The Lockwood Concern (36 page)

said George Lockwood. Hibbard did as instructed and the wall panel rose, revealing the entrance to the hidden stairway. "Great!" said Hibbard. "Where does this go?" "Upstairs, to a closet in my bedroom, or down to the cellar." "Oh, what fun! And nobody knows about it? What about your carpenters?" "Italians, expert craftsmen imported from New York. They had to know, but it isn't information that will ever do them any good." "Ideally, of course, you would have had them murdered and their bodies sewed up in a sock and dropped in the Grand Canal." "Ideally, but our local canal wouldn't be suitable." "And other objections, too. What do you use the stairway for?" "I haven't found any use for it as yet. I'm not even sure why I had it put in." "Your servants don't know about it, of course?" "Not even my wife knows about it." "But now I do," said Hibbard. "Can you close the panel from the inside?" "Oh, yes. And the gargoyle turns back to normal position." "Do you know what it makes me think of?" said Hibbard. "'What?" "Our boxes at St. Bartholomew's." "That's exactly where the idea started. When I was at school, I had a box, just like everyone else. But my box was different. I had an old Pennsylvania Dutch carpenter put a false bottom in my box. I kept money in it." "Against all rules," said Hibbard. "Yes. But I had cash all the time I was at St. Bartholomew's. As you see, I've always been of a very secretive nature." "Well, now I'll tell you something, Mr. Lockwood. I did the same thing. That is, I had a cache of cash all the time I was at school. Not in my box. When you were there, you weren't allowed to have any money at all. They of course relaxed that rule somewhat, but we were never allowed more than a dollar and a half a week. I didn't like that rule, so I disobeyed it for six years." "Where did you hide yours?" "I changed hiding places. One year I had twenty one-dollar bills in old bound volumes of the Congressional Record. Another time I kept my money in a bird-house, in a tree back of the old boiler house. I tacked wire screen on the hole to make sure no birds would take up residence in it. Another time I put the money in a Prince Albert tobacco tin and hid it behind the bulletin board in the boathouse, but someone found it. Twenty-five dollars. Then my master stroke. The cleverest bit of deception I ever accomplished. I put the money in an envelope, sealed the envelope, no name on the outside, and just left it in my pigeonhole in the mailbox. Anybody could have taken it away, but nobody ever did. It never aroused anybody's curiosity. Just a plain, cheap envelope. If it had had my name on it, or any name, it probably would have been a temptation. But it was so uninteresting that nobody ever took it. At least that's the way I doped it out." "Was clever," said George Lockwood. "Why do you suppose we went to so much trouble? There was nothing to spend the money on, without becoming conspicuous, even in your day." "Oh, I know why I did it. It may not be your reason, but mine was to outsmart everybody, the masters and my schoolmates." George nodded. "That was mine." "Our boxes satisfied our need for privacy. But some of us needed more than privacy." "What did we need? What did you need?" said George. "Privacy beyond privacy. Some boys had a hard time taking a leak when other boys were present. That was never my trouble. But I always had to have something that was particularly, especially my own. At school, it was my hidden treasure." "And at college?" "My flat, the same one I have now. The difference being that at Harvard my family never knew I had it. Now, of course, they do, but it's still mine. There's not one thing in it belongs to anyone else or that was given me by someone else. When I go there, I can shut out the rest of the world." "Not that you always do," said George. "No. It's had a lot of visitors, but they all have to go away. I lent it to my brother and his lady friend, and I felt they desecrated it. But then the careless young lady left a cigarette burning and somehow or other the evil spirits were exorcised. I bought the building a year or two ago and my next move will be to buy the houses on either side." "So you don't have to lease the apartments to anyone you don't know." "On the contrary. I don't lease to anyone I do know. Socially, that is. My tenants are all strangers, and naturally they don't know I'm the owner. That's the way it's going to stay." "A kingdom of your own, on Beacon Hill," said George. "Eventually, when I buy the houses in back of mine, so that nobody'll be able to see in," said Hibbard. "But I have no secret passageway. You've given me an idea." "My little secret is modest compared to yours," said George. "I daresay you'll eventually own a whole city block." "Possibly. But it isn't the size of the secret. Your passageway does as much for you as my houses will for me." George nodded. "Yes," he said. "I've gotten very fond of this house in a very