Sincerely, Willis Wayde (60 page)

“That's fine, son,” P. L. Nagel said. “I like the way you put it. We both of us are servants to our stockholders, and I counted on you being loyal.”

Willis paused for a moment before he answered. It was growing late but the mockingbird was still singing.

“I merely wanted to make this clear, P.L.,” he said, “because there was one part of your offer to me personally which I do not like. I refer to my future in the Simcoe Company. I hate to say a hard word but I'm afraid I must, P.L. That offer sounds to me somewhat like a bribe, an inducement to facilitate the sale of my company and perhaps to forget certain loyalties and obligations. I'm not saying you meant this, P.L., but it's the way it sounded. I want you to know in a very friendly way that you can't bribe me in that manner.”

Willis looked at P.L. steadily, and P.L. set down his glass. For a moment their glances met, but Willis did not allow his to waver for an instant, because it was a time for absolute sincerity.

“Why, son,” P.L. said, and his voice was surprised and sad, “I guess I'm getting to be mighty clumsy. I like straight shooting as much as you do. I never intended any ulterior motive in that personal offer to you—none whatsoever. I want you as president of Simcoe because you're the best man your age in belting and because I love you—yes, I love you—for the honest things you've said and for the very lovely and fine way you've presented them.” P. L. Nagel pushed himself up from his chair. “And now if I may use your toilet, son, I think we had better prepare to go down to the banquet, and suppose we meet in my room at ten o'clock tomorrow morning and go on with this little talk. And now let's shake hands, and no hard feelings, because I really love you, son.”

As Willis often said later, the admiration he felt for P. L. Nagel was always pretty close to hero worship. When they shook hands, everything in their relationship reached a new high and all sorts of doubts were gone from Willis's mind. Although nothing was settled at all, a good deal appeared to have been, and Willis was at peace with himself.

It was strange to think that an hour before he had not imagined he would be in the position he now occupied. When he walked down the broad staircase of the Carolina beside P. L. Nagel into the wave of voices that rose from the Production Liners filing into the banquet room, Willis could almost believe that he was already an integral part of Simcoe Rubber Hose and Belting. Nothing at all was settled, but he was already wondering how much he ought to tell Sylvia and how Sylvia might react to moving to Lake Forest. It was ridiculous to let his imagination run away with him, because the whole thing might evaporate into thin air, but Willis was already thinking of what he should say to Mrs. Bryson Harcourt and to Bess and Bill in order to put the situation into an agreeable light.

The halls of the Carolina Hotel were ringing already with the song which P. L. Nagel, good old P.L., had rendered already in the suite upstairs:

Nothing could be finer

For an old Production Liner

Than the Hotel Carolina

In the morning.

Aspirin and coffee

Coming in the door

And you only have to holler

To get some more,

If you're an old Production Liner

In the Hotel Carolina

In the morning.

There was one thing of which Willis was positive. If these things came to pass—and every moment he felt more and more sure that they would—he would do everything to keep the Harcourt Mill in operation, out of loyalty to old memories. He could see its buildings in his memory, ugly individually but combined into a fine progression. He thought of Mr. Henry Harcourt's office and its hard chairs and its portraits and the coal fireplace. Willis had come close to forgetting what a warm spot he had in his heart for the Harcourt Mill. He certainly would do everything he could—within reason—to keep it in operation.

XXVI

Willis was not a believer in elation, because elation was an emotional state which clouded judgment. He was not elated when he returned home to Orange after the Production Liners Convocation. There had been time to sort facts and to file them in back of his mind so that he could face the immediate problems which he naturally found waiting for him after a few days' absence from the New York office. In fact he went through the whole business day exactly as though there were no prospects of a merger between Harcourt Associates and Simcoe Rubber Hose and Belting. Still, in back of his thoughts, resting like a handsome balance in the bank, lay the final impressions of his conversations with P. L. Nagel. They had passed out of the zone of agreement in principle to tentative agreements on certain basic facts. It was rewarding to remember that they both had seen the central core of every problem almost simultaneously, but then as P. L. Nagel had said, minds in the high brackets were generally congenial.

