She rose from her chair, half sitting now on the edge of the desk, looking down at him just as she had done during the moment of decision on that night she was now trying so desperately to make him recall.
“It was my fault,” she said. “I shouldn’t have told you that I wanted you to sell the company.”
His eyes came up slowly.
“If I hadn’t wanted you to do it,” she went on, “you wouldn’t have done it.”
He blinked as if this was the first real consciousness of her presence, and his orienting glances at the walls were the gropings of a man suddenly awakened in a strange place.
“I was the one who made you sell,” she repeated.
“No,” he mumbled, a small cry from some very distant place, the cry and then its fading echo, “—no, no, no.”
“I asked you if you could be happy without the company—and you said you could. But I shouldn’t have believed you.”
“It isn’t that,” he said in tortured whisper. “You were right—what you told your mother—I was trying to get out from under before I lost the Andscott business. If there was anyone who tried to pull something crooked, I was the one. That day in his apartment—he asked me about Andscott—I lied to him, Lory, I lied to him.”
“No, you didn’t. All you said—”
“I don’t know what happened to me,” he mumbled. “I don’t know how I could have done such a thing.”
“Dad, you don’t remember what you said to Cash—or what he said to you, either. You were so excited—we both were—and everything was happening so fast.”
“I—I do remember what he said. He did tell me that he owned Corporation Associates—he told me, I know he did.”
The break in his voice was the end of Lory’s planning, her goal so quickly achieved that she felt herself as dazed as her father seemed.
And what happened then was not planned—it could not have been planned because it was both unprecedented and unimagined—and the impulse that drove her was too swift-running to have been guided by conscious thought. Her arms went around her father’s neck and her head burrowed in his shoulder. There was something within her now that had never been there before, a warm outflow of honest affection that she had never experienced.
“I was lost, Lory—just lost,” he whispered, his voice so low that she had the feeling, so close to him, that she was hearing the silent voice of his secret mind. “It all happened so fast—and there wasn’t time enough to think—like I was running downhill and couldn’t stop. And I didn’t know where I was going—walking around Philadelphia this afternoon—walking and walking and thinking about what I’d done. He won’t ever be able to forgive me—no one will—Will Atherson—”
She lifted her head, her hands still on his shoulders. “There’s nothing to forgive.”
His body twisted convulsively, breaking the hold of her hands as he got to his feet, turning sharply away from her, walking to the window. “You don’t know the worst of it,” he said explosively, an agonized admission torn from deep within him. “Even if they’d forgive me, I can’t forgive myself.”
He was staring into the colored glass of the leaded window, but she knew what he was seeing. She had seen him stand like this a hundred times on a hundred nights, always when he was thinking of the company, seeing the Suffolk Moulding plant as clearly as if he were hindered by neither darkness nor distance.
“Don’t worry about the company,” she said compassionately. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
“I ran out on them,” he cried, the admission torn from his throat. “I was a coward—a yellow coward. I was afraid something was going to happen to the company, and I ran away and left them to face it alone—Paul, Jake and Ed, George Thorson, all of them—Burke, old Tommy, Kreider. They were counting on me and I sold them out—without even knowing what was going to happen to the company. I didn’t mean to do it. I just didn’t realize what I was doing—everything happening so fast—”
“Dad, no harm has been done.”
“You don’t know, you don’t know,” he mumbled, still staring at what he was seeing in the window. “I’ve just been down at the plant—across the street—watching the men come out of the gate. I didn’t dare let them see me—I knew what they were thinking—”
She had walked up behind him and knew that it was awareness of her presence that had caused the fading off of his voice. But he did not turn to face her.
“None of those men have been hurt,” she said to the back of his head. “And they won’t be. The company will go on—just the way you always planned that it would. Don’t you remember the things we used to talk about—the Post-War Plan—”
She caught herself, warned by the tremor that ran up the cords of his neck, suddenly fearful that what she had intended as a kindly reassurance had been taken as a cruel reminder of lost dreams. There seemed only one hope now. “Dad, if you can’t be happy without the company—are you listening?”
There was no response but she could almost feel the tensing of his body. She waited, finally saying, “It isn’t too late to change your mind.”
He uttered a wordless sound of denial.
“Cash will let you have the company back.”
For a moment there was silence, her father’s body frozen, rigidly stock-still. Then, suddenly, he wheeled to face her.
“That would be a fine thing to do, wouldn’t it!” he exploded, the crackle of righteous anger in his voice. “Do you think I’d do that—make an honest deal and then back out on it? What would people think of me?”
And now she was staring at him as, a few minutes before, he had been staring at her. Now she was the one who had awakened to a strange presence. The man who stood in front of her was not the man who had been there a moment ago. This was Grant Austen, her father, himself again … as brashly righteous as always. But she would never forget the bewildered little man who, for one revealing moment, had taken Grant Austen’s place … nor would she forget that on so many of those nights here in this library she had looked at one man but talked to another.
