The Lockwood Concern (30 page)

children, naughty children, and you can't reason with them because when you try to they look at you with that half smile as though they considered you hopelessly - what's that French word, Agnes?" "Naive." "Naive. I've tried to be patient with them, the way you would be with a child, and I used to be very fond of them. For instance, you can leave money lying around and they'll never touch a cent of it. And when we've had illness in the family they've been just as worried and attentive as they would be about one of their own." "Mrs. Ryan when Agnes had that croup," said Bessie Wynne. "I remember Mrs. Ryan. She wrapped a flannel thing around my neck, and covered my chest with some sticky stuff." "Now how on earth do you remember that? You were only three years old," said Bessie Wynne. "It smelled like oatmeal." "I think it was oatmeal," said Bessie Wynne. "An oatmeal poultice." "At times like that they can be kindness itself," said Theron Wynne. "But we were young then, and not much better off than they were. As soon as I began to get somewhere with the Company - how could anybody in his right mind blame Cousin Tom for hanging those desperadoes? They were tried in a court of law, and convicted." "I don't know," said George Lockwood. "But I wasn't shocked. I mean, even if your cousin did have them hanged, from all I've ever heard about the Mollie Maguires they deserved it. I'm sure my grandfather would have given them just as good as they sent. You have to protect what's yours or people like that will take it away from you." "I see what you're aiming at," said Theron Wynne. "Cousin Tom Wynne and your grandfather, the similarity. Well - we'll never know. Cousin Tom never shot anyone that I know of, but he always goes armed." "You used to too, Father," said Agnes Wynne. "When I was in the paymaster's office." "Would you have shot a holdup man?" said Agnes Wynne. "In self-defense." "In defense of the payroll?" said George Lockwood. Theron Wynne smiled. "You know, every time we took a pay to one of the collieries I'd ask myself that question. We had these heavy tin boxes with the cash in them, bills and coins, nothing larger than a twenty-dollar bill, of course, and not many of them, I assure you. So it was quite a lot of cash money, as much as $3000 in one pay, and very inviting to a bandit, I should think. We'd go by train to the larger collieries and stay in the pay car, which had iron bars on the doors and windows. But when we were paying one of the smaller collieries we'd be met at the station by a mule team drawing the colliery ambulance and we'd get in that and ride to the colliery office. There'd be three, four, five of us, depending on the size of the payroll, and we'd all have shotguns. And I'd sit there with my sawed-off shotgun across my lap and wonder what I'd do if we were held up. I guess I would have done whatever the other men did. It would have been a dreadful thing to shoot a man with one of those shotguns. There wouldn't have been much left of him at close range, and I guess that's what kept them from trying to rob us. You didn't have to take aim with one of those guns. Just point the gun in their direction and pull the trigger. I don't know, I guess I'd have shot a highwayman. And answering your question, yes. In defense of the payroll. In self-defense, but also in defense of the payroll, because in that case it would have been one and the same. A bandit wouldn't be attacking the payroll. He'd be attacking me to get at the payroll, so whether I defended myself or the money in those tin boxes, who's to say? In either case the man would have been just as dead whether I was defending myself or the Company funds. I was glad when I was taken off the pay crew." "So was I," said Bessie Wynne. "Were you, my dear? You never said anything." "Didn't want you to know how worried I'd been, because after all they might have put you back on the pay crew." "Well, now isn't that strange, that you had a secret worry that I never knew about till this minute?" "I was never worried," said Agnes Wynne. "You weren't?" said her father. "No, I thought the gun was just there for show. I never for a minute thought you'd have to shoot anyone. And I certainly never thought anyone would shoot you." "We have several payrolls, none as large as $3000, but I'd shoot a holdup man if he didn't shoot me first. Not that I ever do the actual paying, but the payrolls are all kept in our office. We have one main office for all of my father's business ventures, and our bookkeepers handle all our accounting there. Now that I think of it, we often do have $3000 in the vault, and it's in small bills and coins. I have a revolver in my desk drawer, and so does my father, and I wouldn't hesitate to shoot a man that tried to rob us. Neither would my father. Of course you might say it's in the blood." He smiled wryly, defiantly. "I would never shoot a man over $3000," said Agnes Wynne. "I'd tell him to take the money and be gone." "Would you send for the police?" said George Lockwood. "Of course I'd send for the police." "Then I don't see what the difference is, really. The difference is shooting the man yourself or getting the police to do it for you. But philosophically there's no difference at all, is there, Mr. Wynne?" "Philosophically? No, I suppose not. But we mustn't argue philosophically with the fair sex." "Oh, come now, Theron," said Bessie Wynne. "Yes, Father, you don't have to treat us like bird-brains," said Agnes Wynne. "There's nothing wrong with your brains, ladies. In some respects you're the equal or even the superior of men when it comes to brainwork," said Theron Wynne. "However, you do allow your emotions and sentiment to confuse the issue sometimes, don't you agree, Mr. Lockwood?" "I'm afraid to answer that truthfully, I've had such an enjoyable visit. And I have to go now, and I don't want to leave an unfavorable impression. Thank you very much, Mrs. Wynne. Miss Wynne. Mr. Wynne tells me you're going to be away through the holidays. By any good fortune are you planning to attend the Gibbsville Assembly?" "How did you know? Yes, I am." "Delightful. This is my first year as a full-fledged member, and that makes me, in a manner of speaking, your host, or one of them." George Lockwood went away pleased with the outcome of the visit to the Wynnes'. If the conversation had been spirited, to the point of controversy, they had always managed to get back on safe ground before animosity took over. He was sure that Agnes Wynne was more taken with him than she had ever been before; she had actually smiled in an intelligent and friendly fashion when he left.

