“This is the first time?”
“Yes, the first time.”
“With anyone?”
“Yes.”
She laughed and kissed him with her profusely rouged lips. “I am a lucky girl, no?”
Less than half an hour later, for time is of the essence in these matters, Edgar walked up the darkened street toward the lights of St. Catherine Street. As he came down the stairs from Jeanne’s room he saw some of his comrades in the reception room. They were waiting for him, but he asked the Negro maid to let him out. No, he did not wish to wait for his friends. He was ill. As he walked along the street he felt shaky and his head reeled. The experience had been worse than he expected. The physical aspect of the affair had been fairly tolerable, not nearly as thrilling as he had been led to believe, but when the girl concluded her ritual with her hygienic and precautionary ablutions before his very eyes (the prophylactic effects to which Dr. Giroux testified), the whole business suddenly filled him with nausea. As he approached St. Catherine Street, nature, fortunately entering into the matter, promptly relieved the suffering youth and he retched.
Two weeks later, having been thoroughly shamed by his companions for his squeamishness and made the butt of much masculine humor, Edgar returned to Miss Quinn’s establishment. This time there was no nausea.
XVII
Edgar soon learned not to be too squeamish about life. Miss Quinn’s profession, he soon came to realize, was but one aspect of a many-sided existence. Life and the philosophy of his social circle soon hardened him against emotional fastidiousness; one kept a stiff upper lip under all circumstances, one hid one’s emotional responses under an impassive mask, one held one’s liquor—in short, one behaved generally like a man. And later when he went terrified to the family physician, he was told that a fellow was not really a man until he had been bitten at least once. “It is nothing. A cold—but not in the head,” the doctor said, smiling. And so Edgar became a man.
After Edgar left McGill, he was taken into his father’s shipping business. He started at the bottom of the ladder, a phrase dear to Kennedy père, and was assured that his rise to the top would be commensurate with his ability. For a year he worked side by side with the clerks in the outer office—those harried workers whose meager salaries maintain them in that pathetic starched dignity which lifts them above the ranks of mere toilers. He was given a small salary and commanded to observe the petty regulations which governed his less fortunate co-workers. He arrived at the office at eight-thirty, took half an hour for lunch, and knocked off at six o’clock. His father considered this the essence of democracy.
—No damned coddling and hereditary nonsense the way we had in the old country. What the lad needs is hard knocks, that’s the way to learn the ropes. The same as I did, by gad.
Nevertheless, Edgar was promoted and advanced with rapid and most undemocratic regularity while his fellow clerks (pronounced with the broad English “a,” to compensate them for the inadequate salaries they received) continued at the old and time-honored rates. The young man soon learned all there was to know about maritime insurance, Lloyd’s, customs rates and a smattering of Admiralty law. Mr. Kennedy, a portly gentleman who wore a distinguished Edward VII beard and was a member of the Board of Trade, a respected member of the community, hoped to see his son in his place when the day for retirement arrived.
The cold necessity of business and the mores of his social group soon blunted whatever native fineness Edgar had the night when he turned with repugnance from the prostitute in Miss Quinn’s house. He was now a frequent visitor of the bar at the Windsor Hotel where the bartenders knew him by sight and by name. He smoked a very masculine pipe belligerently and prided himself on his knowledge of women and horse-flesh. He was acutely aware of the difference between women of his own class and those of a “lower” order; to the one he gave a shaded meticulous attention colored somewhat by a tired deference, while to the others, the less wealthy and baser born, he offered a boisterous good fellowship tinted with a touch of vulgarity. His affairs, carried on with women not of his class and station, usually ended up in a Drummond Street house of assignation—sneaking in and out and with much furtive looking up and down the street. On the way to his favorite house run by a yellowish, pallid Belgian who kept a huge, vicious police dog, he walked past a dilapidated Methodist mission in the window of which appeared the legend: “God is Love—Jesus Saves.” But this gave Edgar no qualms; it was Protestant proselytizing and he proceeded down the street intent on his illicit love affair.
Edgar was now tall, dark, and handsome. His face was rather weak, marred by a soft receding chin and blue watery eyes, but when it was in repose it expressed a bewildered wistfulness, a pathetic indecision. But this was rare enough, as a rule his guards were up and he was militantly masculine. His black hair was slicked back pompadour style and his air was excessively man-of-the-world. His clothes, and this was most important, were fashioned by an obsequious little Englishman who owned a dingy little shop on St. James Street. It was here that all the solid citizens of the city and their sons had their clothes made: quite conservative suits with low rolled lapels and shortish jackets which curved above the groin with quiet exhibitionism, tweeds from Scotland and England, indistinct in coloring, which blended with the grayish buildings of the business thoroughfare. The styles were subdued and unaffected, nothing loud and shrieking like the Yankee styles. Oh, no, this was Montreal, not New York, a difference with a distinction—as the Montrealers were proud to remark.
In all matters Edgar Kennedy has come a long way since the day when, as a sensitive youth, he became nauseated and greenish pale at the sight of a Cadieux Street whore squatting prophylactically after her commission of the act of love. It is some six years since that night and now Edgar is ashamed and laughs at his squeamishness. He is a hard-drinking, level-headed, young man about town. And it is upon him that Mrs. Throop has her eye as a prospective husband for Ruth.
