‘Modern methods increase output. Peasants take to travel.’
‘But that’s tragic,’ burst out the Major unable to contain his indignation. ‘It’s disgraceful.’
Walter, however, paid no attention to him for that had not been the end of the story, by any means. Even in later years problems still used to crop up for the merchants. The Burmese, certainly, had been largely reduced to the status of coolies by the turn of the century, but Indians and Chinese, who understood western business methods better, had taken to setting up their own mills in the interior of the country and milling rice for export, thereby weakening the monopoly of the big European mills in Rangoon. When in 1920 Blackett and Webb and the other European millers tried as usual to keep the price of paddy down they failed and had to pay up (‘Those damned forward sales again!’). So the following year Blackett and Webb had joined the other three main European houses in the notorious Bullinger Pool to harmonize their buying and selling policies.
‘Well, that was nothing new. But someone … don’t ask me who! … used his influence with the railway company to make the freight charges for moving milled rice more expensive than for moving paddy.’ Walter chuckled with pleasure at this recollection of twenty years ago. ‘Result? The mills in the interior could no longer compete with Rangoon in the export trade. We were back on Easy Street!’ The Major muttered inaudibly, clasping his brow.
‘What’s that you say, Major! Complaints? Of course there were complaints! There always are. Nationalists brought it up in the Legislature in 1929. But that was nearly ten years later and when they held an enquiry it didn’t get anywhere. Besides, by that time world prices had collapsed and people had more important things to worry about.’
‘Rice sleuths’ freight enquiry comes off rails,’ scribbled the reporter fluently, stifling a yawn. How had Blackett and Webb come to be involved in rubber? He had to repeat his question because Walter was eyeing his guests to make sure that all was still going smoothly.
The Rhythmic Rascals had started playing once more: this time it was ‘Run, Rabbit, Run’. Down below, not far from the pool, one of the browsing military men stiffened for a moment, nose in the air, as if scenting RAF officers on the breeze. But Babington and his men were still safely downwind in the direction of the tennis courts. A moment later he resumed his drinking and chatting, though a shade more warily than before; white-coated waiters passed among the little flock carrying trays of champagne or pahits. Joan and Ehrendorf were still standing together, a little way apart from the other guests. Joan had just held out her glass to a waiter carrying a champagne bottle wrapped in a white napkin. Was it Walter’s imagination or did Ehrendorf flinch away slightly as she made a move to raise it to her lips?
It was certainly true that rice, explained Walter, turning back to his companions, was only one of many kinds of tropical produce to be handled by Blackett and Webb when the partnership had first been formed. But rubber rapidly became the most important. The years of old Mr Webb’s active business life, from about 1880 to 1930, had witnessed a prodigious exporting of capital from Britain to the colonial Empire: this capital’s role was to take advantage of the high investment returns attending the plentiful supply of land and, above all, cheap labour in the colonies. Already before the Great War Mr Webb had begun to acquire plantations in order to be sure of a steady supply of the various commodities in which he traded. As it turned out, nobody was in a better position to take advantage of the rubber boom which came with the motor-car than a merchant with a good reputation, like Mr Webb whose integrity was beyond question and whose firm was already accustomed to administering plantations. Such a merchant house, instead of risking its own resources (this was a new industry: demand might fluctuate), could tap that huge reservoir of silver which had accumulated in Britain thanks to the Industrial Revolution and which had since grown stagnant. After that, the firm had grown rapidly. The next years had been spent starting plantations or acquiring those started by other people and floating them in London as rubber companies, using Blackett and Webb’s reputation and its participation in the issues to attract investors. In due course, as a result, they had found themselves managing-agents of a considerable number of small rubber companies.
‘Expanding rubber boom stretches firm’s own resources despite elastic demand!’ wrote the reporter, warming to his task.
By the early twenties Blackett and Webb had been in a position to channel business to European companies in return for being made their sole Singapore agents. Shipping lines interested in the freight trade accompanying the rubber boom appointed Blackett and Webb their agents in the Far East. Insurance companies, manufacturers of this and that hoping to find a market in Malaya or the Dutch East Indies, engineering and construction firms looking for contracts … In no time they were agents for all sorts of business radiating from Singapore over a vast area in every direction, a commercial grip on land and labour of enormous potential resources. And everything, except perhaps for pineapples and the entrepôt business, had flourished. Blackett and Webb could look back with satisfaction on their fifty years of service to the community.
‘What’s your name, son?’
‘Malcolm, sir.’
‘Well, you’re a bright lad, Malcolm,’ said Walter with magnanimity. ‘Work hard and you’ll get on in life.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
The music had come to a stop once more. The Rhythmic Rascals, exhausted by their efforts in the humid heat, were sitting back enjoying a rest. Walter had just noticed something rather odd: old Mr Webb, seated by himself in the shade and temporarily deserted by young executives, was no longer sitting bolt upright as was his custom, indeed he was slumped rather pathetically. Could it be that the old fellow had had too much to drink on this day of celebration? But Walter had never known him to touch alcohol. More likely he was simply too tired to make the effort when he was by himself. Still, he should not have been left alone, today especially.
