Little Less Than Kind Page 4

  Now Felicia began to turn, on her sympathies, the tone of Ladd’s voice. How would I feel, she thought, if Rafe had married … say, Cousin Abby? I would feel as if everything was falling to pieces and I would know there was nothing I could do about it and I would just hate it. It would take me a long time to get used to it at all.

  David said, “We’ll sneak a cocktail.”

  The big drawing room, that took all of the rearward L of the house, held only the two of them. Abby had welcomed Dr. Silver in her charming way and then excused herself to fuss over her table. No other guests had yet arrived.

  Aaron looked around with appreciation for the elegant comfort here. “Did Hob build this?”

  “No, but I think he might as well have. He remodeled it.”

  “Nearer his heart’s desire?”

  David winced.

  Aaron took the glass and sipped. “How is the boy?”

  David sat down. “I meant this to be social,” he said, “with your family away. I hadn’t realized that Abby had already asked the neighbors. Although that may be just as well.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t …” David changed his mind. “I was going to say that I don’t want to bother you. Fact is, I don’t mind bothering you or anybody, if I could get some cluè …”

  “I can be as curious as the next man, too,” said Aaron.

  So David glanced toward the opening into the stair-hall. Nobody was out there. “We have had, an announcement,” he said quietly. “Ladd tore up that check. He tells us that he will not complete his college courses. He tells us that he will ‘come into Cunningham Company’ on November twenty-sixth.”

  “Chooses one, eh? Gives himself a considerable hiatus.” Aaron missed the point.

  David twirled his glass. They could hear feet scraping on the brick of the terrace to which a glass panel was open. But the boys came into the house by the stair-hall and then a vibration that was not quite sound followed their feet up the stairs.

  “Who is the other one? The neighbor?”

  “Well, that’s Gary Fenwick,” said David. “He is a neighbor, yes. Ladd’s childhood chum.”

  “Childhood?”

  “Yes, you could call him Ladd’s—I think ‘henchman’ is the word.”

  “There is a henchman temperament.” Aaron smiled. “Just as there is the temperament that requires a henchman. I understood you to say ‘Lorimer.’ ”

  “Yes, it’s Justin Lorimer who is off to Palo Alto tonight. A no-nonsense young fellow. I’m partial to Justin.”

  “Ladd couldn’t be jealous?”

  “Oh, Lord! No!” said David, startled. “They are ships that pass, those two. And the little sister just tags along. It’s their father, Rafe, who’s the old friend of the family.”

  “What troubles you?” asked Aaron, in a moment.

  “You didn’t take note of the date, did you?”

  “Date?”

  “Ladd tells us that he will come into Cunningham Company on November twenty-sixth.”

  “Just like that? You are quoting?’

  “The date. That is the day Hob died.”

  “Hmm.” Aaron pursed his mouth. “I’d agree that it means something.”

  “I may as well tell you that I’m a little scared,” said David.

  “Do you mean that? Why?”

  “Maybe you’ll see.”

  “I assume you’ve tried talking things out.”

  “Tried, indeed. Can’t even get started.”

  “Has his mother talked to him at all?”

  “No, I don’t think she has. Not specifically about his attitude toward me. Abby is troubled, I’m sure. But she and I can’t discuss it too well. I’m on a kind of spot here, Aaron.”

  “Yes, so I imagine.”

  “Abby is, too, of course. It’s Abby that I care about. If it weren’t for her, I’d tackle the boy my own way. I’d do differently, I think. What I’m sure of … he needs somebody.”

  “Is there some mentor that the boy has known well? A teacher?”

  “If so, not here. Maybe at college. Although I doubt it.”

  “There isn’t a pastor?”

  “A …?” It took David’s mind a second to recognize the word. “No,” he said sadly, “nobody goes to church. At least, not these days.”

  “A family doctor, then?”

  “Ladd hasn’t been to any doctor since I’ve been around. Abby has a doctor, very good with women over forty.” David looked into his empty glass. How little he knew about his stepson. Whether the boy had ever been to church in his life, for instance. To his own children, he had so many clues. The experiences they’d had, their training, the questions they had asked and at least some of the answers they’d been given, the whole matrix of their adult minds. But to this boy, no clues. Except an old acquaintance with his parents and a great gap in that—all the years of the boy.