Cash had been right. Her father was one of those many men who found their guiding stars in other men’s eyes. It was the judgment of the world that mattered, not the dictates of a personal conscience. He was weak where Cash was strong, too unsure of his own sense of right and wrong to stand against the censure of his fellow men … and yet, strangely, it was that very weakness that had given him the strength to acknowledge the enormity of his error.
Or was there more to it than that? Was he really afraid of what the men at the plant were thinking about him because he had sold the company … or was his fear a belated recognition that he had failed them in a way they knew nothing about? Wasn’t it what Cash had said yesterday … “If the high priests lose their faith, the temple walls start to crumble.” Hadn’t the inner man, now so completely hidden behind Grant Austen’s world-facing mask, seen that the walls were beginning to crack? Wasn’t that the real reason he had sold Suffolk Moulding … running away from an acknowledgment of his loss of faith … blaming the world in order to shield the forsaken inner man from the loss of everything that faith had once given him?
Had there been the chance, she would have thrown her arms around that lonely little man, showing him the compassion that understanding had brought her. But he was gone now. The man who stepped to the ringing telephone was the father she had known through all the years of her life.
“Grant Austen,” he said, gruffly curt, acknowledging his identity, then hesitating, obviously waiting for her to leave the room.
She heard the faint murmur of voices in the hall outside and said quickly, “That must be Cash. He’s taking me to Philadelphia for dinner.”
Her father’s nod was a meaningful acceptance.
As she went out through the door she heard him say only, “Well, I’ll tell you, Mr. Torrant—” but there was no need to hear more. The tone of his voice told her everything she needed to know.
Cash was st
anding with her mother at the far end of the hall, their faces matched in taut expectancy.
“It’s all right,” Lory said, speaking to both of them. Then, catching her mother’s inquiring glance at the library door, she added, “Yes, I think he wants to see you.”
Their eyes met for a moment, not as mother and daughter but as two women, mature and knowing.
Miriam Austen walked back to the door of the library and opened it, not hesitantly as she had always done before, and Lory heard her father’s voice say, “Come in, dear—something here that I want to talk to you—” Again, the closing door cut off his voice but again she had heard enough.
Cash broke the silence. “You shouldn’t have done that, Lory. It was my job to talk to him, not yours.”
“I needed to do it,” she said slowly, “I needed it very much.”
He watched her in silent inquiry.
“He was a little lost,” she said, her eyes drawn back to the closed library door. “But don’t blame him for that—I was a little lost, too.” She turned back to him, “But everything’s all right now.”
“Everything?”
“Everything.”
“Did you tell him that he could have his company back?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“He wouldn’t take it.”
Cash’s eyes narrowed in quick reaction, but it seemed an expression more of disappointment than surprise.
“Did you really think he would?” she asked.
“I don’t know what I thought,” he said, looking past her. “Maybe I wasn’t thinking—except about the possibility of losing you. That’s all that ever mattered. The company never did.”
She reached out to him. “Cash, that isn’t true. It mattered yesterday, you know it did—all your plans.”
“That was yesterday.”
“But nothing has changed. There’s no reason why you can’t go ahead just as you’d planned. He knows now that he was wrong about you.”
“Maybe he wasn’t,” Cash said slowly. “Maybe I’ve been the one who was wrong—the things I’ve done—the way I’ve done them.”
“No, Cash, no.”
“Maybe the world is right—the pursuit of money—the root of all evil—”
“But it hasn’t been the pursuit of money,” she protested. “And what would be wrong, even if it were? Don’t you remember what you said yesterday—that if there’s something wrong with making money, there’s something wrong with our whole way of life?”
“That’s what I’ve tried to make myself believe.”
“It’s true, Cash, it’s true.”
“I’ve tried to convince myself that it was wrong only when it was done in the wrong way. But what is the wrong way? And what’s the right? How do you know? Where are the rules? In the law books? Is it right if it’s legal—and only wrong if it isn’t?”
He had broken the hold of her hands, turning away from her, vividly re-creating the memory of what had happened in the library only a few minutes ago. Now it was Cash who had been displaced by a stranger, an alter ego, a second self that lived in his shadow, carrying the fear and indecision too foreign to be tolerated in his own mind.
“I’ve kept on telling myself that I was just playing a game,” he said. “But it isn’t a game. It can’t be. How can you play a game if you don’t know the rules—if there aren’t any rules? And what’s the point of the game if you can’t win—if you have to keep on telling yourself that it isn’t the winning that matters?”
“But it does matter!” she said, more sharply than she had intended, her tone raised by the subconscious desire to release him from the trancelike hold of doubt.
“Why?” he asked dully, still looking away from her.
“Cash, you can’t stop now,” she exclaimed, reaching up to turn his shoulders. “There are so many people dependent upon you—so many hundreds of them—all the men out here at the plant—all the people down at Andscott—”
Her voice faded off as she saw his eyes, stunned and staring, the deep blue storm clouded. “I thought you understood,” he said. “This is what I tried to tell you yesterday. I’m not a company man, Lory. I never have been.”