short time. It already has a character that most houses take years acquiring. I stayed with it every step of the way, when I was building it, and just before we were ready to move in, there was a fatal accident here." He told briefly the story of the boy impaled on the stone wall. "I'm glad to see you're not superstitious about it," said Hibbard. "Not in the least," said George. "Unless you consider an omen superstitious. Perhaps it is." "What is the omen?" "The omen is this: I built that wall to keep people out, just as my grandfather once did to protect himself from people who had threatened his life. That's too long a story to go into now, but he was threatened. So the idea of a wall around a Lockwood house, my Lockwood house, was by way of being a family tradition. My wall was no more popular than my grandfather's was in his time, by the way. In fact, this entire establishment was unpopular. I bought a farm, for instance, from a fellow whose family had farmed here for over a century, and I tore down everything. House, barns, et cetera, and the farmer moved out of the county. Then I put up my wall, more or less to serve notice on my neighbors and the people in town, and put the spikes in the wall. The first time we had a trespasser, he lost his life. How do you, as a Christer, feel about that?" "That's hard to say. You had nothing to do with the boy's being killed." "I ordered the spikes in the wall," said George. "Well, I'm not in any position to criticize. I'm going to some lengths to keep people out of my life, aren't I? And I've always liked the idea of having a moat around a castle. I know a very religious man who has a small island in Maine, and I can just hear him piously criticizing you for putting spikes in your wall. But he gets his privacy by surrounding himself with the Atlantic Ocean. It'd take a very good swimmer to get there from the mainland. In fact, not everybody can get there by boat. I'll have to withhold any moral judgment on your wall. As long as you're not too critical of my little kingdom on Beacon Hill." "How would you like to postpone your visit to Bayard Donaldson and spend the night here?" said George. "Thank you, sir. I wish I could. I truly wish I could. Unfortunately it's not Mr. Donaldson but Mr. Mackie who's going to be my host tonight, and he's sailing for Europe the day after tomorrow. He stretched a point to see me tonight." "In that case, you can't get out of it." "Duty first," said Hibbard. "Oh, he's a very entertaining fellow, Mackie. You'll be brought up to date on the latest dirty limericks, and those Scranton people go in for strenuous hospitality. Where do you go from there?" "Tomorrow night I'll be at the Fort Orange Club in Albany, a small dinner for the alumni in that region. Driving home the next day, and putting my car in the shop for a complete overhaul. When this is over I'll need one myself." "I should think so," said George. "What will you do to recuperate?" "As a matter of fact, I'm going to sequester myself in my flat in Chestnut Street. Take a week off and see no one." "I was hoping you'd say that," said George. "The human race can be much too companionable. I wish I had a greater fondness for animals, but they can be a bore, too." "Well, I've enjoyed our misanthropic luncheon, Mr. Lockwood. It's been one of the bright spots on my tour." "I hope you mean that," said George. "Oh, I do. Mark my words, when I say thank-you, I mean thank-you, but when I say I've enjoyed myself I mean a great deal more." "Say that again," said George. "I just wanted to hear that rich Boston accent pronouncing 'mark my words.'" "Mark my words? Get a State of Maine native to pronounce 'Hershey bar.' Mark my words, the Hershey bars at the Parker House can't be beat. How was that?" "It takes me back to St. Bartholomew's." "Speaking of which, I am putting you down for ten thousand. You'll be getting a pledge card in due course. Is that satisfactory?" "Pending the latest developments from Groton. Before you go I'd like to have you meet my wife," said George. He went to the house telephone on the wall, pushed one of the buttons, and spoke. "My dear, Mr. Hibbard is just about to leave. Can you come down and say hello?... Thank you...She'll be right down." Geraldine Lockwood appeared in a Fortuny gown. "I was sure you gentlemen wanted to be left alone," she said. "Now I'll never forgive Mr. Lockwood for keeping you out of sight. Isn't that a Fortuny gown?" "Yes, it is," said Geraldine. "How the devil would you know that?" said George. "Oh, I have other sides to me," said Hibbard. "As a matter of fact, I picked up that information from my sister-in-law. She wears them all the time. Different ones." "Yes, they're nice for wearing at home," said Geraldine. "Well, I hate to interrupt this fashion discussion, but if you're driving to Scranton, I understand there's a long detour between Hazleton and Wilkes-Barre, and you're not going to make very good time. Will you let me know if you're