  “How about this henchman?” Aaron was asking.

  “What about him?”

  “Can he be talked to? Would he feel concern? Would he be intelligent enough …?”

  “You’ll meet him,” David said drearily.

  “Loyal, of course. No good. How about Lorimer? The elder, the old friend of the family?”

  David said, “See what you think” in the same hopelessness.

  “Sounds like a pretty complete isolation.”

  “Is that peculiar?”

  “No, unfortunately. There is a schism between the generations, worse than ever. Kids don’t grow up in the same household with grandparents or uncles or aunts or poor relations or any elders that would be easier to relate to … just because they are less important … than the parents.”

  “How do you get at him, then?” David demanded. “Is Abby the only one?”

  “Abby could be the worst one, last one.”

  “Then what is done in other such instances?” David now insisted. “When a boy is obviously …”

  “Disturbed? Yes, well … if and when,” said Aaron, “he falls ill to the point of showing crippling symptoms, or, if and when he does something that comes under the law …”

  “In other words, nothing can be done until it is too late!” said David, rather angrily.

  “You should try any approach.”

  “I will. If I hear of any,” said David irritably. “Something’s happened. Something’s hit him. Something’s changed. Now he is decisive.”

  “And that may be very hopeful,” said Aaron soothingly. “Not every emotional problem leads to illness. On the other hand, it is true that some illnesses must get worse before they can be treated.”

  “As a businessman,” said David crisply, “that sounds to me like a hell of a note.”

  “Perhaps it is,” said Dr. Silver.

  Abby came in. “Oh, good, you’ve given him a drink, David. Aaron, I can’t tell you how nice it is to see you after so many years. Oh, please, sit down.”

  She herself sank gracefully into a chair, her black chiffon dinner dress keeping its elegant lines. The flesh of her neck and shoulders showed sweetly through the veiling cloth that came demurely up to her pearl collar. A darling woman!

  “This is going to be,” she said, “the most difficult table! We have six gentlemen and only two ladies. I do not know that Emily Post would have survived.” Abby mocked at her own exaggeration with her worried forehead and her mischievous eyes. David was offering her a cocktail with a twitching of his brows. “No, thank you, dear. I’ll just wait. I hope you can put up with us, Aaron. You see, Justin leaves tonight.”

  “Doesn’t your guest of honor have a lady friend?” inquired Aaron.

  “Their name is legion,” said David. “Our Justin can’t award any one of them a prize like dinner en famille. Destroy his clever footwork on the tightrope.”

  “He is an awfully nice boy,” said Abby. A shade of trouble crossed her smiling face. “And, of course, it wouldn’t have done to ask some girls just for the other boys.”

  “I think we should
have asked a bevy,” said David, “and watched the fun. Ah, company’s coming.”

  Abby rose, excusing herself to Aaron. David went beside her to greet their guests. He thought, This is right. Abby and I. Why should I sit alone, a man made solitary by a loss? And why should Abby walk alone, when she need not? Because a child feels unhappy? He doesn’t like his pattern changed? This child, who might just as well be thanking his stars that he is free. Are we taking him too seriously? Do we indulge him, even to think of his unhappiness as if it might be a disease? Was there ever man or woman who lived a life and has not met and survived some unhappiness? Where are we going with this theory that he may be ill? Abby and I are a fact of life. Ah yes, he thought, and so is thunder. If there is thunder and the baby cries you cannot stop the thunder. You wish to comfort the baby. But you had better not try to do it by saying that the thunder isn’t there. The baby must be reconciled. Taught, he thought. But, for teaching, it is very late. This baby is twenty.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It was a difficult table. Abby had done the best that could be done with it.

  The preliminaries had not been too difficult. Rafe, innocently garrulous, had been very helpful. Justin had pinned Dr. Silver to a sofa with his candid, dark blue gaze and asked with unabashed curiosity for information about Aaron’s profession. David had smiled to himself to see Aaron sparking up and responding to this lad’s cool bright force.

