Sincerely, Willis Wayde (52 page)

“Well?” Willis said.

Sylvia sighed.

“I don't know why you've never told me anything about all this,” she said. “It's beautiful, but there's one queer thing about it. I keep thinking there are lots of invisible people around.”

Willis was startled, because from the very beginning he had always thought this same thing about the Harcourt house.

“It's what happens if one family lives in one place,” he said, “but don't let it get you down.”

“It doesn't,” Sylvia told him. “I'm dreadfully glad I'm here.”

The windows were open and the birds were still singing. It was the end of a cool June day. Willis turned on his bath and hung his coat on a hanger. He never knew what had prompted him to put on a dinner coat and a soft shirt, except that he had a feeling that Mr. Henry Harcourt would have approved. He was glad to see that there was a desk in the sitting room on which he could sort over some papers after dinner, but when he thought of work he became conscious of a reluctance that was almost lassitude. It was exactly the same sense of peace that used to come over him when school was over. Then his mood changed abruptly. Mrs. Harcourt's words of welcome, he was thinking, implied that he was still a dependent of the Harcourt world and that he owed a debt to the Harcourts which could not be repaid. He wished there might be some way of making it clear that this was contrary to fact. He was deeply obliged to Mr. Harcourt, but he had paid everything back and the slate was clear. He was responsible to the stockholders of Harcourt Associates and not to Mr. Henry Harcourt's family.

“Willis,” Sylvia called, “would you mind coming in and doing me up my back?”

Sylvia wore the flowered silk that she had bought at Bergdorf's, and he approved of the flare of the skirt. The back, he was glad to see, was secured by a series of hooks and snaps and not by a zipper.

“It's rather tight, isn't it?” Willis asked.

“I'm planning to lose five pounds,” Sylvia said, “and then it will be all right, but don't pull so hard. Willis?”

“Yes, honey?” Willis said.

“I want to see all the place before I leave.”

“You certainly must,” Willis said. “Someone will take you around while we're having the meeting at the mill. I wish I had time but Mr. Bryson wants to see me after dinner.”

“I wish you could,” Sylvia said. “The grounds are so beautiful. I keep thinking of England.”

“I know, honey,” Willis said. “I've told you, haven't I, that the house and grounds were planned by a British architect?”

“Why, no,” Sylvia said. “You never told me that. Of course that explains everything.”

“That's funny,” Willis said. “I must have told you.”

“You never did, Willis,” Sylvia said. “It's so queer that you've always spoken of the Harcourts so casually, because it must have meant an enormous lot to you to have lived here. It would have to anyone.”

“I suppose it did at one time,” Willis said. He had finished the back of her dress. “But you get accustomed to anything you see a lot of—I lived with Ma and Pa in the garden house way across the lawn. I must have told you that.”

Sylvia frowned in a puzzled way.

“You've never told me much of anything,” she said. “I don't see why you have been so secretive.”

The word secretive annoyed him, but he laughed.

“Now listen to me, honey,” he said. “I never thought you'd be so interested in any of this, and besides, I'm not good at painting word pictures, and you couldn't understand a layout like this unless you saw it.”

“It makes me wonder what you're really like,” Sylvia said, “to have kept this locked inside you all this time, when it couldn't help but have an influence on you.”

“Listen, Sylvia,” Willis said, “Lake Sunapee had an influence on you, didn't it, and you don't—thank God—always talk to me about Lake Sunapee.”

“But you hardly even told me about Mrs. Henry Harcourt,” Sylvia said.

“Oh, hell, honey,” Willis said, “please don't keep saying I haven't told you.”

“But she loves you,” Sylvia said. “She's devoted to you and you never told me.”

“Now, Sylvia,” Willis said, “I've always had a warm spot in my heart for Mrs. Harcourt, but she isn't devoted to me.”

“I don't see how you can be so oblivious,” Sylvia said. “She adores you, and so does that old butler, Wilson.”

“Selwyn,” Willis said, and lowered his voice soothingly. “Just calm down, honey. This isn't Buckingham Palace or anything, really. It just happened that old man Harcourt employed my father as an engineer at the mill, and I may also tell you confidentially if my father hadn't induced Mr. Harcourt to buy the Klaus belting patents, maybe this estate might have turned into an insane asylum or something. I don't see why I should have talked about it all the time. I like it out in Orange.”

