Not herself knowing a rake from a buzz saw, she found a guy out near Berwyn, who had all the required machinery and was willing to go shares with her, making a crop of hay. Then alfalfa it was, but when all deductions were made, it didn’t bring in much cash. So to kind of equalize, so she could go on living in style, I made her a little allowance — not so little actually, as one hundred dollars a week is a drain on anyone’s income, and I can’t say I didn’t feel it.
Understand: There’d been an arrangement before, with my mother kicking in for my board on the farm, my expenses at Yale, and the money I needed to start out in the real estate business. But once I was on my own, her contribution stopped, and mine began. That is, I became Jane’s paying boarder, bearing part of the farm’s expenses. But when I moved to my house, I had it out with Jane, as to what it would do to her finances. The answer was: She could manage. But that “manage” sounded pinched, and considering everything, how I felt about her, what she’d done for me, and how pretty she was, I said she wouldn’t have to “manage,” as I’d keep my payments up. Then she surprised me and shook me down to my heels. In a quiet little speech, she said she’d been waiting for that, actually hoping for it, to know if I’d be so kind, without any hint from her. So, she went on, since I did come through so “gallantly,” she would make me her sole beneficiary, in the new will she was having drawn, she having no close relatives she had to consider. Or in other words, I would come into her land.
Or in still other words, I could have my own development, sure to make me at least a million dollars. But it would mean more than that hunk of money, tremendous though it was. It would mean the realization of a dream, the one Mother mentioned, that I’d been having for years, in regard to Southern Maryland, of which Prince Georges County is part. It’s east and south of the District of Columbia, not on the northern side, where Montgomery County lies and Western Maryland begins — and the winter winds blow. I meant to start a development that would hook weather into the promotion, that would smash up the advantage Montgomery County has had, in appealing to moneyed people, and offer property on the basis that Prince Georges is Dixie, which it is. I’d lived in Montgomery, at Cabin John on the Potomac, and seen all those blizzards go whistling down the river, which is beautiful in winter, with the rocks all covered with ice, and so cold even a brass monkey couldn’t take it.
“Southern Maryland is Dixie,” I told the Rotarians one day. “Let us never forget what Lucky Baldwin told them, out in California, when they complained he was charging too much for the land around Santa Anita. ‘The land?’ he roared at them, ‘hell, we give the land away. We’re selling climate.’”
I’ve been hipped on the subject, and this farm, if I ever came into it, would give me the chance to make the hookup of climate with the promotion, and take the play away from Montgomery, so Prince Georges would be the place, instead.
So that’s why I kept pinching myself, after I left her that day, to make sure it wasn’t a dream I’d wake up from. Of course, I couldn’t make any move to check on any stuff, like water, sewers, and power, as it would have been a little like imagining how pretty she’d look in her coffin. But Mother could do it for me, in a quiet way under cover, through political connections she has — and also, she jumped at the chance of coming in with me, of being my financial backer, and she got on the ball quick. Inside of a month, she reported everything clear. All lights were green whenever the cards said go.
So that’s why Jane was important, in a business way, and personally. I was to pick her up at home, at the old farmhouse, with its 1910 front porch, that I itched to rip off, substitute a modern entrance, add garage and rec room as wings, and in that way make a Southern mansion out of it. It had a circular drive out front, a mudhole in winter and dustbowl in summer, and it didn’t make me feel better right now, that when I turned into it a Caddy was parked out front, which meant of course that these people she was leaving with, for a month’s tour of Canada, had already come for her, and that I’d have to ask them to lunch.
When she opened the door I did it big, taking her in my arms, smacking her full of kisses, and patting her on the bottom. She’s a pert little thing in her sixties, with a trim figure, pink face, and white hair that she rinses blue. She was in some kind of cotton suit, and held me close for more kisses, out there in the front porch.
Then she introduced me to her friends, who stepped outside with us, a couple by the name of Hamell, and I give you one guess how much interest I took in them. But with the old Maryland spirit, I pumped their hands, asked them to lunch and wouldn’t take no for an answer. So then we started out, the ladies with me in my car, he following along in his. The idea was that after lunch they’d come back and pick up the bags, then drive to Philadelphia, where they’d pick up another lady, and then head north and tour Canada for a month. “Fine, fine, fine,” I said, though what was fine about it I didn’t know then and don’t know now.
I took them to the Royal Arms, which served us a nice lunch. We talked mainly of Canada, and I kept cautioning Hamell to take it easy on the Canadian roads. “They’re okay,” I said, “well-built and well-graded, but they have an item called frost, so they bulge and buckle and break.”
“There’s no frost in Prince Georges,” said Jane.
“There is, but not much.”
“Prince Georges County is Dixie.”
At last, this endless lunch was over and we went out on the big portico that overlooks the parking lot, where Jane lingered with me while the Hamells went down for their car. I took the envelope I’d sealed up the night before out of my pocket, and handed it over to her. It contained four weeks’ allowance, four hundred dollars in twenties, and I said: “I thought it might come in handy, while you’re traveling around.”
She opened it, counted it, and looked at the gag card I’d put in. Then she pulled my face down and kissed me. “You look like Handsome Dan,” she said. Handsome Dan was the original Yale bulldog, whose picture she’d seen on one of her trips to New Haven, visiting me. Then she kissed me again, and said: “Your kept woman thanks you.”
“Why do you say things like that?” I asked her. “I’m under a thousand obligations to you, and if now and then I try to return the favor, I’m only too glad. You needn’t take cracks at yourself.”
“Cracks? I thought I was bragging.”
She looked at me somewhat peculiarly, then asked: “Have you seen your mother lately?”
“I was with her this morning, yes.”
“She’s in a spot.”
“She’s in a spot? What about me?”
Now if mentally we’d really been in tune, that was her cue to say something, to get in there with it, to give me something to chew on. But, close though we were, in a way, on that level we never seemed to make it. She gave it the back of her hand, in spite of my upset, which I didn’t try to conceal. “Oh I wouldn’t worry about it,” she trilled in a very bland way. “It’s depressing, and must be damned annoying. Just the same it could be worse. Not saying that Burl should not be ashamed of himself. He’s a handsome boy, but wayward, very wayward.”