Part 23 (1/2)
”Of course,” I agreed.
”My father would have reminded me of it. Especially with all these fellows down from school. It's practically the same bunch I dug up for your send-off, you know.”
”It was awfully good of you to do it,” I said. ”I'm sorry it was all for nothing.”
”Well, I know, but my father insisted on it. To please Mrs. Vand. I guess she thought there'd be something in it for you.” He must have felt how these words put him in the wrong light, for quite suddenly his high alert manner faltered, and his eye trailed consciously across the room.
”There wasn't,” I said candidly. ”It really doesn't matter, though.”
”No? I heard you don't date much.”
”Because I don't want to.”
It was his turn to cover disbelief, and though his doubt was justified, I resented it. He took up again with a renewed effort: ”It must have been a let-down for you, though. I mean not to get to go after all.”
”I've been to Europe,” I said: but with a certain sharpness.
”When you were a kid,” he observed.
”Right after the war.”
”It doesn't mean you shouldn't go again.”
”I guess I will,” I a.s.serted, but hesitated to state what I did not credit. ”Later on. Maybe when my mother's better.”
This blinked him swiftly to attention. ”Yes, how is she, by the way?”-but his curiosity was not so overwhelming that he troubled to leave a gap for my satisfying it. ”You don't remember anything about what it was like over there?” he concluded without a pause. ”I suppose you were too young.”
”I remember a lot. But I don't think about it much,” I said.
”Then do you happen to recollect a man named Pettigrew?”
”Pettigrew.”
”Your stepfather used to run into him now and then. They were in different sectors but they came to know each other after your mother got into some sort of legal trouble over an automobile.”
”Oh, marvelous,” I applauded. ”Now you've learned her file by heart.”
”You don't have to be mad about it, it's not really all my fault. I've been working in the Vs all summer-Venue, Validation, Vacantia Bona, Valuation, Vand.”
”Perfect. I like the way you do your job-the only thing missing is Virtue.”
”In your mother's file? You're too hard on her. And after I had the good grace not to mention Venality!” He bit on his unlit cigar and grinned on either side of it. ”Pettigrew settled some sort of threatened suit for her, do you recall? It cost plenty. They had to buy the whole Paris police force. Not to speak of a complete hospital staff. It's quite a story.”
”Is that the way your father does business?” I sardonically inquired.
”Oh, well, I've stopped thinking my father so all-holy. He put Pettigrew on it, that's all I know. Maybe it's the way Pettigrew does business. Or your mother.” He shrugged. ”The times weren't normal anyhow.”
His whole tone was so slippery it was useless to accuse him. ”You've had a profitable summer,” I merely noted.
”Not bad, not bad. Educational.” But he looked around with distaste. ”Unless you regard today as its culmination. I don't care for all this crawling around. -You don't recollect him?” he persisted.
I condescended to reflect. ”What sort of work did he do?”
”For a while he was Special a.s.sistant under Marshall. That's when he knew your stepfather. When the Republicans took over they threw him out.”
”He's a Democrat?”
”Pettigrew? Oh my G.o.d. A Roosevelt New Dealer actually.” His smile was speculative and almost genuine. ”You can imagine how my father feels about it.”
”I think I've heard of him,” I said, barely recalling it. ”At least the name. He's the one who went to that dancing school, isn't he?-with your father and my mother, when they were little?”
”And my mother,” he added. ”He's been stepping on their toes ever since. Politically speaking.”
”I don't know him,” I admitted.
”He's going to be my father-in-law,” said William's son.
This interested me mightily: within the propriety of the match, then, there lay a hint of discord. Curiously, this possibility appeared to amuse William's son; through his posture of vexation I saw his excitement in the promise of conflict. He obviously thought it something to enjoy.
”Will that be an obstacle?” I put it.
”To what?”
”Oh, I don't know. Family unity.”
He laughed out his scorn at me. ”Family unity! What a prude you are-I don't care beans about family unity or anything like it. I've grown up on it, you haven't. It's only a contrivance, believe me.” He offered me his derisive eye. ”You can't tell me anything about family unity that I haven't already seen in the raw. What else do you think they have between them,” he asked, ”my father and my mother?”-and answered himself with a harsh nip of his cigar: ”Family unity, that's what.”
This was so unexpected and perilous and fragile a subject that I did not know how to reply. ”Your mother is an admirable woman,” I ventured.
”I admit it. So does my father. I guess he isn't inspired by admirable women,” William's son gave out; and, because I had plainly failed to catch the sharp purport of his tone he softened it to a confidence: ”That's why Mrs. Vand is unforgivable.”
”You always say that and it's not fair,” I maintained. ”You forget who wanted the divorce.”
”You don't have to remind me. My father is a selfish man and your mother is as wild as Borneo. He was out to save his hide. She would have run him to tatters.”
”William can take care of himself,” I announced.
”Do you really think so?”-It was half a jeer.
”He's a mountain.”
”With a geologic fault. Or maybe it's simply a fault of character. The point is he'd do anything for Mrs. Vand.”
”No more than for the other client.”
”Maybe not. But certainly more than for my mother.” He saw my alarm and came back quickly, ”Not that he's negligent, of course. In fact I suppose he's what's called a born family man. He's very good at being head of the house. He presides over us beautifully.”
”Then you can safely take him for your model,” I remarked, afraid to say more yet unwilling to withdraw.
”Sure.” He raised his chin sedately, an illusory movement so very like William's habitual manner that it aged him thirty years. ”If I should ever decide to run after what I'd already run from.”