Sincerely, Willis Wayde (54 page)

Yet words did have their value. Willis realized that he was being carried away by words, even as he belittled them.

“Basically,” Willis said, “it's the spirit and the inspiration behind words that count, and you have given me the spirit and inspiration. In fact, Mr. Harcourt—and I may as well face it—I drew every basic idea embodied in that report from our conversations. I only put your own thoughts into words.”

Willis smiled again at Mr. Bryson when he had finished, and he was glad to see that Mr. Bryson had followed him.

“That's awfully nice of you to say that, Willis,” he said, “and I understand what you mean. An older man can't help but have a few ideas, and it's very pleasant to have a bright fellow like you respect them.”

A generous kindliness suffused Willis. He had never felt so warmly disposed toward Mr. Bryson Harcourt.

“Of course I respect them,” Willis said, “and if you ever find I don't please put me in my place. I'm only here to help you, sir, and take routine details off your hands and I'm not forgetting for one minute, Mr. Harcourt, that you're boss of the works. When we get up to the house to lunch, I want everyone to know that I'm right behind you and not in front of you.”

Mr. Harcourt was obviously moved, and Willis was moved himself. They were friends standing shoulder to shoulder, and that was the way that Willis wanted it to be, up there at the stockholders' luncheon.

“Willis,” Mr. Harcourt said—and he had to stop to steady his voice—“you've always been true blue and a yard wide, but you mustn't be too modest, Willis.”

Willis laughed. It was nice to know that he could laugh affectionately with and at Mr. Bryson Harcourt.

“Don't worry about that,” Willis said. “I'll handle the modesty department, Mr. Harcourt.”

“I suppose I'll have to say a few words at lunch,” Mr. Harcourt said. “I've been up half the night trying to piece together some ideas. I wish I could speak like Father. He could always handle everything at those luncheons.”

“I know before I hear them that you're going to say some very gracious things,” Willis said, “and I know you'll agree with me that, after the report, you won't have to say too many, because you've really told them everything already.”

“By Jove,” Mr. Bryson said, “that's an idea, Willis. I suppose I could say just that to them at lunch.”

“I think you've hit on exactly the right note, sir,” Willis said, “and then you might say a little something about loyalty, or dedication, or something along those lines, but not too much.”

“That's right,” Mr. Bryson said. “By Jove, Willis, if you wouldn't mind I'd like to repeat what you just said about being here to help me and backing me up in every way. You see, I'll have to introduce you, Willis.”

“Do you really think that's necessary, sir?” Willis asked. “I admit I had thought of the possibility but I hadn't entirely envisaged it.”

This statement was only partially correct, for Willis, like Mr. Harcourt, had been thinking of a few words.

“Of course you'll have to say something, Willis,” Mr. Harcourt said. “After all, who had the idea of combining the Planeroid and Hartex lines? It was entirely yours, Willis.”

Willis sighed and squared his shoulders.

“If you think it's necessary, sir, of course I'll do it,” he said. “But do you mind if I ask you a little favor? Don't tell them that the Harcourt Associates was my idea. If you have to say anything, say what I told you about backing you up in every way, and let it go at that.”

There was a discreet knock on the door and Mr. Bryson looked questioningly at Willis.

“I guess that's about all there is, isn't it?” Mr. Bryson asked.

“Yes, sir,” Willis said quickly, “I think we're all quite clear.”

“Come in,” Mr. Bryson called. “What is it?”

The door to the secretary's room had opened and for a moment Willis expected to see Miss Jackman, but Miss Jackman had been retired for several years, and it was her understudy, Miss Nellie Bailey, who had been a year ahead of Willis at high school.

“The car's waiting, Mr. Harcourt,” Nellie Bailey said.

“Oh, thank you, Nellie,” Mr. Bryson answered. “You remember Mr. Wayde, don't you?”

At the age of thirty-three Willis was so young that faces lost from the ranks and new faces filling old formations did not move him as they did later. Still, at the Harcourt house it was hard to place some of the people he had previously known. Heads were grayer, bodies were more corpulent. Time had altered the features of the more-distant Harcourt relatives so that they looked like prints from an overexposed film, and Mr. Eldridge Harcourt was deaf as a post. In fact it was a tribute to Willis's memory that he hardly mistook anyone.

