Chapter 4: The In-Laws

Their greeting out at the Crown home was decidedly mixed. Vera threw her arms around the both of them in quick succession. Her hug for Gene was as hard as he had ever felt from a woman.

Thomas Crown turned an impassive face toward Gene while hugging his daughter.

After they were inside, Cora told Bates the butler to take all the luggage up to her room.

Mr. Tolliver was NOT going to be sleeping in a guest room, she firmly established.

Then Vera claimed her and swept her off to the living room. Thomas Crown simply nodded to Gene and turned and walked off toward the back of the house. He wound up in what turned out to be the breakfast room. It would be several hours before dawn the rosy-fingered came up, but when it did, it would shine into that room.

Crown asked Gene if he wanted anything. When he declined, Crown ignored his reply.

He went to a bar to get a bottle of bourbon and two glasses. He poured a tumbler-full for each of them. He drank off half of his. Gene took a sip of his.

"So, when we talked, you WERE Cora's boyfriend."

"No sir, I was not. And when you asked me if I wanted to be her boyfriend I told you honestly how I felt: that I didn't know. Obviously things have changed."

"Obviously. Tolliver, when we had that conversation, I thought that you were one of Cora's little flings. You didn't seem like her type, but I was sure that she would move on past you fairly soon. My only concern at that point was that you were a promising employee and I didn't want to lose your talents. Now I'm reconsidering that.

"I knew that you weren't a fortune hunter, or at least I thought that I knew that.

"Frankly, now I wish she had simply bedded you and thrown you over. So, now I have to get down and get tough and go into my Daddy protective mode.

"Legally, once you are wed, you'd normally gain control of all of her assets, current and future. And my fear is that you knew all that.

"My lawyer will be over first thing in the morning with a legal agreement that you will have to sign, giving up all husbandly rights to any of Cora's money.

"Now, once you sign this agreement, you will be legally barred from ever getting your hands on anything that she gets now, or any money from her trust, or anything that she will inherit when I pass away. Do you understand? You will never be able to get to her fortune. What do you have to say about that?"

Gene said, "Ok."

Crown eyed him skeptically. "This agreement is foolproof and courtproof. Several of my friends have used it and it has survived every court challenge."

"Gene said, "Ok, I get it, Mister Crown. I can't get at any of her money."

Crown smiled. "Oh, and another thing. If and when you get married, I'm stopping all of Cora's support money. No allowance, no paying the rent for her apartment, or her store accounts, or the payments on her car. She'll have to pay for her own telephone service.

Hell, I doubt that you could afford her yearly expenses for perfume alone.

"So, now are you having any second thoughts about your marriage plans?"

"Wow, I sure am" Gene said. "I never thought it would go like this. I guess this changes everything."

He took a pull of his bourbon.

Thomas Crown emptied his tumbler.

"I thought you might see things differently. But I'm a little disappointed, Tolliver.

Somehow, I thought you'd try to argue me out of my position."

"What would have been the point, Mister Crown? We've already established that once you make up your mind, nothing can make you reconsider."

Crown looked at him with a distinct feeling that he was being needled, although he couldn't quite figure out how. "Well, I think that we should go look in on the women.

They won't be happy, but there's no use in letting them go too far with all this wedding planning nonsense."

Gene said, "Right."

And so Crown led the way back to the front of the house and into the living room where the women were sitting with notebooks, excitedly talking and jotting down planning notes.

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"Sorry, Ladies, but I'm afraid that Mr. Tolliver here has had a change of heart," he announced.

Cora and Vera came to their feet. Vera glared at Thomas, but it was Cora who said,

"Daddy, what have you been up to?

"Gene, what's Daddy talking about? A change of heart? Just what the fuck do you mean by that?

Gene said, "Well, I don't know where he came up with that change of heart business.

What I said was that some things that he said to me mean that we'll have to change our plans in some big ways."

Vera pushed herself in front of her husband. "Thomas Morely Crown, what have you been saying to my prospective son-in-law?"

"Now, Vera, I was just trying to get Mr. Tolliver to understand some things that might make him reconsider his proposal. Just being practical."

