Kane and Abel/Sons of Fortune Page 20

  “Then the time has come for me to depart this world,” said Grandmother Cabot, wincing.

  “Never,” Alan Lloyd said gallantly.

  William danced with a couple of girls whom he had a vague recollection of knowing, but he had to be reminded of their names, and when he spotted Matthew sitting in a corner, he was glad of the excuse to escape the dance floor. He had not noticed the girl sitting next to Matthew until he was right on top of them. When she looked up into William’s eyes, he felt his knees give way.

  “Do you know Abby Blount?” asked Matthew casually.

  “No,” said William, barely restraining himself from straightening his tie.

  “This is your host, Mr. William Lowell Kane.”

  The young lady cast her eyes demurely downward as William took the seat on the other side of her. Matthew had noted the look William had given Abby and went off in search of some punch.

  “How is it I’ve lived in Boston all my life and we’ve never met?” William said.

  “We did meet once before. On that occasion you pushed me into the pond on the Common; we were both three at the time. It’s taken me fourteen years to recover.”

  “I am sorry,” said William after a pause during which he searched in vain for more telling repartee.

  “What a lovely house you have, William.”

  There was a second busy pause. “Thank you,” said William weakly. He glanced sideways at Abby, trying to look as though he were not studying her. She was slim—oh, so slim—with huge brown eyes, long eyelashes and a profile that captivated William. Abby had bobbed her auburn hair in a style William had hated until that moment.

  “Matthew tells me you are going to Harvard next year,” she tried again.

  “Yes, I am. I mean, would you like to dance?”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  The steps that had come so easily a few minutes before seemed now to forsake him. He trod on her toes and continually propelled her into other dancers. He apologized, she smiled. He held her a little more closely and they danced on.

  “Do we know that young lady who seems to have been monopolizing William for the last hour?” Grandmother Cabot said suspiciously.

  Grandmother Kane picked up her pince-nez and studied the girl accompanying William as he strolled through the open bay windows out onto the lawn.

  “Abby Blount,” Grandmother Kane declared.

  “Admiral Blount’s granddaughter?” inquired Grandmother Cabot.

  “Yes.”

  Grandmother Cabot nodded a degree of approval.

  William guided Abby Blount toward the far end of the garden and stopped by a large chestnut tree that he had used in the past only for climbing.

  “Do you always try to kiss a girl the first time you meet her?” asked Abby.

  “To be honest,” said William, “I’ve never kissed a girl before.”

  Abby laughed. “I’m very flattered.”

  She offered first her pink cheek and then her rosy, pursed lips and then insisted upon returning indoors. The grandmothers observed their early reentry with some relief.

  Later, in William’s bedroom, the two boys discussed the evening.

  “Not a bad party,” said Matthew. “Almost worth the trip from New York out here to the provinces, despite your stealing my girl.”

  “Do you think she’ll help me lose my virginity?” asked William, ignoring Matthew’s mock accusation.

  “Well, you have three weeks to find out, but I fear you’ll discover she hasn’t lost hers yet,” said Matthew. “Such is my expertise in these matters that I’m willing to bet you five dollars she doesn’t succumb even to the charms of William Lowell Kane.”

  William planned a careful stratagem. Virginity was one thing, but losing five dollars to Matthew was quite another. He saw Abby Blount nearly every day after the ball, taking advantage for the first time of owning his own house and car at seventeen. He began to feel he would do better without the discreet but persistent chaperonage of Abby’s parents, who seemed always to be in the middle distance, and he was not perceptibly nearer his goal when the last day of the holidays dawned.

  Determined to win his five dollars, William sent Abby a dozen roses early in the day, took her out to an expensive dinner at Joseph’s that evening and finally succeeded in coaxing her back into his front room.

  “How did you get hold of a bottle of whiskey?” asked Abby. “It’s Prohibition.”

  “Oh, it’s not so hard,” William boasted.