  Felicia, in sea-green, mousy as ever, had ventured a few remarks to Gary, who lapped up cocktails with an air of having fallen in a pleasant place where he felt nothing much was required of him.

  During the preliminaries, it had not mattered that Ladd—immaculate, even foppish, in a dark suit—had wrapped himself in silence and mystery, volunteering nothing to anyone.

  Now they were gathered to the table. Abby had put Dr. Silver to her left and Rafe to her right. Well, she couldn’t have given Aaron to David and David was glad not to have Rafe. So, good enough.

  She had put Felicia in the middle of one side, between Dr. Silver and Gary Fenwick, directly opposite Ladd, who, in the middle of the other side, was between Rafe and Justin. Very good, thought David. No father beside his son. No brother beside his sister. No husband beside his wife.

  But this left David the prey of Justin’s force, and David found himself having to hold back, remember his role, take care not to be carried away into a lively private conversation with the boy who wanted to know about Cunningham Company, and business in general, and asked some very provocative questions.

  The arrangement also brought Aaron into the range of Rafe’s chatter. Aaron, however, slipped out to say a few words to Felicia, now and again, to which the girl responded shyly. As for Gary, he ate what was put before him with silent relish, expecting neither to have to entertain or be entertained.

  But Ladd …

  Ladd, locked between Lorimers, sat silent. Rafe threw a rhetorical question his way once in a while but expected and got no answer. Justin paid no attention to Ladd at all. And Ladd resisted David’s few efforts to draw him into the discussion of Cunningham Company. So Ladd sat silent, wrapped in a private mysterious place of his own. He did not eat heartily, but rather with a pickiness that verged upon insult. Now and then he lifted white lids to glance at Aaron, at David, and then let white lids down with an effect of secrecy and craftiness. He was behaving like an actor. He seemed to think there was a spotlight, that he had everyone’s attention.

  And so he has, thought David. A good deal of his mother’s attention, although Abby was skillful not to show it. And David’s own. And surely, Dr. Silver’s. And obviously Felicia’s, since she had no skill to hide her quick glances. And even Gary’s attention, what there was of it.

  At last, the dark force in Ladd grated upon the bright force in Justin, and Justin turned and said cheerily, “You’re full of jokes tonight, old boy? Feel like changing your mind? I’ll race you up there. You take the high road and I’ll take the low road. What say?” Justin’s manner bad changed. There was just a trace of jolly condescension, as if he now spoke to a boy, not a man.

  Ladd said with a lowering look, “I have better things to do than play games.” There was a silence.

  Then Felicia lifted her young voice. “Did you ever get the Mozart, Ladd? The one you wanted?” (Good girl, thought David.)

  Ladd answered with effort, but pleasantly enough. “No, I never did. I forgot, actually.”

  Dr. Silver said, “You’re fond of Mozart, are you?”

  Ladd looked at him and said quickly and coldly, “Now what possible difference can it make to you whether I am fond of Mozart or not?”

  David could feel Abby’s pang. Abby could forgive anything better than bad manners. Such a piece of rudeness as this would be devastating to her. So David jumped protectively, to speak before two seconds had ticked by. “If people did not inquire about tastes and did not tell, each his own, I should say that ninety-five percent of the conversation on this earth would not take place.” He spoke as genially as he could, trying for an air of amusement. “Check on it. ‘I like summer.’ ‘I don’t like cold weather.’ ‘I’m fond of salads.’ ‘Blue’s my favorite color.’ And the other fellow says, ‘Oh, I can’t stand the heat.’ Or ‘Give me meat and potatoes.’ The strange thing is, that they both seem to be well satisfied with this exchange.” He was trying to bring a specific within an abstraction and so lead them away from an ugly moment. He wasn’t sure how he was doing. “Why is that?” he inquired.

  It was Felicia who had been following and who took up his challenge. “Isn’t it just a way to tell the kind of person you are?” She looked frightened at having thrown off mousehood.