XVIII
It was a merciless February morning. The thermometer registered twenty-two degrees below zero; a tradesman walking along St. Catherine Street shortly after nine was told by a stranger that his nose was frozen white, at which he grabbed a handful of snow and rubbed it frantically on his face. The sun shone on the glittering snow and the extreme cold kept most people indoors, the streets were deserted. At the Throop home the double windows were shut tight and the furnaceman was busy in the cellar feeding a roaring fire. A snowshoe party arranged for that night had to be canceled because of the drop in temperature. Ruth remembered these things long afterwards: the bitterly cold day, the canceled party, the frozen nose of the tradesman, because it was the day on which Francis Steele died.
At eleven o’clock, Mrs. Throop came into the living room and broke the news of her brother’s death; her eyes were red with weeping and she blew her nose repeatedly. Steele had gone to work as usual that morning and an hour after he arrived at his office his secretary had found him lifeless at his desk. A doctor was hurriedly summoned, but it was no use. It was his heart. Soon the Throop telephone began to ring; there were calls from the newspapers, the Bishop, business acquaintances, and many lesser relatives.
At noon Major Throop came home complaining about the cold and took charge of the arrangements; after all, his wife was the closest living relative of the deceased and it was quite fitting that he should take charge. The house was alive with hushed tension. The Major sat at his desk in his study and issued orders that were discreetly mournful, as befitted the occasion and yet at the same time were curt and efficient. Shortly after lunch the undertaker called and before it had grown dark all necessary arrangements had been made.
The day before the funeral the air of sadness lessened and practical matters were openly discussed at dinner. In the evening, the Bishop called and remarked that Steele had ever been a great benefactor to the poor and a generous contributor to the Church.
“It is to be hoped,” he said, �
�that he remembered the Holy Church in his will. Ah, me, the work of the Lord is endless—the charities, the convents, and what with the parochial schools continually under the fire of the Protestants … ”
In the living room and in the hallways, the more distant and poorer relatives of the deceased gathered and spoke in hushed voices. Newspaper clippings in which the dead man was extolled in extravagant eulogy were passed from hand to hand. The Bishop called again and the next day a requiem mass was performed. Fortunately the cold spell had broken and the trip to the cemetery on the Cote des Neiges was not unduly uncomfortable.
XIX
A few days later Francis Steele’s relatives gathered in the offices of Sir Robert Blake K.C., for the reading of the will. It was a sharp sunlit afternoon and the gay sound of bells on the red cutters which raced through the Place d’Armes outside offered sharp contrast to the brownish gloom which pervaded the baronet-lawyer’s library. The room was done in a melancholy brown which was conducive to the proper degree of respectful sorrow. Sir Robert had not yet arrived and the stiff-faced relatives sat about in glum silence.
One of the lesser Steeles, a distant cousin, pulled out a soiled handkerchief, blew his nose loudly, shook his head from side to side, and with great difficulty essayed a long-drawn-out sniffle. Mrs. Throop, as the chief mourner, resented that sniffle; it was, in a manner of speaking, poaching on her preserves. She glared at the offender and thought: “Pretending that he’s deeply grieved—and besides the will’s been written these three years. Cheap little upstart.” Her stony stare made the sniffler feel ill at ease, he fidgeted, averted his eyes, and looked out of the window, his heart full of class hatred. As he looked down on the snow-banked square full of scurrying attorneys and businessmen, he wondered if Mr. Steele had made it, let us say (not that there was much chance)—two thousand dollars. He planned to buy with this money a few choice lots in Outremont.
—Bound to go up in value; the city’s moving in that direction. Pay off a few of those debts.
He was a little fellow, nearing fifty, and had a narrow face and high cheek bones; his upper lip was adorned with a drooping, mournful mustache. His manner was that of a harassed English servant. As he looked into the square and saw the businessmen in their racoon and beaver coats, his imagination soared:
—Let’s say three thousand. After all, he was a charitable man and I always said that charity should begin at home, well, perhaps not at home, but in the family certainly. Now with three thousand dollars a man could start in business for himself. What was three thousand dollars to him? Nothing, nothing at all. A mere bag o’ shells, bagatelle, bag o’ shells. Funny how a man will think of the silliest things in the hour of sorrow. Then there’s Madge—a proper young lady she is, thank God. What with the boys beginning to call and take her out she’ll be needing clothes and things. Madge with her rosy cheeks and as perky as a lark on a spring morning although I says it myself what shouldn’t as her mother says. Still I’ll bet he’ll be leaving that Courtney girl over there more than we’ll ever see and they call him a public benefactor. Less public and more family is what I say. But if it’s three thousand there’ll be little cause for complaint.
Having dared to hope that it would be three thousand dollars, the sniffler settled himself patiently in his seat and awaited the arrival of Sir Robert, wondering if the baronet would really shake hands with everyone present including himself.
