The Lockwood Concern (42 page)

later." "Meaning me?" "Well, since we're being so frank with each other - yes," said Bing. "To change the subject slightly, I wonder what ever made you come here. Were you really that fond of your Uncle Pen?" "Yes, I was. But you're right. There were other reasons. I wanted to take a look at Mother's grave, because I never expect to see it again. And I was curious about this house." "You said you went to the old house." "I did. I was already late for the funeral, so I went and had a look at the old house. I thought it was going to be turned into a hospital. It's a shoe factory!" "I sold it to the shoe company and gave the money toward a hospital. They haven't started building the hospital, but if you're feeling generous I'm sure they'd be glad to have a donation." "Sorry. I've severed my ties with Swedish Haven," said Bing. "Then what were the other reasons for your coming here?" said George. "You wanted to see this house? Why?" "Well, naturally I'd heard about it from Ernestine, but I wanted to see for myself." "If it meets with your approval, I'll consider it a failure," said George. "For you, it's just right. Your wife seems like a nice woman, and I guess she must have had a hand in it." "Feel free to criticize. She had nothing to do with the house, except the interior. The rest was all mine." "I could almost tell that," said Bing. "All that's missing is a moat and a portcullis." "What is a portcullis? Do you know?" said George. "The bridge, you let down over a moat, isn't it?" "No, it isn't. When you get home, look it up," said George. "You may want to install one sometime. Now a moat might be a good idea. I understand you're troubled with rattlesnakes, and go shooting them every afternoon. Considering what's just happened in this family, I hope that doesn't make your wife uneasy." "That's a hell of a thing to say," said Bing. "I just want to remind you, son. Moving to California hasn't changed your blood. You have a fine, healthy sunburn, but you are what you are, inside." "I discussed that with my wife. She's not worried." "Nobody worried about your Uncle Pen, either," said George. "What the hell are you trying to say?" "I've already said it. You are what you are. Shit is what you called the kind of life I prefer to lead. But what kind of a car did you buy for yourself? A Rolls-Royce. A Ford or a Dodge would have done just as well, but you bought a Rolls and then invented an excuse for buying it. I have a Lincoln, a Pierce, and a Packard. And a Ford, half-ton. I could manage a Rolls, but I didn't need it to express my individuality, And if I had, I wouldn't make excuses for it. I've never made excuses to anyone for anything I've ever done." "No, not even when you should have," said Bing. "Well, Father, this isn't as bad as I thought it might be, but it isn't very good, either. So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take a ride out to the cemetery." "Your mother's grave is two away from your uncle's. I imagine there'll be some workmen around there," said George. "And judging from this conversation, you don't wish to have me go on holding a plot for you." "No thanks. In fact, I'm surprised you'd saved a space for-" "I hadn't exactly saved it. I just hadn't given it up," said George Lockwood. "What time is dinner? I may ride around for a while." "Seven, as a rule. Ask your stepmother. This phone connects with her sitting-room. Just push the button that says 2F-SR. Second-floor sitting-room." "I'll be back before that," said Bing. "There isn't much I want to see." The women went for a drive, making a clockwise circle that enabled Dorothy James to see the farming country, the forests, the coal mining patches, the county seat, Gibbsville, and back to the Lockwood house. They were gone a couple of hours, but they were back ahead of Bing. "Well, what's your verdict?" said George Lockwood. "Beautiful, and horrid," said Dorothy James. "Therefore fascinating. To see what care the farmers have taken of their land, how hard they must work to keep everything looking so neat and orderly. Then a few miles later, the forest primeval. I could almost see Indians hiding behind the trees. Then those hideous coal mines. Those mountains of coal dust and those shabby little villages, and the gouges in the land. I really shouldn't say that, of course. Sherry's uncle is a director in one of the coal companies. And then we drove down that street in Gibbsville, the one with the lovely chestnut trees." "Lantenengo Street," said George Lockwood. "Some ladies were coming out of one of the big houses, An afternoon of bridge, I suppose. Limousines lined up on both sides of the street. Precisely the same ladies that come out of the Plaza after one of Mr. Bagby's Musical Mornings. I couldn't help but wonder how long it'd been since any of them had seen one of those mining villages." "Well, not lately. There's been a strike, and the limousines try to avoid the mining villages. They're known here as patches, by