Although she was a woman of spunk, who believed she was (and was) guided by a set of simple principles accumulated from her parents, Agnes was a woman whose physical resources were not equal to the demands put upon them by her spirit. She was anaemic. The blood that came out of her at menstruation was watery, and she was frequently constipated, a condition that was aggravated by hard and difficult bowel movements. She was not one to go to a doctor for relief from minor pains and aches, and during her life in Swedish Haven she acquired no confidante among the town women. Her position—or more precisely, the position of her husband—made it unthinkable to reveal to another woman the kind of intimate details that the other women shared among themselves. For lack of opportunity the other women were unable to offer the confidences that would invite an exchange on her part. Invitations of any kind were seldom issued by Agnes. On rare occasions they attended the more important social functions in Gibbsville—the Assemblies, wedding receptions, the garden parties in the spring of the year—at which the people of substance felt obliged to appear. But private dinner parties in private houses were infrequent in Gibbsville and almost unheard of in Swedish Haven. In both towns women saw the inside of other women’s houses only at whist and “500” parties in the afternoon. Casual conversations were conducted in the grocery stores and meat markets, but they were likely to be interspersed with the clerks’ recommendations of some nice eggplant or spring lamb. The fashionable Gibbsville women would also meet at the women’s shops and milliners’, but Agnes employed a dressmaker, who came to her house two or three times a year with patterns and materials. Mrs. Colby would make the trip by train from Wilkes-Barre and stay two or three days, occupying the spare room on the second floor back. She had news and gossip of Wilkes-Barre and Scranton, but as the persons involved were hardly more than familiar names from Agnes’s girlhood, her visits were professional and industrious.
Wherever she went in the two towns Agnes was recognized and treated with the right degree of cordiality or obsequiousness, which was determined by the nature of her husband’s relationship with the other husbands rather than by her own personality. In all her years in Swedish Haven that was to be the case; she was always the wife of George Lockwood, so much so that in the two towns there were not a dozen women and not a man who called her by her first name. She had a large, well-staffed house to live in and a splendid pair of bob-tailed cobs to take her wherever she wanted to go, a Hudson seal coat with hat and muff to match to keep her warm, and people got out of her way when she entered a store.
But when she died there was not much that could be said about her, and nothing much was said. Even her daughter Ernestine was so repressed by the absence of grief at the funeral that her own grief became a formal, tearless performance. The distress that other mourners saw in her face was in truth anxiety for her brother, who had not answered her telegram informing him of their mother’s death. When the last visitors had rushed away from the formalities Ernestine said to her father, “I’m worried about Bing. I can’t understand not hearing from him.”
“The last straw,” said her father. “The last straw.”
She saw then that her father too had his substitute for grief, and it made her understand him—and herself—a little better.
BOOK •2•
ONE
GEORGE LOCKWOOD’S first impulse was to refuse—politely, of course—to see the young man from St. Bartholomew’s. It could be done reasonably, properly, legitimately. He could say he had just finished his new house and was not yet settled in; he could plead the pressure of a new business venture (without revealing that it was to be in the confectionery line, a vaguely undignified enterprise) ; or he could invent an excuse. George knew full well that the only reason the young man wanted to call on him was to ask for a large sum of money for the old school. Penrose Lockwood had received an identically worded letter from the young man, whose name was Preston Hibbard, St. Bartholomew’s ‘17, Harvard ‘21, M. B. A. Harvard ‘23. The class identifications followed Hibbard’s name in the Alumni Directory, where he was listed as Acting Bursar. At St. Bartholomew’s the young man had been a classmate of Bing Lockwood’s, but George Lockwood had never heard Bing speak of him. The Alumni Directory listed eleven Hibbards through the years, all from Eastern Massachusetts.
“Did you get a letter from somebody named Hibbard at St. Bartholomew’s?” said George to his brother.
“Yes, he wanted to come and see me,” said Pen. “You know what it’s about, don’t you?”
“Money, I imagine,” said George.
“Money, and lots of it,” said Pen. “Murray Dickinson told me they’re sending this guy around first to, uh, reconnoiter. Find out how much the traffic will bear before they announce the drive.”
“He picked the wrong time for me,” said George. “My spare cash is in the candy business.”
“You have to see him,” said Pen. “He’s going to call on every living alumnus. I don’t know the kid, but his father was there when I was. John Hibbard. Boston banker. The Hibbards could write a cheque for the whole amount if they wanted to. They’ve had money since it was called wampum. Somerset Club. Wharf Rats. A hundred percent Porcellian all the way down the line. You might as well see the kid and get it over with, because those people don’t take no for an answer.”
“What are you giving?” said George.
“Oh, you know how those things are. You both feel around and somehow or other you find out what they have you down for, and then you cut it in half and you arrive at a sum. I’m seeing him a week from Tuesday, taking him to lunch, as a matter of fact.”
“Then I guess there’s no use stalling him off,” said George.
“No, there’s no use stalling him off. Compared to the Hibbard family the Lockwoods are rank amateurs when it comes to money.”
“What does St. Bartholomew’s want the money for?” said George.
“Oh, somebody just gave a lot of money to Groton, and our trustees see their chance. Pride in the old school. We’ll show those God damn Grotties,” said Pen.
Young Mr. Preston Hibbard arrived in Swedish Haven in a black Dodge coupe with disc wheels, except for the Massachusetts license plates a car that was indistinguishable from six doctors’ coupes that at that very moment were likely to be parked at any hospital. With a green felt bag hanging from a cord in one hand and wearing a very old brown fedora that sat on the top of his head, Hibbard was being turned away by the uniformed Lockwood maid when George intervened.
“You’re very punctual,” said George. “Half past twelve just struck. Come in. Would you like to wash, and what can I offer you to drink?”
“I’ll have whiskey and water, or a cocktail, if I may,” said Hibbard. “And yes, I’d like to use the Peter.” He employed the St. Bartholomew’s nickname for the toilet.
He came back from the lavatory rubbing his fingers together. “You’re the fourth St. Bartholomew’s Lockwood I’ve had the pleasure of seeing in the last five weeks.”
“The fourth? I knew you were seeing my brother.”
“Yes, I had lunch with Mr. Penrose Lockwood last week. He took me to the Recess Club. The day after that I saw Mr. Francis Lockwood, who I believe is no relation.”
“No relation. In fact, I’ve never met him. He came after my brother and I. Lives in Chicago?”
“Lake Forest, near Chicago,” said Hibbard.
“And who was the fourth of this distinguished name?”
“None other than my old friend and classmate, your son Bing. I stayed with him and his wife overnight when I was in California. They have a very comfortable place, a ranch I suppose you call it. Bing was in great shape. I shouldn’t be surprised if he turns out to be the outstanding man in our class.”