“We are on the right track at last,” he had written John. “Labor has got out of hand and must be controlled. People who have put their money into the railroads must get it back.” This letter John had not answered, but John also hated to write letters and never did so unless there was a crisis.
Only yesterday, in church, Pierce had given thanks to God sincerely for all good things, including health and peace in his time. The glorious summer sunshine had slanted down through the stained glass windows of the Presbyterian church of his fathers. Here he and Tom had sat as small boys, sighing and wriggling. Here his children had been christened. He had thanked God frankly for wealth — well, why not for wealth?
And even while he was giving thanks to God this thing had already happened! He felt cheated and he got up impulsively to find Lucinda and complain to her. Then he sat down again and stared across his fields to the mountains. Lucinda would not be interested. She had always divided life firmly into what was men’s business and what was hers. Whatever the difficulties he had, she did not consider them her affair. Money might be hard to get, but what else had men to do but to get it? He missed Tom, as he often did, in swift short spasms of needing to talk to a man. Malvern had good neighbors. Nobody could be more fun than the Raleighs and the Bentons and the Carters and the Hulmes and a dozen other families, when it came to fox-hunting and horse-racing. Pierce took pride in the fact that on any weekend he could gather twenty families at Malvern and on any day in hunting season. But his sons were still young and he had no man in the house to quarrel with and argue with and be knit to, as he had been knit to Tom.
What would Tom think of such news? He got up again and began to pace the sunlit flags of the long terrace. Philadelphia was near Baltimore. He could go to the company offices at Baltimore and find out for himself exactly what was happening and what might be expected to happen. He could reinforce company policies with his own advice. Then he’d run over to Philadelphia and see Tom.
“I might as well own up that I want to see the fellow again,” he thought sentimentally. He had not seen Tom once in all these years, although they had written regularly if not often. He wouldn’t tell Lucinda — they had not mentioned Tom for a long while. He had stopped telling her even when he had a letter, because she closed her lips firmly at the very sound of Tom’s name.
But he went to find her to tell her of his plan to go to Baltimore. He found her surrounded by their daughters, to whom she was teaching sewing. That is, she was sitting in her rose-satin chair, in her own sitting room upstairs, taking dainty stitches in a bit of linen, and Sally and Lucie were sitting beside her. Lucie was absorbed but Sally was frowning and pausing every moment to look out the open window. Between the two girls Georgia came and went, examining stitches and correcting mistakes. She looked at him when he came in and away again. Since that strange day when she had knelt at his feet, she had spoken no word to him beyond what was absolutely necessary in the communication of servant to master. His own behavior had been as careful, and between them, like scar tissue over a wound, they had constructed a surface.
“Luce,” he began abruptly. “There’s a railroad strike. I’ve got to go to the head offices at Baltimore. I’m going to telegraph John MacBain to meet me there.”
Lucinda looked up from her sewing and raised her delicate eyebrows. “What can you accomplish, Pierce? You’re not an executive.”
“I’m one of the Board of Directors, nevertheless,” he said firmly. “I’m going to see for myself what the men are thinking of and what’s to be done. If necessary, I’ll ask for a special meeting of the directors on behalf of the stockholders. We can’t let the railroad get into the hands of labor. It’ll be the end of the country. Socialism — communism — whatever you want to call it—”
He was halted by a swift look from Georgia’s suddenly upraised eyes. Then she looked down again. She was at Sally’s side now, and she began to rip out a line of stitches.
“Oh dear—” Sally cried, “don’t tell me I’ve got them wrong again! Georgia, you are mean—”
“You pay no mind to what you’re doing, Miss Sally,” Georgia said quietly.
Sally turned to him. “Papa, if you’re going to Baltimore — let me go with you!”
“Pray tell—” Lucinda cried at her daughter. “Why should you go to Baltimore? I’ve a mind to go myself though, Pierce. While you’re busy at meetings I could get myself and the girls some new frocks.”
He was horrified at this onslaught of women and struggled against it but in vain. By the time he left the room a few minutes later not only Lucinda and Sally were going with him but Lucie as well and Georgia to look after the girls and serve Lucinda. He groaned in mock anguish. “I thought I was going to do business instead of squiring a lot of women!”
“Well look after ourselves,” Lucinda said sweetly. “You don’t need to pay us any mind. I shall take the girls to Washington maybe — or even New York.”
He could think of no good reason to forbid it. The boys were safe enough at home. If Lucinda had made up her mind to come with him the girls might as well come too. He telegraphed John MacBain and Lucinda included an invitation to Molly and what he had planned as a severe business trip now became a holiday. In the secret part of his mind he said that he would nevertheless escape his women and go and see Tom. The next day in the midst of much packing Georgia stopped him in the upper hall, her arms full of frocks.
“Master Pierce, if you think of a way, I’d like to go and see Bettina.”
“Of course,” he said. “I’ll speak to your mistress.” He had long ago forgotten that once he had not wanted to be called master in his house nor to have Lucinda called mistress.
By the time they set out for Baltimore the shadow over the country had darkened still more. Pierce studied the newspapers for hours every day. To his disgust, some of the western railroads had avoided trouble by raising wages as quickly as the men demanded. He was angry because he was frightened. His dividends had been so deeply cut this year that he was hard put to it to know how to pay the costs of his racing stable. It was unthinkable that Malvern should suffer because a horde of ignorant and dirty workingmen were dissatisfied with steady wages and good jobs.
Yet it was not just Malvern, he told himself honestly, that was his concern. Malvern was symbol of all that was sound and good in the nation. Family life, the land, healthy amusements, educated children, civilized ways of living — all were threatened. He wrote a letter of commendation to a magazine that printed a cartoon showing a skeleton disguised as a union rabble rouser, wearing a ribbon which was printed “Communist.” He was so angry one day that he could not eat his dinner because the foreigner named Marx, of whom John MacBain had spoken, was quoted in a northern newspaper as gloating over the rising strikes and dissensions and proclaiming them the beginning of a real revolution.
He had thrown the paper down and got to his feet and paced the dining room floor. “In God’s name what have Americans to make a revolution about?” he bellowed to Lucinda and their children. “We aren’t a lot of dirty starving peasants. We’ve got democracy here — a government, by God—”
“Pierce, stop cursing before the girls,” Lucinda commanded him. “Sit down and eat your beef before it’s cold.”
He had obeyed, but he could not eat as much as usual and he spent the rainy afternoon gloomily in his library, drinking too much with a savage satisfaction that if the world was going to hell he might as well go with it.
When they met John MacBain and Molly in Baltimore, at the great old-fashioned hotel which they had made their rendezvous, Pierce got rid of the womenfolk as fast as he could. He seized John by the arm and took him into the bar. It was mid-afternoon, and the place was empty but the two men sat down to drink, each comforted by the sight of the other’s grim looks.