Ten North Frederick (46 page)

“Yes,” said Joe. “But the Senator never brought up Mike's name.”

“But neither did you.”

“I never intended to.”

“Well, Mike is jealous of his power and he'd like people to think nothing can be done without his say-so.”

“Yes, and with good reason,” said Joe.

“Are you going to give up?”

“Oh, no. You ought to know me better than that. I made a mistake, but I may have learned something from it. So far, except for my mistake, we've been successful. Look, Edith. We thought up the idea of appearing more actively in community affairs, and what happened? Mike Slattery offered me a judgeship that most lawyers would give their eye teeth for. I didn't have to say a word to him. He came to me. Well, I repeat, I can do the same kind of thing all over the state and perhaps somebody bigger than Mike Slattery will come to me the way Mike did. In any event, I'll do the statewide thing and see what happens.”

“You could give away a million dollars and it wouldn't be noticed in a state as big as Pennsylvania.”

“I'm not going to give away a million dollars. I wouldn't like that, and neither would you. No, the charity scheme is too expensive for statewide purposes. But for instance, the County Bar Association has been wanting me to serve on this or that committee and I've always turned them down because—I was selfish or lazy. But it would be the easiest thing in the world for me to get on a county committee, then state, and state would give me the opportunity to go everywhere and meet hundreds of lawyers and politicians. And they're often the same. Very few of the important politicians that aren't lawyers.”

“I'm glad you're not giving up,” said Edith. “This new scheme is going to mean a lot of traveling.”

“It is, but you won't have to go. I
will
ask you to go to some of the conventions, where the lawyers take their wives, but the usual run of meetings are stag. And not stag parties, either. If they were, more men would take an interest.”

Joe attended the next meeting of the County Bar Association, which was held in Odd Fellows Hall. Those present were the principal officers of the Association and fewer than twenty-five per cent of the eligible members; old men, with time on their hands, and young men hoping to rub elbows with the powerful, and the mediocrities of all ages who had time on their hands and wanted to rub elbows with the powerful. It was the first of several such meetings which Joe attended, never explaining his presence, and he was the least surprised man in the room when he found himself appointed to several more or less imposing committees. And he graciously consented when he was asked if he would accept appointments as a delegate to the regional and state conventions. It was easy: some of the lawyers could not afford the trips, even with travel and hotel bills paid, and those who could well afford the expense could not afford the time. Joe had forgotten about the delegate appointments. It was much simpler and less committing to get appointed delegate than to hold actual office in the Bar Association, and suited his purpose more neatly.

For two whole years he went to meetings and conferences and conventions. Joe was a man who could smoke a big cigar and tell a dirty story without quite becoming one of the boys. And his brothers-at-the-bar did not want him to become one of the boys. In his well-cut clothes, day or evening, and with his figure and his—as more than one man said—snotty good looks, he
graced
the meetings, added tone to the profession, made many of its members secretly proud. At the state conventions men as well as women asked who he was, out of mere curiosity caused by his physical appearance. Moreover—and this was something Joe could not have anticipated—each man, each woman, thought he was discovering Joe Chapin, “of McHenry & Chapin, one of the best firms in Gibbsville, Lantenengo County.” Before the two years were up, many men had wondered aloud why Joe Chapin was not in politics. The ready answer, distressingly enough, was that he did not need the money.

Joe and Edith had counted on his getting to know lawyers and politicians. As an almost inevitable consequence of his presence at professional get-togethers, the Chapins were being invited to social functions in widespread sections of the Commonwealth. They could not accept all invitations, but there were some that they did not feel they should refuse. It is a large state, a rich state that has had money for a long time, and within its boundaries there are many large and comfortable homes, with many forms of social activity, from symphony orchestras to cockfights, from Quaker weddings to bear hunts. It was no surprise—and no great treat—when they were invited to spend a weekend with the Governor at his private lodge in the mountains. The men played poker, which Joe had not played since Yale days, and the women played bridge, at which Edith did not excel. They were looked over at a country home in Sewickley, and at a farm in Lehigh County; and Joe played golf in at least a third of the state's sixty-seven counties. He bought a Buick phaeton, a sporty enough car, but safely a middle-class Buick. Professional politicians went in for the Daniels and the Cunningham, the Packard and the Locomobile, the Peerless and the Cadillac, and Joe had the Pierce-Arrow in the garage, but he left it there during his campaigning. No use flaunting the trappings of wealth when the Buick got you there just the same.

