The Lockwood Concern (18 page)

fortune, his motivated interest in other men, women and children, and money, Abraham Lockwood had little time or curiosity for what was happening to himself. The Concern, his own secret, was, to be sure, a personal matter comparable to a religious zeal, but in function the Concern dealt with the actions and postures and behavior of others than himself. Consequently Abraham Lockwood had not done much thinking about Abraham Lockwood, and he was taken by surprise when he discovered that the secrecy of the Concern and his reluctance to confide in Adelaide had altered his relationship with his wife. It was as though the Concern had become a mistress, whose existence was to be denied. So big an unshared secret, so integral a part of his thoughts and actions, daily and hourly, had grown insidiously from a precautionary measure to a conditioned attitude. At least every day of his life, and in many of his waking hours, Abraham Lockwood had to exclude Adelaide, until on no certain day, at no certain hour, but from one sleeping to one waking he was conscious of having entered into a different phase of his relationship as husband. He saw a mole on her shoulder that he had not noticed before; one breast was slightly lower than the other; her Pennsylvania Dutch accent was nearly gone; changes had been taking place, and his failure to have noticed them taking place was bewildering until he traced the reason: the Concern. Abraham Lockwood was now forty-nine years old; in good health, rich, and consciously enjoying the respectful treatment he was earning by maintaining his position in the community. He had not taken stock of himself at any of the milestones - at, for instance, age forty or age forty-five - and he was far from ready to slow down now, with so much yet to be done. The man who slowed down, stopped. A Morris Homestead had never moved at a rapid pace, since there was no particular reason for him to do so; a Harry Penn Downs had moved at a rapid pace but he had slowed down, or been slowed down, because he had not had real staying power. Harry Penn Downs, in Abraham Lockwood's opinion, had resorted to dishonest practice because he was exhausted. He had consumed his legitimate energy, had then taken to desperate gambling and finally to plain theft. In any event, he had had to slow down, and slowing down, had stopped. According to custom, there was no one but immediate family at the funeral of Harry Penn Downs, a suicide. But when a week had passed Abraham Lockwood wrote a note to Martha Sterling Downs and, at his request, she allowed him to pay her a call. As he had said during his last meeting with Downs, Martha Downs would not have recognized him, but she was expecting him and was thus forewarned. She rose to greet him as he followed a maid into the library, and if he had vaguely expected a tearful, abject widow, he quickly conceded how wrong that was. "Good afternoon, Locky," she said. "It's very nice of you to call. You didn't bring your wife, I see." "I never thought to. You didn't know each other, and this-" "Wouldn't have been the right moment. You're right. Sit down, Locky. I call you Locky as if we were old friends. Do you mind that?" "I like it." "There'll be a cup of tea in a little while, but let's wait, shall we?" "Yes." "I know you're not a drinker, although if you'd like something?" "No thanks." ."I'm very pleased that our sons are going to room together next year. It's nice to continue the association. Smoke, if you like. I do, so it doesn't bother me." "I haven't got anything to smoke. I never carry cigarettes." "Well, have one." She offered him her tiny silver case, and he lit their cigarettes. "I'm also pleased that we may be neighbors this summer. You have a cottage, or a boathouse, whatever they call them, at a place called The Run, haven't you?" "Why, yes. For several years. Are you going to be there? That would be very good news." You must know the Westervelts? Well, Mr. Westervelt is a cousin of mine, and he very kindly offered to let us have his boathouse. We couldn't afford to go away otherwise. They're going abroad this summer, so it works out very nicely." "They have one of the nicest boathouses at The Run. One of the few that you can live in. You know what The Run is? It's a reservoir, an artificial lake, owned by the coal company, and people like J. B. Westervelt get the very best boathouses. You'll enjoy it, if you don't mind bathing in cold water." "I prefer it to ocean bathing. Is your wife a swimmer?" "No. This will probably be our last summer at The Run. Adelaide wants to go to the seashore next year." He stopped talking and she continued to look at him until he became uneasy. "Is there something wrong, Martha?" "She laughed. "Oh, no. No." She laughed again. "What's funny?" "I couldn't possibly tell you. Not possibly in a million years. It's funny, and you'd enjoy the humor of it, but quickly, let's find something else to talk about. I hadn't realized I was