“Oh, I know you’re not,” she said, her words hurried by the fear of error. “But there are so many of them and so few of you—and they need you so much. Oh, Cash, they do! Don’t you see how much they need you—all the men out at the plant—and down at Andscott, too? And Gil Clark and John Allenby—and Dr. Bergmann and the Foundation—”
And she would have added her father’s name if, out of the corner of her eye, she had not seen the library door open. For a breath-held instant she watched him poised in the doorway. And then he came toward them, his smile brashly bold.
Astoundingly, Cash’s hand was the quickest, reaching out as he said, “How are you, sir?”
“Fine—sure, you bet—just fine!” her father said, pumping Cash’s hand, then offering him the telegram that she had seen on his desk. “I was hoping I’d catch you before you got away—want your opinion on this. Been talking it over with Miriam and it sounds pretty good to us—interesting trip, South America. Bunch of top men like that, we’d really have a chance to make a contribution. The only thing is—well, I don’t want to stick out my neck unless I’m sure it’s all right.”
Lory felt herself trapped as her father turned to her unexpectedly, saying quickly, “Haven’t had a chance to tell you about this, Lory—they’ve asked me to serve on a big economic mission that’s going down to South America.”
“That’s wonderful,” she said, the vague consciousness of deceit banished by the radiant glow on her mother’s face, then sharply revived as she looked away and saw Cash’s troubled expression.
Her father had seen it, too. “Anything wrong?” he asked anxiously.
“I want to tell you something about this,” Cash said slowly. “It might make a difference. It just happens that I know the man who’s heading up this mission. I was the one who suggested your name. I want you to know that.”
“You did?” Grant Austen exclaimed. “Well, that does make a difference. Sets it right up as far as I’m concerned. If it’s something you’re tied up with, Cash, I know it’s all right. Just puts me that much more in your debt—yes sir, you bet—for everything, I mean.”
Cash handed the telegram back and they were shaking hands again, her father saying, “Sure wish you two could come out to the Country Club with us—Friday night buffet, you know—but I guess you’ve got other plans?”
“I’m afraid we do,” Cash said. “But there’ll be another time.”
“Sure, you bet,” Grant Austen said, his set smile broken for one fleeting instant as he was about to turn away. “I’ve been wanting to say something about—well, the men at the plant—but I know you’ll take care of them.”
Lory saw that her mother’s hand had reached out, as if to tell him that it was unnecessary to wait for a reply. And then they went up the staircase, still hand in hand, and Lory was aware that there was no matching memory anywhere in her mind.
Tears were flooding her eyes but the impulse to hide them was overridden by the need to look up into Cash’s face and attempt to express her gratitude.
He denied her the opportunity, his eyes still on the staircase, solemnly preoccupied with a thought unshared until he said, “Is that what it’s been—worrying about what was going to happen to his men at the plant?”
She nodded, choked with the wonder of Cash’s quick perception, finally managing to say, “It makes him seem such a different person.”
“Yes, it does, doesn’t it?” Cash said in a throaty whisper, and there was a long pause before he went on. “Maybe he’s right, Lory. I’ve been so sure that it was enough to be absolutely honest and fair with every man I dealt with—but maybe they aren’t the ones that really count in the end. Maybe it’s the others—the ones I never see, the ones that never see me. That’s what you were trying to tell me a few minutes ago, wasn’t it?
”
“All I was trying to say was—oh, Cash, I want you to be happy—and do the things that make you happy. But you can’t be happy if you feel there’s no point in it—that you can’t win.”
“I know,” he acknowledged. “I’ve been trying to believe that winning wasn’t important—that it was all a game—not just the pursuit of money—”
“And it hasn’t been. It isn’t!”
“But it hasn’t been the pursuit of anything else either—and that has been the trouble. I know it now. There’s always been something missing. I guess I’ve been so wrapped up in playing the game that I never took time enough to figure out where the goal line was—what it meant to win—or even how you won.”
“Or who it is who really wins,” she added, her hands climbing his arms. “Even if it doesn’t mean much to you—oh, Cash, it means so much to so many other people. When you win, they win. And sometimes even when you don’t. Do you remember yesterday when we were going to Aurora—that enormous factory we passed on the way to the airport? You said that your grandfather had gambled a fortune to start it—and lost every cent of it.”
“He did.”
“But is that what you were thinking? Oh, Cash, it isn’t! I saw what you were watching—all those men coming out of that factory gate. And I saw your eyes when you looked back. You weren’t thinking about the money your grandfather had lost. You weren’t even thinking that he had lost. You were thinking that he had won.”
His puzzled frown faded into an equally puzzled smile. “How did you know what I was thinking?”
She saw his face through a blur of new tears. “Do you suppose it could be because I’m so much in love with you? They say it happens that way—when you really are.”
“Then I should have known sooner,” he whispered, the words a hurried filling of the moment before their lips met.
There was a timeless lapse, blanked to wordlessness, and then a voice that sounded strangely like Helen Atherson’s saying, “There’s really no point in waiting until June.”
He held her away from him, looking down at her with a plainly shocked expression … Cash of all people, worrying because it wasn’t going to be a nice conventional June wedding!
Cash McCall Page 57
