The Rebellion of Yale Marratt (74 page)

 

 

 

 

"He's already married to that Jewish bitch," Pat had said. He dismissed
the subject. "Barbara witnessed his marriage at the home of a justice
of the peace who lives in Midhaven."

 

 

But in the following months strange rumors began to emanate from
the old Langley place. There really were two women living in the old
Georgian farmhouse with Yale Marratt. Two women who were occasionally
seen together shopping in Midhaven. One blonde . . . the other one
brunette and pregnant. All during the spring the rumors multiplied.
A big construction project was going on. The Langley place was being
remodelled. A huge swimming pooi was being built. The barn had been
converted into what seemed to be "business offices."

 

 

"I don't know what your son is up to," John Brockmann, president of
the Midhaven National Bank, said to Pat. "But there's no doubt about
it he's really pumping money into that Langley place. Have you seen
the plans? Bob Coleman went over them with me. Yale has a loan with us
backed by a cashier's check as collateral. It equals the amount of our
loan. I think he expects we will take the place as collateral against
some other venture when he finishes. From the looks of it, I'd say we
might do just that."

 

 

Brockmann kept talking, enthusiastically. He assumed that Pat was aware
of what Yale was doing. He asked Pat about the two exciting looking girls
who seemed to be making all the decisions on the new construction and
the interiors. "I suppose the pregnant one is your daughter-in-law, Pat?
But who is the blonde? Quite a dish. Saw her yesterday out at that new
supermarket. Yale was with her. They had a bright-eyed little baby with
them."

 

 

Pat ignored Brockmann. "He's a damned old biddy," Pat told Liz later.
"He was watching with his sharp bird-eyes to see if I was going to let slip
some juicy gossip."

 

 

 

 

Liz looked hurriedly around to see if anyone had heard Barbara. "Bobby,
I'm telling you right now to stop the wise-cracking about Yale. No one is
exactly sure what is going on. I should hope he would have enough sense
left to know that he couldn't get away with bigamy." Liz shuddered.
"I just don't believe it. What on earth would a man want with two women?
It's just a filthy lie someone has started." She paused and looked vaguely
in the direction that Pat had taken across the fairways. "Oh, dear. I wish
Pat wasn't so pig-headed. When Yale called from New York that night,
he told Pat that he would come to the house the day we invited them both.
It would be so simple. What difference does it really make if the girl
is Jewish?"

 

 

Liz had told Pat that he might as well give in and make the first overtures.
But Pat had refused to consider the idea. She knew Pat was deeply bothered.
All the plans that he had for the Marratt Corporation involved Yale . . .
needed the participation of a younger man. Watching Pat from day to day --
seeing him daily, as he involuntarily looked out their bedroom window
across the several miles of woodlands that separated his land from the
Langley place, Liz knew that he was constantly thinking about Yale. Time
and again he had wondered aloud where Yale had got the money to put
into the Langley house. It was as if Yale had frustrated him in the one
area where he was certain that Yale would flounder. Liz knew that Pat
expected, eventually, Yale would have to come to him . . . looking for
assistance. Maybe he even expected Yale to be repentant. When he talked
with Brockmann and discovered that somehow Yale had acquired at least
fifty thousand dollars, it irritated Pat. It seemed so out of character
for Yale to earn that kind of money that it bordered on fantasy.

 

 

"Okay, Liz. I'll be good. I won't go around telling our friends that we
have a Mormon in the family." Barbara grinned. "What has the fantastic
Yale Marratt done now?"

 

 

Liz took a sip of her drink. She looked at her watch. "I've got to be
going. The girls must be inside already. You can kibitz if you want,
or we'll play something else." She got up, and looked at Barbara and
shrugged. "I guess you might as well know your brother, according to
Paul Downing, is a millionaire. It seems last March he invested in some
securities. Something called convertible debentures. I don't really
understand about it too well but if Paul is right Yale struck it lucky.
He guessed against the whole market, and made around three million dollars."

 

 

Barbara whistled. "That should make Pat proud! If Daddy doesn't watch out,
Yale will be richer than he is."

