Rich Man, Poor Man

Mrs. Fairweather was sitting on the couch, drinking a cup of coffee, her child sitting on the floor leaning against her knee, turning the pages of a picture book, the setter sprawled, asleep, against her. Mrs. Fairweather smiled at him, raised her cup in greeting.

They can’t be that happy, Rudolph thought, conscious of jealousy.

“Please sit down,” Fairweather said. “Would you like some coffee?”

“No, thank you, I’ve just had some. And I can only stay a minute.” Rudolph sat, stiffly, feeling awkward because he was an uncle, not a father.

Fairweather sat comfortably next to his wife. He was wearing green-stained te

“I had a talk,” Rudolph said. “I don’t know how good it was. Mr. Fairweather, I want to take Billy away with me. For a few days at least. I think it’s absolutely necessary.”

The Fairweathers exchanged glances.

“It’s as bad as that, is it?” the man said.

“Pretty bad.”

“We’ve done everything we can,” Fairweather said, but without apology.

“I realize that,” Rudolph said. “It’s just that Billy’s a certain kind of boy, certain things have happened to him—in the past, recently …” He wondered if the Fairweathers had ever heard of Colin Burke, mourned the vanished talent. “There’s no need to go into it. A boy’s reasons can be fantasy, but his feelings can be horribly real.”

“So you want to take Billy away?” Mr. Fairweather said.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“In ten minutes.”

“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Fairweather said.

“For how long?” Fairweather asked calmly.

“I don’t know. A few days. A month. Perhaps permanently.”

There was an uncomfortable silence. From outside the window, thinly, came the sound of a boy calling signals in the touch-tackle game, 22, 45, 38, Hut! Fairweather stood up and went over to the table where the coffee pot was standing and poured himself a cup. “You’re sure you don’t want some, Mr. Jordache?”

Rudolph shook his head.

“The Christmas holidays come in just two and a half weeks,” Fairweather said. “And the term-end examinations begin in a few days. Don’t you think it would be wiser to wait until then?”

“I don’t think it would be wise for me to leave here this afternoon without Billy,” Rudolph said.

“Have you spoken to the headmaster?” Fairweather asked.

“No.”

“I think it would be advisable to consult with him,” Fairweather said. “I don’t really have the authority to …”

“The less fuss we make, the fewer the people who talk to Billy,” Rudolph said, “the better it will be for the boy. Believe me.”

Again the Fairweathers exchanged glances.

“Charles,” Mrs. Fairweather said to her husband, “I think we could explain to the headmaster.”

Fairweather sipped thoughtfully at his coffee, still standing at the table. A ray of pale sunlight came through the windows, outlining him against the bookshelves behind him. Healthy, pondering man, head of family, doctor of young souls.

“I suppose we could,” he said. “I suppose we could explain. You will call me in the next day or two and tell me what’s been decided, won’t you?”

“Of course.”

Fairweather sighed. “There’re so many defeats in this quiet profession, Mr. Jordache,” he said. “Tell Billy he’s welcome to come back any time he wishes. He’s bright enough to make up any time he’s lost.”

“I’ll tell him,” Rudolph said. “Thank you. Thank you both for everything.”

Fairweather escorted him back along the hallway, opened the door into the turmoil of boys, didn’t smile as he shook Rudolph’s hand and closed the door behind him.

As Rudolph drove away from the school, Billy, in the front seat beside him, said, “I never want to see this place again.” He didn’t ask where they were going.

It was half-past five when they got to Whitby and the street lights were on in the wintry darkness. Billy had slept a good deal of the way. Rudolph dreaded the moment when he would have to introduce his mother to her grandson. “Spawn of the harlot,” might not be beyond the powers of his mother’s rhetoric. But he had the appointment with Calderwood after the Calderwood Sunday supper, which would be over by seven, and it would have been impossible to take Billy back to New York and then arrive in Whitby on time. And even if he had had the time to drive the boy down to the city, to whom could he have turned him over? Willie Abbott? Gretchen had asked him to bypass Willie in the matter and he had done so and there was no having it both ways. And after what Billy had said about his father at lunch, being put in Willie’s alcoholic care could hardly have seemed like much of an improvement over staying in school.

Briefly, Rudolph had considered putting Billy in a hotel, but had discarded the idea as too cold-blooded. This was no night for the boy to spend alone in a hotel. Also, it would have been cowardly. He would have to face the old lady down.

Still, when he awakened the boy as he stopped the car in front of the house, and led him through the door, he was relieved to see that his mother was not in the living room. He looked down the hallway and saw that her door was closed. That meant she had probably had a fight with Martha and was sulking. He could confront her alone and prepare her for her first meeting with her grandson.

He went into the kitchen with Billy. Martha was sitting at the table reading a newspaper and there was a smell of something cooking coming from the oven. Martha was not fat, as his mother spitefully described her, but in fact was an angular, virginal, gaunt woman of fifty, sure of the world’s displeasure, anxious to give back as good as she got.

“Martha,” he said, “this is my nephew, Billy. He’s going to stay with us for a few days. He’s tired and he needs a bath and some hot food. Do you think you can give him a hand? He’ll sleep in the guest room, next to mine.”

Martha smoothed out the newspaper on the kitchen table. “Your mother said you weren’t going to be in for di

“I’m not. I’m going out again.”

“Then there’ll be enough for him,” Martha said. “She—” with a savage gesture of the head toward the part of the house inhabited by his mother—“she didn’t say nothing about no nephews.”

“She doesn’t know yet,” Rudolph said, trying to make his voice sound cheery, for Billy’s sake.

“That’ll make her day,” Martha said. “Finding out about nephews.”

Billy stood quietly to one side, testing the atmosphere, not liking it.

Martha stood up, her face no more disapproving, really, than usual, but how could Billy know that? “Come on, young man,” Martha said. “I guess we can make room for a ski

Rudolph was surprised at what was, in Martha’s vocabulary, practically a tender invitation.

“Go ahead, Billy,” he said. “I’ll be up to see you in a little while.”

Billy followed Martha out of the kitchen, hesitantly. Attached now to his uncle, any separation was full of risk.

Rudolph heard their footsteps going up the stairs. His mother would be alerted that someone strange was in the house. She recognized his tread and invariably called out to him when he was on his way to his room.

He got some ice out of the refrigerator. He needed a drink after the almost teetotaling day and before the meeting with his mother. He carried the ice out into the living room and was pleased to find that the living room was warm. Brad must have sent over an engineer yesterday for the furnace. His mother’s tongue would at least not be honed by cold.

He made himself a bourbon and water, with plenty of ice, sank into a chair, put his feet up, and sipped at his drink, enjoying it. He was pleased with the room, not too heavily furnished, with modern, leather chairs, globular glass lamps, Danish wood tables and simple, neutral-colored curtains, all of it making a carefully thought-out contrast with the low-beamed ceiling and the small eighteenth-century, square-paned windows. His mother complained that it looked like a dentist’s waiting room.