Watchfires (33 page)

This sense of guilt, however, had been considerably lightened by her disgust at the attitude that her own father had taken as soon as he had heard of the accident. For he had simply uttered a solemn prayer that he should not be held liable to the Fairchilds for having dispatched Selby on his fatal trip! With a parent like that, could she blame herself too much for a minor meanness?

On their second walk in the park Ellie had tried to induce Fred to take a more sanguine view of his future.

"What can I do?" he asked gloomily. "I have no job, no money, no prospects. I refuse to go back to brokerage, and I'm trained for nothing else. Except killing. I might reenlist and go west to shoot Indians. That's about all I'm good for."

"Why not law? Your father would adore to have you in his firm."

"I'd have to go back to school. I've no money for that, Ellie!"

"He'd be only too happy to pay."

"But I wouldn't take it from him! How can I ask him to invest anything more in a son who has nothing to show for the last three years but an empty pocket and a murdered brother?"

Ellie resolved to take no note of his dramatics. "You wouldn't have to go to school. You could read law in his office."

"I'd still be his dependent!"

She turned to face him down. "Can't you stop thinking of yourself for a minute? Can't you think of me
once?
"

He seized her by the shoulders, gripping them until he hurt her. "My dear girl, I
am
thinking of you! Don't you know that? I want you to be free. Free of me. My God, I'm nothing but a millstone around your neck!"

She reached up to place her hands on his gripping ones. "Then I think millstones must be all the fashion this season."

But he only glared at her as if he was actually angry at such insistence. Then, abruptly, he released her. "No, no, it's not fair to you," he muttered, turning away with what was almost a sob. "Let me take you home. I'm not fit for this. I'm not fit for anything!"

Ellie decided that under the circumstances she could do nothing but acquiesce. She went home and spent two hours alone in her bedroom, thinking hard. That evening, at dinner with her parents, she coolly made her first move in the hazardous campaign that she had just devised.

"I saw Fred Fairchild today."

"You know your father and I don't approve of that young man. Don't you think it would be kinder to him not to see him? He's completely ruined his business prospects."

"Not his prospects with me, anyway, Ma. I shall continue to see Fred whenever I choose. But that is not the topic I wanted to bring up. I wanted to tell you something else, namely that..."

"Highty-tighty, Miss!" her father interrupted. "Aren't you taking a rather grand tone to those who pay for every morsel you put in your mouth? Not to speak of every stitch you put on your back?"

"Hadn't you better wait, Pa, until you hear what I have to say?"

"I'll thank you, young lady, to keep a civil tongue in your mouth!"

"
My
tongue is perfectly civil."

"Elmira!" her mother cried. "Please remember you're speaking to your father!"

"Well, would he rather hear it from me or from Uncle Corneel?"

"What are you talking about?" her father demanded, his eyes instantly narrowing.

"Simply this: that I expect you to arrange that Fred be compensated for his losses in Erie. Just as all the other Vanderbilt brokers are."

Her father snorted in astonishment. "Losses? What losses? Fairchild wasn't buying on his own account."

"Oh, but he was. He put everything he had into Erie. And he should be made whole. As the rest of you expect to be."

"After what he said to Uncle Corneel at the conference?" her father cried. "You dream, young lady. You dream! The Commodore never forgets a thing like that!"

"It should be perfectly easy for you to explain that to him. Tell him that Fred's young and idealistic. Tell him he was Fred's hero. Like General Grant. Tell him Fred couldn't bear to see him lose even one battle. And now, with Selby's death on top of it all, Uncle Corneel's bound to relent."

"Even if all that were true, why should
I
intercede for a man who insulted me so grossly to my face?"

"Because I intend to marry him," Ellie responded firmly. "And I see no reason that my husband should not share with the rest of the family."

Her mother at this seemed to waver. "She has a point there, Seth."

"But you are forgetting, Rosalinda, how that young man reviled me. No, I can never do it. That's final!"

Ellie regarded him coldly. "What do you suppose he'd have said if he'd known you were selling Erie while he was buying? Wouldn't he have really reviled you then?"

