296: In Boston, Herb told ...
Herb ’n’ Lorna, Chapter 8 continues
IN BOSTON, Herb told his uncle Ben what he had in mind. “Here’s what I have in mind, Uncle Ben,” he said. “I’ll make eleven more prototypes. That’ll give you a dozen models. Okay?”
“Okay,” said Ben. “I’ll work out an arrangement with the people in Chacallit so that you get a certain percentage of the sales.”
“I need money now, Uncle Ben.”
“Maybe I can get them to advance you some money. I’ll have to see.”
“Why don’t I just sell you the designs, Uncle Ben? Outright. Then you make whatever deal you want with the manufacturer. How about that?” (Herb felt a little ashamed of himself for what he was doing, because he thought that he might be taking advantage of his uncle Ben. An outright sale of the designs seemed to Herb the only prudent course to take. It would have seemed so to his cautious mother, too. A bird in the hand certainly seems to be worth two in the bush. But, as it turned out, Herb was, at the very moment when he was feeling guilty about taking advantage of Ben, doing a foolish Piper thing. He was convincing himself that the coarse-goods trade was a poor financial risk. He was talking himself into taking sure money instead of the royalties that might have made him rich.)
“Well, I’d be taking a risk,” said Ben.
“Oh, right,” said Herb. “You’re right. I understand that — ”
“I wouldn’t be able to give you too much for them,” said Ben, “on account of the risk.”
“I understand,” said Herb. “I know you’re taking a risk.”
“How much did you think you’d want?” asked Ben.
“Three thousand dollars,” said Herb.
“Oh,” said Ben. He was genuinely disappointed. He had hoped that he’d be able to let Herb have everything he wanted, that he would be able to be both generous uncle and good businessman. “It’s more than I can put out,” he said. “I’ve got an idea, though. I can give you half of it in cash and half of it in goods.”
“What kind of goods?”
“Coarse goods.”
“Aw, Uncle Ben,” said Herb.
“It’s the best I can do, Herb,” said Ben. “I mean it.”
“All right,” said Herb. He paused. “Uncle Ben, you have to promise me something. You have to promise me never to tell anyone about this.”
“Hell, you shouldn’t be ashamed of this, Herb. There’s lots of people who do worse things than — ”
“Uncle Ben, you have to promise.”
“All right, I promise.”
“And I mean never.”
“Never.”
WHEN LORNA arrived at Luther’s office, he greeted her with a thin smile. “This is an unexpected pleasure,” he said.
“Uncle Luther,” said Lorna, “I’ll do it.”
“Do what?” asked Luther, smiling unctuously.
“You know what,” said Lorna.
“Why, you don’t mean — ” said Luther, raising an eyebrow to complete his question.
“Yes, I do, and you know it.”
“Now must be never, then.”
“I guess it must.”
“What changed your mind, my dear?”
“Herb and I are going to leave Chacallit, and we’ll need money to get ourselves settled.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Uncle Luther, let’s talk about my terms.”
“Terms?”
“I’ll work for two months.”
“Two months?”
“That’s all. I want your word that you’ll never tell anyone about this and that you’ll never ask me to work on coarse goods again.”
“Does this mean that your young man doesn’t know about your craft?”
“He doesn’t know anything at all about it, and I want you to promise that he’ll never know anything from you, directly or indirectly. No accidental slips. No hints. No winks. Nothing.”
“He will never know from me, dear,” said Luther, raising his hand. “I wonder, though, whether deception is a good beginning for a marriage.”
Lorna went right on. “I want twenty-five percent more than John Caldwell’s getting now,” she said. “You can tell people I’m getting less, if you want, but that’s what you’re going to have to pay me.”
“My, my, isn’t it amazing the way time changes people. It seems as if it was only yesterday when you came into this office full of righteous indignation, waving a pamphlet from the Women’s Socialist League or something like that — ”
“The Women’s Trade Union League.”
“Oh. The Women’s Trade Union League. You were quite taken with what they had to say back then. Wasn’t it ‘equal pay for equal work’?”
“It was.”
“Well, what happened to that idea?”
“Why, Uncle Luther,” said Lorna, “You know very well that John’s work was never the equal of mine.”
She turned and walked out of the office, leaving the door open behind her. When she was halfway along the corridor, she heard its satisfying slam.
[to be continued on Thursday, July 14, 2022]
In Topical Guide 296, Mark Dorset considers Promises, Exacting a Promise; Secrets; Decisions: Irreversible, Slamming Door as Metaphor for; and Fortune Cookie Wisdom from this episode.
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