Back STreet (40 page)

Then there were two or three snapshots. “Mrs. Walter D. Saxel and daughter Irma snapped by a
Times
photographer on Fifth Avenue, New Year’s Day.” “Mr. and Mrs. Walter D. Saxel, Miss Irma Saxel, and Richard Saxel, about to board the S.S.
Mauretania
.” And: “Miss Irma Saxel, daughter of Walter D. Saxel, banker, philanthropist, who will sell poppies at the Falkland Hospital Benefit.”

Quite a gallery, even while the children were young, which she had managed to eke out of cuttings and clippings, to say nothing of the even clearer word-gallery of their portraits which, down the years, Walter had hung in her mind.

Clearest of all hung Richard’s. From his very babyhood he had exhibited qualities that were as admirable and endearing to her as they were to Walter.

“He has a genuine sense of responsibility, that youngster has,” Walter had explained to her from the time he was six or seven. “Watches over his little sister as much as his mother or nurses. Tell that boy to do a thing and you don’t need ever to give it another thought, because you know it will be done, and right! Wish a lot of men in the bank had qualities like him.”

Well, and here was Richard now, twenty-one, a Yale graduate, cum laude, crack polo player in the amateur class, fair at all sports, and no mean debater, about to enter the banking house of Friedlander-Kunz.

Little wonder that his father, ever since his return from commencement at New Haven, had been in a state of excitement that bordered on those days following the Armistice.

“I’ll never forgive myself for not insisting that you see that sight, Ray. You and I feel pretty much the same about the pity of having missed education, and this spectacle would have done your heart good, and, if I do say it, the boy held his own with the sons of fathers that can buy and sell me five times over.”

“His mother must be proud!”

“She has cause. The boy has come clean since the day he was born. I’m not supposed to say it, because he’s mine, but if I had
been allowed the pick yesterday of every man on that graduating-platform, my pick would have been the clean-cut young fellow, fourth from the left.”

She leaned over on the couch, where, as usual, they were sitting after the table containing the remains of the evening meal had been dragged off to its corner, and kissed him. What a small boy he was! In many ways, as Walter described him, this son of his seemed more the man of banking affairs and worldly concern than his father. But that was because this was the side of his life, in the flat here alone with her, where he could afford to let go. Be himself. Cast aside rigmarole of rostrum, directors’ table, husband, financier, philanthropist, and national and even international affairs, into which his peculiar services of vast financial importance during the war called him in firsthand contact with prime and cabinet ministers, and table-conferences with the President of the United States.

Here was her part in his life, to exercise her philosophy of life, that where she was concerned he need have no philosophy of life. To make him laugh. Walter, not notable for sense of humor, laughed here in this flat. To make him play. Walter played here. On rostrums, in his office, even in his own home, he was not a ready laugher. He was young here, capable of the kind of boyish thing that had impelled her to lean over and kiss him for what he had just said about Richard.

“You darling!”

“Now what was there darling about that?” he asked, pleased.

“Just you being you. Honestly, I believe that in lots of ways Richard is older than you are.”

“If levelheadedness means anything, he is. Should have seen the way he took the idea of taking his place under Eagan in the appraisal department. Another boy would have—”

“Ah, but you’ve been such a wonderful influence in Richard’s life, Walter.”

“I said to him: ‘Son, it is a modest beginning, that of appraiser of real estate on which the bank is considering advising mortgages. It is thoughtful, careful work, that requires the kind of consideration you must give the woman and often the widowed investor. I
consider the philosophy unsound that a rich man’s son needs necessarily to start in overalls. Years of unnecessary hardship may be more destructive than constructive.’ As a matter of fact, now that I recall it, I think those were your words, Ray.”

Foolish Walter, to look so sheepish! Of course they were her words. She had argued heatedly against Walter’s original idea of farming Richard out as runner to a small brokerage firm in Chicago, under an anonymity that, in the end, once his identity leaked out, would mean newspaper publicity and false exploitation. “Let him have his simple beginnings and work his way alone, but why bend too far backward. Starting a rich man’s son down at the bottom of the ladder in overalls is fodder for headlines and more fad than fact. Treat him naturally, Walter. There is nothing unusual in any average young man finding himself working as assistant appraiser in a bank. Years of unnecessary hardship can make work more destructive than constructive.”

