The Rebellion of Yale Marratt Read online

  Yale looked over at Cynthia. She was wearing a light-brown wool coat. A scotch-type beret with a colored knob perched on the side of her head. His eyes filled with tears. She was so delightfully feminine, as she looked at him with big questioning brown eyes. He wanted to put his arms around her protectively. "Stop worrying, it won't be so bad. We'll leave early."

  Yale tried to see the house through Cynthia's eyes. He knew she was impressed. Pat Marratt had built in 1933, the middle of the depression, and people in Midhaven had thought he had gone crazy. What most of the town didn't know was that he had picked up the hundred acres of Connecticut farmland on both sides of the Mamaputock River on a farm foreclosure for less than three thousand dollars. Pat's idea had been, some day when the pressure let off, to start a dairy farm as a hobby. The plan had not yet materialized. The day-to-day operation of the Marratt plant demanded too much of his attention.

  The house with its lonely setting obviously appealed to Pat. It probably would never have occurred to him that its very remoteness had contributed to the development of Yale's character. With the nearest friends more than a mile distant, Yale had spent his teens roaming the woods and fields, or kept to himself, reading, alone in his room.

  Yale drove past the house and down a narrow road that led to a boathouse. He noticed that Pat's car was in the garage. It was only six thirty. Pat would be showering. It would be easier to arrive just a few minutes before seven when he was certain that dinner would be ready. It would save sitting around, awkwardly, trying to talk with Liz.

  "This is the boathouse. Come on, I'll show you." He led Cynthia in the door at the back. "That's Pat's Chris-Craft," Yale said, pointing at a boat snuggly cradled and glistening with new varnish and paint. "He uses it to go to work in the spring and summer. The factory is down the river about six miles."

  Cynthia clung to Yale's arm. "I'm afraid, Yale. I never realized that your family was so rich. They won't like me. I just know it. Have you told them about me?" When she said it Yale knew she meant, "Have you told them I am Jewish." He hugged her close and kissed her lips. "Stop worrying. They're not ogres. I won't let them bite you."

  Neither Pat nor Liz were downstairs when Yale took her in the house. "They're gettin' ready," Amy, the Marratts' maid and cook, told Yale. "The roast beef is all done. We'll eat as soon as they come down."

  Yale led Cynthia into the huge living room. A fire crackled warmly in the fieldstone fireplace. Yale looked at the room through Cynthia's eyes, realizing for the first time that the expensive antiques collected by Liz, the luxurious chairs and sofas set in casual groupings on a tremendous oriental rug gave an impression that was equivalent to entering the lobby of a plush hotel.

  "Golly," Cynthia said in awe. "You could lose thirty people in here and never miss them." She took off her coat and sat on the needlepoint bench in front of the Steinway. She touched a chord and then another. "I haven't been near a piano for nearly six months. Daddy would be ashamed of me."

  Yale was surprised. "I didn't know you played the piano." Her grin was mischievous. "There's lots of things you don't know about me. May I play?"

  Yale listened, astonished. Her fingers touched the keys easily without flourish, yet with conviction. The music she played conveyed her emotion. The delicacy of the moment, the firelight on her face, and the lost quality of the expression on her face brought tears to his eyes.

  She finished and sat bemused.

  "That was very well done."

  Yale jumped. He turned to find Pat standing behind his chair. Cynthia looked at Pat and blushed.

  "This is Cynthia, Pat," Yale said. "I didn't know she played the piano until just now. Pat is a piano enthusiast himself, Cynthia. Maybe he'll play for you."

  Pat shook his head. "I am just a dabbler alongside this girl. After hearing the Appassionata played like that, I'll beg off. How long have you studied?" Cynthia told him she had started taking piano lessons when she was five.

  Liz came in and was introduced. She greeted Cynthia coolly with the appraising eye of a mother as well as a woman. "Amy is about ready to serve, I hope you both are hungry." She led them into the dining room. Cynthia was seated across the table from Yale. He winked at her.

  "Did you hear this girl playing, Liz?" Pat asked. "It gets me sometimes. Here we have the finest piano money can buy. Neither of my kids can play it. I'll bet you learned to play on an old upright, didn't you?"

  "Well, it was old," Cynthia said smiling, "but it had nice tone."

