Brotherhood Of War: The Lieutenants Part 37

"I've had some put down at Dunhill's," his grandfather said.

"They make them in Nicaragua, of all places. I'll have some sent out to Broadlawns, or, if you like, you can stop by on your way to the Island and pick up whatever you need. I'm taking a cab downtown, so that you can have the Packard."

"Thank you," Lowell said.

"And now, I hope, we can conduct our conversation in a civilized manner," his grandfather said. "Do you feel like telling me what has happened to you?"

"All right," Lowell said, and he told his grandfather the whole story, leaving out any reference to Ilse.

"If I didn't think it would set off a stream of obscenity," the Old Man said, when he had finished, "I would tell you that I am not only proud of you, Craig, but happy for you. You seem, finally, to have grown up." Lowell smiled broadly.

"Is something fumy?" his grandfather asked.

"Grandpa, you just fell into the spider's web," Lowell said.

"How do you mean?"

"I want my majority," Lowell said.

"I don't quite understand."

"I want to go back to court with you, and have that temporary guardians.h.i.+p order revoked, and then I want another order granting me my majority."

"Would you mind explaining why?"

"It's a little embarra.s.sing for me, as an officer and a gentleman by act of Congress, to be legally a minor child."

"We can talk about this later," his grandfather said.

"No, we're going to talk about it now," Lowell said.

"Let's get something to eat first," his grandfather said.

"Fine. We can talk while we eat," Lowell said. They walked out of the library into the dining room and ordered.

"Even if I were willing to go along with this majority business," his grandfather said, "what makes you think the court would?"

"For one thing," Lowell said, "you seem to generally get what you're after in court. And for another, according to the law of the State of New York, one of the times maturity can be granted is when the minor child is commissioned as an officer in the armed forces."

"You've consulted an attorney, I gather?" the Old Man said, dryly, looking at the plate of Dover sole the waiter had laid before him.

"I've asked one a couple of questions," Lowell said.

"The only possible motivation I can come up with is that you have the misguided notion you're qualified to manage your financial affairs, that you want your trust fund now."

"I didn't say that," Lowell said. "I don't know the first G.o.dd.a.m.ned thing about money. I don't give a d.a.m.n about managing the trust fund. I want some money from it, say another thousand a month, but that's all."

"They're making available a thousand a month now, aren't they?" Lowell nodded. "And that's not enough?"

"I told you, Grandpa, I'm a big boy now. I don't need you or anyone else telling me how much money I need."

"And," the Old Man said, sharply, "if I don't think it's wise to go along with this idea of yours?"

"Then I'll just have to find some hungry shyster lawyer," Lowell said.

They locked eyes again. Finally, his grandfather snorted.

"And I think you'd do that," he said. "Let me understand what you're asking. You want your majority. You want an income of two thousand a month from the fund. Actually, it's funds, plural. And you will permit me to retain the management of the funds?"

"I'd be grateful to you if you would," Lowell said.

"You'd put that in writing, of course?"

"I'm prepared to trust you, as one gentleman to another," Lowell said, smiling at his grandfather. "But if you insist on having it in writing."

"By G.o.d, you have grown up," his grandfather said, smiling back at him. "I'll have it in writing, though, since you don't mind."

"If you can't trust your own grandfather, who can you trust?" Lowell asked, in mock innocence. The Old Man laughed.

"It's a pleasure doing business with you, sir," he said, and laughed. Then he said: "It will take a couple of weeks. I'll look into it."

"All it takes is for us to show up the judge's chambers. I want it done this week," Lowell said.

There was one more locking of eyes. Then his grandfather shrugged his shoulders.

"If it's that important to you," he said, "I'll start the wheels rolling as soon as I get to the office." Lowell thought that this confrontation between them was very different from their last. At that time, when an appeal to emotion had failed to achieve the desired result, the Old Man had resorted to shouts, arm-waving, and a threat that Lowell had known was empty (he'd seen his father's will) to cut him off without a dime. He would not be the only young man who had ever thrown away the advantages to which he had been born to die in the gutter, his grandfather had shouted.

Obviously the Old Man wanted something this time. What it was came out over the Brie and crackers with which they ended their meal. His grandfather told him that Andre Pretier was good for Craig's mother. She was off the bottle, he reported with surprising candor. She wasn't on pills. There had been few "incidents," and he wanted it kept that way. The way the Old Man put it, Lowell thought, it had been rather ungentlemanly of him to have caused the notification team to go to the apartment on Fifth A venue and upset his mother.

The limousine was waiting for them at the curb when they went back out onto 43rd Street. Lowell had always wondered how. the chauffeurs managed it, considering the traffic and the other limousines that had pa.s.sengers at the same place.

"I can get a cab out to the Island," Craig said."

"Nonsense," his grandfather said. "Besides, you're going to stop at Dunhill's and get cigars."

"I would hate to have anything get in the way of your little chat with your legal counsel, Grandfather." The Old Man chuckled. Then, seeing a cab, he put his fingers in his mouth and gave out with a whistle that pierced the noise and bustle of midtown Manhattan. The cab pulled to the curb, and his grandfather got in.

