The Betsy (1971) (12 page)

But what neither of them knew was that they had been seen. By the newly wedded bride who had thought it would be great fun if she were to be the one who could awaken her father-in-law and get him to come downstairs to his own party.

 Chapter Four

Sally Hardeman shut the door quietly behind her and stepped out into the hallway. Suddenly her legs were too weak to support her and she leaned back against the door, trying to control their trembling. She took a deep breath, fumbling in her tiny evening purse for a cigarette. She lit it and sucked the smoke deeply into her lungs. It didn’t matter now whether anyone saw her smoking. Somehow that wasn’t very important any more. Not after what she had seen.

It was true. The stories she had heard. They were all true. Now she believed them all. Even the one her closest girl friend had told her about how at a very formal dinner in Hardeman Manor one night, she had felt a hand sliding up her back beneath her loose evening blouse. Almost before she had become aware of the touch, her brassiere had been unfastened and the hand came around, fondling and cupping her naked breast.

She almost shrieked aloud and turned angrily toward the man sitting next to her before she remembered who he was. Loren Hardeman. He wasn’t even looking at her, his face turned away, talking to the woman on his left.

Only his right arm was there, behind her chair and under her blouse. She looked around the table. Everyone seemed engrossed in his own conversation. Even Mrs. Hardeman almost diagonally across the table from her was talking to her neighbor. It was with a feeling of shock that she realized no one seemed to notice the slightly billowing movement of her blouse as his hand circled and fondled the breast beneath.

“What did you do?” Sally had asked.

Her girl friend had looked at her with a curiously wise expression. “Nothing,” she had answered flatly. “If no one saw what was happening or, at least, pretended not to, who was I to make a fuss? After all, it was Loren Hardeman.” And then she giggled. “Then when I looked around the table and thought how stupid they all were not to see what was happening, I began to enjoy it.”

“You didn’t!” Sally breathed.

“Yes,” the girl had answered. “There was something about his touch that was very exciting.”

“Then what did you do?” Sally had asked.

Her girl friend had smiled. “After dinner was over I went to the bathroom and hooked up my brassiere.”

That was all there was to that story, but there were others. Now Sally could believe them all. She dragged again on the cigarette but her legs still refused to stop trembling. She hoped no one would come into the hallway and see her like this.

She had knocked softly on the door when she had come upstairs. “Daddy Hardeman,” she called softly.

There was no answer.

She knocked and called again, then thinking he was still asleep, she tried the door. It swung open silently and she went inside. “Daddy Hardeman,” she called softly again before she saw that the bed was empty and noticed the light coming through the bathroom door.

She had turned to leave when a reflection in the large mirror over the bureau on the far wall transfixed her. In the mirror she could see through the open door into her mother-in-law’s bedroom and silhouetted in it were two naked figures.

Her father-in-law was holding a naked girl in the air above him. He began to laugh and the sound seemed to rumble in the room as he lowered the girl onto him. The girl cried once and began to moan as he disappeared into her.

It wasn’t until he began to walk across the room, the girl still with her legs wrapped around his waist, and disappeared from the mirror that Sally found herself able to move. There was a creak from the protesting bedsprings, then a cry almost of pain, and the mirror was empty. Quickly Sally slipped out of the bedroom.

The cigarette was half finished and she felt self-control coming back. She began to feel anger rising inside her. Almost as if she had suffered a strange kind of personal violation, an ache began to spread through her loins with a warm, pulsing pain. He wasn’t like a man at all, he was an animal not only in the way he looked, all covered with hair with swollen giant parts, but also in his brutal manner, careless of all sensitivities.

She began to feel better. Her anger had helped. How fortunate she was that Loren was nothing like his father. Kind, considerate, and gentle. Even today, when they had gone upstairs to their first bedroom together to rest for the ball this evening.

