The Winter of Our Discontent (19 page)

“Good afternoon,” Mrs. Baker said. “So glad you could come. You’ve neglected us, Mary. Hasn’t it been a glorious day? Did you enjoy the service? For a clergyman I think he’s such an interesting man.”

“We don’t see you nearly often enough,” Mr. Baker said. “I remember your grandfather sitting in that very chair and reporting that the dirty Spaniards had sunk the
Maine
. He spilled his tea, only it wasn’t tea. Old Cap’n Hawley used to lace his rum with a little tea. He was a truculent man, some thought a quarrelsome man.”

I could see that Mary was first shaken and then pleased at this warmth. Of course she didn’t know I had promoted her to be an heiress. A reputation for money is almost as negotiable as money itself.

Mrs. Baker, her head jerking with some nervous disorder, poured tea into cups as thin and fragile as magnolia petals, and her pouring hand was the only steady part of her.

Mr. Baker stirred with a thoughtful spoon. “I don’t know whether I love tea or the ceremony of it,” he said. “I like all ceremonies—even the silly ones.”

“I think I understand,” I said. “This morning I felt comfortable in the service because it had no surprises. I knew the words before they were said.”

“During the war, Ethan—listen to this, ladies, and see if you can remember anything like it—during the war I served as a consultant to the Secretary of War. I spent some time in Washington.”

“I hated it,” said Mrs. Baker.

“Well, there was a big military tea, a real doozer, maybe five hundred guests. The ranking lady was the wife of a five-star general and next in importance was the lady of a lieutenant general. Mrs. Secretary, the hostess, asked the five-star lady to pour the tea and Mrs. Three-Stars to pour coffee. Well, the top lady refused because, and I quote her, ‘Everyone knows coffee outranks tea.’ Now, did you ever hear that?” He chuckled. “As it turned out, whisky outranked everybody.”

“It was such a restless place,” Mrs. Baker said. “People moved before they had time to gather a set of habits, or manners.”

Mary told her story of an Irish tea in Boston with the water boiling in round tubs over an open fire and served with tin ladles. “And they don’t steep. They boil,” she said. “That tea will unsettle varnish on a table.”

There must be ritual preliminaries to a serious discussion or action, and the sharper the matter is, the longer and lighter must the singing be. Each person must add a bit of feather or a colored patch. If Mary and Mrs. Baker were not to be a part of the serious matter, they would long since have set up their own pattern of exchange. Mr. Baker had poured wine on the earth of conversation and so had my Mary, and she was pleased and excited by their attentiveness. It remained for Mrs. Baker and for me to contribute and I felt it only decent to be last.

She took her turn and drew her source from the teapot as the others had. “I remember when there were dozens of kinds of tea,” she offered brightly. “Why, everyone had recipes for nearly everything. I guess there wasn’t a weed or a leaf or a flower that wasn’t made into some kind of tea. Now there are only two, India and China, and not much China. Remember tansy and camomile and orange-leaf and flower—and—and cambric?”

“What’s cambric?” Mary asked.

“Equal parts hot water and hot milk. Children love it. It doesn’t taste like milk and water.” That accounted for Mrs. Baker.

It was my turn, and I intended to make a few carefully meaningless remarks about the Boston Tea Party, but you can’t always do what you intended. Surprises slip out, not waiting for permission.

“I went to sleep after service,” I heard me say. “I dreamed of Danny Taylor, a dreadful dream. You remember Danny.”

“Poor chap,” said Mr. Baker.

“Once we were closer than brothers. I had no brother. I guess we were brothers in a way. I don’t carry it out, of course, but I feel I should be my brother Danny’s keeper.”

Mary was annoyed with me for breaking the pattern of the conversation. She took a small revenge. “Ethan gives him money. I don’t think it’s right. He just uses it to get drunk.”

“Wellll!” said Mr. Baker.

“I wonder—anyway the dream was a noonmare. I give him so little—a dollar now and then. What else can he do with a dollar but get drunk? Maybe with a decent amount he could get well.”

“No one would dare do that,” Mary cried. “That would be after killing him. Isn’t that so, Mr. Baker?”

