Barbara Greer (14 page)

‘Oh yes!' she said. ‘Yes, I remember! You were Count Alfredo and I was Lilias de Falange!'

‘Ah!' he said. ‘Lilias! Yes, Lilias de Falange. We did a play, once, remember? We wrote it ourselves. My favourite line was, “Lilias, come with me and brighten my gloomy castle with your shining eyes!” Do you remember that, Barb? Do you?'

‘Yes, yes.'

He held both her hands in his. ‘I used to think,' he said, ‘I used to wonder: can cousins marry cousins? We both used to wonder that, didn't we? Do you remember when we used to talk like that?'

She had, suddenly, a soft and inward curiosity, wondering: is he going to kiss me? But he released her hands. ‘Your eyes still shine,' he said a little sadly, ‘but not for me.' He turned and slowly started toward the door. ‘You do like it, then? The apartment?'

‘Oh yes,' she said. Her voice was almost a whisper. ‘Yes, I do, Woody.'

‘My explorer personality. You know,' he said, ‘the trouble with me is—the trouble with me is, I don't have any personality at all. But you're right. The shrunken head must go.'

She followed him across the room. He opened the door, then stood back and bowed from the waist. ‘Thank you, madame, for brightening my gloomy castle for a little time.'

She stepped out into the hall, and when he closed the door behind them, she turned to him in the darkened hallway and kissed his cheek. ‘Thank you, Count Alfredo,' she said. And then, ‘One of the nicest things about coming home, Woody, is you.'

‘Just for that,' he said. ‘I'll put the top up for the drive back.'

They went down the stairs and out on to the street where he had parked the car. In the car, she put her head against his shoulder, the rough texture of his orange sweater, and closed her eyes.

When she woke they were at the farm. Woody climbed out of the car, crossed in front of the headlights, and opened the door for her. She slid across the leather seat. ‘Good night, Woody,' she said sleepily. ‘Thank you. I'll see you soon.'

‘Good night, Barb.'

She went up the steps and unlocked the front door with her key. Behind her, the little car started up, roared around the circle and sped away, down the road.

She stepped into the hall and closed the door behind her. The house was very quiet. A few lamps had been left lighted for her in the hall and on the stairs.

She did not immediately go up. For some reason—perhaps it was the little nap she had had in the car—she no longer felt as sleepy as she had. She turned and started walking slowly through the half-lit, empty rooms, under the four identical archways of the four strung-together living rooms, noticing the way the receding light from the hall managed to travel with her, catching certain gleaming surfaces—polished tops of tables, mirrors, bowls of lamps, silver ash trays, candlesticks—reflecting them, lighting her way. Moving across the soft, hushed carpets, trailing her finger across the backs of chairs, guided by these little glimmers as well as by a sense of deep familiarity, of knowing, really, that she could traverse most of the house in total darkness and feel, instinctively, the doorways and the places where chairs and tables had always been, guided by the tickings of familiar clocks, she went like a sleepwalker, with her hands raised slightly, reluctant to turn on any lights. She realised that she was also guided by scents, that the fruitwood chest had an odour of its own, as did the silk drapes in the second room, a dusty perfume, and the Oriental rugs in the third—and, all at once, smelling the unmistakable perfume of roses, she saw, from the gleam of a silver bowl, that there was, indeed, a vase of roses on her mother's writing desk. At night, she thought, when everyone else is asleep, is the best time to get to know a house again.

In the doorway just ahead of her, shining from her father's study, she saw a new source of light. Wondering if her father could be still awake, she walked toward it. But the little study, when she entered it, was empty. One lamp was lighted on his desk, apparently left by accident. She crossed the room to turn it off.

As she reached for the switch, she saw several sheets of yellow foolscap, secured with a paper clip, lying on the desk. At the head of the top sheet, written in her father's small, precise hand, were the words,

PRESTON LITTELL WOODCOCK, II

The Biography of a Connecticut Industrialist

by his son

Preston Littell Woodcock, III

It was the manuscript Woody had told her about. He had evidently been working on it tonight, for his black fountain pen lay across it.

Her first impulse was to turn off the light and leave it there. Then she hesitated, hovering between reading it and not reading it. Then she sat down in her father's chair, picked up the sheaf of papers and read:

My father, Preston Littell Woodcock, II, was born November 21, 1865, in Burketown, Connecticut, the son of Dobie Woodcock and the former Miss Barbara Louise Dalton. Father was born in the family home in which he died, an imposing residence at 1045 Prospect Avenue, built of local stone, a house that for many years has been a landmark in this community.

Father himself, in many ways, was built of local stone. Privately educated until he was seventeen, when he entered Yale University, he was a member of Zeta Psi fraternity and Skull & Bones. He was graduated from Yale in the class of 1887 with a B.A. degree and special Honours in History.

