Sincerely, Willis Wayde

by John P. Marquand

  “And I’d be pleased if I knew what in hell you were talking about,” Roger Harcourt said. “What have you and Nagel been cooking up together there at the Hotel Carolina?”

  It had never been wise to discount Roger Harcourt’s perspicacity. Willis found himself speaking more tersely, because Roger Harcourt always misunderstood if one was polite or ingratiating.

  “I’ll tell you that at lunch,” Willis said. “I suggest we have it here at the office at twelve-thirty sharp. I’ll add that it’s an important enough appointment to break any others that you may have, Roger. I have a piece of news that I think will please you, and I have one more suggestion.”

  Willis paused. There was nothing like a slight wait over the telephone.

  “Hello,” Roger Harcourt called, “are you there?”

  “Yes,” Willis said, “I’m right here, Roger. I said I had one suggestion. See if you can make an appointment to see Mrs. Henry Harcourt’s trustee for later in the afternoon. And now I must bid you good-by because I’m going into a conference.”

  It was strange when one grew older how age differentials leveled off. Roger Harcourt was nothing now but a peevish, ill-mannered old man who happened to be a director of Harcourt Associates and the owner of a considerable block of stock. There was nothing else to Roger Harcourt any longer.

  The idea of office luncheons and of the office as a place for entertaining had always appealed to Willis. Guests were impressed by the office setting and liked to meet the department heads, even if the food was austerely simple—usually cold meat, a salad, a thinning dessert and plenty of coffee. The food came from outside, but as Willis had once said hilariously, saccharine for the coffee was supplied by the management.

  Guests or not, Willis had always made it a point to have lunch in the office with the executive staff whenever he came to Boston. He could not help it if Roger was annoyed by having to eat clear consommé, cold tongue, and cole slaw in the conference room with Sol Bradley, Dana Britchbury, Hank Knowlton and two juniors from the sales department. He was sure that he needed only a half an hour with Roger after lunch, and as matters turned out his foreshadowing had been correct almost to the minute.

  “Roger,” Willis said, “suppose you and I go into Mr. Bryson’s office for our coffee. You can have sugar if you like, but I find saccharine keeps my weight down, and saccharine is thoughtfully supplied by the management.”

  It was one of those office jokes that never grew stale, but Roger Harcourt did not join in the communal laughter.

  “I’d like a digestive tablet instead of saccharine,” Roger said. “I never could stand raw cabbage, but I would indeed appreciate a minute alone with you, Willis, since you asked me up here for a talk.”

  Once Willis would have been alarmed by this display of temper, but he knew that basically Roger Harcourt respected him. It was even barely possible that Roger Harcourt was fond of him.

  “Oh, Hank,” Willis said to Hank Knowlton, “would you just pass the word around that I don’t want to be disturbed for half an hour, and no incoming calls?”

  Willis closed the door of Mr. Bryson’s office and his gaze traveled over the copies of the Harcourt portraits on the walls. None of the former owners of the Harcourt Mill had ever looked at home in the Tewkesbury Building.

  “Have a cigar, Roger,” Willis said, “and settle down in a comfortable chair. I know you don’t approve of the captain’s chairs, but there’s a soft leather one over by the window.”

  Willis poured the coffee, and Roger Harcourt grunted painfully as he sat down.

  “All right,” he said in his high voice, “now that you’ve got me placed with the light on my face and the office door closed, perhaps you’ll pull the God-damned rabbit out of your hat, Willis. I don’t underrate your ability for a single minute but I wish you didn’t always find it necessary to set the stage.”

  Willis laughed affectionately.

  “I think you’ll agree with me in just a minute,” he said, “that this moment needs a little setting, Roger. I’m sorry you were bored at lunch. I wanted it to look as though you dropped in casually, because, very frankly, our meeting mustn’t be underlined at all. But before we start, could you tell me what the doctors say about Mr. Bryson’s condition?”

  “I don’t think I can bear it, Willis,” Roger Harcourt said, “if you tell me again that you have a warm spot in your heart for Bryson. If he had worked harder and hadn’t indulged in violent exercise, he wouldn’t be in his present unhappy condition. From everything I can gather, he will never recover sufficiently to participate further in Harcourt Associates matters—not that this will be a loss to anyone.”

  Willis put down his coffee cup carefully on Mr. Bryson’s desk and looked sternly at Roger Harcourt.

  “I hope you’ll forgive me, Roger,” he said, “if I say I resent your attitude. Simply because our business has been expanding—this does not mean for a minute that my loyalty to Mr. Bryson and his family has altered in any way. I want to make that quite clear from the outset, Roger.”

  Willis was moved by the ring of his own voice, but he could not tell whether or not Roger Harcourt was impressed.

