Sincerely, Willis Wayde (56 page)

Harcourt Associates

Although common shares were split five for one recently, these are still closely held and not yet available on the big board, where we predict they will be eventually. Though called today a war baby, Harcourt Associates has placed itself in a fine position to reap rewards in the field of consumer production. A small company, compared to its larger competitors, such as Simcoe Rubber, its compact size has added to its mobility under the efficient and aggressive leadership of its president, Willis Wayde, whose face is well known here in Washington at the WPB and Army and Navy Departments. The dividend on Harcourt common, initially declared a year ago, was raised for the last quarter to two dollars, which is said to be a fraction of the current earnings. Several investment trusts and the trust department of a large New York bank are now taking a lively interest in the Harcourt picture.

On the whole this piece was factually correct. As Willis always said when he was asked how things were going, Harcourt could speak for itself. Once things were shaken down, there was a fine team at Harcourt, and he had contacted some very nice young bright army and navy boys who augmented that team splendidly when the war was over. As Willis often said facetiously to Sylvia, what would they have done if they had moved up to Clyde, Massachusetts? Sylvia would have been a real war widow then, whereas living in Orange, Willis simply had to drive to Newark and get a train to Washington in no time flat. With earnings rising as they were, and with all the red tape and renegotiation of contracts, a small suite at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington became a legitimate company expense. There wasn't much home life in wartime but there was more in Orange than there would have been if they had moved to the vicinity of Boston.

When Harcourt began paying dividends on the common, Willis was even able to talk to Sylvia facetiously about the Browning place and to remind her how shocked she was when she had first seen it. In fact at one point she had begun to weep.

Willis would have thought that anyone would have fallen in love, as he had, at first sight with the bronze of the casement windows and the forced hot-air heating and the laundry with its electric clothes dryer, but he was soon to learn that women as a whole never cared for basic beauties of construction. It took Sylvia a long while before she realized that they had really got in on the ground floor when they bought the Browning place and that it could not possibly have been duplicated for many times the original investment. The truth was that the Browning place may have been a little too large for them in the beginning and a little tough to swing, but they grew up to it pretty quickly, and Sylvia did wonders with it, once she got the spirit of the thing.

Willis had arranged that Sylvia and he should see it just by themselves and he had looked forward with keen pleasure to Sylvia's reaction. It disconcerted Willis to have her laugh, when he stopped the car in front of the Georgian doorway, with ivy swarming up the warm brick façade and with those completely satisfying copper conductors and a fine original bronze ship's lantern to light the steps at night.

“What's so funny, honey?” Willis asked.

“Now, Willis,” Sylvia said, and she still laughed, “let's get out of here and go where we're going before someone sees us and asks us what we want.”

“What's that again?” Willis said. “I don't quite follow you, honey.”

“Oh, Willis,” Sylvia said, “a joke is a joke. Let's get on and look at the new house. I've got to get back and see about the children.”

That first reaction of Sylvia's was really something to remember and to tell about in later years.

“But, sweetness,” Willis said, “believe it or not, as Mr. Ripley says, this really is the house, and all of it is yours, Mrs. Wayde.”

“Oh, come now, Willis,” Sylvia said, “it's awfully tiresome to go too far with a practical joke.”

“But, honey,” Willis said, and he opened the door of the car and got out and took the front-door key out of his pocket, “it isn't a practical joke. It all belongs to you and the children, honey, and don't you ever say I didn't get you something. Look at those casement windows—all bronze framed—and wait till you see the plumbing. You and I are each going to have a bathroom—in fact everybody's going to have a bathroom.”

Sylvia said, “Oh no, Willis.”

It was a little hard to follow her mood but he tried to do his best.

“I frankly felt a little the same way when I saw it first myself,” Willis told her. “It doesn't seem possible, does it? Now you get out of the car and I'll tell you what I'll do—I'll carry you over the threshold.”

“Oh, Willis,” Sylvia said. “Have you really bought it?”