At that moment His Grace, the Bishop, entered the room and after standing in the doorway and nodding pontifically to all present seated himself on the right of Mrs. Throop. His Grace folded his hands in his lap, fingered his cross for a moment, and then closed his eyes. His eyelids blotted out all worldly thoughts and objects: the greater and lesser Steeles, the brownish hangings, the dark mahogany library table and the photographs of eminent statesmen which dotted the walls. (Sir Wilfred Laurier, smiling and benevolent, a shock of white Liberal hair hanging over the rear of his stand-up collar; the Duke of Connaught in full military regalia, whose solid plebeian features struck ready response in the heart of every loyal Canadian suburbanite—a man, His Highness was, who but for the grace of God might be planting roses and making the seven-fifty-three every morning.)
The assembled relatives looked with respectful apprehension at the slumbering Bishop. What sublime thoughts occupied his mind? But as His Grace rested, exceedingly practical matters called for thought:
—If it is one sou less than a quarter of a million dollars for the Church may I never hope to look upon the face of His Holiness. The idea of a French-Canadian cardinal is not as preposterous as some may suppose.
Opening his eyes, the Bishop looked quickly about the room, closed them again and said to himself: “For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.”
The distant cousin resented the presence of the Bishop; the Church’s emissary boded no good for him.
—As if they haven’t got enough as it is, living in luxury, drinking the best o’ wines. Not that I’m an atheist, but the Lord didn’t have that sort of thing in mind when he founded the Church. Socialists, that’s what the apostles were, socialists. Now with three thousand dollars…
At that moment Sir Robert, followed by his secretary, entered the room.
XX
Sir Robert Blake spread the tails of his morning coat with an authoritative gesture and seated himself facing the semi-circle of relatives and the servants of his late client. He was a tall wiry man with mannered, precise movements of the hands; everything about him indicated poise, control and confidence. His complexion was ruddy, although it was many years since he had indulged in sports and despite his reputation as a gourmet he was active and narrow in the hips. Only his eyes betrayed a quick nervousness. At the height of the reciprocity agitation when his party chief, Sir Wilfred Laurier, was advocating greater reciprocal trade opportunities between the United States and Canada, Robert Blake deserted his party and assisted largely in bringing about the Conservative victory. Although it was strenuously denied, he was knighted for this act of apostasy. The knighthood brought many and influential clients.
Sir Robert smiled tolerantly at those present, the sort of smile that comes with years of security and ease. In a flat tone completely devoid of inflection he read the first paragraphs of the will which established his late client’s competency. The devious tautology of the legal language soothed the scholastic soul of the Bishop, he found joy in the mere words, but the lesser, sniffing Steele was driven almost to distraction. The matter of competence having been thoroughly gone into, the soundness of mind and body stated and restated, Sir Robert eventually droned on with maddening composure into the sections dealing with bequests.
“To His Grace, Bishop Villeneuve, in trust … ”
All eyes turned sharply toward the Bishop, there was a momentary hush and it seemed as though all hearts ceased beating. The prelate, however, sat slumped in his chair, his eyes were closed and it seemed as if the business in hand were furthest from his mind.
“ … in trust for the Convent of the Sacred Heart, the Notre Dame Cathedral, the Catholic Reformatory … ” Here followed a list of nunneries, charities, churches (the steeples of which required regilding, Steele had a mania for gilded steeples), orphanages …
When the list of institutions was exhausted Sir Robert uttered the amount of the bequest to the Church. The Bishop opened his eyes and looked with mild astonishment at the baronet. As Sir Robert continued with other bequests he closed his eyes again and resumed his meditation:
—They will be pleased in Rome. Two dead saints indeed!
The lesser Steele looked with apprehension towards the droning lawyer and shifted his glance toward the Bishop.
—Them with their gold chalices and vestments! A person would think they had enough. All that money—what for? If it’s a penny more than one thousand I’ll be a bugger.
The lawyer droned on: To his servants, many of whom had spent m
ost of their lives in his service… His butler and housekeeper were especially mentioned and remembered. The butler, a man nearing seventy and, next to the Bishop, the most dignified man in the room, pulled a spotless handkerchief from his pocket and wept silently. The housekeeper, an upright and shriveled woman of indeterminate age, stared straight ahead of her as though she saw nothing.
The list of bequests continued. To his beloved sister, Mrs. Elizabeth Throop … The sum was magnificent, more than she had expected. The total bequests so far were nearly one million dollars and still there were several pages of the will remaining to read.
“To my namesake and kinsman, Francis Xavier Steele … ”
The sniffler stiffened suddenly as if preparing for a violent blow. At that moment Sir Robert cleared his throat and reached for a glass of water. The agony was unendurable, it seemed as though an eternity passed before the lawyer set the glass down again, another eternity passed during which Sir Robert drew his handkerchief from his breast pocket and leisurely patted his wetted lips.
“ … I bequeath the sum of three thousand dollars.”
At length the lawyer arrived at the paragraph which dealt with the bequest to Ruth:
“And to my favorite niece, Ruth Courtney, to whom I am greatly indebted and whose prayers I desire above all things, I bequeath … ” Here followed a long list of securities, choice city real estate, cash and government bonds. “ … to be held in trust during the life of the legatee, the interest and income of which shall … ”
There Are Victories Page 6