Sincerely, Willis Wayde (55 page)

It was difficult to sit alone when everyone at the long table had risen, and equally hard to rise gracefully when everyone around the table settled back into their seats. As Willis stood for a moment waiting, he was conscious of his comparative immaturity, and although he had rehearsed his words, they all completely left him. The table blurred in front of him but a second later everything returned in sharp focus. He looked up at the portraits in the dining room, a gesture which he had not intended, but one which was a happy accident.

“Mr. Harcourt,” he said, “old friends and new ones, I am deeply moved by your courtesy, but believe me, please, I realize better than any of you that the toast you have just been so kind as to drink is not intended for me alone, but for all representatives of your new company, Harcourt Associates. I am, as Mr. Harcourt said, your employee, and I hope you will consider me always as someone you have hired to listen to your suggestions, and whom you can discharge at will if he does not bring you the results you have every right to expect. I have no other purpose for being here than to be heart and soul an integrated part of your new company. The gracious and lovely past of the Harcourt family is with us, and with us too are the lessons of Harcourt ability and integrity. The future still lies ahead of us. All I want is to help in some small, modest way with that future. May I raise my glass and drink to the man who will lead us there, to Mr. Bryson Harcourt?”

A speech was only a vehicle of one's character and personality. As Willis heard his voice, he was pleased by its earnestness and the almost passionate desire to convince that underlined every word. The truth was, of course, that he had been in deadly earnest. When he had finished, he took care not to sit down too rapidly, because he had seen too many dinner talks lose their effect when speakers slumped too hastily into their seats. For a second or two everything hung in dull suspense, lost in the silence of the table. Then even before the applause started he knew that he had accomplished what he desired. The applause was loud and cordial, and before it was over Mr. Bryson rose and clasped his hand. Then, just before he smilingly acknowledged Mrs. Henry Harcourt's congratulations, his eyes met Bess Ewing's across the table. She smiled back, but her eyes were inscrutable. Of course he knew better than to feel that he could impress Bess Harcourt, but he wished for a moment that he had not been quite so humble, because she might have known that this was an exaggeration.

Luncheon was over. The chairs were being pushed back. Mr. Bryson said, as Mr. Henry Harcourt always had, that there would be coffee and cigars for the men in the library, when a thing happened which Willis did not wish but half expected. He could never say that he was surprised to find Bess standing beside him.

“Let's go outside and smoke a cigarette,” Bess said. “I don't believe you've seen the garden or anything.”

She should have known that it was no time for them to be walking in the garden or anywhere else, and he wanted to refuse but at the same time he did not want to be curt.

“That's correct, Bess,” he said. “I've had little or no time to do any of the things I should have liked to do most, but I hope, when I'm here next, as I must be before long, that I'll have more time on my hands.”

“You don't have to talk as though you were addressing a meeting any longer, Willis,” Bess said. “It's only me.”

“Only ‘I,' Bess,” Willis said, “only ‘I.'”

“Oh, my God,” Bess said, “I bet you clipped a coupon and bought one of those courses in proper speech. Come on outside. We'll stand on the lawn if you like, within sight of everybody. I won't compromise you, Willis.”

“Why, with pleasure, Bess,” he said, because the only polite thing he could do was go out on the lawn with her.

“Willis,” she said, “that was quite a little speech.”

“I'm glad if you liked it,” he said. “Anyway, I meant every word of it.”

“Did you?” she asked.

“Yes,” he answered, and he looked at her steadily. “I did, and what's more, I'm in the habit of meaning what I say.”

His answer was unmeasured enough to give him genuine satisfaction. After all, he was thinking, now that the Harcourt-Rahway deal was finished it was not as necessary as it had been to be on good terms with Bess.

“Don't get angry,” Bess said. “I loved what you said, Willis, I really did. But I got you out here to tell you something else. Sylvia and I have been talking things over, and we don't see why you don't move up here from New Jersey.”

“What's that again, Bess?” Willis asked her.

