The Lockwood Concern (33 page)

George Lockwood she feared none of those cruelties. More time passed before she discovered that what she feared, what she had been fearing, was the very thing she suspected: his infidelity, his desire for other women, the horrible fear that she would lose him to another woman, and the knowledge that she could no longer live without him. At last she discovered the dominant, pervasive truth: she loved him. It was not a good love, not the love she believed existed and had always hoped for, but Agnes Lockwood, secretly proud of her individuality, knew that this was the love for her. Opportunity had come and gone, but the other sweet and dear love had not stayed with her, and this love had stayed. Thereafter she was invulnerable to assault by George Lockwood's infidelity, and when she no longer needed additional proof, when he ceased to be too clever for her, she was on the verge of laughing in his face. Love born of fear, fear born of love. It didn't matter very much. Sweet and dear love would not last anyway with a woman who could love George Lockwood. Here lay a great and important truth for Agnes Lockwood: the fact that she could love George Lockwood and did love him established her individuality. She had always believed in her individuality, that she was perhaps a bit brighter than other girls, that she did not think the way they did (echoing the thoughts they had heard from their parents and teachers), that she did not like all of the same things they liked. And now she had a husband who would not be the man she would choose for her sister, if she had had one, but she had married him and she was content - if often far from serene. He was her partner in the full experience of life, and if he was selfish and neglectful, he was her partner nonetheless. He gave almost nothing of himself, but the discovery that this was so in his relations with her came after her discovery that it was so in his relations with everyone else. He was not, in other words, making any cruel distinction in his treatment of her. He was that way with everybody. As the months and years rolled on she became convinced that the only cruel distinction he made was in his treatment of his other women, whoever they were. Agnes Lockwood acquired an extra sense that informed her that one woman was gone and a new one was taking over; but none of them really took over. She was the continuing one, his wife, and one day she was able to face her jealousy, to admit to it retroactively because it was gone. She was pregnant, in her seventh month, and the doctor had told her it would be safer to suspend sexual relations with her husband. "How long is this going to be?" said George Lockwood. "Well - the doctor says three months, anyway," said Agnes. "Three months!" "Maybe four." "It's due in two." "But I don't know how soon we can start after it's born. The doctor says not so soon if we want to have more children. I can make you feel good without." "That's not the same." "It's all I can do for a while. I'm sorry, George," she said. "I want to, too, you know, but my bust is so sensitive." "I hope they stay the way they are - I don't mean sensitive, but the size they are." "I don't know," she said. "Do you want to go with another woman?" "What other woman?" "Oh, there are that kind of women." "You mean whores?" "Yes, but not just the kind the farm boys go to. There must be places in Reading and Philadelphia. I know there are. I wasn't born yesterday." "What if I went to one of those places? What would you say afterwards?" "You wouldn't have to tell me," she said. "Oh. Then as long as you didn't know, you wouldn't mind so much?" "I'd know, but you wouldn't have to tell me." "You'd know? How could you tell?" "You wouldn't be so restless." "Restless. Is that the way I get?" "Yes," she said. She knew he was thinking, wondering whether his restlessness ever had betrayed him, but in the dark she could not see his face. "Why don't you say something? Are you asleep?" he said. "I was waiting for you to say something," she said. "I was thinking, You wouldn't mind if I went with another woman, and paid her?" "I'd mind, but I wouldn't want to talk about it. I'd consider it something you had to do, because you're a man. That's why there are that kind of women, because men are so weak." "Men are weak?" "Morally weak, yes. Governed by their appetites, willing to cheapen themselves, just to feel good for a few minutes. You wouldn't want to be seen with that kind of woman, but did you ever stop to think what those women think of the men? The lowest kind of woman, I don't care how much you pay her, and the men are willing to get undressed and put their hard things into them. But how do you feel after you come in a woman like that? You don't love her, I'm sure." "Me?" "You've been with those women. You told me that." "Oh, you mean when I was in college." "How could a man be so intimate with a woman he never wanted to be seen with? The most private thing