Cornelia was happy to see that her father, Rufus, seemed almost his own self, affable and with quite a good color. But he, usually so loquacious, confined himself to looking after his family and guests. He smiled and smiled, benevolently. Cornelia did not catch his occasional long and yearning glance at Lydia, his former wife.
The servants were bringing in the ritualistic pumpkin and mince pies, and there was also a flaming plum pudding. The butler was discreetly placing a bottle of port on a silver tray with glasses already waiting. This was for the “gentlemen,” Rufus, Allan, Patrick Peale, and Norman, after the “ladies” had retired to the drawing rooms and the “children” had gone upstairs to talk briefly together. Lydia Purcell saw the tray; a fifth glass was missing. Her gray lips twitched once or twice, then became quiet again.
“The storm is getting much worse,” said Cornelia hopefully. “I pray none of you will find it difficult to get home.”
Lydia smiled at her with understanding affection. She said, “I’m afraid we’ll have to leave almost immediately after dinner. Cornelia, that green velvet and lace is very becoming. I haven’t seen it before.”
Mahogany gleamed back from its polished surface; the silver twinkled; the candlelight fluttered, the fire snapped heartily. The gold-banded china on the white lace cloth shimmered, and the crystal glasses winked in and out. How handsome we all look, and how gracious, thought Cornelia, laughing maliciously to herself. A wonderful picture of a loving family gathered about the Thanksgiving board. I wonder if all family gatherings are like this, charged with hatreds and resentments and malevolences and griefs and envies. No doubt, she added. Something should be done about “family dinners.” They should be abolished in the name of peace.
No one had spoken for a few moments, then Estelle sat up very straight in her chair, her prettily rouged face intent. “I thought I heard somehody cry out, or something,” she said, giving her husband an anxious look. “Do you think it might be Jon?”
“I heard nothing,” said Rufus.
“His terrible headaches,” murmured Estelle. She put her hands on the arms of the chair. Should she excuse herself and go up to see Jon? No, that would be discourteous and ill bred during dinner, though the deWitts would never understand that. She subsided, then became conscious that Tony was regarding her intently. “I thought I heard it, too, Aunt Estelle. But it seemed to come from outside, or nowhere.” He added, “Probably just an animal, captured by an enemy. It didn’t sound—human.”
All at once he thought of Jon deWitt, and he shivered. He would go in to see Jon. There had been something very wrong with the older man. I felt I should turn, on the stairs, he thought.
As Estelle so thoroughly despised Tony, she discounted what he had said. Her anxiety left her. She fixed her attention on the slicing of the pudding. Why could not servants in the country do anything with style? But then, nobody here cared.
The pudding was eaten in a thick silence, broken only once or twice by Rufus’s gracious remarks about its excellence. Patrick merely moved his serving on his plate; Allan watched him. He was getting indigestion again, as he always did when Patrick was present. Moreover, he wanted something to drink, very urgently, another symptom of his detestation for the other man. Port! An old man’s drink; it merely stupefied one.
The ladies retired, their skirts murmurous behind them. Rufus bestowed his sunlike smile on the gentlemen. “Any who would prefer brandy?” It was a polite question, and was always answered politely in the negative. But this time Allan said abruptly: “Whisky and soda for me, please.” Rufus raised his eyebrows, then ordered whisky. Patrick smiled very darkly, for Allan’s benefit, and sipped at his port. Norman smiled his open and deliberately silly smile, and took the glass of wine. As always, he prepared to listen acutely; his expression was a boyish camouflage.
“I know this is a holiday,” said Allan in the aggressive voice which he helplessly assumed in the presence of Patrick, “and I know I shouldn’t talk business. …”
Rufus put up his hand benignly. “Then, please don’t, my boy.”
“But we are to have a directors’ meeting Monday, and we are here, and there is just a point I want to emphasize.” Allan spoke doggedly. Patrick sipped his wine, looked weary; Norman grinned inanely. “All right, what’s the point?” asked Rufus. He wore a small plaid shawl over his shoulders, against drafts, and he pulled it closer.