"WHAT FUCKING THINGS, THOMAS?" she cooed.

Thomas Crown summarized his dictates. The pre-marital agreement that would bar Gene from any access to Cora's fortune. And his decision to stop supporting Cora once she was married.

"I see," Vera said. She turned away from him and walked over to where she could look out onto their moonlit back yard.

"Tell me, Thomas, exactly when did I stop being an equal partner in this marriage?

"When did you decide to stop discussing important personal matters with me?"

Thomas Crown was caught off guard. He sputtered, "But, ... but, ... that's not what..."

She whirled and advanced on him. "When did my opinions cease to have any importance or meaning, or value to you? I'd really like to know that."

Thomas Crown felt that he was on a slippery slope, in an accelerating vehicle with no brakes.

Meanwhile Cora had been dividing her attention between the set-to between Vera and her father, and Gene, who stood there with a look of complete innocence.

"Stop it, you two!" she snapped at her parents, who had not actually been saying anything at that moment, merely glaring and staring at each other. At that moment, Vera was doing most of the glaring.

Cora turned her attention to her lover. "Edward Eugene Tolliver, what did you mean that we'll have to change our plans in big ways? Which of our plans? The plan to get married?"

Eugene knew that being called by his full name wasn't good, so he protested his innocence. "Oh, no, sweetie. That's absolutely going to happen. I can't wait. What I meant was that I didn't think that we could have that big church wedding we were talking about in the car. I mean, the father of the bride usually pays for that. Somehow, in his present mood, I can't see Mister Crown springing for that. So I'm thinking that you may have to settle for me and a justice of the peace.

"And on the practical side, I'm afraid poor Tommy will still be stuck living with his folks for a while, because we'll have to live in my little apartment in Queens. It'll be a tight fit for your clothes and stuff, but we'll manage. I'll also have to teach you how to get around on public transportation, and..."

"Gene, what in the hell are you talking about? We're already living in my apartment."

"Ok, yeah, but once Mister Crown pulls the plug on your allowances and all that, we won't be able to afford that. Not on my salary.

"Nor your car, either. Honey, you're going to have to learn to be the wife of a wage- slave.

"Unless, ... well, unless you might be having second thoughts. I might not seem like that much of a bargain. You'll have to give up everything you've been used to," Gene said.

She dropped all pretense of annoyance and rushed into his arms, sobbing "Never in a million years, buster. Never in this life." She pulled back and gazed into his eyes. "You are stuck with me no matter how we have to live. That's a promise. I'll get a job. I'll get Mom to open my trust. We'll be ok."

She turned to face her parents, who had stopped their dispute to listen to the couple's.

"Mom, I'm sorry to blow up all of our big plans, but Gene and I have to leave now.

We're eloping. There's a place up in New Hampshire that does quickie marriages. I'm not going to bed until I go to it with my new husband.

"Now, I have to go find Bates and get our luggage back in the car.

"That is, I assume I still have the car until the end of the month. It must be paid up through then."

Then she started off, shouting for the ever-lurking Bates.

Vera said, "Thomas?" She packed a whole lifetime of living together into that name.

Thomas Crown ran out and caught his daughter by the hand and pulled her back in the room.

"Princess, you must know that I was only trying to look out for you. Some of what I said to Tolliver was exaggeration. I still don't know him very well and what his motives are."

"Pish-tosh, Thomas," Vera said. "His motives for Cora are the same as your motives were for me. He loves her, Thomas. He doesn't love her money or her apartment or her inheritance. He loves her. Now, don't you want to see her happy and married to a man like you; a man who would do anything for her?

"Here's what we will do," Vera said. "We will sit down and have a long talk. The Crowns do need to know more about young Mister ... what is it? Edward Eugene Tolliver"

"We'd really like to know something about your family, where you came from, what your goals and ambitions are ... all that kind of thing.

"Then we'll have a nice breakfast together. Isn't that what you want too, Thomas? To learn more about the young man who has stolen your daughter's heart?"