She had not known what to expect. But all he did was to kiss her softly and tell her to lie down on the bed and rest until it would be time to get ready. Then he lay down beside her and closed his eyes. In a moment, the soft sound of his breathing told her he was asleep. She could not fall asleep at once; she lay there watching his quiet face and after a while she, too, slept.

She dropped the cigarette into a tall urn standing in the hall and started for the staircase, when the door to her father-in-law’s bedroom opened and he stood there.

“Sally,” he said, his voice calm as if nothing had happened. “Why aren’t you at the party? After all, it is in your honor.”

She felt her face begin to flush. “Actually,” she said, “I was just on my way to get you. The guests were beginning to wonder where you were.”

He looked at her silently for a moment, then he smiled. “How thoughtful of you,” he said, taking her arm. “Then let’s not disappoint them, shall we?”

Her legs began to tremble again at his touch and she stumbled slightly as they turned toward the steps. He paused and looked at her. “You’re shaking. Are you all right?”

Again that curious, warm, pulsing pain inside her. Somehow she couldn’t bring herself to meet his direct gaze. “I’m okay.” She managed to laugh. “After all, it’s not every day that is a girl’s wedding day.”

Elizabeth, looking up, saw them coming down the grand stairway. Loren’s red hair was just beginning to pepper with gray but his face was as strong and as young as the day they had met. She felt a twinge inside as she saw Sally’s blond head turn toward Loren. Loren and she used to be like that. At first it seemed as if they were always laughing.

But that changed as soon as they had arrived in Detroit. Back in Bethlehem Loren had always been fun, never serious, had a joke and a good word for everyone. Then he got into the automobile business and everything changed.

There were the early jobs at Peerless and Maxwell, then Ford, which was over almost before it had begun, and finally with the Dodge Brothers, where Junior had been born in 1901, Loren’s first year there. He had remained with the Dodges for almost nine years until they had a falling-out. The trouble was that Loren wanted to build a better car which would sell for slightly more than the standard medium-priced car of the time and the Dodge Brothers weren’t at all interested. They were still angry at Ford and all they wanted to do was to compete with him.

In vain Loren had argued with them. The Model T was unassailable. There was nothing that could be built that could compete with it in its time. He correctly predicted that the Model T, which first came on the market in 1908, would sweep the country. And he had been right. In less than two years Ford was producing almost fifty percent of the cars in America, and Loren left the Dodge Brothers.

There was a market for a good medium-priced car, however, and Loren drew a tight bead on it. In 1911 the first Sundancer appeared on the streets of Detroit. And from that point on, none of the medium-priced cars could come anywhere near it in popularity. Not the Buick, nor the Leland, nor the Oldsmobile. They weren’t even in the same league, and almost overnight, it seemed, Bethlehem Motors had become a big business and Loren had lost the gift of laughter.

But tonight he was smiling and there was something in his face that made him seem young again. The orchestra broke into a waltz and Loren held out his arms. Sally swept into them and they began to dance.

Tears filled Elizabeth’s eyes. He looked so young, so strong, so vital that if one did not know, they would think that he, not his son, was the bridegroom. Junior came up to the couple on the floor and with a bow, Loren relinquished Sally to her husband. He turned and came toward her.

He kissed her cheek. “It’s a beautiful party, Mother.”

She looked into his face. “How do you feel, Father?”

He smiled ruefully. “A little bit hung over, I think. I’ll have to learn to handle bootleg a little better.”

The butler came up to them. His voice lowered discreetly. “Everything is ready, sir.”

Loren nodded. He turned to Elizabeth. “Is it all right to do it now, Mother?”

She nodded and he took her arm and led her out into the middle of the ballroom floor. He held up both hands and the music came to a stop.

“Ladies and gentlemen.” His voice boomed into every corner of the large ballroom. “As you all know, this is a very special occasion for Mother and myself. It isn’t every day that our son finds himself a bride, especially such a beautiful one.”

A ripple of laughter and a scattering of applause went through the room. “Loren and Sally,” he called. “Come out here on the floor where the folks can get a good look at you.”

