“It’s a great expense even for a terminal,” Pierce said.
“It won’t just be a terminal,” John retorted. “We are planning to push the road on north — to Newark, maybe, and Jersey City, or even to New York.”
“I hope it is worth it to the stockholders,” Pierce said somewhat bleakly.
He and John represented different elements in the business. Pierce considered himself and was considered the representative of the stockholders. John was president and represented management. John said crisply, “You know our policy, Pierce — it’s always been sound — management conservative and stockholders patient, labor responsible. Then we’ll all win together.”
“This is a damned politicians’ town,” Pierce growled. “You’re going to have to line the pockets of a hundred or two of them.”
“We never have played politics and we never will,” John said firmly. “Once start bribing politicians and they’ll drive you to bankruptcy with their greed.”
Pierce looked doubtfully at the big square. It was hard to imagine the shops and houses torn down and a great high building reared in the midst of these pushing crowds of people.
“I’m afraid of expansion, John,” he said. “Remember what expansion did to us in those other years.”
“This isn’t expansion,” John retorted. “We are following trade this time — not going ahead of it. We’re connecting the terminals that trade has already made — not building side lines.”
“John, as long as the railroad is under your management I’ll agree to anything,” Pierce said at last. “But don’t take your hands off the engine for one moment.”
John gave his thin long smile. “I plan to live another thirty years, Pierce,” he drawled. “And all I’ve got to live for is the railroad.”
They parted, John having got his way, “as management always does,” Pierce told him with a rueful smile, and then Pierce kept the carriage and drove across town into the quiet streets where Tom’s world was. A peaceful world, Pierce always thought, aloof and untouched by rivalry or struggle. It had been a matter for secret surprise to him that Tom had lifted no banners and had led no crusade for the people into which he had married. “In your own way,” he had once told Tom, “you have lived as selfish a life as I have myself at Malvern.”
“There is a difference,” Tom had retorted. “My life in itself has been a revolution — yours hasn’t.”
He thought of Tom’s words now as he drove down the tree-lined street. Quietly, house by house, the well-to-do Negroes had moved into this fine and old section of the city. There was nothing external to tell of the change. Houses were spacious and lawns were neat, gardens were beautiful and the streets clean. A few well-dressed children played behind closed iron gates. One had to look closely to see that they were not white. Pierce had always the illusion when he came here that he was leaving one country and going into another, as in Europe one passed from Germany into France. He was uneasy in the illusion, for this was a country within a country.
He got out of the cab before the whitewashed stone house, paid the cabman and opened the white-painted gate. He walked down the path to the front door and rang the bell. A maid in a white frilled apron opened the door. She greeted him quietly and asked him to come in. At the same moment he heard light footsteps on the stair and Georgy ran down. She stood still upon seeing him, uncertain, as all Tom’s children were still uncertain of him. He saw the doubt in her dark eyes and felt compunction. After all, these children were not to blame for being born.
He held out his arms unexpectedly, and with a rush of wonder she came into them. He felt her thin young arms hug him. Then he stepped back. “You’ve grown, my child,” he said.
She smiled, her teeth very white. “I do grow,” she said. Her voice had a lovely musical lilt, and he noticed it for the first time.
“Is my brother Tom at home?” he asked.
“We expect Father in about an hour,” she replied. “He and Mother went to see some pictures at the art gallery.”
“Nobody home but you?” he asked.
“Aunt Georgia is upstairs,” she replied.
There was the briefest pause. He put down his hat and stick on a table.
“I wonder if you two could give me some tea?” he asked.
“Of course,” she said. She skipped upstairs ahead of him, and he heard her calling, “Aunt Georgia — someone’s here — I’m going to make tea!”
So she avoided the use of his name, as they all did. Even Bettina in all these years had managed without speaking his name. There was a delicacy in them that was too proud to presume upon relationship. He appreciated the quality but was somehow conscience-smitten because of it. Then he went into the upstairs parlor which had become Georgia’s own.
There was no use in pretending that the sight of her did not move him. But what it was that he felt he did not know and would not discover. Something was released in him, a tension broke. He wanted only to sit in her presence and draw his breath in great sighs of relief.
She sat by the open window, dressed as usual in a full soft white dress. She turned her face toward him and her dark eyes were liquid and calm. She did not smile nor speak a word. “Georgia,” he said. He sat down in the chair opposite her and gazed at her and she gazed back at him in silence.
He brought himself back with effort. “Well, how are you?”
“Quite well,” she replied. “You look well,” she added.
“I’m getting old,” he said gently.
“It’s good,” she murmured.
“You don’t change,” he said.
She clasped her soft beautiful hands on her lap and he looked at them. He had never touched even her hand. Now he put out his own hand.
“After all these years I suppose I may?” he said abruptly.
Her creamy face flushed delicately. Then she put out her right hand and he took it between both his. The blood beat in his ears.
“I want to be honest with you,” he said. “I don’t know what it is that I feel when I am with you — but something very comforting. I wish you could live in my house again, Georgia. My house has not been the same without you. Even now I — we — miss you.”
“I can’t live there,” she murmured.
“I know that,” he said. “I don’t ask it.”
He pressed her hand and laid it softly on her knee and sat back in his chair. “You and I — we’ve never talked out to each other. Now — I want to, Georgia.”
“Yes,” she said, “it’s time. I’ve always thought that when we began to get old — we could.”
They heard the brisk footsteps of Georgy coming up the stair. “Tomorrow,” he said. “Will you drive with me into the country? I’ll tell Tom.”
“Yes,” she said, and bent her head. He saw the softly parted hair, and the downcast lashes, the turn of her lips.
“Here’s the tea,” Georgy cried at the door, “and I made cinnamon toast—”
He moved through the rest of the day in a strange lassitude of mind and body. In all these years he had not spoken to Georgia of himself nor of her. And yet he had known always that she waited unchanged. Tom and Bettina came home. He heard their voices and footsteps and the children’s voices. Then he heard Tom’s steps along the hall to the guestroom where he was sitting.
He had never slept under Tom’s roof since his first visit. But he had said to Georgy as she cleared away the tea things, “I shall stay here, my child, if you have a room for me.”
Her face lit with joy. “Oh — will you?” she breathed. “Of course — the guestroom — it’s always ready—”