If Willis was not elated when he returned to Orange, he could hardly blame himself for having a feeling of well-being and of achievement. After all, like everyone else who had to start with nothing—and this was a proper way, the American way, for anyone to start—Willis had been striving for security. No matter how well things had gone in the last few years, there was always the besetting worry as to what might happen if death or accident should suddenly remove him. Could anyone else taking over Harcourt Associates keep up the level of earnings? Willis could see a gloomy picture of decline, of dividends falling off and of Sylvia and the children suffering the pinch. Everything was different now that an offer had been made for Harcourt Associates in tangible figures. Once the deal was consummated there would be no need to worry. If he wished to sell his common stock once it was converted into Simcoe, he would be rich enough to retire, not that he had the slightest wish to do so.

Without being elated or dazzled he had to admit that these prospects made him happy. The best of it was that they were fruits of his own labor. No matter what credit he might give to the fine team at Harcourt, it was due to his leadership that Harcourt was where it was. The haste and rush of years were not wasted and he was about to reap a just reward. He could not blame himself for being very happy when he got out of the taxicab at Waydeholm.

Al and Paul were playing catch out on the lawn. It seemed to Willis that they had grown even during his short absence from home. They were very handsome boys. They had their mother's features but their yellow hair reminded Willis of his own when he was their age. Besides being handsome, they were real sturdy boys and they looked as though they were going to make good athletes. They dropped their mitts and ran to meet him, and a lump rose in Willis's throat. After all, he had not let them down.

“Hello,” he said. “How about helping me wrassle with this luggage, fellers? And let's see if we can find Mommy and Louise.”

The whole house never had looked better. Dogwood and paper-white narcissus decorated the hall. The really beautiful claw-and-ball-foot table he had bought to stand under the Chippendale mirror was freshly waxed, and the tall clock at the end of the hall, which he had bought at the Parke-Bernet Gallery after very brisk bidding, gave balance to everything around it. After all, acquiring good pieces of antique furniture really was the same as putting money in the bank, provided you could keep the children from doing damage. Right at that moment Paul was leaning on the arm of the end chair that flanked the claw-and-ball-foot table.

“Remember what I said, son,” Willis told him. “You mustn't do that with good furniture. You've got to learn to respect good furniture.”

“Okay,” Paul said. “Sorry.” There was no doubt they were both fine boys with very good manners.

“Besides, boys,” Willis said, “you've always got the rumpus room downstairs.”

Then Sylvia came out of the dining room and kissed him, and Carl, the colored houseman, came to get his bags, and Louise and Miss Farquahr appeared on the stair landing.

“Daddy,” Louise called, “Daddy!” She had dark hair like her mother, and her eyes were shining. It was ridiculous, of course, to say that Louise was like a little princess, but still that was how she looked.

The whole scene in the hallway added up to something that was greater than any good news, because without a happy home, everything else was pretty hollow.

“Hello,” he called to Louise, “my darling little pussykins.” Then he added in a very cordial way, “And it's nice to see you, Miss Farquahr.”

“Did you have a good time at Pinehurst, dear?” Sylvia asked him.

Somehow wives always thought that conventions were only intended to supply a good time.

“There was a fine crowd, honey, and fine papers and discussions,” Willis said, “but frankly I'm a little tired, and now if you'll all forgive me I think I'll go up and shower and get into a pair of slacks.”

“The boys want to show you their garden,” Sylvia said, “and Louise has a garden too, with radishes.”

“Well, well,” Willis said, “yum, yum, radishes.”

“Maybe you'd like to have Carl bring us cocktails on the terrace, dear,” Sylvia said. “It's such a nice warm day.”

Willis was aware of a slight headache, although nothing that a cold shower would not cure.

“Let's make it a little tonic water, dear,” he said. “I'm pretty well cocktailed out for the moment.”