"Damned right I do. So far all I know is that he seems to be opposed to me in a lot of things. I suppose the agreement thing is off the table, too," he grumbled.

"Not at all," Gene said. "I'm marrying Cora to get Cora, not to get her money. Heck, I'll sign ten agreements."

That perked Mister Crown up considerably.

At that point, Bates coughed to get their attention and inquired where he was to put Miss Cora's and Mister Gene's luggage. In her bedroom or in the boot of her automobile?

"Just leave it in the hall, Bates," Cora said.

"And for Pete's sake, go to bed. Cook will see to breakfast just fine without you.

They got comfortable in the living room. Vera and rustled up some coffee, and they settled down.

Gene had the floor, although he had it while seated next to Cora, who was as curious about his family and upbringing as her parents. She realized that she didn't know that much about him, either.

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"Well," he began, "I was born in 1907. My mother's name is Molly. My father's name is Marcus, and I guess my real life story begins with what happened when I was a baby.

"Twenty-two years ago, my Dad, Marcus Tolliver, was an employee of the Knickerbocker Trust Company of New York, one of the largest banks in the United States."

Thomas Crown said, "Oh-oh! I think I know a little bit of how your story goes, Gene. I remember the Panic of 1907."

"Well, it was probably the defining event of my Dad's life," Gene said. "Here he was, an educated man with a great white-collar job in one of the most prestigious banks in the nation. He had a young family. Then, it all got swept away by the greed of one man.

Marcus was on the street, desperately looking for a way to support Mom and me."

"Sorry to interrupt."

"Oh, that's ok. You lived through that same period, and I expect you'll recall a lot of how things were."

Gene went on to describe the events of Monday, October 21, 1907, that began like any other banking day and ended with a run on the Knickerbocker; a deluge of depositors demanding their funds back.

How Marcus and his coworkers were sent home, only to find the Knickerbocker locked up the next day. How Marcus trudged the streets of downtown Manhattan looking for a job, any kind of work to support Molly and Gene. How he traded his suit and shoes and six bucks for a laboring man's overalls and work boots so that he could get a chance at a job with the New York Central Railroad.

When he described the laborer's test, Thomas Crown's eyes widened. He asked Gene how big Marcus was, and he said he and his father were about the same size and build.

Thomas Crown was a bigger man than Gene, and he wondered if he could have ever hefted a hundred-pound sack of sand to his shoulder.

The rest was how Marcus had perservered in the job and how he had supported his family and encouraged Gene to do well enough in school that he could get into CCNY.

"Well, that's about it," Gene said at last. "Cora knows a few more things about my personal past, but I think I'll let that stay between her and me." Gene did not fail to see a glance between Cora and her mother that spoke to some prior secret-sharing.

"Are your parents aware of your involvement with Cora, Gene?" Vera asked. "Because I would very much like to meet Molly and Marcus."

"Uh, well, no. I went to see them a few days around Christmas, but I didn't really have anything much I could say about Cora. I couldn't very well say 'Um. Well, there's this girl, and she arouses me, and I can't figure her out.'"

Cora smiled.

"I didn't even bring it up. To tell the truth, when I went back to work Monday after Christmas, I really didn't know what I could possibly say about Cora and me.

"And then Monday I went from being possibly canned to promoted and possibly to being Cora's presumptive boyfriend, and got Mister Crown's acceptance of me possibly publishing River Gravers. All of those 'possibly's.' There wasn't anything I could really tell them.

"Then there was Tuesday, and everything got even crazier. Cora had invited me over after work to talk about the book, and bundle again.

"But before I even got to noon, along came Wolfe Webber, the author of River Gravers.

He'd gotten one of those expression of interest notes, and so I had to get him off for lunch and explain that you had nixed the book.

"He was pretty crushed by that. Every other publisher had already turned it down, and Crown was his last faint hope. He knew it wasn't your kind of book, Mister Crown."

"For Pete's sake, Gene, you're apparently going to be my son-in-law. Vera thinks so, and I've learned not to go against her on the important things. So please, let's both of us get used to you calling me Thomas."