As a full-fledged member of the Gibbsville Assembly he was expected to pay his share of the deficit, if any, and to serve on the floor committee for the first two years. The deficit never had amounted to more than twelve dollars per member, and the ball usually made a small profit which was applied to the next year's fund. As a floor committeeman he was expected to wear a purple band across his bosom and to see to it that none of the older ladies was left sitting alone. Floor committeemen did not take their duties seriously after the supper intermission, when the party took on a younger character, partly because the very old went home, and partly because the gentlemen by custom would go to the cloakroom for a nip of whiskey or brandy, neat. Inevitably a few gentlemen went back for more, and by one o'clock the ball was lively, with an hour of music and dancing remaining. George Lockwood had some acquaintance with nearly all the Gibbsville Assembly list, and out-of-town guests immediately stood out. He saw Agnes Wynne immediately on her arrival, and he knew from an earlier inspection of the list that she would be on the arm of Robert Leeds. Leeds was a career man in the mining industry; he belonged to the Wilkes-Barre-Scranton area, at the other end of the anthracite coal fields, but for the time being he was learning the business in Gibbsville, where his family's prestige would not interfere with his training. He was a personable fellow, quite bald at twenty-eight or so, a product of Andover and Yale, and so conscious of the Gibbsville mothers' (and fathers') approval that he had carefully imported an out-of-town girl as a protective measure. To invite a young woman to the Assembly was a very serious matter in Gibbsville, but it was somehow less serious for a Scranton Leeds to invite a Hilltop Wynne. The hopeful Gibbsville parents at least could go on hoping so long as Robert Leeds remained uncommitted locally. George Lockwood made no attempt to dance with Agnes Wynne until after the intermission, when all the dances became "extras," not booked well in advance. "Bob, are you going to let me have the second extra?" said George Lockwood. Leeds looked at his card. "No, but you can have the third." "The third it is," said George Lockwood. "Slave market," said Agnes Wynne. "Someday the day will come when the gentleman has to ask the lady." "Never," said Leeds. "Do you know why? Because the unpopular girls would be left out in the cold. They're the ones that wouldn't stand for it. The men would only dance with the prettier girls. Right, George?" "Except the floor committee. I don't know if you noticed some of the ladies I plodded around with tonight, but now I think I'll take off this ribbon and end my servitude. Miss Wynne, would you care for a purple ribbon, with my compliments? It would go well with your blue-green eyes. No? Bob, would you like a purple ribbon? Entitles you to a dance with old Mrs. Stokes." "Thank you, I have had that pleasure. Not tonight, but on other occasions." "Mrs. Stokes happens to be my hostess and my chaperone, and she's not as ancient as all that." "I only wanted to differentiate between her and young Mrs. Stokes, who happens to be a cousin of mine," said George Lockwood. Later, when he was dancing with Agnes, he said, "It always seems as though we had to not exactly quarrel, but disagree." "Yes." "Have you ever wondered why?" "I don't think I have." "Truly you haven't?" "Here we go, we're on the verge this very second. You doubt my word. You think I have wondered why." "Yes, I do, Agnes." He felt her stiffen to his touch. "You have such very positive reactions to me that anyone as intelligent as you are must wonder about them. I know the reason. You don't like me, you don't think you ought to like me, and you don't want to like me. But something happens when we're together that goes much deeper than liking or not liking." "You were engaged to be married, weren't you?" "Not quite. An understanding." "And the understanding led to a misunderstanding?" "If you want me to tell you all about it, I will. All about it." "I was told that the girl's family were cross because you wouldn't help her brother get into a club. If that's what it was, I'm on your side - for a change." "I'm glad to have you on my side, but in all fairness there were other reasons. But the principal reason, it took me some time to realize, was that we weren't suited to each other. If we had been, the other reasons wouldn't have mattered." "I believe that. I believe that whole-heartedly." "So do I. And it was very fortunate that we broke off, whatever the reason. Because I'd have been married less than a year when I first met you." "Would you?" "Less than a year, a newlywed. And she would have known that I'd fallen head over heels in love with someone else. I'm told women do know that." "You will never fall head over heels in love with anyone, George Lockwood." "How do you know?" "You don't deny that. You only ask me