“Can’t you guess?”
“Well, he said it was either to borrow money or to help get a job. Is it one of those things?”
“Uncle Charles is a smart old bird, isn’t he?” I said.
“Please, don’t be angry about it,” Margaret said. “It’s just that if you need money, Austin and I would be glad to help out. Why must you always go to anybody but me, Danny? I do so want to help, and you make it impossible to.”
She said it with such feeling, and she looked so tired and bedraggled and bloated that I was honestly moved. I said, “It isn’t money, Peg. What I’m looking for is the kind of job Uncle Charles has up his sleeve. I can’t see you and Austin getting mixed up in it, not as long as Father is around breathing smoke and fire. He’s still like that where I’m concerned, isn’t he?”
“And aren’t you like that where he’s concerned, Danny?”
“You don’t have to set yourself up as his lawyer, Peg. He doesn’t need one.”
“I’m sorry.” She made a dismissing gesture with her hand as if to brush the subject aside. “I never learn, do I? But you’re right. Uncle Charles is the one to see if you’re looking for a proper job. He should be able to do very well for you.”
“If he wants to.”
“Well, you’ll just have to convince him he should. And if he wants to be stubborn you can keep at him until—”
“It’s got to be a lot quicker than that,” I said.
“Why?”
“Cherchez la femme,” I said. “What else would it be?”
Margaret started searching through her purse again, but now it was in a transparent effort to mark time. Then, without looking at me, she said, “Would it be the woman you took to the reunion, Danny?”
“How do you know about that?” I demanded, but I saw the answer before she could give it to me. “Have you been talking to Mia?”
“Yes. She called from Washington Sunday evening to tell me she saw you. She knew I’d be interested. Well, I am interested,” she said defiantly. “I’m a lot more than interested. After all, nobody’s heard a word from you since Uncle Charles visited you, and that was three years ago. How do you think it feels to go around wondering if your brother is still alive and not daring to call his number because it might offend him? What, in God’s name, are you paying me off for, Danny? All right, I can see that you and Father will never get together, but why must I be made to suffer for that?”
“What do you want me to do about it?” I said. “Sneak in through the back door when Father’s away? Write you letters care of General Delivery? You’re living in his house, Peg, and I’m not wanted there.”
“Is that why you’re angry? Because I think someone has to stay there and take care of him?”
I said: “I am not angry. Anyhow, what’s all this got to do with Mia’s report to you? What did she tell you about the girl I was with?”
“She merely said you were there with a very attractive married woman.”
“Merely.”
“I know,” Margaret said. “Mia’s like that. I can’t understand why. She used to be awfully nice, but she’s getting harder and harder to take lately.”
“Do you have much to do with her?”
“Oh, we have lunch together when she’s in New York, and Austin and I were at one of her dinners in Washington, but not much more than that. I suppose you know about Noel’s working in the State Department?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I think it’s gone to her head. That dinner we were at was absolutely incredible. You couldn’t turn around without bumping into a celebrity, and what with the service and all it couldn’t have cost less than five thousand dollars. Austin says it probably went over that, because Noel had put up a lot of out-of-towners in hotels all over Washington. He’s really very sweet. I mean, Noel is. It’s Mia who seems to be metamorphosizing into something quite unpleasant.”
“At least enough to report my sins to you, first chance she got.”
“I wasn’t making moral judgments, Danny. I’m just sorry that when you did become so much interested in some woman, she had to be married.”
“She won’t be for long.”
“What’s she like?”
“A nature girl,” I said. “Beautiful, unspoiled, and dead broke. No, I’m not kidding. I think you’d like her a lot.”
“Will I be given the chance to? I’d like her sight unseen if I knew I would.”
Next to tears the most deadly weapon a woman can employ is wistfulness, yearning, the timorous hand outstretched toward yours. I saw my sister’s outstretched hand, I could feel it taking hold of me, drawing me back to the bosom of my family, and I let it. Not because I wanted to, but because I was certain now that my uncle wanted me to. He knew I was here as a supplicant, and he had arranged this meeting with Margaret as part of the price I was to pay. He might not expect me to be the good son, but the good brother I would have to be, and, undoubtedly, the good nephew. I couldn’t understand why he should want this any more than I could understand why Margaret should yearn over me when she already had more than enough family to attend to, but there it was. And, like my namesake, here I was in the lion’s den being asked to declare myself pro-lion or anti-lion before the gates were closed.
I said to Margaret: “You won’t have to like her sight unseen. There’s no reason why we can’t all get together pretty soon.”
“Do you mean that?”
“Of course, I mean it.”
“Oh, that would be wonderful. And Father’s leaving for Europe on business next week, so it can be right at the house.” She leaned forward eagerly. “Austin’ll never believe it when I tell him. You know, he’s always liked you so much, Danny, and he’s felt awful about this, so—”
I said: “You’ll have to tell Father, Peg.”
She looked at me blankly. “But why?”
“You know why. I’m not sneaking through back doors, and I’m not getting mixed up in one of these weird family conspiracies where everything’s done to protect Father from the facts of life.”
