“I solemnly swear the same thing,” said George Lockwood.
Their oath was tested on the following day. Each of them was called into Revercomb’s office on the campus. “Lockwood, Mr. Chatsworth is coming here in the next few days and he’ll want to know all there is to know. Is there anything you would care to tell me?”
“No sir.”
“Nothing at all you want to tell me? You know more than you told at the inquest, of that I’m sure.”
“Why are you sure, sir?”
“Don’t answer me with a question. You know why Anson took his life.”
“I have nothing to say, sir.”
“Well, I’m not going to make any threats. But you were under oath at the inquest.”
“All they asked me was to describe what I saw.”
“And to tell the whole truth, et cetera. You’re fencing with me, Lockwood.”
“You’re entitled to your opinion, sir. But I was away all day Sunday, in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. The last time I saw Chatsworth was the Friday before he died.”
“Don’t start building up a big alibi, Lockwood. All I care about now is whether you have anything to tell me that might be of some comfort to Chatsworth’s family.”
“No sir, I haven’t.”
“By inference, of course, you know something that would not be a comfort. Well, all right. You may go.”
“Thank you, Professor.” George Lockwood got to his feet, took a few steps toward the door.
“Lockwood,” said Revercomb.
“Sir?”
“I had a visitor last week. A man from New Brunswick.”
“Did you sir? From Rutgers?”
“You know he wasn’t from Rutgers, not this visitor. He was a nice man. A working-man, and he spent his own money to come here. He told me that he’d been to see Chatsworth. He even told me why.”
“He did?”
“Yes. I want you and O’Byrne to know that when Mr. Chatsworth comes here, I’m going to tell him about my visitor, and after that it’s up to him, Mr. Chatsworth. We’re not taking any official position in the matter. Chatsworth is dead. But I want you and O’Byrne to know that personally, not officially, but speaking for myself, I can’t help admiring your loyalty to your friend. Carry that into the world when you leave Princeton.”
“I’ll try sir. Thank you.”
George Lockwood and Ned O’Byrne compared their experiences they had had in Professor Revercomb’s office. They were very nearly identical. “I asked him to tell me the name of the man from New Brunswick,” said O’Bryne.
“And?”
“He said it was none of my business. He was right, too.”
“I’d just as soon not know,” said George Lockwood.
“On thinking it over, me too.”
The death of Anson Chatsworth had served to divert the young lovers from the distressing effects of George’s scene with the judge. Lalie was eagerly and perhaps excessively sympathetic; her thrice weekly letters in the fortnight following Chat’s suicide made no mention of her father, her brother, or of the anguish she had been caused by her father’s outburst. Instead she wrote of the sadness of death, the mystery of suicide, the advent of spring and new life and hope. The first of these letters was welcomed; the others seemed forced, insincere, strategic, and for a stretch of five days George could not bring himself to answer her. His silence disturbed her; she sent one of her rare telegrams:
MISS YOUR LETTERS HOPE ALL IS WELL LOVE.
He showed the telegram and explained the circumstances to O’Byrne.
O’Byrne shook his head. “I’m sorry, George. I don’t want to say anything.”
“I don’t want advice,” said George Lockwood.
“Yes you do, and I’m not giving any.”
“I just want to talk about it.”
“You want to get me talking about it. Please don’t ask me to, because whatever I say will be wrong. It’s your problem. Write a letter. Write several letters. Write a half a dozen. And don’t show them to me. Pick out the one that says what you think, what you feel, and send it off by special delivery mail. The few pennies extra won’t break you.”
“Are you inferring that I’m stingy?”
“The word is implying, as you should know from your St. Bartholomew’s Latin.”
“Implying, then. Are you implying that I’m stingy?”
“I haven’t seen you light your cigars with ten-dollar notes, not lately.”
“I haven’t seen you with a ten-dollar note since Chat died.”
O’Byrne jumped to his feet, but even with that much warning George Lockwood was not quick enough to ward off the blow, a punch to mouth and nose that blinded him.
“Only a bastard would say a thing like that,” said O’Byrne. “Put up your fists.”
“I can lick you, O’Byrne. But I shouldn’t have said that.”
“You’re only bigger. You can’t fight better. I want to fight you for that.”
“No.” George Lockwood, taller and at least as strong, pinioned O’Byrne’s arms to his sides and shoved him to his cot. Then he left the room, and there was blood from his nose on his handkerchief. An hour later he heard O’Byrne’s voice through the open window.
“Lockwood? I want to talk to you.”
“Go on down and talk to him. We’re trying to study,” said Lewis, one of the roommates.
O’Byrne was standing in the light from the entryway lamp. “I brought you your telegram. And my apologies.”
“Nobody behaved very well,” said George Lockwood.
“The fact of the matter is that you hit a sore spot, and I didn’t know it was there.”
“Do you need money?”
“No. Let’s walk, and I’ll tell you.” They set out in the direction of Kingston, marching silently in step for the first few minutes. “I hit you because the truth hurts. I’m not broke. But I was counting on my winnings to take me to Africa. I ought to know better than to count on winnings.”
“There’s still Davenport.”
“There’s Davenport and a rich sophomore that transferred from Ohio State. But I no longer want to play. There’s a game tonight I could come out winners, I’m sure. There I go again, but I could. But I’ve lost interest. Ever since Chat died I haven’t wanted to play. I used to like to play with him. I took his money, he had plenty of it, and we always had a jolly good evening.”
“Do you blame yourself because he didn’t have enough money that time?”
“No. It isn’t that. You had money in the bank and we were on our way to give it to him.”
“True.”
“No, I don’t blame myself that way. It’s just that the fun’s gone out of it. If I sit down and see a deck of cards and a stack of chips, I’m afraid it’d be too much for me, I don’t think I’ll ever want to play cards again. Gambling—yes. That’s too much a part of me to give that up. But not cards. The irony is that cards are the only gambling I’m good at.”
“How much do you need to go to Africa?”
O’Byrne shook his head. “No thanks, George. I’ll never go to Africa, either. That was part of it, don’t you see? Chat. Poker. Africa. All part of the same get-rich-quick scheme.”
“Yes, I can see how that would be.”
“Did you ever stop to think of these things, George? Chat went up to New Brunswick. Met a young woman that took his fancy. Gave her one too many cockloads, and now she’s bearing him a child that will grow up a bastard. The terrible thing that happened to Chat, the grieving his mother and father are left with, forever asking themselves why, why, why. And of considerably less importance, one Edmund O’Byrne, Class of 1895 Princeton University, is unable to conquer the diamond fields of Africa. Take a look at that bluish ball up there, hanging in the sky, and think of all we know about it. The argument is that the Intelligence that created it wasn’t concerned with you and me and the like of us. But the great complications and all the inevitability of them, George, the things that do happen to you and me—to me they’re better proof of that intelligence than the big big bluish ball. The argument is that we’re too infinitesimally small, George, but it seems to me the smaller we are, the greater the proof of that Intelligence. Who short of God could make so much trouble? This is the kind of talk my mother’s Jesuits blame on Princeton.”