A Poor Wise Man

  CHAPTER VI

  "Well, grandfather," said Lily Cardew, "the last of the Cardews is homefrom the wars."

  "So I presume," observed old Anthony. "Owing, however, to your mother'sdetermination to shroud this room in impenetrable gloom, I can onlypresume. I cannot see you."

  His tone was less unpleasant than his words, however. He was in one ofthe rare moods of what passed with him for geniality. For one thing, hehad won at the club that afternoon, where every day from four to six heplayed bridge with his own little group, reactionaries like himself,men who viewed the difficulties of the younger employers of labor withamused contempt. For another, he and Howard had had a difference ofopinion, and he had, for a wonder, made Howard angry.

  "Well, Lily," he inquired, "how does it seem to be at home?"

  Lily eyed him almost warily. He was sometimes most dangerous in thesemoods.

  "I'm not sure, grandfather."

  "Not sure about what?"

  "Well, I am glad to see everybody, of course. But what am I to do withmyself?"

  "Tut." He had an air of benignantly forgiving her. "You'll find plenty.What did you do before you went away?"

  "That was different, grandfather."

  "I'm blessed," said old Anthony, truculently, "if I understand whathas come over this country, anyhow. What is different? We've had a war.We've had other wars, and we didn't think it necessary to change theConstitution after them. But everything that was right before thiswar is wrong after it. Lot of young idiots coming back and refusing tosettle down. Set of young Bolshevists!"

  He had always managed to arouse a controversial spirit in the girl.

  "Maybe, if it isn't right now, it wasn't right before." Having said it,Lily immediately believed it. She felt suddenly fired with an intensedislike of anything that her grandfather advocated.

  "Meaning what?" He fixed her with cold but attentive eyes.

  "Oh--conditions," she said vaguely. She was not at all sure what shemeant. And old Anthony realized it, and gave a sardonic chuckle.

  "I advise you to get a few arguments from your father, Lily. He is fullof them. If he had his way I'd have a board of my workmen running mymills, while I played golf in Florida."

  Dinner was a relatively pleasant meal. In her gradual rehabilitationof the house Grace had finally succeeded in doing over the dining room.Over the old walnut paneling she had hung loose folds of faded blueItalian velvet, with old silver candle sconces at irregular intervalsalong the walls. The great table and high-backed chairs were likewiseItalian, and the old-fashioned white marble fireplace had been given anover-mantel, also white, enclosing an old tapestry. For warmth of colorthere were always flowers, and that night there were red roses.

  Lily liked the luxury of it. She liked the immaculate dinner dress ofthe two men; she liked her mother's beautiful neck and arms; she likedthe quiet service once more; she even liked herself, moderately, in alight frock and slippers. But she watched it all with a new interest anda certain detachment. She felt strange and aloof, not entirely one ofthem. She felt very keenly that no one of them was vitally interestedin this wonder-year of hers. They asked her perfunctory questions, butGrace's watchful eyes were on the service, Anthony was engrossed withhis food, and her father--

  Her father was changed. He looked older and care-worn. For the firsttime she began to wonder about her father. What was he, really, underthat calm, fastidiously dressed, handsome exterior? Did he mind thelittle man with the sardonic smile and the swift unpleasant humor, whoseglance reduced the men who served into terrified menials? Her big,blond father, with his rather slow speech, his honest eyes, his slighthesitation before he grasped some of the finer nuances of his father'swit. No, he was not brilliant, but he was real, real and kindly. Perhapshe was strong, too. He looked strong.

  With the same pitiless judgment she watched her mother. Either Gracewas very big, or very indifferent to the sting of old Anthony's tongue.Sometimes women suffered much in silence, because they loved greatly.Like Aunt Elinor. Aunt Elinor had loved her husband more than she hadloved her child. Quite calmly Lily decided that, as between her husbandand herself, her mother loved her husband. Perhaps that was as it shouldbe, but it added to her sense of aloofness. And she wondered, too, aboutthese great loves that seemed to feed on sacrifice.