Mrs. Henry Harcourt and Mrs. Bryson Harcourt were both already in the hall receiving guests when he and Mr. Bryson arrived from the mill.

“Thank heaven you've got here finally, Bryson,” Mrs. Henry Harcourt said. “Don't you think Willis and Sylvia should stand here with us?”

Unexpected as the question was, Willis was able to answer very promptly.

“That's a most generous and lovely suggestion, Mrs. Harcourt,” he said, “but I honestly think this is the president's luncheon, and the emphasis should be entirely on the president.” He laughed because he wished his refusal to be as friendly as it was honest. “I'll go into the living room and help Bill and Bess pass appetizers.”

Then just before he reached the living room, Selwyn stopped him.

“There's a telegram for you, sir,” Selwyn said. “I took the liberty of taking it myself over the telephone. I hope you don't object.”

“Why, Selwyn,” Willis said, “I'm proud to have you take any telegram.”

Still smiling, he opened the paper that Selwyn handed him.

“Browning place yours at your price,” he read. “Congratulations, boy. Lever.”

It was one of those days when everything broke all at once. Willis never had dreamed that anyone would take his low offer. It would be a surprise for Sylvia, and now there was no immediate opportunity to tell her, right in the middle of everything.

The moment Willis entered the living room he saw that Sylvia was safely back. She looked very well indeed in the second suit, of natural linen, that she had bought at Bergdorf's, and she looked very happy as she stood talking to Bill and Mr. Roger Harcourt.

“Oh, there you are, Willis,” she called. “We were wondering what under the sun had become of you.”

Willis wished very much she had not called across the room when he saw faces turning toward him, but all he could do was hurry toward her, smiling like a devoted husband.

“So you got back all right, did you, honey?” he asked. “Did Bess show you all the sights?”

“I wish you'd been with us, darling,” Sylvia said. “We were looking at some perfectly wonderful old houses by the river. We've been having a lovely time.”

“I'm delighted to hear it, sweetness,” Willis said, and immediately included Mr. Roger Harcourt in the conversation. “I gather you didn't visit the plant, Mr. Harcourt?”

“I'm too fat to be wandering around,” Mr. Roger said, “and in that connection, do you remember what the Chinese Ambassador once said at a Washington party when he was asked if he did not want to dance?”

“Why, no,” Willis answered, and he assumed an air of happy anticipation. “What did he say, Mr. Harcourt?”

“He said,” Mr. Roger answered, “why should he dance himself if he could pay someone to do it for him?”

Willis laughed with genuine amusement. It was a very good story, and one that he could write down in his notebook of anecdotes.

“That's a lovely story,” Willis said. “I never heard that one before.”

“I'm glad to have contributed to your education, Willis,” Mr. Harcourt said. “You get my point, don't you? Why should I walk through the fumes and noise of the mill when I'm paying you to do it for me?”

“I certainly do get your point, Mr. Ambassador,” Willis said, and he laughed again, on a diminishing key. “Seriously, that's an anecdote I'm going to treasure, Mr. Harcourt.”

“Listen, Willis,” Mr. Roger said, “I wish you'd get off this Mister business and call me Roger, now that it looks as though we're going to see a lot of each other.”

Willis had never seen Mr. Roger in such a completely genial mood, and as soon as Mr. Roger looked at Sylvia, Willis knew the reason for it. Anyone who said a wife wasn't a help in business was wrong, dead wrong.

“Why, I'd be greatly honored, Roger,” Willis said.

“Now get along and mingle with everyone,” Mr. Roger said, “and allow me to entertain your wife. Why should I mingle with everyone when I can pay you to do it for me?”

Nearly all the luncheon guests were standing in watchful groups drinking cocktails or sampling the claret punch in the green Canton bowl that stood on a long table near the terrace windows. They sipped their drinks like connoisseurs, seemingly comparing their quality with the memory of other drinks they had consumed previously in the Harcourt house.

Willis was glad that Bill stuck by him when he greeted the Haywards and some of the others, and he was gladder still when Bess joined them.

“You've got to talk to Aunt Ruth,” she said. “She's over near the fireplace.”

“You mean Mrs. Blood?” Willis said.

