Rich Man, Poor Man

The lives of others.

Calderwood himself answered the door when Rudolph rang. He was dressed for Sunday, even though his Sabbath duties were behind him, dark suit with vest, white shirt, somber tie, his high, black shoes. There never was enough light in the frugal Calderwood house and it was too dark for Rudolph to see what sort of expression Calderwood had on his face as he said, neutrally, “Come in, Rudy. You’re a little late.”

“Sorry, Mr. Calderwood,” Rudolph said. He followed the old man, who walked heavily now, a certain measured number of steps between him and the grave, to be economized, doled out.

Calderwood led him into the somber oak-paneled room he called his study, with a big mahogany desk and cracked oak and leather easy chairs. The glassed bookcases were filled with files, records of bills paid, twenty-year-old transactions that Calderwood still didn’t trust putting in the modest basement vaults where the ordinary business files were kept, open to any clerk’s prying eye.

“Sit down.” Calderwood gestured toward one of the leather and oak easy chairs. “You’ve been drinking, Rudy,” he said mournfully. “My sons-in-law, I regret to say, are also drinkers.” Calderwood’s two older daughers had married some time before, one a man from Chicago, another a man from. Arizona. Rudolph had the feeling that the girls had picked their mates not out of love, but geography, to get away from their father.

“That isn’t what I brought you here to talk about though,” Calderwood said. “I wanted to speak to you man-to-man, when Mrs. Calderwood and Virginia were not on the premises. They have gone to the movie show and we can speak freely.” It was not like the old man to indulge in elaborate preliminaries. He seemed ill at ease, which also was not like him.

Rudolph waited, conscious that Calderwood was fiddling with objects on his desk, a paper opener, an old-fashioned inkstand.

“Rudolph …” Calderwood cleared his throat portentously. “I’m surprised at your behavior.”

“My behavior?” For a wild instant Rudolph thought that Calderwood had somehow found out about himself and Jean.

“Yes. It’s not like you at all, Rudy.” The tone was sorrowful now. “You’ve been like a son to me. Better than a son. Truthful. Open. Trustworthy.”

The old Eagle Scout, covered with merit badges, Rudolph thought, waiting, wary.

“Suddenly something has come over you, Rudy,” Calderwood continued. “You have been operating behind my back. With no apparent reason. You know you could have come to the door of my house and rung my bell and I would have been glad to welcome you.”

“Mr. Calderwood,” Rudolph said, thinking, old age here, too. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I am talking about the affections of my daughter Virginia, Rudy. Don’t deny.”

“Mr. Calderwood …”

“You have been tampering with her affections. Gratuitously. You have stolen where you could have demanded.” There was anger in the voice now.

“I assure you, Mr. Calderwood, that I haven’t …”

“It’s not like you to lie, Rudy.”

“I’m not lying. I don’t know …”

“What if I told you the girl has confessed everything?” Calderwood boomed.

“There’s nothing to confess.” Rudolph felt helpless, and at the same time like laughing.

“Your story differs from my daughter’s. She has told her mother that she is in love with you and that she intends to go to New York City to learn to be a secretary to be free to see you.”

“Holy God!” Rudolph said.

“We do not use the name of God in vain in this house, Rudy.”

“Mr. Calderwood, the most I’ve ever done with Virginia,” Rudolph said, “is buy her a lunch or an ice cream soda when I’ve bumped into her at the store.”

“You’ve bewitched her,” Calderwood said. “She’s in tears five times a week about you. A pure young girl doesn’t indulge in antics like that unless she’s been led on artfully by a man.”

The Puritan inheritance has finally exploded, Rudolph thought. Land on Plymouth Rock, hang around for a couple of centuries in the bracing air of New England, prosper, and go crackers. It was all too much for one day—Billy, the school, his mother, now this.

“I want to know what you intend to do about it, young man.” When Calderwood said young man, he was apt to be dangerous. Instantaneously, Rudolph’s mind flashed over the possibilities—he was well entrenched, but the final power in the business lay with Calderwood. There could be a fight, but in the long run Calderwood could get him out. That silly bitch Virginia.

“I don’t know what you want me to do, sir.” He was stalling for time.

“It’s very simple,” Calderwood said. Obviously he had been thinking about the problem ever since Mrs. Calderwood had come to him with the happy news about their daughter’s shame. “Marry Virginia. But you must promise not to move down to New York.” He was demented about New York City, Rudolph decided. Haunt of evil. “I will make you a full partner with me. Upon my death, after I make adequate provisions for my daughters and Mrs. Calderwood, you will get the bulk of my shares. You will have voting control. I shall never bring up this conversation again and there will be no reproaches. In fact, I shall put it out of my mind forever. Rudy, I couldn’t be happier than to have a boy like you in the family. It has been my fondest wish for years and both Mrs. Calderwood and I were disappointed when we invited you to partake of the hospitality of our home that you seemed to take no interest in any of our daughters, although they are all pretty, in their way, and well brought up, and if I may say so, independently wealthy. I have no idea why you thought you couldn’t approach me directly when you had made your choice.”

“I haven’t made any choice,” Rudolph said distractedly. “Virginia’s a charming girl, and she’ll make the best of wives, I’m sure. I had no inkling she had any interest in me whatever …”

“Rudy,” Calderwood said sternly. “I’ve known you a long time. You’re one of the smartest men I’ve ever met. And you have the nerve to sit there and tell me …”

“Yes, I do.” The hell with the business. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll sit right here with you and wait until Mrs. Calderwood and Virginia come home and I’ll ask her point-blank in front of both of you whether I’ve ever made any advances to her, if I’ve ever as much as tried to kiss her.” It was all pure farce but he had to go on with it. “If she says yes, she’s lying, but I don’t care. I’ll walk out right now and you can do whatever you want with your goddamn business and your goddamn stocks and your goddamn daughter.”

“Rudy!” Calderwood’s voice was shocked, but Rudolph could see that he had suddenly become uncertain of his ground.

“If she’d had the sense to tell me long ago that she loved me,” Rudolph went on swiftly pressing his advantage, reckless now, “maybe something would have come of it. I do like her. But it’s too late now. Yesterday evening, if you must know, in New York City, I asked another girl to marry me.”

“New York City,” Calderwood said, resentfully. “Always New York City.”

“Well, do you want me to sit here and wait until the ladies come home?” Rudolph crossed his arms menacacingly.

“This could cost you a lot of money, Rudy,” Calderwood said.

“Okay, it could cost me a lot of money.” Rudolph said it firmly, but he could feel the sick quiver inside his stomach.

“And this—this lady in New York,” Calderwood said, sounding plaintive. “Has she accepted you?”

“No.”

“Love, by God!” The insanity of the tender emotion, the cross-purposes of desire, the sheer anarchy of sex, was too much for Calderwood’s piety. “In two months you’ll forget her and then maybe you and Virginia …”

“She said no for yesterday,” Rudolph said. “But she’s thinking it over. Well, should I wait for Mrs. Calderwood and Virginia?” He still had his arms crossed. It kept his hands from trembling.