“Me?”
“You’ve been with those women. You told me that.”
“Oh, you mean when I was in college.”
“How could a man be so intimate with a woman he never wanted to be seen with? The most private thing a man can do, and doing it with a woman that does it with dear knows how many other men. For money. Disgusting. But if you have to have that pleasure, go right ahead, George. I get pleasure, too. You know that. But if I can’t have the pleasure with my husband, I do without it. You tried to make me want to do it before we were married.”
“You didn’t know it was pleasure then.”
“How wrong you are. A woman always knows it’s going to be pleasure. Much more so than men. It isn’t over so soon for a woman, if she cares about the man. And if she doesn’t, she’s no better than one of your whores. I’ve never said that word before, but I don’t mind saying it now.”
“I do. I don’t like you to talk that way. It’s unladylike.”
“Is it gentlemanly for you to say it? Or do you believe that you can talk and act in ungentlemanly fashion when you feel like it? I must get some sleep now, George. The doctor says I need all the sleep I can get.”
“I won’t sleep.”
“Well, I’m sorry about that. Goodnight.”
In the course of the conversation she had convinced herself of the low status of his other women, and had made them contemptible in his eyes without ever getting down to cases. During the next three months she was not certain of his fidelity, but it mattered very little. He would remember all she had said, and she had spoiled it for him, if only until she could once again have him for herself.
In all possible ways George Lockwood had been well and thoroughly prepared for his position as head of the family, manager of the family enterprises, and heir to the duties of master of the Lockwood Concern; in all possible ways, that is, save one: his father had never defined the Concern or given it a name. George Lockwood consequently was in the anomalous situation of advancing an undertaking whose existence he knew nothing about. It had no title, no motto, no slogan, no set rules. George Lockwood was vaguely conscious of a purpose behind his father’s careful training in business matters, in the advantages and desirability of staying put in Swedish Haven, in the cultivation of an attitude to guide him in his relations with his social and business contacts. His father’s latter-day comments on the comparative ease with which money was to be made had sometimes puzzled George Lockwood; but George, who was developing a mind of his own that was not merely a reflection of his father’s, came to believe that the old man was attempting to give him confidence. If it was emphasized that to acquire money was not a formidable task for a man of superior intelligence, the man could proceed in a relaxed fashion, at a pace that suited him . . .
Now it was not true that such had been Abraham Lockwood’s intention. His purpose had been to train George in a gentlemanly view of money-making; to decelerate, as it were, the son’s aptitude. A few of George’s schemes had come off surprisingly well, and this pleased his father. It was reassuring to know that the boy had a business head on his shoulders. But the ability to make money, once it had been demonstrated, was no longer the most vital subject in the boy’s training. There was money enough, and Abraham Lockwood believed that the fortune would grow untended, in the course of the normal growth of the nation and with the protection provided by a good diversification of investments. The boy liked business, Abraham saw, and therefore could be depended on to make more money than he lost, to increase the size of the fortune so that it would remain outstanding in the neighborhood. With that worry out of the way, Abraham Lockwood could encourage other interests that would be of benefit to the Concern. There was the establishment of a family, there was an infusion of pride in the family position. As to the first, George had obligingly married into the Wynne connection, which would be helpful when his and Agnes’s children were older; and as to the second, an awareness of the Lockwood position in Swedish Haven and even in Gibbsville had been helped rather than harmed by Moses Lockwood’s record of violent behavior. The country was getting older, but it was still young and raw, and in many living memories a man of action was deeply admired. The war against the Confederates was far from forgotten, the frontiersmen of the Far West were more picturesque than the builders of the railroads, Little Big Horn was only two decades past, and at least Moses Lockwood had not killed in a quarrel over a woman, like Ed Stokes and Jim Fisk. The chief threat to family pride had been the resurrection of the Lockwood sisters, Rhoda and Daphne, and Abraham Lockwood died hating them because their untimely reappearance had made it impossible to be truthful with George. Given time, Abraham Lockwood could have told a mature George the secret of the sisters and advised him on how to dispose of the secret; but there had not been time in which to restore the good relationship of father and son, and without that good relationship Abraham Lockwood could not find the right moment to confide in George the unnamed dream of the Lockwood Concern.
. . . Nevertheless George Lockwood acted in accordance with the requirements of the mythical Concern and its dead author. Abraham Lockwood had done his job well. “I sometimes think that my father wished he’d stayed in the army,” said George Lockwood to Agnes one evening at home.
“No, I don’t think so. I think he wanted to be a baron.”
“A baron?”
“To have a feudal estate, like an English duke.”
“Oh, I know what you’re thinking of. I know all about that. The land from here to Richterville? He had a plan for that. We worked on that together, but I didn’t know you knew about it.”
“In a burst of confidence one time, he told me.”
“Really? That must have been toward the end,” said George Lockwood. “He wasn’t given to talking much about things like that.”
“He seemed to want to tell me about it,” said Agnes Lockwood.
“Oh, I’m sure he did. He liked you, and not only because you were my wife.”
“I don’t think he particularly liked me, but I was your wife—and having a baby. Go on, tell me about your father wanting to stay in the army.”
“Well, he used to tell me about those days. Meeting so many interesting people, foreigners, ambassadors and their wives. He was cut out for that sort of life and I’m sure he was good at it. And yet he chose to come back here to Swedish Haven. Once in a while some festive occasion in Philadelphia. But it must have seemed very humdrum after those years in the capital. It may have had something to do with my grandfather. He was getting on in years and his health. The strange thing is that my father didn’t start out to be the kind of man you’d expect to take over responsibilities. He was a gay dog at the University. Mixed with a very fast set.”
“That’s not unusual, for a young man to sow his wild oats and then settle down to responsibilities.”
“No, I guess not. I seem to’ve done the same thing. But I always wanted to come back here to live. Always did. I hated New York and I can’t say I liked Philadelphia much better. My friends there, in both places, think of me as living on the outskirts of civilization, but to tell you the truth, I think of them—well, when I go to one of the big cities I know just what I want to do, and it’s always either to make some money or to spend some.”
“Sometimes both.”
“Yes, sometimes both. But always money, in some manner or fashion. Here I walk to and from the office with only a few coppers in my pocket in case I’m accosted by a beggar. But in the big cities money’s always on my mind—and in my pocket. The pleasures the cities have to offer are all for sale, can be bought, and that isn’t a very nice thought to have in mind when you’re visiting. When we visit a friend’s house I don’t plan ahead on how much it’s going to cost me, how much I ought to take with me.”