Her father's gaping face seemed to shrink and show more lines. It reminded her of an onion. "Whatever gave you such an idea?" he asked, almost in a whisper.

"Ma told me."

"Seth! I never did!"

"You're always shooting your big mouth off, Rosalinda!"

As Ellie took in the rasping hate in her father's tone, she realized with a shock what she had done. She had pulled up a floorboard in the creaking edifice of their family life and revealed the grubby little things that they had all known were underneath but which they had tacitly agreed to keep out of sight. In the shock of their sudden exposure to the light the creatures lay helplessly on their backs, their white shiny bellies exposed, their multitudinous legs waving. Glancing from her father to her mother, she read in the sudden pallor of each the effect of a similar recognition. And then a common impulse induced the three of them to shove that board back and stamp it down.

"I was only trying to hedge a bit for the financial security of my loved ones," Seth Bristow explained, almost with a whine. "One can't expect women to understand such things. But if you're so set on this young man, Elmira, I guess I'll have to see what can be done. I'll be calling on Uncle Corneel tomorrow. Maybe he'll view the matter as you say."

"Thank you, Papa," Ellie responded warmly. "Thank you very much indeed. I shall never forget that you did this for me. If Uncle Corneel gives you any trouble, tell him that Ma and I went after you like two furies. He'll understand. He has enough daughters of his own!"

She could not quite make out what her father mumbled into his soup, but it seemed to be something about the Commodore at least knowing how to keep
his
"women folk" in line. Her mother now turned to her with the eye of the hostess who can never admit to an unpleasantness.

"We must ask Fred for dinner. Do you think his parents would come?"

"Hardly. They're in the deepest mourning."

"Oh, I mean just for a family evening."

Ellie did not bother to answer. She was wondering already how she would ever be able to persuade Fred to accept the reparation if offered. It seemed to her that the best plan would be to take him with her to call on her great-uncle on the excuse that the Commodore wanted to offer him personally his condolences on the death of Selby, a "casualty in the Erie war." This might be going a bit far, but in Fred's present despondency almost anything might work—or fail.

Fortunately, when she broached the matter to him the following afternoon, after her father had reported favorably of his visit to Uncle Corneel, Fred offered little resistance. Sitting in the dingy parlor of his boarding house, where she had boldly called upon him, he had simply stared at her apathetically and finally nodded.

"Well, if the old man has the decency to be sorry about it, I guess the least I can do is call upon him."

They walked to Washington Place where the Commodore lived in a plain square red brick house with a white Greek portal. It was handsome enough as New York residences went, but it was modest indeed compared to what the more newly rich were building farther uptown, and certainly modest compared to the Bristows' mansion in Madison Square. Ellie could only admire the self-assurance with which he so understated his wealth. But what might have been self-restraint without became something more like indifference within, where the whitewashed chambers were sparsely and inconsequentially furnished. They reminded Ellie of rooms in a doll's house; the pieces did not match, in size or in period. A vast Hudson River landscape might find itself hung over a miniature; a Hiram Powers caveman might be balanced by a frog.

Uncle Corneel, who was suffering from bronchitis, greeted them without rising from a Belter rococo divan upholstered in maroon. He was clad in a multicolored dressing gown and was smoking a pipe.

"You've had a blow, lad," he said to Fred when his guests were seated, "and I'm sorry for it. Someone should hang, and my choice would be Gould."

Fred nodded, a bit stiffly. "I had hoped we were going to change the Erie management, sir."

"We will, lad, we will. But Central, like Rome, can't be built in a day. We'll get hold of Erie in time, and then you'll see the difference!"

Fred remained discreetly silent.

"Tell him about the wreck you were in, Uncle Corneel," Ellie put in nervously.

"Oh, that. It must have been thirty-five years ago. It put me off railroads for a while, I'll tell you that." He chuckled at the vision of his own historical importance. "Yep, that wreck must have put the clock in rails back a dozen years."

Another silence fell, which Ellie again felt constrained to break. "Did you have another message for Fred today, Uncle Corneel? Papa said you might."

