Barbara Greer

by Stephen Birmingham

  11

  Soft sunlight filtered through upturned Venetian blinds into the small, dark-panelled study at the back of the house. Both windows were raised behind the blinds and a warm breeze blew in, stirring very slightly the heavy curtains. From the desk where he sat, Preston Woodcock could hear, distantly but identifiably, sounds of voices and laughter from the swimming pool, the clatter of the diving board as it pounded against its fulcrum, the noisy splashes into the water. But his attention was fixed on the sheets of paper before him. He wrote slowly, carefully, pausing frequently to re-read what he had written, his lips moving deliberately, forming the words, almost whispering them aloud to himself. Now and then he would lift his pen and draw a thin line through a word or phrase that displeased him, editing, changing bits of punctuation, substituting one word for another, rearranging sentences, circling them, repositioning them with tiny arrows. His expression was thoughtful, frowning, his eyes intent behind the shell-rimmed glasses. At last he put his pen down, scooped up the pages in front of him, squared them with his hands, and stood up. He carried the manuscript to a leather chair, sat down heavily, placed one white-flannelled knee upon the other, and read it through once more.

  As a biographer I should no doubt state now that I am not a writer. When I was a boy my father imposed upon me the stint of reading certain volumes which he felt were worthy: The Complete Works of Mark Twain, the works of Dickens, James Fenimore Cooper and Mr. Stoddard’s Lectures. He also exhorted me to read with regularity the weekly editorials in the Saturday Evening Post. I regret to say that I was not faithful to any of these tasks; had I been, no doubt, my writing ‘style’ would have been improved considerably, and I would have developed a facility with words. For my considerable shortcomings, therefore, I beg the reader’s kind indulgence with the hope that the story of my father’s life will prove absorbing enough to hold the reader’s interest, though it be written without art.

  Men who knew my father in his business life considered him to be an austere person, difficult to know, a man who seldom showed his feelings and who often exhibited a kind of heartlessness or even cruelty. I am reminded of such instances as his firing of Joe Mount, a man well liked in this community, respected, a churchgoer and family man, the father of five children. The firing of Joe Mount stirred up considerable resentment in this town against my father. It happened like this: Joe Mount had worked for my father for nine years in the office as a book-keeper and accountant. Father truly liked Joe, praised his work, and intended (I think) one day to give Joe Mount a position of some importance with the company. Joe Mount, however, was a loyal Scot and devout Presbyterian, and these strains caused Joe to feel a certain kinship with Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey, a man in whom the Scotch and Presbyterian strains also ran strong. Thus, in the summer of 1912, Joe Mount embarked upon a series of public speeches in Burketown endorsing Wilson’s candidacy for President of the United States. My father was a man who insisted upon loyalty among every member of his organisation. My father warned Joe Mount, politely at first, then more strongly. But Joe’s zeal remained unslackened. And so it happened that one morning Joe found the door to his office locked, his final paycheque waiting for him at the cashier’s desk.

  It seemed at the time, and possibly still does, that Father performed an arbitrary and cruel act. And yet when one goes deeper into Father’s reasons for insisting upon strict political loyalty among his employees, the firing of Joe Mount appears in a somewhat different light. My father demanded loyalty of his men because, to him, each disloyal act, each public demonstration of a belief counter to his own, constituted a threat to his position, his power, and the private picture of himself which he kept in his mind’s eye. It is my theory, therefore, that Joe Mount was fired not out of revenge or cruelty, but out of fear and shame. My father was at heart a timid man and lived most of his life in terror of other men. My father was a coward, afraid of the dark. In his later years he developed the habit of keeping a revolver within his reach at all times because of his baseless fear of assassination. At night he would awake screaming from terrible nightmares. This was a side of him no one knew but my mother and myself. He was a very unusual man.

