But he waved the bottle at her threateningly, and some of the contents splashed on his knee. Cornelia rubbed at it with her lace handkerchief. “Your arteries, Papa. Do you want apoplexy? There, it will dry in an instant. Let me have the bottle.” She took it from her father, poured his glass full, set down the bottle with a bang. “Drink it up, child,” she urged sweetly.
“I suppose,” bellowed Rufus, after he had obeyed, “that it is a secret, this ‘love’ business? And I suppose it is none of my affair who the honored gentleman is?”
“How can I tell you just yet, when the ‘honored gentleman’ doesn’t know, himself, at this time?” asked Cornelia. “And I hardly know him. In fact, I’ve seen him exactly three times.” Her face, mocking and rosy, suddenly changed.
“I never heard such infernal nonsense,” said Rufus. “May I have a hint, myself? Do I know him, and his family?”
“Oh, yes, Papa, you know him.” Cornelia smirked happily. “But you don’t know his family. But come, have another sip of brandy. Don’t look like a thundercloud. When I am sure, I’ll tell you. You know I’ve been in love hundreds of times.”
Rufus began to shake his head. But he was greatly relieved. Cornelia was not serious, of course, about this unknown man. He wished his daughter to marry someday. And there must be grandchildren. But not yet, he repeated silently. As frequently happened, he began to hate the man who would someday marry Cornelia. “Yes,” he said with weighty sarcasm, “you were in love with the marquis, and you sent him packing. Estelle hasn’t forgiven you; she cries about it at least once a day. People think he jilted you.”
“No doubt Estelle gave them that idea,” said Cornelia.
“Never mind Estelle,” said Rufus angrily. “Why can’t you two women—It’s all you, Cornelia. You’re a baggage. Well, who’s the man lurking in the portieres?”
Cornelia laughed loudly. “Maybe he isn’t there,” she said. “Let’s talk about something more immediate. And important. What do you think about Pat Peale’s last speech in Washington?”
Rufus’s jowled face swelled with rage. A few days ago young Senator Peale, speaking in behalf of the bill to regulate railroads, had said to a packed gallery: “Never in human history was the creation of material wealth so easy and so marvelously abundant as now, its consolidation under the forms of vast units of power for the benefit of a few so dangerous to the whole country. These monopolies absorb and withdraw individual and independent rivalries. Herein are dangers it will behoove us to contemplate gravely and consider what forces shall be summoned to counteract them.”
“He’s an ass,” said Rufus wrathfully. “‘Monopolies!’ Doesn’t the half-wit understand that a great nation can’t expand as efficiently and as rapidly as it is doing now under a system of millions of little individual owners who don’t have the money and the capacity to run great enterprises? Little men think in little terms. What is good for a small country is not practical for a huge one. We have made America the monster industrial nation it is. And how did we do it? By consolidation, by pooling inventions, by initiative, imagination, boldness, risk capital—all giant necessities. All things the whining little protesters, and their whining little politicians, don’t understand.”
“Papa, you don’t have to orate to me,” said Cornelia. She smoked meditatively. “I’m thinking, in connection with Pat, of Laura’s sixteen per cent of Interstate.”
“What of it?”
“Papa,” said Cornelia, “there might be a way to draw Pat in on the ‘powerful monopolies’ he deplores so feelingly.”
“What?” roared Rufus.
“It’s something to think about,” said Cornelia. “He might be persuaded, after he marries Laura, to become a director, or something. First-hand knowledge. And then—” She drew a finger across her throat and made a clicking sound with her teeth.
Rufus glared at his daughter. “You talk absolute nonsense,” he said slowly.
“There’s just one thing you can do with a politician—buy him,” said Cornelia. “I don’t know how it is, but I have some intuition which tells me that he is already thinking of joining us. Laura called me, quite nervously, today, and wondered if you would find time tonight to talk with Pat quietly. Well, Pat’s rich, but where is the man who ever had enough?”
Rufus examined the brandy bottle on the table near him. He hesitated. “You and your intuition,” he muttered. He continued to think. Young Patrick Peale, in the opinion of Gunther and Regan, had become a “menace.” He was one of a bloc demanding regulation of railroads. “It is only the beginning of regulation for all industry,” Mr. Regan had said.
