PART FOURCRISIS
To comprehend the deliberate sacrifice which Peter Jameson made for the cause of humanity, it is essential that you should realize both the man and the offering he brought. It was not, primarily, the sacrifice of money, but the giving-up of a great ambition. For money, regarded purely as the purchase price of material comfort, he cared very little. As a spender, he had small sympathy with the exotic luxury of his time. His amusements were essentially simple—a gun, a trout-rod, a horse, a good glass of wine. All these, he might have possessed without working.
But Peter had been picked up, while still a boy, into the fascinating game of business; and in that game he had found both work (which was vital to his temperament) and enjoyment. His personal qualities—resoluteness, concentration on the immediate job, a certain creative instinct, clear thinking, moral courage and a controlled imagination—fitted him eminently for the sport of commerce.
Nirvana Limited, which would have been to the average individual merely a machine for the making of an income, represented to Peter Jameson—at the outbreak of war—the ultimate aim in life. He loved that business, not only for the sake of what it might eventually bring him, but for itself. He loved it, like a good gardener loves his garden, as much for the labour as for the result. He had seen it grow, in six years, from starved plant to a goodly tree—fruit almost ripe for the plucking. He felled that tree deliberately, in cold blood, under no compulsion save that of his own soul. And he waved no flags to console him for the felling!
For the man was, despite the admixture of Miraflores strain, an Anglo-Saxon: responded—though he knew it not—to the blind spirit of that race which came out of Italy through France, welded itself to dour Saxon and berserk Viking, and so spread, fighting always but always fighting as an ultimate issue for Independence, to Virginia and Quebec, to the Falkland Islands and the Hebrides, to South Africa and Australasia; till it became—scarcely conscious of its own oneness—the final arbiter in the great world-struggle of Decency against the filthy doctrines of the Beasts in Gray.
And behind the man, equally resolute, equally blind to the spirit which moved her, stood Patricia, the Anglo-Saxon woman—thoroughbred, unflinching.
England’s declaration of war did not make Peter Jameson “burn to avenge gallant little Belgium,” or eager, in the phraseology of the period, “to do his bit.” His commercial position was too damned awkward for the indulgence of any such sentiments.
He left Wargrave at ten o’clock on the morning of August the fifth; and reached the outskirts of London in forty-five minutes. Then he gave the wheel to Murray, and began to think. Throughout, his hand had been perfectly steady at the throttle, his foot firm on the accelerator. Their speed had averaged forty miles an hour.
Behind him, in the tonneau, sat Francis Gordon, acting as always on inspiration rather than reason, decision already reached. Francis Gordon talked to himself, under his breath: first in Dutch and then in German. He was testing, not his knowledge of those languages, but his accent. “Ich kann es tun. Ich bin einer der einzigen die es tun konnen,” he muttered. Then he began to recite, very slowly and almost inaudibly, the first speech from Schiller’s Republican Tragedy:
Leonora. “Nichts mehr. Nichts mehr. Kein Wort mehr.Es ist am Tag.”[1]
Leonora. “Nichts mehr. Nichts mehr. Kein Wort mehr.Es ist am Tag.”[1]
Leonora. “Nichts mehr. Nichts mehr. Kein Wort mehr.
Es ist am Tag.”[1]
Peter was not talking to himself; had reached no decision. His brain went over the salient facts of the situation; weighing them up. Discarding details. Selecting essentials. The Jameson-Beckmann problem must wait. How would Nirvana be affected? Home-trade, for the moment at any rate, would collapse. The export-business might hold up. Might. Probably wouldn’t. Remained the fact that if the worst came to the worst he stood to loose seventeen thousand pounds. . . . After all, people must smoke. Wars didn’t last for ever. Could he see the thing through? Financially? . . .
“London & Joint Stock Bank, Pall Mall,” he said to the chauffeur.
They swirled through Piccadilly; nipped round past the Ritz; slowed down St. James’ Street; and pulled up.
“Afraid I can’t lend you the car, old man,” said Peter. “I shall want it all day. Are you coming down again to-night?”
“No,” answered Francis. “Prout’s bringing up my things on the afternoon train.” He stepped out of the tonneau; brushed himself carefully; and walked off down Pall Mall. Peter, telling Murray to wait, climbed the flat steps to the glass doors of the Bank. They were closed: but his knock brought a commissionaire, who recognized him; opened them.