  The truth was that he had hidden a bottle of Henry Osborne’s bourbon in his bedroom soon after he had left and was now glad he had not poured it down the drain as had been his original intention.

  William poured drinks that made him gasp and brought tears to Abby’s eyes.

  He sat down beside her and put his arm confidently around her shoulder. She settled into it.

  “Abby, I think you’re terribly pretty,” he murmured in a preliminary way at her auburn curls.

  She gazed at him earnestly, her brown eyes wide. “Oh, William,” she breathed. “And I think you’re just wonderful.”

  Her doll-like face was irresistible. She allowed herself to be kissed. Thus emboldened, William slipped a tentative hand from her wrist onto her breast and left it there like a traffic cop halting an advancing stream of automobiles. She became pinkly indignant and pushed his arm down to allow the traffic to move on.

  “William, you mustn’t do that.”

  “Why not?” said William, struggling vainly to retain his grasp of her.

  “Because you can’t tell where it might end.”

  “I’ve got a fair idea.”

  Before he could renew his advances, Abby pushed him away and rose hastily, smoothing her dress.

  “I think I ought to be getting home now, William.”

  “But you’ve only just arrived.”

  “Mother will want to know what I’ve been doing.”

  “You’ll be able to tell her—nothing.”

  “And I think it’s best it stays that way,” she added.

  “But I’m going back tomorrow.” He avoided saying “to school.”

  “Well, you can write to me, William.”

  Unlike Valentino, William knew when he was beaten. He rose, straightened his tie, took Abby by the hand and drove her home.

  The following day, back at school, Matthew Lester accepted the proffered five-dollar bill with eyebrows raised in mock astonishment.

  “Just say one word, Matthew, and I’ll chase you right around St. Paul’s with a baseball bat.”

  “I can’t think of any words that would truly express my deep feeling of sympathy.”

  “Matthew, right around St. Paul’s.”

  William began to be aware of his housemaster’s wife during his last semester at St. Paul’s. She was a good-looking woman, a little slack around the stomach and hips perhaps, but she carried her splendid bosom well and the luxuriant dark hair piled on top of her head was no more streaked with gray than was becoming. One Saturday when William had sprained his wrist on the hockey field, Mrs. Raglan bandaged it for him in a cool compress, standing a little closer than was necessary, allowing William’s arm to brush against her breast. He enjoyed the sensation. Then on another occasion when he had a fever and was confined to the infirmary for a few days, she brought him all his meals herself and sat on his bed, her body touching his legs through the thin covering while he ate. He enjoyed that too.

  She was rumored to be Grumpy Raglan’s second wife. No one in the house could imagine how Grumpy had managed to secure even one spouse. Mrs. Raglan occasionally indicated by the subtlest of sighs and silences that she shared something of their incredulity at her fate.

  As part of his duties as house captain William was required to report to Grumpy Raglan every night at ten-thirty when he had completed the lights-out round and was about to go to bed himself. One Monday evening when he knocked on Grumpy’s door as usual, he was surprised to hear Mrs. Raglan’s voice bidding hi
m to enter. She was lying on the chaise longue dressed in a loose silk robe of faintly Japanese appearance.

  William kept a firm grasp on the cold doorknob. “All the lights are out and I’ve locked the front door, Mrs. Raglan. Good night.”

  She swung her legs onto the ground, a pale flash of thigh appearing momentarily from under the draped silk.

  “You’re always in such a hurry, William. You can’t wait for your life to start, can you?” She walked over to a side table. “Why don’t you stay and have some hot chocolate? Silly me, I made enough for two—I quite forgot that Mr. Raglan won’t be back until Saturday.”

  There was a definite emphasis on the word “Saturday.” She carried a steaming cup over to William and looked up at him to see whether the significance of her remarks had registered on him. Satisfied, she passed him the cup, letting her hand touch his. He stirred the hot chocolate assiduously.

  “Gerald has gone to a conference,” she continued explaining. It was the first time he had ever heard Grumpy Raglan’s first name. “Do shut the door, William, and come and sit down.”