Junior was smiling and she was blushing as they took up their places beside his parents. Junior stood next to his father, slim and straight and as tall, but without the bigness of the older man.

“This is Detroit,” Loren said in his large voice. “And what better gift to give a newlywed couple than a brand-new car? That’s the Detroit way of doing things, isn’t it?”

An answering roar of approval came from the guests. Loren smiled and held up his hand for silence. He turned to his son. “So, Loren, here is the surprise we have for you and your bride—a brand-new car. New from front bumper to rear, from top to the very bottom of the tires. Your very own car. We’re calling it the Loren Two, and next year it will be on sale in every Bethlehem dealer’s across the country.”

The orchestra broke into a popular Sousa march as the French doors to the garden opened. There was the quiet sound of a powerful motor and the automobile came into the ballroom. The crowd parted and the chauffeur carefully drove it to the center of the ballroom floor and came to a halt in front of the Hardemans.

A murmur of approval came from the crowd and they began to press forward to get a closer look at the new car. They were Detroiters and to them there was nothing more important. And this car was important. There was no doubt about that. The burgundy-red-and-black sedan was easily one of the most important cars ever to be seen in this automobile-conscious city.

They stopped, suddenly aware that the rear passenger compartment behind the chauffeur was completely filled with what seemed thousands of sheets of green-and-gold-colored paper. Loren held up his hand and they all looked at him.

“I suppose you’re all wondering what that is in the back of the car?” He didn’t wait for their reply. Instead he walked over to the door of the car and opened it. The sheets of paper spilled out as if propelled. He picked up one sheet and held it over his head toward the crowd. His voice boomed over the sudden silence.

“Each one of these pieces of paper represents one share of stock in the Bethlehem Motor Company and there are a hundred thousand of them in this car. Each one of them made out to my son, Loren Hardeman, Jr. These hundred thousand shares are equal to ten percent of my company and my accountants tell me that they are worth somewhere between twenty-five and thirty million dollars.”

He turned to his son. “And that, Loren, is just a small token of the love and affection your mother and I have for you.”

Junior stood there for a moment, his face pale. He tried to speak but no words came. Silently he gripped his father’s hand, then turned to his mother and kissed her.

At the same moment, Loren bent and kissed his daughter-in-law. A startled look came into her eyes and she felt the trembling suddenly return to her legs. She put a hand on his arm to steady herself, then turned to kiss her mother-in-law.

The guests went wild with approval and began to surround them with congratulations and good wishes. It was pandemonium.

At the back of the ballroom a reporter for the
Detroit Free Press
was busy scribbling his notes. The headline the next day was both a question and a statement.

AND WHEN HENRY GAVE EDSEL A MILLION IN GOLD FOR A WEDDING PRESENT, HE THOUGHT THAT WAS SOMETHING?

 Chapter Five

The faint sounds of “Three O’Clock in the Morning” came from the ballroom into the library of the Hardeman Manor where a bar had been set up for the men who wanted to have a real drink, away from the dance floor. Only champagne was served at the ball.

Loren was standing at the bar, one foot on the rail, the whiskey in his hand. His face was flushed and perspiring as he stood in the small circle of men. “The sedan is the car of the future,” he said. “You mark my words. In the next ten or fifteen years the open touring car as we know it will be gone. People have got to be tired of freezing in the winter, getting soaked in the rain, and cooking in the sun. Someday they’ll even have air-conditioners in cars the same way they’re beginning to have heaters now.”

“It won’t seem like driving then,” one of the men said.

“So what?” Loren retorted. “The idea is to get there in comfort. That’s what it’s going to be all about. The smoother the ride, the more customers for the car. Wait until the Loren Two gets on the market next year, you’ll see I know what I’m talking about.”

The same man said doubtfully, “Seventeen hundred dollars is a lot of money.”