  He had a private dream of himself that amounted to an obsession, and it was a dream that involved all of us. It involved me, my cousins Billy and Mary-Adams, my daughters Barbara and Peggy, Mary-Adams’ children, Woody and Sally, Billy’s children—all of us. He wanted us, I am sure, to be a family, a family of the Great Tradition, a Great American Family. It is curious, because in the general scheme of things the Woodcocks are pretty small potatoes. But Father dreamed of us as growing, becoming world-builders, of having our name grouped with names like Huntington, Crocker in the West, Biddies, Dorrances, Wideners in Philadelphia, DuPonts, Adamses, Rockefellers, Cabots, Lodges, and all the rest. How we were to accomplish this, Father did not know. Perhaps that was his greatest failing, ignorance. Stupidity. Father was a stupid man, too small for his dream, too spiteful and petty, too easily beguiled by things that didn’t matter, too quick to resent and take personally matters that could not be helped, such as the fact that I had no sons. My father told me once that it is the male which carries the sex determinant. Whether this is true or not, I am not a student of biology enough to know. And yet he told me that because my seed had produced two daughters and no sons, my own physical make-up was out of balance, that I myself was womanish! He was bitterly disappointed in the sex of my two children and said so many times, saying that I had failed him in this respect.

  I’ve heard it said that the children of the rich lack initiative and are apt to turn out badly. I do not think that I have turned out badly, though it is probably true that I lack initiative. Yet I lack it because Father took it away from me the year before he died. In fact, he began taking it away long before that. He began taking it, a little at a time, shortly after I joined the company. He did it because I made a mistake, a terrible mistake in Father’s eyes, a mistake that ruined me.

  Preston Woodcock put down the manuscript and rubbed his eyes. He sat there, cradling the manuscript in his lap, thinking that possibly this was a good place to start a new chapter. Presently there was a sound and he looked up. Edith was standing in the doorway. She wore sandals and a terry robe. Her hair was damp.

  ‘I went for a swim,’ she said.

  ‘Did you? Good,’ he said.

  ‘It’s so hot in the sun,’ she said. She stepped into the room. ‘Have you been here all along?’ she asked. ‘Why didn’t you come out?’

  ‘I was working,’ he said.

  ‘You’ve missed our nice cocktails. Everybody wondered where you were. Can you come now? Lunch is nearly ready.’

  ‘Yes, I’m finished for the moment.’

  She looked at the papers in his lap. ‘Preston, what are you doing?’ she asked.

  He smiled up at her. ‘Just a little project I’m working on,’ he said.

  ‘Preston,’ she said, ‘there’s something I want to discuss. It involves Barbara—’

  He still smiled at her.

  ‘Preston? Did you hear me?’

  ‘Barbara’s all right,’ he said.

  She came closer to him.

  ‘Are you feeling well, dear?’ she asked him, studying him with concern. And he saw her eyes travel briefly to the corner of the study where, on a little table, quietly and shining, beaded and faceted, catching the light in carved crystal decanters, his treasures were. And roughly, angrily, he pulled himself away from her and marched toward them.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, his voice louder than he had expected. ‘Yes, and don’t you see? This is why! This is why! It’s because of you!’ He poured a drink and turned to her again, but she had left the room. He was alone, staring at the side of the glass which portrayed a hunting scene—a setter flushing a partridge—his eyes feeling watery and singularly heavy.

  Peggy went to her room to change and when she opened the door she found Barney. He lay naked across the top of one of the twin beds and
at the sound of the door opening he lifted one arm and pulled out a corner of the sheet across him. ‘Christ, it’s hot,’ he said.

  ‘Then why do you stay up here in this stuffy room?’ she asked him. ‘Why didn’t you stay at the pool where it’s cool?’ She walked to her closet, opened the door, and took down the shoulder straps of her wet suit. She pulled the suit off, placed it across a dry towel on the back of a chair, and began to dress. She looked over at him. ‘You’d better get dressed, Barn-Barn,’ she said. ‘Lunch is nearly ready.’ She put on white shorts and a white cotton shirt embroidered, at the pocket, with a small blue alligator. She sat down at her dressing table and began brushing her short hair. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I spoke to her.’