“No business today, sir,” said the commissionaire.
“Manager in?” asked Peter.
“Yes, sir.”
“Ask him if he’ll see me.”
The Bank, always quiet, seemed—that morning—like a tomb. Clerks bent over their ledgers; lights burned: but no customers waited at the iron-grilled counters, no sovereigns clinked in the brass shovels.
“Step this way, sir,” said the commissionaire.
Peter followed him across the stone floor, through the glass doorway into the manager’s parlour—soft-carpeted, lavishly furnished with dark mahogany and saddle-bag chairs.
Mr. Davis, the branch-manager, was a gray-bearded man with the clothes of a prince and the manners of a diplomat. As a West End Branch, “Pall Mall” did not seek mercantile business. They had taken the Nirvana account, officially, “to oblige their old client Mr. Jameson, whose private account they had handled for so many years.” This courtesy had not gone as far as a reduction in their usual rates of interest!
“Good morning, Mr. Jameson. I half expected you.” Mr. Davis rose; shook hands. “Won’t you take a seat?”
“Thanks. I came to ask you about the financial position. This war, you know. The papers talk about a moratorium. I understand that to mean a suspension of credit. . . .”
“Only in extreme cases, Mr. Jameson. Only in extreme cases. Of course, we are not desirous, at the moment, of increasing facilities. We are, if I may use the expression, sitting on the fence. But my directors—I have a letter from them before me now—are anxious for me to impress on all our clients, that they do not anticipate any financial crisis. Measures, as I am given to believe, have been taken; temporary expedients adopted; by which. . . .” He went on to explain them, at some length.
“Then I take it,” said Peter, “that on the resumption of banking-business. . . .”
“Matters will be exactly as they were a week ago.” Mr. Davis rose again, shook hands, made his point courteously. “Naturally, Mr. Jameson, as Nirvana Limited will not be under the necessity of making payments, they will not require any addition to the overdraft which you have guaranteed for them.”
“Of course not,” said Peter. The interview had turned out according to anticipation. If Nirvana wanted any more money, it would have to be found in cash.
He stood for a moment on the steps of the Bank. London had not altered in a night. The straight aristocratic thoroughfare seemed a little busier than usual. That was all. Then he looked for the gaudy sentries outside Marlborough House; saw that they were in khaki!
“The factory, please, Murray; and as fast as you can,” said our Mr. Jameson. . . .
[1]“No more. No more. Not a word more. It is the Day.”
[1]
“No more. No more. Not a word more. It is the Day.”
To describe “Pretty” Bramson as nervous, would be a gross understatement. The man was scared stiff; had been for two days. Peter found him wandering about the half-empty building—(the English workman does not usually put in an appearance till twenty-four hours after “Bank Holiday”)—damp cigarette between his lips, white about the gills, alternatively fidgeting and depressed. The famous black moustaches were distinctly out of curl: the brilliantined hair lacked its usual polish.
“Morning, Bramson. You look rather out of sorts.”
Bramson led melancholy way into the private office.
“It’s all U P with us now,” he said. “We’re ruined. That’s about the long and short of it.”
“Rats!” snapped Peter, lighting a cigar.
“The Bank will be down on us for that overdraft. . . .”
“Don’t be a fool. To begin with, they can’t call in any loans. There’s a moratorium. Secondly, if they do want their money, I can pay it. Do you really think I guarantee liabilities I can’t meet?”
“I hadn’t thought of the moratorium,” began Bramson, plucking up courage.
Peter, puffing slowly at his cigar, got over the flash of temper.
“Worried about that thousand of yours?” he queried suddenly.
“No-o. Not exactly. But. . . .”
“Youareworried. Of course you’re worried. So am I. So’s everybody else. Let me remind you thatI’vegot twelve thousand pounds in the concern, in addition to that confounded overdraft. But we shan’t either of us save our money by worrying. For goodness’ sake, pull yourself together, man. Let’s have a look at last month’s figures. . . .”
Bramson went to the safe; opened it; took out some papers “Get a pencil,” said Peter, “and write down what I tell you. . . . Ready. . . . Right. . . . Now then: Assets . . .” He dictated steadily; picking out the amounts from the big type-written statement. “Liabilities. . . .” The dictation continued. “That’s the lot, I think. Add them up please.”