Walter left the Major and was about to join his former partner when he realized that events elsewhere were beginning to take a disastrous course. One of the staff officers had just spoken to General Bond, evidently suggesting that they should go and have a look at the tennis, for the General and his flock began to stride out firmly in that direction. But they were still some yards away when Air-Marshal Babington and his men, clearly having just made a similar decision to visit the Orchid Garden, put in a sudden appearance from behind the hedge. The two rival groups stopped and glared at each other, bristling.
‘Oh Lord!’ muttered Walter, hurrying to intercept them. But again he was diverted, this time by an urgent shout from one of the servants. He was just in time to see old Mr Webb topple out of his chair and roll over on the lawn. At the same moment the first heavy drops of a providential shower of rain began to patter on the lawn and make rings in the pool, scattering the guests who still had not noticed old Mr Webb. The guests took cover, laughing, leaving Walter and the Major, assisted by some alarmed servants, to carry the old gentleman into the house.
‘Oh no! Not a death as well!’ groaned Mrs Blackett to herself. It was one of those days. Her party had not been a success.
7
Was Mr Webb actually dead or not? It was very hard to say at first. The scurrying cortège that was carrying him into the house made its way, in order not to alarm the other guests, behind the refreshment tent which had been set up on the lawn. From there it made a quick dash for a side door normally used by the servants. Mr Webb’s body was extraordinarily light despite its length: the old capitalist was really nothing but skin and bone. The Major had surrendered his share of it to one of the ‘boys’ and hurried ahead to telephone for an ambulance.
Returning presently to the drawing-room he found that Mr Webb, who was after all still breathing, had been laid horizontal on a sofa which by chance stood so close to the vertical portrait of himself that the heavy shoes he was wearing came within a few inches of the identical shoes in the painting. This coinciden
ce gave the Major the curious feeling that he was looking at a toy soldier that had just fallen over. He rejected this impression immediately, however, and filled with concern, for he was genuinely fond of the old man, he hastened forward to where Walter was unlacing the three-dimensional shoes with respect and taking them off the ancient feet. The Major, determined to be helpful, loosened the old gentleman’s stiff collar and then hurried away once more to see if he could find a doctor among the guests.
Presently, though, an ambulance arrived and events took their course. The old fellow had had a serious stroke and was not expected to survive for very long. Walter gloomily rejoined the garden-party. It was not worth sending people home, even if he had had a mind to: they were beginning to go already. By half-past seven the garden was quiet. The ‘boys’ had finished the task of clearing up after the guests, the caterers had struck their tents, the band had moved on to its evening assignment. Where the rest of his family had got to, Walter had no idea. He suspected his wife had gone to lie down in her bedroom. Having told one of the ‘boys’ to send Joan to him, he himself retired to brood in his dressing-room from where he had a view over the now peaceful garden.
This tiny, high-ceilinged room was the one place, his family and servants knew, where he must never be disturbed without permission, for it was here perched on the arm of an old leather armchair by the window that he did his thinking. This habit of sitting always in the same place had given the dull leather that covered the chair a deep polish on the arm nearest the window. Teak drawers with gleaming brass fittings, their size according to whether they contained shirts, or collars, or handkerchieves, rose in tiers around him. Beside the door in an alcove stood a vast Edwardian washbasin, also with brass fittings and so deep, so capacious that one could have bathed a spaniel, say, or a child in it, submerging them without difficulty.
Now that the garden-party had come to its sad end Walter had a good deal to brood over and not much time in which to do it. Soon more guests would be arriving, or at least he supposed that they would, unless they were forestalled by news of Mr Webb’s stroke. Below in the dining-room eighty places had been laid in silver cutlery on a glistening white table-cloth. A dinner-party had been organized as a preview of Blackett and Webb’s jubilee celebrations, to mark the opening of the campaign, as it were, which would reach its climax in the great parade scheduled for New Year’s Day 1942. To this party the innermost circle of Singapore’s business and governmental community had been invited to offer their congratulations to himself and, in particular, to old Mr Webb whose birthday it was. Walter had instructed his secretary to telephone as many of the dinner-guests as he could find, cancelling the engagement. But undoubtedly at this last minute it would be impossible to locate them all. Well, so much the worse. Those who came would be received and fed. If there were only a few he could leave Monty to take care of them. It would be good practice for him.
