The Lockwood Concern (24 page)

pants when he made Ivy, and I've often wondered what possessed them. I'd give a lot to know how he made it. I think he had a great-great-grandfather that was a signer of the Declaration of Independence." "Chatsworth had an ancestor that was president of Harvard." "There, you see? If Chatsworth had gone to Harvard he'd have been in one of their best final clubs, but here he was left out in the cold. I wish we could get him in our club." "He wouldn't come in now. And anyway, I'm going to have to work hard for my own candidate." "Your future brother-in-law. You have your work cut out for you. Dave's a nice kid, but a wish-wash." "No he isn't, not really. He'll improve with age" "George, he's a wish-wash. He's a perfect example of a no-bid fellow. Don't get into a scuffle over Dave Fenstermacher. You're the only man in the club's going to be for him. He may get a bid to some place, but everybody in our crowd is going to think that you only want him because you're going to marry his sister. Another thing you ought to take into consideration, it won't break his heart if he doesn't make a club. He must know by this time where he stands." "You never know, and you always keep hoping." "Well, I'll grant you that. You do keep hoping." O'Byrne laughed. "When I got my bids, for about sixty seconds I thought maybe one of them would be Ivy." "Would you have taken Ivy?" "No. For one reason, and one reason only. I couldn't learn to stomach Jack Harbord. That mealy-mouthed hypocrite, there'll never be room on this earth for the two of us. If I heard he was at death's door I wouldn't blow my nose to save his life." "Well, when we leave here we'll never have to see him again." "I won't. You will. You'll never see me at a class reunion. The last Princeton thing I do will be to usher at your wedding, and then I'm going to disappear. I'm heading straight for the Kimberley, to make my fortune in the diamond fields." "You never liked it here. Why did you stay? Family?" "Why else would I stay? My father. I'm very fond of my old man. I understand him perfectly, you know. My mother was determined that at least one of us would become a Jesuit priest, but my father was just as determined we wouldn't. So he pushed Kevin and me into Princeton, away from the Jesuits, and then my younger brother into Yale. He's hoping that I'll follow Kevin into medical school, but he knows it's a forlorn hope." "Why is he so much against the Jesuits? He's a Catholic." "He's a Catholic, but in Ireland he went to the Brothers, the Christian Brothers, and the Jesuits try to make them feel that they're hoi polloi. And maybe they are. I think they are, but I'm a snob. Anyway, there's always some Jesuit having dinner at our house and my old man has been fed up with them for years, the way my mother worships them. I've observed on occasion that my old man is also a bit fed up with my mother, though he may try to hide it." "I'll tell you something in strict confidence. I think my mother and father really hate each other. I've never said that to another human being." "That's no rarity, George. The number of husbands and wives that hate each other must be appalling, appalling. It's one of the reasons why you never hear of me going out with a nice Catholic girl. I don't want to get married, but I'm soft-hearted and if I fell for a Catholic girl I'd hear myself proposing to her some moonlight night. Therefore, to be on the safe side, I bestow the privilege of my company on Protestant girls and now and then a pretty little Jewess. That should keep me a bachelor for a good many years. But don't let me discourage you, George." "You don't. Lalie and I aren't like my father and mother." "Your mother I take it was English extraction." "No, she was Pennsylvania' Dutch, the same as Lalie's family." "Oh, but Lalie - nothing against your mother, mind you - but in your mother's time girls weren't given much of an education." "Well, my mother had the same amount of schooling as Lalie. In fact, my mother was pretty bright. Is, I should say. She can read French and High German, as well as speak Pennsylvania Dutch." "I see. You mean that you and your father are different." "Yes. Very different." "I only saw your father that one time when he stopped off to see you. I thought you were very much alike, but you can't tell much from such a short meeting. You didn't look very much like him, but you had some of the same mannerisms." "He's all business." "Well - you're not all monkey-shines, if it comes to that. When you set your mind to a thing-" "Are you trying to tell me I'm like my father? I'm not. We're very different, outside and inside." "I wouldn't argue that question. I don't know what you're like inside." "Funny you should say that." "Why?" "My brother said that about my father. 