Jerome informed his old friend that both Mr. Regan and Mr. Livingston were backing him. Of course, he said, all this was very confidential, and he trusted the General to keep the matter so. Jerome enlarged on his really enthusiastic belief in the industrial future and the rising power of American business in world affairs.
It was not his intention, he said, to extend any offers to Riversend investors to come in with him. None whatever, except, perhaps, to a friend or two, such as the General, if he could rely upon the General’s discretion. The General then had an opportunity to “grow” with Jerome—the possibilities, the profits, were unlimited. He, Jerome, might, upon consideration, offer the General shares in the new bank, which would entitle him to dividends instead of to mere interest.
“I intend always to have a large reserve of liquid assets,” he said. “I want flexibility in investments.”
Before parting with the General, he again swore him to secrecy. The General, seething with impatience to spread what he had heard, could hardly leave his young friend soon enough. Again, Jerome sat back, laughing inwardly, and waited.
The bank was hardly in operation before the large money-holders of Riversend were clamoring to open accounts. By that time, new industries, encouraged, financed and stimulated by Jerome, were already moving into the community.
“What price loyalty,” said Jerome, watching Alfred’s old supporters and depositors streaming into his bank. He, Jerome, received them gravely. He was both president and financial adviser of the new bank, and his manner was formal and gracious, but cool.
The shares in the bank were swallowed voraciously. The General was now a director. Riversend was stunned. Never had there been such prosperity, such excitement, so many newcomers, so loud a sound of building, so much hurry and commerce and so many rumors. The people could not grasp it all in one clutch, could not digest it immediately. It was incredible. To Riversend, for three years, it was like a dream. The farmers had new equipment, new wagons, new stock. Their wives bought a “good” silk dress, each and every one. Their children went to the new schools. Streets were laid almost overnight. Thousands of men and their families from surrounding towns, countrysides and villages, streamed into Riversend to work in the factories.
Then came the panic of 1873, and suddenly, almost overnight it seemed, the hammers and the pistons and the lathes and the machines were silent all over America.
“This,” said the old intransigent enemies of Jerome, who had never become reconciled to him, who had remained loyal to the solid Alfred, “is the end of the adventurer.”
But it was not the end. Jerome, as he had told the General, had retained a backlog of liquid assets. When his stocks and bonds had made him a nice profit, he had sold them, and when the panic arrived, he had good reserves, including his notes on Alfred’s sound bank. He was very reasonable in this matter, not pressing Alfred when pressing might have resulted in a catastrophe. He had sound business reasons for his magnanimity. But he knew also that his forebearance made him new friends, those who were loyal to Alfred and those who would have gone down with Alfred had Jerome seen fit to exert pressure.
The panic passed. It had been only a hiatus as America lingered in the last phases of the old agrarian economy before entering the new economy of industry.
Within ten years, the Riversend Bank of Commerce had become the greatest influence in mid-New York State, the growing center of industry.
It was a feat possible only in America during the ’seventies and ’eighties.
Alfred’s bank remained the small farmer’s bank, the small shopkeeper’s bank. It had a sound place in the community, and Jerome did nothing to destroy it. He instinctively knew that such banks are necessary to the health of a community.
He was once again the idolized and pampered pet of his old friends. That they still did not accept Amalie was of no concern, but only of amusement, to him. He had no proper reverence for “gentry.” He was content that his children had for their companions the children of the new industrialists. At least, he would say, these children were of strong blood, and had vitality in their bodies. Little Mary’s governess, however, was a cultivated and learned Frenchwoman whom he and Amalie had imported from France. He had plans for his daughter beyond the boundaries of Riversend. His son would follow him into the bank.
So it was, that on this August day, which had been the meeting day of Amalie and Philip Lindsey, Jerome was very content, very satisfied with himself.