“Poor chap,” Mr. Baker said. “A fine family the Taylors were. It makes me sick to see him this way. But Mary’s right. He’d probably drink himself to death.”

“He is anyway. But he’s safe from me. I don’t have a decent amount to give him.”

“It’s the principle,” Mr. Baker said.

Mrs. Baker contributed a feminine savagery: “He should be in an institution where they could look after him.”

All three were annoyed with me. I should have stayed with the Boston Tea Party.

Strange how the mind goes romping, playing blindman’s buff or pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey when it should be using every observation to find a path through the minefield of secret plans and submerged obstacles. I understood the house of Baker and the house of Hawley, the dark walls and curtains, the funereal rubber plants unacquainted with sun; the portraits and prints and remembrances of other times in pottery and scrimshaw, in fabrics and wood which bolt it to reality and to permanence. Chairs change with style and comfort but chests and tables, bookcases and desks, relate to a solid past. Hawley was more than a family. It was a house. And that was why poor Danny held onto Taylor Meadow. Without it, no family—and soon not even a name. By tone and inflection and desire, the three sitting there had canceled him. It may be that some men require a house and a history to reassure themselves that they exist—it’s a slim enough connection, at most. In the store I was a failure and a clerk, in my house I was Hawley, so I too must be unsure. Baker could offer a hand to Hawley. Without my house, I too would have been canceled. It was not man to man but house to house. I resented the removal from real of Danny Taylor, but I couldn’t stop it. And this thought sharpened and tempered me. Baker was going to try to refurbish Hawley for Baker’s participation in Mary’s fancied inheritance. Now I was on the edge of the minefield. My heart hardened against my selfless benefactor. I felt it harden and grow wary and dangerous. And with its direction came the feeling of combat, and the laws of controlled savagery, and the first law is: Let even your defense have the appearance of attack.

I said, “Mr. Baker, we don’t need to go over the background. You know better than I do the slow, precise way in which my father lost the Hawley substance. I was away at war. How did it happen?”

“It wasn’t his intention, but his judgment—”

“I know he was unworldly—but how did it happen?”

“Well, it was a time of wild investment. He invested wildly.”

“Did he have any advice?”

“He put money in munitions that were already obsolete. Then when the contracts were canceled, he lost.”

“You were in Washington. Did you know about the contracts?”

“Only in a general way.”

“But enough so you didn’t invest.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Did you advise my father about investments?”

“I was in Washington.”

“But you knew he had borrowed the money on the Hawley property, the money to invest?”

“Yes, I knew that.”

“Did you advise against it?”

“I was in Washington.”

“But your bank foreclosed.”

“A bank doesn’t have any choice, Ethan. You know that.”

“Yes, I know. Only it’s a shame you couldn’t have advised him.”

“You shouldn’t blame him, Ethan.”

“Now that I understand it, I don’t. I didn’t mean to blame him, but I never quite knew what happened.”

I think Mr. Baker had prepared an opening. Having lost his chance, he had to grope about for his next move. He coughed, blew his nose and wiped it with a paper handkerchief from a flat pocket package, wiped his eyes with a second sheet, polished his glasses with a third. Everyone has his own method for gaining time. I’ve known a man to take five minutes to fill and light a pipe.

When he was ready again, I said, “I know I have no right in myself to ask you for help. But you yourself brought up the long partnership of our families.”

“Good people,” he said. “And usually men of excellent judgment, conservative—”

“But not blindly so, sir. I believe that once they decided on a course they drove through.”

“That they did.”

“Even if it came to sinking an enemy—or burning a ship?”

“They were commissioned, of course.”

“In 1801, I believe, sir, they were questioned about what constituted an enemy.”

“There’s always some readjustment after a war.”

“Surely. But I’m not taking up old scores for talk. Frankly, Mr. Baker, I want to—to rehabilitate my fortunes.”

“That’s the spirit, Ethan. For a time I thought you’d lost the old Hawley touch.”

“I had; or maybe I’d not developed it. You’ve offered help. Where do I start?”

