by A. J. Cronin
‘Didn’t you hear me?’
‘When?’ Nye said coolly. ‘Did you call?’
Smith eyed the other suspiciously, took a chair – the hard one – then looked pointedly at his wrist watch.
‘You’re a bit late getting in, aren’t you?’
‘Well, you know I’m not an early riser. I haven’t the temperament for it. Is there anything fresh?’
‘Yes, there is.’ He paused gloomily. ‘A wire from Greeley. He’s coming up again.’
‘When?’
‘Today. His train arrives Tynecastle Station at two-twenty. I’m to send the car. Of course I’ll go to meet him. I’m worried, Leonard; I think it looks very bad.’
Greeley, the managing editor, Nye had to admit, was bad news at any time, a real hound dog for rooting out the worst features in a balance sheet, and murder on expense accounts. But there was more, much more, in this visit, his third in six weeks – Nye had expected it and he knew that it meant a definite showdown.
‘Why doesn’t he come by plane?’ Smith grieved, poring over the telegram in his hand as though attempting to memorize it. ‘The airport’s a lot handier.’
‘The M.E. never took a plane in his life. He’s the cautious type, like you.’
‘Cut it out, Nye. Can’t you see how serious this is for both of us? Unless we can convince him. We’re not that far off the end of our allocation. London was very queer yesterday. When they called Tingle back I knew it was a bad sign. And last week at head office Somerville really laid it on the line. When he had us both up in March it was bad enough. This time he gave me the works. We’ve got to deliver at all costs, or else. I’m desperately worried.’
Nye looked at the other with barely concealed contempt. For some months after their arrival in Hedleston, the joint rebuff they had received from Page had served to draw them together. But the two men were fundamentally opposite and Smith’s dull personality, pedestrian methods, and uninspired outlook had by now thoroughly antagonized Nye. Actually it had taken him all his time to get along with his heavy-footed colleague without telling him what he thought of him and, in fact, what he knew of him. In sad truth, Smith’s career had been slightly more tarnished than he made out and his manner of glossing this over, between humility and bombast, jarred the susceptibilities of a realist like Nye. He considered the man a clod, besides being a crashing bore, with his platitudinous honesty and plodding self-sufficiency, both supported by the delusion that he was the calm, successful type, while all the time he was sweating with anxiety, putting his foot in it, nerving himself to do better, longing to win friends and influence people.
‘It doesn’t seem to bother you much.’ Smith broke the silence.
‘For God’s sake, stop whining,’ Nye exploded. ‘Don’t you realize yet that I’m in dead earnest? I mean to beat the living daylight out of Page. The minute I laid eyes on that noble upholder of morality and the British constitution I made up my mind to put him out of business, period. But I don’t go howling this from the housetops; it’s just not my style.’
A pause followed, then Smith speculated unhappily, his mind still on Greeley.
‘I wonder if he’ll stop the night time. Or go down sleeper?’
‘He won’t stay.’
‘We might have to entertain him. Why are you so sure?’
‘Because I know,’ Leonard sneered. ‘ Don’t bother to arrange a floor show.’
Smith gazed at Nye doubtfully but said nothing, and presently he heaved himself to his feet and made for the door.
When he had gone Nye pushed the papers aside and settled down to further serious reflection. Although he had trained himself to remain casual and relaxed under all circumstances, this did not prevent him, when the occasion arose, from concentrating his thoughts with a kind of sardonic intensity. From the outset he had fully understood that all the drive and initiative must come from him – Smith might adequately control the financial side, but beyond that, he would contribute nothing. Nye’s promotion and publicity, viewed in retrospect, had been first-rate. He had launched the Chronicle with a bang and, working strenuously, both editorially and as a feature writer, had, in his own phrase, stirred things up in this half-dead town. But for some months now there had been clear indications that something more was needed if the Chronicle was to come out on top. While Smith kept plugging along, hoping to wear Page down, Nye had realized that, on their side, this war of attrition could not go on for ever. All the evidence from head office – confirmed now by this sudden visit from Greeley – showed plainly that Somerville would not, or could not, stand it. Nye had it, in fact, from the inside that financially Vernon was having a difficult time. Something immediate and decisive had become essential, a line of strategy quite different from the ordinary, laboured routine, a brilliant stroke that would knock out Page once and for all.
