Sincerely, Willis Wayde (48 page)

When Gilbert Bakeliss entered the Harvard Club at twelve-thirty precisely, Willis was able to meet him with this new naturalness. Gil Bakeliss was in his middle forties, and his business suit—a dark gray flannel—though correct in every detail, hung in a studied careless manner. The wear and tear of competition had only sharpened Gil's aquiline features, making them more alert and intelligent. He could afford, like Willis, to be natural and the bridge of years between them was not disturbing.

This is a nice thought of yours to ask me here,” Gil Bakeliss said. “Frequently when I enter this place I wish I had been a Harvard man.”

“I always have the same wish myself, Gil,” Willis said. “Would you care to visit the bar before we go to the dining room?”

Willis asked this last question in a most tentative manner, because he never dreamed that Gil would touch a drop of anything in the middle of the day.

“Let's see,” Gil said. “The meeting I was to attend this afternoon was called off. Under the circumstances I should like a Martini, just in the nature of a celebration after what you and I have been through together.”

This was a compliment and Willis knew it. A man like Gil Bakeliss would never have taken a Martini on a business day without a very good reason.

“I'm awfully glad to hear you say that, Gil,” Willis said. “And it will be great fun to join you.”

Willis smiled at the barkeeper.

“Two Martinis, please, very dry,” he said. “That is, if that's all right with you, Gil? I'm somewhat of a fanatic on the subject of dry Martinis.”

Neither of them spoke as they watched the barman fill the glasses.

“Well, here's to Harcourt Associates,” Gil said.

“Thank you, Gil,” Willis answered. “That is something I can drink to with genuine enthusiasm.”

“How was Mr. Roger Harcourt last evening?” Gil Bakeliss asked.

Willis was listening carefully for any change of tone.

“He was very mellow last night, for Mr. Roger,” Willis said.

Gil Bakeliss took a small sip of his Martini.

“I suppose it's
lèse-majesté
to speak disparagingly of one of your substantial stockholders,” Gil said, “but I have very seldom seen anyone whose personality was so annoying.”

They were obviously on a very pleasant and friendly basis, and they said a few words about everyone else—Mr. Tremaine, Mr. Bolsen, Mr. Decker, Mr. Bryson Harcourt—before they reached the dining room.

“It isn't every day I entertain a banker,” Willis said, and he laughed. “I need hardly say we'll sit at a table and have the food passed to us, shall we? Instead of getting it ourselves?”

At the beginning of lunch talk turned to the war in Europe. It was surprising to Willis that people like Gil Bakeliss should worry about the war, not for business but for purely personal reasons. One explanation of this, Willis supposed, was that many men in the Bakeliss age group had participated in the last war, and memories and old reactions clouded their perspective.

“The trouble seems to be,” Willis said, “that the Allies don't seem to have many tanks.”

He was sure he was on firm ground when he advanced this idea because he had read it that very morning in the
New York Times
.

“I don't know whether that's so or not,” Gil Bakeliss said, “but you can't tell me that the French haven't made as good a study of this so-called mechanized warfare as the Boche. But don't discount the French.”

“That's what my wife keeps saying,” Willis said. “Sylvia's crazy about France. She spent a winter in Paris once.”

“You never forget it if you've lived there,” Gil said. “Well, let's talk about something more cheerful.” He glanced at Willis and his expression changed. “It seems to me you ought to be pretty well pleased about this Harcourt Associates thing, Willis.”

It was a time to display restraint, because anyone who was too pleased about anything aroused opposition.

“Well, it was my baby in the beginning,” Willis said, “so maybe I'm prejudiced. I hope this is just a start, that's all.”

When Gil Bakeliss glanced at him again, Willis was sure he had said the right thing.

“Well,” Gil said, “maybe they don't know it yet, but you're running the whole show.”

“Oh, come now, Gil,” Willis said, “I wouldn't say that exactly.”

“Perhaps not exactly,” Gil Bakeliss said. “And you made a nice deal in the common stock.”