how I know. You'd never let yourself, that's why." "I'm afraid you're right," he said. "And yet as soon as I said that I suddenly feel that I'm in love for the first time in my life. Can you understand that?" "Yes, I can. Because this one true confession sweeps away half truths and insincerity. Yes, I can understand that." "Let's both be truthful with each other, Agnes." "What do you want me to say, that we're in love? All right. I'll say it. We're in love." "And that's the truth?" "Don't start, out by doubting me. And let's not talk any more. Let's dance. I love to dance!" One of the rare sentimental impulses in the lifetime of George Lockwood was to ask Robert Leeds to be an usher at his wedding to Agnes Wynne, and Leeds's elaborately polite refusal nearly led to the breaking of the engagement. "He's a damned, filthy snob," said George Lockwood. "No," said Agnes Wynne. "Bob isn't a snob the way you mean it." "I wonder how far back they can go, the Leeds family, before they come across something they'd rather hide." "I can tell you exactly how far. Bob's uncle, at one time a minister of the gospel, but now dear knows what he is, living out West. Left his wife and three children and an important pastorate in Schenectady. Just disappeared. Although there may have been reasons that were hushed up. No, Bob isn't what you say." "These coal barons. They're all alike, every one of them. Your father doesn't want us to get married because your cousin doesn't approve of the Lockwoods. What right has he? My grandfather killed two men, but how many others did he kill fighting with the Union army? Do they hold that against him? No. They never mention that, because the Wynnes all stayed out of the army. They stayed home and got rich." "George, it wasn't so much what your grandfather did that worries Cousin Tom." "Cousin Tom, Cousin Tom." "Please - let me say this. You must listen." "I'm listening." "You've always thought people held your grandfather against you, and it's true, some people do. But that isn't what has Cousin Tom worried. Oh, I wish I didn't have to say this." "Say it, say it." "Do you know about your father's two sisters? Your aunts?" "Of course I do. They died of consumption, but my father's healthy, and I never showed any signs of it, or my brother or anyone else in our family." "They didn't die of consumption, George." "They died of consumption in the county hospital." "In the county hospital, but it was something else." "Of drink?" "No. Brain fever." "Brain fever? Who made that up? That's a damned lie. They were only - I don't know how old they were, but they had galloping consumption and died of it very young." "Ask your father." "I don't have to ask my father. How else did I know?" "Ask him again. Make him tell you the truth. I'm not afraid of the truth, I'm willing to marry you. But it's not fair to have other people know this and keep you in the dark." "You're willing to marry me? After this accusation maybe I'm not willing to marry you." He left her house and returned to the Hilltop Hotel, although it was early evening. Now that they were engaged to be married it was unthinkable that he would spend the night in the Wynne house, and his visits to her, involving two train rides at awkward hours each way, and a night in the grubby hotel, were a test of his devotion. He was angry at her and at his father, and the next morning, having had to shave in cold water after very little sleep, and to ride in a slow combination freight-and-passenger train to Gibbsville and wait over for the next train to Swedish Haven, he was impatient to attack his father. He went directly from the depot to the Lockwood office, and the morning was almost gone. "Did you have an enjoyable trip?" said Abraham Lockwood. "I've got something I want to talk about. Now." He closed the door of his father's office. "Talk away," said Abraham Lockwood. "Although you might have the politeness to say good-morning. I'm not used to having people storm in my office like a bull in a china shop.". George Lockwood dropped his satchel on the floor. "What did my aunts die of? My Lockwood aunts." "Oh. Somebody's been putting a bug in your ear. Very well, I'll tell you. Your Aunt Rhoda died of the quinsy. Your Aunt Daphne died of obstruction of the intestine." "You always said they died of consumption." "They often say that about people that die in the county hospital. They both died there." "Why are you lying to me? How can you sit there and tell these bland lies when you know I know better?" "Well, what do you know?" "They were both crazy in the head and they didn't have consumption. They were in the Insane, not with the consumptives. "All right They were. I suppose Agnes has broken your engagement." "I wouldn't blame her if she did, the things I said last night But if you'd ever told me the truth I wouldn't have said those things.' Abraham Lockwood was gathering strength, and now he began to fight back. "Sit down, you contemptible pup, and listen