Gilded Needles (Valancourt 20th Century Classics) by Michael McDowell Read Free Book Online Page B

you didn’t know that.”
    “No!” protested Benjamin. “There’s never cheating at Morrissey’s—”
    “There’s no need for cheating,” said Judge Stallworth, “when they have such as you clamoring at the doors.”
    Defeated, Benjamin reeled into the parlor, threw himself into a chair near his father, and leaned forward in earnest entreaty. “Father, I—”
    Edward Stallworth stood abruptly. “Duncan,” he said, “after services this evening, if you will return to the manse with me I will be happy to reimburse you for the draught you wrote. And I would like to thank you for taking this in hand. It is an embarrassment enough without the minister of the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church having to enter Mr. Morrissey’s establishment to pay off his son’s gambling debts. . . .” He returned to the dining room. “I think I might have another glass of champagne, though I must say that the New Year has begun ill enough.”
    “You have paralyzed us with shame, Benjamin,” said Marian hotly.
    “Benjamin,” said his grandfather in a deceptively cool voice, “I refuse to believe that you will learn a lesson from this. I have believed so in other instances and have always been proved wrong. From stubbornness or stupidity, I don’t know which, you never learn. I only hope that the next time something like this happens you have the decency not to return to us to be forgiven and have your criminal debts paid off by Duncan or your father or myself; but I trust that you will go down to the Battery and drown yourself, so that we’ll not be troubled by you any longer.”
    When Helen Stallworth came downstairs again to announce that the children had been dressed for church, her father, her grandfather, and her aunt and uncle were stiffly seated in the parlor, speaking not at all. She looked about for Benjamin and found him at last in a dark corner of the dining room, sitting on the edge of a chair that had been pulled far back from the table. His lank hair was disarranged and he was sobbing into his cupped hands.
    Helen anxiously pulled the doors of the room shut. A quarter of an hour later, Marian rapped sharply and announced that the carriages had been brought around and it was time that they were off to the church. Helen opened the doors and drew puffy-eyed Benjamin after her.

Chapter 5
    As a family, the Stallworths kept their private faces turned away from the world. Though Benjamin’s conduct had soured for them the inceptive hopefulness of the new year, neither their expression nor their conversation betrayed their discomfiture to strangers or to friends.
    Only Benjamin appeared troubled, even more anxious than usual, with red teary eyes and sweating giddy hands. Before the group departed Gramercy Park, Judge Stallworth demanded that he be sent directly home so that his apparent agitation might not disgrace the family in their prominently situated pew. Helen’s low-voiced protest to this banishment was ignored and Benjamin was dropped at a corner. The two carriages rolled onward toward the church without anyone but Helen bothering to say good-evening to the young man.
    Cold, but also feverish and clammy beneath his rumpled clothing, Benjamin Stallworth stumbled home to the Presbyterian manse on Twenty-fifth Street. It was not the first time that he had been made to feel that he had dishonored the family. His father often remarked that Benjamin gave substance to the adage that a minister’s son was ungovernable, and his grandfather noted coldly that Benjamin hadn’t even the stamina or the stomach to be a proper black sheep. Benjamin was little better than a feebleminded child who inspired not a respectable horror but only contempt.
    Benjamin had been enrolled in the freshman class of Columbia College but hadn’t had the aptitude to finish out a single year of courses. He had been given to understand that he would be asked to leave if he did not withdraw of his own volition. After that he had been