Edith was well satisfied with the way things were going. She subscribed to a clipping bureau, which provided some record of Joe's activities and a measure of their success. She was pleased when Joe was referred to as the prominent, or distinguished, or well-known Gibbsville attorney, but she had no objection when he was also referred to as a leading figure in Republican political circles, particularly since he did not have, and did not attempt to have, official connection with the party other than his membership on the county committee. Joe had no organization as such, but he was unquestionably building up a personal following. It was a long, long way from present accomplishment to ultimate goal, but except for the one
faux pas
with the Senator, Joe was proceeding steadily. He made no major move without consulting her, and she was taking a proper pride in his progress when she had a terrifying visit from an old friend.

It was the summer of
1927
and, as usual, the Chapins were living on the farm. Joe was away on one of his golfing trips, but Ann, on vacation from Miss Holton's, and Joby, on holiday from Gibbsville Country Day, were keeping their mother company in their father's absence. Ann had reached the stage at which she was the first to answer every ring of the telephone, and on one hot afternoon in late July she came back to the porch with the flat announcement that the call was for Mother.

“Do you know who it is?” said Edith, rising.

“They didn't say. A female voice,” said Ann.

Edith took the call in the living room. “Hello?”

“Edith, this is Barbara Danworth. Do you remember me?”

“Who? I'm sorry,” said Edith.

“Barbara Danworth. Miss Hannah Payne's School?”

“Barbara
Dan
worth. Yes, why, hello, Barbara. Where are you?”

“Not very far from you. I'm telephoning from a garage in Swedish Haven. I'd like very much to see you.”

“Well, of course,” said Edith. “Do you know how to get here?”

“The garage man said it isn't hard to find. I have a friend with me, an English girl, and if it's okay with you we'll be over in about half an hour.”

Barbara Danworth. Someone who had gone on living, and getting older, in spite of Edith's memory of her, which was of a girl of fourteen at Miss Hannah Payne's School; a passionate and passionately devoted little thing who must now be thirty-nine. And she called herself Barbara Danworth, which could but did not necessarily mean that she had not married.

Barbara and her friend arrived in a red roadster of a foreign make that Edith could not identify. The top was down and the two women were wind- and sunburned. In the face of the woman at the wheel there were enough of Barbara Danworth's features to be recognizable, but when she got out of the car she was a stocky woman in a rumpled seersucker dress, with a man's wristwatch and a beret and saddle-strap shoes. Her companion, the English girl, was thin and handsome, rather sharp-nosed, and wearing a tennis dress and blue espadrilles and a crowded bangle bracelet. She too was wearing a beret, which she removed as soon as the car stopped so that she could ruffle and smooth her long blond hair. She was aged somewhere between twenty-five and thirty.

Edith shook hands with Barbara, who said: “This is Veronica Plaisted.”

“How do you do,” said Edith.

“Hajja do,” said Miss Plaisted. They did not shake hands. The girl immediately began searching the landscape with a level, turning glance that seemed to take in everything without being affected by anything.

“We're on our way to Murray Bay,” said Barbara.

“It's a song, d'you see? ‘We're on our way, to Murray Bay'?” said Miss Plaisted.

“We just landed a week ago and we went to pay our respects to the family on the Eastern Shore, and now we're going to look in on some cousins of Veronica's.”

“Canadians. Do you know any Canadians, Mrs. Chapin?”