“The way you make it sound,” said Margaret.
“I don’t give a damn how it sounds. I’m going to marry this girl, and when I do I’m not making her part of any such nonsense. She’s frightened as a mouse by too many things already. I want to change that for her, not set up the awesome image of Father behind the scenes to make it worse.”
“Yes, but there’s no need to make an issue of it now, is there? Why not just settle it when the time comes?”
“This is the time.”
“My God,” said Margaret, “do you always have to make things as hard as possible for everyone? You know how Father is. What am I supposed to tell him?”
“Tell him the truth. I’m not coming home as the prodigal son, I’ll only be there as a guest in the house. Maybe he’ll surprise you and not throw a fit. Or even better, you can write him about it while he’s in Europe. Anyhow, one way or the other he has to know about it, and I have to know that my girl and I are at least on equal terms with anyone you have in for bridge in the evening. And I’m not asking this for myself, Peg. She’s the important one.”
“All right,” Margaret said resignedly, “then I’ll write him about it when he’s away.” She brightened a little at the idea. “You know, that’s not a bad way of doing it at all. At least, when he gets back he won’t have an excuse to go roaring around the house. He can do all his roaring by mail. It’ll save Austin that much excitement. Poor dear, he’ll never get used to the kind of fuss Father can kick up.”
“Yes,” I said, “it’s always someone else we’re worried about, isn’t it?” and Margaret laughed.
“I guess it is,” she said. “Anyhow, I think we’ve kept Uncle Charles waiting long enough. Give me a hand up, Danny. God, I feel like an elephant every time I try to stand up.”
I helped heave her to her feet, and she smoothed down the maternity dress which concealed nothing of her condition. “Boy or girl,” she said ruefu
lly, “whichever it is, it’s going to be a whopper all right.”
In the library my uncle and little Charlie sat side by side on the floor going through the lurid illustrations of an oversized Paradise Lost. It took some work to get Charlie detached from the book and into his harness, and then before Margaret steered him protestingly away she clung to me for a moment and kissed me hard on the cheek.
“Let’s make it definite,” she said, and I was sure that this was as much for my uncle’s benefit as for mine. “The Saturday after next. You and—come to think of it, I don’t even know her name. What is it?”
“Barbara.”
“Well, you and Barbara will come to dinner, and then we’ll have the whole evening together. Can I count on that?”
“I’ll try to arrange it,” I said. “I’ll call you in a few days and let you know.”
“You won’t forget?”
“No, I’ll call you.”
When she was gone my uncle looked at me quizzically. “You look as if you can’t make up your mind whether to laugh or cry,” he said. “Didn’t you know she felt that way about you?”
“I guess I did. I just can’t understand why she should.”
“Oh, there’s no mystery about it. Peg happens to be today’s woman in all her glory. No individuality of her own really, but completely the daughter, the sister, the wife, and the mother. I think she resented that once, but now she seems quite used to it. In fact, I suspect she rather likes it. I know I do. The woman of my generation made a hobby of masculinity. It’s good to see that the modern female has more sense than that. It leads me to believe that there’s some small hope for the world.” My uncle sank into one of the deep leather armchairs and stretched out at his ease, ankles crossed. “Make yourself at home, Daniel. You’ve been here before.”
I took the chair facing his. “Not for a long time,” I said.
“You were always welcome. Which, I’ll admit, was more than I was made to feel the last time we met.”
“I’m sorry about that,” I said, and under the circumstances I had reason to be.
“I am, too, but only because you were so much your old self, and I had hoped for a change. It was disappointing to find you still with the chip on your shoulder. Still too immature to know that exercising common politeness does not really make a man an opportunist. It doesn’t.”
He had me on the hook, no question about it, and he was going to show me no mercy. And since I was one fish only hoping to be caught, there was nothing I could do except take it and like it. I said, “Well, we all get older and wiser. I wouldn’t be here otherwise, would I?”
“I don’t know. Why are you here?”
“Peg told me you had a pretty good idea why.”
“Then I take it that I’m being called on for a favor. And it must be a hefty one in view of your access of family feeling, not to speak of your almost alarming humility. I wouldn’t overdo the humility if I were you, Daniel. It fits you like a tight pair of shoes. I’d break it in more gradually.”
The portrait of old Abigail hung on the wall behind my uncle. When I carefully studied it, feature by feature, I was almost able to read sympathy in its wrinkled, waspish lines, and that was no mean trick.
“Well,” said my uncle, “I’m waiting to hear what you have to say.”
So I said what I had to say, and he seemed more amused than otherwise by the note that this new Daniel Egan was sounding.
“That’s what you want,” he said. “Do you have any idea what would be wanted of you?”
“I think so. For one thing, I know damn well I’ll have to start at the bottom. Enter some kind of training program or whatever they call it. That doesn’t bother me.”
“Not even if you’re forced to adopt every attitude you’ve rejected up to now? I seem to remember your lecturing me a few times on the emptiness of life on the managerial level. It’s still the same life, you know. It hasn’t changed while you’ve been away.”