Gene grinned. "Ok. Thomas it is. And I'm pleased to have progressed from 'Tolliver' to 'Gene.'

"Well, I told him about my idea of publishing River Gravers myself. Or rather myself and Cora, because she seemed to have gotten herself involved. I had to sort of say 'Um, Wolfe, there's this girl.'

"But I insisted that it had to be edited, very heavily edited. Naturally, he was unsure whether he could live with that, so Wolfe and I agreed that he'd take my revision home and see if he could accept the editing. If he could, then we'd go forward with the publishing scheme.

"Then came Tuesday night. I worked late to make up for the time I'd spent with Wolfe, and Cora got mad and came down and chewed me out for standing her up."

Cora said that she was afraid that Gene had lost interest in her.

"Cora and I talked about wanting to get to know each other better, and about the problems of their publishing venture. Well, we talked a lot, and when it came time for the bundling, I found that her idea of an impenetrable barrier was a thin cotton sheet.

And then a lot of things happened, and we were so close, and I couldn't hide how I felt about her by then, and so I told her that I was a damned fool and a sap because I was in love with her."

"And I told him I had the same feelings for him," Cora said softly.

"That was the day before yesterday. I came back to her apartment from work yesterday, and we found that we had sort of mutually agreed that I should move in with her. And I told her that we should get married so that I wouldn't have to commit forgery on the lease. Or maybe it was fraud, I forget which. But that wasn't really why I wanted to marry her. I loved her."

"And that was just around midnight," Cora interrupted. "So that's when I called you so you could hear his proposal," Cora said. "Wasn't it romantic?"

"And here we are," Gene said. "All this happened in just a very few days. And there was never anything concrete at any one time that I could put into a Western Union telegram.

That's the only way I could have told them anything; they don't have a phone. And, well, here we are.

"Of course I want to tell my folks and let them know about my new bride. And I'm sure they'll want to meet you two, too."

"But there hasn't been the time. Everything has happened so fast."

Vera said, "Thomas and Gene, we've been planning a big all-out wedding, because neither Cora nor I will give up our only chance at one for my daughter. However, something that Cora said makes sense to me, Thomas. They're living together. Now, that's not a problem for me, but I'm a bit more liberal than most."

Thomas Crown rolled his eyes.

"I saw that," she said.

"But no matter. It would be in the best interests of keeping the gossip down if she and Gene got married really quickly. So here's my idea. Elope now and have the big church wedding next year.

"So you want to elope, Cora?" Vera asked. "You want to sleep with Gene tonight as Mrs. Eugene Tolliver? Well, I say do it. Elope today and marry for the record in six months."

Thomas just threw up his hands and let the women take over. They would have breakfast, then pack and run up to White Plains to pick up the Tollivers and get acquainted. Then it would be off to New Hampshire for a quick marriage by a Justice of the Peace. New Hampshire let its JPs issue licenses and perform marriages within minutes. It brought a little extra revenue into the cash-starved state.

They called and had a Western Union Telegram sent to the Tolliver household telling them of the elopement and inviting them along.

Just as they were about to head out for White Plains, Mister Crown's lawyer pulled up and produced the pre marriage agreement that Thomas Crown had ordered up.

The lawyer held up his briefcase as an impromptu desk, and Gene quickly signed in the seventeen indicated places and initialed the other fifteen.

He handed the agreement to Thomas Crown, who eyed it wistfully, then sighed and handed it to Vera, who smiled and handed it to Cora, who tore it up.

"I'll explain later, Jerrold," Crown muttered. "Thanks for the rush job."

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And thus it was that Gene and Cora eloped in a two-car caravan, convoyed by their parents. They were preceded at the White Plains home of the Tollivers by the Western Union Telegram, and Marcus had not left for work. After Cora and Gene picked up the rather mystified Tollivers, Gene introduced his parents to Cora. They drove to the White Plains classification yard.

Marcus went in and told the Yardmaster that he was taking a day off to go to his son's wedding. He quickly briefed his assistant on the day's work priorities, accepted his congratulations, and came back out.