Then Lowell got into the limousine.

"Dunhill's and then Broadlawns, is it, sir?" the chauffeur asked.

Three weeks ago today, Lowell thought, I was living in a sandbagged hut in the mountains of Greece. And three weeks ago today, Little Craig nearly got his little a.s.s blown away.

"Please," he said to the chauffeur, and then reached for another of his grandfather's cigars.

(Nine) Gardeners were at work wrapping the shrubbery in antic.i.p.ation of the first frost when the Packard rolled through the gates of Broadlawns. The house itself was not visible from the road. He didn't see anybody in the gate house, but there must have been-someone there, for his mother was standing on the veranda in front of the long, rambling, two-story brick house when they got there. Obviously expecting him. With a tall, rather elegant man standing beside her.

Andre Pretier. His mother's husband. Well, if she had to buy a husband, she had bought a good-looking one, a gentlemanly type.

When the chauffeur had to help him out of the car, his mother put her hand to her mouth. Her hair was solid gray, worn short. She had a ragged cashmere sweater over her shoulders.

"Oh, darling!" she said, when he walked up to her. "Are you all right?" She gave him her cheek to kiss. He remembered the smell of her perfume.

"Is that the best you can do?" she asked.

He embraced his mother somewhat gingerly. She had been drinking-he could smell the gin-but she was not drunk, and that was an improvement. She looked healthier, too.

"And this is Andre," she said.

Pretier gave him his hand.

"Welcome home, Craig," he said. "I hope that we can be real friends. I'd really like that."

"Thank you," Craig said.

"Let's get inside before we catch a cold," Craig's mother said.

A tall, light brown butler stood inside the door.

"Welcome home, sir," he said. "May I take your bag?"

"Thank you," Lowell, said.

"I expect Craig would like a drink," Pretier said. "Come on in here," he said, gesturing toward the sitting room. "We've had a fire laid. First of the year. I always like a fire, don't you?"

Very handy, Lowell thought, to warm your shaving water.

The butler wheeled up a cart.

"What will you have to drink?" Pretier asked him.

"Ale, please," Lowell said.

"I don't believe we have any ale, sir," the butler said.

"We'll have to have some in the future," Andre Pretier ordered.

"Scotch and soda, please," Craig said.

"We have your little jeep," his mother said. "Andre went to Brooklyn and picked it up for you himself. That and your trunks."

"That was very nice of you," Craig said to Andre Pretier.

"Thank you very much."

"I was happy to do it," Andre Pretier said. "I want you to feel welcome here, Craig."

"Thank you," Lowell said again, taking the drink from the butler.

He didn't recognize any of the servants. When she had been at the sauce, or on the pills, or both, she had run off a lot of servants. These were West Indians, blacks who spoke a British accented English.

Lowell wondered if Andre Pretier knew that he wanted Craig to feel welcome in his own house. Lowell's father's will had given his mother use of the house for her lifetime, or until she remarried, whereupon it would pa.s.s to the Aforementioned Trust for the Benefit of Craig W. Lowell, together with all furnis.h.i.+ngs. She had married Pretier, and now all this was his.

"Well," Andre Pretier said. "As the Spanish say, my house is your house."

Craig looked at him, wondering if he meant what he was saying, and if so, why he had brought it up the moment he had walked in.

"You just let us know what you want, and we'll do our best to provide it," Pretier went on. "If you'd like to just lie about and do nothing, or if you'd rather get together with your friends, a party or a dinner or whatever, just speak up."

"We want you to be happy, dear," his mother said. "We're so glad to have you back after your accident." He was looking at Pretier when she said that, and Pretier winked at him. The message was clear. Let her think you had an accident.

"Thank you," Craig said.

"Did Grandpa give you lunch?" his mother asked.

"Yes," Craig said.

"Would you like something to eat now? A sandwich and a gla.s.s of milk?"

"No, thank you."

"Would you like a cigarette, Craig?"

"I'd like a cigar," he said. "Grandpa got some for me, from the humidor at Dunhill's."

"Oh, I'm afraid my baby is gone for all time," his mother said brightly. "Smoking cigars."

"We kept the boat, the power boat, in the water," Andre Pretier said. "I thought you might feel up to using it. Some of the days are really quite warm."

"What boat?"

"My boat," Andre Pretier said. "I had her brought down from Bar Harbor."

"That would be very nice," Craig said.

"I've become quite the sailor," his mother said. "Haven't I, darling?"

"Yes, my darling, you have," Andre Pretier said.

When the butler handed him his scotch and soda, Craig said, "There was a package of cigars from Dunhill's in the car. Would you get me a box, please?"

"I've sent someone for them, sir," the butler said.

"I hope you're not smoking too many of them," his mother said.

"I understand that they're supposed to be better for you than cigarettes," Andre Pretier said.

"Don't be silly, darling," his mother said. "How could they be?" Andre Pretier did not press the point.