  "It couldn't have been like the one I practiced on, by God! The whole damned thing was out of tune. I think my father found it in a dump. It's funny," Pat mused. "Today we give kids everything. Offer them the things we fought to have, and when they get it handed to them on a silver platter, they sneer at it."

  Cynthia and Pat talked about music. Yale could tell that Pat's interest surprised her. "I never thought businessmen cared much about music," she said.

  Pat shrugged. "You've got the same Babbitt complex that Yale has. That damned fellow Sinclair Lewis is a menace. You can't stereotype anyone. Even Jews, with all their money grabbing, have produced fine musicians." Pat ate his roast beef, lost in his thoughts.

  Liz talked with Cynthia casually about college. Liz told her Barbara was a Junior at Bryn Mawr. Yale breathed a sigh of relief. So far, with the exception of Pat's remark about Jews, the evening had gone well. A little formal, perhaps, but he had expected that.

  After dinner, sitting before the fire, Pat Marratt questioned Cynthia pointedly. "You're Jewish, aren't you?" Pat, hunched in his wing-backed chair, looked like a huge questioning judge.

  "Is it so apparent?" Cynthia asked, and then said, "Yes, I am."

  Yale tried to interrupt, knowing that Pat had none of the normal inhibitions in discussing any subject. "Don't suppose you know a fellow named Harry Cohen." Cynthia shook her head negatively. "There are lots of Jewish people in the world."

  "Oh, Pat, drop the subject, will you," Yale said angrily.

  Pat ignored him. "This Cohen is a bastard. He's trying to organize my factory. I don't know what it is about Jews but they can't leave well enough alone. They are either ferreting their way into some place they aren't wanted or they are off on some idealistic program to change the world. Like some of these cronies of Roosevelt's. There's a real Jew lover for you."

  Yale watched Cynthia's face and was filled with compassion for her. Pat amazed him. In one breath he could talk about stereotyping businessmen. Now, he had fallen into his own trap by stereotyping Jews. Yale wanted to get up, put his arm around Cynthia and quietly walk out of the room. But none of Pat's sparks ignited on Cynthia. She just listened to him with a half smile on her face.

  "What I don't like about the Jews," Pat continued, chewing on a cigar, "is their pumped-up emotionalism. You should hear this guy Cohen. He lays it on so thick to my employees that you can't scrape it off. Of all the emotional crap and ding-dong you have ever heard, he takes the cake and, sister, the damn fools lap it up."

  "The world is changing, Pat," Yale interrupted. "You reach people today not in what you say but how emotionally you say it. Roosevelt proves that."

  "It wouldn't surprise me if Roosevelt were a Jew, too!" Pat said, looking at him coldly. "The world is going to hell." Yale knew what Pat meant. Eventually he would hear further explosions from Pat on the subject of his interest in Cynthia.

  Liz tried to mollify the situation and in Yale's mind made it worse. "Oh, you forget, Pat, that right here in Midhaven some of our best friends are Jews."

  Yale heard the platitude for the first time in a new light. It was the necessary qualification that any really prejudiced person made to prove their complete lack of prejudice. He felt like arguing with Pat. To prove to him that without the great religious thinkings of the Jews there would have been no Christians. He was aware for the first time that he was reaching beyond the courses he was taking in religion at Midhaven College to a unification of his own thinking.

  Before he could s
ay anything, however, Pat had started on a new line of inquiry. "What does your father do, Miss Carnell?"

  Cynthia explained that he was a farmer in New Jersey. Yale listened, warily. He saw the connection forming in Pat's mind.

  "Well, for God's sakes," Pat exploded, "don't tell me that your father is the Carnell that has all that tomato acreage. I'll be a son-of-a-gun. We've been buying most of his crop for the past ten years. He's a pretty shrewd operator. Joe Freeman, our purchasing agent, has dealt with him. I've never met him." Pat's voice trailed off. Unsaid, but very apparent, was the thought that he hadn't known that Cynthia's father was Jewish.

  "He raises nice tomatoes too," Cynthia said, the smile still playing lightly on her lips.

  "You can say that again!" Pat said. "The finest that come on the market every year are from the Carnell farms. Believe me, Marratt Corporation only buys the finest."