Upon graduation, Father embarked upon a year's tour of Europe. From the letters he wrote to his parents at the time, it is clear that he found the world on the other side of the Atlantic not to his liking. An acute observer of social mores, as well as economics, he found Europe degenerate, morally impoverished, and ‘behind the times' economically. In a letter to a Yale classmate, Father described Europe as ‘a continent that has seen its better days.' (In view of current events in Europe at this writing, Father's remark of seventy years ago indicates that he was able to size up trends and even to prophesy them; this ability was to serve him well in his business career which was then yet to come.) He was never happier than at the moment when he set foot once more on his native soil and during his long lifetime he was never tempted to venture abroad again.

In 1889, he entered the employ of the Woodcock Paper Company, a paper-products manufacturing concern in Burketown. This company was founded by his grandfather (my great-grandfather), who bore the same name, in 1838. At the time of my father's entrance into the company, my grandfather was president, the company's founder having died in 1870. But in 1900, my father was handed the managerial reins, and he is most to be credited for having built the company to its present prominence as one of the largest in this section of the state. In this, he was aided for a time by his brother, the late William Dobie Woodcock.

Father's philosophy, often stated, was ‘Waste Not, Want Not,' and it is to this staunch philosophy that is credited the fact that, during the 1930's, a period which saw the failure of many similar companies in the area, the Woodcock Paper Company was able to keep its flag aloft and its doors open. During the hostilities of World War II, the company turned its efforts, patriotically, to the Nation's defence, filling major government paper contracts. In 1943, the company was awarded the Government ‘E' for Efficiency.

In 1890, Father married Miss Mary Owens of Burketown who bore him one son (myself), although this did not occur until eleven years after their union, when Father was approaching middle life.

Father was a public-spirited man. He was a Republican and was active throughout his lifetime in civic affairs in Burketown, twice a candidate for Councilman. A stalwart opponent of withholding, he strongly supported Mrs. Vivian Kellems, another Connecticut manufacturer, in her refusal to deduct federal taxes from the wages of her employees. While his health permitted, he enjoyed golf and was a member of the Burketown Country Club. He was a Mason and a member of various clubs and societies, including the University Club of New York City. He was at one time a nominee for Alumni Trustee of Yale and once served as President of the Yale Alumni Association of Burketown. Throughout his life he served his alma mater well as a benefactor and was among the ‘regulars' who returned to Yale for class reunions. In 1924, he set aside funds for the establishment of a public library in Burketown, which was named in memory of his father.

Father died July 14, 1953, in the summer of his eighty-eighth year, ‘in the autumn of life.' His end was swift and peaceful.

I have heard it said that Father placed an incredible imprint upon all with whom he associated, in business as well as in private life. It is beyond the shadow of a doubt that my father placed an indelible imprint upon myself, his son.

The above is intended to sketch in, roughly, the chronology of his life. It shall not be necessary, as a result, in the pages to follow, to refer to this chronology again. For the story that follows will concern itself mainly with those years during which I knew Father best, the years during which I was associated with him in business, or the last twenty-nine years of his long life.

I went to work for the Woodcock Paper Company in the late spring of 1923, following the footsteps of my forebears.

On this note, which sounded curiously like an ending as well as a beginning, the manuscript stopped.

Feeling sad, Barbara put the pages down. She reassembled them carefully and fastened them with the paper clip. She placed the fountain pen across the top page, as she had found it.

There was a fading photograph of her grandfather on her father's desk. It showed a man she had never known, a stiff, stern-faced and formal little man who stood on the front doorsteps of his house holding a gold-tipped walking stick in which, Woody had once told her, her grandfather was rumoured to have kept a sword. She had known a later man than that—a gaunt old man whose eyes were as pale as ice and whose face, when she reached up to kiss it, had felt cold and whiskery, smelling of pipe smoke and cough syrup; and, later, she had known the invalid whose dark silences had been even more terrible to hear than his gasping spells of coughing.

She remembered, clearly, the July afternoon five years ago when Grandfather Woodcock had died. She had been in New York with her mother. The two of them had met for a few days' shopping together; her mother was to help pick out things for the new house in Locustville. They had returned to the St. Regis after spending an afternoon sitting with bolts of fabrics rolled out in front of them, and there had been a message advising Edith to call the farm.

Edith talked to her husband quietly for a few minutes. Then she hung up and told Barbara the news.

That night, Barbara and her mother had dinner at a small Italian restaurant in East Fiftieth Street. ‘I need a drink,' her mother had said when they were seated, which was, for Edith Woodcock, an untypical remark. She ordered a double Scotch.

The drink had seemed to release her. She did not become mournful. She did not cry. Her speech, if anything, became clearer. She became quite animated, quite gay. She laughed. ‘Oh my God, Barbara!' she had said, her eyes shining brightly. ‘Do you know what this means? Do you
know!
I've had twenty-six years of him. He hated us. Ruled our lives. Oh, thank God he's dead! Oh, if there's a Hell, he'll go there! Do you see what this means for your father and me? It means we're free! We're free!' The next day they had taken the train to Burketown together.

