The Rebellion of Yale Marratt (36 page)

 

 

There were as many kinds of reactions to the Dean's welcome as there were
men in the first-year class. The lecture had been obviously designed to
jar the men out of their easy "college-day" mentality . . . to awake
them to the stern reality of graduate school. Yale remembered that as
the months went by the pressure both real and imaginary increased until
even Sam was studying into the small hours of the morning. Most of the
first-year men had responded with the courage of those who refused to
be defeated.

 

 

Slowly, as Yale spent hundreds upon hundreds of hours poring over business
cases, trying to solve problems in accounting, finance, advertising,
administration, industrial management, business policy, he began to
realize, that while he was capable of doing the work and responding in
a manner that would result in high marks, he was not reacting with the
same intensity as most of his classmates. Before mid-years he discovered
that by sheer concentration, he could memorize the needed facts for any
course. By approaching most of the business problem cases with knowledge
of human psychology and a general knowledge of the business environment
Yale learned that he could "solve" them as effectively as most of his
classmates who spent hours toiling in their rooms. In March he gave up
taking notes. He rented an Ediphone, dictated his reports on wax cylinders,
and had them transcribed by a public stenographer. Teaching the efficient
old lady how to type a correct business report was surprisingly easy. She
even learned what was expected in the area of terse business English,
automatically paring his reports down when he became too verbose.

 

 

Sam Higgins watched what was happening with disgust and envy. Yale
remembered that he had managed to cut the seventy hours a week required
of a career businessman down to about twenty-five hours; a few hours in
class, and a couple of hours a day preparation for the coming classes.

 

 

"I don't see how in hell you do it," Sam had complained. "Half the
evenings you are either reading some damned book on philosophy that you
picked up in Harvard Square, or you are going to Symphony Hall. You're
no businessman! You are one of those long hairs from the other side of
the Charles River. All the rest of us have to grind like bastards, while
you are farting around . . . or reading crap. Not even any woman. What
in hell makes you tick, Marratt?"

 

 

Yale remembered the night he tried to explain himself to Sam. "You see,
it isn't that I don't give a damn. I suppose there is a certain interest
in running a business, and making it successful, but it's a question of
ends and means. If I frighten you, believe me most of the characters
around here positively scare me to death. I sit in the back of the
classes and watch them literally pour themselves into these business
problems. I wonder what motivates them; and then as I think about it,
I'm afraid. I know. These are the men of tomorrow! Most of them came here
from an engineering college or another business college. Business isn't
just a way of life to them. It
is
life. In a way they are developing
themselves into some kind of fantastic super-machines. Believe me, I used
to think my father was tough, but he's just one of the old-fashioned
kind. In another twenty years, when these boys are running businesses,
Pat Marratt will be as useless as a Model T Ford. These bright young
wonders will run everything and plan everyone's life with slide rules and
I.B.M. machines. Sure, I've learned to use a slide rule, but only in self
defense. For these fellows business is real, business is earnest. They
thank God for their unconquerable soul. By the nineteen-sixties they'll
own the thousand or so companies who do seventy-five percent of all the
business in this country. If Yale Marratt came looking for a job from
them . . . God forbid . . . they'd quickly analyze him, and with their
aptitude tests they'd discover that he might be a genius . . . but, alas,
he would have a fatal weakness . . . he wouldn't really believe that
all this tempest in a teapot was worth the effort. You see, Sam, I have
discovered that it isn't that I don't like business . . . it's just that
businessmen with their one-sided, give-it-everything-you've-got approach,
bore hell out of me. Which gets me back to ends and means. The end of
living for me is to know everything; knowing that I never will, is part
of the fun. It adds to the delight to know the search is endless. Most
of the people I have met in business, have a very simple goal: they want
either power or money. It makes them pretty dull people."