  Amy walked into the room, and whispered to Liz. "Pat," Liz said, "the Tangles and Middletons are here." As she spoke their names, Dr. Tangle walked into the room, blowing on his hands, followed by his wife, Lucy. Frank Middleton and his wife, Marie, were just behind them.

  Liz performed the introductions. Yale noticed that both Dr. Tangle and Frank Middleton looked at Cynthia with evident interest. "So you're a friend of the Marratts?" Doctor Tangle said, his words leaving a question unspoken, and chuckled with the heh-heh that trailed almost every statement he made. "Well, it is nice that our out-of-town students can get acquainted with some of the prominent people in Midhaven."

  "Bill Sawyer called me at the Club," Frank Middleton said to Pat. "I told him I was coming over here. Bill was at the plant meeting. The entire plant is going to join the union. Every damned one of them. Cohen has promised them the world. I thought you would want to know. They'll be around to demand an election in a few days."

  Pat noted that already Liz was putting a Dry Martini into Frank's hand. She murmured that it was made just to Frank's taste. Marie Middleton, a dumpy, blonde woman, remarked that Frank was just crazy about Liz's Martinis.

  "I don't give a damn if they do join the union," Pat said, feeling as irritated at Frank as he did at Harry Cohen. "It burns my ass. After all of the good things I have done for those people, they can turn right around, and let a skunk like that Cohen run away with them. Only six months ago when I walked through the plant everyone would smile and wave to me. Now, they look at me as if I were some kind of a rat. Six months ago that bastard Cohen was in a soup line. We give him a damned good job and the first thing you know he's biting the hand that feeds him. They can join a union if they think it'll do them any good. I'm not paying one damned cent more in wages. Let them strike!"

  "A strike wouldn't be a very good thing for Midhaven," Dr. Tangle said apprehensively. "I don't like to have that kind of publicity in a community like ours. It spreads the idea that we are more of an industrial city. That's bad for college enrollments."

  "To hell with your enrollments, Amos," Pat said, his face mottled red. "I've been checking with Reece all afternoon and we've got sufficient inventories in our warehouse in every line to keep going for a couple of months without any trouble at all. We've probably got too damned much inventory anyway. So, let them join a union! Let the crazy bastards strike. We can operate for a couple of months without them."

  "The only trouble is, Pat, with this European situation the way it is you're likely to lose the people to the Latham Shipyard. I was talking with one of the boys at the Club tonight. He says that it's almost certain that they are going to get a couple of British freighter contracts. If that happens, you are going to have to go up plenty in wages in order to hold anyone. Al Latham may be your friend, but he can't stop the upward trend when he starts hiring." Frank Middleton sipped his Martini and waited for Pat's reaction.

  Pat relighted his cigar. "I'm telling you, if they don't get that Roosevelt out of the White House in the November elections, this country will go to hell. Landon may not be much, but at least he's a Republican."

  The conversation started to take a political turn. Neither Yale nor Cynthia was included in it. Liz started her own independent conversation with Lucy Tangle and Marie Middleton. Rather pointedly she left Cynthia out of it. Yale made their departure excuses.

  "There you are," Pat said, frowning at Yale. "I've got one son and eventually he will inherit this business. You can see how much it concerns him. All he's interested in, Amos, is in soaking up every damn bit of radical nonsense he can get his hands on. It would be interesting to know just how many Reds you have on the faculty down there at Midhaven. That Jack Leonard that teaches Sociology -- I'll bet a couple of bottles of good Scotch that he carries a party card." Pat turned to Yale. "You just wait . . . if the Marratt Corporation goes under and you have to earn a dollar on your own, you'll get some sense into you!"

  "Now! Now!" Doctor Tangle said. "Don't you worry about Yale. He'll come around. Good solid background in that boy. His true colors will show up."

  Liz walked to the front door with Yale and Cynthia. "I won't apologize for Pat," she said to Cynthia "He's a very blunt man and sometimes not very tactful. It was nice to have you to dinner. Perhaps Yale will bring you again sometime." She said the words in a way that implied that that of course was highly unlikely.

  "You won't apologize for him," Yale said to Liz as he helped Cynthia with her coat, "but I will, and for you, too, Liz. It will be a long day before I bring any of my friends to this house."

  Liz looked at Yale coolly. "At this age, darling, you should be aware of the facts of life. Stop trying to break out of your environment. Some day you'll know that your parents are your real friends. Good night, Miss Carnell."

