Sincerely, Willis Wayde (3 page)

Past experience was no guide to what confronted Willis then. He was learning at the age of fifteen that wealth beyond a certain point always created its own small world of unreality. He was caught in such a world that afternoon, one from which he never wholly escaped.

Just as Willis was looking over the bedroom that would be his for a long while but that would always seem to belong to someone else, he heard a knock on the front door.

“I'll go,” he heard his father say.

“What was it, Al?” he heard his mother call after the front door had closed.

“It's a note from Harcourt,” he heard his father answer. “He wants us all to come to dinner,” and then he heard his father laugh, “and we don't have to bother to dress. He knows I don't own an open-front suit. I told him so.”

“Oh, Alf,” his mother called, “you shouldn't have told him that. Can't we excuse ourselves? All my good clothes are in the trunk.”

“We've got to go, Cynthia,” his father said, “and anyway it means we don't cook supper.”

You never do forget first times, particularly first times when you were young. The sun was setting when they walked across the lawn to the big house. The birds were singing their last songs in the oak and beech trees, and there was a steady late-summer noise of crickets in the grass. His father was telling them not to act as though they were going to church. They had all eaten at big hotels in Chicago and San Francisco, and they knew what headwaiters were like, and Selwyn, who was Mr. Harcourt's butler, was like a headwaiter. Besides they had been to lunch at the Cashes' in Denver, and he would bet that Harrod Cash had more cash than Mr. Harcourt.

“Now, Willis,” his mother said. “It's important for your father that you make a nice impression.”

“Willis will be all right,” his father said. “Just take it easy, Cynthia.”

“Now, Willis,” his mother said. “Remember what I told you about the knives and forks. Begin with the outside ones, even if they don't look right, and don't be nervous, Willis.”

“Don't worry him, Cynthia,” his father said. “You'll feel at home in a minute.”

“Oh, Alf,” his mother said, “you feel at home anywhere because you never notice anything, and there's an awful lot to notice.”

There really was too much for anyone to notice all at once. The front veranda with its gray Gothic pillars was cool and shadowy. They only waited a second or two after ringing before the heavy front door opened. The hall with its walnut woodwork was already dusky, but a lighted chandelier gave Willis a glimpse of the staircase, some paintings of landscapes in heavy gold frames, and a tall clock that ticked loudly in the heavy silence. An elderly man in a black tie and stiff white shirt had opened the door.

“Good evening, Mrs. Wayde,” Willis heard him say. “Good evening, Mr. Wayde.”

“Good evening, Mr. Harcourt,” his mother said. “Isn't it a lovely evening?”

“It isn't Mr. Harcourt,” his father said, and he laughed. “This is Selwyn, Cynthia. He's the butler here. Selwyn, I want you to meet my wife and my boy. You've heard me talk about them.”

“Oh, how do you do, Mr. Selwyn,” his mother said, and she shook hands with him. The scene was not embarrassing, because Selwyn showed no surprise.

“The pleasure is all mine, Madam,” he said. “If you will be so kind as to follow me. Mr. Harcourt and Mrs. Blood are watching the sunset on the west veranda.”

“Mrs. Blood is Mr. Harcourt's sister, Cynthia,” Alfred Wayde said. “This is my boy, Willis, Selwyn. Willis, you shake hands with Mr. Selwyn, too. He's a good man to know around here.”

II

The luncheon in Denver at the residence of Mr. Harrod Cash was an experience which Willis had treasured as something never to be equaled again, but after Mr. Harcourt's house it had the ring of a counterfeit coin. That Denver mineowner's home was vulgarly blatant, compared with the polished solidity of the Harcourt place. Willis was actually facing his first experience with the peace and order of a settled tradition, and also an example of convention, undiluted by unnecessary extravagance. He could feel dignity and permanence compared to which the house in Denver was as ephemeral as the settings of a stage. The broad front hall led directly to another wide passage, which extended the full length of the house. This hall was carpeted with Oriental rugs. Its walls were lined with low bookshelves and gold-framed pictures, and its light came from the open doors of the rooms on either side and from the glass doors leading to the east and west verandas. Thus it was always a shadowy passage, even in the daylight. Willis could still hear the ticking of the clock, because their footsteps were quieted by the carpet. He had a glimpse through open doors of the drawing room and the library, and there was a clean smell to everything, of wax and flowers, that combined with a satiny sheen of woodwork to give a sense of complete security.

