“It isn’t real?”
“It’s quite real. See for yourself. It’s there in the corner, by the globe.”
“I mean…” He blushed. He felt he was making a complete fool of himself, but he couldn’t help it. “I mean — why?”
“That’s what I so much admire in you, Daniel — your directness. Do sit down — over here, out of the glare — and I’ll tell you the story of my beard. That is, if you’re interested.”
“Of course,” Daniel said, taking the proffered chair cautiously, so that his bathrobe wouldn’t part.
“When I was a young man, a little older than yourself, and about to leave Oxford and return to the States, I had the good fortune to come across a novel in which the hero changes his character by buying and wearing a false beard. I knew that I would have to change my character shortly, for I would never be a credit to my position, as they say, until I’d learned to assert myself much more strenuously than I was accustomed to doing. I had tended to be reclusive in my college days, and while I’d learned a good deal concerning economic history, mostly forgotten since, I’d failed utterly to master the essential lesson that my father had sent me to Oxford to learn (and which he had learned there); namely, how to be a gentleman.
“You smile, and you do well to smile. Most people, here, suppose that one becomes a gentleman by adopting what is called ‘good manners.’ Good manners, as you must know (for you’ve picked them up very quickly), are mainly an encumbrance. In fact, a gentleman is something else entirely. To be a gentleman is to get what you want with only an implicit threat of violence. America, by and large, has no gentlemen — only managers and criminals. Managers never assert themselves sufficiently, and are content to surrender their autonomy and most of the money they help to generate to us. In return they’re allowed the illusion of a guiltless life. Criminals, on the other hand, assert themselves too much and are killed by other criminals, or by us. As always, the middle way is best.” Whiting folded his hands with a consciousness of completion.
“Pardon me, Mr. Whiting, but I still don’t quite see how wearing a, uh…”
“How a false beard helped me be a gentleman? Quite simply. I had to act as though I weren’t embarrassed by my appearance. That meant, at first, I had to overact. I had to become, somehow, the sort of person who would actually have such a big bushy red beard. When I did act in that manner I found that people behaved much differently toward me. They listened more closely, laughed louder at my jokes, and in general deferred to my authority.”
Daniel nodded. In effect, Grandison Whiting was stating the Third Law of Develop-Mental Mechanics, which is: “Always pretend that you’re your favorite movie star — and you will be.”
“Have I satisfied your curiosity?”
Daniel was flustered. “I didn’t mean to give the impression that, uh—”
“Please, Daniel.” Whiting held up his hand, which glowed with a pale roseate translucence in the beam of the lamp. “No false protests. Of course you’re curious. I should be dismayed if you were not. I’m curious about you, as well. In fact, the reason I called you from your bed — or rather, from Boa’s — was to say that I’ve taken the liberty of gratifying my curiosity. And also to ask you if your intentions are honest.”
“My intentions?”
“Concerning my daughter, with whom you were having, not half an hour ago, intimate relations. Of, if I may say so, the highest quality.”
“You were watching us!”
“I was returning a compliment, so to speak. Or has Bobo never mentioned the incident that sent her packing to Vilars?”
“She did but… Jesus, Mr. Whiting.”
“It isn’t like you to flounder, Daniel.”
“It’s hard not to, Mr. Whiting. All I can think to say, once again, is why? We supposed you knew what was going on pretty much. Boa even got the impression that you approved. More or less.”
“I suppose I do approve. Whether more or less is what I’m trying to determine now. As to why, it was not (I hope) merely the gratification of a father’s natural curiosity. It was so that I’d have the goods on you. It’s all down on videotape, you see.”
“All?” He was aghast.
“Not all, possibly, but enough.”
“Enough for what?”
“To prosecute you, if need be. Bobo is still a minor. You’re guilty of statutory rape.”
“Oh Jesus Christ, Mr. Whiting, you wouldn’t!”
“No, I don’t expect it will be necessary. For one thing, that might force Bobo to marry you against her own wishes, or against yours, for that matter. Since, my lawyer tells me, you could not, in that event, be prosecuted. No, my intention is much simpler, I want to force the issue before you’ve wasted each other’s time in hesitations. Time is too precious for that.”
“You’re asking me if I’ll marry your daughter?”
“Well, you didn’t seem about to ask me. And I can understand that. People generally wait for me to take the initiative. It’s the beard, I suppose.”
“Have you asked Boa about this?”
“As I see it, Daniel, my daughter’s made her choice, and declared it. Rather openly, I should say.”
“Not to me.”
“The surrender of virginity is unequivocal. It needs no codicil.”
“I’m not sure Boa sees it that way.”
“She would, I’ve no doubt, if you asked her to. No one with any sensitivity wants to appear to be haggling over matters of the heart. But in our civilization (as you may have read) certain things go without saying.”
“That was my impression too, Mr. Whiting. Until tonight.”
Whiting laughed. His new, beardless face modified the usual Falstaffian impression of his laughter.
“If I have forced the issue, Daniel, it was in the hope of preventing your making a needless mistake. This plan of yours to precede Boa to Boston is almost certain to lead to unhappiness for both of you. Here the inequality in your circumstances only lends a piquancy to your relations. There it will become your nemesis. Believe me — I speak as one who has been through it, albeit on the other side of the fence. You may have your pastoral fantasies now, but the good life cannot be led for less than ten thousand a year, and that requires both the right connections and a monastic frugality. Boa, of course, has never known the pinch of poverty. But you have, briefly. But long enough to have learned, surely, that it is to be avoided at all costs.”
“I’m not planning to go back to prison, Mr. Whiting, if that’s your meaning.”
“God forbid you should, Daniel. And please, don’t we know each other well enough for you to dispense with ‘Mister Whiting’?”
“Then how about ‘Your Lordship’? Or ‘Excellency’? That wouldn’t seem quite as formal as Grandison.”
Whiting hesitated, then seemed to decide to be amused. His laugh, if abrupt, had the ring of sincerity.
“Good for you. No one’s ever said that to my face. And of course it’s perfectly true. Would you like to call me ‘Father’ then? To return to the original question.”
“I still don’t see what’s so terrible about our going to Boston. What simpler way of finding out if it works?”
“Not terrible, only foolish. Because it won’t work. And Boa will have wasted a year of her life trying to make it work. Meanwhile she’ll have failed to meet the people she’s going to college to meet (for that’s the reason one goes to college; one can study far better in solitude). Worse than that, she may have done irreparable harm to her reputation. Sadly, not everyone shares our enlightened attitude toward these arrangements.”