Bramson read out the figures: “Assets £27,862, Liabilities, including overdraft, £22,396.”
“Which means,” commented Peter, “that your thousand and my twelve are worth—about five between them. Roughly forty cents on the dollar.Ifwe could sell the factory as a going concern.”
“You haven’t taken anything for the good-will of the business,” put in Bramson.
“Of course I haven’t. That’s the whole question. Up to the end of last month, we were making profits. That was why you bought Turkovitch’s shares, wasn’t it? Do you think we’re going to make a profit this month?”
“We might.”
“Forget it,” said Peter genially. “The best we can hope for is to nurse the show through this damned war—if it doesn’t last too long. Now listen to me. . . .”
He plunged into details, giving his orders succinctly. This must go: that be curtailed. Publicity account, selling expenses, manufacturing charges, clerical work—Peter dealt with each seriatim, hardly referring to the figures on the table. “As for the finance,” he concluded, “I’ll deal with that myself. But mind you, the whole thing’s a gamble . . . Play poker, Bramson?” he asked suddenly.
“Occasionally.”
“Well, if you ever put up your last table-stake to bluff the jack-pot on a busted flush—you’ll understand the present position ofNirvana Limited.”
Two minutes later the car was purring Citywards.
Passing over London Bridge, through Gracechurch Street and Fenchurch Street, Peter saw that the City had in no wise altered. The same drays, motor-omnibuses, taxicabs and motor-cars fought their way through its streets. The same bareheaded clerks hurried along its pavements. The same hawkers proffered the same wares. Only the closed doors of the banking-houses portended the unusual.
In his own office at Lime Street nothing spoke of world-crisis. Parkins still sat at the enquiry desk. Old George was still dusting cigar boxes. Miss Macpherson’s typewriter clicked and tinkled from the clerks’ office beyond the stock-rooms. Simpson, just back from his chop at “The George and Vulture” showed no signs of depression. He, too, had interviewed his bank manager.
“And what did Smollett say about Beckmann’s bills?” asked Peter.
“It looks as though we shall have to meet them after the moratorium,” said Simpson. “You see they’ve been discounted through an English bank. As far as I can make out, Beckmann’s aren’t technically Germans at all. The firm’s domiciled in a neutral country—so Smollett says. . . .”
“Do you mean to say we shall be allowed to go on importing the brand?”
“I don’t see why not,” said Simpson.
That there could be any patriotic reasons for not trading with Beckmanns, did not strike them. The war was not yet twenty-four hours old; and neither the obtuse Simpson nor the concentrated Peter had realized it as more than a disturber of business.
“Elkins and Beresford will be sure to try and use this to prejudice customers against the brand,” suggested Peter.
“Let them.” Somehow, the crisis seemed to have nerved Simpson. Peter never remembered him so decided.
“We must go slow,” was his verdict. “Of course trade will absolutely disappear for the first week or so. Then it’ll begin to pick up again. There’ll be no difficulty about supplies. Whatever happens on land, our Navy’s got the Germans beaten at sea. Go slow, and keep our resources liquid—that’s my idea. . . . By the way, how about that factory of yours?”
Peter hesitated a moment—Simpson had always been rather hostile about Nirvana—then said, “I’ve been up there this morning. Bramson’s rather rattled. We shall have to go slow there too. It’s a pity the brand couldn’t have had another two years’ hard advertising before this happened. As it is—everything depends on how long the war lasts. If it goes on more than six months, I may have to find a partner. That means parting with a big slice of my shares. You see, I don’t feel I ought to take any more of my capital out of this business.”
“No. I agree with you there. Though if it became absolutely necessary. . . . By the way, you won’t mind my saying so, but I never understood why you took on ‘Pretty’ Bramson. He hasn’t got a very good reputation in the trade. And then his cousin Marcus being a competitor. . . .”
“Oh, he’s not a bad little chap.” Peter, like all good men of business, was over-loyal to his staff. “The only trouble is that he hasn’t got much guts. But he’s all right as long as you keep an eye on him. . . . Good Lord, it’s nearly three o’clock, and that poor devil of a chauffeur of mine hasn’t had his lunch yet.”
“Had any yourself?” asked Simpson.
It was the one detail of the day which our Mr. Jameson had forgotten!