He laughed and kissed Sylvia again and started up the stairs. It was amusing to remember that Sylvia had once been appalled by the size of the house, while now she was finding it difficult to discover a suitable place to hang the Winslow Homer he had given her for her birthday. The clothes closet in his dressing room was too small, and the two guest rooms might easily have been more gracious. He was thinking of a house made to his own order and of the fun he and Sylvia might have poring over the blueprints. It was a daydream, perhaps, but if they moved out to Chicago, as they undoubtedly would if he accepted P. L. Nagel's offer, that daydream became a real possibility.

Dinner was wonderful—green-turtle soup and guinea hen—and Sylvia had brought up a bottle of Veuve Cliquot from the cellar, to celebrate, she said, his safe return. If you had lived in a place long enough, there could not help but be memories, and memories crowded around Willis in the dining room. The chairs, the pedestal table, and the sideboard all brought memories of how he and Sylvia had searched for these objects. After all, good silver and furniture were money in the bank.

“I suppose I should have asked you,” Sylvia said, “whether you wanted a rough-and-tumble family supper, but I guessed you'd rather have the children with Miss Farquahr in the nursery. I thought you might be tired after—what was the name of the convention that you went to, dear?”

“The Production Liners, sweetness,” Willis said, and he smiled at her through the candlelight.

“Darling,” she said, “I have a confession to make—a reluctant sort of confession.”

“A confession, honey?” Willis asked, and he was aware of a slight discomfort, because you could never tell about confessions.

“Yes,” Sylvia said, “I thought you'd like to know that I'm getting so used to this house that I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. I'm even getting used to calling it Waydeholm. My spirit must be broken or something, darling.”

Willis raised his champagne glass to her. Her speech upset him but it still called for some sort of gesture.

“Well, well,” he said, “congratulations, sweetness, and how about having coffee in the library after we've kissed the kids good night?”

“We can kiss Louise and Paul,” Sylvia said, “but you keep forgetting that Al goes to bed an hour later.”

“Gosh,” Willis said, and he shook his head, “I do have a lot of things to remember, honey.”

“But then I forgot,” Sylvia said. “The Crosby boy asked Al over to his house for the night. I wouldn't have accepted if I had been sure you were coming back today.”

“Why, that's all right, honey,” Willis said. “In fact it's just as well, because I have a real budget of news for you—news that I hope is going to give you the same sort of thrill that it's giving me.”

The library was a room of which he and Sylvia were justly proud. It was well-proportioned, with a beautiful open fireplace and mantel, and it was furnished with English armchairs still in their original leather. There was a Kermanshah rug for floor covering, one of the most beautiful Willis had ever seen, unobtrusive in design and with soft colors matching the window curtains and the waxed pine paneling. There was also the flat desk of the General Grant period, which had been with them ever since his New York apartment. It served to give the room the informal, unstudied appearance that reminded him of the rooms in the big house on the Harcourt place, and the Persian rug itself was worn, and this too reminded him of the Harcourt rugs. It was what you might call a cultivated, lived-in library.

Usually when they were alone Willis was content with nothing but a small cup of Sanka, but since he had some really important news to impart to Sylvia, he had Carl bring in liqueurs.

“Brandy, sweetness?” he asked Sylvia.

“Oh, I don't think so, dear,” Sylvia said. “I don't want anything, really, but if you want me to keep you company I'll have a little
crème de menthe
.”

“Well, as I've said before, but I'll repeat, sweetness,” Willis said, “it's great to get home. I hope everything's been going all right.”

“Oh yes,” Sylvia said. “I don't think I told you over the telephone that Al was almost selected as Toby Tyler in the parish-hall play.”

“Well, that's fine,” Willis said. “It makes me feel good, dear, that the kids are beginning to take their place in the community.”

“I know it, darling,” Sylvia said, “but you don't have to keep on saying it. We are a real integrated part of the community, but what with Open House Week for the church and everything, do you think I still have to be on the program committee for the League of Women Voters?”