  ‘To Barbara?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘I don’t think she’s going to give us any trouble,’ she said. ‘I think she saw the sense of what I said. She said she wants a little time to think about it.’

  ‘Ah,’ he said.

  She continued brushing her hair. ‘Did you talk to Nana this morning?’ she asked after a moment.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘When I got there, Barbara was there. I figured that after one visitor, she’d be tired. I thought I’d wait till later. Tomorrow perhaps.’

  ‘Oh, that’s right,’ Peggy said. ‘I’d forgotten that Barbara was going to see her this morning.’ She put down her hair brush. ‘As a matter of fact,’ she said, ‘don’t go to see her tomorrow. I think I’ve got a better idea.’

  ‘What’s that?’ he asked.

  She turned to him ‘You have keys to the office, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She stood up. ‘Give them to me,’ she said. ‘I’m going to take a little trip down there this afternoon.’

  ‘What for?’

  She smiled. ‘To look for something,’ she said.

  ‘Bill Adkins, the watchman, will be there,’ he said.

  ‘Bill knows me,’ she said. ‘He’ll let me go in.’

  ‘You won’t tell me what you’re looking for?’

  ‘I’ll tell you if and when I find it,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t think you ought to be snooping around there, Peg, when the office is closed.’

  ‘Ha! Who’ll know besides you and Bill Adkins?’ She laughed and walked to the end of the bed.

  ‘I’d better go with you,’ he said.

  ‘No, no,’ she said. ‘I’ve another job for you, Barn-Barn.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Barbara. Devote your time to her this afternoon. Give her lots of attention. Show her what a nice fellow you are and convince her of what an excellent president you’d make.’

  He said nothing.

  She reached for the bottom of the bed sheet and yanked it off him. ‘Come on, lazybones!’ she laughed. ‘It’s time for lunch!’

  ‘Oh, Christ!’ he said, sitting up sharply and putting his bare feet down hard on the floor.

  As they moved toward the terrace where the luncheon table had been set, Barbara said to Edith, ‘Mother, Nancy Rafferty just called me from Philadelphia. She’s terribly upset. She made some sort of mistake at nursing school, and they dismissed her.’

  ‘Oh, poor Nancy!’ her mother said.

  ‘She asked me if she could come up here tonight. I sort of had to tell her yes. I hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘Of course I don’t mind. I’ve always been very fond of Nancy.’

  ‘She’s coming on the train. It will mean I’ll have some one to drive back with tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow? Are you going tomorrow, Barbara? Oh, I thought you were going to give us a real visit this time!’

  ‘No, I really must get back,’ Barbara said. ‘Flora expects me back tomorrow.’

  And when the family was seated at the table, Emily came out of the house in her white uniform and crossed the terrace to where Barbara sat. ‘Mr. William Woodcock is on the phone, ma’am,’ Emily said. ‘He wonders can he see you?’

  ‘Cousin Billy?’ Peggy asked quickly. ‘He must want me, Emily.’

  ‘He said Mrs. Greer, ma’am.’

  Peggy shrugged. Barbara looked across the table at her sister and Peggy stared back at her.

  Emily said, ‘He said, could he see you for a few minutes if he dropped by about two-thirty, quarter to three?’

  ‘Of course,’ Barbara said. ‘Tell him I’d love to see him.’

  John moved toward the table with a silver serving dish, then stopped abruptly, for Preston Woodcock had lowered his head and begun to say grace. ‘We thank Thee, Lord, for these Thy gifts which we are about to receive …’ And the others at the fable waited quietly, surprised, until he had finished.

  ‘Well, that was very nice, dear!’ Edith Woodcock said.

  Then lunch began.

  12

  William Dobie Woodcock the third stood in front of the library window, holding a copy of the Atlantic that he had picked up from the coffee table, and absently turned the pages. When Barbara came into the room, he turned and smiled. He put down the magazine. ‘Hello, there, Barbara!’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Hello, Billy,’ Barbara said.