staring." "It must be something good." "Don't ask any more about it, please. Perhaps we'd better talk about Harry. Did you lose a lot of money, Locky?" "Do you want to know how much? Actually although I lost some cash, my biggest loss might be called hypothetical. The profits on the cash Harry was supposed to invest for our account." "Naturally I've never seen the woman, never laid eyes on her." "What woman?" "Oh, now don't pretend, Locky. I know all about it. In fact I've known about it for almost two years, so don't spare my feelings. Unfortunately, though, I'm told that there's no way to get any of the money back. Legally, it's hers. Or at least it would be so hard to prove what isn't hers. The lawyers say that the New York courts would never make her give anything back, and of course if the Pennsylvania courts decided in our favor, what good would that do? She'll never show her face in this State, and she has no money here. Have you met her?" "No." "One of the lawyers said she's totally unlike me, which he intended for a compliment. But then in the next breath told me how feminine she is. And of course beautiful. I wonder how many others there were. Harry spent a great deal of time talking about that sort of thing, but I thought it was to shock me. The way some husbands do because they think their wives like to be shocked. Well, I guess I did encourage him. Some of our conversations wouldn't bear repeating. Poor Harry. How I must have bored him when I thought I was being deliciously naughty, and all the time he had a beautiful mistress in New York. Beautiful, and feminine, and young. Twenty-five or -six. I guess there must have been others. Yes. Harry and I married too young, the month he graduated. I'm selling this house. You wouldn't like to buy it, would you?" "It's a beautiful house, but a bit too far away from Swedish Haven." "Buy it, and I'll be your mistress. Wouldn't you like to have a mistress to come to when you're in Philadelphia? Of course I'm not beautiful, or young. But I'm feminine. That lawyer infuriated me when he said that." "Of course I'll buy the house, if you go with it." "There, that makes up for Mr. Jonas Ripley's insulting remark." "That's what you get for having Jonas Ripley as your lawyer. I knew him in my college days, and I've hardly ever seen him since, but I guess he hasn't changed much. The kind of lawyer that people go to because his name is Ripley." "That's usually good enough reason, in Philadelphia." "I haven't said anything to offend you?" "No, no. I say much worse things about them than you'd ever think of saying. I never traveled much with the pack, didn't you know? No, I guess you didn't. All the years that you and Harry were in partnership together, I've never met your wife, and isn't this the first time you've ever been here?" "I came here when I was at the University, but after the war I went back to Swedish Haven and stayed." "You were wise." "Why?" "Well, unless you'd married a Philadelphia girl you'd have found that those college friendships haven't very much meaning. As soon as those boys graduate from college they come back here and start being Philadelphians again. The worst of them of course are those that never left, the ones that stayed here and went to the University instead of going to Harvard or Yale. All those boys that were in that whist club of yours. That one with the question mark for a stickpin." "The Ruffes. The club still exists." "Oh, I'm sure it does, but I'm sure it has other reasons for existing besides whist." She smiled. "It used to." "That's the very same smile you had on your face when you wouldn't tell me why you were smiling." "Then we'll have to quickly change the subject again." "The smile had something to do with The Ruffes. You were not supposed to know anything about The Ruffes. My wife doesn't." "Then you're better at keeping secrets than Harry was. Some secrets, at least. I know all about The Ruffes, or I used to." "Well, since you're in on our secrets, why not let me in on your secret? Why did you smile?" She shook her head. "No, Locky. Not in a thousand years." "Well, we're progressing. First you said a million years. Maybe I can get it down to a hundred before I leave." "A million or a thousand, both mean never. When do you go to The Run place?" "A week or two after school closes. Will you be there then?" "Yes, just about the same time. I own this house, you know. It isn't part of Harry's jumbled estate. And I'm going to put it on the market in a week or two so that people can come and see it while I'm away." "Oh, then you've decided not to sell to me?" Her manner suddenly changed. "What if I took you seriously?" "I took you seriously." "No you didn't. But I have a reputation for speaking my mind, not always to my advantage, and if I offered myself as mistress to some of the men I know, it would be taken very seriously. And I'd mean it seriously. I'm not very young and I'm not very pretty, but there doesn't seem to be much else for me