ever in this neighborhood again, and we can put you up for the night," said George. "I most certainly will," said Hibbard. George Lockwood helped him on with his topcoat. The men shook hands. Hibbard picked up his green felt bag. The Lockwoods saw him to his car and he was off. "A charming, very attractive young man," said George. "Didn't you think so?" "I didn't see him long enough to get any impression," said Geraldine. "Oh, really? Watching the two of you, I thought I detected a spark of something or other." "If there was any, you misinterpreted it," she said. "At least on my part. I was the opposite of attracted to him." "Repelled?" "Maybe not as strong as that, but I wasn't attracted to him." "Why not?" "He's a sneak," she said. "A sneak? How on earth could you tell that? That's a preposterous thing to say, when you weren't in his company five minutes." "I'm telling you what I thought," she said. "Did I miss something? My back was only turned for a few seconds." "He didn't pinch me, if that's what you mean. But he would. He has that look. Maybe that's what you called a spark. But I'll bet I know how he dances." "This is monstrous, Geraldine," said George. "In two hours the better I got to know him, the more I began to believe that he and I had a lot in common." "Well, I know how you dance," she said. "If my partner happens to like to dance that way," he said. "It's easy to blame the woman," she said. "Well, I have some letters to write." "Who, to?" "What?" "These letters you have to write. Whom are they to? You always use that excuse, letters to write, but you don't mail two letters a week." "How do you know I don't smuggle them out and post them in town?" "Well, you could, of course. But do you?" "I'm going to let you worry about that. It'll give you something to occupy your busy mind." He smiled faintly. "Mark my words, I shall do that very thing. All right, go write your mythical letters. I'm driving in to town. Is there anything you want?" "From town? No. Unless you'd care to stop in at Mrs. Mohler's and ask her if my embroidery hoops have arrived." "Embroidery hoops?" "They've taken it up," she said. "Have you really? Mrs. Mohler teaching you?" "She said she would." "I'd rather not, if you don't mind. You do as you please, but I don't care to set foot in Mrs. Mohler's shop. She's a gossip, a busybody. She had a lot to say about Agnes and me when Agnes was sick." "Yes, I suppose she did," said Geraldine. "Oh, you knew that?" "I surmised it." "Surmised it from what?" "Does it matter? She promised to teach me embroidery, and I'm told she's the best in town. I don't encourage her gossip but I must have something to do." "How many times have I heard that?" said George. "You'll go on hearing it till I find something," she said. He had got his hat and topcoat out of a closet. Now he sat down and folded the coat over his lap and dangled the hat in his thumb and forefinger. "Before you go upstairs to write those pressing letters, could you spare a minute?" She replied by taking a chair. "When you were married to Buckmaster, you did a lot of entertaining. You did a certain amount of traveling, and visiting your friends, having them visit you. But since you've been married to me you haven't made any effort to do more than the absolute minimum of entertaining. Granted there's nobody much in Swedish Haven, but there's plenty of activity in Gibbsville, as much as anyone could want. You dismiss the Gibbsville people as small-town hicks, and you pick out the ones that are hicks to bolster your argument. But you know full well that the town has more than its share of men and women that went to the best schools and have as good social connections as the people you and Buckmaster used to see. Gibbsville has its Rotarians, but it also has its Ivy Club people and whatever else you want to name. It isn't Long Island, it isn't the Philadelphia Main Line, but I don't seem to recall that you and Buckmaster cut a very fancy figure in those circles. Hardly anybody in Gibbsville goes to Palm Beach, but they do go to Orlando, and in the summer to Fisher's Island and Mount Desert, by preference. In London they stay at Brown's Hotel, by preference and by habit. So your argument that they're small-town hicks doesn't stand up. It's just that you aren't willing to make the effort." "You never did, with Agnes," she said. "Not very much, but Agnes had never been socially inclined, and you had. Also, Agnes was a full-fledged member of the coal region hierarchy, and you came here a stranger. You had to make some effort, and you refused to. You won't play golf, you won't even play bridge, and when you've been invited to play golf or bridge you've acted as though you'd been asked to join the ladies auxiliary of one of the fire companies. Those people are better than that, and they're not your inferiors, Geraldine. Some of them have more money than I have or Buckmaster had, and most of them come from families that go back two or three hundred years. Old