Then the Tollivers were ushered to Thomas Crown's larger auto, where hasty introductions all around were made, and they sat, rather bewildered, staring at their prospective new in-laws. Vera took charge. She gave Marcus and Molly Tolliver a thorough and somewhat borderline scandalous account of who they were, and who Cora was, and how Gene and Cora had come together.

It was a long tale. Thomas Crown explained Gene's former job, and how he had discovered the Heap, and how he had championed that MS against Crown, not leaving out any details of their strained discussion at the Christmas Party. Then Vera took over again and told of the after-party events, including the bundling that had so infuriated Cora. She went to some pains to explain Cora's rather freewheeling lifestyle before meeting Gene.

Marcus got rather quiet at that, but Molly squeezed his hand and said that she knew the younger generation was much more..."liberal" was her term. Marcus held his tongue, although he had an interesting exchange of raised eyebrow expressions with Thomas Crown.

Vera defused that by her account, mostly garnered from Cora's Christmas Party eavesdropping, of Gene's sexual history, which was news to both Marcus and Molly.

"My God," Molly said, "Eugene and Mrs. Dolan? I never had an idea."

That led Vera into the clash of wills between Cora, who became interested in Gene, and Gene, whose philosophy of sex and love as necessary partners made him put her off.

"I obviously should have paid more attention to the boy during those years," Marcus said.

"I thought he was being a goody two-shoes, when all that time he was raising hell."

There was some fatherly pride in certain of Gene's exploits, but grave sadness at the fates of the two young women that Gene had gotten pregnant. If he and Molly had only known...

They stopped for a late lunch at a small inn outside Lowell, Massachusetts, a place highly recommended by several traveling booksellers of Thomas Crown's acquaintance. In truth, everyone was happy to get out and walk around. Even in the well-sprung, luxurious Lincoln, the vibration of the road surfaces on their derrieres was numbing.

Other than a few federally maintained roads, most of the "highways" amounted to little more than graveled two-way country roads.

Their setters had taken a beating, for certain.

The two sets of parents swapped life stories and embarrassing children stories over their leisurely meal and became more and more comfortable. Gene and Cora were in their own little world, and paid no attention to any joshing from the older generation.

The two fathers found a common source of interest in the best strategies for investing in a shaky stock market. They compared elements of their portfolios and found that other than the scale, they were similar. Marcus Tolliver was more bullish on transportation; Thomas Crown leaned more heavily toward basic industrial construction materials. Each decided to incorporate some of the other's strategies into their own investments.

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The two mothers simply watched the two lovers.

Molly had never thought that Gene would ever find a soul-mate. She hadn't known any of his amatory past, but she had seen that he never seemed to be involved with any women in his post-college life. Here he had been in New York City, renowned world- wide for having some of the most beautiful women in the world, and he just hadn't been dating. Some of that might have been about money; Gene was a modestly paid white- collar worker, and the beautiful women of the world tended to require lots of money to be wooed.

And now, suddenly out of nowhere, here was Cora. Miss Crown was definitely one of the beautiful women of the world, and probably among the wealthiest, at least potentially.

And from all accounts, she had spotted Gene, set her sights on Gene, and worn him down by simply being too lovable to resist. Anyone watching the two of them together could see how irretrievably enmeshed they were.

Vera watched the lovers too. For the past five years, she had tried hard not to be judgmental about her daughter's over-the-top lifestyle. Secretly she had despaired of Cora's reputation and prospects of ever marrying for love. The only visible candidates for mates had been shallow, greedy fortune hunters.

Frankly, she did not think that she or Thomas would have ever consented to any of the likely marriages, and Cora would have eloped, and eventually grown disgusted with her slacker of a husband, and there would be new lovers, and other doomed marriages, and never any chance at happiness.

And then came Gene, a pleasant-looking young man wearing a rumpled third-best suit to the Christmas party, and having the brass to snub his employer's spoiled daughter. And worse yet, the gall to turn down her best efforts to seduce him!

