It was not yet six, and they were on the way to work. The bronze sun glared. It was already a scorcher.
“You’ve lost me.” Hugh pushed back his straw hat. “You must have said a thousand times that racing doesn’t interest you.”
Tom was grinning. “And you must have told me a thousand times it’s the way for people to hear about the Curved-Dash.”
The devious streak in Hugh’s nature prodded him toward a new profession called public relations, the art of getting your name before the public without paying. The Major had been right about competition. There was a lure about automobile racing, a crude, raw excitement that came from speed, and the newspapers catered to their readers: each rally meant columns about the winning machines. Free advertising.
Hugh said thoughtfully, “There’s a race being promoted right here. Tom, think of the play Detroit papers would give a Detroit chauffeur. We’d be deluged.”
“First I have to build her.”
“I have every faith,” Hugh said.
Tom always had been propelled by forces he could not fully comprehend. Now, though, he understood what drove him. Thursday afternoons weren’t enough. He wanted to wake mornings with her, he wanted to have constant access to that smile, he wanted to possess her gifts of joy and happiness.
Through that hot June and July he blazed like a spinning comet. He hammered up a board partition, cutting off a few square yards of the shop. Here he worked on the racer whenever he could. Mostly at night. Hugh crouched yawning over the drafting desk, trying to sketch parts visible only in his brother’s teeming brain. Oh, those plans were rough going. Tom was a cut-and-try man, Hugh no skilled draftsman, so they bickered constantly, their arguments often reaching the cursing stage, yet being brothers they continued to work where outsiders would have walked away.
By August the racer had taken form.
If the quadricycle had been a dragonfly, this was a grasshopper, a long, narrow skeleton of angle iron, steel, and reinforced wood waiting to spring forward on pneumatic tires specially ordered from the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in Akron.
V
When the Major’s train pulled into the Detroit depot, he was counting and recounting his belongings—ledger, valise, hat, coat, umbrella, briefcase—with an old man’s morbid lack of self-confidence.
For the Major the past few days had been the emotional equivalent of a crippling stroke. On August 6, J. P. Morgan had returned to New York and the Major had immediately hurried to the triangular, six-story marble banking house on Wall Street. There, in his friend’s glass-encased office, he had requested a loan. At first the banker had been warm, advising him to pull in his horns and ride out this damnable depression. The Major explained that the loan was imperative. Morgan repeated his advice, this time a cold financier. Ride it out, he said. Be thankful you have other assets. The Major, having dipped deeply into capital for his personal expenses, was too ashamed to admit its depletion. “I have excellent collateral,” he said, placing the carefully worked-over ledger on Morgan’s desk. The banker waved it away. “I’m sorry, Stuart, but I cannot in good conscience float a loan on any furniture factory, even yours.” The Major, bracing himself in his chair, had breathed heavily a full minute before he told the banker, “Make arrangements to find me a buyer.” As he had spoken a sharp pain had torn at his throat. Selling the factory that his grandfather had founded, that he and his father had built, was like selling an arm, a leg, his eyes.
The wheels stopped and the Major jerked back into the plush seat. “But what choice do I have?” he mumbled. His outside income came to around a thousand a year, barely enough to stint along with a couple of raw Irish servant girls in the house. No cook, no carriage, no horses, no rowdy entertainments, no London tailoring, no pretty women. The Major feared the loss of his physical comforts as keenly as he feared the humiliation of poverty. “I can’t let an asset insured for a quarter of a million stand idle, can I?” He pushed open the door to the narrow corridor.
Antonia had boarded the train. Brushing hastily by the passengers that crowded the corridor, she flung herself at the Major, hugging him with a child’s unfettered, rough embrace. “Uncle, Uncle. It’s been so long!”
He kissed her cheek, then drew her into the compartment, holding both her hands to look into that glowing, utterly unique face. “My dearest girl, my dear, I missed you so.…” His sigh degenerated into a sob. Then he pulled himself together. “How delightful you look. Young Hutchinson must have been bringing you the right kind of bonbons.”
A subtle pink clouded her face. “I asked Claude not to call,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“I told Claude he mustn’t visit me.”