He was the last to leave the bank, at six o’clock. He entered his carriage and was driven home. As usual, he anticipated greeting his family, his wife, his daughter and his son. He had everything. The carriage rolled past the old Lindsey bank, and Jerome did not give it the slightest glance. It was his past, and it was behind him.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
It is very pleasant and comforting to the ego to know that one has had a tremendous influence on his community. Man’s sense of personal significance, always insecure at best, is given the illusion of enduring value when he perceives external evidence of his individual potency. Jerome, thinking this, knew he was no exception to this pathetic human craving to write one’s name in water and see it solidify into marble.
Riversend now had two lines of horsecars. The old oil street lamps had given way to gas lamps; they flickered down many new neat streets of an evening, streets paved in parquetries of red brick. New shops had appeared and an “opera house.” There were two hotels now, filled with a constant flow of “commercial” travellers. He, Jerome, was the author of all this, and he looked on it with satisfaction.
Eight years ago he had formally opened his bank. Mr. Regan, Mr. Livingston, and several other distinguished bankers and financiers from New York, had come to the opening. Jerome had invited over a dozen small bankers from the surrounding villages and towns and small cities to be present, and they had come eagerly. The industrialists with whom Jerome had been in contact came also, hopefully. General Tayntor, the Widow Kingsley, and several other reconciled friends, arrived in state. Jerome had allowed no one to enter the bank until it was complete. And he had the pleasure now of seeing their amazement, their awe, and of hearing the sincere congratulations of his New York friends.
The interior was truly impressive. The floor seemed composed of one gigantic slab of glimmering black marble. The lofty ceiling was upheld by gleaming columns of white marble polished like satin. The walls, half-way up, were of black marble. The plaster above them had been decorated with exquisite murals by Jerome himself. Here, too, he had shown an imagination beyond his immediate era, for the murals depicted men at work in logging camps, in factories, on farms, in banking houses. The colors were subdued but powerful. The cashiers’ cages were of dully gleaming brass. Along the wall were arranged marble benches, separated by potted palms and rubber plants. Riversend was stupefied.
Later Jerome had held a reception at Hilltop for his friends and supporters. Never had there been such a reception and such food! After eight years, it was still an inexhaustible topic of conversation.
Jerome never tired of it, either. As his carriage glided through the streets, and he was hailed by friends and acquaintances, he acknowledged their existence with graciousness. He sat in his carriage, his gray-gloved hands folded on his cane, his tall gray hat fashionably atilt on his head, and bowed from side to side. Sometimes Amalie suspected that Jerome was losing his sense of humor, and with her characteristic candor she so informed him. When he became irritated at her words, she was confirmed in her suspicion.
“A sense of humor is the fortress of the insecure,” he told her.
“It is also a safeguard against complacency,” she replied.
It would have enraged Jerome had he the slightest awareness that Amalie was beginning to think that he and Alfred had much in common, unsuspected in the old days. Amalie reflected, not without ruefulness, that a man had only to be successful to lose a certain sprightliness of imagination. Was it because success brought with it an almost inevi
table increase of secret personal insecurity? That was paradoxical, but it had been Amalie’s observation that life was a study in astounding paradoxes.
It was also possible, thought Amalie, that when a man’s environment was insecure and uncertain he must needs fall back upon himself, and the falling back strengthened him, gave him a vivacious fortitude, a sense of proportion, a feeling of impregnability. It was when a man expended himself upon his environment that he became vulnerable, however he denied it. Objectivity created cities, expanded civilization, but, carried too far, it reduced man’s subjectivity, which was really his profound individuality, his intuitive knowledge that his own soul was his real fortress. The “high thinking and plain living” of the New Englanders was more than an interesting philosophy, Amalie would think. It was the secret of man’s power over externals, the secret of his enduring integrity.
When she talked of this to Jerome, he listened to her intently. Then his impatience, his walking away, convinced her that, in spite of all that he had done, he was deeply and namelessly uneasy. She loved him most in this impatience. She knew he knew that something was wrong.
“You think I am constantly pursuing money,” he accused her, angrily. “But no one desires a lot of money less than I.” And she knew this to be true also.