Barbara stood up now and turned off the light. She started back slowly through the darkened house, moving cautiously since her eyes were now unaccustomed to the dark, walking on tiptoe. Then, through the archways, standing in the lighted hallway, she saw a figure. She stopped, almost screamed. Then she saw that it was Barney. He wore a light raincoat and evidently he had seen her, or heard her, for he stood, facing her, his hands deep in his coat pockets. ‘Who is it?' he said quietly.

‘Barbara,' she said. She came toward him. ‘What are you doing up?' she asked.

‘I couldn't sleep,' he said. ‘I went for a walk. A few minutes ago I thought I heard a car drive in.'

‘Woody drove me downtown to see his apartment,' she said. ‘He just drove me back.'

‘Oh, I see,' he said.

‘Well,' she said, with a nervous laugh, ‘It's awfully late. We'd both better get some sleep.'

‘Yes,' he said.

‘It was a nice evening tonight, wasn't it?'

‘Yes, very nice,' he said.

‘Well,' she said, ‘Goodnight, Barney.'

‘Good night.'

He stood, courteously waiting, and when she realised what he was waiting for she said ‘Good night' again, turned and started up the stairs. She went down the upstairs hall to her room, let herself in, and closed the door. Then she heard him slowly mount the stairs, walk down the hall to his own room, open the door and close it. Then the house was still again. She turned on the light.

There was a note on her pillow. She unfolded it. On a piece of her mother's pale blue monogrammed stationery, she read:

Darling—

While you were out, your Flora telephoned to say that a cablegram had arrived at your house from Carson. He says simply, ‘Arrived safely London. Smooth flight. Love to you and the boys. Carson.'

Sleep well, darling. It is so lovely to have you home again.

Mother

7

How do we know when first thoughts occur? And how do we know with any degree of truth, why? In that summer, perhaps there were countless beginnings of thoughts, wonderings that began—fanciful and idle at first—like thoughts just before sleep when the human body is at its most self-indulgent state, when thoughts of others are most easily excluded, when the warm figure in the bedclothes has only itself to care for, only itself to comfort and make happy. Perhaps that was the true beginning, on a night like this, suddenly between sleep and wakefulness, thinking: I
wonder
. Or perhaps it had come at a more conscious point, when thought followed thought with strict sequence and order, when little suggestions, curiosities, questions arose, pleasantly nagging, and, one question answered, it was possible to go on to the second question, and then the third. When the first question—
Does he like me?
—was answered with a yes, is it ever possible to avoid the second question, the second simple, childish, playful question:
How much?
And there had been other people, too, involved in it, with their own suggestions. Her mother, for example, who came swiftly into the room one day and said, ‘Sit down, darling. I want to talk to you.' And when she sat down, smiling, saying, ‘Yes. What is it?' her mother had said, ‘It's about Barney, dear. You've been simply wonderful—entertaining him while Peggy and I have been so busy with so many preparations. We've
both
appreciated it, Peggy and I. But I'd like to mention one tiny thing. It's clear that he likes you. Of course. Everyone likes you. But remember, dear, that you are an unusually attractive girl and men are—well,
men
. I'd hate to think that you'd let your attractiveness—well, that you'd let it take another person to such a point that it might do irreparable harm to a third person, if you see what I mean. I mean, Barbara, that Peggy is obviously head over heels in love with Barney. I personally wish it were otherwise—that it were someone else—but since it's not, I'm trying to be a good mother and think first of my daughter's happiness. I personally wish she had found someone like—well, someone like you have found, like Carson. But since she hasn't, and it's to be Barney—well, then Barney it is! I do like him. One can't help but like him. He's gentlemanly and courteous and seems very kind. No money and no family is—well, just no money and no family! That's all! But the point is, dear, I keep remembering when you were both little girls. You were always the prettier one, everyone said so, and as a result—try as we all might—you did, dear, get away with murder! With murder, dearest, you know you did. We spoiled you, I suppose, but perhaps it's not too wrong to spoil a child. Anyway, little Peggy always had the harder row to hoe. Always the harder row. You got things,
received
things, that really ought to have been Peggy's. I don't need to enumerate, cite examples. You know what they were. And being our dear little spoiled girl whom we loved so much, you sometimes—oh, only sometimes—enjoyed, or rather
seemed
to enjoy, taking things away from your sister. To show that you could, I mean. Of course you outgrew it. We all outgrow things. But the point is, I've been watching you—not snooping, darling, but I have seen you—with Barney. He's charming and you like him, and there is no doubt that he likes you. But he is Peggy's, Barbara. That's all I want to remind you of, my dear. You have a dear, wonderful husband whom you love and two adorable little children. And this one—this other'—Edith's voice grew firmer—‘is for Peggy. This is Peggy's. Do remember it.'