“It’s that damned Pullman Company again,” said Allan. “It’s not only the manufacturer of sleeping, dining, chair, and club cars, but I’ve heard a rumor it is gradually buying up other companies manufacturing these cars. It services all of its cars, and it charges us a nice penny. I think it would be an excellent idea for us to buy up some of their stock so we’ll at least get back some of our money, and if we bought enough stock to have a voice in the management, we could get preferred treatment in so far as our road is concerned.”
Rufus considered this thoughtfully. He motioned to the butler for a forbidden cigar, had it lighted for him, and puffed. Now he lost much of his elderly appearance, and his old ruddy color brightened, and his eyes sparkled. “They’re quite a monopoly,” he said thoughtfully. He laughed. “Monopolies sometimes hurt other monopolies. Well. I’m not very worried about them, the Pullman people. They’re very ambitious, and ambition is looked upon with suspicion by government these days. If they become too—ambitious—we can always get our friends, the senators, after them. It’s too early yet, however, for us to be virtuous about the Pullman monopoly. I should say a few years—then we may be able to buy and own our own Pullmans, and service them. Allan, my boy, make a note of that for the future—your future, not mine. In the meantime, of course, we could buy up as much of their stock as possible. Patrick, you as one of our directors—what do you say?”
“I shall give it thought, sir,” replied Patrick coldly. “I am not prepared to give my assent to our company buying it. Perhaps as individuals, private individuals. … I can’t say I’m particularly interested, and I’m against monopolies. …”
“Don’t buy up all the available stock early on Monday, before I have time to get around to it,” said Allan contemptuously. “With Laura’s money, and yours, and your influence on Ruth. …”
“Now, now,” said Rufus. “Didn’t someone say this was a holiday, boys? Thanksgiving; festive family board; gathering together in a spirit of gratitude and good fellowship.” He enjoyed the violence of the long look Patrick turned on Allan.
Allan was also pleased at that look. “Well, I’m going to propose that the company buy as much as possibe, too. On Monday.”
Patrick drew a deep breath; some of the port splashed on his fingers. He said in a suppressed voice of rage, “I resent your insinuations. I have no ‘influence’ on Ruth Purcell. Her mother, and her lawyers, manage her estate.”
“But she is such an innocent soul,” said Allan. “She is the last remaining member of the family who believes in you, Pat. I hear she gave you twenty thousand dollars for one of your pet charities in Philadelphia.”
Patrick turned a sick crimson. “There’s no secret about it.”
Allan was almost happy. “Yes, there is. I’m the only one who knew. Congratulations, however. It’s a worthy charity.” He held out his cigarette for a light, and the butler sprang to attention. “Poor Ruth,” meditated Allan, with a malefic sideglance at Patrick. “Too bad there isn’t a man in the family available for marrying her, such as one of your own sons.”
Patrick put down his glass, his small hands clenched on the table, and he looked at Allan. The latter was immediately alerted, his Celtic intuition stirring. No, it wasn’t possible! The pallid Pharisee wasn’t actually plotting, back there in his immaculate greedy mind. … It would be a disaster, all that power in those bloodless hands, a disaster for the company. All that stock, that money.
Rufus, watching, slowly tapped his cigar in a silver tray. He saw that Allan and Patrick were regarding each other fixedly, the hatred and suspicion darting like lightn
ing between them, almost visible. “Too bad,” repeated Allan softly. His black eyes jumped under his brows.
Then Patrick turned to Rufus. “Sir, you are our host. Am I to be insulted this way?”
Rufus smiled urbanely. “Are you children exchanging blows, instead of middle-aged men? Should I reprove one of you? But Allan, Pat is our guest. It is becoming tiresome, always having to remind you. Shall we change the subject?”
You killed my father, when you told me about him, thought Patrick, remembering the terrible scene between himself and the older Peale so long ago. It had never occurred to him that he had not needed to tell his father what he knew; he believed it had only been “just” to do so, to throw his bitter accusations in the old man’s face, to scorn him, to display his enormous anger and disillusion. He felt no guilt that he had neglected his father in his age, nor any shame that Allan had been, at the last, the one comforter of a man who had only been human.