  Anthony, who had a most unpleasant faculty of remembering things,suddenly bent forward and observed to her, across the table:

  "I should be interested to know, since you regard present conditions aswrong, and, I inferred, wrong because of my mishandling of them, justwhat you would propose to do to right them."

  "But I didn't say they were wrong, did I?"

  "Don't answer a question with a question. It's a feminine form ofevasion, because you have no answer and no remedy. Yet, heaven save thecountry, women are going to vote!" He pushed his plate away and glancedat Grace. "Is that the new chef's work?"

  "Yes. Isn't it right?"

  "Right? The food is impossible."

  "He came from the club."

  "Send him back," ordered Anthony. And when Grace observed that it wasdifficult to get servants, he broke into a cold fury. What had come overthe world, anyhow? Time was when a gentleman's servants stayed withthe family until they became pensioners, and their children took theirplaces. Now--!

  Grace said nothing. Her eyes sought Howard's, and seemed to find somecomfort there. And Lily, sorry for her mother, said the first thing thatcame into her head.

  "The old days of caste are gone, grandfather. And service, in your senseof the word, went with them."

  "Really?" he eyed her. "Who said that? Because I daresay it is notoriginal."

  "A man I knew at camp."

  "What man?"

  "His name was Willy Cameron."

  "Willy Cameron! Was this--er--person qualified to speak? Does he knowanything about what he chooses to call caste?"

  "He thinks a lot about things."

  "A little less thinking and more working wouldn't hurt the country any,"observed old Anthony. He bent forward. "As my granddaughter, and thelast of the Cardews," he said, "I have a certain interest in the sourcesof your political opinions. They will probably, like your father's,differ from mine. You may not know that your father has not onlyopinions, but ambitions." She saw Grace stiffen, and Howard's warningglance at her. But she saw, too, the look in her mother's eyes,infinitely loving and compassionate. "Dear little mother," she thought,"he is her baby, really. Not I."

  She felt a vague stirring of what married love at its best must be for awoman, its strange complex of passion and maternity. She wondered ifit would ever come to her. She rather thought not. But she was alsoconscious of a new attitude among the three at the table, her mother'stense watchfulness, her father's slightly squared shoulders, and acrossfrom her her grandfather, fingering the stem of his wineglass andfaintly smiling.

  "It's time somebody went into city politics for some purpose other thangraft," said Howard. "I am going to run for mayor, Lily. I probablywon't get it."

  "You can see," said old Anthony, "why I am interested in your views, orperhaps I should say, in Willy Cameron's. Does your father's passion foruplift, for instance, extend to you?"

  "Why won't you be elected, father?"

  "Partly because my name is Cardew."

  Old Anthony chuckled.

  "What!" he exclaimed, "after the bath-house and gymnasium you have builtat the mill? And the laundries for the women--which I believe theydo not use. Surely, Howard, you would not accuse the dear people ofingratitude?"

  "They are beginning to use them, sir." Howard, in his forties, stilladdressed his father as "Sir!"

  "Then you admit your defeat beforehand."

  "You are rather a formidable antagonist."

  "Antagonist!" Anthony repeated in mock protest. "I am a quiet onlookerat the game. I am amused, naturally. You must understand," he saidto Lily, "that this is a matter of a principle with your father. Hebelieves that he should serve. My whole contention is that the peo
pledon't want to be served. They want to be bossed. They like it; it's allthey know. And they're suspicious of a man who puts his hand into hisown pocket instead of into theirs."

  He smiled and sipped his wine.

  "Good wine, this," he observed. "I'm buying all I can lay my hands on,against the approaching drought."

  Lily's old distrust of her grandfather revived. Why did people sharpenlike that with age? Age should be mellow, like old wine. And--what wasshe going to do with herself? Already the atmosphere of the house beganto depress and worry her; she felt a new, almost violent impatience withit. It was so unnecessary.

  She went to the pipe organ which filled the space behind the staircase,and played a little, but she had never been very proficient, and herown awkwardness annoyed her. In the dining room she could hear the mentalking, Howard quietly, his father in short staccato barks. She leftthe organ and wandered into her mother's morning room, behind thedrawing room, where Grace sat with the coffee tray before her.