  William hesitated; he shut the door, but he did not want to take Grumpy’s chair, nor did he want to sit next to Mrs. Raglan. He decided Grumpy’s chair was the lesser of two evils and moved toward it.

  “No, no,” she said as she patted the seat next to her.

  William shuffled over and sat down nervously by her side, staring into his cup for inspiration. Finding none, he gulped the contents down, burning his tongue. He was relieved to see that Mrs. Raglan was getting up. She refilled his cup, ignoring his murmured refusal, and then moved silently across the room, wound up the Victrola and placed the needle on the record. He was still looking at the floor when she returned.

  “You wouldn’t let a lady dance by herself, would you, William?”

  He looked up. Mrs. Raglan was swaying slightly in time to the music. William stood up and put his arm formally around her. Grumpy could have fitted in between them without any trouble. After a few bars she moved closer to William, and he stared over her right shoulder fixedly to indicate to her that he had not noticed that her left hand had slipped from his shoulder to the small of his back. When the record stopped, William thought he would have a chance to return to the safety of his hot chocolate, but she had turned the disc over and was back in his arms before he could move.

  “Mrs. Raglan, I think I ought to——”

  “Relax a little, William.”

  At last he found the courage to look her in the eyes. He tried to reply, but he couldn’t speak. Her hand was now exploring his back and he felt her thigh move gently into his groin. He tightened his hold around her waist.

  “That’s better,” she said.

  They slowly circled the room, closely entwined, slower and slower, keeping time with the music as the record gently ran down. When she slipped away and turned out the light, William wanted her to return quickly. He stood in the dark, not moving, hearing the rustle of silk, and able to see only a silhouette discarding clothes.

  The crooner had completed his song, and the needle was scratching at the end of the record by the time she had helped William out of his clothes and led him back to the chaise longue. He groped for her in the dark, and his shy novice’s fingers encountered several parts of her body that did not feel at all as he had imagined they would. He withdrew them hastily to the comparatively familiar territory of her breast. Her fingers exhibited no such reticence and he began to feel sensations he had never dreamed possible. He wanted to moan out loud but checked himself, fearing it would sound stupid. Her hands were on his back, pulling him gently on top of her.

  William moved around, wondering how he would ever enter her without showing his total lack of experience. It was not as easy as he had expected and he began to get more desperate by the second. Then once again her fingers moved across his stomach and guided him expertly. With her help he entered her easily and had an immediate orgasm.

  “I’m sorry,” said William, not sure what to do next. He lay silently on top of her for some time before she spoke.

  “It will be better tomorrow.”

  The sound of the scratching record returned to his ears.

  Mrs. Raglan remained in William’s mind all the endless next day. That night, she sighed. On Wednesday she panted. On Thursday she moaned. On Friday she cried out.

  On Saturday, Grumpy Raglan returned from his conference, by which time William’s education was complete.

  At the end of the Easter vacation, on Ascension Day, to be exact, Abby Blount finally succumbed to William’s charms. It cost Matthew five dollars and Abby her virginity. She was, after Mrs. Raglan, something of an anticlimax. It was the only event of note that happened during the entire vacation, because Abby went off to Palm Beach with her parents, and William spent most of his time shut away indoors with his books, at home to no one other than the grandmothers and Alan Lloyd. His final examinations were soon only a matter of weeks away and as Grumpy Raglan went to no further conferences, William had no other outside activities.

  During their last term, he and Matthew would sit in their study at St. Paul’s for hours, never speaking unless Matthew had some mathematical problem he was quite unable to solve. When the long-awaited examinations finally came, they lasted for only one brutal week. The moment they were over, both boys were sanguine about their results, but as the days went by and they waited and waited, their confidence began to diminish. The Hamilton Memorial Mathematics Scholarship to Harvard for mathematics was awarded on a strictly competitive basis and it was open to every schoolboy in America. William had no way of judging how tough his opposition might be. As more time went by and still he heard nothing, William began to assume the worst.

