Defeat Deferred

University of Northern Iowa

Defeat DeferredAuthor(s): Richard WarrenSource: The North American Review, Vol. 248, No. 2 (Winter, 1939/1940), pp. 323-333Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25115895 .

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A Man Waits Years To Win Despair

Defeat Deferred

By RICHARD WARREN

She

was twenty-two and he twenty-five when they met.

The war in Cuba was over and the first contingent of

the Rough Riders returned to New York. Lucia Ward had gone down to the pier alone to meet her brother, Lieutenant Ramsey; her husband, as usual, pleading business as a reason for not going with her. That was

how she happened to meet William Ross.

Ross, some few may now recall, was the brilliant

young American journalist who, with his Cuban mes

sage, gave the world its first insight into the struggle of our oppressed Latin neighbors. He had known Bob

Ramsey casually at Princeton, and ran across him again in Santiago. During their return voyage to New York

together they made tentative plans for a trip to the

Orient.

Ramsey stopped for a week with his sister before

going on to his home in Boston ... a week in which

Lucia Ward and William Ross forgot many things in the

learning of one: that, whenever humans attempt to

regulate too thoroughly their emotions, nature steps in.

There was, during that week when they were thrown

constantly together, no moment when either would have

323



324 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

admitted the advisability of breaking off their friend

ship. Both were quite sure of themselves . . . until it

was too late.

Lucia Ward had been vaguely aware, since the birth of the younger of her two children, of a void in her life.

Her home was managed smoothly by capable servants,

every material need was satisfied. But she was a woman,

with a woman's emotions, and these, in an increasing

absorption in his business, her husband had, apparently, long since ceased to consider. It was not until her friend

ship with Ross grew into something more than casual

friendship that Lucia, herself, became fully aware of this. "I can't leave him," she told Ross, "I really can't! He

has been a good husband ... a good father. And there

are the children to consider."

"But you're not happy with him!"

"I wasn't unhappy . . . until you came," she re

minded him. Ross sat in silence for a long moment. "Will you be

happy with him," he asked at last, "when I have gone?" She shook her head slowly. "No. But he will ... be

happy . . . and the children will." She looked at him

sadly. "You are going ... ?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "What else can I do? I

can't stay here and ... be just your friend."

"We are friends."

"I know. . . ."

"And I need you. I want you . . . tremendously."

They both sat, victims of their complex emotions, lost in the turmoil of their thoughts. Finally Lucia looked up. "I'm selfish,55 she said. "I have no right to ask you to

stay ... to ask anything of you. But ... I shall miss

you.5'

So Ross remained.



DEFEAT DEFERRED 325

The years went by, their inevitable passage dulling somewhat the early brilliancy of Ross5 work. The prom ise given by his journalism in the Spanish War was still

but a promise, unfulfilled. The books that had been

logically expected to follow his volume on Latin America remained unwritten. For his field was clearly foreign journalism, a field upon which he had turned his back.

His work in New York held but little interest for him. It was, at best, a stop-gap

? the means to an end. Yet

what this end was remained problematic. With the full realization of the sacrifices and cost entailed, he gave himself over to his love for Lucia.

Always there was the outside world to consider. They rarely knew in advance when they could be together.

They bent their united efforts toward an arrangement whereby they might make use of each precious moment.

Only one of them, they discovered, could live a social life

independent of the other, and because Ross was the

freer of the two, because he had neither home duties nor

inescapable social obligations, it fell to him to conform his life to hers. There was no question of the one domi

nating the other, it was simply a matter of the two sur

mounting, as best they could, the obstacles confronting them.

It wasn5t easy. In the first place there was his living to

be considered, work that threw him in constant contact

with people. By nature gregarious, Ross made friends

quickly; a considerate adaptability on his part kept them. He liked to have these friends drop in on him

casually, but this he soon found to be dangerous. There were innumerable evenings during that first

year following his return to New York when Lucia would

telephone that she was, unexpectedly, free for a few hours. Usually it was Friday, the night her husband was




in the habit of spending at his club. Sometimes when this happened he was unable, because of some group

gathered at his place, to take advantage of the opportu

nity presented. Whenever this occurred he was unable to

rid himself of a poignant sense of loss. The moments when

they could be together seemed so short, so fleeting, that

he could not reconcile himself to the loss of even one.

Then, too, Lucia herself was never able to feel quite at ease in his apartment while there was always the pos

sibility of someone dropping in. At times it all seemed much too difficult.

In an attempt to offset this, Ross took a small room at

his college club where, to the outside world, he con

tinued to live. It was an added expense he could ill afford. It enabled him, however, to maintain in strict

privacy a little apartment in the East Fifties. Lucia was, in a way, pleased by the idea but, at the

same time, could not help feeling somewhat distressed.