Walter gazed out at the insects swirling around the lights by the swimming pool, listening to the tropical night which like some great machine turning over had begun its humming, whirring and clicking, steadily growing in volume as the darkness deepened. And as he listened, he brooded, not on his partner’s imminent death (he would think about that presently) but on his daughter’s marriage. Walter was considered, and considered himself, fond of his children. But the truth was that he had been disappointed when, after a promising start with Monty, his wife had given him only two daughters, Joan and little Kate. If he had had more sons what could he not have done with Blackett and Webb! He loved his daughters, of course, but he had always assumed them to be a liability. And he had been unable to prevent himself making a bitter comparison between his own family and the Firestones’. It seemed to him perfectly unjust that Harvey Firestone should not only have set up such an effective business but should, in addition, have engendered five energetic sons in his own image with which to expand it. At one time Walter had entertained kindly thoughts of the Firestones and had even sent an occasional Christmas card to their family farm in Ohio. But relations between producers and manufacturers had been soured by the international rubber restriction agreement set up by the British and Dutch rubber producers to stabilize the price. Firestone and the American consumers had launched a political counter-attack … and now, though there was already too much of the stuff being grown, they had put great areas of Liberia under rubber! What could you do with such people!
‘Harvey’s trouble was that he was drunk with his own power and just because he used to go camping with the President, who was only a flea-bitten politician anyway!’
Sons are an asset, daughters a liability. This had always been, in Walter’s view, axiomatic. But there remained, nevertheless, one time-honoured way in which a daughter could prove an asset: namely, by her marriage. By a judicious match she could accomplish more, at one stroke, than any number of sons might accomplish in a lifetime. What might not have been achieved if Joan had appealed to one of the young Firestones? Walter shrugged the thought away dejectedly: he must not torment himself with such fantasies.
In the past three years a considerable change had come over Joan. She had grown more mature. Above all, she had come to take a serious interest in the business, much more interest than Monty, as it happened. On one or two occasions when Walter had been in need of assistance in some delicate and confidential matter which he did not care to reveal even to his closest colleagues, Joan had done useful work for him, showing a natural grasp of the important issues which he could not help but find gratifying. A sense of reality had come to replace the romantic nonsense she had brought back from her finishing school. Walter now dared to hope that she would no longer find a marriage soundly based on commercial logic quite so distasteful. What worried him, though, was this throwing of wine into young men’s faces and invitations to them to step fully-clothed into swimming pools. Nor, it must be admitted, had she as yet shown much interest in the right sort of young man … or old man, for that matter.
There had, Walter reflected as he left his seat by the window and began dressing for a dinner which he hoped would not take place, only been one merchant’s son who had appeared to take her fancy. That had been young Langfield of Langfield and Bowser Limited, heir to a merchant house neither bigger nor smaller than Blackett and Webb. You might wonder who could have been more suitable. Not so. The Langfields were the one family in business in the Straits with whom Walter would have no dealings (none, at least, that he could decently avoid, for he found himself obliged now and then to sit with a Langfield on this or that Government committee). What jubilation there would be among the Langfields when they learned of the disastrous outcome of the garden-party! It had been reported back to Walter that they had already been at work in Singapore insidiously suggesting that there was something vulgar about starting jubilee celebrations more than a year before the date of commemoration. Walter’s brows gathered at the thought of the unctuous, salt-rubbing letter of regret which he would receive from old Solomon Langfield in the morning. The old fox was probably hunched over it at this very moment, savouring its hypocritical phrases. He tugged angrily at the butterfly wings of his tie and the knot shrank to the size of a pebble. There was a knock on the door and Joan came in.
‘You wanted to see me?’ She stopped short at the sight of her father’s scowling face, and then came forward and took his arm: ‘Poor Daddy, you must be upset about Mr Webb. I forgot what a blow it must be after all these years.’
‘Eh? What? Oh yes, of course, it does come as a bit of a shock. He was certainly a fine man and the place won’t seem the same without him. Not that he’s dead yet, of course. Hm, but that’s not why I wanted to see you, Joan … What’s this your mother tells me about you throwing wine at Jim Ehrendorf?’
Joan smiled. ‘Has Mother been making a fuss? It was nothing. Really. He was just getting on my nerves. I’d already forgotten about it.’
‘But he’s a nice fellow,’ said Walter, looking at his daughter in surprise. ‘Everyone likes h
im, even though he is American. And he’s the least American American I know. And there’s no one more cultured and with better manners. I can’t see why you want to throw wine in his face.’
Joan looked out of the window for a moment with a sly, half malicious, half amused expression on her face which Walter had not seen before. She shrugged. ‘I don’t know why, myself. I suppose I wanted to see what he would do, whether he would get angry or something. He didn’t, of course. He’s always so reasonable.’ She added with a laugh: ‘Even if I kicked his shins he still wouldn’t do anything, except perhaps look rather pained and forgiving.’
‘Well, please don’t kick his shins at my garden-parties, or do anything else to him, if it comes to that. We have a position to keep up in Singapore. Promise?’
Joan nodded and smiled, peering curiously at her father at the same time, or rather at his neck. ‘What have you done to your tie, Daddy? It looks most peculiar. Here, let me tie it again for you. I’m expert at tying men’s bow-ties. I’ve had to practise so much on Monty.’
‘All right, but I shall sit down if you don’t mind.’ He held his chin up, gazing at the ceiling while Joan’s fingers played deftly about his neck. ‘There was something else I wanted to mention. Have you seen Miss Chiang recently? Does she still have a room at the Mayfair? I meant to ask the Major.’
The Empire Trilogy Page 90