“That plant of yours in New Jersey is just a subsidiary, isn't it?” Bess said. “This is the main plant and the main office is in Boston. Well then, why isn't it only sensible for you to move up here?”

Willis put his thoughts carefully together before he answered. He wanted to give a balanced reply, which could, if necessary, be quoted.

“You know, I've already given that idea careful thought, Bess,” he said, “but Rahway Belt happens to be an important subsidiary, and I am more familiar with the processes there than anyone else and I also hope we'll need more and more to cover the New York field. Besides, your father will be in the Boston office.”

“Sylvia would love it here,” Bess said. “She says it's terribly hot for the children in New Jersey in the summer. We were looking at some of the old houses by the river this morning, and you could live in the garden house until you got settled.”

“You say you were looking at some houses this morning?” Willis said. “That's awfully kind of you to take such an interest, Bess, but I really don't think the step would be sensible.”

They looked at each other for a moment, and Willis later wondered whether Bess Harcourt had an idea of what he was thinking. The old loyalties were all around him; the Harcourts were trying to draw him back because they needed him, and he was never coming back. Willis tossed his cigarette on the lawn and stepped on it carefully. They were standing outside the living room, and the voices of the stockholders of Harcourt Associates came to them through the open windows. It was time to make a speech that was even more sincere than the one he had delivered in the dining room.

“I'm afraid I must speak a little as though I were addressing a meeting, even if you don't like it, Bess,” Willis said. “If there is any problem or confusion here, I shall always come up immediately, and I shall also be making regular visits, but I don't think it would be advisable, not for any of us, for me to be here permanently.”

He spoke as genially as he had learned to do whenever he made a decision; he was glad to see that Bess Harcourt was impressed by what he said.

“But, Willis,” she began, “I don't see why you're being so illogical.”

Willis paused and he was always glad that he looked straight into her eyes.

“I'm being very logical, Bess,” he said.

He had always thought of that conversation as a clear-cut victory, and he always liked the final thing he said to Bess as they walked across the lawn.

“Not that we won't always be friends, Bess,” he said. “We're bound to be, because there are a great many things that neither of us can forget.”

Willis was glad to know that Sylvia and Bess had been looking at houses, because his knowing enabled him to handle intelligently what might have been a very difficult scene if he had faced it unprepared. As it was, the scene began five minutes after he and Sylvia were in the Cadillac on their return to Boston.

“Willis,” Sylvia said, “Bess and I saw the dearest old house down by the river this morning. Its date is some time around the Revolution and it has all its old woodwork in very good condition. Of course it needs repairs, but it will be fun fixing it.”

“That sounds very interesting, sweetness,” Willis said. “I'm glad you had an opportunity to see some of the old colonial houses here. I know many are considered as unique. By the way, did you see Steve Decker?”

“Yes,” Sylvia said. “He was frightfully unattractive. I don't know what I ever saw in him. If we have to come here to live, you don't have to worry about Steve Decker.”

“And now we're on this subject,” Willis said, and he took her hand and kissed it, “you needn't worry about Bess either. I had a few words with Bess after lunch.”

“I've never been worried about Bess,” Sylvia said. “What did you say to her after lunch?”

Willis spoke gravely but firmly.

“Bess seemed to think it would be more efficient if we all came up here to live,” he said. “I told her it was impossible.”

“But, Willis,” Sylvia asked, “why is it impossible?”

Again and again Willis was to meet individuals with executive drive and brilliance who failed because they could not handle women. These people were not able to say no at the right time, or to make the negative stick. Thank heaven he had learned to say no.

“It's impossible for several reasons, sweetness,” he said, “one of which is because I like New Jersey. Another is that I don't want you or me or our children to be bossed around by the Harcourts, and I really mean this, sweetness.”

“Willis,” Sylvia said. “They're not bossing you. You're bossing them around.”

“Very well, sweetness,” Willis said, “if that is so, I would rather boss them from New Jersey. I want you and me to be completely independent, honey.”

“Willis,” Sylvia said, “no one is ever independent.”