Pennsylvania towns named for their ancestors. Old New England towns, too, because not all of them are old Pennsylvania. A hundred years ago or more a lot of them came down from Connecticut and Massachusetts. You don't know anything about the local history, because you don't care to." "I'm not interested in any history," she said. "Well, then, tell me what you are interested in? If you showed any interest in anything, I'd encourage it. You bought two expensive vases that caught your eye, and I was rather hopeful that at last I had some clue to the sort of thing you were interested in. But no. You pass them fifty times a day and never look at them. You've never mentioned them since they were put in place. In fact, a couple of months ago I changed their places. They don't match exactly, and I wanted to see if you'd become aware of that, but you hadn't." "I was told they did match," she said. "They're a pair, but one of the dragons faces to the right and the dragon on the other vase faces to the left." "Oh, I knew that for heaven's sake," she said. "But you didn't know I'd changed their position," he said. "Well, what if I didn't? Good Lord, I have other things to think about." "What?" he said. "I knew I shouldn't have said that." "Well, you did say it, and I've asked you what the things are that you have to think about? And don't tell me Mrs. Mohler's embroidery lessons." "I won't," she said. "All right, what?" "I think about you," she said. "Tenderly, of course." "Not anymore," she said. She sat up straight. "I'm afraid of you." "Afraid of me?" "Not physically. But I've become afraid of what you're doing to me. Mentally I'm not your equal, and I've always known that. I knew I had a better mind than Howard's." "You had a mind, therefore it had to be better than whatever he has that passes for a mind." "But one of the things that attracted me to you was your mind. From the very beginning you were able to exert some kind of a mental control over me. The other men I've known were attracted to me. Not for my mind, of course. Anything but. But when I met you, conditions were reversed. The physical attraction was there, but secondary. No man had ever twisted around everything I said, even the simplest things. First it was a sort of teasing me, making little jokes about things I said. But then you began to change my whole mental outlook." "Allow me to correct you. You had no mental outlook. I may have encouraged you to create one." "Well, why did you?" she said. "Because I was attracted to you physically." "Oh, I knew that, but why did you have to-" "I didn't have to. I wanted to," he said. "I was determined to marry you, not just to have an affair with you. At my age a man ought to know what he wants in a woman. Casual affairs at my age can be had with young girls, and should be. But if you find a woman that's physically attractive, a mature woman, you ought to have the good sense to get more out of her than two or three nights in bed with her. You can know all about a young girl in two or three nights, if only because she is a young girl and has so little else to offer. But a reasonably mature woman, who's been going to bed with a man or men for twenty years, more or less, she's gone beyond the kindergarten stage and the nervous self-consciousness of the young." "Tell me about Agnes," said Geraldine. "No, I won't tell you about Agnes," he said. "All right, I will tell you about Agnes, enough for the purpose of this discussion. She had a first-rate mind, but she thought fucking was a sin. She was a hot little piece, but it was all for herself. She believed that the less pleasure you gave the man, the less sinful she was." "How do you know that?" "From the hundreds of times she made me rape her." "Hundreds of times?" "Every time. She wasn't very voluptuous. She wasn't at all voluptuous. Two little swellings instead of breasts, that she was ashamed of. So that when I went to bed with her she wanted no preliminaries. Force it into her as far as it would go, and get it over with. Then when I was through it was just the beginning for her. I hated her. And she hated me." "Why didn't you get a divorce?" "I didn't want a divorce. Instead of that, I had other women." "You would have anyway," said Geraldine. "Undoubtedly. At least Agnes kept me from ever having a guilty conscience, I'll say that for her." "I begin to understand something about you and me," she said. "Pray tell me, what is that?" "You said that Agnes had a first-rate mind." "She had," he said. "Then what you wanted from me was a mind that you could have control over. The mature woman with the kindergarten mind." "You're over-modest, my dear," he said. "There you're wrong, George. I haven't got a first-rate mind, and I know it. But I am that mature woman, and I want to tell you something. My second-rate mind sees through you. I know a lot about men. Men give themselves away in bed." "Do I? Yes, I'm sure I do," he said. "Everywhere else, your mind makes