“It's hard to believe, isn't it?” Willis said. “But it's really and truly ours, sweetness. Now step into the front hall and wait till you see the woodwork.”

Every guest who ever came to “Waydeholm”—a name which they finally adopted at Willis's suggestion in order to have something to put on the social note paper—always commented favorably on the beauty of the hall, which ran spaciously through the house, and on the fine broad staircase. It was disappointing that Sylvia had different ideas when they first entered Waydeholm.

“If you have really bought this,” Sylvia said, “can't you sell it over again?”

“Well, for goodness gracious sakes alive,” Willis said. “That's the queerest question I've heard in a dog's age, sweetness.”

“Oh, my God,” Sylvia said, “I think I'm going mad.”

“What's that one again?” Willis said. “I don't get you, honey.”

“Either I'm going mad or you are,” Sylvia said, “and I don't think it's me,” and then she began to cry.

It was hard to follow Sylvia, but the fact that she had made a grammatical error showed how upset she was.

“Now, honey,” Willis said, “tell me what's the matter and let's see if I can't fix it.”

“I always thought you had common sense,” Sylvia said. “Now look what you've done.”

“You mean,” Willis told her, “that you don't consider this a practical home, Sylvia? If that's what you mean, I really just don't get it.”

“Oh, please,” Sylvia said, “don't say any more about it, Willis.”

“But I got it for you and the boys, sweetness,” Willis said. “Can't you visualize the children in a year or two sliding down the banisters?”

Somehow or other the mention of Al and Paul seemed to calm Sylvia. At least she opened her purse and took out a handkerchief and blew her nose. At least she listened to him and gave him a chance to convince her that they really had a home.

“You've got to get the whole picture, dearest, before you jump to conclusions,” Willis said, “and then you'll have the same vision I have. I know you will.”

“Willis,” Sylvia asked, “for heaven's sake, what sort of vision?”

“A vision of the future, honey,” Willis told her. “I don't even have to shut my eyes to picture you and me eventually entertaining all sorts of people here. For instance when we are once established we will be able to ask Mr. and Mrs. P. L. Nagel out for a week end when they come to New York. This is going to be a real center for you and me and the children, and it's also going to offer a type of business entertainment which I am very confident can be written off on the income tax.”

At least Sylvia was listening to him and thank goodness she had stopped crying. “I never thought you could be so fantastic, Willis,” she said. “Have you ever thought that it will take three servants to run this place, let alone a nurse, and those lawns, Willis—you'll need a man all the time.”

Willis was glad at last that they were getting down to brass tacks. In the last analysis, taking over a house like Waydeholm was a simple question of faith and courage. It had never occurred to him until he had observed Sylvia's reaction that women, as a rule, were more timid and conservative than men.

“Actually I've given the service angle some real serious thought,” Willis told her, “and I've noticed, sweetness, that it is an occasional habit of yours to exaggerate difficulties. If we temporarily close off some of the rooms in the third story, I believe that two maids will be able to look out for things, considering the kitchen's all electric. That only means one more maid than we have already.”

“But what about the children?” Sylvia asked, and her voice rose in a plaintive way.

“Now that's a very reasonable question, honey,” Willis told her. “It will be just as easy to take care of the children here as it would be anywhere else, and we can start budgeting right away for a nurse.”

“But you don't get a nurse by budgeting,” Sylvia said.

“Oh yes you do,” Willis said. “You wait and see, sweetness. You're going to be surprised. If I was able to get Rahway Belt on its feet, I guess I can manage this house all right, just so long as I have your cooperation. Wait till you see the washing machines in the basement and the electric dryer. As far as the lawn goes, there's a honey of a motor lawn mower out in the garage. Just for a starter I can do the lawns personally.”

When Sylvia listened, she was always reasonable.

“But, Willis,” she said, “what about furniture?”

That was what convinced Sylvia eventually. He had entirely forgotten to tell her about the furniture.