  ‘You’re looking fine, just fine,’ he said.

  ‘And so are you, Billy.’

  ‘Well, I can’t complain!’ he laughed.

  He was a short, heavy-set young man, just six years older than Barbara. He had started losing his hair in college and was now completely bald; only a thin fringe of sandy-coloured hair above his ears was left to explain the nickname he had hated in his youth—‘Carrot Top’—and now his round, pink and shiny face gave him more the appearance of a wax cherub than a vegetable. Still, his soft fleshiness and comfortable roundness (Cousin Billy often boasted that he was both a gourmet and a gourmand) gave him a singularly edible look. Unlike most plump men, he was extremely fastidious about his clothes. Today, though his face and forehead were aglow with perspiration, he wore an immaculately pressed seersucker suit, a crisp, small-figured bow tie, and white buckskin shoes that were unmarred by even the slightest smudge of dirt. He squeezed Barbara’s hand between his soft, moist palms. ‘I was glad to hear you’d come up this weekend,’ he said. ‘Sit down, Barbara.’

  They sat on the brown sofa and Billy Woodcock crossed his legs carefully, hitching up his trouser knees to preserve their crease. ‘How does the old place seem?’ he asked her.

  ‘Just the same as ever,’ she said.

  ‘Well, good, good. That’s good, Barbara. Yes indeedy,’ he said and rubbed his hands together. ‘It’s a grand old place, this farm.’

  Barbara smiled. She had grown used, over the last few years, to Cousin Billy’s jolly paternalism and his occasional pomposity. After all, he was president now of the paper company, and as a young man who had been given vast responsibilities in the family, he took these responsibilities with great seriousness.

  ‘Well, Barbara,’ he said. ‘I suppose you’re wondering why I wanted to have this little talk with you. Why I wanted to see you alone this afternoon.’

  ‘Well, frankly, I am,’ Barbara said.

  ‘Don’t blame you, by golly!’ he said. ‘Don’t blame you a bit. By the way,’ he said, looking around, ‘where is Peggy?’

  ‘She’s out,’ Barbara said. ‘She went somewhere in the car. I don’t think she said where she was going—’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that’s just as well. Just as well. I want this little talk to be strictly entre nous, Barbara. After all, you’re the older of you two girls and on business matters, I’m counting on you to assume responsibility.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I’ve always felt kind of sorry that you and I were—well, that we were never closer. And well, I guess I’m to blame for that. You know how it is with this company, Barbara. I eat, sleep and drink the paper business—not much time for socialising with the family. But it’s too bad. We’ve never got to know each other the way we shou
ld because I’ve just been too busy with the company.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ she said, and remembering that Cousin Billy responded quickly to simple flattery, she said, ‘Everyone’s so grateful, Billy, for all you’ve done.’

  He smiled modestly. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’ve done my best. That’s all I can do—my best.’

  ‘You’ve certainly done that, Billy.’

  His face grew serious again. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘this little matter I want to talk to you about today concerns your sister, concerns Peggy. Now, you know that nobody has got a higher regard for your sister than I do. I’m very fond of Peggy, extremely fond. And I like her husband, too, Barney. Much to my surprise he’s worked out pretty well down at the office, and I’m real pleased, all things considered. I think he’s fitted in pretty fairly well, and that’s a pleasure. Of course he’s still got a lot to learn. This is a family company, always has been and always will be, and some of our—well, our methods—probably seem a little funny and strange to him. But what he’s got to learn is that our methods, the way we do things, are based on experience and know-how, over a hundred years of experience and know-how. They’ve been time-tested you might say. However—’ and he hesitated, holding up his hand, ‘that doesn’t mean we’re not receptive to new ideas when they come along, either. If the ideas are good ones, that is. Now, Barbara,’ he said, ‘how much do you know about human nature?’