  Yale slid behind the wheel of the car. "It was awful, Cynthia, I'm sorry." He tried to put his arm around her.

  "Don't, Yale! Not here. Please never bring me to your house again." As they drove toward the college Cynthia was silent.

  "Cynthia," Yale said, trying to reach her, "I'm Yale Marratt, not Pat Marratt. Remember, that I can't help the way Pat is, any more than you can help being Jewish."

  "I don't want to help being Jewish," she said scornfully. "I'm proud of it, Yale. It's no good. My family wouldn't approve of you, either."

  Yale drove the car off Route Six into a side road. He turned off the ignition.

  "Please, Yale, take me back to the dormitory. I feel kind of sick."

  "No, I won't -- not until we get a few things straightened out! Okay, I admit it. I was wrong in not telling you how my family felt about Jews. Actually, I wasn't sure myself until this evening. I didn't know Pat could condemn you because of your religion without even knowing you. He listened to you play the piano, and enjoyed it. He couldn't help but see that you are lovely as a woman. Yet, he and Liz could be absolutely boorish and discourteous to you. Why? Why? I kept asking myself all evening. Do you know why, Cynthia? Because they are afraid! Supposing I brought a Catholic home or a Chinese girl, and they thought I was in love with her. They would have had the same reaction. A terrible fear of anyone who challenges the narrow concepts they have lived by. I strike at the shallow roots of their life because I care for a person who is a Jew. But you are not a Jew to me. No more than I am a Christian to myself. I don't go around saying, 'I'm a Christian.' I'm just me, Yale Marratt, and you are just you, Cynthia Carnell." Yale looked at her helplessly. "Honey, don't you understand?"

  "I'm cold, Yale," Cynthia said. She huddled against the door of the car. Yale started the engine and turned on the car heater. "I wonder, Yale, if I'm just a kind of rebellion for you. Some kids break windows or get drunk or steal cars. You just want to shock people."

  "Oh, God, don't you understand, Cynthia? I'm not trying to wave your religion at Pat like a red flag at a bull. I love you. It wouldn't make any difference to me if you were a Catholic or a Mohammedan. I love you." Yale repeated the words and in the process of saying them became quite convinced himself. He wondered for a moment if that was how you fell in love. If you said "I love you" to a
girl, was it because you said the words that you loved her? When did love between a man and woman start? When you said, "I love you" what did it mean? It was a new feeling, and Yale had had no experience with it. He simply knew that Cynthia seemed to fill all his waking thoughts and the confused worries and fears that beset him vanished when he was with her. He felt that when he said "I love you" he could just as well have said, "I will die for you, or I will live because of you."

  "Cynthia, dear," he said, touching her cheek, "you know what I am going to call you. I am going to call you Cindar. Every time I say it, it will be just like saying Cynthia dear. I can make love to you in public, just with words. Good idea?" he asked, trying to kindle a smile on her face. "Oh, Cindar, what's the matter?"

  Cynthia looked at him sadly. She didn't really know how she felt about Yale. She admired his iconoclasm. She knew that he had the ability to inspire her with his enthusiasm toward abstract ideas, in the few classes she had with him she was amazed at Yale's headlong approach and his challenge of the teachers. No other student in the freshman class seemed to have the ability to get into the deep discussions that he did. She was pleased when Professor Walters, who taught freshman literature, remarked on Yale's ability to inter-relate one course with another; to take what he was learning in religion or psychology and reapply it in a study of some phase of English literature. Professor Walters had read a composition to the class in which Yale made an examination of English social structure in the Elizabethan times by analyzing the Shakespearean plays. Walters seemed to be particularly impressed that Yale had read every play that Shakespeare had written; an accomplishment which he assured the class was not true of ninety per cent of the seniors and even most of those who graduated with a Bachelor's degree in literature.

  While Cynthia enjoyed Yale's restless, probing mind, she didn't clearly understand the roots, nor did she care for the minor key of his thinking. Yale was moody. He would fling himself furiously into a project, carry it halfway through, and then claim that the end result would not justify his effort. A few days later he would plunge headlong into some other idea. In this way he did a prodigious amount of reading in philosophy, sociology and psychology, continually searching for the answer to ideas so vague that he found difficulty in explaining even to Cynthia what motivated him.