"It was sweet of you," she said, "but you shouldn't

have done it. If only you would let me help you . . .

share the expense. . . ."

He stopped her quickly. After a moment she went on.

"I don't want to be the cause of shutting you off from

your friends. . . ."

"You aren't. . . ."

She shook her head. "I'm taking so much from you . . . and, it seems to me, giving you nothing.55

"You are giving me everything. The only real happi ness I have ever known.55

"Am I so very selfish, William? Wouldn5t I, if I loved

you as tremendously as I think I do, be willing to chuck

everything . . . and go away . . . with you? For

getting my home . . . my children. . . ."

"Could you?55



DEFEAT DEFERRED 327

Again she shook her head. "No. And yet . . . you mean everything to me.55

"Everything?55 She spread her hands in a hopeless gesture. "It

seems so to me . . . when we are together. Yet my chil

dren mean everything to me, too. I can5t leave them

... I don5t want to hurt them. I couldn5t. They need

me ... as much as I need them ... as much as I

need you. . . ."

"You have me.55

"Not as I should like to have you.55 "Won5t you . . . sometime?55

"I hope so, I do hope so. Later . . . when the chil

dren have grown up and married . . . when they no

longer need me. ... It seems as though things must,

eventually, work themselves out right.55

"And, in the meantime, I want you to be happy . . . and gay ... I want you to have everything in

life. . . ."

"But I have everything . . . now.55

The World War started.

The Cuban message was still remembered, although the man who wrote it had very nearly been forgotten.

Not quite, however. At the club one night he found wait

ing for him a note from Maynard, of The Courier, asking him to drop into the office. This was on an evening soon

after the assassination at Sarajevo. Two hours later he

was closeted with Maynard, who asked him briefly who he would like to go to Europe.

"It looks like a free-for-all. No one seems to know how

long it will last. May be over before you get there but, naturally, we don5t want to miss any bets. We5re sending Doane to Italy, Phillips and Edwards to France, North




way and Green to Germany . . . and a few others on

loose assignments. How would you like to go to Belgium?55

"Why pick on me?55 "I believe you could do it. I expected a lot of things

from you after the Spanish War. I'm still expecting them . . . God knows why you haven't come through.

Why haven't you? Never mind . . . none of my busi

ness, I suppose. . . .

"If there's a war, and it looks as though there will be, most of the fighting will be in Belgium. That's where

you'll find the color. You'll have the same chance there

you had in Cuba. Well . . . how about it?"

"I'll think it over," Ross said at last, "and let you know tomorrow."

"Think! What the hell's there to think about? You never used to hesitate. All right

... all right!" May nard waved his hand irritably as Ross started to speak.

"Only let me know before noon."

Walking back to his apartment Ross turned the offer

over in his mind. He wished that there were some way of

getting hold of Lucia that night, and cursed again the force of circumstance that kept them apart. The same

chance he had had in Cuba. . . . He hadn't, somehow, done much with that . . . with the opportunities that

had followed it, rather.

Another chance.

He wandered impatiently about his rooms through the early hours of the morning, waiting until he could call Lucia. It was necessary, he told her, that he see her

at once. Something in the suppressed tension of his voice

warned her. When, half an hour later, she entered the

apartment she said quickly, breathlessly, "What is it, William?"

"They want me to go to France."



DEFEAT DEFERRED 329

Sitting down on the arm of her chair he related his interview of the night before with Maynard.

"Are you going?" He threw his hands out wide in a gesture of indecision.

"I don't know ... I don't know what to do. What do

you say?" Without looking at him she said slowly, "I want you

to do what is best."

"What is best?" "Whatever will make you happiest."

He laughed mirthlessly. "You know what that is." She did not answer. Running her finger tips lightly

over the back of his hand she said at last, "I've kept you close to me all these years. I made you stay . . . once

before. This time I shan't be so weak ... so selfish.

But ... I shall miss you." She sank quickly into his arms.

Ross remained.

He remained in the ever-narrowing groove that ran to

and from the apartment in the East Fifties to Park Row, where daily he ground out half-thought out editorials to be half-read and half-understood by the masses. Always in the back of his mind was Lucia, influencing every

mood and move. With the passage of years his love for her had deepened and mellowed. Would it, he won

dered, remain forever unbroached . . . turn at last to

lees . . . untasted . . . forgotten.

. . .

At times, alone with his thoughts at night, he was

deviled with a perverse feeling of disquietude. Knowing as he did that Lucia and her husband, while living under the same roof, were emotionally strangers; having, for

sixteen long years, known this, he was still unable to

accept the situation calmly. Sensitive as he was to her




utter desirability, it seemed incomprehensible to him that another man should remain oblivious to it.

In the vague depths of his inner consciousness he was

aware of a lurking fear that some day John Ward would awaken.

