Sincerely, Willis Wayde (51 page)

“Then why don't we leave at four instead of four-thirty?” Sylvia asked.

“Because it's a sort of waste of time sitting talking,” Willis told her.

“I hoped we could see the place before dark,” Sylvia said. “You've always told me so much about it—the walk by the brook, and the greenhouse with the hothouse grapes. Do you suppose the grapevine is still there?”

Willis was mildy shocked by the question, because he passionately wanted to believe that everything was still exactly as it had been when he had first seen the Harcourt place years ago late on an August afternoon. In spite of the depression, he was sure that Mrs. Harcourt had the money to keep it up. He wanted everything to be the way it had been.

“It won't be dark when we get there, sweetness,” Willis said. “We're right around the longest day of the year, and that reminds me, I've completely forgotten to call up a Cadillac renting service. I must make a memo to do it in the morning.”

“What kind of a renting service?” Sylvia asked.

It was high time that he took Sylvia on a few business trips. She had been cooped up in Orange too long with the children, even if she did look at home in the Ritz; but once they got moved into a new home they would have to get adequate help so that Sylvia would be able to move around.

“It's one of those services that supplies a Cadillac and a liveried chauffeur,” Willis told her. “Now, I know what you're going to say, sweetness. Sure we could go up on the train, but this is going to give me a chance to relax.”

“But what are people going to say,” Sylvia said, “when we drive up that way? It's going to look awfully queer.”

“Just exactly why is it going to look queer?” Willis asked her.

“Oh, well,” Sylvia said, “it looks so ostentatious, Willis.”

He understood what Sylvia meant by ostentation, but he could not see why Sylvia should always be afraid of it.

“There's a whale of a lot of difference between ostentation and intelligence,” Willis told her. “It's just being plain intelligent to go up there with a car and a driver. “Also, sweetness, I'd rather have people up there think I can afford it than have them think I can't.”

He was sure this was what old P. L. Nagel would have said. He could remember old P.L. driving up there in a Cadillac, but of course this had no influence on his judgment.

Willis had been absolutely right about the Cadillac, and he was very glad to be motoring through a green June country, instead of catching the train for Clyde. His mind went back to that first day he had gone to Clyde with his mother on that blistering-hot August afternoon. He could see his father at the station, and Patrick, and the old Locomobile. The country had seemed strange to him, and in spite of all the time he had lived in New England he still could not feel a part of it as Sylvia did, although Sylvia was seeing Clyde for the first time. It was strange that Sylvia saw a great many things that he had never noticed—gardens, and peculiarities of architecture.

“I don't see why you never told me it was so beautiful,” she said.

It would have put him in a highly embarrassing position if he had confessed to Sylvia that he had never thought of the town as beautiful. Willis was still convinced that a lot of it was unnecessarily old and that more of it was run-down. The mellow brick of the Federalist buildings, and the fresh green sweep of the elm trees, superficially, he supposed, were beautiful, but none of it fitted his taste.

“If you like this,” he said, “just wait until you see the Harcourt place.”

He could not exclaim, as Sylvia did, at the farmhouses along the river or at the views of the river, because he had seen too much of them when he was younger. He was waiting for his first glimpse of the Harcourt Mill, with an odd feeling of suspense. He first saw the new chimney on Building 4 and then the bell tower on the old warehouse and then the newer construction. The sight of the buildings gave him a rather good idea for a piece of Harcourt Associates promotion—a pair of balanced pictures of the two plants: “Harcourt Mill, Home of Hartex; Rahway Belt, Home of Planeroid.” Then Sylvia's voice interrupted his thoughts.

“What's that place?” she asked.

Very few groups of industrial buildings made an aesthetically attractive picture, and the Harcourt Mill had grown in a purely functional manner.

“Don't be too hard on it,” Willis said, and he laughed. “That's the Harcourt Mill. There wouldn't be any Harcourts or you and me here if it weren't right here with us.”

He did not speak in a reproving manner, because he did not care what Sylvia's opinion of it might be. Now that he had seen the mill, he felt better about everything. It relieved him to realize that there was no sentiment in his allegiance to the Harcourt Mill, and that environment had nothing to do with the problems which the mill presented, many of which, for example, were interchangeable with those of the Rahway Belting Company.