  “Is it, Doctor?” Ladd snapped, bending forward and somehow glittering with antagonism.

  “I should think so. Wouldn’t you?” Aaron smiled.

  “So you don’t care so much about Mozart. You just want to know the kind of person I am? At the dinner table?” Ladd’s face looked a yellowish beige. He was pale under his tan. Abby’s hand clutched for the table’s edge. Rafe had his chin pulled in. He was lost. Justin was still as a cat. Gary chewed.

  Aaron said calmly, “Ah, but I do care about Mozart. It’s nice to meet a fellow enthusiast. Are you one, Miss Felicia?”

  Oh, nicely done, thought David. Now, let the brat shut up. It’s his last chance.

  Felicia said, with a shaky smile, “There aren’t many kinds of music that I don’t like.”

  “And what does that make her, Doctor?” said Ladd harshly.

  David saw Abby’s hand relax suddenly.

  “That makes her,” said Aaron without much delay, “a very pleasing young lady to sit next to at a dinner table.”

  Pinked? Or not? No matter. David was not concerned for Dr. Silver, who could not be insulted. The mere attempt would interest him professionally. David was worried for Abby and he damned the brat’s selfish little soul and he spoke, coldly. “It is considered courteous to answer a friendly question, Ladd. At the dinner table or anywhere else.” He took authority. He admonished, like a father.

  The boy looked at him. The dark eyes glittered with outrage. David met the eyes. “I apologize for you,” he went on deliberately, “to your hostess and her guests.” He meant to cut. Now he expected an explosion. He wanted it, waited, braced for it. The boy looked as if he could fly apart, as if he only paused to let one wild word take precedence over another.

  Then Abigail … Abigail … with her soft face strangely cool-looking, inclined her head and spoke to her son. “Ladd?” The boy’s head jerked. “If you would like to be excused, dear,” said Abby gently, “you may leave the table.”

  The boy was absolutely still for one second. His face was narrowing, harrowing in, lids pulling, mouth tightening. Then his chair rasped on the carpet. He got up, tall and taut.

  “Thank you, Mother,” he said, matching her gentleness with mocking melody. His eye had an animal knowledge. He was like someone stabbed but not yet bleeding. Numb before promised pai
n.

  He marched to the hall. He went out of the house, upon the terrace, into summer darkness.

  Abigail said, her lips trembling, eyes pleading, “Please forgive him, everyone.” Her eyes evaded David’s. She rang her little bell. She said, “Justin, I know you must get off soon. But you will take time for dessert and coffee?”

  “Sure will,” said Justin.

  “Why do you drive at night, dear?” Abby was stating her wish. Talk, everyone.

  So David said to Gary. “What are you studying, these days?”

  And Rafe said to Dr. Silver, “I paint. I carve. I write a little poetry. But music means very little to me. Why is that?”

  Cleona came in for the dinner plates.

  Felicia’s back was to the windows. She could feel Ladd out there. Watching, was he? No, please don’t let him be watching this dinner party just go on, or know that talk, talk, talk was flowing and covering his empty place and filling it in, as water on the beach obliterates the print of your foot, as if you had never been there.

  Oh, why did they all have to pretend that nothing had happened? Or else that something unpleasant had happened and therefore and only therefore should be ignored? Didn’t they know what had happened?

  Well, but poor Abby was upset and so they were all thinking about poor Abby, now. Even Justin, who was carrying on about how the traffic was less and he could make time and he was going to stop off at a fellow’s house in Los Gatos for breakfast. Then Dr. Silver was drawing Abby into some talk about music, shutting Rafe up and making her answer.

  And Felicia refused the communication of her brother’s eye.

  Gary was telling David Crown that he was a Phys Ed major and wanted to be a coach but small colleges didn’t get into big-time competition. But Felicia knew that David Crown was only half listening. He was worrying about Abby. His nice face—because she did think he was nice-looking—oh, it kept its quiet watch. He wasn’t a strong and thunderous person like Mr. Cunningham had been. Of course, he wasn’t exactly an old pussycat, either. Felicia didn’t know him very well. She didn’t know whether he had done what Ladd thought.