to me for a minute. Who are you to come in here and show disrespect to your father? I'll tell you something about yourself. For years you've believed that my sisters, your aunts, died of consumption. Consumption. An incurable disease. You've always known that about your aunts, but twice you've gone ahead and proposed marriage in spite of believing there was consumption in the family. Did you tell that girl in Lebanon that you had two aunts die of consumption? I just bet you didn't. And Agnes Wynne - did you tell her? No. But you were willing to marry those girls without telling them. Now all of a sudden you hear that they didn't die of consumption but were put away for being out of their heads. Which is worse? Consumption, or being mentally unbalanced? Consumption is, and any doctor will tell you. People get over nervous breakdowns, and I could name you ten people right here in town that had them and got over them. But consumption is in the blood." "So is insanity." "Prove it. Prove to me that it's inherited. Do you know how people go insane? They have a certain disease and they go insane. Syphilis. They get scarlet fever and sometimes they go insane. They get overexposed to the sun and they get softening of the brain. Or they aren't delivered right, at birth, and the mother or the midwife or the doctor does something to the skull while it's still soft. There's any number of ways, such as being hit on the head in an accident or thrown from a horse, But it's always either some kind of a pressure on the skull or else some fever sickness." "Then are you going to tell me your sisters caught the syphilis?" said George Lockwood. "Or they both got thrown from their ponies?" Abraham Lockwood now told one of his safest lies. "Your aunts caught the scarlet fever, Rhoda caught it from Daphne, and they never got over it. That happened so long ago, it was before I even married your mother. They nearly died of it, and they would have been better off if they had. They changed overnight from bright healthy children to weak and sickly children. They couldn't keep anything on their stomachs and my mother and father had to watch them wasting away, and not 'only that, but the girls got so they didn't recognize their own parents. Then the next thing was they had to be put away or they'd have done away with themselves. Anything would have been better than what they went through, not to mention my father and mother suffering along with them and unable to do a thing for them. Every doctor we had said the same thing. Brain fever from the scarlet fever, and no hope of a cure. But they both lived for several years, till Rhoda got the quinsy, and Daphne an obstruction of the intestine. You can find proof of that in their death certificates, in the court house, and not a word about brain fever. And if they'd died of brain fever it would have said so, but they didn't. If they'd died of consumption it would have said consumption, too. If the Wynne family want to make an issue of it, you can't deny it that your aunts had brain fever. But it was caused by scarlet fever, and brain fever wasn't the cause of their deaths. Now you can go home and think things over, and I hope when you get through thinking you'll come to the conclusion that a boy owes his father more respect. Go on, George. You've hurt me inside, and I don't feel like eating any dinner today." "I'm sorry, Father. I apologize." George Lockwood carried his father's lie back to Theron Wynne, who could be counted on to relay it to Tom Wynne; and such candor on George's part, which implicitly included candor on the part of Abraham Lockwood, effectively disarmed Tom Wynne. He withdrew his objections to the marriage, and gained a new respect for the Lockwoods. At his insistence (over no strong protests by Theron and Bessie Wynne) the wedding took place at Lake Wynne, and it was a tremendous social event. Not a man in the entire coal industry of the rank of superintendent and above was left off the invitation list, regardless of corporate affiliation. Coal men, railroad men, lumber and powder men, financial men and lawyers, the higher Protestant clergy, two Protestant bishops, one Roman Catholic bishop and two of the monsignori, the governor of the Commonwealth, three state senators and one United States senator, were among the men on Tom Wynne's list. It was tacitly understood that this might be the last opportunity to pay homage to Tom Wynne during his lifetime, and the invitations had the force of a command. On the evening before the wedding there were nine private or chartered Pullman cars in the yards near Lake Wynne, and on the day of the wedding all Wynne workmen, from breaker-boys to colliery superintendents, were given the day off with pay. Nothing to compare with it had ever been seen in the coal region, and Tom Wynne was making certain that any future social event would have Agnes Wynne's wedding to contend with. It was somewhat confusing to the guests on the Lockwood family