a man can do, and doing it with a woman that does it with dear knows how many other men. For money. Disgusting. But if you have to have that pleasure, go right ahead, George. I get pleasure, too. You know that. But if I can't have the pleasure with my husband, I do without it. You tried to make me want to do it before we were married." "You didn't know it was pleasure then." "How wrong you are. A woman always knows it's going to be pleasure. Much more so than men. It isn't over so soon for a woman, if she cares about the man. And if she doesn't, she's no better than one of your whores. I've never said that word before, but I don't mind saying it now." "I do. I don't like you to talk that way. It's unladylike." "Is it gentlemanly for you to say it? Or do you believe that you can talk and act in ungentlemanly fashion when you feel like it? I must get some sleep now, George. The doctor says I need all the sleep I can get." "I won't sleep." "Well, I'm sorry about that. Goodnight." In the course of the conversation she had convinced herself of the low status of his other women, and had made them contemptible in his eyes without ever getting down to cases. During the next three months she was not certain of his fidelity, but it mattered very little. He would remember all she had said, and she had spoiled it for him, if only until she could once again have him for herself. In all possible ways George Lockwood had been well and thoroughly prepared for his position as head of the family, manager of the family enterprises, and heir to the duties of master of the Lockwood Concern; in all possible ways, that is, save one: his father had never defined the Concern or given it a name. George Lockwood consequently was in the anomalous situation of advancing an undertaking whose existence he knew nothing about. It had no title, no motto, no slogan, no set rules. George Lockwood was vaguely conscious of a purpose behind his father's careful training in business matters, in the advantages and desirability of staying put in Swedish Haven, in the cultivation of an attitude to guide him in his relations with his social and business contacts. His father's latter-day comments on the comparative ease with which money was to be made had sometimes puzzled George Lockwood; but George, who was developing a mind of his own that was not merely a reflection of his father's, came to believe that the old man was attempting to give him confidence. If it was emphasized that to acquire money was not a formidable task for a man of superior intelligence, the man could proceed in a relaxed fashion, at a pace that suited him. Now it was not true that such had been Abraham Lockwood's intention. His purpose had been to train George in a gentlemanly view of money-making; to decelerate, as it were, the son's aptitude. A few of George's schemes had come off surprisingly well, and this pleased his father. It was reassuring to know that the boy had a business head on his shoulders. But the ability to make money, once it had been demonstrated, was no longer the most vital subject in the boy's training. There was money enough, and Abraham Lockwood believed that the fortune would grow untended, in the course of the normal growth of the nation and with the protection provided by a good diversification of investments. The boy liked business, Abraham saw, and therefore could be depended on to make more money than he lost, to increase the size of the fortune so that it would remain outstanding in the neighborhood. With that worry out of the way, Abraham Lockwood could encourage other interests that would be of benefit to the Concern. There was the establishment of a family, there was an infusion of pride in the family position. As to the first, George had obligingly married into the Wynne connection, which would be helpful when his and Agnes's children were older; and as to the second, an awareness of the Lockwood position in Swedish Haven and even in Gibbsville had been helped rather than harmed by Moses Lockwood's record of violent behavior. The country was getting older, but it was still young and raw, and in many living memories a man of action was deeply admired. The war against the Confederates was far from forgotten, the frontiersmen of the Far West were more picturesque than the builders of the railroads. Little Big Horn was only two decades past, and at least Moses Lockwood had not killed in a quarrel over a woman, like Ed Stokes and Jim Fisk. The chief threat to family pride had been the resurrection of the Lockwood sisters, Rhoda and Daphne, and Abraham Lockwood died hating them because their untimely reappearance had made it impossible to be truthful with George. Given time, Abraham Lockwood could have told a mature George the secret of the sisters and advised him on how to dispose of the secret; but there had not been time in which to restore the good relationship of father and son, and without that good relationship Abraham Lockwood could not find the right