What was it old Steve had said so long ago? “There is nothing wrong with great centralized industry, in itself. An enormous new nation needs its genius. But there is the threat that it will become more powerful than the government, become a government within a government, stifling younger and smaller industries, or absorbing them. It can drain off the resources of a nation for the production of limitless goods, and for all these it will have to find world markets. And in the search for world markets it must inevitably come into conflict with other industrialists in other nations, notably Germany and England. Owning lawmakers, then, it can induce wars to eliminate foreign competitors and to control world markets. That is my fearful prophecy for the future,” Stephen had said.
“You and your intuition,” repeated Rufus, but this time he was speaking to his dead brother. He swallowed the last of his brandy. He saw that Cornelia was watching him with that strange look which sometimes appeared in her eyes. It was a kind of blank, innocent savagery.
“If Pat Peale wants to talk to me tonight …” said Rufus sullenly.
“Be serious, but coy, Papa. She repeated, idly, but smiling, “Where is the man who ever had enough?” She threw the remains of her cigarette into the fire, and stood on the hearth, tall and splendid, all color and lustiness, and Rufus stared at her, enchanted. “You should have been my son,” he said. He laughed shortly. “But it would be very uncomfortable for a man like me to have a son like you.”
She stared down at him again. “Yes, it would,” she agreed. She rubbed her foot on the silken carpet. “Papa, haven’t you poured enough into that charity you created, The Stephen deWitt Foundation for the Children of Railroad Men Killed in Accidents? Two hundred thousand dollars this year alone!”
Rufus thought of Stephen’s face on the last day of his life, when the two brothers had driven by the blasted ruins of the local station.
“Not even Commodore Vanderbilt ever thought of such a thing,” said Cornelia.
“We aren’t a ‘bucket railroad,’” replied Rufus irascibly, shaking his head as if to rid himself of his memories. “Vanderbilt may have a good line, but we’re the soundest railroad in the country, and the greatest carrier in the United States. We were never in difficulties; we’ve made enormous fortunes. We can afford the Foundation, you greedy young miser. Besides, it gives us a talking point in Washington. My father was wise, too. He always had some thumping charity to pull out of his hat to confound the shabby politicians.” He smiled reminiscently. “When my father and Vanderbilt were called to a legislative committee of investigation, shortly before Papa died, Vanderbilt infuriated the little men with his remark: ‘I was at home, gentlemen, playing a rubber of whist, and I never allow anything to interfere when I am playing that game. It requires, as you know, undivided attention.’ The question that had been put to him deserved that remark, but it was impolitic. When the same question was put to Papa, he said very gravely, stroking his beard, ‘I cannot answer that readily, for I was, at that time, soliciting my friends for contributions to my charity, The Fund for the Widows of ExMayors of Pennsylvania.’”
“And?” asked Cornelia, chuckling.
Rufus leaned back in his chair and chuckled, too. “What politician can resist a rich man who is concerned about the welfare of relicts of ex-politicians? Well. Vanderbilt built up his fortune by manipulation, and though we—we—have done a lit
tle buccaneering ourselves, we’ve continued to be known as a railroad, a carrier of goods and people, a service to the state and the nation. The politicians harassed Vanderbilt; they left my father alone, and they left me alone, too.” He shook his finger at Cornelia. “Never try to swallow everything at one gulp. Leave considerable for public effect.”
“H’m,” said Cornelia. “How astonished Uncle Stephen would be to know what you’ve done.”
For some obscure reason, it always annoyed Rufus when Cornelia spoke lightly of his brother. “Don’t forget, you minx, that your uncle was one of the finest railroad men America ever produced. And our father was the best chief engineer. He built solidly. When Erastus Corning started the Central in August, 1853, he was a scheming politician. But not a railroader, and neither were his associates. They were merely lawyers and investors, and raffish speculators. Our family,” added Rufus, a trifle ponderously, “built for the future, not only ours, but the country’s.”
He glanced at his watch, and swore. “It’s almost ten. I must go to Estelle at once. How you talk, Cornelia!”
She put her hand on his arm. “Just one thing more, Papa. The new bridge over the Ohio River at Pittsburgh.”
