her eyes to her teacup.

“Does Jenny know—about these vicious tales?”

“Jenny?” Marjorie was shocked. She put down her teacup. “She’s never once suspected! You don’t know Jenny very well, Jon. She’s as simple and innocent as an infant, and it would seem incredible to her that wicked people would make up vile lies about others. She just wouldn’t believe it. It would have shaken Jenny to her very heart. She avoids people because her father told her, when she was a child, that she was ugly and unattractive and that no one, except him, of course, could ever love her, and so she must stay at home with him.” Marjorie’s pale face colored, but she looked Jonathan straight in the eye. “I’m not a simpering, old-fashioned woman, Jon. I wasn’t brought up in a velvet-lined box and put away with Mama’s pearls in a dark and secluded place. My father liked the very idea of the ‘new woman,’ and what he called ‘the new candor.’ Personally, I think he carried it a little too far sometimes.

“Well,
I
know all about Peter Heger, Jonathan, from the perfectly innocent things Jenny said about him. I think he—”

Jonathan smiled nastily. “He had incestuous thoughts about our little gosling?”

“Well, yes. It isn’t a word you hear very often; it isn’t a word ‘nice’ people use all the time in polite conversation. But that is it, exactly. Jenny once told me that he had ‘flattered’ her by saying she looked exactly like his mother, her grandmother, who died in Germany when he was a young boy, and that he had always dreamed of building a schloss for his mother. But, as she was dead, he was building a castle for Jenny in which to live, as he had dreamed of his mother living in such a castle.”