“And are wequiteruined?” chaffed Patricia as they finished dinner the same evening. Prout and the Rawlings had taken the afternoon train to town, leaving her lonely and—to tell the truth—more than a little worried.
“Not quite, old thing,” retorted Peter. . . .
But that night, for the first time in years, he woke up suddenly; saw her sleeping peacefuly in the white bedstead next his own—and realized that his responsibilities were not exclusively confined to the financing of Nirvana Limited.
PART FIVEDECISION
Passed the first week—a week of rumours and counter-rumours, barren of certainty. Mealy-souled politicians,—protected by a Navy they had done their best to weaken—gabbled high words of hope. The few trained men, laughed at for years, departed silently about their business: the half-trained set themselves to learn. For already, the spirit of the English-speaking Peoples was astir. Slumbering, the spirit awoke: a blind spirit, conscious only of resentment, of independence mysteriously threatened, of Something Wrong in the world: finding its quaint vent in shibboleth phrases, in deep drinkings, in wagging of flags: but growing, growing always, not to be denied. Already, through the domino-cafés of London, at the long bar in the English Club at Shanghai, in dank bungalows of the Malay Peninsula, on Canadian ranches and Australian “stations,” there ran the Word: “I think I ought to go, old boy. Well, mate, are you going?”
But no Word had yet reached Peter Jameson. The City held him. For the moment, the old game played itself on.
It was a “quiet” time; but not so bad as he had anticipated. Jameson’s customers, disregarding the moratorium, paid their accounts; gave niggling orders. The week’s shipment arrived punctually from Havana. Nirvana, to the untrained eye, seemed hardly to have suffered. The four machines stamped and clicked all day; girls bent over the packing tables; the tin-men pricked and soldered as before. Only the pink slips of “unfilled orders” dwindled and dwindled, the piles of unsold cigarettes in the stock-room rose and rose.
Peter was sitting alone in the back-office at Lime Street, thinking how soon he would have to begin paying off his “hands,” when Parkins announced, “Mr. Raymond P. Sellers.”
“What does he want?” asked Peter.
“I think it’s an American gentleman, Sir. He said he had a ‘proposition’ to put before you.”
“Ask him to come in.”
There entered a clean-shaven young man with gold eye-glasses, in square-shouldered clothes, square-tipped patent leather shoes, carrying a Panama hat in one hand and a reporter’s note-book in the other, who ejaculated: “Say, Mr. Jameson, I’m real glad to meet you,” in a voice which no citizen of the United States ever used on land or sea.
Peter started to shake hands; looked up at his visitor; and burst out, “Francis, you blithering idiot, what on earth are you doing in that get-up?”
Francis looked round to see if the door were closed. Then he said, in his ordinary voice, “It is a bit grotesque, isn’t it? But as the special representative of an anonymous American newspaper syndicate, I think it will pass for the next few days.”
“You always were a bit of a lunatic,” said Peter gruffly, “but this is the limit. What do you propose doing in your fancy-dress?”
“I’m leaving for Amsterdam on tonight’s boat, if you want to know,” answered Francis. “After that, my plans depend on circumstances. Look here,” he became suddenly serious, “this isn’t a joke. I should get into the devil’s own row if ‘they’ knew I’d been down here. You mustn’t tell a soul, Peter. Honestly. Not even Patricia. I know it sounds like a penny-novelette—but most of the penny-novelettes are coming true at the moment. Word of honour, old man, you won’t tell a soul.”
Peter glanced at his cousin; saw that the slackness had disappeared from his face. The lips were tight-set, the eyes dark with suppressed emotion.
“Word of honour, Francis. I won’t tell a soul. Not even Patricia. Why did you come here though, if it was against—” he stumbled over the word—“orders?”
“Because there’s no one else I can trust. It’s a question of my correspondence, and the flat. I want you to look Prout up occasionally. He thinks I’ve enlisted. Here”—he fumbled in his pocket—“are eight letters for him. From me. Have one posted every three weeks. I’ve pencilled the dates on the flap. You can get some one to post them from the country, I suppose.” Peter took the letters; nodded comprehension. “There’s a cheque in each of them, so you needn’t worry about giving the older bounder any money. I’ve told him you’ll call, and that he’s to give you any correspondence that comes for me.”