So, as long ago as last March, after the first recall by Somerville, Nye had put his wits to work. It had not been easy. But he was rather good at that sort of thing, and at the end of the previous month he had come on something, quite unexpected, that gave him an idea. Followed up with tact and skill, this had developed into what he could now dispassionately regard as a certainty. Going over the details, one by one, as he sat there, he did not see how it could fail. He hadn’t meant to spring his plan quite so soon – it would have been amusing to keep Smith in the dark a little longer – but now, with Greeley bearing down upon them, it was time to bring the rabbit out of the hat.
About an hour later Smith set out for Tynecastle, driven by Fred. Once he was well out of the way, Nye went to lunch, telling Peter where he could be reached. In this provincial town he found the refinements of life, to say the least, scanty. He couldn’t, for example, get a decent haircut and he had to go to Tynecastle for a manicure. However, the table at the Red Lion wasn’t at all bad – and they had a surprisingly good cellar.
Although Leonard had regard for his figure and always watched his calories, today he was in the mood to do himself rather well. When working for Jotham in Paris in ’49 he had developed a fair gastronomic sense, and used to lunch quite often at Maxim’s and Lapérouse. And, of course, in New York a few flattering paragraphs, judiciously spaced, had enabled him usually to dine free at the more select restaurants and night spots. Today, he ordered a few potted Morecambe shrimps, followed by a rare filet mignon and a green salad, then some ripe blue Cheshire cheese. With the steak he proposed to drink a bottle of Pouilly ’47, a glass of Dow’s port with the cheese, and a brandy with his coffee.
The fact that he had placed a mine under Page and was about to explode it gave zest to his excellent meal. There was in the elegant Nye an active ill-will, a fount of indefatigable vindictiveness which derived, if not from prenatal sources, at least from his origin and upbringing. Leonard, in fact, had arrived in the world without being invited, the accidental product of one of those liaisons, presumably based on higher thought, which from time to time occur in the literary world. His father, Augustus Newall, a large, heavy, cheesy man with yellow teeth and a tendency to soft, wide-brimmed black hats, had been frenetically acclaimed in the early twenties for a volume of advanced poetry. The Black Stallion, which, in terms of the stud book, might well have been by Baudelaire out of Gertrude Stein. His mother, Charlotte Nye, an emancipated, youngish woman, some years out of Girton, violently intellectual, with a firm belief in her own talent and a highbrow contempt for bourgeois convention, was impelled to compose, carefully, a letter of adulation to the new luminary, which succeeded in its object and brought the two together.
It was a meeting of twin souls. First she sat at the feet of the master, then she warmed them in bed. They set up house together. But Charlotte had a temper, nor was she sufficiently good-looking to hold exclusively the amorous Augustus, who, in his brief and pampered heyday, frequently and with calm avidity possessed his female admirers on the nearest couch – indeed, occasionally on the drawing-room carpet. After some eighteen months the unhappy mischance of Leonard’s
conception broke up the meeting of minds, which, begun on a plane of aesthetic rapture, descended now to violent recriminations and ended, shortly after Leonard’s birth, in the mutual hatred of two disillusioned egoists.
At first Leonard went with his mother, who, turning on the rebound to the stage, began to secure small parts in provincial repertory. Always an incubus, the child was dragged unwillingly around the country until judged old enough to be returned to his father, who, the well of poetry having run dry, was now turned critic, reviewing the work of his contemporaries with professional savagery. Thereafter the boy was shuttled between one parent and the other, greeted with concealed chagrin and despatched with obvious relief, until his father, deciding to live abroad, finally boarded him out with a hitherto unacknowledged aunt who maintained an obscure tobacconist’s establishment in the Fulham Road.