"A message? Oh, yes. If you have any of that bogus Erie stock to unload, young man, just give me the figure, and I'll write you a check."

Fred looked startled. "You wish to make good my losses, sir?"

"Why not? It was in a good cause. I look after my people."

"I beg your pardon, sir, but may I ask if the check will be drawn against your personal funds?"

"You think it may bounce?"

"Hardly that. And if it did I should frame it. It would be a museum piece." Ellie, astonished, joined their laughter. Was Fred actually coming out of the slough? But his next words disheartened her. "I mean, will it be to you that I owe the restitution or to the Erie stockholders?"

"Oh, I'll be paid by Erie. Surely that's only right? They swindled me. Now they can cough up."

"If it was Gould or Fisk who had to do the coughing, sir, I'd agree with you. And heartily. But it won't be, surely? They'll just put their paws right back in the Erie till."

"What's it to me where they get the money?"

"But don't you care, sir, if it's the stockholders who are really paying?"

"Did God appoint me to look after the shareholders, young man? Let the shareholders look after themselves."

"If they only could! But they're helpless, the way things are. I'm sorry, sir. I can't take their money."

The old man shrugged. "Very well. I can't force it on you. Elmira tells me you may set up to be a lawyer. Sounds like it might be the right trade for you. I ain't got a very high opinion of lawyers or judges, but maybe you can help make things better. They sure as hell couldn't be much wuss!"

Ellie was almost without hope after this visit. Yet when Fred took her back to Madison Square and asked her grimly on the threshold if she was ready to give him up
now,
she retorted "Never!" and then slammed the front door enigmatically in his face. What more could she say? What more could she appeal to? His obligation to her, created by the blackmailing of her own father? That would be moving indeed. She might have tried to induce herself to give him up, had it not been for his little joke about Uncle Corneel's check. If he had retained even a grain of humor in his depressed state, might it not be something to build upon, a tiny oasis in the swirling whirlwind of his self-hate?

Whom could she consult? Her family were out of the question. His father was in Washington. Miss Handy probably had a kind heart, but old maids were apt to be disappointing. In the last analysis they couldn't give enough of themselves. And as for Mrs. Fairchild, wasn't she a hopeless fanatic, roaring up and down the streets, shrieking about women's rights...?

Or was she a possibility? She was at least detached from family matters. What was there to be lost?

The following afternoon at five Ellie presented herself at Union Square and was ushered into the library where Rosalie, in black, was seated at a desk writing letters. She rose at once to greet her visitor, and there was a momentary awkwardness as to whether they should kiss. Ellie then reached out her hand, which Rosalie clasped in both her own.

"My dear. How good of you to come."

"Oh, Mrs. Fairchild, I've thought and thought of you!" Suddenly, to her own surprise, Ellie found that her eyes were full of tears. "I loved Selby!"

Now they did kiss, and Rosalie led her to the sofa. "I'm sorry my husband is not here. He's gone to Washington, you know, to help with the President's defense."

"Yes, I'd heard. It's very fine."

"I'm glad you think so. I wish more people did."

"Oh, people." Ellie was about to denounce her parents for their radical Republicanism, but then thought better of it. Mrs. Fairchild might not consider this consistent with filial piety. "Silly people," she finished vaguely.

"My poor Fred has taken his brother's death very hard," Rosalie continued. "I hope it hasn't made any difference between you two."

"With me, none at all. How could it? But he wants to break off. Or rather he wants to give me back what he calls my freedom. He says he's bust and out of a job and can't afford to marry."

"Not for just now, perhaps."

"That's what I keep telling him. I'll wait forever if need be."

Rosalie's expression seemed to mingle sympathy with a faint surprise. "Ah, my dear, you
do
love him."

"Did you think I didn't?"

"But, child, think how little I know you! And then there was all that terrible Erie business, and Fred's leaving your father's employ. I don't suppose your parents can have approved of that."

"And, of course, you don't like my parents." Ellie checked herself in time from adding, "Nobody does."

"I don't
know
your parents," Rosalie corrected her firmly. "I had to assume that your father's business was important to him."