the way." "I think one or two of them recognized our car," said Geraldine. "What if they did?" said George. "What time are we having dinner?" "Wilma would like to lie down for a half an hour, and I thought we'd have dinner at seven-thirty," said Geraldine." "Bing hasn't gone, I hope," said Wilma. "No, he went for a drive, too," said George. "Such an attractive boy-man, he's turned out to be," said Dorothy James. "It's so encouraging to see them after a long period of years, if they turn out well. The others - well, there are enough of those. But your young man is the sort we can count on. The country, I mean. I wish we had many more of them instead of those tiresome polo-players and their chorus girls." "Dorothy, I'm beginning to think you must be a reader of Heywood Broun," said George. "Oh, I'm afraid I don't think so very much of him, either," said Dorothy James. "Sherry tells me he comes into the Racquet Club every day, and I'd like to know what Heywood Broun is doing in the Racquet Club in the first place? Why would he want to belong to the Racquet Club? No, I never see the New York World. I love Don Marquis, though, and I miss Christopher Morley in the Post. The Post isn't the same without him, really. Didn't he come from this part of the world?" "Oh, I don't think so," said George. "As far as I know, there's never been anyone literary in these parts." "Do you know who I thought of today? D. H. Lawrence," said Dorothy James. "Have you ever read anything by him? He's one of the younger English writers, and I wouldn't recommend him to everybody. But those coal mines made me think of him. Wilma! I'm keeping you from your nap. You go right upstairs and I'll sit here and have a cigarette with George." Wilma and Geraldine left. "I drove her away," said Dorothy. "On purpose.. I wanted to talk to you about Wilma. I know that she's going to be comfortably fixed, financially. But we're all going to have to do something to keep her occupied, or Wilma's going to make a mess of things. She's been perfectly splendid these past few days, but she's said certain things to me that I don't like. She has a lover. You knew that." "Yes, I did," said George. "And he could be a godsend for her, to get her through the first few months. But she's said things to me that - well, I wish I knew you better, George." "Pretend you do," said George. "I guess I'll have to, because I know I'll get no help from Sherry. You know Sherry. Everything is black or white to him. No middle ground in between. I couldn't tell Sherry that Wilma has a lover. He wouldn't have her in the house. And goodness knows, some of the things she's confided in me, he wouldn't let me see her again. To put our cards right on the table, Wilma has practically told me in so many words that the sky's the limit." "The sky's the limit, eh?" Dorothy nodded. "She spent most of her life looking after Pen, but she accuses herself of having failed there. I don't agree with her, on that. Everything was all right until Pen fell into the hands of a designing woman. It's exactly like the case of that Judd man. The corset salesman, and Ruth Snyder." "The outcome was different," said George. "Not really, you know. Everybody says they're going to get the chair, both of them. So it's going to be just the same as if the Judd man had murdered her and committed suicide." "Well, if you look at it that way," said George. "They've never solved that other case. The minister, Hall, and Mrs. Mills. Do you remember that? That was hushed up, if anything ever was." "It seemed that way," said George. "Go on, Dorothy." "The corset salesman, of course he shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath with Pen. But the Hall and Mills case involved some very prominent people. I don't know them, but I know people who do. I'm trying to explain to you that regardless of your station in life, or how carefully you were brought up, there comes a time in some people's lives when they forget all about their upbringing and so on. Unfortunately that happened to Pen, and what worries me is that it may happen to Wilma." "Ah, now I see," said George. "Not that I foresee anything like what's just happened to Pen and Marian What's-Her-Name." "Marian Strademyer." "Incidentally, I didn't say anything, but we passed a farm this afternoon with that name on the mailbox. Fortunately, Wilma didn't notice it." "No relation. She came from the Middle West, I believe," said George. "But a remarkable coincidence." "As you say, a remarkable coincidence. I'm so glad she didn't see it, because Geraldine and I have been at our wits end to keep her mind off the subject." "Good for you, Dorothy," said George. "But you think she is facing some sort of a crisis?" "A nervous, or moral, collapse. Or both." "You feel that strongly?" "I do, George. I can't repeat some of the things she said, because they were one woman to another, under stress and strain. But the sky's the limit, George. And a girl that was gently brought up, as Wilma was, hasn't