“Then maybe I’ve changed.”
“I’m sure you have. Still, you used to have certain qualities which I rather admired in you. A sort of idealism, let’s say, and courage to back it up with. Has all that been knocked out of you, or have you really discovered that management does have a worthwhile function after all?”
“What difference does it make one way or the other?”
“Oh, a big one. You use a hammer at your work, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’d say it was a test of your intelligence to understand that it was once a lump of iron ore and part of a tree, and that a few men sitting at expensive desks arranged for it to be made into what it is and put into your hand. None of them could use it as capably as you, but without them you wouldn’t have it to use. For that matter, without other men at desks to tell you what to use it for, you and the hammer would both be functionless. Do you see what I’m getting at?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Then I’ll put it this way,” said my uncle. “If you honestly appreciate the function of management and for that reason want to become part of it, I’ll do what I can for you. On the other hand, if you’re simply looking for a soft touch, I won’t stir a finger on your behalf. There are too damn many lazy, cynical young men filling executive positions in business right now. I don’t intend to inflict one more on some trusting friend.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” I said.
“I think I do. You may have the best intentions in the world right now, Daniel, but good intentions alone aren’t enough. Not that I altogether blame anyone today for laziness and cynicism. The corporative structure has become topheavy with useless personnel. It’s overloaded with high-salaried men performing vague duties that no one can possibly check on. It takes a good deal of character to withstand the temptations offered by that situation, and I’m afraid that the average man doesn’t come equipped with that much character. Whatever I do for you will be done with the devout hope that you are definitely not the average man.”
He caught me off balance with that. Everything up to those closing words had made such a flawless argument for turning me down that I was already resigned to my fate. Now I wasn’t sure I heard him right. “You mean, you will recommend me to someone?” I said, still ready for the worst.
“Yes.”
“How long will it take?”
“A week or two. I have someone in mind who might be very much interested in your possibilities. I’ll arrange a lunch for the three of us and trust you to make the right impression.” My uncle sat forward and studied me speculatively. “That jacket,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind my mentioning it, but—”
“Yes, I know,” I said. “The lapels are too broad. That’s all right, I’ll get a new suit over the week end. I’ll invest in something from Brooks.” With luck, I knew, the suit wouldn’t cost me much more than two weeks’ pay, but this was no time to weigh the price of a rosy future. Besides, I had already spent more than that on Barbara’s clothes, so it was really a case of protecting my investment.
“But not too funereal,” said my uncle. “Mr. Heffernan’s still at Brooks, by the way, and I’m sure he’ll remember you. See him about it.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Oh, and one thing more. You probably don’t hear it yourself, but your diction has changed somewhat for the worse, I’m afraid. There’s a slovenly quality about it that you ought to guard against. Now, don’t mistake me. I’m not saying that one’s speech pattern can make or break his career, but it can stir uncomfortable prejudices among his associates. In your case there’s no reason why it should. Just remember when you speak that you’re not trying to convince some shipyard workers that you’re as hardboiled as they are.”
He meant it for the best, of course, but for the rest of the time I spent with him I had an overwhelming consciousness of the sound of my own voice in my ears, and I found myself speaking with the deliberation of a backward student in an elocution class. That was one of
several reasons why, now that I had settled my business, I wanted to get up and go, but I was not allowed to. My uncle was determined to renew old acquaintance with a vengeance. He had questions to ask, opinions to deliver, and philosophy to get off his chest, and I was in no position to adjourn the meeting on my own.
The one thing that puzzled me was the random nature of his conversation. As a man who esteemed Pope and Dryden above all others, as one who maintained that the Rationalists had raised the precise expression of ideas to its highest level, he always used to speak with that precision, so that one could see the outline of the subject in his mind as he addressed himself to it. He was a great one for moving along a well-defined course to a logical conclusion. Now he seemed to be rambling from subject to subject—American civilization today, European attitudes toward it, the problems in foreign trade created by that—with none of his old purposefulness in evidence.
I should have known better. He did have a point to make, but I didn’t catch on until I suddenly realized that everything was being summed up into a case against my father. It was the drums sounding the old Egan-Asquith war, literally a thirty-year war, and they let me know that my uncle saw in me a captive audience, a sympathizer, and an ally, all in one. Henceforth, I was being told, I was marked for that role and I had better take notice.
“The fact that he handles our business on the Continent better than I,” said my uncle, not querulously, but rather savoring the irony of it all, “illustrates what I mean. Your father, my dear boy, is almost the caricature of the American. He is overbearing and aggressive, he utterly refuses to learn a word of a foreign language, he practices the small insult such as carrying his own dehydrated coffee with him while abroad, and in every respect he sings America with a loud, barbaric yawp. And that, you see, is why he impresses the European businessman. The European recognizes the caricature American as something familiar, something predictable. He may despise him, but he is not afraid of him. And he is afraid of the sophisticated American. Not that I give a damn who handles our European trade. I merely say for the record that it would deflate your father considerably if he knew the reason for his success in that department.”
The Winter After This Summer Page 41