Willis could not develop these thoughts because he had to direct the driver through the mill village.

“You'll see the stone walls and the gatehouse,” he said, “and when you see a pond on the right-hand side of the drive, bear to the right. It's a large granite house.”

The rhododendrons and the laurel were out, making, as always, a fine show, and the rose gardens were at their best.

“You never told me it would look so English,” Sylvia said.

The grounds looked as trim as they ever had. They were passing the pond, and Willis saw that there were still swans.

“Didn't I?” he said. “Well, it's a real family place, but the Harcourts can explain it better than I can, sweetness.”

There was no reason why he should have told Sylvia much about the Harcourt place. He had been in New York when they were engaged, and they had a lot of problems of their own without dragging in the Harcourt place.

“What are you laughing at, honey?” he asked.

“It's so English, Willis, that it makes you English, too,” she said.

“Frankly, I don't quite get you,” Willis told her.

“You take it for granted,” Sylvia said. “You act like a county family.”

“I've been around here quite a lot,” Willis said, “but I still don't get you about taking things for granted.”

The car had stopped at the flagstone veranda with its Gothic columns, and there was no time to say anything more, but he was thinking that Sylvia might have been correct about the taking-it-for-granted aspect. As someone who controlled the destiny of the Harcourt Mill, he did have rights on the place which he could not entirely express. The driver had opened the door of the Cadillac, and Willis saw that Selwyn, who looked old and frail was stepping down from the veranda, followed by a younger man, who must have been a gardener.

“Hello, Selwyn,” Willis called, and he turned quickly to the driver. “Please be sure to come back here at three-thirty tomorrow afternoon. I hope you can come personally.”

“Yes, indeed, sir,” the driver said, in a confidential undertone. “It would be better if I did, because I know the way.”

He was relieved that there was no need to press a furtive bill into the driver's hand in front of the Harcourt house and Selwyn, but this was only a transient worry. Now he was able to give his full attention to Sylvia, holding her elbow solicitously for a moment after she had stepped from the car. Her gabardine suit looked just as attractive as it had at the Ritz.

“You have your purse and everything, have you, sweetness?” he asked.

“Yes,” Sylvia said, “everything, thanks.”

He stood for a moment, as a good traveler should, checking the pieces of baggage.

“Five pieces, weren't there, sir?” the driver asked.

Five pieces sounded like a good deal for overnight but one was his attaché case, and the three small matched pieces belonged to Sylvia.

“That's right—five,” Willis said, and he nodded smilingly to the driver.

He was sure that Selwyn was glad to see him. Willis had always had a warm spot in his heart for Selwyn.

“Well, Selwyn,” he said. “It's wonderful to lay eyes on you, and it's been much too long a time,” and Willis shook hands at once with Selwyn, “and this is my wife,” he went on. “Selwyn, dear, was my guide, philosopher and friend for many years.”

“I'm ever so glad to meet you,” Sylvia said. “I think you did very well with him on the whole.”

Willis could not help being proud of Sylvia.

“It's a great pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Wayde,” Selwyn said. “We tried to do our best with Mr. Willis, and I'm glad if you approve.”

It was time to laugh and to move toward the veranda.

“Things all look very well, Selwyn,” Willis said, and then he remembered Sylvia's remark about county gentry, but what else could one say?

“Yes, the place looks well,” Selwyn said, “but of course there have been changes.”

Willis nodded. Selwyn was obviously referring to the deaths of Mr. Beane and Patrick and the retirement of Mr. MacDonald.

“Yes,” he said, “we can't set the clock back, can we? No matter how much we wish we might.”

He was thinking that he did not wish the clock set back a single instant and that he was quite happy with things as they were. As he reached the front door he had a queer thought that Mr. Henry Harcourt would be inside waiting to receive him, and the thought made him square his shoulders.