He stopped, surprised by his own vehemence, but Sylvia went right on.

“I wish I could have seen Mr. Harcourt,” she said. “He must have been a remarkable man.”

“I wouldn't say he was remarkable,” Willis said, “but he was a nice old gentleman. I've certainly told you I have a warm spot in my heart for him. And now come on. You've fixed your face already, honey.”

“I should think you would have a warm spot in your heart for him, as you put it,” Sylvia said, “seeing that he put you through the Harvard Business School.”

It was upsetting, because Sylvia was simply not being factually correct.

“Now listen, honey, let's get this straight once and for all,” Willis said. “I don't owe the Harcourts anything even if they try to give that impression. Mr. Harcourt did pay my way through the Harvard Business School, but it was also in his interest, and every cent he gave me was paid back at six per cent. I definitely don't owe the Harcourts anything.”

He had never said so much before, even to himself. It was the place, of course, that had compelled him, and the birds and the smell of the syringa bushes, and the voices downstairs of the surviving Harcourts. His mother had given him the money to pay Mr. Harcourt, but he had paid her back as soon as possible. Although he was talking to Sylvia, he seemed to be entirely alone.

“Why, Willis,” Sylvia said, “I don't know why you should get excited.”

“I'm not excited, sweetness,” Willis said. “I only want you to get things in their proper perspective. Now I'll tell you who's going to be there, so you won't get mixed up. First there's Mr. and Mrs. Bryson Harcourt—he is Mr. Henry Harcourt's only son and president of Harcourt Associates—and then there's his son, Bill Harcourt, and Bill's wife, Anne. You can't help liking Bill …”

Willis was still describing the Harcourts to Sylvia when he heard the dinner chimes in the hall. He had forgotten the dinner chimes. They rang now strongly and musically through the house with the good-natured authority of the ship's bells struck by the watch at sea. Willis took a hasty glance at himself in the mirror. His dinner coat hung with a studied negligence that only a good tailor could accomplish. He had passed the stage where self-analysis and checking-up were necessary, until he was at last rather close to those people he most envied, who did not need to bother about appearance or behavior.

“Do I look all right?” Sylvia asked.

“Honey,” Willis said, “I'm mighty proud of you and you look just wonderful.”

When they reached the door of the drawing room, Willis knew the Harcourts thought so too. The Harcourts could not help but have been wondering what Sylvia would be like, and now at the sight of her all of them looked relieved. As Willis had thought, none of the men had dressed, but he passed off the situation by simply saying that he had to change anyway, and he had smiled at Mrs. Henry Harcourt, implying, of course, that he had put on his dinner coat out of respect.

“I'm not sure whether you have met all the family or not, my dear,” Mrs. Harcourt said to Sylvia.

“Well, well, my boy,” Bryson Harcourt said to Willis. “It's a sight for sore eyes seeing you here again.”

There was no doubt that his contact with Mr. Bryson Harcourt had sweetened itself enormously. Even a few weeks ago Mr. Bryson would not have thought of calling Willis “my boy,” but now he exhibited a touching trust and dependence, and he lowered his voice to a confidential murmur.

“The report is splendid, my boy,” he said. “I've been practicing reading it all afternoon.”

Bill Harcourt was even gladder to see Willis. Some people would have forgotten old associations but Bill had never been that sort. He slapped Willis on the back and shook him playfully by the shoulders.

“It's good to see you, boy,” he said. “I was just telling Anne this evening that I won't have the mill on my conscience ever any more. And look at Sylvia. Don't you forget who introduced you to her.”

Momentarily Willis had forgotten, and now it seemed inappropriate to remember.

“And here's Anne,” Bill said. “I don't think you've ever met Anne, have you, Willis?”

“Why, no,” Willis said, “I've never had the pleasure. Good evening, Mrs. Harcourt.”

“Call her Anne,” Bill said. “We're all of us family here.”

Bill's wife was a dark, acidulous-looking girl with beady black eyes and too much lipstick.

