Эптон Синклер - Oil!

There was a telephone call for Bunny—he was to call “long distance” in a city a hundred miles up the state. When he did so, there was a nurse in a hospital, with a message from Bertie; she wanted him to come to her. She was not in any danger, and there was no use worrying the family, therefore she wished him to say nothing about the matter. Bunny of course jumped into his car and made all haste. His sister had been visiting the Normans, a long way from this hospital.

When he got there, the attendants told him that Bertie had had an operation for appendicitis, and was doing well. He was taken up to her room, and there she lay, pale, and strange-looking, because he had never seen her without her colors. Everything about her was spotlessly clean, a lacy white nightgown, and soft white pillows in which she lay sunken—nun-like, and pathetic in her gladness to see him. “Gee whiz, Bertie! How did this happen?”

“It came quite suddenly. It was pretty bad, but I’m all right now. Everybody’s been so good to me.” There was a nurse in the room, and Bertie waited until she had gone out and closed the door. Then she fixed her tired eyes on her brother, and said, “We call it appendicitis, because that’s the conventional thing, and what you’ll have to tell Dad and Aunt Emma. But you might as well know the truth—I was going to have a baby.”

“Oh, my God!” Bunny stared at her, aghast.

“You needn’t begin acting up—you’re no spring chicken, Bunny.”

“Who is the man?”

“Now, don’t start any melodrama. You know it might happen to anybody.”

“Yes—but who was it, Bertie?”

“I want you to get this straight at the beginning—it wasn’t his fault. I did it on purpose.”

Bunny didn’t know what to make of that. “You might as well tell me, Bertie.”

“Well, I want you to behave yourself. I’m my own boss, and I knew what I was doing. I wouldn’t marry him now for a million dollars—not for all his millions, because he’s a yellow pup, and I despise him.”

“You mean Charlie Norman!”

She nodded in assent; and as she saw Bunny’s hands clench, she said, “You don’t have to do any heroics. There can’t be a shot-gun wedding when the bride refuses to attend.”

“Tell me about it, Bertie.”

“Well, we were in love quite desperately for a while, and I thought he was going to marry me. But then I saw he wouldn’t lay off other women, and I thought it over, and I decided, if I had a baby, he’d have to marry me, so I tried it.”

“Good God, Bertie!”

“You needn’t make faces. Thousands of women do it—it’s one of our tricks. But Charlie’s a yellow cur. When I told him about it, he behaved so disgustingly, I told him to go to hell. I got the name of a doctor that would fix me up, and Dad will have a thousand dollars to pay, and that’s all the damage.”

“Bertie,” he whispered, “why in the world do you have to do things like that?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll not do it again. I had to learn, like everybody else.”

“But why did you have to do it once? Trying to trap a rich man into marriage! Doesn’t Dad give you enough money?”

“That’s very easy for you to say, Bunny, you’re satisfied to get off in a corner and read some old book. But I’m not like that, I have to have a little life. Dad gives me pocket money, but that’s not what I want. I want a career—something of my own. And don’t start preaching at me, because I’m weak as a kitten and can’t stand anything just now. I wanted what every woman wants, a home of my own, and I didn’t want a bungalow, I wanted a place I could invite people to, and make some use of my talents as a hostess. Well, I fell down, and now I want somebody to be kind to me for a few minutes, if you’ve possibly got that in you.”

It looked as if the tears were coming into her eyes, so Bunny hastened to say, “All right, old girl, I’ll lay off. But naturally I was taken aback.”

“You needn’t be. The doctor says it’s done a million times a year in the United States. I amused myself figuring that out—it’s about once every thirty seconds. Life is a messy business. Let’s talk about something else!”

It was a time for confidences, and she wanted to know about him and Vee—was he going to marry her? He said he didn’t know if she would have him. Bertie laughed—she would have him all right, she was playing her cards cleverly. But Bunny told how many times she got irritated at him, and why, and that gave Bertie occasion for a discourse. She was the same old Bertie; she might weaken for a few minutes, and ask him to be kind, but she still believed in money, and the things money bought. She discussed Vee from that point of view; it would be more dignified, and safer in the long run, for him to marry a lady, rather than an actress; but all the same, Vee had a lot of sense, and he might do worse. To go and wreck their happiness for the sake of his fool Bolshevik notions—that was just sickening!

Then she wanted to know about Dad’s affairs, and how that deal in Washington was going; would they really get the leases? And was it true that Dad had any real pull with the administration in Washington? Bunny was sure he had; and Bertie revealed what she had in mind. “I’ve been thinking it over—I’ve had a lot of time to think, lying here. I believe that what I’ll do is to go back to Eldon Burdick. He’s a good deal of a dub, but you always know where to find him, and that seems to me a virtue right now.”

“Would you tell him about this?” asked Bunny, wonderingly.

“No, why should I? He’s made his mistakes, I guess, and he doesn’t advertise them. He knows I’ve been living with Charlie, but I think he’s still in love with me. What I have in mind is that I could make a career for him; I’d get Dad or Verne to pull some wires and get him a good diplomatic post. I believe I’d like to live in Paris, you meet all the important people there, and it’s very good form. We’re going to have to take charge of Europe, Eldon says, and I think he’s the sort of man they’ll need. How does that strike you?”

“Well, if it’s what you want, I’ve no doubt you can get it. But it’ll be rather tough on Eldon to have me for a brother-in-law.”

“Oh, you’re going to behave yourself,” said Bertie, easily. “This is just a sort of children’s complaint that you’ll get over.”

The navy department ousted the little company which had started drilling on the Sunnyside naval reserve. It sent in a bunch of marines to do it, and this unprecedented move attracted a lot of attention, which worried Dad and Verne. The latter had a man up there, to fix matters with the newspaper correspondents; and “Young Pete” was in Washington, seeing to things there. You began to notice in the newspapers items to the effect that the navy department was greatly worried because companies occupying lands adjoining the naval reserves were drilling, and draining the navy’s oil; this would be a calamity, and the authorities were of the opinion that in order to avoid it the reserves should be turned over to the department of the interior, which would lease them upon terms advantageous to the government.

Bunny didn’t need to ask his father about that propaganda; he knew what it meant, and he waited, wondering—was it possible to get away with anything so crude? Could anybody fail to see that the government could have taken the adjoining lands, under the same powers which had set aside the present reserves? Or that the navy could have put down offset wells on its own property, exactly as any oil man would have done? But no, this administration was not thinking about the navy—it was thinking about Dad and Verne! When the oil men had bought the Republican convention, they had also got the machinery of the party, and that included the press, which now accepted meekly the “dope” sent out from Washington, and commended the prompt measures of the administration to protect the navy’s precious oil.