Of course those had been her words! Oh, Walter, Walter; and his constant surprise and embarrassment at finding himself quoting her expressions.

“Comes back at me like a flash: ‘I’m glad you’re starting me regular, Father. Treat me average. That’s what I am, until I prove otherwise, one way or another.’ As if it didn’t take more than the average to be capable of sizing up the situation like that!”

“You’ve great joy coming to you out of that boy, Walter.”

“Yessir, I think I have, Ray. In fact, I’ve no kick coming on any of them.”

“Indeed you haven’t. They’re children to be proud of. All this postwar jazz, hip-flask generation you read about doesn’t seem to have really touched yours.”

“It’s not in our ribs, much of that kind of thing.…”

How Walter’s face had filled out, or was it just from the beaming look it wore when these discussions of his children arose? No, under hair that was plentifully more gray than black, there were soft little jowls to his cheeks now, and even though you could never imagine him stout, undoubtedly the area under his waistcoat had thickened and the old straight look to his back had become slightly saggy.
Strangely, and sometimes a little meanly, she was glad of these inroads into the face and figure of Walter. It made her less fearful of her own mirror.…

The trouble with dyeing one’s hair to keep the gray down was that after a while, as if too tired to endure under the effort to remain glamorous, it refused to take the coloring. Result, the effect ran crazily to red rusts, greenish tints, with the gray itself persisting through. It was terribly worrisome, because the effect of the dye was to harden and make grim the features without sufficiently eliminating the evil.

It made her welcome, in spite of herself, the little sacs of loose fowl-like skin under Walter’s eyes and along his jowls, and the thinning spot that by now was almost bare and shiny on the back of the top of his head. Dear little welcome tracks of time that made her own seem the less terrifying.

“When you beam like that, Walter, you look adorable.”

He was annoyed, and rightly, she told herself. It had slipped, a remark that could be warranted to annoy any man, let alone one like Walter.

“Oh, cut that out, Ray. I’m not beaming.”

“Well, you don’t need to get mad about it, dear.”

“No use making a man feel a fool. Women are funny.”

“Men are funnier,” she said, feeling that everything she was saying was somehow going against his grain, and yet not quite knowing how to right her manner, which, goodness knows, had been well-meaning.

“Walter dear, speaking of funny, I think we need a little more comic relief in your speech for the junior group at the Empire State Club next week. I read it over to myself last night, and it struck me those young men might find it heavy sledding.”

“Meaning that my audiences find my talks heavy sledding?”

“Of course not, dear! If you aren’t the one to be touchy tonight. That isn’t at all what I meant, and you know it. My point is that one who can be as wise and witty at the same time as you can be, cannot afford to be too much one or the other.”

As if over and over again there were not this inevitable preamble
leading up to the inevitable revision of the cut-and-dried tracts which he ostensibly brought for typing.

“Of course, Walter, I realize that these young men look to you as the symbol of dignified success.” (Success, success, that was the noun to wave before him as the white flag of truce! Success. Success. The word made him wet-lipped.) “But my idea is, the more lightly you treat yourself, the more seriously they are going to be willing to take you. It’s human nature. I’ve seen so many of your audiences, Walter, remain a little stiff, if you happened to be saying things about yourself that they would be perfectly eager to say about you themselves, but which they resented coming from you. And then, on the other hand, time and time again, I’ve seen them warm up after you’ve given them a laugh or two at your expense, and then eat out of your hand during the rest of the speech. Remember the time you got the entire Bankers’ Convention roaring from the very start when you told them how the Maharajah of Something-or-other had mistaken you for his tailor, when you walked into his apartments at the Savoy, in London, with some documents in your hands that were virtually going to change the history of his country?” She had written that, against his protest, into his notes. “Well, that’s all I mean here, dear. Get those young fellows with you and for you from the very start. Keep humorous and they’ll let you be wise. And if I were you, dear, I’d step on the word ‘Hun.’ The war vocabulary is already out-of-date and out of hate.”