When Cora came home that Tuesday morning and started bitching about Gene, asking Thomas to fire him, but obviously not meaning it, was the first time that Vera had dared to have a glimmer of hope. In the long conversations that she had had with Cora throughout that long holiday period, the glimmer became a real hope. She had seen Gene at the party, of course, and had talked about him to Thomas. She had seen Cora leave with him, too.

She had listened with a growing smile to Cora's account of her bizarre evening of book reviewing, editorial evaluation, and failed seduction. And the bundling, of all things.

The whole tale had cemented Vera's intuitive hopes and feelings. She had very gently shepherded Cora though her own uncertainties to recognize that she had genuine feelings for Gene.

After that, knowing how resolute and single-minded Cora could be, she had taken it for granted that Gene would fall under her spell. He might be resistant to seduction, but this would be a different sort of campaign.

Watching them, she saw that they were each under the other's spell.

Just like she and Thomas had been, and still were.

They crossed the state line into New Hampshire after 6 PM with Cora and Gene snuggling in her car, while Vera and Thomas Crown hosted Marcus and Molly Tolliver in their big Lincoln.

As they drove through a small town near their destination, Gene got Cora to stop at a florist. He and Marcus went in and came out with a large bag that revealed nothing of its contents.

The wedding was brief and functional, and made quite unusual, for a self-styled elopement, by the presence of both sets of parents. Gene opened the bag and produced a floral bouquet for Cora, and similar ones plus corsages for his mother and mother-in-law- to-be. Vera loaned Gene her rings to put on Cora's finger. Thomas pledged to replace them as part of his wedding present to the two lovers.

Thomas reserved three sets of rooms in a nearby cozy inn. The two older couples had become so enthused about the nuptials and the strange bed and the aura of love that they both had nights of passion that hearkened back to earlier days of their marriages. Gene and Cora needed no additional incentives or motivation.

The three married couples all slept in the next day. Then they brunched together, and drove back down to White Plains, the Hamptons, and midtown Manhattan. The Crowns would not let the White Plains Tollivers out of their car until they agreed to spend the next weekend out on Long Island with their new in-laws. That was the beginning of a warm, friendly relationship between the two families.

Marcus' background in financial planning was helpful to Thomas Crown in his business and personal finances. Much of Gene's love of writing and literature had come from Marcus, whose great passion was reading. Thomas's life and experiences in the publishing business was fascinating stuff to the elder Mister Tolliver. They had many long weekend debates over the modern Hemingwayesque bald prose style versus the more descriptive Faulkner style. And several thousand other items in dispute.

To the men, Molly and Vera seemed to be able to converse endlessly about the relative merits of their children.

Cora and Gene settled into wedded bliss in her apartment, taking particular delight in recording her name change and adding his as a new occupant. Thomas Crown had readily rescinded his threat to cut Cora off. He continued to support his daughter in everything as before, understanding that they were engaged in a chancy enterprise with this publishing scheme of theirs. He reacted to the name Tolliver-Crown Publishers with amusement.

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On the Tuesday following the nuptials, Wolfe Webber sent a note up to Gene, asking to see him for lunch.

They met in the same restaurant as before.

"Geeze, Gene, I hate to have to admit it, but your revision of the beginning of River Gravers was much better than my original. I have a couple of places where I'd dispute some changes, and we can talk them out, but I'm one hundred per cent certain that you're the man I want to edit and publish River Gravers."

They shook hands over the agreement, and Gene said he'd have a contract and a payment to bind the deal by the weekend. Vera coaxed the Crown family lawyer to moonlight for her as a personal favor, and he developed a contract dictated by Cora to bind the deal.

Vera paid him for his services.

She also opened up Cora's trust for the money to pay Wolfe an advance and bind him to the contract. The amount should also cover the future costs of typesetting, printing, and binding.

Gene had developed a budget and insisted than the trust money contribution had to be moderate and made to last. When (he avoided saying "If") River Gravers first began to turn a profit, his half of the publisher's share would be used to pay back Cora's trust. He was still a bit sensitive to the notion that he had married Cora for her fortune.