“They’ll pay it,” Loren said confidently. “The American public knows what it wants. They’ll pay a little more for quality anytime.”

“Did you make a bid for the Dodge Brothers?” another man asked.

Loren shook his head. “It’s not for me. I’m not about to go up against Ford and Chevy. I’m strictly middle range.”

“I heard GM offered a hundred and forty-six million,” the first man said.

“They’re damn fools,” said Loren.

“You mean the offer is too much?”

Loren shook his head. “Too little. They won’t get it. I know a Wall Street house has come up with a higher bid.” He turned around to the two men standing behind him. “Hey, Walter,” he said to the taller man. “You’re the one that ought to buy the Dodges. It could fill a hole in your line and then you could give GM a real run for their money.”

Walter Chrysler smiled. “I looked into it. But I’m not ready yet. I’ve still got my hands filled with the Maxwell. Maybe in a few years.”

“Once Wall Street gets their hands into something, it’ll be too late. You know how those boys operate.”

Chrysler smiled again. “I can wait, Loren. Wall Street may be able to sell stocks and bonds, but running an automobile company is another game altogether. They’ll find that out. By then, I might be ready.”

A butler threw open the two massive doors of the library which had insulated them against the rest of the house, and the sounds of the affair ending came into the room. Quickly the men finished their drinks and left to claim their wives and make their departures, and soon Loren was standing alone in the room except for the bartender. He had just poured himself another drink when Junior and Sally entered.

He held up his glass. “To the bride and groom.” He swallowed the whiskey neat. “It was a great party,” he said. “A great party.”

Junior laughed. “That it was, Father.”

Loren looked at him. “Where’s your mother?”

“She went upstairs,” Junior said quickly. “She asked us to find you and tell you. She was very tired.”

Loren didn’t speak. He signaled for another drink. The bartender refilled his glass. “Join me in a drink,” he said.

“No, thank you, Father,” said Junior. “I think we’ll be going up too. It’s been a long day.”

Loren chuckled knowingly. “You kids can’t wait, eh? I would’ve thought you’d already grabbed one during the matinee this afternoon.”

A quick vision of the naked, hairy body she had seen in the mirror flashed through Sally’s mind. Her voice was indignant. “Daddy Hardeman! How can you say something like that?”

Loren laughed genially. “I’m not that old that I don’t know what’s on the minds of you youngsters.” He put his hands on her shoulders and spun her around and sent her toward the door with a slap on the behind. “You go upstairs and get ready for your husband. I want to talk with him for a minute. I promise I won’t keep him long.”

She left the library, her nose in the air. Loren looked after her appreciatively, then turned to his son. “That’s a fine hunk of woman you got there, Junior,” he said. “I hope you know it.”

“I know it, Father,” Junior said quietly.

Loren clapped him on the shoulder. “C’mon, have a drink.”

Junior hesitated a moment. “I’ll have a brandy,” he said to the bartender.

“Brandy!” Loren roared. “What kind of a sissy drink is that? Have a real drink. Bartender, give him a whiskey.”

The drink was placed in front of Junior. “What did you want to talk to me about, Father?”

“Mother tells me you and Sally are thinking of buying a house out in Ann Arbor,” Loren said.

Junior nodded. “We like it out there.”

“What’s wrong with Grosse Pointe?” Loren asked. “I can get the Sanders’ place. Or if you don’t like that, any place else you choose.”

“Sally and I like the country, Father,” Junior replied. “We thought we’d get a place with some room and land for a few horses, things like that.”

“Horses!” Loren exploded. “What the hell do you want with horses? We’re in the automobile business!”

“Sally and I like to ride,” Junior’s voice became slightly defensive. “I don’t think anyone can criticize us for that.”

“No one is,” Loren said quickly. “But Ann Arbor, that’s way the hell out. You’ll have nobody to talk to on the weekends. There are no automobile people out there. How about Bloomfield Hills? At least there are people there that you know.”