  When the telegram arrived, delivered by a second-former, William was out playing baseball with some other sixthformers, killing the last few days of the term before leaving school, those warm summer days when boys are most likely to be expelled for drunkenness, breaking windows or trying to get into bed with one of the masters’ daughters, if not their wives.

  William was declaring in a loud voice to those who cared to listen that he was about to hit his first home run ever. The Babe Ruth of St. Paul’s, declared Matthew. Much laughter greeted this exaggerated claim. When the telegram was handed to him, home runs were suddenly forgotten. He dropped his bat and tore open the little yellow envelope. The pitcher waited, impatient, as did the outfielders as he read the communication slowly.

  “They want you to turn professional,” someone shouted from first base, the arrival of a telegram being an uncommon occurrence during a baseball game. Matthew walked in from the outfield to join William, trying to make out from his friend’s face if the news was good or bad. Without changing his expression, William passed the telegram to Matthew, who read it, leaped high into the air with delight and dropped the piece of paper to the ground to accompany William, racing around the bases even though no one had actually hit the ball. The pitcher strode to the telegram, picked it up, read it and with gusto threw his ball into the bleachers. The little piece of yellow paper was then passed eagerly from player to player. The last to read it was the second-former, who, having caused so much happiness but receiving no thanks, decided the least he deserved was to know the cause of so much excitement.

  The telegram was addressed to Mr. William Lowell Kane, whom the boy assumed to be the incompetent hitter. It read: “Congratulations on winning the Hamilton Memorial Mathematics Scholarship to Harvard, full details to follow. Abbot Lawrence Lowell, President.” William never did get his home run and he was heavily set upon by several fielders before he reached home plate.

  Matthew looked on with delight at the success of his closest friend, but he was sad to think that it meant they might now be parted. William felt it, too, but said nothing; the two boys had to wait another nine days to learn that Matthew had also been accepted at Harvard.

  Upon the heels of that news, another telegram arrived, this one from Charles Lester
, congratulating his son and inviting the boys to tea at the Plaza Hotel in New York. Both grandmothers sent congratulations to William, but as Grandmother Kane informed Alan Lloyd, somewhat testily, “The boy has done no less than was expected of him and no more than his father did before him.”

  The two young men sauntered down Fifth Avenue on the appointed day with considerable pride. Girls’ eyes were drawn to the handsome pair, who affected not to notice. They removed their straw boaters as they entered the front door of the Plaza at three fifty-nine and strolled nonchalantly to the Palm Court, where they observed the family group awaiting them. There, upright in the comfortable chairs, sat both grandmothers, Kane and Cabot, flanking another old lady, who, William assumed, was the Lester family’s equivalent of Grandmother Kane. Mr. and Mrs. Charles Lester, their daughter Susan (whose eyes never left William) and Alan Lloyd completed the circle, leaving two vacant chairs for William and Matthew.

  Grandmother Kane summoned the nearest waiter with an imperious eyebrow. “A fresh pot of tea and more cakes, please.”

  The waiter made haste to the kitchens. “A pot of tea and cream cakes, madam,” he said on his return.

  “Your father would have been proud of you today, William,” the older man was saying to the taller of the two youths.

  The waiter wondered what it was that the good-looking young man had achieved to elicit such a comment.

  William would not have noticed the waiter at all but for the silver band around his wrist. The piece so easily might have come from Tiffany’s; the incongruity of it puzzled him.

  “William,” said Grandmother Kane. “Two cakes are quite sufficient; this is not your last meal before you go to Harvard.”

  He looked at the old lady with affection and quite forgot the silver band.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  That night as Abel lay awake in his small room at the Plaza Hotel, thinking about the boy, William, whose father would have been proud of him, he realized for the first time in his life exactly what he wanted to achieve. He wanted to be thought of as an equal by the Williams of this world.