This good woman did not treat her charge badly; in fact, even when Augustus’s lean remittances became more and more infrequent she continued to feed him. Yet already the formative influences of his curriculum of rejection, acting on a temperament well fitted to receive it, had sharpened and embittered young Nye. He saw that he owed nothing to anyone, and, as he grew older, there hardened in him an excusable, if cynical, determination to trust no one, never to regard the feelings of others, and henceforth to live only for himself. When, at the age of twenty-one, he turned instinctively to journalism, these were the qualities allied to his inherited brains and a natural gift for the stinging expression of his thoughts, which had laid the foundations of his success.
After his meal Leonard felt quite inspired, ready for what the afternoon might bring. As it was not yet two o’clock and Smith would not be back until three, he drifted to the billiard room and practised a few difficult cushion cannons. Joe, the marker, offered him a game, but Nye didn’t want to get involved – he told Joe they’d play that evening. Then, at half past two, he went to the phone booth and, carefully shutting the door, called Hedleston 7034.
‘Hello, hello.’ He had to wait several minutes before the connection was established, then, in his smoothest and most honeyed tone, he resumed. ‘Hello, is that you, Mrs Harbottle? How are you? Good. I’m very glad to hear it. But the rheumatism … of course … well, it is a troublesome thing. Now look, my dear Mrs Harbottle, this is to let you know that I’ll almost certainly be over this afternoon, myself and two other gentlemen … yes, both very nice … to complete our little affair. Do you hear me? What? Good gracious no, it isn’t a mean thing for you to do. On the contrary, you’re more than justified. Now, Mrs Harbottle, we’ve been over all that before when you signed that little paper for me. You remember, don’t you? You can’t withdraw now; that would be a very serious matter; we’d have to bring in our lawyers. And besides, it’s such a wonderful opportunity. What’s that? Yes, naturally, old friends are best, but not when they let you down and impose on you. For years you’ve been practically swindled, and you’ll never get another penny from them now. So that’s settled, then … we’ll be over. Good. No, don’t trouble to make tea for us. I’ll come for tea with you later in the week and have some of your lovely griddle cakes … they’s so delicious. Good … excellent … till this afternoon, Mrs. Harbottle.’
When Nye came out of the sticky little booth where he’d actually been grimacing in his effort to get things over to the ‘old trout’, as he called her – who was not only close-fisted and difficult, but deaf as a post – he needed another brandy to slacken his facial muscles. He had it, then got back to the office.
Not a minute too soon. He had barely re-established himself at his desk when Greeley and Smith arrived.
The managing editor was a man of past fifty, exceedingly tall and excessively thin, with a long, hollow, chilly face. He always struck Nye as having recently been resurrected from the tomb, cadaverous, yet persistently exhaling decorum and propriety, as though prepared by a reputable undertaker. His pursuits, even, were necroscopic: on his vacations he visited ruins, explored catacombs, and had last summer taken to digging for shards in the caves of southern Italy. Although the day was warm he had on a coat, which he now wriggled out of, first placing one wool-lined glove methodically in each outside pocket. He was wearing the usual dark suit and stiff-winged Gladstone collar, above which his bony larynx protruded noticeably, as though impacted in his gullet, moving up and down every time he swallowed. But despite the oddity of his appearance and some eccentricity of manner, he had a penetrating legal mind, having been a barrister of considerable standing before his seduction to trade by Somerville.
‘You didn’t find time to accompany Mr Smith.’ His glance, severe, held a hint of reproof.
‘Someone has to hold the fort,’ Nye explained.
The conference began with an examination of accounts and the past month’s sales returns. Nye sat and watched while the two experts went over the figures. As Greeley’s skeletal fingers flicked through the piled papers, his expression lengthened, gradually took on the appearance of a prosecuting attorney. Finally he removed his horn-rimmed glasses and leaned back.
‘This is more than discouraging. Worse than I anticipated.’
‘We’ve tightened up our production unit,’ Smith mumbled, ‘ and cut the overhead. If only they’d get started on the Utley project. You know we counted on that for a big influx of new readers. But they keep postponing it.… Heaven knows, I’m not responsible.’
‘Never mind Utley. You are actually losing circulation you had already gained. Which means that Page is getting it back.’