“That’s just it, Father,” Junior explained stubbornly. “We want to be by ourselves.”

Loren drank his whiskey and got another. “Listen to me, son,” he said heavily. “Beginning the first of the year, you’re the executive vice-president of this company, in a couple of years, you’ll be president. I don’t want to be working forever and I think your mother and I are entitled to some time off. When you have that kind of responsibility you got to be where people can get to you real quick. You can’t live off somewhere in the wilderness where people can’t find you.”

“Ann Arbor isn’t the wilderness,” Junior answered. “It’s only a little more than an hour away.”

Loren was silent for a moment. He looked around the room. “You know, son, if it weren’t for your mother, I wouldn’t even live here. Maybe someday I’ll put up an office building out at the plant and the top floor of it will be an apartment.”

Junior smiled. “That’s one way of keeping on top of things.”

Loren looked at him and then laughed. “Okay, son, you do what you want. But mark my words, in a little while you’ll be looking for a place back here.”

“Maybe, Father. We’ll see.”

His father shoved him on the shoulder. “Okay, Loren, get on upstairs. It’s not a good thing to keep a bride waiting on her wedding night.”

Junior nodded and started to turn away, then he stopped and turned back. “Father.”

“Yes, Loren?”

The young man smiled. Loren felt something tug inside him, he saw his wife in that smile. Almost the same gentleness. “Thank you, Father, thank you. For everything.”

“Go on, go on,” Loren said gruffly. “Your bride is waiting.” Then he turned to the bar so that his son would not see the sudden wetness in his eyes.

“Good night, Father.”

“Good night, son.” He listened to the footsteps recede and when they were gone he finished his drink. Junior’s was still on the bar, untouched. He looked at it for a moment, then took out his massive gold pocket watch and opened it. The picture of Elizabeth and Junior taken so many years ago looked back up at him. It was 4 a.m. He sighed.

He closed the watch and put it back in his pocket. He left the library slowly and wandered through the house to the ballroom. It seemed strangely silent and empty now that all the people had gone and there were only a few scattered servants tending to the final chores of the night.

He went to the French doors leading to the garden. The Loren II was standing out there on the terrace, dark and beautiful in the pale moonlight. Slowly he walked over to it and around it. It was sheer beauty, no matter from what angle you looked at it.

He opened the driver’s door and got in. He sank comfortably into the cushions and put his hands on the steering wheel. Even without the motor running, it felt alive and strong to him. He wondered whether Junior felt the same things about the car that he did.

But even as he wondered, he already knew the answer. Junior did not. For Junior it was not the car itself, it was merely the business he happened to be born into. Maybe someday Junior would feel as he did. Junior had never built a car with his own hands. That could be the reason.

He leaned forward and rested his head on his arms on the steering wheel and closed his eyes. A peculiar weariness came over him.

“Loren,” he whispered half to himself. “Couldn’t you see? It wasn’t the stock certificates, it wasn’t the money. It was the car. That’s what I wanted to give you. That’s why I called it the Loren Two.”

He fell asleep.

Sally was naked beneath the sheets in the dark bedroom when he came back from the bathroom. He stood next to the bed, looking down at her while he buttoned the top button of his pajamas.

“Sally,” he whispered.

“Yes, Loren.”

He knelt beside the bed, his face level with her own. “I love you, Sally.”

She turned and put her arms around his neck. “I love you.”

He kissed her gently. “I will always love you.”

She closed her eyes, her arms tightening around him, drawing him up to her. They kissed again.

He raised his head. “I know you must be very tired—”

She placed a finger over his lips, then drew his head down to her breast, letting him feel the nakedness of her. His breath drew in sharply and his mouth closed on her nipple. She felt the heat begin to run through her and she closed her eyes.

A vision of a naked, giant, hairy body jumped onto the screen of her lids and she climaxed even before her husband was inside her.

It was at that moment that she knew her father-in-law had taken possession of her body and had come between them on their wedding night.