 

 

Liz shook her head. "That's bad enough but there's more to it than
that. Paul isn't quite sure how it's going to work out, but he was
telling Pat that Yale has been up to some very slippery business with
Latham Shipyard stock. It seems that the Lathams have been having
their difficulties since the war ended. There have been war contract
cancellations. The stock has been selling pretty low for the past
year. Last week an announcement was made in the
Midhaven Herald
that a non-profit foundation called Challenge Incorporated claims to
have acquired control of Latham Shipyards. I don't understand really . . .
but there's something in the market called 'short-selling.' A lot of
speculators have been selling Latham stock short. It means that they
thought the stock was going down, but now the stock has gone up from
fifteen dollars to almost eighty dollars a share. This foundation claims
that it has a majority of the stock. Alfred Latham has a lot and so
does Agatha Latham. None of them will sell to the speculators. I don't
understand how . . . but Paul Downing was caught in the deal. It seems
he sold forty thousand shares short at twenty-five dollars a share. Then
the stock went up. Now he has to deliver the stock and pay eighty dollars
a share for it. Only there isn't any stock to buy. Anyway, that's the
reason that Paul is here playing golf with Pat and the Lathams."

 

 

Barbara looked bewildered. "I don't get it."

 

 

Liz smiled. "Well, neither do I really . . . but believe it or not, darling,
Paul has found out that your baby brother, Yale, is the financial brain
behind this thing called Challenge Incorporated."

 

 

Barbara started to laugh. "Oh, God -- that's wonderful. I don't suppose
that Paul Downing is aware that Pat and Yale aren't speaking."

 

 

"Both Pat and I have told you that the family problems of the Marratts are
not for publication," Liz warned her. "Not even the Lathams know. Since
your own messy divorce has created quite a fuss in Midhaven, I'll thank
you to keep this to yourself. Come on and play bridge with us."

 

 

Barbara shook her head. She promised Liz to be home early. Being divorced
and coming home to live had put her right back where she started, she
reflected. She had to get away. There was nothing for her in Midhaven.
In the fall, she thought, I'll either go to Europe or take an apartment
in New York. The settlement had cost Tom Eames a quarter of a million
dollars and forty thousand dollars a year until she remarried. She could
do anything she wished. With a bitter frustrated feeling she realized
that there was nothing she wanted to do . . . except to be loved and
wanted for herself. She had had such an unrelenting desire in the past
weeks to be with a man that she frightened herself. She wanted sexual
release, yes -- but she wanted more. She wanted love and companionship,
too. That was the only way she could release her deep sexuality.

 

 

She thought of Paul Downing and grimaced. Ugh -- no -- no matter what
. . . she wouldn't do "it" . . . just for the sake of a man's "thing"
between her legs ... no matter how badly off she was. "I'd freeze up
anyway," she told herself half aloud. She looked around to see if anyone
had heard her. She realized that Liz had gone inside the club. Barbara
decided she wasn't going to hang around any longer.

 

 

She slid behind the wheel of her new Cadillac convertible -- one of the
first that had come off the production lines since the war's end, and
drove, aimlessly, listening to the music on the car radio and enjoying
the wind in her hair. Speeding along Route 6, she caught a glimpse of
a closed iron gate set between two large granite blocks. She brought
the car to a screeching stop. It was the entrance to the old Langley
farm. On one of the gateposts, the legend "Challenge Farm" had been
neatly lettered in black paint.

 

 

She backed up to get a better look. She hadn't seen Yale since the day
he married Cynthia. In the past few months there had been no particular
reason to talk with him. There was no denying they were both in the
doghouse at home, but her own problems had seemed more weighty than
Yale's. Besides, she guessed that Yale did not, from what he had said
when she was so ill, particularly approve of her divorce. Now, she was
intrigued. It would while away the dreadful afternoon to pry on Yale.
Later when she went to dinner with Downing and her family, she could
report factually on what was going on.

 

 

Ye gods, two wives . . . what an existence . . . if it were true.
As she backed her car in front of the gate she felt perspiration trickle
uncomfortably down her back. At least she hoped Yale would offer her
a drink.

 

 

The gate was locked. A sign on the post said, "Ring bell." She rang it.
While she waited she tried to look up the tree-lined asphalt driveway.
She could see nothing hut trees. No house was in sight. She wondered why
the gate was locked, and how far in the road it was to the house.
She pushed the bell button several more times but still there was no
response. She was about to give up when a jeep thundered down the driveway
and stopped with a metallic rasp of its brakes.