Immediately Smith broke into a long apologetic explanation, prepared beforehand, stressing all that they had done, the difficulties they had encountered, and promising improved results in the immediate future. Greeley let him labour on to the end, partly because he was favourably disposed towards Smith but also because he wanted to hear and weigh all the evidence. Then, with lateral movements of his jaws, as though chewing each word before ejecting it, he said:
‘Of the amount allocated for this unfortunate project, there remains a balance of less than ten thousand pounds. Pegging revenue and expenditure at their present levels, I estimate that your probable loss will absorb this in less than six weeks. What, may I inquire, will you do then?’
‘We hope, naturally … we’re so near our objective … well … we would anticipate a further appropriation.’
Emphatically, Greeley shook his head.
‘It’s a great pity for you, Smith, I know you’re hardworking and conscientious, but I am afraid I cannot advise Mr Somerville to supplement the original budget. In my view the entire enterprise will have to be written off, unless something totally unexpected turns up.’ Looking across, he caught Nye staring, and added, in the disapproving tone he usually adopted towards him, ‘ Perhaps Mr Nye has a suggestion to make.’
‘Well,’ Nye said, ‘in point of fact, I have.’
He took time out to light a cigarette. He wasn’t going to be put down by Greeley, who might have eaten his dinners in the Inner Temple and sat on the Royal Commission, but who, to his mind, was nothing but a cheese-paring sod who had tried to cut his expense account when he was in America and whom, actually, he had once seen change a shilling at the Paddington Station bookstall so that he could tip his porter sixpence. Still, at the present moment he had no wish to antagonize him. His manner was tactful and reasonable as he said:
‘It seems to me that you’re both taking a unilateral view of the situation. You’re so concerned with our figures, costs, and percentages you can’t see beyond them. It’s been a hard job starting the Chronicle – this fellow Page was stronger than we expected – and in spite of a lot of first-rate promotion over which, incidentally, I’ve absolutely slaved, we’ve lost a packet and haven’t quite swept the board. That’s what you’re looking at. Now, Mr Greeley, while at head office you’ve been wringing your hands and watching us, I’ve been keeping my eye on the other side. And what I couldn’t see I made it my business to find out. I can tell you that Page has been los
ing capital just as steadily as we have, and for the past two months he’s been trying desperately to raise more ready money. Five weeks ago he went to the bank and asked for a loan. He didn’t get it. He went to the chairman of the board and still didn’t get it. What next? He began to strain his credit. As the bills kept piling up he mortgaged his house, put up his life insurance, sold his collection of china, borrowed a few hundred from his assistant editor, even asked some of his old employees to take a twenty per cent salary cut. Now, all this doesn’t mean that he can’t carry on a bit longer and make things painful for us. But it does show that he’s in a very bad way, ready for that one final punch that will finish him off.’
Greeley had been listening attentively enough, but now he moved impatiently, though with a certain inquisitiveness.
‘Even if there is something in what you say, this stalemate might still drag on indefinitely. And where, if I may borrow your sporting phrase, would this final punch come from?’
Nye leaned forward, speaking slowly and logically. Much as he disliked the managing editor, he wanted to convince him; it was essential to carry him along.
‘The Light building, such as it is, is owned by Page. He does not own the printing hall. This belonged to a Mr Harbottle, a close friend of Page’s father, and is now owned by Harbottle’s widow. For years the hall has been let to the Light for a more or less nominal rent on an annual, long-standing, amicable agreement – I have a photostatic copy of the lease here.’
Greeley was definitely attentive now, but suspicious – Nye was treading on his line of country. As for Smith, he was listening, mouth slightly open, as though hypnotized.
‘I discovered all this more than a month ago, and I may tell you it took quite a bit of ferreting out. What did I do about it? Nothing. I didn’t want to start working on Mrs Harbottle too soon. But around the beginning of June, through that fellow Balmer, who came over to us, I got to know the old lady. I took pains to be nice to her, had tea with her, casually brought up the subject of the lease, showed her how she was being put upon by the low rental and, after considerable effort, brought her to the point where she is prepared to sell the hall … to us. Now, can you imagine what it would mean to Page, who’s already in tremendous difficulties, if suddenly, without any warning, he finds he can’t print his paper?’