“The trouble is, you need capital to start.”

“I know that. But if I had some capital, where would I start?”

“This must be tiresome for the ladies,” he said. “Maybe we should go into the library. Business is dull to ladies.”

Mrs. Baker stood up. “I was just about to ask Mary to help me select some wallpaper for the big bedroom. The samples are upstairs, Mary.”

“I’d like Mary to hear—”

But she went along with them, as I knew she would. “I don’t know a thing about business,” she said. “But I do know about wallpaper.”

“But you’re concerned, darling.”

“I just get mixed up, Ethan. You know I do.”

“Maybe I’ll get more mixed up without you, darling.”

Mr. Baker had probably suggested the wallpaper bit. I think his wife does not choose the paper. Surely no woman picked the dark and geometric paper in the room where we sat.

“Now,” he said when they were gone, “your problem is capital, Ethan. Your house is clear. You can mortgage it.”

“I won’t do that.”

“Well, I can respect that, but it’s the only collateral you have. There is also Mary’s money. It’s not much, but with some money you can get more money.”

“I don’t want to touch her money. That’s her safety.”

“It’s in a joint account and it’s not earning anything.”

“Let’s say I overcame my scruples. What have you in mind?”

“Have you any idea what her mother’s worth?”

“No—but it seems substantial.”

He cleaned his glasses with great care. “What I say is bound to be in confidence.”

“Of course.”

“Fortunately I know you are not a talker. No Hawley ever was, except perhaps your father. Now, I know as a businessman that New Baytown is going to grow. It has everything to make it grow—a harbor, beaches, inland waters. Once it starts, nothing can stop it. A good businessman owes it to his town to help it develop.”

“And take a profit.”

“Naturally.”

“Why hasn’t it developed?”

“I think you know that—the mossbacks on the council. They’re living in the past. They hold back progress.”

It always interested me to hear how philanthropic the taking of a profit can be. Stripped of its forward-looking, good-of-the-community clothing, Mr. Baker’s place was just what it had to be. He and a few others, a very few, would support the town’s present administrations until they had bought or controlled all the future facilities. Then they would turn the council and the Town Manager out and let progress reign, and only then would it be discovered that they owned every avenue through which it could come. From pure sentiment, he was willing to cut me in for a small share. I don’t know whether or not he had intended to let me know the timetable, or whether his enthusiasm got the better of him, but it did come through the generalities. The town election is July seventh. By that time, the forward-looking group must have the wheels of progress under control.

I don’t suppose there is a man in the world who doesn’t love to give advice. As I maintained a small reluctance, my teacher grew more vehement and more specific.

“I’ll have to think about it, sir,” I said. “What’s easy for you is a mystery to me. And of course I’ll have to discuss it with Mary.”

“Now that’s where I think you’re wrong,” he said. “There’s too much petticoat in business today.”

“But it’s her inheritance.”

“Best thing you can do for her is make her some money for a surprise. They like it better that way.”

“I hope I don’t sound ungrateful, Mr. Baker. I think slowly. I’ll just have to mull it over. Did you hear Marullo is going to Italy?”

His eyes sharpened. “For good?”

“No, just a visit.”

“Well, I hope he makes some arrangement to protect you in case something happened to him. He’s not a young man. Has he made a will?”

“I don’t know.”

“If a bunch of his wop relations moved in, you might find yourself out of a job.”

I retired into a protective vagueness. “You’ve given me a lot to chew on,” I said. “But I wonder if you can give me some little idea of when you will start.”

“I can tell you this: Development is pretty much dependent on transportation.”

“Well, the big thruways are moving out.”

“Still a long way to come. The kind of men with the kind of money we want to attract will want to come by air.”

“And we have no airport?”

“That’s right.”

“Furthermore, we have no place for an airport without pushing hills around.”

“An expensive operation. The cost of labor would be prohibitive.”

“Then what is your plan?”

“Ethan, you’ll have to trust me and forgive me. I can’t tell you that at this time. But I do promise that if you can raise some capital, I’ll see that you get in on the ground floor. And I can tell you that there is a very definite situation, but it has to be solved.”