'Nobody knows what Father's like inside.' The same words... So you're going to South Africa?" "Unless I change my mind. You know. Last year I wanted to go to Oxford. I expect to be a citizen of the world, and I thought Oxford would give me the right polish. Not to mention the entree that being an Oxford man gives you. I forget why I gave that up. I guess I fell under the influence of Villon. But now I fully intend to make a great fortune in Kimberley, buy a steam yacht and equip it with heavy guns and prey on British shipping. In other words, become a pirate. A freebooter. Then maybe be a sort of Patrick Sarsfield, raise hell in Ireland. Every so often we have to remind the English that they're trespassing." "Do you really think you'll ever do any of this, Ned?" "Well, it takes money." "I meant go to South Africa." "That takes money, too. I won't travel steerage. I may have to spend the rest of this year playing cards with Chatsworth and Davenport. I wish Harbord played cards, but he promised his mother. So he says. I don't believe him for a minute. He just doesn't want to gamble." "How much money have you won from Chatsworth?" "Altogether? I guess about three thousand, but that wasn't all clear profit, as you well know. You took your share of it, and I don't want you to play in May and June, when I open my big final campaign on the Chatsworth bankroll. When you're in the game the others try to play like you, and it's a restraining influence on the betting. Davenport especially. Is your fiancé going to let you play cards?" "Let me play cards? It's not up to her whether I play cards or not. I'd never ask a woman permission to do a thing like that. I'd just go and do it." "Well, good for you, and the best of luck," said Ned O'Byrne. In late winter, following conversations with Lalie and her mother, George arranged to meet Judge Fenstermacher to obtain his consent to the marriage. "You write a good letter, George. I like a good letter. It tells a lot about a man if he can express his thoughts without committing himself too much. But now you want to commit yourself, don't you?" "Yes sir. I wish to ask for Eulalie's hand in marriage." "Yes. Well, you've had this understanding for some time now and both of you have a level head on your shoulders. I'm going to give my consent. I've looked into your background, and I've observed you in my house. Yes, you may marry Eulalie, and I trust you'll both be very happy." "Thank you sir." "Mrs. Fenstermacher informs me that you wish to announce the engagement after you graduate." "Yes sir." "What do you plan to do for a living, George? I know your people are comfortable, but what do you expect to go into?" "I haven't decided. My father and I've been talking, but I haven't decided." "Well, it isn't as if you had to go right out and get a job. Your family are comfortable. You'll wish to make your home in Swedish Haven?" "Oh, yes." "Well, I'm in favor of that. We've always lived here, and I hope David will settle here when he graduates. I want him to study law at my college, Dickinson, and then settle here. Did you ever hear any of your family speak of William L. Lockwood?" "No sir." "Never heard of William L. Lockwood. Well, William L. Lockwood was one of the founders of my college fraternity. Sigma Chi." "Is that so?" "Thomas C. Bell, James P. Caldwell, Daniel W. Cooper, Benjamin P. Runkle, Franklin H. Scobey, Isaac M. Jordan, and William L. Lockwood. They were the founders of Sigma Chi, at Miami University out in Ohio, the year 1855. They were all members of Deke with the exception of Lockwood. I had to memorize all that when I was initiated." "Is that so?" "Be nice if you could trace some connection with William L. Lockwood. That would make you and me fraternity brothers, so to speak. I wish they had Sigma Chi at Princeton. They did have, but then Princeton did away with fraternities. I would have liked David to be a Sigma Chi. Is your father a Mason, George?" "No sir. He's a Zeta Psi." "Well, you don't mention the two together." "Oh, I thought you mentioned Sigma Chi and the Masons." "Not exactly together, though. I guess you did think I was coupling one with the other, so that's my fault, but that's neither here nor there. Your Grandfather Hoffner's a Mason, that I do know." "Is he?" "You didn't know that, George? Yes, you have very good Masonic connections on your mother's side. We'll have to speak about this again sometime. Just now I'm a little worried about David at Princeton. You have these clubs at Princeton, so it isn't as if I could write to the Sigma Chi chapter, but David's told me he doesn't expect to join a club. George, now that you're coming in the family, I wish you'd have a talk with David, make him see how important it is to mix with people." "It's a ticklish subject, Judge." "Ticklish subject? How so?" "Well, I belong to a club-' "I know you do. One of the best, I'm told." "Thank you. But if I talk to David about the advantages of joining a club, he may get it in his head that I'm trying to get him to join my club." "Well, what if he does? I'd be satisfied to have my son and my son-in-law in the same club. If you can't both be Sigma Chi's." "But