Rufus fumed. “Our directors don’t look too kindly on longspan bridges, as you know. Just at this time, when ‘monopolies’ are being investigated. Especially now. We own a majority of the stock and bonds of the Hubert Hamilton Bridge Company. It’ll come up for discussion later, when things die down a little.”
They left the room together, and, arm in arm, went to the door of Estelle deWitt’s apartments. Before Rufus could knock, Cornelia flung open the door of the bedroom, and they stood on the threshold, looking at the pretty woman sitting before her dressing-table mirror, her maid at her side.
She was absorbed in her reflection in the mirror. There was something narcissistic in her pose, something reverent. A little woman, with a charming full figure, she wore a gown of mauve velvet, very décolletté, very tight at the short and slender waist, and all asparkle about the low shoulders with brilliants. Her neck was . clasped with a collar of diamonds, and diamond bracelets were like imprisoned stars on her little plump arms. Her fine hair, of an undistinguished brown, had been piled in exquisite curls on the top of her small head, and held in place with diamond pins. She had a childlike heartshaped face, large brown eyes which beamed radiantly and tenderly, a short retroussé nose, and a pouting red mouth which expressed, almost constantly, the utmost engaging sweetness.
She smiled at herself, not with satisfaction but with adoration, and her small teeth glimmered in the soft lamplight. She began to stroke her left cheek with loving fingers, the strokes of an idolizing lover who could touch only with humble worship. Her fingers arched, trembled, almost with a sensual vibration of self-love and homage. There was, to Cornelia, something indecent in the movements of the fingers, something repulsive and voluptuous. Estelle began to moan ecstatically, “Oh, oh!” in tempo with the rather shameless self-caressings. “Oh, oh,” groaned Cornelia, in the accents of one unbearably and sexually stirred.
It was typical of Estelle that she was neither flustered nor embarrassed at this intrusion. She did not catch Cornelia’s coarse mockery. She pretended to start prettily. “Why, Rufus,” said Estelle in a high sweet voice. “And Cornelia, dear. I am so glad, Cornelia, that you like my new gown and coiffure. Aren’t they adorable?” But Rufus had turned red; he gave his daughter a rather vicious glance of understanding, and advanced into the room. Estelle was regarding Cornelia with gratification. “Isn’t the gown charming, my dear?”
Cornelia sauntered in, all red and gray and violet and gold and scarlet. Immediately, Estelle became a pale little lump of a woman in an unbecoming gown, the jewels garish upon her. “I think,” said Cornelia demurely, “that you’ll be the belle of the ball, and not I, Estelle.”
This reminded Estelle of something, in spite of the compliment in that jeering voice. The smile faded. She picked up her mauve and jeweled fan and fanned herself pettishly. “‘Belle of the ball,’ indeed,” she said petulantly. “There really isn’t room for an impressive ball in this little house. I can’t see why, year after year, we must come here for Christmas. So provincial; countrylike. Our house on Fifth Avenue, where we should be right at this very minute, like other people of our class, would be ideal for this holiday celebration.” She added, “What is the use of this elegant gown, and my jewels, when we must entertain people who are, for the most, insensitive and ignorant clods?”
Her sense of outrage mounted. Cornelia grinned at her. “This is a damned big house, and it’s in perfect taste, and Papa and I love it, and it’s our real home, and so here we
Estelle became pink with indignation. “It is certainly not appropriate for us. I can’t understand why you won’t sell it, Rufus. ‘Perfect taste!’ Why, it’s practically a cottage.”
Rufus, who could endure everything except disparagement of his beloved house, scowled at his wife. He stood at her shoulder. “You forget my mother, and her age. She wouldn’t go to New York. And, as Cornelia has said, it is our home, and here we should be at Christmas.”
The rosy lips parted, sweetly if tightly, with an open malice. “Dear Mother deWitt,” she said. “It would be splendid for her in New York. She would be excited by the shops and Central Park and the crowded carriages.
“You know that isn’t true.” Rufus was scowling more blackly. “Please oblige me, Estelle, by not speaking of it further.”