Mrs. Harcourt stood, as they entered the hall, in the exact spot where she and Mr. Harcourt had greeted the guests at that stockholders' luncheon years ago. She looked almost as Willis had remembered her. After all, there came a time in the lives of women when decline was much less marked than in the lives of men. She stood there, white-haired, plump-faced, and durable in a handsome purple-brocade dress.

“My dear, I'm so glad to see you,” she said to Sylvia, and she kissed her. “And I'm going to kiss Willis too.”

She laughed and turned her cheek to him.

“Now let me have a good look at you,” she said, and she still held his hands. “I do wish Henry were here. He would be so pleased.”

“It makes me very proud to have you say that,” Willis answered. “I was just hoping this moment that I hadn't altogether let him down.”

His glance traveled beyond the staircase to the shadowy corridor that ran under the upper landing; he was already sure that nothing in the house had been changed since he had seen it last.

“You must be exhausted, dear,” Mrs. Harcourt said to Sylvia. “The tea things are in the library, but perhaps you'd rather go right upstairs and have a bath and get ready for dinner.”

Sylvia looked at Willis questioningly, and at that very moment the hall clock struck six, and it was followed by the chiming of the clocks in the corridor and in the library.

“I'm afraid time rather speaks for itself,” Willis said, “if you still have dinner at a quarter before seven.”

The whole house was cool and smelled of flowers, as it always had.

“Yes, dinner's still at a quarter of seven,” Mrs. Harcourt said, “and only the family are coming—Bryson and Mildred—and Bryson wants to have an hour with you in the library afterwards to go over all the final meeting details.”

“I suppose we should have a talk,” Willis said, “but I'd much rather have a talk with you, Mrs. Harcourt.”

“Have you noticed,” Mrs. Harcourt said to Sylvia, “that Willis is always sweet to old ladies? They'll all be going home early, and then I do hope we can have a quiet visit and that I can see the photographs of your babies, Sylvia. I do wish you could stay tomorrow night.”

“I wish we could,” Sylvia said, “but I've never left the children so long before.”

“You must bring them with you the next time,” Mrs. Harcourt said. “You could stay in the garden house, where Willis's father and mother used to live. Bill and Anne come there sometimes with their children.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Willis said, “but I'm afraid you'll get tired of me before that. I'll have to be making a lot of flying visits to the mill this summer.”

“Bill and Anne will be here,” Mrs. Harcourt said. “Bill always comes for the stockholders' meetings—and then of course Bess and Edward. I thought of asking Roger for dinner and the night. Since Catherine has the shingles and couldn't have come anyway, it would have evened the table but I couldn't bear to do it.”

Willis laughed, remembering things that Mr. Henry Harcourt had said about Roger.

“We'll be seeing plenty of him tomorrow,” he said, “and now perhaps …” he looked at Sylvia and smiled at Mrs. Harcourt, “we'd better start to get ready, if dinner's a quarter before seven.”

“You'll be in the east room,” Mrs. Harcourt said. “It has a sitting room so that you can have your breakfast quietly. Selwyn will take you up, and you know Selwyn well enough to ask him for anything you want.”

“I certainly do,” Willis said. “Lead the way and we'll follow, Selwyn.”

Their footsteps were deadened by the thick stair carpet.

“The upstairs maid's name is Elsie,” Selwyn said, “if Mrs. Wayde should ring. There won't be any need to dress, unless you care to, Mr. Willis.”

Willis wanted to ask Selwyn whether he thought Mr. Bryson or Bill or Edward would be dressing, but then he remembered Mr. Henry Harcourt had liked as a rule to be the only one who dressed. It was curious, Willis thought, that he had never spent a night in the big house, in spite of his having been in it so often. Thus the east guest room was only vaguely familiar to him—cool, with its green glazed chintz, heavy mahogany furniture and a massive four-post bed. Selwyn coughed discreetly and opened a door, explaining that there was also a bed in Mr. Wayde's dressing room.

Willis and Sylvia were both silent for a while after Selwyn left them. Willis kept thinking that Sylvia would speak first, as she usually did, but instead she stood looking at the four-post bed and at her luggage. Then she looked at her own bathroom, at Willis's dressing room and bath, and then at the sitting room with its open fireplace.