you my superior. But not when you take your clothes off." "No? Then does that mean you've stopped being afraid of me?" "No, I'm still afraid of what you can do to me the rest of the time." "What do you think I want to do to you?" "Get even with women for what Agnes did to you," she said. "That, my dear, is brilliant. You haven't been reading any books on sex, have you?" "I don't have to read books on sex. The ones I did read didn't tell me anything I hadn't found out for myself. From men. Old stuff as the kids say nowadays." "Old stuff, except when it happens to you," said George. "You may have read about kissing when you were a little girl, but the first time a boy really kissed you, it wasn't old stuff, was it?" "The first time I was really kissed it wasn't a boy. It was a grown man, and he had his hand up my leg." "Oh, everything all at once," he said. "Not everything. I was still a virgin when I married Howard. But I knew what to expect." "Did he?" "He was quite surprised." "How?" "That I was a virgin. "And was he pleased?" "Of course he was pleased." "Yes, we all are," said George. "And I wonder why. After all, a gentleman doesn't return from his honeymoon and rush to his club and say to the fellows, 'Guess what! Susie had her cherry.' " "You're only speaking of gentlemen," she said. "Well, why speak of the others? You've certainly found out by this time that I'm a complete snob. I have to be. My grandson won't have to be, but I do." "Your grandson but not your son?" "My son is dead." "What?" "Don't take me so literally. He's very much alive and already a millionaire, according to young Hibbard. But he's out of my life and apparently never coming back into it. He's nouveau-riche. A self-made man, with a Rolls-Royce car and hobnail boots. He can go fuck himself, the little prick." "What's happened? I've never heard you carry on like this," she said. "Oh, go to hell," said George Lockwood. He rose suddenly and left the house, and in a moment she heard the Packard's deep hum in the driveway and the slag of the roadbed being spattered against the wall. George Lockwood was not himself. George Lockwood believed that the secret of getting the most out of life was in getting the most out of people, and the secret of getting the most out of people was not to spend too much time with any individual at a stretch. No man or woman could be stimulating for days on end. Women, with their power to provide the most stimulating experience in life, were prevented by the physical nature of the male from maintaining their power after passion was spent. The male was obliged to retire until his vitality was replenished, a condition that sometimes had been speeded up by changing to another female. In any case he had been with Geraldine too long. He returned from Swedish Haven in a better mood which, however, was created by his decision to get away for a few days and not by the mere passing of his irritability. After all, the irritability had been brought on by thoughts of his son more than by impatience with Geraldine. Nevertheless Geraldine had annoyed him, and it would be a relief to spend a few days in New York without her. In Swedish Haven therefore he went to the telephone booth in the railway station and made a long distance call to his brother in New York. "I have no time to talk to you now, but I want you to call me at home at seven o'clock this evening," he said. "Is there anything wrong?" said Penrose Lockwood. "Nothing wrong. Just call me at seven, when I'll have more time to talk." Promptly at seven, as George and Geraldine were on their way in to dinner, the maid told George that Mr. Penrose Lockwood was on the wire and wished to speak to him. "Oh, Christ," said George. "Well, you go on in, Geraldine. I'll be with you in a minute." "Your soup'll get cold," said Geraldine. "There must be some way to keep it warm," said George. "Oh, all right," she said. George took the call in his study, leaving the door wide open if Geraldine cared to listen. "Yes, Pen. We were just sitting down to dinner." "What did you want to talk to me about?" said Pen. "About the candy business. Those advertising people, eh?" "You're talking gibberish," said Pen. "I'm quite aware of that. All right, then. I'll take the sleeper and I'll see you at the office in the morning. Give my love to Wilma. Thank you for calling." He hung up and went to the dining room. "I have to go to New York tonight. The advertising people have left a lot of stuff at the office, and you know Pen. He always wants to do the right thing. Didn't know whether the stuff was important or not, although as a matter of fact in this case it is. Sent his love." "I imagine he has a lot to spare, married to Wilma." "Would you mind driving me to the station? Ten o'clock," said George. "Oh, really, now. Andrew hasn't had anything to do all day." "Thought you might like some fresh air." "I don't like to drive alone at night. Change my clothes to go out, and back again when I get home. And