“No, I don't think so,” said Edith.

“Nor I. I've no idea what they'll be like,” said Miss Plaisted. “I say, could I wash?”

“I was just going to show you,” said Edith. “Then would you like a cup of tea?”

“I'd rather have a gin and something, if you've no objection.
And
if you have the gin.”

“Gin and soda?” said Edith.

“Gin and almost anything, barring Co-cah Co-lah,” said Miss Plaisted.

“Gin and soda, then. I'll take you upstairs,” said Edith.

“Please don't. I'll find my way. I adore to be nosy in other people's houses.”

“Barbara?” said Edith.

“I went at the garage,” said Barbara heartily.

Miss Plaisted went exploring and Edith and Barbara looked at each other with great frankness. “A long time,” said Barbara. “A long time ago.”

“I've often thought of you,” said Edith.

“And I you,” said Barbara. “How do you like married life?”

“What a strange question, after eighteen years of it,” said Edith.

“Is it so strange?” said Barbara. “I didn't think you
would
marry. I was surprised when you did.”

“And very happily,” said Edith. “Two children. A girl sixteen and a boy twelve.”

“How old is your husband?”

“Joe is forty-five,” said Edith.

“Where is he now?”

“Right now he's at Montrose, Montrose, P A, playing golf. We've become golfers,” said Edith. “Tell me about you.”

“About me? Well, you have eyes,” said Barbara.

Edith nodded slowly.

“I got married when I was nineteen,” said Barbara. “I'm afraid the poor fellow had a bad time, but then so did I. It was an ideal arrangement from the point of view of both families, but I couldn't stick it, and he was cheated. We tried to make a go of it for almost two years, and then
I
went to his father and told him the truth.”

“You did?”

“We had a very quiet divorce. Since then I've lived most of the time abroad. My family are just as well pleased to have me keep out of sight. When I paid my call last week I had to put Veronica in a hotel. In Europe they take us for granted. They don't
like
us, but at least they don't
stare
the way they do in the States.”

“I suppose they do,” said Edith.

“I was hoping I could get a look at your husband, but after I called you I wondered. Some married couples tell each other everything under the sun. Did you?”

“No,” said Edith.

“Then it would have been all right if he'd been here?”

“Oh, yes,” said Edith.

“How about other men?” said Barbara.

“Other men?” said Edith.

“Whether you realize it or not, you've answered my question. Does your husband know?”

“Know what, Barbara?”

“That you've had affairs with other men?”

“But I haven't had affairs with other men,” said Edith.

“Have it your own way,” said Barbara. “It must be still going on, but I don't blame you for being protective. You have no reason to trust me.”

“Do
you
tell everything under the sun?” said Edith.

“You mean does Veronica know about you and me? She guessed it.”

“Did you help her to guess?” said Edith.

“She guessed, and I admitted it.”

“Don't you think you could have just as easily
not
admitted it?”

“And lied to her? I've never lied to her, in four years.”

“What would you do if she lied to you?”

“She has, and I've kicked her out, but she always comes back. Not only for the money, either. I think she'll always come back to me.”

“Aren't you ever worried about her going off with some man?”

Barbara laughed merrily. “That one? Men are her competition. She might leave me, but it wouldn't be for a man.”

“I guess I'm very ignorant. We don't see much of that sort of thing here.”

“Now don't be haughty, Edith. Don't be a one hundred per cent American. Remember, you started me, 'way back at Hannah Payne's School, and you'd never been anywhere but Gibbsville, Pennsylvania.”

Edith made no reply.

“But don't worry. I'm sure if it hadn't been you, it would have been someone else. I wonder what's happening to Ronnie?”

“I'll go see,” said Edith.

“Let me, I'll call her,” said Barbara. She did so, and there was no answer, and Edith heard Barbara's heavy footsteps on the stairway and in the upstairs rooms. “No sign of her,” she said, when she came back.