“Well,” Willis said, “neither Harcourt nor Rahway common has paid a dividend for years. It's just a gamble, Gil.”

Gil Bakeliss smiled.

“If there's any more lying around loose, I should think you'd want to buy it,” he said. “I wouldn't mind owning a bit myself.”

It was clever of Gil to put his finger on the stock, because it was the heart of the situation. Gil Bakeliss must have been wondering why Willis had asked him to lunch.

“I'm glad you brought that point up,” Willis said.

Gil Bakeliss did not laugh, but his expression was amused.

“I had an idea you might be,” he said, and he put the tips of his fingers together and looked at Willis. “Do you know if there is any common stock floating around for sale?”

“Well, frankly,” Willis said, “I think I know where there is quite a little. You remember Mrs. Jacoby's interest, don't you, Gil? Of course she relinquished some of her shares, as others did, to induce me to remain with the management. Everybody was most kind that way, but I think she has some more.”

It was beautiful to see how accurately Gil Bakeliss did business.

“If you think she'll sell I'd buy,” Gil said. “I don't know what she'd want for them, but you ought to be able to figure some sort of price.”

A time for frankness always arrived in any sort of interview, and there was no doubt any longer that the time was there; and yet one could be frank without being flat-footed.

“Mrs. Jacoby's not interested in things at Rahway any longer,” Willis said, “not since the death of her husband. I wish you could have known Mr. Jacoby, Gil. He was quite a character. I think she would rather like me to have those shares. There's only one great difficulty.”

He paused, and Gil Bakeliss smiled again.

“How much money do you think it would take, Willis?” he asked.

The way that bankers spoke of money was always interesting. They made it seem like any available commodity, and after all it was.

“I don't exactly know, Gil,” Willis said, “and the question's merely academic for anyone in my position. I only wish …”

He paused and shook his head in a defeated way.

“It's funny how people begin wishing as soon as they get near a bank,” Gil said. “How much do you wish?”

Willis's instinct told him it was not the time to set a figure. He smiled and shook his head again.

“That isn't the point, Gil,” he said. “I was wishing that Harcourt Associates' common stock would be decent collateral for a bank loan, but of course it isn't.”

The cards were on the table now, and there was one of those indecisive moments when everything was in balance, but in a second it was over.

“Now, Willis,” Gil Bakeliss said. “It happens that we're interested—in a small academic way, of course—in Harcourt Associates. Why else do you think I came over here for lunch?”

XXII

Sylvia, as she sometimes told Willis, had graduated with honors from Radcliffe, and therefore she could add, subtract, and multiply without his having to tell her how to do it. Willis was the first to admit the agility of Sylvia's mind, and yet sometimes he was not sure whether Sylvia had ever understood fully what had happened to them both when Harcourt Associates was formed. Once he had spent a whole evening explaining to her the complementary qualities of Planeroid and Hartex belting. Willis knew that he was eloquent and accurate whenever he preached the union of Planeroid and Hartex, but when he had presented his thoughts to Sylvia, his words fell like twigs upon a passive pool, leaving scarcely a sympathetic ripple. Sylvia must have known, because he had told her again and again, that the 15 per cent of the common stock which had been allotted to him when the Harcourt Mill absorbed the Rahway Belt had only a nominal value at present. If, however, the stock eventually increased in value, they might finally have quite a lot of money. She must have understood this, but even when she saw Harcourt Associates Common grow in years to come until it paid dividends and split itself into parts like the amoeba, she showed no marked elation. The truth was that Sylvia, like everybody else, had certain intellectual blind spots. In this regard Willis had to admit that he felt a twinge of disappointment in Sylvia's reaction when he returned late in the afternoon to Orange after his luncheon with Gil Bakeliss at the New York Harvard Club.

It was half past five before Willis reached the house in Orange. Holding his suitcase, he paused on the front path and looked at the brown shingles and at the Indian pipe that was beginning to leaf on the porch. It was May, and the season in Orange was considerably more advanced than that in Boston. There was that note of promise, that note of hope, that always comes with spring. The house had never looked better and yet it had never seemed so impermanent. It was high time that they moved into a more spacious neighborhood, especially after his talk with Gil Bakeliss.