that's when I begin to get good reception on the radio. Why inconvenience me?" "Please forget all about it," said George. It rather pleased him that he could leave in a mood of righteous disappointment. His mind was already made up as to the purpose of his trip to New York, but Geraldine's refusal to take him to the train set him free. He busied himself alone until train time, and when Andrew brought the car around, George called his goodbye upstairs to Geraldine, who was having trouble getting Cincinnati on the Atwater Kent. If she responded to his farewell, he did not hear her. The sleeper ended its journey at Jersey City and he took the ferry across the river and went directly to his office. It was too early for Pen to be there, but the members of the office staff were reporting for work. To George's surprise, one of the early arrivals was Marian Strademyer. She was the real reason for his trip to the city, but he had half expected that she might take advantage of her relationship with Pen to assume certain small privileges, such as coming in late. She looked fresh and crisp, suitably businesslike and yet wholly feminine, and her femininity convinced him that he had obeyed an impulse that was timely in Swedish Haven and going to be timely in New York. She was wearing a dress made of a material that resembled blue serge, with a narrow leather belt at the waist and a white collar. It had almost the severity of a nun's habit; a string of beads could have dangled from the leather belt, and the white collar could have been stretched into one of those starched bibs that nuns wore. But George Lockwood had never looked upon nuns as sexless women. That brothel in Paris where the inmates wore nuns' habits had always seemed to George to require a degree of self-deception that was beneath his dignity; on the other hand, he had occasionally seen a genuine young nun whose complacent innocence he would gladly have investigated. "We weren't expecting you till the 29th," said Marian Strademyer. "No, something came up, and I came in on the sleeper." "Have you had breakfast? Could I send down to the Savarin?" "Had breakfast in the station restaurant, thanks. Had a shave over there, too. The train gets in awfully early. How have you been?" "Oh, just about as usual, I guess," she said. "Are you happy? You seem so," he said. "Happy? That's something I never ask myself, especially at half past nine in the morning," she said. "Well, if you give the impression of being happy at that hour, then you must be," said George. "Oh, I guess that's because I'm healthy." "Healthy, and young." "Don't talk as if you were some eighty-year-old invalid," she said. "Oh, but I just came from the barbershop. The man's beauty parlor," he said. "What time do you expect my brother?" "Usually a little after ten, and he didn't say anything when he left last night, so I guess hell be in in about a half an hour or so." "Then I'll wait for him. I expect to be in and out of here all day. "Will you need someone to take dictation? I can do it, or if you're going to need someone all day, I'll give you one of the other girls. We weren't expecting you till the 29th." "Let's see how it works out. I'll need someone tomorrow, but possibly not today." "Very well," she said, and left; but as she was leaving, with her back turned toward him, there was a hesitancy in her step that he took for a sign of reluctance to leave. Their relationship, he knew, had been replenished; his impulse had been based on sure instinct. He filled in the time with some telephone calls to Charley Bohm, to Ringwall at the advertising agency, to the Carstairs for a room reservation. He was talking to the hotel when Pen entered his office. "Hello, brother," said George. "Good morning," said Pen. "What's all the mystery about?" "Sit down," said George. "I just decided I wanted to get away from Geraldine for a few days." "You're the damnedest man I ever heard of. You couldn't just pack a bag and come to New York, the way any normal human being would." "There are subtleties that you don't understand. How is Wilma?" "Oh, she's all right." "But not all right. How are you?" "How am I? What do you mean, how am I?" "Well, that answer tells me that things aren't going very well for you." "We're making money. If everything was as easy as that," said Pen. "You're having trouble with your girl." "I'd rather talk about that some other time - if I have to talk about it at all, which I suppose I do." "Talk about it now, for Christ's sake." "Let me go have a look at the ticker first. I want to see what something opened at. This is something of mine, a tip I got a couple of days ago." He went out to the large office and stood at the stock ticker, with the tape resting on his hand. George could see him nod and drop the tape into the tall basket. "Okay?" said George. Pen nodded more vigorously. "As predicted. You don't want to know what it is, do you? I'll tell you if you want to know, but you have to stay out