As Selwyn led the way to the west veranda, Willis could see his parents ahead of him, his mother stepping lightly and swiftly, moving her head to peer into the library and the dining room. His father walked deliberately, with the careful gait of a man used to traveling over rough country, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders bent slightly forward. When they came to the open door of the west veranda, Selwyn halted, and spoke in a gentle voice that seemed unnaturally loud after the silent progress down the hall.

“Mr. and Mrs. Wayde,” he said, “and Master Wayde.”

Another silence followed, through which came the humming of the crickets. In the afterglow of the sunset, it was still possible to see the view, mellow and soft through the haze of a hot evening. The lawn and the rose garden in the foreground were clear but the vistas through the oak and beech trees of the fields and pastures to the bend of the river were already indistinct and it was dark enough to see the sparks of the fireflies against the trees.

The disciplined beauty of the view from the west veranda held Willis's attention for only a brief moment. Then there was a creaking of porch chairs as an elderly lady and a gentleman in a dinner jacket rose to greet them. Somehow he was not at all what Willis expected. Instead of being large he was small and almost frail. His gray hair was brushed back from a high, thin forehead. His nose was straight and long, and his pendulous lower lip always twitched before he spoke, giving an impression that he was about to stammer, even though his words were always measured and precise. His voice, which he seldom raised, had a flat nasal ring which still was modulated and agreeable.

“It's very kind of you to come to us at such short notice, Mrs. Wayde,” he said. “I hope my note didn't seem like a summons. My sister was afraid it might, but it seemed to me that a dinner away from home might be a rest for you after such a hot day. I hope everything is comfortable at the cottage.”

Mr. Harcourt smiled graciously, and looked at Willis.

“And this is your son, is it? What's your first name, Master Wayde?”

Willis cleared his throat. “Willis, sir,” he said.

“I'm glad to meet you, Willis. You must meet my grandson and granddaughter tomorrow, but first you must all meet my sister, Mrs. Blood. She's paying me her annual parochial summer visit. She wants to be sure we're not mismanaging the mill.”

Mrs. Blood was an inch taller than Mr. Harcourt, and her white hair, done in a pompadour, made her look taller still. Her eyes were dark and sharp and she had her brother's smile. She stood up very straight in her black silk dress with her pearls tied around her throat, and her diamond and sapphire rings glittered in the waning light.

“How do you do, Mrs. Wayde,” she said. “My brother tells me you come from the West.”

“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Wayde said. “Kansas.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Blood said. “Kansas.”

“What shall we have before dinner?” Mr. Harcourt asked. “Shall it be sherry or a dry Martini?”

“Oh, thank you,” Mrs. Wayde said, “but I never touch anything strong.”

Alfred Wayde laughed loudly.

“Cynthia was born in a dry state,” he said.

“My brother ignores the eighteenth amendment,” Mrs. Blood said. “I should like some sherry, Henry.”

“If it's all the same with you,” Mr. Wayde said, “I could do with one of those Martinis.”

When Willis sat apart from the rest of them after the sherry and the cocktails came, he did not feel gauche or shy, because in some odd way the house had offered its protection to him, giving him a feeling of being absolutely safe.

“Will you have another cocktail, Alfred?” Mr. Harcourt said.

“I don't mind if I do,” Willis heard his father answer.

“I won't join you, if you don't mind,” Mr. Harcourt said. “We're having some wine for dinner—Château Lafite.”

“I don't know much about wines,” Alfred Wayde said. “It's always hard liquor or nothing on most jobs, except in California.”

“It's a very lovely view,” Willis heard his mother saying to Mrs. Blood.

Willis did not hear Mrs. Blood's reply, because a large police dog walked slowly up the steps to the veranda, wagging his tail, and Willis patted his long head.

“That's Benny,” Mr. Harcourt said. “His real name is Benvenuto Cellini. He doesn't make friends with everybody.”

“I get on pretty well with dogs, sir,” Willis said.