“Sweetness,” he said, and he put his arm around her, “you wait and see. All the essential furniture comes with the house. There are rugs and drapes and beds and sofas. We will now visit the living room.” He stopped and kissed her gently on the cheek. “Honey, I will have your cooperation, won't I?”

“I'll do the best I can,” Sylvia said, and she sighed, “but it's all so ostentatious, Willis.”

Right from the very beginning Sylvia always worried about ostentation, and yet in certain ways Willis knew she loved it, as soon as she became accustomed to an ostentatious phase.

“Sylvia, dear,” he said, and he did not realize until he had started that he was going to state a clause or two of his personal philosophy, “if there's any ostentation, we'll outgrow it mighty quickly. Some day, maybe before too long, this house is going to look small to you and me.”

“I don't see how you can say that, Willis,” Sylvia told him.

It showed she did not have his vision, but it was rather a cute remark, and he kissed her cheek again.

“Let's consider this home as a symbol, dear,” Willis said.

“What sort of a symbol?” she asked him.

What he answered might have been unduly sentimental, but he meant every word he said then and he meant it still.

“A symbol of faith, dear,” he told her, and when he saw that she looked startled, he enlarged upon his thought. “Maybe you think I'm going overboard, sweetness, but I mean our faith in each other, and our faith in the future and the children and everything. Maybe it's fantastic, as you say, sweetness, but let's look upon this whole home venture as a dream we want to make come true.”

Maybe he had said it in a corny way, but he was expressing in his own personal terms the thoughts and wishes of any man who tries to build a home, and Sylvia understood him.

“Darling,” she said, “I wish I didn't keep forgetting how generous and sweet you are. I see what you mean, dear. Of course I'll help you make it all come true.”

Essentially Waydeholm did turn into a dream come true. Willis was not there much during the war and he was pretty busy afterwards, but it was always a place of happy memories. As P. L. Nagel said when they walked around the grounds once, it was a sound, efficient home and a good place for showing off antiques, but it was a whole lot more than that. It was where the children learned to walk and talk and play. It was where Sylvia and he cemented many friendships and it was where he bought Sylvia her first mink coat—if you wanted to think of anniversaries. All sorts of birthdays and Christmases and happy sentimental times transpired at Waydeholm, and furthermore servants always liked it. Willis had a real lump in his throat when he parted with Waydeholm finally, dividing up its five acres into lots and selling the main house as a convalescent home, all for double the original investment. It was sad to pack up and go away, but as he told Sylvia at the time, that was America. Life and progress always meant moving into something new—and better. In life and in business you couldn't stand still in America.

XXV

Willis found himself telling that story about the Chinese Ambassador again in—of all places—the spacious glassed-in terrace of the Hotel Carolina in Pinehurst in May of 1948. He had just come in from a very happy afternoon of golf, and he was enjoying some good talk before going up to the suite to change before the cocktail hour and the banquet.

They were serving tea, as was the custom at the Carolina, but not many were having any. Willis had been sitting with Jerry Bascomb, who had been his foursome partner and whom Willis had asked down with him for the Pinehurst convention because he thought that Jerry needed a little fun away from Helen and the children, and also because it was a great help to have Jerry at his elbow in case something came up of a technical or engineering nature. If anybody in the Associates deserved a good time at company expense, it was Jerry, and Willis made a mental note to send Jerry to some convention every year in the future. He was just telling Jerry that Pinehurst was an ideal place for business meetings—what with the mild dry air and the four golf courses—when Alec Bingkrampf came up and spoke to him. He was of course the Bingkrampf who was president of Swanee Power, and this year he was chairman in general charge of all arrangements for the Production Liners Convocation at Pinehurst. It was one of Alec Bingkrampf's duties to mingle with everyone, and Willis had meant to help by coming up himself and shaking hands at an early opportunity and asking Bing if he remembered the good times they had had in Washington together during the war. There was no necessity for this, however, because Alec Bingkrampf came right over himself.