“You never mentioned this in your letters. Is it that foolishness of yours? Guilt? I’ve told you over and over not to feel guilty because you’re capable of turning a head or two.”
She laughed. “It’s dreadful to be such a delightfully clever girl, and so charming, with such a pretty voice.” Wordlessly she sang two bars of Papagena’s music.
The Major gave an unanticipated snort of laughter. God, she cheered him!
She looked down. “Tom’s been chauffeuring me out to the country.”
“Tom?”
“Mr. Bridger. Your partner in the Bridger Automobile Company.”
The Major sank down into the seat, resting his head on the starched lace antimacassar. He was experiencing that same tearing pain in his throat as when his friend had refused him a loan. Betrayals, everywhere betrayals.
Antonia sat next to him. “Uncle, what is it?” she asked in a frightened voice.
“I’d like to get home,” he said thickly. “My business didn’t go well.”
“That’s awful. You look so pale. Tired. How could I not have noticed?” She took his pigskin briefcase. “I’ll find a porter. You go out to the carriage.”
By the time the brougham was moving under the shady trees of Woodward Avenue, the Major’s color had returned.
Antonia said, “Part of your business has been doing wonderfully well. Last week Tom sold two automobiles in a single day.” Though she was smiling, there was that determined tone in her voice the Major had come to recognize. “He’s entering a race in October. That should draw buyers like flies.”
“So far no profit’s come out of his shop, nothing, not a single dollar.”
“He’s been expanding, buying machinery, lathes and things.”
“The time has come when all my resources must pay.” The Major paused. He wanted to tell her about his terrible problems, but instead he said, “I can no longer indulge myself by subsidizing his shop.”
The shadow of her parasol fringe wavered on her forehead. “Uncle, you can’t take this out on Tom.”
“There’s no connection, none. But I’m glad you’ve brought up the matter.” The fear that he was losing Antonia, child of his heart if not his loins, made his face go stony. He might have hated her as he said cuttingly, “A decently bred man would have asked permission.”
“He’s coming tonight, Uncle.”
“Then you told him about your father?”
“He’s coming to see you,” she murmured.
It’s worse by far than I imagined, thought the Major, closing his eyes on the bright August afternoon.
VI
Antonia sat in the dark gazebo. Honeysuckle vines were trained to drape over the scrolled ironwork, the domed cupola rose to a fantastic spire, the rustic bark furniture had been built by a top Stuart cabinetmaker. This was Antonia’s favorite hot weather retreat. Here she would bring her sheet music to practice a new song, or dreamily pull stamens from bugle-shaped honeysuckle blossoms for the drop of nectar as she read, or simply luxuriate in the outdoors. Tonight, however, she took no pleasure in the velvety warmth, the rich night scents, the moonless, star-peppered sky. She was concentrating on the yellow light streaming through the curtains of the study windows. Her uncle had ushered Tom in fifteen minutes earlier, banging the do
or closed after them with the firmness of a jailor.
The Major’s vehemence against Tom should have infuriated Antonia. Each time her anger rose, however, she remembered the Gare du Nord and the stout, cigar-odored presence who had come to Europe for the one purpose of helping her father.
A shape moved, ghostly and insubstantial behind the curtain. It was impossible to tell whether it was Tom or the Major. The second shadow moved close in an implied hostility that made her shudder, then moved out of sight swiftly. She knew it was Tom.
Tom …
Even now, in her anxiety, thinking his name weakened her thighs and made her grow moist. Lately she had become alarmed at the ruthless physical dimension her love had taken on. With her odd, isolated upbringing Antonia knew even less than most well-bred girls of her time about the mysteries of sex—that is, the so-called facts of life. The act itself had become an essential part of her being. Everything to do with Tom drew her toward it. She would watch him talk and be reminded of his kisses; his odors, masculine and tinged ever so faintly with gasoline, recalled to her that violent, convulsive bliss when acrid sweat drenched them both; even her admiration for his incorruptible vision dissolved into a sensual yearning for him. Her nature was ardent, her love innocently passionate.
The front door opened. Tom came out.