to do." "You're certainly not serious now, although you sound it." "Why not? I'd be better off as the mistress of some men I know. Men that have flirted with me and wanted to make love to me, and still would. I'll have nothing but this house, you know, or whatever I get for it in cash. That will be enough to finish the children's education, but where will that leave me ten years from now?" "You are serious." "It's the best thing that could happen to me." "And the worst." "Because people talk? They've talked already. They've always talked about me in Philadelphia, and when Harry shot himself the gossips got busy immediately. The women that didn't know he had a mistress thought that I must have had a lover. Well, I did. My first. A year ago. He ran like a deer, d, double-e, r, when the rumors started about Harry losing so much money. Oh, he ran! He's still running. Took a trip around the world, with his wife, of course. You don't hear Philadelphia gossip, but I do, even when it's me they're gossiping about. Although they never knew about my startled faun." "I've always wondered where people like you would meet." "What bed we'd use?" She pointed upward. "Mine. My own bed. Whenever Harry went to New York to see his light of love." "But the children, and the servants." "After they'd gone to bed. From ten o'clock on. I don't know how or where other women had their rendezvous, but that's the way mine were." "And what about his wife?" "Well, I don't know how much I can tell you without identifying them. But he had a very good excuse to spend the night in town quite frequently. On business, you might say." "He was a doctor." "I won't say." "Why didn't she become suspicious?" "She was too clever to show much suspicion. When a woman has those suspicions, and is married to a very rich man, she'd better not give vent to her suspicions unless she's prepared to risk an open break. In this case, the woman wasn't willing to risk anything. The husband could have told her the truth and she'd have acquiesced. I never thought much of her. She had no pride. All she wanted was a life of ease and luxury. A box of chocolates and a trashy novel. A tiara that Queen Victoria wouldn't wear. Footmen in knee breeches oh, dear, I shouldn't have said that." "I don't know anybody that has a footman in knee breeches." "Yes you do. You've never happened to go to their houses." "Excuse me." "You know three or four men who have footmen in knee breeches." "I guess I don't know them very well." "No, but you probably thought you did. That's why you were wise not to live in Philadelphia after the War. I'm changing the subject deliberately." "I'm looking forward to this summer." "Are you changing the subject too?" "No, I'm not." "Oh. You're changing it back?" "Yes." "To me and my revenge on Harry?" "Yes." "I think we've exhausted that topic. It's curious how we ever got on it. I don't think I trust you, Locky, but I like you. Or maybe it's the other way round. It is. I trust you, even though I can't really say I like you." "That's too bad, because I like you." "Yes, I know you do. You're not in love with your wife, are you?" "I don't think I am, anymore. We've been married a long time." "Happily?" "Yes. Yes, I would say happily." "This is the time when you'd better be very careful. A clever young thing could twist you around her little finger." "I doubt it. I don't like clever young things. In fact, I guess I don't like cleverness in a woman at all. When I was a young man during the War I had my fill of clever young things. Some of the cleverest in the world, I guess. The women in the diplomatic corps in Washington. They were too clever for me. So I went home and married a Pennsylvania Dutch girl. Pretty. Intelligent. But not clever. A clever girl never would have fitted in with my-" He stopped abruptly on the verge of giving the first utterance to the Concern. "With your what?" "Oh, my life, the kind of life I preferred." "That isn't what you were going to say." "Isn't it? No, I guess it isn't." "What were you going to say?" He shook his head and smiled. "Not in a thousand years, Martha." "Touché." "Show me the rest of your house." "You can come and see it when I'm not here." "No, that wouldn't be the same." "No." "Then let's say, whenever you're ready." "Are you that rich, Locky?" "I think I am, but I'm not going to woo you with greenbacks. I couldn't buy what I want from you." She looked at him quickly, slightly troubled. "I wonder how you meant that. It could be the greatest compliment I ever had in my life." "What other way could I mean it?" "I'm grateful to you for it, but I wish I hadn't heard it. I have other plans." "Forget the other plans." "No. I have to think." "Well I'll be at The Run after the first of July." She became his mistress during the first week of July. He took her for a spin in the naphtha launch, tied up the launch on the south shore of the dam where there were no boathouses but in full view of the boathouses on the north shore. They