A Few Right Thinking Men Read Free

you be dining in tonight, Master Rowly?” She addressed him as she had since he was a child.
    â€œI think so, Mary.” Rowland glanced at Edna. “But we should probably wait for Milton and Clyde. Ed, do you know where they are?”
    â€œI think they went to the pub,” she said. “Clyde’s been struggling with his commission, and Milton…well he just likes to drink.”
    Rowland smiled. “It might be a while, Mary.”
    She nodded and left the room, her face set and unreadable. Mr. Sinclair would not have approved of his son’s friends; of that, she was sure. He certainly would not have been happy that his home had become a shelter for all manner of shiftless artists and Communists. To Mary Brown, the terms were synonymous. Still, she had known Rowland since he was a baby. He had been a quiet, sensitive child, but she had thought him a good boy. She hoped he would see the error of his ways. In any case, it was not her place to say.
    â€œWhat are you doing tomorrow, Rowly?” Edna asked suddenly.
    â€œLunch with my uncle, at his club,” he replied, wondering what else she had in mind.
    â€œSounds frightful.”
    Rowland grinned. Edna objected to gentlemen’s clubs on principle. “Uncle Rowland likes it. It’s not that bad.”
    His Uncle Rowland, his namesake, was his father’s younger brother. He had never married and had spent much of his life travelling. An unrepentant and flamboyant hedonist, the elder Rowland Sinclair worked diligently at indulging in all the pleasures of life, with hardly a thought for anything else. It was not that he was unkind or intentionally indifferent. He just seemed to assume everyone had the same resources as he.
    â€œHe’s rather taken with you,” Rowland said, cringing a little as he remembered how outrageously his uncle had flirted with Edna on the few occasions they’d met. She could easily have been offended, but the sculptress had taken it in her stride, telling the elderly rogue that if she ever did decide to take up with a Sinclair, it would indeed be an old one.
    â€œHe’s a character,” Edna’s eyes twinkled. “You know, he doesn’t seem to be the least bit bothered about us all.” She could not imagine any of Rowland’s other relatives being so at ease with the manner in which he had turned their grand home into a luxurious artists’ commune.
    â€œI think he’s rather tickled that there’s someone else disgracing the family name,” Rowland replied.
    â€œYou’ll be finished by three, won’t you?” Edna ventured. “Even your uncle can’t eat for more than three hours…” She had become resigned to the fact that Rowland occasionally had to return to the world to which he was born.
    â€œI can be finished by three,” he said. “What do you need me for?”
    â€œThere’s a meeting tomorrow afternoon. At the Domain. We should go.”
    Rowland knew she meant a meeting of the Communist Party. He was not a Communist, neither was Edna, at least not officially. “Why?”
    â€œMorris is speaking,” she replied. “He’s very nervous—I’m sure he’d appreciate it if we were there.”
    Rowland had now met many Communists, Morris among them. The returned serviceman was sincere in his conviction and committed to his ideology, but he was no orator. The crowds at the Domain had grown during the harsh Depression years. The exchanges between the rousing speakers and the equally fervent hecklers were often so entertaining, that those who could no longer afford shows flocked there for amusement, if not enlightenment. As far as Rowland could tell, the local Communist Party had nothing to fill its agenda except for the impassioned speeches by its members. To date, Morris had avoided the duty, but with the Depression dragging on, and more people turning out, every Party member was required