“And besides, I have another reason, sweetness,” Willis said, “something which I hope will be a happy surprise for you. What do you think, Mrs. Wayde? As of today you and I are the owners of an estate near Orange. The view is like the Jacobys'. You can look right across over to New York, only this home is Georgian and brick, sweetness, with a swimming pool and a three-car garage, and five acres. It's a sweet little investment, because we can always subdivide the acreage eventually. The grounds are beautifully landscaped and there's a rose garden. I can't wait to see the kids playing around the lawn—slate roof, copper gutters, oil heat, an electric kitchen. They were in a hurry to settle the estate, and you'll laugh when I tell you what I offered. You may want to pick out a few wallpapers, but we can move in any time. Don't say I haven't been thinking about you, Mrs. Wayde. Are you surprised? I thought you would be, sweetness.”

Willis could never have acquired the Browning place in Northfield Park at the figure he offered except for a chain of favorable circumstances each of which was linked with the other in a way that only happens once or twice in a lifetime. The affairs of Mr. Hubert H. Browning, the owner, were found to be in a highly tangled condition after his decease. Also, large pieces of real estate were growing hard to move. You could not blame anyone in June, 1940, or the next year either, for waiting to see which way the cat was going to jump. Later, when the cat had jumped, a number of good friends told Willis Wayde confidentially that he had certainly had a hell of a nerve to buy the Browning place.

They said this in a laughing way, of course, at lunch at the outdoor grill or around the swimming pool, which was not a bad pool considering its rather small size. They would never have elected Willis treasurer of the country club if they had known he was up to his ears in debt when he bought the Browning place. He had a hell of a nerve to do what he did, the kind of nerve you only had when you were just a kid and knew everything was going your way.

Nerve was a mighty useful asset if you could back it up by faith. They were getting into a seller's market and Willis had faith that it was going to last for years. He knew as sure as fate no matter what the international situation might be, and no matter what punitive taxes the Roosevelt administration might slap on business, Harcourt Associates was going to amortize its obligations and would pay dividends on its common stock in a year or two.

There was seldom anything dramatic in building up industrial units, since progress was only made by sticking everlastingly at what you were doing. Years, when Willis came to think of it, blended all together into a larger unit when you looked at the Associates picture. When he thought along these lines, he always liked what he had once written about Harcourt Associates:

I was one of those instrumental in combining Rahway Belt with Harcourt Mill in the spring of 1940. The Planeroid of Rahway and the Hartex line of Harcourt met shoulder to shoulder the shock of Pearl Harbor with a staunchness that would have been impossible for either individually. They went to war shoulder to shoulder, doing yeoman service in production lines everywhere in America. They are still doing yeoman service in this uncertain period of reconstruction.

This was one way of putting it, and a somewhat conservative way, considering the Harcourt profits. Right from the start it had been an essential industry, and as one who headed its management, Willis often felt that he had been in the war himself. In fact he had seen much more of wartime Washington than many army officers who were stationed in that city. Harcourt won the Army-Navy “E” award three times, beginning with the autumn of 1942, and if Willis had joined the armed services, he would not have made the contribution to his country that he had. He was told this personally by Rear Admiral Charles G. Spoonholm over cocktails in the men's bar of the Hotel Mayflower. Admiral Spoonholm, on this occasion, had told Willis that he was more valuable than a destroyer screen—an exaggeration but a pleasant one to remember. Also at a cocktail party in the same hotel Brigadier General Hugo A. Brass had said affectionately that he wouldn't swap Willis Wayde for a couple of North African combat teams.

It was a pleasure sometimes to read the many kind things that had been said about Harcourt Associates from the first days of its inception. There were some fine clippings from the financial pages of New York and Boston dailies and from Chicago, including a nice picture taken after Willis assumed the presidency of Harcourt, when Mr. Bryson Harcourt was elected chairman of the board in 1943. The items that interested Willis most were the pieces about Harcourt Associates that began to appear in market letters and in Washington gossip sheets. He particularly liked the piece which appeared in
Crown Capital News
in 1944 under the title “Thought of the Week.”