“Yes, she came at the last minute,” Bess said. “No one ever knows exactly what she's going to say.”

Willis had been careful to make inquiries regarding Mrs. Blood, and he had been sorry to hear that she was not in good health, though this was to be expected, considering her age. She was really quite a wonderful sight, sitting near the fireplace like a living portrait, the last of the old line. She sat, disdaining the back of the stiff chair she had selected. Her face, always reminiscent of Mr. Henry Harcourt's, was no more sallow or lined than Willis had remembered it, and her white plume of hair was done in its old pompadour. Willis had been told that Mrs. Blood's memory was not what it used to be, but obviously she was still aware of her own importance, as she received the compliments of the guests.

“You remember Willis Wayde, don't you, Aunt Ruth?” Bess asked.

When Mrs. Blood's tired old eyes gazed at him, Willis remembered the evening he had first met her, his own first evening on the Harcourt place.

“Of course I remember Willis Wayde,” she said. “How you've grown, Willis.”

He could only make the best of the startled looks around him, and answer before anyone could interrupt.

“I suppose I have,” he said, “at least I hope I have, in some ways, Mrs. Blood.”

“I know you've been away,” Mrs. Blood said, “at school or somewhere,” and then without a pause her mind was back in the present. “I'm very glad you're back to take care of the mill,” she said. “Bryson is incapable and Bill has no ability. Bess should have been the boy of course. It's the only wise thing that Bryson has done in years, getting you back.”

If only from embarrassment none of the group around Mrs. Blood's chair could help laughing.

“You certainly ticked us all off, Auntie,” Bill said.

“In any event, Mrs. Blood,” Willis said hastily, “it is a great pleasure and an honor to be back and a greater pleasure to see that you are ticking us all off, as Bill puts it.”

A minute later Willis crossed the room to say a word to Mr. Decker. Willis's high opinion of him had increased during the negotiations. In spite of being in his late seventies, Mr. Decker was very alert indeed.

“Well, Willis,” Mr. Decker said, “so you and I have joined forces again to look out for the family.” He paused and coughed. “You remember Steve, don't you? I've been divesting myself of a little property, and Steve is a stockholder now.”

Willis had not observed Steve Decker, because Steve had been standing a step or two behind his father. Now Steve moved forward in a cynical way. If there was one thing Willis hated, it was cynicism.

“Hello, Steve,” Willis said. “What have you been doing all these years?”

“Nothing to write home about,” Steve said, “but then I've been home so I don't have to write—just in my father's law office.”

“Not married or anything?” Willis asked. Neither he nor Steve Decker had the slightest interest in each other, but still they had to talk.

“The girls seem to shy away from me,” Steve said.

“Sylvia's up here with me,” Willis said. “I hope you've had a chance to say a few words to her.”

“Oh yes,” Steve Decker said. “She's looking very well. Congratulations on that and on setting the world on fire and everything, Willis.”

It was a relief when Mr. Bryson interrupted them. Luncheon was ready, and Willis was to sit between Mrs. Bryson and Mrs. Henry Harcourt, which meant that no great conversational effort was required. It was only necessary to say that the dining room had never looked more beautiful, which was true. There were few dining rooms in existence with a green Canton dinner service, and there were not many sets of heavy-cut champagne glasses left in the world either. Except for his approaching speech, the worst of the day was over. He was able to enjoy the clear soup and the fresh asparagus and the dry champagne. When Mr. Bryson rose to speak, Willis finished his glass carefully, and he was pleased when Selwyn refilled it, because he would be glad to have a little more when the speaking was over.

Willis listened with great attention to Mr. Bryson and honestly admired his measured manner.

“It has been the custom,” Mr. Bryson said, “for the president of this company, after welcoming our guests, as I do now, to say a few words. On this occasion they need be very few, because I have said what there was to say in my report to you this morning.

“I only have one additional remark before I offer you a toast. After the meeting I had the occasion to talk for a few moments to one of your employees. All he wants, he told me, is to have our enterprise succeed, and then he added that he would always stand loyally behind me. Knowing him, I have learned to accept his loyalty and integrity as axiomatic. It is with more reluctance that I accept his modesty. I ask you for a rising toast to our new vice president, Mr. Willis Wayde.”