much to fall back on. I mean she can't take such things lightly." "You haven't said this, but what you're afraid of is that Wilma isn't going to care who she sleeps with from now on," said George. "The sky's the limit. Those were her own words." "Well, I certainly agree with you that it could be a very serious problem," said George. "But let's wait and see if it becomes a problem, and if it does, then we'll have to see if there's anything we can do about it. Wilma's in her middle forties, still a rather attractive woman. She may find someone she'd like to marry. I don't wish to seem cold-blooded about this, Dorothy, but she's not going to marry a man unless she sleeps with him first, is she?" "Probably not." "Then what harm is it going to do her if she has one or two affairs, with the possibility that one of them will end in marriage?" Dorothy nodded slowly five or six times. "I knew you'd see it more clearly than I have. I don't approve of that - that course of action. But you're a man of the world, and there are no children to have to think about. I only wish that I could be more outspoken, but I can't." "Something she said?" "Yes," said Dorothy James. "Well, she said the sky's the limit. I can infer from that that that's what she means." "There was some nastiness to it. I believe that the relationship between a man and a woman can be tender and beautiful. I've found it so. Wilma isn't approaching it that way. That's really as much as I can say, George. But thank you for your patience." She rose, and it was obvious that she was depressed. She was an odd little woman, and at the moment she reminded George of a sparrow pecking at horse-droppings; but that was natural to sparrows. In a few minutes Bing Lockwood returned from his drive. "There was more to see than you expected," said his father. "No, but I had the extra time on my hands so I went and had a beer with my old Princeton classmate Ken Stokes," said Bing. "And distant cousin. What is he doing these days?" "What is he doing? You know he's a distant cousin, but didn't you know he was blind?" "I knew that one of them had lost his eyesight. They're all cousins of ours, but I've never tried to keep track of them all. He was blinded in an explosion, wasn't he?" "His first year out of college. The Reading Company chemical lab." "Why did you pick him?" "Because I suddenly remembered that he wrote me a hell of a nice letter when Mother died. It must have been one of the last letters he ever wrote." "Has he a job?" "He has a music store, way out West Market Street. He wrote some songs for the Triangle shows. Played a very hot piano, in those days. Now he makes his living selling records, Victrolas, sheet music, musical instruments. Recognized my voice almost instantly. 'Wait a minute, I know that voice,' he said. 'Someone I haven't seen for a long time.' Strange how they go on talking about seeing people. He hasn't been able to see anyone for six years. 'I know,' he said. 'It's Bing Lockwood!'" "The Lockwood name has been in the papers lately," said George. "I imagine he has someone read to him." "His wife. He married out of the country club set. A very pretty little Irish girl. They have four children and a fifth on the way. Maybe a fifth and sixth. They already have one set of twins. Do you ever listen to records?" "Geraldine does, your stepmother." "Well, I bought you a house present. Some Blue Seal, some Red Seal, and a whole batch of Whiteman and George Olsen and so on. Ernestine might like them, if you don't. And you can exchange any you already have." "Thank you very much. Dinner is at seven-thirty, if you want to take a shower." "I'll do just that. Can I have a drink sent up to my room?" "I'll send it up. What would you like?" "An Orange Blossom. We raise oranges in California, you know. The Sunkist State." "You're feeling pretty good." "What the hell, why not?" "Well, I didn't think of it as an occasion for rejoicing, but you seem to." "Father, I have some things to do in New York the day after tomorrow, and then I'm taking the Twentieth Century Limited to Chicago, and I hope that's the last the East will see of me for ten years. In other words, I'm on my way home. That's the occasion for rejoicing. As soon as I came out of that cemetery I was on my way home. That was the turning point." "Perfectly clear, my boy. Go take your shower, and remember to wash behind your ears." "You can't make me sore. I'm in too good a mood." "I hope it lasts through dinner. I've seen people like you turn very ugly." "Well, send up those Orange Blossoms, please. Not too much powdered sugar." As the four Lockwoods and Dorothy James met for cocktails the spirit of the gathering was established by Bing. Earlier, at the luncheon, his father had seen how Bing conducted himself when a certain solemnity was called for and the company were all older than he: then the boy, the son, was a well-brought-up young man whose vitality and healthy good looks made him a welcome addition to the party. They had