The dark mother

by Waldo David Frank

David turned his own deep uncertain gaze on him: in the retreat of his glance and the veil of warmth that suffused from the contact it was altogether clear which was in truth the older of these two. But neither David felt this, nor Duer Tibbetts, steadfast and staring. What came from their encounter was David’s sense of respect and wonderment for Duer Tibbetts, and Duer Tibbetts’ thrill of respect and wonderment for himself. To this end he talked. A gentleman can boast only before an equal. And Tibbetts was a gentleman, if for no other reason because he felt the quality of David.

“A smart chap. You know: the sort who get on in the end,” he reported to his father. The young protégé and the powerful attorney of Deane and Company discussed the new arrival. They said many things. The paramount detail that this was the nephew of Mr. Deane, they had no words for: but this was what they were keenly thinking. The suppressed thought came out in the rhythmic beat of Mr. Tibbetts’ thumb against the desk, in the over-emphasis of his son when he said such common words as these: “I like him. He is slow, but what is slowness? You never can tell what’s underneath. The fact that he don’t know much now shows merely that he has lived in a little town. Lots of good stuff has come from little towns.”

Now, he talked lavishly and with diligence to impress David who sat passive, trying to learn, telling himself that he was learning. He talked of projects and profits, of Mr. Deane’s subtle aggressiveness and of the Company’s prosperity. He spoke of the great law-suit which his father had won for the firm from the Feddlesby people. He spoke of a swinging figure that had gone from Deane and Company to help elect McKinley.

“Measure it with our payroll, if you want to feel how much it was to give.” He did not divulge the payroll. He said, “We” when he meant David and himself; “We” when he meant the Company; “We” when he meant America. There was a deep philosophy in this confusion. But David was still far from grappling with it, and Tibbetts did not dwell in the sphere of definition and reflection.

“Yes, sir,” he pointed and flushed with his prophecy. “We’ll be in Cuba in less than a year. Don’t you forget it. We’ve got to kick the Spaniards out and go in ourselves. Then, we’ll earn enough from our dormant Las Daciendas plantations to buy up every relic factory in Key West. It’s a coup that’s certain.”

All this puzzled David. He was not sure whether the “We” who must kick Spain out of the West Indies was the payroll of Deane and Company: or whether the “We” that was to grow subsequently rich in Las Daciendas was the citizenry of America. It was all a bewilderment of lines.

The weeks of his residence in New York he had been sedulously reading the papers that came daily to his uncle’s house. He knew that America’s interest in Cuba was a humane one grudgingly forced on her. Her wrath at Spain and her forming resolution to have Spain “out from her back yard” were due to her Christian worry for starving natives. The impulse of brotherhood was quite clear in the papers. Yet the effect upon Business seemed equally clear in the mind of Duer Tibbetts. Brought together in David’s mind, these two clarities precipitated fog.

He went away, respecting the more this young man who saw the light while he walked in darkness.

Relief of Cuban sufferers and relief of ravaged tobacco plantations: America’s crusade for love and a great Company’s contribution to the coffers of the Republican Party: the free lists of business and the advantage of being a nephew—it was too much for David’s untrained mind. For David needed to “conform.” And David needed to admire.

It was a Sunday afternoon. The room where David sat, the room of his talks with Lois, lay in the languor of a refracted sun. It faced north. David could see the full rays beat in the flaming brick and the warm brown-stone of across the street, be absorbed. Here was a low vibrancy—strayed residues of sunlight that had lost their incandescence. The room had its compensation. Lois’ gay hand was over it. The couch had a dappled welcome in its cushions: “outrageous” her mother called them. A strip of Japanese brocade laughed on the wall: and Lois’ desk, with its bright brass knobs and its jolly fluted legs, hinted the tempo of the occasional letters and the desultory homework of its owner.