Powers of Attorney (32 page)

“I see,” Tilney said slowly, weighing the plausibility of this. “Well, I suppose that's that.” He rose and walked to the door to open it for his visitor. “There's one member of my family who will thank you for this. Ada couldn't bear the idea of my leaving the firm.”

Gage turned quickly and placed a hand on his arm. “Ada thinks only of you, Clitus. She'd go to the North Pole for you.”

Tilney stared for a tense moment at his friend's inscrutable face. “I'm sure she would, Shelby,” he said grimly. “I'm sure she'd live in an igloo there. Isn't that what she told you?”

 

He left the office early that afternoon, took a subway to Columbus Circle and walked home through the park. The bitterness that had overcome him at the end of his interview with Gage was not something that he could afford to have seen. It was only in the park that he could properly let himself go, the park of New York's dirty spring, the long, green, oblong escape valve for the city's frustrations, the ambling and sitting space for the bereaved, the abandoned, the idle, the lonely, who exhale to cloudy and sunlit skies alike the endless sighs of their self-pity. Tilney thought of himself as one who despised self-pity, but that afternoon he wanted to wallow in it. For he saw it all now, the whole shabby plot. Ada had gone to Shelby Gage, or telephoned to him, and begged him to prevent her husband from accepting the Barnes' offer, and Gage had obliged her with his customary smooth efficiency. Yet even in his anger Tilney did not again accuse his wife of worldly motives. She was simply afraid that they were too old for change and challenge. Unconsciously, of course, she had been influenced by her desire to remain close to the girls and to have ready cash to meet their every need. For who did not have a hand in Clitus Tilney's pocket or a rope around his neck?

“Suppose I were dead?” he demanded irately of himself. “Suppose I dropped dead tomorrow? Then what would they all do?”

But that was just it. If he were dead, they would all adjust to it, and in two days' time. They would not eat carrion; they had to tear with their beaks the flesh off a living thing. While Clitus Tilney lived, he must supply his daughters with Frigidaires, his clients with consolation, his partners with sanity, his associates with hope, his trusts with capital increases and his charities with new contributors. There was to be no end of it. If he asked, for his later years, after most men had retired, for a little while to himself—and not really that, either, for it was only another chance to serve—what did he get in answer but a shrill, angry clamor of negatives?

Something familiar about the seated female figure a hundred yards ahead and the old Airedale at last impressed itself upon his vacantly staring eyes, and with a snort of irate satisfaction he recognized his wife. Ada had the gift of never seeming surprised. She rose, as he hurried forward, as if she had been waiting for him.

“I hope I haven't surprised you on your way to a rendezvous,” she said. “Argos and I keep looking for a new walk. Perhaps it's indiscreet.”

“Shall we head home?” he asked briefly, and for a few moments they proceeded together in silence. “Ada,” he said at last, in a voice that trembled. “I think you might have appealed to me before Shelby Gage. If you felt that strongly about the Barnes job, you had only to tell me. I wouldn't have taken it.”

“Oh,
why
did Shelby have to tell you?” Her voice was taut with sudden anguish, and she pulled up short and took a deep breath. Then she walked straight to the nearest bench. Seated, she threw her head back, her eyes closed, as if she were fighting off a spasm. Tilney stood before her in dismay.

“He didn't tell me. I guessed.”

“Why was he so stupid as to let you?” Her eyes were open again and vivid with indignation. “I thought he was supposed to be so much of a diplomat. And now, of course, you've been thinking all sorts of horrible things about me. You've been thinking I wanted to keep you in harness, like an old horse, for the girls' sake. Oh, dear God, what a bungler I've been!”

Tilney was startled to discover now, in his instant relief, that the worst part of his day had been distrusting Ada. “Don't be unhappy about it, Ada. It's not worth being unhappy about.”

“Haven't
you
been unhappy about it?” She looked at him and shook her head sadly. “Of course you have. You and I are much too close to be able to fool ourselves about these things. And now I must tell you all. I had
prayed
that I'd never have to. I had so longed for you to believe that Barnes wanted you for yourself!”

Tilney found that he could actually laugh. “What
did
they want me for?”

“They wanted a fund raiser!” she exclaimed scornfully. “They wanted you to raise ten million dollars. They figured that by the time you'd done that, you'd be ready to retire and then they could get a
real
president. A pedant or a general or maybe even an ex-governor!”

Tilney's laughter increased with her ire. “Wait a second! How do you know all this?”

“Shelby Gage came to see me. Oh, weeks ago. Don't ever think
he's
not your friend. He told me that Chambers Todd had started a campaign to persuade the Barnes trustees that you were secretly longing to be president.”

“The son of a gun!” Tilney whistled. “How did he
know?”

“Because he wants to be senior partner,” Ada said grimly. “He wants it so badly he can see right through you. That was always clear to me. But where I made my mistake was in not letting Shelby head the whole thing off. I wanted you to have the satisfaction of being
offered
the presidency. I thought if you had that, it might be enough. I thought you might really hate to leave the law and might grab at the excuse Shelby would hand you. Oh, I was greedy for you, Clitus! I wanted you to have your cake and eat it, too. And now I'm paying for it the way greedy persons should pay.”

“Ada, you're a wonder!” he cried happily. “Do you think having such a wife isn't worth a thousand college presidencies? The only thing that appalls me is to think that if I hadn't been lucky enough to sniff that something was up between you and Shelby, I'd never have known what a magnificent wife I had or what a magnificent friend!”

But Ada was still gloomy. “And you wouldn't have had to resent Chambers. And Albert Berringer. And Barnes itself.”

“No, Ada, that's quite all right, I accept my universe.” He took her hands and helped her up. “Of course the trustees want a fund raiser. It's their job to find one. By hook or by crook!” He waved an arm expansively as they sauntered slowly on. “And why shouldn't Chambers want my job? Why shouldn't he angle for it? Hasn't he always been that way? Haven't I always known it? Hell, am I so different? How did I get where I've gotten? No, Ada, I tell you, all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds!” He threw back his head and emitted a hard, loud laugh. Still, it was a laugh.

“The best for Barnes, anyway,” Ada said sourly. “I wouldn't be surprised if Shelby made a major gift to Barnes in the near future.”

“You see? It all works out. Barnes will get its money and a red? president. And I will have served my college. Oh, yes, I will have served it far better than if I had made a fool of myself playing at being President Tilney. Dear old darling President Tilney, so whimsical and philosophical, entrancing his disciples with his wit and wisdom under the crab-apple trees! I belong where I am, Ada. Bless you for seeing it!”

“But do you know something?” she demanded. “Something you've never guessed? I, too, had a yen to go to Barnes. I, too, had that fantasy.”

“Well, you see, you belong here as well as me,” he said consolingly and squeezed her arm and smiled benignly but a bit vaguely, for his mind was already returning to
United States
v.
Gage et. al.,
and he was weighing the chances of winning a directed verdict when the government had completed its case.