 

 

What Yale hadn't admitted to Sam was that somehow he was on the same
merry-go-round. The desire to learn, the quest for meaning in life, was
nowhere near so strong for him as it had been when he had had Cynthia to
share his enthusiasm. Now, the freedom that he had obtained by reducing
his courses to a formula, left him with lonesome unshared hours, skating
on the Charles in the winter, or sitting on its banks in the spring,
or probing in dusty bookstores in Harvard Square, or sitting in a lonely
seat at Symphony concerts, or riding the subway to Boston and prowling
through darkened streets as he looked for the companionship he couldn't
discover. And there was no surcease from this almost overwhelming
feeling of being a man alone . . . of not being a part of the warm,
laughing stream of humanity that passed him on the Boston streets. And
even worse, he was pursued by an insidious feeling that somehow he must
shake loose. If he didn't he would sink into a rut in Midhaven, owned by
Pat Marratt and the Marratt Corporation. He had to discover some other
reason for his existence, some other meaning for his life.

 

 

There had seemed to be no answer. And then one day in April, he had gone
with Sam to the Boston branch office of Higgins, Incorporated on State
Street. That was the day he met Agatha Latham. Yale remembered that Sam
had tried to beg off when Jack Wills, the Boston manager, had asked him
if he would drive Agatha Latham home to Belmont.

 

 

"Have a heart, Jack, old man. I've been studying like a bastard. I don't
want to get saddled with that old creep." Sam had looked nervously in
the direction of the call-board room. He said to Yale, "She's another
Hetty Green. More damned money than you ever dreamed of. She's related to
the Lathams from your neck of the woods. Alfred Latham's older sister,
I think. She's a wild old witch. Dad introduced me to her a couple of
years ago."

 

 

Wills explained that Agatha Latham's chauffeur, an elderly man whom
she called Butch, had gone home to Vermont for two weeks. Agatha, who
couldn't drive a car, was living alone and was very demanding to say
the least. "She's down here every damned day, poring over corporation
reports. Believe me that old dame knows the highs and lows of every
company listed on both exchanges as well as their dividend payments for
the past ten years. You fellows could learn more from her than you'll
ever learn at Harvard."

 

 

Yale had been curious. He had heard about the legendary Agatha Latham.
He remembered Pat had mentioned her as being a thorn in the flesh
of Alfred Latham. He remembered that Agatha had been accused of
contributing huge sums, during the depression, to zany causes. Yet she
had refused to aid her brother financially when the Latham Shipyards
had been near to bankruptcy. Agatha hadn't lived in Midhaven since her
father, Lincoln Latham, had died, but she occasionally came to visit
Alfred. Yale remembered hearing Pat impart the information that Agatha
was in town. She usually came once a year to the stockholders meetings
of the Latham Shipyards. Yale understood that on these days Alfred moved
into the Club. Leaving Agatha to his wife, he drank a few more than his
customary one drink a day.

 

 

Jack Wills reminded Sam that Agatha was the largest investing client
that Higgins Incorporated had. Sam reluctantly decided to drive Agatha
to Belmont. He knew that if he refused, Jack would pick up their New York
phone and let Higgins Senior do the convincing. Jack Wills took them into
the call-board room. He introduced them to a tiny five-foot-two-inch
lady. Jack referred to her in very polite tones as Miss Agatha. Yale
recognized in Agatha's grey-blue eyes and pert expression a resemblance
to Marge Latham. He was amused that despite her petite appearance (he
found out later that she weighed just ninety-eight pounds) she conveyed
a tremendous sense of power and dignity.

 

 

She had looked at them sternly. "Mr. Wills, when I visit with you you
know I always wait until the New York Stock Exchange closes." She looked
at her watch. "I will be ready to leave in twenty-three minutes. I'm sure
that Sam Higgins' son will be pleased to wait for me." She wrinkled her
brow when she looked at Yale. "Marratt? Yale Marratt? Of course! You
belong to that big blustering man who is a friend of my brother's in
Midhaven. A very rude man! I haven't seen him for ten years."

