Testimony Of Two Men by Taylor Caldwell Page A

the backs of his broad pink hands. His eye dropped to her bare throat; light lay in its hollow like a tiny pool of quivering water. The tingling increased in his flesh, and he did not know what it was. His eyes dropped even farther to her breast and could not turn away. He did not know that Jonathan was watching him with amusement. He was now staring at Jenny’s round white arms, bare from the strong elbows.
    Albert returned with a silver tray, a bottle of soda water, and a bottle of whiskey. The men began to watch him prepare the drinks, as if he fascinated them. The silent girl apparently was disturbing their peace of mind, though she did not even look at them. Albert took a glass to her and she accepted it in silence, not turning her head.
    “Cheers,” said Harald, nodding amiably at Robert. “And good health to you, Doctor, and may you be with us a very long time.”
    “Thank you,” said Robert. He paused. “And please call me Bob.” He smiled like a shy youth. “No one does in Philadelphia. I’d like to start it in Hambledon.”
    “Don’t encourage it with patients,” said Jonathan. “If you insist on getting very friendly with them, which is not the best thing in the world, let them call you Robert—after a long time of probation.”
    “You mustn’t listen to Jon,” said Harald, with indulgence. “He’s very formal, for all he doesn’t wear the conventional frock coat and striped trousers.” He became serious. “Everybody will miss him here. But—under the circumstances—I think it is wise to leave—”
    Jonathan took a long drink at his glass. “And you’ll like it better, too.”
    “Now, Jon. Why should I?”
    Jonathan held the glass halfway to his lips and looked at his brother. But he said nothing. Harald was at ease again. However, Robert, who was usually not aware of what his mother called “currents,” felt that something dark and inimical had moved onto the terrace and now stood between the brothers. Jonathan’s stare at Harald was cold. Harald seemed not to notice it. He was sipping at his glass contentedly. Robert was drinking also. He had tasted whiskey but once before in his life, as a child, when he had a bellyache and his father had mixed a concoction of honey, whiskey and hot water for him. He hadn’t liked the whiskey. He did not like it today. His ears were beginning to ring a little, though the sensation was quite agreeable. He was still vaguely disturbed at the sudden tension that had lurched into the atmosphere. Then he saw that Jenny was looking at him with the lack of interest of a statue. Her eyes stared into his, clouded and aloof, much more blue than the river and much more still. Only the small trembling light in the hollow of her throat was alive.
    Yet Robert knew that she was studying him with hard thoroughness. He suddenly wanted her to like him, to know him as harmless. He swallowed, made himself speak through a tight throat. “Do you like gardening, Miss Heger?”
    It was as if she either had not heard him or had no intention of replying to him. Then she shrugged and said in a dull tone, “I just work in my father’s rose gardens. He planted them himself. But he never lived to see them flower.” Her face did not change, nor the indifference in her voice.
    “Sad,” said Jonathan. Robert’s full mouth tightened. Did he have to mock everything so meanly, even a girl’s natural grief for her dead father?
    Jenny still looked only at Robert. “Sad,” she repeated. “He never even saw the house completed. He never lived a single day here.” She spoke without emotion. But the light in the hollow of her throat quickened.
    Harald said, “Jenny was only a little girl when her father died. They were very fond of each other. Then Myrtle, Jenny’s mother, and Jenny, came to live here. It’s a happy place.”
    “A very happy place,” said Jonathan. “Felicity. Charm-Sweetness. Enchantment.” He put his glass down with a thump. “And