When the carriage began to climb up the slope to Hilltop, this warm, red-and-gold August evening, Jerome felt suddenly deflated. This deflation was becoming more and more frequent with him. He did not know its cause. He had brought prosperity, good wages, opportunity and progress to Riversend. But there was something in all this which was ominous also. What was it?
He had a habit now—a dangerous one, though he did not know this—of attempting to throw the darkness of his inner malaise upon external objects, and of blaming those objects for his depressions. So now, as he glimpsed through the trees the austere red brick of his cousin’s house, he convinced himself that that house was a constant festering in his flesh, a source of infection which perpetually oppressed him. A few years ago, the house had only amused him. Now it angered him.
He was in a bad mood when he arrived home. Amalie and the two children were waiting for him on the lawn. With the prescience of a woman who loves much, Amalie guessed, as he alighted from the carriage, that Jerome was perturbed. There was something in the set of his shoulders, the line of his hard and arrogant jaw. She bent towards little Mary and whispered quickly: “Darling, do not tell Papa just now about our meeting with Philip. I will tell him later.”
The child lifted her large light-blue eyes to her mother’s face. “But why, Mama?”
Amalie set her mouth. “Because I tell you not to,” she said crossly.
Mary was silent a moment. Then, flinging her silver-gilt mane back over her shoulders, she ran across the lawn to her father, her delicate little face lifted up with an eager, faun-like expression upon it. Her gingham frock blew back in the soft wind, showing three or four frilled and belaced cambric petticoats swirling about her legs. She moved like a shadow, but Jerome saw her coming. His lowering look cleared slightly. He held out his arms to her, and she jumped into them. He swung her high and clear, lifted her up, and kissed her soundly. She wound her arms about his neck, pressed her cheek to his, almost hungrily. Her face glowed.
Moving quite sedately, Amalie approached Jerome, holding little William’s fat warm hand. Jerome’s hat had been knocked off in the enthusiasm of his daughter’s greeting. His curling gray hair gave his dark and narrow face a distinguished look. When he was pleased, or unconcerned, the old scars on his forehead and cheek were almost invisible.
Amalie, with that trick common to loving wives, saw everything while she appeared to see nothing. She placidly accepted Jerome’s kiss on her mouth. She pushed little William forward for Jerome to kiss. He put down his daughter, quite reluctantly, and lifted the small boy in his arms. The child received Jerome’s caress with shyness. His dark eyes fluttered. He was relieved when Jerome set him down on his feet and he could return to his mother and the sanctuary of her skirts.
“It has been such a warm day,” said Amalie casually, as they walked together up the flagged path to the house.
Jerome glanced at her quickly and suppressed a smile. He knew that Amalie had seen his irritation and was giving him an opening to unburden himself. He tweaked her ear. “Nothing’s wrong with me,” he said. “It’s just that it annoys me more and more to see that damned house down there.”
“After nine years?” Amalie’s smooth black brows lifted quizzically.
“Ulcers don’t get easier to bear with time,” he replied. Then he felt foolish and laughed a little. “I’d like to drop a stick of dynamite on it,” he added, but his tone was indulgent.
The cool and fragrant duskiness of the house soothed him, as it always did. Arm in arm, he and Amalie went up the stairs to their rooms. He saw the rosebud on his dresser, and his eyes lighted. But he did not mention it to Amalie. They chatted amiably while he changed and washed. Amalie made herself very agreeable. She tied his cravat for him and kissed him on the chin afterwards. Then, quite casually, she lifted the rosebud from its glass and put it in his lapel. “How the child loves you,” she murmured. Jerome’s disposition was further sweetened by this. He glanced in the mirror. “She’s a minx,” he said, with fondness. “She knows all the feminine tricks. I wonder what she wants this time?”
“Nothing. Do women always want something?” Amalie laughed.
“Always,” he said, pinching her cheek. They looked at each other breathlessly for a moment, their old passion as ardent as ever.