 

 

The man that got out startled her. He was barrel chested, stripped to the
waist, and heavily tanned. With a full head of grey hair and a pointed
goatee, he looked like a handsome middle-aged character actor. "Well,
howdy, Barbara," he said, smiling broadly. Barbara didn't recognize him.
"Don't know me, do you? Don't blame you much. We ain't never been
introduced formally. If we had, don't suppose you would know me anyhow
. . . what with my new beard. Mrs. Cynthia said if I wouldn't shave,
then I'd have to grow one. Kind of becoming, don't you think?" Weeks
waggled his chin. He introduced himself.

 

 

"If the local drama group sees you, they'll ask you to play Falstaff,"
Barbara said, unimpressed, "Are you going to let me in? I suppose my
brother is around."

 

 

Weeks nodded. He reached into an iron box behind the gate and withdrew
a telephone. "Got to clear you with the boss. It's the house rules."

 

 

"What in hell has Yale got in there? A gambling casino?"

 

 

Weeks was on the telephone. "It's your sister, Yale. Yeah, I understand.
No, she's alone. Okay, I'll bring her to the house first." Weeks hung up
the phone. "It's okay," he said to Barbara. "You're to go to the house
first."

 

 

He made her park her car inside the gate. She sat beside him in the jeep.

 

 

"What's this funny business all about?" Barbara demanded. "Why do I have to
leave my car here? What do you mean that I have to go to the house first?"
She got a whiff of Weeks' breath. "You've been drinking."

 

 

"I'm damned if I know about your car," Weeks said. He ignored her remark
about his drinking. "I guess as a new guest at Challenge Farms, Yale wanted
to check you out before you started prowling around by yourself. Anyway,
you can ask him."

 

 

Weeks made a sharp turn. Barbara had a surprised vision of a cool, white
Georgian house with tall columns reaching to its roof. Leaded glass windows
edged with black shutters looked across the rolling lawn. It was only
a momentary picture, because her shocked gaze stopped on Yale who was
walking toward her from the broad front porch that flanked the house.
Her mind kept telling her that she was seeing things. No! Yale couldn't be
naked! Not stark-naked! But it was true. It was Yale and he was tanned
even darker than Weeks.

 

 

Yale walked up to her, grinning. He held out his hand and took her limp
one. "Well, Bobby, at last a part of my family has remembered that we live
in the same world. It's good to see you."

 

 

Barbara looked away disgustedly. "Well, it's not good to see you . . .
without a damned thing on. What the hell are you doing . . . practicing
up for a nudist convention? What's all this funny business, anyway?
Why do you have to meet me at the house first?"

 

 

Yale smiled indulgently. He pointed to a small parking area near the
side of the house. There were five cars parked in it. "I have guests,
Bobby. We are all up at the pool. You see, every fourth Sunday afternoon
we have open house at Challenge Farms."

 

 

Reluctantly Barbara looked at him. She tried to ignore his nudity.
She couldn't believe he was serious. There was too much of a tone of sly
laughter in his inflection. "I suppose all your guests are nude, too,"
she said with sarcasm.

 

 

"As a matter of fact, not quite," Yale said. "Let's see -- there's
Peoples McGroaty. You know him. He's editor of the
Midhaven Herald
.
He has a sweat shirt on, I believe, but no pants. I think he was getting
a sunburn. There's Sam Higgins and his wife, Clara. Sam hasn't got a damned
thing on, but Clara will need another drink before she gets undressed.
Clara is wearing a bathing suit. Harry Cohen and his wife, Sarah . . .
I don't believe you know them, either. Well, they simply believe being naked
is more comfortable on a hot day. Let's see, there is also Bob Coleman
. . . my architect. He's about your age. He's naked. So is Anne. Cindar got
a sunburn on her legs yesterday so she's wearing a skirt . . . but no top.
Oh, yes, there's Agatha Latham. She's living here with us for a while . . .
she enjoys the conversation, but she says that since she was eighty last
spring, it is too late for her to do everything she wants to do. . . ."