“Have a cigar, son?”
“Believe I will, thanks. I’ve taken to cigars. A lot of times we’re not supposed to smoke on the job. One careless match could raise hell with us, so I always carry a few cigars to chew on. Don’t light them, just chew on them. A habit I picked up.”
“I’m told you’re doing extremely well. Preston Hibbard was here and gave me a full report. He even brought along some pictures of your wife and children.”
“Yes, we had a nice visit from Hib. Quite a guy. I never thought much of him in school, but Harvard must have made a man out of him. I guess it was Harvard. Anyway, he found out what he wanted to do, and he’s doing it. That’s what’s wrong with a lot of guys our age. They don’t know what the hell they want to do, and if they have no financial problem, they just sit on their asses till it’s too late.”
“I gather you have no financial problem,” said George.
“Personally, no. By that I mean, with the first big money I made, I socked it right into a trust fund for my wife and children. Nobody can touch it. I can’t, they can’t. Once that was taken care of, I could take some chances, and I have, and they’ve been paying off.”
“Fifty thousand to St. Bartholomew’s and fifty thousand to Princeton,” said George. “I was interested in the Princeton donation.”
“Yes. Well, I said to myself, God damn it, I did learn a few things there. The kind of stuff you go there to learn. But I learned something else when they kicked me out. Not about cheating. I didn’t have to go to Princeton to learn that that was wrong. Mother was always strict about that, and so were you. But a couple of men at Princeton taught me to take my medicine.”
“How?”
“Well, by being tough. Firm. There was never any question about my being kicked out. But they could have made my offense seem like some paltry misdemeanor, and it wasn’t. In that world, it was a major crime, and deserved major punishment. On the other hand, they assured me that I’d get full credit for any good things I’d done, and I don’t only mean academic credit. If anybody wanted to find out why I’d left Princeton, they would be the judge of how much to tell them. Fortunately, the only man I ever worked for knew exactly why I’d been kicked out, and he gave a lot of men their second chance.”
“Do you think I was too tough?” said George.
“I did, but I don’t any more,” said Bing.
“What made you change your mind?”
“Oh—distance, I suppose. And meeting the right girl and marrying her. Making a home of my own. And financial success.”
“All adding up to independence,” said George.
“Yes. When I heard about Mother dying, I was completely on my own. Ernestine, of course. But what is a sister going to be in a man’s life except a sister?”
“What about a father?”
“Well, I have two of my own, now, and I wonder about that. I may be as tough as you were, but not in the same ways. As I look back on our relationship, you had your own ideas of what you wanted me to be, but they weren’t necessarily mine.”
“You didn’t know what you wanted to be. As a matter of fact, you were well on the way to being what I wanted you to be.”
“That’s true. I know that. But that may be why I cheated. Underneath it all, I didn’t want to be a carbon copy of you or of Grandfather Lockwood. I’d had six years of that at St. Bartholomew’s and nearly four years at Princeton, and began to think it was so much shit. What are we, anyway? Your grandfather was a murderer, and what his father was, nobody knows. Mother’s father wasn’t much, and as far as the Richterville branch of our family’s concerned, we probably have cousins up in the hills that are screwing their own sisters. No. I never thought we were so God damn elegant.”
“Elegant is a housemaid’s word, like swell,” said George Lockwood. “I noticed you used that word at lunch. In any event, it never seemed to occur to you that there was anything worthwhile in what my father was trying to do, and I’ve tried to do, and was hoping you would do, and your children would do.”
“What’s that?”
“Make this family, that started with a murderer, mean something. You’re a snob. In your mind you’ve probably compared us to the old families in England, with inherited titles and the rest of it, going back three or four hundred years. But little do you know how many murderers and rapists and thieves there were in those families. Or the American aristocrats that brought niggers from Africa and sold them as slaves. I give you some of the great fortunes that were made in this country in the last century, big contributors to Princeton and Harvard. The dirtiest kind of money.”
“Yes, but they’re the people you most admire.”
“No, they’re not. I wanted us to be better than they are,” said George Lockwood.
“All right. I will be. But starting with me, not with you or your father or his father.”
“Why, you impudent ignoramus, you must think the doctor brought you here in a satchel. You came from your father’s balls, just like anyone else. There isn’t the slightest doubt about that, either. You even look like your great-grandfather. The murderer, by the way.”
“Well, he had balls. I’ll say that for him. I’d rather be like him than some of those that came later.”
“Meaning me?”
“Well, since we’re being so frank with each other—yes,” said Bing.
“To change the subject slightly, I wonder what ever made you come here. Were you really that fond of your Uncle Pen?”
“Yes, I was. But you’re right. There were other reasons. I wanted to take a look at Mother’s grave, because I never expect to see it again. And I was curious about this house.”
“You said you went to the old house.”
“I did. I was already late for the funeral, so I went and had a look at the old house. I thought it was going to be turned into a hospital. It’s a shoe factory!”
“I sold it to the shoe company and gave the money toward a hospital. They haven’t started building the hospital, but if you’re feeling generous I’m sure they’d be glad to have a donation.”
“Sorry. I’ve severed my ties with Swedish Haven,” said Bing.
“Then what were the other reasons for your coming here?” said George. “You wanted to see this house? Why?”
“Well, naturally I’d heard about it from Ernestine, but I wanted to see for myself.”
“If it meets with your approval, I’ll consider it a failure,” said George.
“For you, it’s just right. Your wife seems like a nice woman, and I guess she must have had a hand in it.”
“Feel free to criticize. She had nothing to do with the house, except the interior. The rest was all mine.”
“I could almost tell that,” said Bing. “All that’s missing is a moat and a portcullis.”
“What is a portcullis? Do you know?” said George.
“The bridge you let down over a moat, isn’t it?”
“No, it isn’t. When you get home, look it up,” said George. “You may want to install one sometime. Now a moat might be a good idea. I understand you’re troubled with rattlesnakes, and go shooting them every afternoon. Considering what’s just happened in this family, I hope that doesn’t make your wife uneasy.”
“That’s a hell of a thing to say,” said Bing.
“I just want to remind you, son. Moving to California hasn’t changed your blood. You have a fine, healthy sunburn, but you are what you are, inside.”
“I discussed that with my wife. She’s not worried.”