“What am I to do with it?” asked Peter.
Francis hesitated a perceptible second before saying, “I want you to open everything that comes except—letters from America. Answer them all. Say I’m away, if you like. Joined the Army. I don’t think there’ll be any bills. If there are, they can wait.”
“And the letters from America?”
“Those, I don’t want you to open on any account. Keep them for me till I come back. If you don’t hear from me in six months, better say eight months, burn them. And post this.” He took another envelope from his pocket, handed it to Peter, who saw, in his cousin’s sprawly handwriting, “Miss B. Cochrane. C/o The Guaranty Trust Company of New York. To be forwarded.”
There was the usual awkward silence which betokens sentiment among English people. Then Peter got up, walked over to the safe, pulled out his private cash-box, and locked up the letters.
“That’ll be all right,” he said. “But why eight months? You don’t expect the war to last as long as that, do you?”
Came footsteps outside, a hand at the door-catch.
“Well, good-bye, Mr. Jameson. I’m sure I’m very much obliged to you for the information.”
Mr. “Raymond Sellers” shook hands effusively; half bowed to Simpson, and departed.
“Who was that chap?” asked Peter’s partner.
“That was only . . .” Peter stopped himself in time, “an American newspaper fellow—cadging advertisements for one of their trade-journals.”
“Tobacco Leafor the other one?”
“The other one,” said Peter nonchalantly.
To Peter Jameson’s rather narrow imagination, as yet untouched by the new melodramatic world, the whole interview with Francis appeared fantastic. He could neither visualize the steps which preceded that interview—the coming of the idea, the remembering of an old school-friend in the Foreign Office, the chivvying about from pillar to post necessary for the securing of “peculiar” employment, the two days of schooling by the quiet little civilian at “S,” the final instructions; nor the resultant arrival of “Mr. Raymond P. Sellers” at a certain hotel in Amsterdam, where he waited in his clean bedroom overlooking the canal till a very ordinary-looking Dutch merchant—having closed the door carefully behind him—said, “Hello, Gordon. I didn’t know you were one of us.” . . .
No! Peter certainly couldn’t visualize his cousin in the rôle of a secret-service agent. And such a secret-service agent—Philips Oppenheim in the flesh! He remembered, of course, that Francis had always been rather a dab at languages; remembered his talking German at a not too savoury dancing-hall in Singapore where they had once foregathered.
But surely there never was a man so utterly unfitted for such a job, so absolutely certain to make a muck of it, as Francis Gordon.
“Fantastic,” decided our Mr. Jameson; and went on with his work.
Nevertheless, the interview left its mark in more ways than the pencilled notes “Post F’s letters” in Peter’s business-diary.
Two more weeks drifted by; news, unsatisfactorily scanty at the beginning, grew unsatisfactorily complete. So far, the enemy had it all their own way. Business, on the other hand, showed a tendency to revive—Nirvana business especially. With the economies effected, a little more trade—provided nothing interfered with their exports—would ensure them against actual loss. Bramson had cheered up, Simpson and the cigar-business dropped back into their usual lethargy. But our Mr. Jameson, for the first time in years, felt himself lacking in concentration.
This lack of concentration, as he carefully explained to himself, was in no wise due to the bad news. As an Englishman, and one who vaguely recollected the South African campaign, he had never expected a walk-over. Things looked pretty bad at the moment. Paris might possibly fall—though it hardly seemed likely. That would be awkward, of course: but by no means an irretrievable disaster. . . .
Nor, he decided, had business anxieties affected his grip of things financial. Nirvana could be saved. The main problem had been grappled with. Now—granted his continued personal attention—it was only a question of patience. . . . Then, why the devil this strange inability to concentrate, this growing annoyance?
A good many people had begun to annoy Peter—Julius Hagenburg among others. The man, proud possessor of a British naturalization certificate taken out in 1912, had of course every right to change his name if he thought fit. But Peter could not get accustomed to him as “James Hartopp, Esq.” And his loud-mouthed patriotism, even though he had squared off almost all his old account, and given a large order, somehow offended.
There were a good many such naturalized Germans in the Havana cigar-trade; many of them with sons who had already enlisted. But every time he met one of them—old Schornstein, for instance, with his “Ve must vait and see, my poy. Ve must vait and see,” or Blumberg eager to explain that “De liperal barty had saved de gountry,”—Peter experienced a new prejudice.