Lydia had sat at this dressing table, with her pale and aristocratic face, her dark hair, her distinction and quiet pride. She had been reflected in this gilt and crystal mirror. She had emanated a scent of sophisticated freshness, and not this exotic and cloying odor from Paris. Lydia, tonight, perhaps, would be wearing a gown of misty silver, and there would be silver jewelry on her long neck and on her arms. Rufus could see her vividly in the lamplight, hear her cool, calm voice. The Norwich girl! She looked like an overdressed frump in all that velvet and in all those jewels.
Little pots set with garnets and aquamarines and emeralds crowded the dressing table, mingled with gold mirrors, combs, and brushes. (Lydia had kept the table austerely uncluttered.) The thick perfume began to nauseate Rufus. “Shall we go down?” he asked abruptly, offering his wife his arm. Cornelia was insolently smelling of the flagons and pots, one of which was filled with a bright scarlet paste. “Why don’t you mind your own business, Cornelia?” asked Rufus irately.
“Of course, Rufus darling,” said Estelle, with exaggerated docility. She rose, and the Worth gown swirled about her. She glanced at Cornelia, and her whole face became unpleasant, and was touched with hatred. “Oh, Cornelia! You look so—so—gaudy! That dress will never do; so old and improper. And you ought not to be showing your—your bust—like that, and with your arms and shoulders so bare. Indiscreet for a young girl, to say the least.”
“I,” said Cornelia in her deep voice, “am not a young girl, and never was.”
Estelle took her husband’s arm, and paused. It was impossible for her to pursue any thought for longer than a moment or two, no matter how disturbed she was. (She has a mind like a firefly, on and off, Cornelia had once remarked.) Another idea had struck Estelle, and she exaggerated her pause until Rufus looked down at her impatiently. “It is such a humiliation, about the marquis,” she wailed. “How can I face our guests?”
“Our guests,” Cornelia began rudely, “can go”
Estelle pulled her hand away from Rufus and pressed it with delicate drama to her ear. “I shall not go down, I shall simply not go down, Cornelia, unless you promise to use more genteel language. Isn’t it enough that I—”
Rufus’s face had begun to turn purple, so Cornelia, in alarm, said quickly, “I won’t swear. I’ll be very proper. Our guests are arriving; I just heard a carriage.” She waited until Estelle, whimpering softly under her breath (mewing sounds, thought Cornelia in disgust), had placed her hand once more on Rufus’s arm and had started to gl
ide daintily toward the door. Then Estelle glanced up with a tender appeal at her husband.
“The darling boys, Rufus!” Her breath caught with loving pathos. “It is Christmas Eve, and they are so excited, and they always expect their mama to tuck them in. We must go to them at once.”
“Estelle,” said Rufus, somewhat stifled, “let’s not be so precious tonight.”
His wife’s large brown eyes widened tragically. “I must, I must. It is Christmas Eve. Do not deprive me, Rufus.” She could be as obstinate as a tree stump, and as easily moved, when she desired. Cornelia made a disgusted face, nodded at her father, and the three progressed farther down the hall to what Estelle fondly referred to as “their little nest.” This had once been the south bedroom where Stephen and his young wife had lain between cold sheets, held in each other’s arms.
The little boys, Jon, seven, and Norman, five, were still awake in the warm, dim bedroom, which was lit only by firelight. Their governess, a quiet and intelligent young woman of about thirty, sat, half-sleeping, in a chair by the fire. She was not permitted to have a lamp, Estelle had decreed, for she might “neglect the boys” for reading. (“She must always be on hand until the little monsters are fast asleep,” Cornelia had observed contemptuously to her father.)
Jon and Norman sat up instantly with shrill and complaining cries when their parents entered. Miss Schultz started in her chair. “Are you asleep, really?” asked Estelle in a sharp voice. “When the boys are still awake?” She gathered the children broodingly in her jeweled arms, as if protecting them from some awful threat, and her glance at Miss Schultz was malevolent. The girl rose, pale with exhaustion. “I am sorry, Mrs. deWitt,” she murmured. “But it has been a tiring day.”
“No doubt,” said Cornelia. “These kids are completely undisciplined.” She gave Miss Schultz a ribald grin, and her magnetism flowed from her like palpable force. “I took care of them one day last summer, and I know. I finally used a club on them; wonderful argument, a club.”
Never Victorious, Never Defeated Page 38