  "I'm afraid I'm going to be terribly on your hands, mother," she said,"I don't know what to do with myself, so how can you know what to dowith me?"

  "It is going to be rather stupid for you at first, of course," Gracesaid. "Lent, and then so many of the men are not at home. Would you liketo go South?"

  "Why, I've just come home!"

  "We can have some luncheons, of course. Just informal ones. And therewill be small dinners. You'll have to get some clothes. I saw Suzetteyesterday. She has some adorable things."

  "I'd love them. Mother, why doesn't he want father to go into politics?"

  Grace hesitated.

  "He doesn't like change, for one thing. But I don't know anything aboutpolitics. Suzette says--"

  "Will he try to keep him from being elected?"

  "He won't support him. Of course I hardly think he would oppose him. Ireally don't understand about those things."

  "You mean you don't understand him. Well, I do, mother. He has runeverything, including father, for so long--"

  "Lily!"

  "I must, mother. Why, out at the camp--" She checked herself. "All thepapers say the city is badly governed, and that he is responsible. Andnow he is going to fight his own son! The more I think about it, themore I understand about Aunt Elinor. Mother, where do they live?"

  Grace looked apprehensively toward the door. "You are not allowed tovisit her."

  "You do."

  "That's different. And I only go once or twice a year."

  "Just because she married a poor man, a man whose father--"

  "Not at all. That is all dead and buried. He is a very dangerous man. Heis running a Socialist newspaper, and now he is inciting the mill mento strike. He is preaching terrible things. I haven't been there formonths."

  "What do you mean by terrible things, mother?"

  "Your father says it amounts to a revolution. I believe he calls it ageneral strike. I don't really know much about it."

  Lily pondered that.

  "Socialism isn't revolution, mother, is it? But even then--is all thisbecause grandfather drove his father to--"

  "I wish you wouldn't, Lily. Of course it is not that. I daresay hebelieves what he preaches. He ought to be put into jail. Why the countrylets such men go around, preaching sedition, I don't understand."

  Lily remembered something else Willy Cameron had said, and promptlyrepeated it.

  "We had a muzzled press during the war," she said, "and now we've gotfree speech. And one's as bad as the other. She must love him terribly,mother," she added.

  But Grace harked back to Suzette, and the last of the Cardews harkedwith her. Later on people dropped in, and Lily made a real attempt toget back into her old groove, but that night, when she went upstairsto her bedroom, with its bright fire, its bed neatly turned down, herdressing gown and slippers laid out, the shaded lamps shining on thegold and ivory of her dressing table, she was conscious of a suddenhomesickness. Homesickness for her bare little room in the campbarracks, for other young lives, noisy, chattering, often rather silly,occasionally unpleasant, but young. Radiantly, vitally young. The greathouse, with its stillness and decorum, oppressed her. There was no youthin it, save hers.

  She went to her window and looked out. Years ago, like Elinor, she hadwatched the penitentiary walls from that window, with their endlesslypacing sentries, and had grieved for those men who might look up at thesky, or down at the earth, but never out and across, to see thespring trees, for instance, or the children playing on the grass.She remembered the story about Jim Doyle's escape, too. He had duga perilous way to freedom. Vaguely she wondered if he were not againdigging a perilous way to freedom.

  Men seemed always to be wanting freedom, only they had so many differentideas of what freedom was. At the camp it had meant breaking bounds,balking the Military Police, doing forbidden things generally. Was that,after all, what freedom meant, to do the forbidden thing? Those peoplein Russia, for instance, who stole and burned and appropriated women,in the name of freedom. Were law and order, then, irreconcilable withfreedom?

  After she had undressed she rang her bell, and Castle answered it.

  "Please find out if Ellen has gone to bed," she said. "If she has not, Iwould like to talk to her."

  The maid looked slightly surprised.

  "If it's your hair, Miss Lily, Mrs. Cardew has asked me to look afteryou until she has engaged a maid for you."

  "Not my hair," said Lily, cheerfully. "I rather like doing it myself. Ijust want to talk to Ellen."

  It was a bewildered and rather scandalized Castle who conveyed themessage to Ellen.