Allan, having struck at Patrick victoriously again, abandoned him. He had to have these victories to assuage his own lifelong pain. He gave his attention to Rufus. He filed away the thought of Ruth Purcell for future reference. He removed a clipping from his coat pocket. “I read this in a London paper yesterday, sir, and I kept it for you.” He began to read: “‘The United States is like an enormously rich country overrun by a horde of robber barons, and very inadequately policed by the central government. This situation can become dangerous for the rest of the world. …’” He threw the clipping on the table, then lifted it and burned it down to ash with the aid of a candle. “Do you know, sir, what they really mean? They are frightened that we’ll invade what they call their ‘traditional’ markets. We, and particularly Germany, are already doing it.”
“Yes?” said Rufus. “And if we and Germany are?”
Allan slapped his hand on the table. “Germany is still the greater threat. She is as busy as a bee, all over the markets of the world, selling superior goods at lower prices. The Kaiser is encouraging all this, and German industry is given every assistance by the German government. Nothing restrains it. No price-fixings, in a gentlemanly way, as in England. No cosy little agreements among manufacturers.”
“Well?” said Rufus.
“Don’t you see?” asked Allan impatiently. “We’ve been in a new era since the middle of the last century. Before that, wars were fought for territories and peoples or to settle private national grudges. Now they are fought for world markets. It really began, though most people don’t realize it, with the Civil War.”
“War?” exclaimed Rufus. “Now really, dear boy, you are using your imagination. Do you think England—and Germany—would actually engage themselves in a war for world markets?”
“I do.” Allan’s voice became excited. “That is what is being plotted, now.”
“Plot?” repeated Patrick with disdain. “Are you out of your mind?”
“No insults, please, no personalities. Allan, you are incorrigible.” But Rufus was disturbed. “It is true that the history of the world is the history of hunger. …”
“Look at the agricultural acreage of the world,” said Allan, becoming more and more excited. “It is retreating. Industrial cities are expanding, becoming bloated. Wealth isn’t based on agriculture any longer, but only on goods. Hunger remains, however, and it will increase as long as industry expands uncontrollably. A man can get along without a machine, but he can’t get along without bread. That’s something we’ll all have to learn, and we may have to learn it written with blood. England hasn’t learned it, and neither have we, nor any other nation. In the meantime, wars will be fought for markets for goods, while agriculture declines and men begin to starve. Famine will eventually destroy our cities, and our city industry.”
But Rufus came back to the one alarming word: “War? Who says so?”
“The English are already preparing. I have books you must read, sir. And Germany is beginning to smell what is brewing in England, among all the polite words of diplomats and the peace-mouthings at The Hague. And we’ll be in it, eagerly looking at world markets, too, to avoid panics—panics in our industrial cities.”
“Incredible,” murmured Rufus. “Are you sure your fertile Irish imagination … ?” He thought, characteristically, not of his sons, but of his grandson Tony, and Tony’s children. And the children of Dolores and DeWitt.
Patrick smiled with cool contempt at Rufus, but Rufus was frowning. “Why do you suppose,” asked Allan, “that Congress is considering, again and again, against the wishes of the people, a Federal income tax? We’ve gotten along very well without it, but now politicians in Washington are agitating for it, and jabbering about it. How can a nation conduct a war unless it has vast revenues? Each time a Federal income tax is suggested, the people protest angrily. But they grow tired of old issues. It is my prophecy that within a few years we’ll have that tax. And then we’ll have a war. For markets. And to avoid panics in the country, and to devour the products of our machines.”
Rufus tapped his fingers agitatedly on the tablecloth. “It’s very strange,” he mused, “but long ago, a long time ago, my brother said almost the very same thing. I laughed. …”
“Do you really believe, sir,” said Patrick protestingly, “that England would kill off her young men, and acquiesce to a war merely for markets? If war comes between England and Germany—and I reject the monstrous idea—it will be a war of principles, for England invariably has conducted wars on the noblest of principles. … She must maintain the loftiness of Anglo-Saxon culture—our own culture, by the way.”