I don't speak for my club, Judge. I don't decide who gets invited to join. I can blackball somebody, but that doesn't mean I can invite somebody. You know how these things work." "Of course I do. But this club you belong to is only a club, not a secret organization like Sigma Chi, or the Masons. It's just a club." "We have secrets, just the same as if we were Alpha Beta Gamma Delta." "Then what David's been trying to tell me is that you're not going to invite him. It isn't that he doesn't want to join. Do you realize what you're doing to the boy? Do you realize that three of his friends from Mercersburg are sure to be invited to clubs, and he isn't?" "They can't be sure, his friends. They won't know till the last minute." Judge Fenstermacher tapped his heel on the carpet, ran his fingers around his neck between skin and collar. He got up and walked to the window, then came back and stood before George Lockwood. "Let me hear it from you in plain language. You ask permission to marry my daughter, but you're doing nothing to help her young brother." "Judge, I've done all I could to help David." "All you could? What have you done? Sat idly by while other young pipsqueaks keep him out of your own club. Do you think any member of my family would ever set foot in such a place after that? Do you think Eulalie would visit your club? Or I? Or Mrs. Fenstermacher?" "I'm sorry, Judge. I don't know. I only know that I've been trying for nearly a year to get David invited to our club. But I'm not the one that decides. It's a committee." "Damn your committee!" "He may be invited to join someplace else." "I don't want him to join someplace else. I want to know whether my prospective son-in-law has any standing with his friends. If not, then I don't want him for a son-in-law." "Well, then I guess that's that." "What do you mean, that's that?" "I'll have to tell Lalie that you've turned me down." The meeting had taken longer than was expected by Lalie and her mother, who were waiting in the sitting-room, and when George Lockwood joined them their nervously expectant smiles vanished. "What happened?" said Lalie. "He says to wait? Is that it?" said Mrs. Fenstermacher. "He thinks I should have got David into my club." "Oh, dear me. I was hoping that wouldn't come up. David understands, but I knew Judge wouldn't. Oh, dear." Lalie went into his outstretched arms. "Don't cry," he said. He turned to her mother. "I'm over twenty-one, Mrs. Fenstermacher. You know that. And Lalie will soon be." "Yes, but don't do anything rash." "It won't be rash," said George Lockwood. "I can support her. I'm very well off." "It isn't that, George. Let me deal with Judge." It was a Sunday. They had all been to church, but they had not yet sat down to the large Sunday dinner that always followed attendance at divine service. Now they heard the judge's deep voice. "Bessie, come here," he was calling, "You two stay here," said Bessie Fenstermacher. George Lockwood never knew what was said between the judge and his wife. He sat with Lalie in the sitting-room for fifteen minutes behind the rarely closed doors. They comforted each other with the words and sentences of love, with kisses and tears and the common anger. Then there was a knock on the door, the door was opened, and Bessie Fenstermacher, half-smiling, said to them: "It's all right. Just say nothing. Pretend like nothing happened. Dinner's ready." "Mama, what did you tell him?" said Lalie. "I talked to him. Don't ask me any more questions. Dinner's ready," said Bessie Fenstermacher. She rested her hand on George's arm. "You have sense, George." "All right, Mrs. Fenstermacher." "He's a judge, remember. He has to be right, so don't put him in the wrong. Be polite, like nothing happened." "I'll do my best." There were only the four of them for dinner. The judge stood up while carving the roast chicken, which gave him something to do. "George, can I give you light or dark?" "I like the white," said George Lockwood. "I see you have plenty of sweet marjoram in the filling, Bessie," said the judge. "Maybe George doesn't like so much sweet marjoram?" "Yes, I do. I like it. "Well, that's lucky. Lalie, you pass George his plate please. And George, help yourself to the mashed and sweets. The gravy's there in front of you. Lalie, you want the second joint?" The conversation at the beginning was on the topic of food, always a reliable and inexhaustible topic among the Pennsylvania Dutch. The meal consisted of the large main course and dessert of hot mince pie and ice cream. George and the judge drank coffee with their meal, the women drank water. But though there were only the two courses, the amount of food was prodigious. Meat, candied sweet potatoes, mashed white potatoes, red beets, stewed corn, mashed turnips, creamed onions, and endive in olive oil, with side dishes of cranberries and a slaw. Thought was put away while the two men and two women concentrated on emptying their platters, and conversation never got