Still he was fond of the old house because of the many pleasant memories that clustered around it, but everyone grew out of everything, particularly houses. When the front door closed behind him, Willis understood that the house was typically young-married, filled with little pretensions and hopes but not with real solidity. It was far too small. They needed a couple and a nurse. They were out of the one-maid bracket now.

“Yoo hoo,” Willis called. “Yoo hoo, honey.”

As it was half past five he shouted his greeting up the stairs, where Sylvia would be bathing Paul, and where Al would be playing in what was called the nursery. He was surprised when Sylvia answered him from the kitchen.

“Oh,” she called, “is that you, Willis?”

Willis had to laugh at her question.

“No, honey,” he called, “it's the president of the Aluminum Company of America.”

He even made his voice sound like the imaginary voice of the president of the Aluminum Company of America, but Sylvia did not catch the spirit of it.

“Well, now you're home,” she called, “come here and help me, or we won't get any supper.”

Sylvia was in the kitchen looking hot and tired. Her sleeves were rolled up and she was wearing one of Margaret's aprons, which did not give her the appealing look of the little housewife in the movies. The table was covered with mixing bowls and pans and there was a heap of dishes in the sink.

“Why, honey,” he said, and he kissed her, “where under the sun is Margaret?”

It was a natural question to ask and he was sorry that it made Sylvia impatient.

“She left at three o'clock for good. She was cross about cutting up Al's chop. She said it was Miss Farquahr's work or my work, but not her work.”

“But we haven't got Miss Farquahr now, honey,” Willis said.

“I called her, and we've got her for a day or two,” Sylvia answered. “Thank heavens she just left a case. She's going to stay until we get someone new in the kitchen.”

It was perfectly all right to have Miss Farquahr, but it did not seem fair to have all this happen on top of the good news he was bringing.

“I'll tell you what we'll do, honey,” Willis said. “We'll just leave everything, and you and I will hop in the car and go somewhere for a bite to eat. Frankly, I'm just bursting with a lot of things I want to tell you.”

“Oh, Willis,” Sylvia said, “you know we can't possibly go anywhere. I have to get supper for Miss Farquahr and Al.”

“Now, wait a minute,” Willis said. “Why can't Miss Farquahr throw something together for herself and Al?”

“Of course she can't, Willis,” Sylvia said. “She's a trained, not a practical, nurse, and besides she has to bathe Paul and Al and besides …”

“Besides what?” Willis asked.

“Besides, you know very well I have to give Paul his supper at seven o'clock.”

“Well, anyway,” Willis said, and he laughed at the idea, “you and I won't have to cook Paul's supper.”

“I wish you wouldn't try to be so funny about Paul,” Sylvia said. “Really, a little goes a long way, Willis.”

“Now, honey,” Willis said, “I won't say anything more about Paul, and I'm going to help you with the dishes and everything. It was silly of me to think that we should go anywhere in the car, but I do have one suggestion.”

“All right,” Sylvia said, “I don't mind suggestions, if they're sensible, darling.”

After all, it was nice to be home, even if everything was in disorder.

“You'll be crazy about this one, honey,” Willis said, “and it's very simple too. Before we do anything more about supper you take off that apron, go and get the cocktail things and I'll get some ice and we'll have a quiet Martini just to celebrate.”

“To celebrate what?” Sylvia asked.

“Why, my being vice president of Harcourt Associates, darling,” Willis said, “and several other things. Just take off that apron.”

“I don't know whether it would be very good for Paul,” Sylvia said.

“Just exactly what has Paul got to do with it?” Willis asked.

“I wish I didn't have to underline everything,” Sylvia said. “I told you I was giving Paul his supper at seven o'clock, and I don't know whether a Martini would be good for him.”

Willis had to laugh in spite of himself.

“Listen, honey,” he said, “have you asked Castlebar whether Paul will get soused because you take a Martini? I'd really like to know, honey.”