Pierce could not answer. Let Tom pour himself out! He sat looking at his brother.
Tom looked back with his fearless blue gaze. “What I want to make clear to you, Pierce, before we begin any talk at all is that never, for one second, not in the day nor in the depths of the night, do I regret what I have done. The life I live is the one life I can live — anything else would have been meaningless for me. … I am happy, I tell you, to the bottom of my being.”
“I will believe that,” Pierce said, “but don’t pretend to me that it has been easy, Tom, for that I won’t believe.”
“It wasn’t easy when I was trying to live in two worlds,” Tom said. “But I have to thank Lucinda for showing me,” he added.
“Lucinda?”
“Yes, Lucinda threw me out of your house that night, more or less — remember?”
“No,” Pierce said.
“Yes, you do, Pierce,” Tom said. “Be honest, man! If I had wanted to live at Malvern I’d have had to give up Bettina.”
“I don’t think Lucinda is unreasonable,” Pierce answered. “She wouldn’t have said anything — if Bettina hadn’t lived there by the side of the road — and the children—”
“She wouldn’t have said anything if I had kept Bettina hidden, and the children illegitimate,” Tom said harshly.
“Well,” Pierce said hesitating—“You know how she — how we all, for that matter — were brought up.”
“The war — those long hours in prison,” Tom said abruptly. “I had the chance to think myself through. If I had done what Lucinda wanted — it would have meant that I had — lost the war — so far as I, was concerned. Don’t you see, Pierce, when I knew I loved Bettina — I had to love her openly? The children are ours, hers and mine, could I be ashamed of that? If so, then what was all the shooting for?”
Pierce felt Lucinda’s hands on his heart. “Still and all, Tom, you have to acknowledge — that if all the white men who have — have — had children by — by—”
“Go on,” Tom said coldly.
Pierce went on doggedly. The sweat sprang under the roots of his hair—“If they insisted on — on making the whole thing legal — where would women, like Lucinda be? Tom — you can’t just think of yourself. You’ve got to think of our race.”
Tom bit the end of his pipe. The two brothers stared at each other. Then Tom spoke. “I do think only of myself and I shall think only of myself. What any race does is not my business. I am one man — Tom Delaney. If I act with what I consider honor, if that honor gives me satisfaction, if I am happy and my children are happy, then I consider that I have done my duty by the race to which I belong.”
“All right, Tom,” Pierce said steadily. “You’ve been wanting to say it this long time to me, I reckon. Now you’ve said it.”
Tom drew a deep breath. “Yes!” he cried. “I’ve said it.”
“All right, Tom,” Pierce repeated. “What next?”
Tom laughed. “It’s your turn,” he retorted.
“There’s nothing much I have to tell,” Pierce said mildly. “Malvern is about what I’d planned, you know. Martin is finishing this year at the University and then he thinks he’ll take up farming with me. He wants to go into cattle in a big way. Carey wants to be a lawyer, I reckon. John will enter in the fall. I don’t understand him very well. He doesn’t like horses. Sally — you’ve seen Sally! Lucie is Lucinda in small type. That’s all my children.”
He spoke half sadly and Tom leaned on the arms of his chair, “Where’s your heart, Pierce?” he inquired softly.
“Well, Tom, I don’t know,” Pierce answered. He wanted to open his heart and he did not know how. He had not for so long opened it even to himself. He smiled wryly at his brother. “Sometimes I wonder if being so busy about farming and horses and building and all the hundred and one things that go on around a place like Malvern haven’t pretty well dried up my heart.”
He considered telling Tom about John MacBain and Molly and decided he would not. It was not important enough to him. He remembered with sour sweet discomfort the day that Georgia had knelt before him — and this he could not tell. He did not know what it meant and he preferred not to know.
“I’m glad Georgia is going to live here,” he said with such seeming irrelevance that Tom looked surprised. “I mean,” Pierce said, “I feel she’s very lonely now at Malvern, and while I can’t help it and it’s none of my business, I know it’s not the place for her. Joe wants to marry her — but I know that’s impossible.”
“I should think so,” Tom said with indignation.
Pierce hastened away from the smouldering coals. He had no wish to see them blaze into the atmosphere of this room. The air of freedom in which Tom lived made him at once envious and afraid. He veered away from himself. “I suppose if I were to say what concerns me most, it is the state of the nation. Tom, sometimes I wonder why we fought the war. Things are in a worse mess than ever.”
Tom looked at him with calm, waiting eyes. So would he view any turmoil from now until eternity, Pierce thought ruefully. Only out of complete personal satisfaction could a man so look at the struggles of others.
“These strikes,” he went on gloomily. “They’ve broken out all over the country. Tom, what does it mean? I’ve been so busy at Malvern I haven’t kept up. My dividends came in as steady as sunrise until a year or two ago. The depression has hit everybody — wouldn’t you think the railroad workers would see it reasonable that their wages have to be cut?”
“They don’t see why business is bad,” Tom returned. “Who does?” Pierce retorted irritably. He felt on his own ground again. “Who on earth knows why business goes up and down like this? We have to take the bad with the good.”
“Their good is so small — their bad so nearly — nothing,” Tom observed.
Pierce looked at his brother with deep suspicion. “Tom, you aren’t a communist!”
“What makes you think I am?” Tom countered.
“It would explain a lot of things,” Pierce said.
“You mean it would explain my marriage,” Tom said.
“Well—” Pierce muttered.
Tom broke in. “No, I’m not a communist. I’m a schoolmaster, and outside my home and my children that’s all I’m interested in. I’ve made my revolution, Pierce. Let other men make theirs.”
“People talk about revolution,” Pierce said. “What does it get anybody?”
“Mine brought me everything I wanted,” Tom said, smiling.
“I wish you’d speak sensibly,” Pierce cried. “What I want to know is — do you think these strikes are being fomented by foreigners over in Europe?”
Tom replied mildly, “I don’t know, Pierce. But I do know that when men are frightened and discontented they gather around any man who is not afraid.”
He was pressing fresh tobacco into his pipe and he did not look up. “I know that because in a small way people gather around me here in this street. Nobody even in this town knows or cares about — people like Bettina and Georgia — men and women of intelligence — children of slaves wanting to be free—”
“Niggras?” Pierce interposed cruelly.
“Yes,” Tom said.
Pierce looked at him curiously. “Tom, you mix around with niggras all the time?”
“Inside this town,” Tom said in his deep steady voice, “there is a little secret world. Men and women and children inhabit it. They have their homes. They are friends, they make music, they listen to music. Some of the theaters here let them come in, some don’t. We all went to hear Eric Tyne.” He looked at Pierce and smiled. “He sat in that very chair where you’re sitting. He came into our world — world-sized people do. Edwin Booth—” Tom broke off, and smiled again.