Incredible, the need to keep before Walter the most elementary observations. His inability to withstand the lure of an invitation to indulge in public address seemed to grow with the years and with the prestige of his name on a speakers’ list. But his capacity to fatigue an audience, with a spiritless reading of a not always unspirited address, remained static. Strange, because there were aspects of his work in relationship to his public life upon which, in the sanctity of the flat, he could speak with color and authority.

“Walter, let me write that down, just the way you said it. How was it? The buying-power of any given community is—
hors de combat
(whatever that means) if it is-pitted against-a selling-power-so
powerful-that it-jeopardizes-the credit—if only you could let go on the platform, dear, the way you do here!”

“There are some who do not think I am so bad.”

“Walter, how you twist everything I say.”

“I wasn’t aware of twisting what you just said of me. In other words, on the speakers’ platform I am a dead-cat.”

“Why, Walter Saxel, honestly, I could just wash your mouth with soap. Kiss me and take back every word. I think you’re splendid on the platform. Getting better every day, and you know it.”

“Aztecs of Brooklyn want me for their tenth anniversary.”

“Well, brush up the talk you gave the Rochester Aztecs. Same crowd—same spirit.”

“Dig that out for me, Ray—will you?”

“Love to. I’ve got a new wheeze about Brooklyn. Cut it out of the Literary Digest. You get around so much more than I do, honey. Try to keep your ears open for the funny slants. You’re all right on the serious banking-side. I just want you to be, as they say at Keith’s Vaudeville, louder and funnier.”

“There you are again.”

“There
you
are again, you mean. Kiss me, and not another word out of you. When you squint like that, dear, you look exactly like little Arnold.”

“Speaking of Arnold, of course it’s all a bit premature, but Corinne already insists that she wants him to enter Corton. I don’t know but what I agree with her.”

“Oh, Walter, Corton was all right for Richard, although you know yourself how certain things hurt his spirit there. But Richard is tough-fibered compared to Arnold, and not so easily got at. Richard took his medicine about not being eligible to enter a fraternity, but Arnold will be another matter. They will break his spirit.”

“His mother seemed to think just the contrary. He’s all imagination and no backbone. The child needs outside contacts.”

“But why try to make a polo player out of a silk purse?”

“Why not let him be both? Richard is.”

“Because, in Arnold’s case, the purse will be torn to pieces.”

“Race pride has the buoyancy to rise above race prejudice. [Her phrase.] Let Arnold when his time comes take his medicine about the Corton fraternity situation. Richard did.”

“But, Walter, you cannot apply the same formula to two such different natures. I’ve been sending for catalogues from boys’ schools all over the country, Walter, ever since you told me there has been this talk of some day sending Arnold; and the more I read them, and the more you tell me about that child, the surer I am that he ought to be tutored at home indefinitely. Arnold is special, Walter. Don’t cut him out with a biscuit tin. Home study and in time, travel, are for his sort of nature.”

“Not sure but what you’re right.”

“I know I am. But all this I’m telling you isn’t really my idea. It’s yours. You’ve always been the one to emphasize that Arnold is the sensitive plant.”

“His mother—”

“Of course. It’s natural. She’s ambitious for him, and Corton’s the smart school to send him.”

“I think I do understand the child.…”

“I think you’re wonderful with your children, Walter.”

“And you’re wonderful with me, Ray. But this is what I really dropped in about. Want you to go to the library tomorrow and read up on Abyssinia. North American Archeological Society has been after me to finance that fellow Hickerson who got himself famous down in the Congo country last autumn, and set him up in an expedition to go do some important excavation-work in Abyssinia. Seems to be a good thing, but I’ll need a lot of information at my fingertips when I meet the committee.”

“Oh, Walter, if only Arnold were old enough to go along! Think what that would do for the boy. That’s what he needs—something like that to stimulate his courage and imagination.…”

“Oh, I see, poking over dead men’s stones and bones in Abyssinia. That would make a hit with his mother! Ray, you’re a crazy darling.”