But Jameson’s connexion with Beckmanns provided the crowning annoyance of all. Peter and Simpson had decided—as soon as the legal position became clear—that it would be ridiculous to stop importing the brand immediately. They must, of course, do their best to replace the goods with those of another factory. On the other hand, to give them up without finding a substitute, would merely mean turning over an important advantage to some less-scrupulous competitor.
Still,—whatever the “Proclamation as to trading with the Enemy” might say about “firms domiciled in neutral countries”—Peter couldnotget out of his mind that the actual owners of the concernwereGermans. Every Friday afternoon, as Simpson dictated his careful letter to them, ending with the old stereotyped phrasing “with kind regards, Yours very sincerely,” Peter would remember Heinrich Beckmann, in his heavy boots, his black tail-coat, his hard bowler-hat, iron-moustached and curt of phrase, gobbling oysters and swilling wine at Fortis’; would see young Albert Beckmann, fat, flabby, blond, over-manicured, frothing glass at his lips, eyeing theTänzerinnenin the gaudy night-club where they had celebrated the signing of the contract. “Huns,” Peter would say to himself—(the appellation “Hun” had just come into vogue)—“bloody Huns!”
But in addition to this growing revulsion against the enemy—(dislike of the Germans had been ingrained in the man’s character since his first day in business)—the thousand emotional flea-bites of the period began to affect Peter. That he could be hearing whispers of the English-speaking spirit—the spirit that was even then driving Francis Gordon, nervous to the depths of his imaginative soul, into dangers beyond belief, dangers that had to be faced in cold blood and absolutely alone—never struck the Chairman of Nirvana Limited.
He was conscious only of a Questioning; it seemed as though every one and everything asked him something, something he could not answer.
The morning newspaper began that Questioning. It lurked, somehow or other, behind the war-news, the casualty-lists. More than one name which conjured up the face of a boy known at Eton, figured in those early columns. Challis minor, in his own house, who had held onto his position till the last moment: “dying,” wrote his Colonel to his mother, “as I am sure you would have wished him to die.” Latham of the Artillery, who had fought his gun single-handed till he dropped dead over the breech-block. Peter caught himself trying to explain to a shadowy Challis minor how impossible it was for certain people, people with responsibilities like his own, to join the Army. . . .
Evelyn and Primula too, now back at Lowndes Square, accentuated uncertainty. They could talk of nothing but the soldiers they had seen drilling in Kensington Gardens, the motor that had dashed—astounding phenomenon—down the Broad Walk. They reminded him of the episode, trivial at the time but constantly recurring, of Patricia’s brother, Jack Baynet. Jack had been mobilized with the 6th Division; had asked Peter and Patricia to visit him in Camp at Cambridge. Peter had promised to go, cried off at the last moment. One couldn’t very well mingle, an able-bodied civilianin mufti, with men who were going to France within the week. . . .
An eternal Questioning! Everything, everybody, seemed an embodied and personal demand. Everything, everybody—the khaki, blossoming now like a brown flower at every street-corner; the boy Parkins who had to be assured that his place would be kept before he enlisted; a traveller and two mechanics at the factory who went first and asked afterwards; Miss Macpherson’s eyes when she dictated the Havana mail; Pat. For Patricia grew very silent those days. . . .
By the first week in September Peter had solved the Questioning; reduced it to a question. And the question, briefly, was this: “To join up meant the almost certain sacrifice of Nirvana. Not to join up, meant the definite loss of self-respect. Which should he do?” He had no fear of the soldiering part: on the contrary—being entirely and blessedly ignorant of warfare’s actualities—it seemed to him the obvious, gloriousand easysolution of his problem. To abandon his business-responsibilities, on the other hand, implied—quite apart from the pang of giving up the thing he most loved—a lack of moral courage, a yielding to popular clamour.
Curiously enough, it was not Patricia but Hubert Rawlings who clinched Peter’s decision.
It was a month and three days since the outbreak of war. Paris—thought Peter, as he sat alone in the back office at Lime Street—was practically safe. Still, it might easily be six months before the Cossacks got to Berlin. Meanwhile. . . .
The telephone-bell jangled; he took up the receiver, heard his brother-in-law’s voice.
