“Herbert?” For just a second it seemed as though the name really didn’t mean anything to Harrison, that he’d put his partner and brother-in-law out of his mind just as completely as Bradford had done. But then, with a kind of panicky irritation, his face distorted in an expression the camel might have worn as the last straw was put on, and he said, “What now? Herbert? What’s the matter now?”
“He attacked one of the girls.” She would normally have phrased it less melodramatically, but she could see it wasn’t going to be easy to hold Harrison’s attention. Now, while she had it, she said, “He must stop it, Harrison. This was worse than any of the other times. If I have to ask Bradford to put him out, I will, but I don’t want to have to go that far.”
“Good God!” Even through the sunglasses Harrison’s eyes could be seen popping. “He didn’t really attack her, did he?”
“I’d rather not go into the details,” she said. “But as the girl described it to me, there really isn’t any other word for it.”
“A little pat — I know Herbert sometimes—”
“Not a little pat. A lot of clutching. A lot of quite serious clutching and disarrangement of clothing.”
“I — Well.” Harrison’s hands moved vaguely, he looked to left and right at the stables, the road, the woods. “I don’t know why he’d do it,” he said, in a kind of trailing hopeless voice. “Had he been drinking?”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry to have to bother you with this, I realize you’re overburdened as it is, but I simply cannot have Herbert driving the servants away when we have thirteen guests in the house.”
“Thirteen?” Harrison seemed startled, and then amused in a fatalistic manner, by the number. “Well, that’s appropriate, isn’t it? Yes, I’ll talk to him. He won’t bother any of the girls any more, I promise you.”
Having intimidated Harrison into quelling Herbert for her, Evelyn at once felt guilty, and tried to make up for it by saying, “Now it’s your turn.”
“Yes.” But his train of thought was broken now, he had too many problems to concentrate on all at once, and he just stood there in the sunlight with a helpless look on his face.
Evelyn said, “Shall we start for the house? We could take the path around by the pond, that way’s shadier.” And more roundabout, to give him plenty of time to say what he had to say.
“Yes, fine,” he said, and they started off, he in casual flannels and a colorful shirt, she in her riding clothes.
They were well in under the trees before Harrison spoke, and then he began with a question: “Has Brad said anything to you about all this?”
“Not really,” she said. “He doesn’t talk to me about serious problems very much.”
“He didn’t say he was ready to dump me, eh?”
She gave him a surprised look, but he was simply moving along at their slow pace, his worried eyes on the shaded path ahead of them. “Of course not,” she said. “Why would he have you come here? I mean, besides the fact that he’d never even think of such a thing.”
“Then I just don’t know,” Harrison said, and stopped, and looked hard at her. He was still wearing his sunglasses even here under the trees, but Evelyn could nevertheless see the intensity of his gaze. “Is he serious?” he demanded. “He can’t be, he has to know it’s no good. All I could think of was, it’s the brush-off.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Uncle Harrison.”
“Of course not,” he said, and offered her a shaky apologetic smile and a brief touch on the arm. “I’m sorry, Evelyn, my mind’s just running around in circles. I can’t think why Brad would want to give me such a bad time. He hasn’t said anything to you at all?”
“Not a thing,” she said. “But if he’s being less — understanding than usual, it might be because of Paris.”
At his questioning look, she went on to tell him about the outcome of Bradford’s series of meetings with the Chinese official, and how the news about Harrison had fit into his homecoming. He listened with his mouth twisted in irritation, and at the finish he burst out, “You mean I’m getting my head beat in because of some lousy China-man?”
“I suppose that’s part of it,” she said, not reminding him that the rest of it was his own insistence on riding with George Washington, California, all the way to Armageddon.
“If that doesn’t beat everything,” he said, pacing back and forth on the narrow path amid the trees while Evelyn stood and watched him. “Some Chinaman plays him for a sucker and I get to be the whipping boy!”
“What is he doing, Uncle Harrison?”
“I’ll tell you what he’s doing,” Harrison said. He was really angry now, though Evelyn suspected the anger was at least half relief at finally understanding the cause of his brother’s treatment of him. “He’s throwing me to the wolves, that’s what he’s doing.”
“He wouldn’t. You know him better than that.”
“I don’t believe I know him at all,” Harrison said. “Not that man, not the one up there now. I’ve never seen that one before in my life.”
“Well, what is he doing? Is he refusing to help you?”
“Oh, no.” Harrison was luxuriating in the permission to be angry, and was even indulging now in sarcasm. “He’ll help me, all right. He’ll help me all the way to the chopping block. You know what his idea is?”
“No, I don’t.”
“The Harrison Lockridge Memorial,” he said, rolling the syllables out with exaggerated contempt. “Could you believe that? The Harrison Lockridge Memorial. And do you know what the Harrison Lockridge Memorial is supposed to be?”
“No.”
“Four hundred miles of pipe,” he said. Waving his arms in the air, he cried, “The goddam Big Inch, that’s what it is!”
Evelyn frowned at him, bewildered. “I don’t understand.”
“The idea is,” he said, “Brad’s studied the maps, and he’s got us a water supply. The only problem is, it’s four hundred miles away. So what are we supposed to do? According to him, we’ll make a public announcement that we made a mistake about their being a big enough water supply right at the townsite, but we want to make up for it by putting in a four-hundred-mile pipeline from this Lake Whatever-it-is at our own expense! Can you imagine that?”
“At whose own expense?”
“Me!” Harrison struck himself in the chest, outraged all over again at the thought. “The whole syndicate is supposed to join me, of course, that’s part of his scheme, too, but you know how much chance there is of that happening?”
“None, I should think,” Evelyn said.
“You’re damn right, none. And even if they were big enough fools to go into this with me, do you realize how much four hundred miles of pipeline would cost? Pumping stations, it isn’t just a hole in the ground and a piece of pipe in it, it’s a major operation. He says take it out of the profit we made on the town, but all together we didn’t come away with a tenth what that pipeline would cost, not a tenth.”
Evelyn said, “I don’t understand that.”
“God damn it, Evelyn, neither do I. I expected Brad to be sore at me, he warned me, God knows, he showed me a way out back in February, but I was just too dumb to listen. I wouldn’t blame him being sore at me, but for God’s sake there comes a time to be serious, to get down to the problem at hand, and he just won’t do it. What’s he up to? He can’t mean this pipeline business, it’s a pipe dream, it isn’t practical no matter how you look at it. So why does he stay with it, why won’t he talk to me brother to brother? Why can’t I get through to him this time?”