“It would be a great pleasure to call you Anne,” Willis said to her. “Bill may have told you that we used to see a good deal of each other at the Harvard School of Business Administration, and in fact Bill only just reminded me that he was the one who introduced Mrs. Wayde and me—or rather Sylvia.”

“Bill's told me all about it,” Anne said. “Bill's very fond of you.”

“I've always had a warm spot in my heart for Bill,” Willis said, “and I hope that you and I will be good friends always, Anne. I greatly admire your father. I had the pleasure of greeting him for just a moment at the last meeting of the National Association of Manufacturers, but of course he wouldn't remember.” He laughed lightly. “Why should he?”

Then he shook hands with Bess and Edward Ewing.

“It's always like pulling teeth to get Edward down to the meeting,” Bess said, “and it was particularly God-awful this year, because all Edward wants to do is sit and try to hear the war news. He can't sleep, worrying about the war. Do you worry about it, Willis?”

Willis laughed.

“I've got more pressing worries right now,” he said—“the ordeal tomorrow, for example. The war's only a sort of general worry like the weather.”

“But you think we're going to get into it, don't you?” Edward asked. “You see it's historically impossible to let England be defeated, don't you?”

“Please for God's sake,” Bess said, “let's not talk about a cross-Channel invasion—at least not until we get to bed—and ask Selwyn to come over here with the cocktails, Edward. Willis won't get one for himself because he's always so abstemious.”

“The place is more beautiful than ever, Bess,” Willis said. “I mean it, with no exaggeration.”

Then he saw her greenish-blue eyes watching him.

“You look more handsome than ever yourself,” she said, “with no exaggeration.”

“It's nice of you to say so, Bess,” Willis said.

“I only mean it in a purely friendly way,” she told him. “This room hasn't changed at all, has it? Do you feel queer being back?”

“No thank you, Selwyn,” Willis said when Selwyn came with the cocktails, because he was counting on champagne for dinner. “Why, no, it all seems natural, Bess.”

“Well, I feel queer seeing you here,” Bess said. “But I'm awfully glad you're here, because I can't begin to tell you how much we all need you, and we're all going to be good friends, aren't we, all of us, always?”

You could never tell when Bess would do something unexpected. She held out her hand to him impulsively.

“Why, Bess,” he said, “of course we always will be.”

“Sometimes I don't know where I am with you,” Bess said, “and I'm not sure what you're going to do. I don't blame you, altogether, but it makes me nervous.”

“Why, Bess,” he said, “you mustn't feel that way.”

“Why didn't you tell me,” Bess said, “that Sylvia was so perfectly lovely?”

Willis laughed, and he was very glad indeed that they were finally on another subject.

“And you were surprised, were you?” Willis asked.

“Now, don't be disagreeable, Willis,” Bess said. “I didn't mean it that way. I only meant I didn't know she'd be so outstanding, and I hope we're going to like each other. I'm going to try my best with her right after dinner when the boys are listening to the war news and you're talking to Father.”

“Come on, you two,” Bill called. “We're going in.” And then Bill turned to Sylvia and laughed. “Willis and Bess were always the darnedest people for arguing when Willis used to be living in the garden house.”

According to Willis's recollection, there was only one change in the dining room. One of the mirrors had been removed, and Mr. Henry Harcourt's portrait hung in its place. The mouth looked as though it were about to smile, and the slightly protuberant lower lip almost trembled. The moment Willis saw the portrait, its eyes met his and seemed to follow him through all the dinner, and once when Willis looked up from his plate he had the idea that Mr. Harcourt actually was smiling at him, mockingly or approvingly. There was no way of telling which.

Most of the evening Willis was giving thought to the personalities of the various stockholders he would meet the next day. In his desire to know as much as he could about everyone, he went over the list first with Mr. Bryson and later on with Bess. He also asked Mr. Bryson if they could not meet at the mill at half past eight next morning—an early hour, but he and Mr. Bryson should certainly make a tour of the plant together and meet the production heads. The keynote of the meeting was to be one of triumph, and at all times good will. For this reason Willis asked Bill and Bess to be near him when the guests came to the luncheon after the meeting in order to remind him of names he might have forgotten. This was a practical step. It would be a help to have branches of the Harcourt family see that he and Bill and Bess, not to mention Mr. Bryson, all formed a solid front.