“Peter Jameson speaking. . . . That you, Hubert? . . . Right, I’ll be in if you come along at once.”
Hubert Rawlings, Publicity Agent, had not been worried with any whispers of the “English-speaking spirit.” The contemptible cry of “business as usual” found him a ready convert. Government officials, eager to do anything except fight, had decided on a campaign of advertising, as wasteful to the country’s purse as it was degrading to its patriotism; and in Hubert Rawlings they discovered an invaluable henchman. Posters, leaflets, newspaper-stereos—one more revolting to decent folk than the other—spawned themselves in his lower-middle-class mind, spewed themselves over London and the provinces. Officially, he made no profits on these transactions, actually. . . . And in addition, there was always the advantage of being “in with the Government.” One might get . . . Heaven knows what one mightn’t get. . . . Also, one had “opportunities.”
Such an “opportunity” brought Hubert Rawlings to Peter’s office.
He came in, silk-hatted, morning-coated, flower in buttonhole, perfectly at ease. Already his voice had assumed a faint touch of the “Whitehall manner.”
“How do you do, Peter?” he said. “I hope you didn’t wait for me.”
“Afternoon, Hubert. Take a pew. What’s the trouble?”
“I came,” announced Rawlings mysteriously, “to ask you if you’d like to have a share in a—little deal some friends of mine are interested in. I need hardly tell you it’s all fair and above-board, or of courseIshouldn’t have anything to do with it. Still—” he dropped his voice. “Naturally, anything I say remains strictly between the two of us.”
“Of course,” said Peter.
“It’s like this,” went on Rawlings. “I, we, happen to know that there will shortly be a big demand for a certain article.” Encouraged by Peter’s non-committal attitude, he waxed confidential. “I may as well tell you what the article is. It’s overcoats.”
“Overcoats?”
“Yes. For Kitchener’s Army. You know, I presume, that owing to shortage of dye, there has been a delay in the deliveries of khaki. A very serious delay. So the men are to be provided, as a temporary expedient, with civilian great-coats. Ready-made. Do you follow me so far?”
“Perfectly,” said Peter stiffly. The other, had he been looking, might have noticed a dangerous quietness in his brother-in-law’s attitude.
“Now I, we, have an option on ten thousand of these overcoats. There are four of us in the deal so far. The coats work out, for cash, at fifteen shillings. . . . The War Office is paying twenty-five. That”—the voice became unctuous—“means a profit of. . . .”
“Five thousand pounds,” snapped Peter. For a moment, old habits asserted themselves; he was tempted. A thousand more for Nirvana! Then all the emotions of four weeks blazed into cold flame. He got up from his chair, eyes black with rage; controlled himself in time; and said slowly:—
“Don’t slam the door as you go out, Rawlings.”
“But surely . . .” began the other.
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Yes, but . . .”
“Damn your eyes, will you get out of this office before I throw you out? . . .”
Rawlings went.
Two nights later—at the very moment when the Beasts in Gray, muttering “Grosses Malheur” as they shuffled through darkling towns, were reeling back to the Aisne before the Armies of France and a handful of Englishmen—Peter Jameson and his wife sat over their coffee in the drawing-room at Lowndes Square.
All through dinner, he had been absorbed and reticent. Now, he put down his empty cup on the little table by the side of his armchair; took a long pull at his cigar; began to speak. For a month she had watched him; speculated about him; hoped; doubted; realized his difficulties. But she had given no hint of her feelings: this was a matter for a man’s own conscience; no woman, not even his wife, possessed the right to influence him.
“I want to talk to you,” he said.
“Yes, dear.” A little of what he must say, she knew. Her eyes kindled to the prospect of it.
“Pat,” he began, “I don’t think I can keep out of this thing any longer. It wouldn’t be”—he fumbled for the expression—“quite playing the game. But if I go, there are risks. . . .”
“Naturally.” She schooled her voice to calmness.
“I don’t mean those sort of risks. If anything happened to me, the Insurance would be paid. I went round to see the Phoenix People about that this morning.” Unaccountably, the reasonableness of the view irritated her. “I mean business risks. To begin with, there’s the factory.”
He began to talk about Nirvana; tried to show her only the financial position. His personal feelings, he felt, must not be allowed to complicate a simple issue. But the intonation of his voice betrayed the feelings behind it; and she realized, for the first time, how much Nirvana meant to him.