Antonia was on her feet. “Tom, wait,” she called softly, hurrying along the narrow summerhouse path to the driveway. His footsteps crunched on the gravel, not slowing. She caught up. Ahead of them shone the gate torchères, and by this thin light his face had the bleached look of skulls she had seen in the Roman catacombs. “What happened, Tom? What did Uncle say?”
“Can’t you guess?”
“Was it very bad?” she asked.
“It seems that when he agreed to back my credit, I was meant to realize that you were off bounds. Permanently.”
“What?”
Tom shrugged. “He thinks I welshed on him. All I wanted was not to hurt you. How could he have thought I’d sell being with you?”
In the darkness she lost her balance, stumbling, not feeling the gravel against her ankle as her stocking tore. Regaining her equilibrium, she ran after him.
“When’s your birthday?” he asked.
“April eighteenth.”
“You’ll be twenty-one, and can resume your contact with me—should you so desire.”
“Tom, please don’t be sarcastic.”
“You asked what your uncle said. I’m telling you. You are his obligation now, he says, and he makes all your decisions. After your twenty-first birthday you can resume contact with me, should you so desire.”
She sighed. “He hasn’t been well.”
“I’ll mail him a sympathy note.” They had reached the gates, and the torchères shone on Tom’s deathly pallor. “And then there’s the little matter of the shop. By the first of October we’re to be clear of his premises—and I’m to have paid him off for his share in the machinery and unsold automobiles.”
She put her hand on his arm. “He needs to do something more profitable at the factory. He told me that business has been bad, very bad.”
“You’ve just heard that?”
“You knew?”
“So does everybody else in Detroit. There’s a giant slump here. People are hurting.”
“He never said a word to me. I remember wanting to take up the slack for Nurse so we wouldn’t need Minnie, she’s the second laundress, and Uncle was angry. He’s never stinted on us.”
“You’re his princess. And I’m not keen on playing swineherd—even if I do have the right dirty fingernails.” Tom spoke loudly. Gnawing at him was his bitterness that the Major, whom he occasionally grudgingly admired, believed him capable of relinquishing Antonia—for a credit line!
“Tom, he’s so sad. He looks ten years older than when he left. Did you notice? His color’s bad, and his beard’s turned all white.”
“I gather then that you’re siding with the old bastard?”
Though Tom could be obscene, this was the first time he had been in Antonia’s presence. Stepping back, she said, “He’s been wonderfully generous to Father and me.” A sigh tempered her coolness. “You’ll find another backer, another shop.”
“Didn’t you hear, Antonia? He won’t let us see each other.”
“We have to, we must. So we’ll manage as we were doing before.”
“Hudson’s on Thursdays? Sneak like burglars? Wonderful!”
A thrush sang. Startled, they turned in the direction of the liquid sound to peer into the darkness.
Abruptly Tom’s bitterness drained, leaving dregs of hopelessness. He was being thrown out of his shop, he must pay the Major off for his share of the machinery, the racer was not finished. A life with Antonia seemed the sick fantasy of an overzealous imagination. “That income of your father’s,” he mumbled. “How large is it?”
Antonia understood what he was asking. Could they marry now? “Nurse Girardin is expensive. She trained at Hôtel-Dieu to handle Father’s sort of case. She massages him, exercises him, she knows the right foods—everything. There’s medicines. Laundry—bales of laundry. The specialist, Dr. Abler, comes once a month from Chicago, and sometimes he brings Dr. Roussel. Dr. McKenzie has his bills. I don’t know what it adds up to, but Father’s income can’t cover a fifth of it.”
Tom’s mouth twisted miserably. “I see.”
Prudence warned her to keep silent, yet she continued. “It doesn’t matter what the income is. I couldn’t leave. Not now, not at this time. I don’t know what happened to Uncle in New York, but it must have been murderous.”
The hissing gas torches illuminated her expression of determination. Momentarily Tom wanted to slap it away, but when he noticed her hands hanging at her sides, the fingers jabbing into the palms in nervous little twitches, he touched her gently. In order not to destroy her he must accept that she loved and was loyal to her uncle, his enemy.
“Hudson’s?” he asked. The name seemed dishonorable retreat.