“You and Benny and I will have to walk around and see the place tomorrow,” Mr. Harcourt said. “Well, here's Selwyn with your Martini. Would you mind bringing it with you? We'd better go in to dinner.”

When the Harcourt dining table was extended for family birthdays or for luncheon after the annual stockholders' meeting, more than twenty people could sit at it comfortably. The dining room never seemed too small on these occasions, but conversely, when the table was contracted to a small circle, as it was that night, there was never any sense of sitting in too large a room. The marble-top Chippendale serving table, the magenta brocade curtains drawn over the French windows, the family portraits, and the silver service on the mid-Victorian sideboard only seemed to draw closer. Somehow the dining room was never formidable or forbidding, even with Selwyn and a maid waiting on the table.

That night at the big house Willis must have seen the portrait of the clean-shaven old Mr. William Harcourt, standing against a pastoral background, with his hand resting on the head of an Irish wolfhound. He must have seen the less skillful portraits of Mr. Henry's own father, George Harcourt, with his gray sideburns, and of Mrs. George Harcourt, Mr. Henry's mother, in white satin. The Sargent portraits of Mr. Henry and of his wife, who had died in 1910, were in the upstairs hall in those days. He must have seen the screen before the pantry door with its panels done by Lawrence, and the silver tea service and the cans by Paul Revere inherited by Mr. William Harcourt from his Boston wife; and he must have seen the silver coffee urn presented to Mr. William on his seventieth birthday by the stockholders and the employees of the Harcourt Mill. Willis surely must have seen all these objects, but not one of them moved out from the others to obtrude on his consciousness. Instead everything gave the impression of being expected, down to the lace tablecloth and the green Chinese place plates and the Georgian candlesticks and the cut flowers in the center of the table.

The meal was simple enough—cold consommé, guinea hen with bread sauce, and salad, and blueberry pie for dessert, and he was given a glass of ginger ale instead of wine.

“My brother says you can turn your hand to anything, Mr. Wayde,” Mrs. Blood was saying to his father.

“Well, ma'am,” Mr. Wayde said, “I've been thrown against a lot of stuff in railroading, building, and mining. They all come down to pretty much the same thing in the end.”

“What do you mean, the same thing?” Mrs. Blood asked.

“Making what you've got on hand do what it isn't meant to do,” Mr. Wayde said.

“Wine, sir?” Selwyn asked him. “Or Scotch and soda?”

“Whisky,” Mr. Wayde said, “and water. Did you ever know Mr. Harrod Cash, ma'am, out in Denver?”

“No,” Mrs. Blood answered, “I don't know Mr. Cash.”

“No reason why you should, I suppose,” Mr. Wayde said, “except Harrod—you get to first names fast in Denver, ma'am—he gave me a letter to your brother when I got through at Whetstone. Harrod was always strong for Harcourt belting.”

“I'm glad to hear it,” Mrs. Blood said, “but what's Whetstone?”

“The Whetstone Mine, the best silver and lead property in the Rockies, ma'am. I was working in the mill when water came in and flooded number seven and six levels. You never can tell where water is inside a mountain, and that's a fact.”

“Alf is absent-minded about a lot of things,” Willis heard his mother saying, “but never about machinery.”

“I've noticed that myself,” Mr. Harcourt said. “He's a great comfort to me at the mill. You see, I haven't a mechanical, only a business, mind.”

“Some people think Alf is lazy,” Mrs. Wayde said. “When I first met Alf, I thought he was. It was at a dancing party at the Y.W.C.A. in Topeka.”

Mr. Harcourt's lower lip twitched and then he smiled.

“I'd like to know,” he said, “how he ever got to the Y.W.C.A. in Topeka.”

“Oh, a contracting firm was building some water works,” Mrs. Wayde said, “and some of the young fellows on the job came to the dance. I guess Alf went because he'd lost all his money at poker the night before. I was teaching in the high school and living at the ‘Y,' and my sister Nell and I invited him out to the farm on Sunday with another fellow. He just sat on the piazza with his feet on the rail until the windmill broke down and we were out of water.”

Mr. Harcourt's lower lip twitched, but he did not speak.

“Well, Alf got right up off the porch and climbed up the windmill. I get dizzy when I look down from a height, don't you, Mr. Harcourt?”