Allan turned to him wrathfully. “Our own culture? Have you forgotten that over twenty per cent of the American people are of German stock, and that we have millions of Americans of Italian stock, and other racial origins? Anglo-Saxon culture be damned!”
“You speak, of course, as an Irishman,” said Patrick with an almost feminine malice.
Rufus lifted his hand to restrain a vehement movement on the part of his son-in-law and said to Patrick, with the utmost mildness, “Allan speaks as a rational man, for he speaks of facts. Sorry, Pat. But, Allan, I am certain we shall never have a Federal income tax.”
“We shall,” said Allan, nodding his head grimly, "And look for us to be in a war shortly thereafter. A peaceful nation, sir? We are an industrial nation.”
Smiling disdainfully, Patrick examined his hands. “Would you have us return to an agricultural economy?”
“Yes,” said Allan. “Or, rather, if I had the supreme power, I would keep an equable ratio between industry and agriculture, and remembering the warnings of Patrick Henry, I would forever prohibit the Federal government from taxing the people. The Federal government, again quoting the warnings of Patrick Henry, and George Washington, would then never be in a position of power to destroy the liberty of a nation through wars and taxation.”
Norman deWitt had not spoken, but had only smiled. Now he looked at Allan and his eyes narrowed viciously. Allan was shaking a finger in Patrick’s annoyed face. “I tell you, there are men hoping and plotting for wars in order to enslave the world! Freedom is hateful to them, anywhere, for a free nation frustrates their lust for personal power.”
“Really, this is ridiculous,” said Patrick with aversion. “America shall never engage in any wars, for any reason. But let me propose a hypothetical question: what if we are ever attacked?”
Allan turned from him slowly and fixed his eyes somberly, as if seeing something at a great distance. “I feel, I know it in my very body, that we’ll never be attacked. We may be told we have been attacked, but it will be a lie. Unless—unless …” and he looked with the deepest gravity at Rufus, “we invite the attack, or arm a nation to attack us. It could well happen. It is already happening in Europe. The munitions makers of France are arming Germany, and the German munitions makers are arming France, with full knowledge, and consent, of their respective governments.”
“That is mad!” exclaimed Patrick.
Allan stared
at him for a long moment. “I will send you some of the books I have been reading. Among them will be books by Karl Marx and his contemporaries. You should get an idea from these books about the kind of men who are plotting against all mankind. Wars are their opportunities.” He shook his finger again in Patrick’s face. “The Spanish-American War was a testing ground for new weapons, not a mere opéra bouffe written for Teddy Roosevelt.”
He knows too much, thought Norman. He burst into a high, giggling fit of laughter, then clapped his hand over his mouth and gazed at the three affronted men like a naughty schoolboy, his eyes brightly shining and rounded. He dropped his hand and simpered. “I was thinking of Teddy in his Rough Rider hat,” he apologized.
He had effectively broken up a conversation which he considered dangerous. Rufus was ashamed of him, Allan looked as though he should like to strike him, and Patrick glanced at him coldly. “Shall we join the ladies?” asked Rufus, and prepared to rise.
“Just one moment, please,” said Allan. All mirth vanished from Norman’s face. Allan hesitated, and his cigarette trembled in his fingers. He put it between his lips in an agitated gesture. “I suppose I should speak about this when we are alone, sir, but this is the family, isn’t it? He paused, and dropped the cigarette on a tray. “Tony is going to be a priest. He told me this afternoon.”
“Incredible,” said Patrick angrily. “You, of course, refused to permit it.”
Rufus lost his new color, but he smiled at Allan affectionately. “I suspected it, my boy. Were you afraid to tell me alone?”
Allan was silent. Then he asked, “Does Cornelia know?”
“She suspected it,” Rufus sighed. “Don’t you know yet, Allan, that Cornelia is fond of you and will be quite happy about Tony if you are happy?” He waited. But Allan did not speak. Rufus added, “You are happy, aren’t you, Allan?”
Never Victorious, Never Defeated Page 57