“Tom, thank you,” she said, clasping his shoulders, pressing kisses on his jaw, his chin, the fine bones of his Adam’s apple. At first he stood unresponsive, bitter, then a wordless rumble sounded deep in his throat, and he pulled her to him, kissing her mouth, a kiss that was all teeth, tongue, and desperation. They clung together as one being, one feeling, the blood hammering through them as from the same heart. “The summerhouse,” she murmured shakily.
“I won’t set foot on his property.”
“The Hammond place?”
Across the broad street from the Major, Hammond, a lumber baron, had built himself a wooden stronghold, bulbous leaded windows, fanciful spoolwork, Gothic towers, then hidden his grotesquerie behind double rows of boxwood. Tom drew Antonia into the black shadows, spreading his jacket on prickly grass. They blindly fumbled with each other’s clothing, and without undressing in the warm summer night, they obliterated their differences.
CHAPTER 5
On the afternoon of September 15, a Western Union boy bicycled into the Stuart yard. The Major hurried out, tossing the child a coin. He carried the telegram back to his office unopened, and stood weighing the yellow envelope in his trembling palm.
In the weeks since he had left, no word had come from New York. The Major had written four letters of inquiry to J. P. Morgan, letters that on rereading to his eyes seemed anxious, needy. He could not bring himself to mail them. Instead he had formulated a plan. The weather had been unendurably hot even for late summer, and through the nights he lay sweating into monogrammed sheets, refining his plan. His most profound hope was that Morgan would deliver him from using it.
Letting out a sigh, he used his ivory-handled paper knife, reading:
HAVE RECEIVED OFFER OF FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS STOP PLEASE ADVISE FURTHER ACTION MORGAN
All color drained from the bearded face. Crushing the yellow paper in his fist, he shuffled to the sawdust-coated window, looking down into the yard. What is it, he thought.
A factory. A big, slowed-down factory. No more. No less. Why should I feel it is as much a part of me as my blood, my bones, my heart?
His eyes dampened with tears.
Blinking fiercely, he pulled back his shoulders in a travesty of his old military posture, and again surveyed the yard with its pale barricade of well-seasoned white fir planks, its squadron of dark, uneven secondhand lumber that he had picked up last week for a song, good enough, as he informed everyone, to be hidden below the veneer of cheap export cabinets. Then he returned to his desk. He found a telegraph form, writing, Seventy-five thousand least will accept. Negotiate. Stuart.
He rang for Heldenstern.
Holding out the form, he said, “Here. Take this to the telegraph office.”
“Immediately, sir.”
“Just a moment, Heldenstern. Is anyone out there with you?”
“No, Major. I’m alone, sir.”
“Good. Before you go, I need to talk to you.”
Heldenstern removed his green eyeshade, nervously smoothing his sparse gray strands over his pate.
“First lock the outer door,” said the Major in a commanding tone. His face was sternly set.
II
Two nights later, at eight twenty, Tom stood over the sink rubbing gritty mechanic’s soap on his arms up to his elbows. At nine he was to meet Trelinack and a rental agent. The shop he had found on Anthon Street had scarcely room to assemble three automobiles, a miser-windowed, dark little place, but the best he could afford—and at that, the landlord, distrustful of “these damn horselesses,” demanded Trelinack’s signature too.
Hugh sauntered in from his drafting table behind the partition, leaving the door ajar, peering at a fresh newspaper clipping that he had tacked below the time sheet.
The big automobile race to be held sometime this October at the new Grosse Pointe track bordering the Detroit River will be the most important in the history of the sport. The turns have been banked for a breathtaking mile-a-minute pace.
Four events are planned, including a mile dash for electric vehicles and a five-mile race for steam mobiles. The major sweepstake of twenty-five miles is for gasoline-powered vehicles. The entry list is prestigious, including Winston (Cleveland), Apperson (Kokomo), Bridger (Detroit), and W. K. Vanderbilt, whose famed French machine, “Red Devil,” is reputed to have cost $15,000 plus $7,000 duty. Detroit’s smart set as well as the city’s automobile-minded citizens are expected to be on hand for the races.
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