“You would hate to give it up,” she interrupted.
“It would be rather,” he hesitated for a moment, “a wrench. Still I’ve discounted that. Of course, the whole thing’s a gamble. But I’m not going to quit yet. After all, I shan’t go out for some time. Meanwhile, I can keep in touch. Only I won’t put any more capital in. If Reid and Bramson between them—I saw Reid yesterday and he’ll do his best—can manage to keep her going: well and good. If not, we must cut our losses.”
“Will they be very heavy?”
“They might be. But that isn’t all. . . .”
“Oh, what do you care about losses?” her heart cried out in her. “He’s going. He’s aman. What else matters?” And then, suddenly, fear held her, battling down reason, patriotism, pride, everything except itself. . . .
But the man’s voice went on talking—coolly, logically, impersonally. That he was voicing the spirit of a great sacrifice, that Patricia realized the sacrifice, loved him for it, that the “pal” he had known for eight years existed no longer, had become at a word his mate, his woman to do with as he would—these things were hidden both then and for long after from Peter Jameson, cigar merchant. . . .
“So you see,” he said, summing up the case as he saw it, “it means a big risk. If the factory goes down, if Jameson’s business doesn’t improve, if Simpson won’t renew the partnership agreement in January, if one or any of these things happen, it might mean giving up this house. . . .”
Inwardly, the bathos of it made her laugh. If he could give up so much, surely she could give up her little. Reason and the training of years came to her aid. To him, she was still the pal, only the pal. Nothing more than that!
“I quite follow, dear,” she said.
“But we won’t consider the black side, old thing. Don’t let’s panic. The War may be over by Christmas. Till then, we’ll carry on just as we are. I shan’t even get rid of the motor.”
Now that the awkward task of putting the position before his wife was over, optimism held him. For a moment, the sense of having done the right thing blurred his business judgment.
“You’re a topping pal, Pat,” he said to her as they kissed good-night. . . . But Patricia, waking to the first shimmer of dawn through the chinks of the silk curtains, felt herself, for the first time, woman indeed. For now she loved him, utterly, beyond friendship: and lying there, quite still in her own narrow bed, she vowed this new love to his service in whatsoever guise he most should need it. . . .
“The whole thing’s a farce, Pat.”
It was already three weeks since Peter had been promised his commission; two since his “kit” had been delivered from his tailors.
Outwardly the situation between husband and wife had not altered. Reason told her that this new love she felt for him could win its reward only by patience. And she needed all her patience those days. Disorganization held no humour for Peter Jameson. His patriotism, if it could have found expression, would have vented itself in few words: “There’s a job to be done. A rotten job. Let’s do it, and get back to our businesses.” He was still—in the intervals of importuning the War Office—running those businesses; hearing telephoned reports; suggesting this, vetoing that. But more than a fraction of the old-time keenness had evaporated. The blind spirit of War had caught him, was carrying him onwards. . . .
He walked over to the bureau between the windows; picked out a telegraph-form from the racked paper-holder; began to write.
She looked at him across the breakfast-débris—calm, golden-haired, very fresh in her white blouse, her blue walking-skirt; guessed, from the bent back, the concentration in his taut brain. Looking, love leaped into her dark eyes, moistening them.
“I think this’ll do,” he said, turning so suddenly that she scarcely had time to drop her lashes: “Colonel Thompson. Room 154. War Office. Reference our recent interview am now ready and shall be glad of instructions to report for duty. Reply paid. Jameson. 22a, Lowndes Square, W.”
“You can’t send that,” said Patricia.
“Can’t I?” He rang for Smith, gave instructions for immediate dispatch of the wire.
Patricia, coming in from her afternoon walk with the children, found a tawny envelope on the hall table. The telegram was addressed “Jameson,” and she opened it casually; felt her heart stop as though two fingers had clutched it; heard Primula’s voice: “What’s the matter, Mummy?” . . .
“Nothing’s the matter, dear,” she said calmly. “You and Evelyn had better go upstairs to Nanny.”
She watched them, running up the broad stone staircase, out of sight. Then she read the pencilled message again: “Report for duty 10th Chalkshires Shoreham Camp immediately. Thompson. War Office.”
“What a fool I am,” she said to herself. “What a selfish unpatriotic fool!”