Feeling that Jerome could now bear the unpleasant news, Amalie drifted away to her own dressing table and smoothed her hair. She bent forward as if to examine an incipient wrinkle.
She watched Jerome in her mirror. He was preparing a whiskey-and-soda at a special commode set aside for that purpose.
“A very small glass of wine for me, my love,” she said.
She took the glass from him, and they sat down together to enjoy the drinks. There was always wine downstairs, and the children did not dine with their parents, but Jerome had decided that he preferred not to drink whiskey in any spot where Mary might unexpectedly enter. Amalie thought this ridiculous.
When Jerome had been fortified, Amalie said, very casually: “Mary and I went to your father’s grave today.”
Jerome swirled the amber liquid in his glass. He said, looking at it: “Are the graves well kept?”
“Yes.” Amalie paused. Then, in a light voice, she continued: “Do you know whom we discovered there? Philip! He had been decorating your father’s grave, too.”
Jerome looked up sharply. “Philip? I hope he didn’t have the impudence to speak to you.”
Amalie raised her brows, which Jerome suddenly found an irritating habit.
“Impudence, Jerome? Why ‘impudence’? Of course he spoke. In fact, Mary discovered him. I had a feeling he wouldn’t have made himself known if the sharp-eyed little minx hadn’t found him.” She paused. “‘Impudence’ was never exactly the word for Philip.”
She was apprehensive when she saw that the scars on her husband’s face had turned a faint scarlet. He said, in a repressed voice: “Well, I suppose you couldn’t help exchanging amenities with him. I hope it stopped there.”
Amalie, with a serenity she did not feel, sipped at her glass. “I have always been fond of Philip. And he was always fond of you, and you of him. Perhaps that is because you resemble each other so.”
Jerome set down his glass with a thump. “Let’s not be sentimental, please. I never had anything against Philip. He was only a young boy when—But I am sure you were discreet enough not to carry on any unnecessary conversation.”
“It depends,” said Amalie, judicially, “what you mean by ‘unnecessary conversation.’ We had a few things to say to each other. Philip is going into his—father’s—bank.”
“What? No music, no writing?” Jerome’s tone was sneering, but Amalie saw his interest.
>
“No. I gathered he felt it was his ‘duty.’”
“Another one!” Jerome laughed shortly. “How ‘duty’ haunts this damn family! Well, I never did have much faith in his talents, as you seem to have had.”
Amalie suddenly saw Philip’s grave and thoughtful face, and she was angered. Jerome was watching her curiously. “I suppose he’s quite grown-up now. Has he changed?”
“He’s not much taller, but he is a man. In character and in manner and in a certain way of talking, he resembles your father very much.” Amalie spoke coldly. She was surprised when Jerome said, almost with kindness: “Yes. I always thought that, too. Poor devil,” he added, reflectively. “The New England heritage has a way of cropping out in a family’s character, like granite through fertile earth. So he’s going into the bank, eh? I can’t reconcile that with what I remember of Philip. But I suppose he’s become a stick, too.”
“No. You are wrong, Jerome. He is as he was, only more so. I—I am very fond of Philip. He asked about you in detail. He seemed—interested—and sympathetic. He said to tell you that you had accomplished marvels and that he hoped to study the whole subject.”
“Very condescending of him.” Jerome got up and mixed another drink for himself. “I suppose he was full of lofty magnanimity, too.”
“How little you understand of anyone, Jerome!” Amalie’s quick temper was flaring. “What a distorted idea you must have of Philip! You yourself used to say how like your father he was. If Philip is ‘sacrificing’ himself by going into the bank, it is not because he feels righteous about it, but because he is compassionate.”
Jerome turned from the commode and stared at her. His expression was dark, almost inimical.
“How you two must have wallowed in sentimentality!” he said. “What heart-throbbings there must have been! Such tremolos, such bathos, such sighing.”
This Side of Innocence Page 49