 

 

For the next twenty minutes instead of watching the board Agatha talked
continuously. She gave them a quick history of Midhaven from the time of
the Civil War. She discussed the pros and cons of Pat Marratt selling
his stock in the Marratt Corporation on the open market. She slid into
a discussion of her brother Alfred whom she felt had lost his touch. He
didn't have the ability to meet the current situation. He needed the
drive of a man like Henry Kaiser, and his son Edgar, if he wanted to
capitalize on the world situation. Not just a few cruisers but thousands
of tankers. She told them if they had any Latham Shipyard stock to sell
it. Or if they wanted to buy some she would sell hers to them. When Jack
Wills tried to edge away and return to his office, she insisted that
he listen to the problems she was having since Butch had gone home to
Vermont. She explained to them that Butch was her chauffeur. She told them
that Butch was seventy-three years old and that she was seventy-four. She
told them she wouldn't consider marrying Butch because he was too much
of a fuddy-duddy. In fact, she had named him Butch after a character
she had seen in a gangster movie. She had decided to name him Butch to
help his ego. Her firm opinion was that a rose by another name would not
smell so sweet. If her father hadn't named her Agatha, she would have
married. Girls with names like Agatha had a strike against them. She
had noticed a definite improvement in Henry's character since she had
named him Butch. Everyone needed some sense of ego. She gave them a
rapId dissertation on the necessity for a strong sense of ego.

 

 

She was still talking in a calm, modulated voice when she interjected
the fact that the New York Stock Exchange was now closed; that rails and
steel had held firm which was only to be expected because anyone with
any sense could see that the United States would be in a war very soon.

 

 

Sam and Yale led Agatha to the elevators, guiding her to the parking
lot where Sam had left his car. Agatha kept talking. Sam drove out
Storrow Drive, in sullen anger, while Agatha advised Yale that she
liked to be called Aunt Agatha . . . that if he and Sam were learning
anything at Harvard Business School it would surprise her . . . that
President Eliot certainly hadn't taken her advice, or he never would have
started a Business School . . . that business couldn't be taught to young
men. Business was for old men and maiden ladies. When a man was young he
should devote himself to young women. That businessmen were a boring lot
anyway. Look at her brother Alfred. A very dull man with a dull wife,
a dull son and a dull daughter and a dull hobby that no respecting man
would engage in.

 

 

Aunt Agatha was well into a discussion of the evils of golf when Yale
realized that Sam had turned into Harvard Business School. He pulled
into the parking lot behind the library.

 

 

Agatha turned to Sam. "Now, Junior, I've been in George Baker's library
many times. You just take me home to Belmont."

 

 

Sam had looked at her feebly. "To tell you the truth, Auntie, I've got an
afternoon class." He smiled thinly at Yale evidently wondering whether
Yale would reveal his lie. "Yale has a brand new Ford convertible. He'd
just love to drive you home."

 

 

At Agatha's insistence, though it was early April, Yale had put the top
down on his car. And strangely, as they drove toward Belmont, she stopped
talking. Yale asked her if she felt all right. He caught the twinkle in
her eye, as she replied, "Young man, I'm a woman. I like to hear myself
talk. I lead a rather secluded life. Occasionally, I find a captive
audience. It gives me a chance to test my lucidity." She chuckled. "Junior
had more sense than I expected. He escaped, and left you trapped with me."

 

 

But Yale hadn't felt trapped. Aunt Agatha's fast, probing mind entranced
him. On the way to her home he stopped at a roadside restaurant, and
ordered her tea which she accepted, with delight. "I like you, young
man. You show considerable skill at making me feel like a woman instead
of an old lady."

 

 

"Let's say that I like ladies, young and old, with a dash of vinegar,"
Yale had said. It was the beginning of a friendship that lasted through
the remainder of his Harvard Business School years.

 

 

 

 

As he watched the ffickering neon signs on Collins Avenue, wondering
whether to go back to bed with Kathie, or sneak out and return to the
Floridian Hotel, Yale remembered that from the moment Aunt Agatha offered
to hire him and give Butch a rest, a few afternoons a week, his memories
of Harvard would always be mixed up with Agatha's Victorian house in
Belmont. He would never forget the evenings when the three of them,
Butch, Agatha, himself, sitting uncomfortably on horsehair couches,
fending off innumerable cats, discussed business, the stock market,
Agatha's charities, modern poetry, music, philosophy, the current news,
and Agatha's one experience with love that had cost her nearly a million
dollars, but had saved her five million.