moment to confide in George the unnamed dream of the Lockwood Concern. ... Nevertheless George Lockwood acted in accordance with the requirements of the mythical Concern and its dead author. Abraham Lockwood had done his job well. "I sometimes think that my father wished he'd stayed in the army," said George Lockwood to Agnes one evening at home. "No, I don't think so. I think he wanted to be a baron." "A baron?" "To have a feudal estate, like an English duke." "Oh, I know what you're thinking of. I know all about that. The land from here to Richterville? He had a plan for that. We worked on that together, but I didn't know you knew about it." "In a burst of confidence one time, he told me." "Really? That must have been toward the end," said George Lockwood. "He wasn't given to talking much about things like that." "He seemed to want to tell me about it," said Agnes Lockwood. "Oh, I'm sure he did. He liked you, and not only because you were my wife." "I don't think he particularly liked me, but I was your wife - and having a baby. Go on, tell me about your father wanting to stay in the army." "Well, he used to tell me about those days. Meeting so many interesting people, foreigners, ambassadors and their wives. He was cut out for that sort of life and I'm sure he was good at it. And yet he chose to come back here to Swedish Haven. Once in a while some festive occasion in Philadelphia. But it must have seemed very humdrum after those years in the capital. It may have had something to do with my grandfather. He was getting on in years and his health. The strange thing is that my father didn't start out to be the kind of man you'd expect to take over responsibilities. He was a gay dog at the University. Mixed with a very fast set." "That's not unusual, for a young man to sow his wild oats and then settle down to responsibilities." "No, I guess not. I seem to've done the same thing. But I always wanted to come back here to live. Always did. I hated New York and I can't say I liked Philadelphia much better. My friends there, in both places, think of me as living on the outskirts of civilization, but to tell you the truth, I think of them - well, when I go to one of the big cities I know just what I want to do, and it's always either to make some money or to spend some." "Sometimes both." "Yes, sometimes both. But always money, in some manner or fashion. Here I walk to and from the office with only a few coppers in my pocket in case I'm accosted by a beggar. But in the big cities money's always on my mind - and in my pocket. The pleasures the cities have to offer are all for sale, can be bought, and that isn't a very nice thought to have in mind when you're visiting. When we visit a friend's house I don't plan ahead on how much it's going to cost me, how much I ought to take with me." "I never thought of it that way, but of course it's all true." "Oh, yes," said George Lockwood. "You're very deep, George." "Well, if I am, I get it from my father. And my grandfather, too, for that matter, although Grandfather wasn't at all like my father. My father didn't often show his true nature to outsiders, but underneath he was very deep. Very deep. True, he had the advantages of a good education and he was never poor. He was more polished, and knew how to get along with people. And yet he'd never let anyone take advantage of him, or become forward with him. He could be very cutting when someone overstepped the bounds. He was a remarkable man. The glass of fashion, even though some people thought it was wasted on Swedish Haven. But he didn't do it for Swedish Haven. To be well groomed, well turned out, fine linen and all that - he did that for himself, his own satisfaction. And always keeping something back. A good appearance, letting people believe that what they saw was all there really was. But always keeping something back, and what he kept back was the real him. So that finally he died without any of us ever knowing him." "You could be talking about yourself," she said. "You have no idea how often, when you talk about your father, you might as well be talking about yourself." "Nonsense," he said. "In fact, sometimes I think of you as - let me begin over again. Sometimes when I think of you and your father, I see you as a later edition of him. Like a book that the author wasn't satisfied with the first time, and years later made a lot of changes, but kept the same book essentially." "What author? Did I change my father, or did my father change me as I got older? You're talking nonsense," he said. "No, I'm not. The trouble with comparisons is we carry them too far. The thing we compare things to doesn't have to be exactly the same as the original thing." "If anybody heard you, they'd think you'd been drinking," he said. "Be fair. You don't like it when I see similarities between you and your father, so you deliberately confuse me. All the same, you are both alike. And the big difference is that you had him to model yourself after,