Only once did Lucia refer to his refusal of Maynard's offer.

"You would love to have gone, too, wouldn't you?" she said one night, as they sat reading together Davis'

story of the German entry into Brussels. "Are you sorry?" "In a way . . .

naturally." "I've kept you from everything, haven't I?"

He smiled reassuringly down at her. "Not really. I

wanted to stay, you know . . . with you. And I'll go . . . we'll go together, someday

. . . later."

"I hope so . . . I'm always hoping so. The children

will be grown, and leaving me soon, I suppose. And

then . . . perhaps

. . . John doesn't need me . . .

hasn't needed me for years.55 Three years later Ross was glad that he hadn5t gone,

for Lucia needed him then, needed him more than ever.

That was following the dispatch about her son's death in France.

It was on the afternoon of Lucia's birthday. As they lingered over tea in a secluded restaurant

William Ross realized suddenly that she was fifty-seven, and he ? he himself was nearly sixty-one. He decided not to mention the fact. The last ten years had gone

quickly. So much had happened. Marion, Lucia's daughter,

had married ?

married a fine chap, too. Seemed su

premely happy ?

and you couldn't wish anyone more

than that.



DEFEAT DEFERRED 331

And John Ward ? John had pulled himself together

again. The shock of his son's death had been a severe

one, coming as it did during the business tension of war

time. For six years he had been a semi-invalid, only to

come doggedly out of it in the end. As for Lucia and himself ?

well, here they were, still

waiting. They had waited so long ? and would continue

to wait ? .

And suddenly he wondered what it was they were

waiting for.

"Lucia!"

"Yes, dear. . . ."

"It5s odd, not realizing it sooner, but . . ." he hesi

tated, and smiled ruefully at her across the table.

"But what . . .?" she prompted. "We needn't wait any longer." And, in answer to the

puzzled expression on her face, he went on, "We5re free . . . at last.55

"Free?"

"Why, yes. Marion is married. John is well once more.

There isn5t, now, anything to keep you.55 She looked at him in silence for a while. "No,55 she

admitted at last, "I suppose there isn't."

"We can go away. . . ."

"Away?" "Of course. Europe. The south of France. Anywhere." She smiled tenderly at him for a moment. "We must

be practical. What could you do there?"

"Do?55

"We5d have to have money to live on. And you5ve never saved very much, you know. Pm sorry,55 she

reached out and covered his hand with hers. "I don't mean to hurt you. But . . .

well, it's true, isn5t it?55

He nodded his head reluctantly.




"We could stay on here," he suggested uncertainly, "if you could get a divorce. . . ."

"That's almost as impossible, now. And then, too,

you have no more than enough for you, yourself, to live

on. . . ." As he sat, saying nothing, she continued

softly, "It may sound, hard, William, but I don't mean it

to. Money should not matter . . . but somehow it

does. We're not as young as we once were. . . ."

"I should have prepared for this a long time ago." "It's not your fault, dear."

"I wonder. I didn't, I suppose, make the most of my

chances."

"You made the years very happy for me."

He sat lost in reflection. It was not the things he had

done he regretted, so much as the things he had left un

done. The thought awakened half-forgotten memories.

That, he now remembered, was where John Ward had

failed ... in the things left undone. He smiled ironi

cally, and raised his eyes to Lucia's.

"Please, William, don't be bitter," she pleaded.

"Nothing has changed. "

"Nor ever will."

He summoned their waitress and paid the check. Out

on the sidewalk he hailed a passing taxi, and helped Lucia in. "About tonight?

. . . it's Friday," he asked,

standing by the open door. Lucia leaned forward. "I'm not sure yet. Don't stand

there with your hat off, dear, you'll be catching cold. I'm

not sure what the plans are. I'll have to telephone you,

after dinner."

Ross watched her taxi disappear into the traffic across

the avenue. Turning, he walked slowly down to his club, and mounted up to the tiny room he had used so seldom.

He rang for hot water and lemon.



DEFEAT DEFERRED 333

An hour later found him seated again in the same res

taurant where he had dined so often. The same table ?

the same waiter.

"The roast beef and Yorkshire pudding is excellent

tonight, Sir.55

"Good.55 It always was excellent, it always had been

excellent, he supposed it always would be excellent.

He ate alone in silence, and then walked back to his

apartment.

Wandering aimlessly from the living room to the bed room and back again, he sat down at last in the worn

armchair facing the gas log that had never ceased to irritate him.

His gaze, straying listlessly about, fell at last on the

bookcase, centered on a worn volume on the top shelf.

The Weary West Indies by William Ross. He smiled again. Without turning he picked up a volume from the table

beside him. He looked at the cover. Romance by Joseph Conrad.

Presently the telephone rang.



Defeat Deferred

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