  “I don’t give a damn how loyal you are,” Roger Harcourt said, “as long as this firm keeps on making money. Just as soon as the stock gets up to a hundred, I’ll sell out, and maybe I’ll have a warm spot in my heart for you when that happens. Now let’s get down to brass tacks. What is it you’ve been talking about with Mr. P. L. Nagel?”

  Although Willis was not sure that he liked Roger’s attitude, he could always take a hint. It had never occurred to him until then that perhaps he had overworked that phrase about having a warm spot in his heart, and he was very glad to know it.

  “I often think the best thing about maturing,” Willis said, “is being able to collect a fine assortment of pleasant memories. I have a lot of them, including a few about you, Roger. We both remember, don’t we, when old P.L.—who, by the way, is a very remarkable person when you get close to him—came down and offered to buy the mill from H.H. Five million dollars was the price, and you wanted to sell, as I remember. It’s worth a good deal more now, Roger.”

  Roger scowled and flicked the ash from the end of his cigar onto the immaculate carpet.

  “I was basically right then and I still think the property ought to be sold,” he said.

  Willis nodded slowly. At last all the facts were maneuvered into a correct position.

  “I agree with you, Roger,” he said gently, “one hundred per cent.”

  Roger Harcourt gave a clumsy jerk and half pushed himself from his chair.

  “What’s that again?” he asked.

  It was a pleasure to be able to surprise Roger, and now that he was surprised the news would be more effective.

  “It hurts me, very frankly, to say that we are in agreement, Roger,” Willis said, “because in a way this contradicts a number of my public statements regarding the future of our company, but privately I’ve been thinking for a long while that we must expand or sell out.”

  Willis waited but not too long. There was no need to be over-dramatic.

  “P. L. Nagel could naturally put the case more strongly than I,” he said. “Briefly, Simcoe wants to absorb us for a figure in the neighborhood of twenty-five million dollars. I think we ought to accept, Roger. Of course I would have taken it up with Mr. Bryson, had he been well, but I think the family should consider this offer very seriously and in the next few hours.”

  The words had been in his thoughts for so long that it was a little strange to hear them molded by his own voice.

  “Good God!” Roger Harcourt said. “Twenty-five million?”

  Willis was glad that he had gone so far beyond Roger that he was no longer bemused by high figures.

  “In cash and in an exchange of stock, Roger,” he said. “I’m pleased to see by your reaction that you agree with me that the offer should be taken very seriously. I don’t know how Mr. Bryson will like it, or Bill and B
ess, but I’m going to talk to them this afternoon. You see, there’s another angle I haven’t mentioned—a personal angle.”

  “Oh?” Roger Harcourt said. “Well, what’s the personal angle?”

  It seemed as though their conversation had been written beforehand, since it moved smoothly and inevitably.

  “I hate to bring it up, Roger,” Willis said, “since it involves a question of divided loyalty and one that I have not entirely worked out as yet to my own satisfaction. I like to think I deserve the trust you’ve all put in me during the last eight years, but I also have another loyalty—my obligation to my family. I want to be absolutely sincere about this, Roger. I’ve been offered the first vice presidency of Simcoe, which means the presidency when P. L. Nagel retires—but don’t think for a minute these two offers are contingent.”

  Roger’s smallish mouth creased into an unpleasant smile.

  “Oh, no,” he said, “no, not for a single minute, Willis.”

  It was not a time to be angry, but it was a time for sincerity and for the display of one’s innermost convictions.

  “It’s only fair to tell you,” Willis said, “that I don’t like your tone of sarcasm, and I resent your implication. If there had not been this offer to buy, I would not dream of going to Simcoe, no matter how alluring the future. I want to impress this very seriously on you, Roger. I would never leave this organization in the lurch. I have my stake in Harcourt too, if you want to think from a mercenary angle. Everything aside, I think we’d better sell, but I won’t have you or anyone else casting a reflection on my motives.”

  Roger Harcourt had stopped smiling, but his lips still puckered in a disagreeable way.

  “Don’t get excited, Willis,” he said. “I don’t give a damn about your motives, but I want the facts.”

  “I’m not excited,” Willis said. “I simply want to set the facts straight, Roger.”

  Roger Harcourt smiled at him again.

  “You know,” he said, “I sympathize with you. Nothing anyone ever does is clear-cut. Everything has rough edges. Are you going to go over to Simcoe?”

  It was a question that had to be answered, but as Roger Harcourt had said, everything had its rough edges. Willis spoke slowly, raising his voice slightly, simply for the sake of emphasis.

  “For the sake of my wife and family,” Willis said, “I feel very nearly compelled to accept the flattering offer that Mr. Nagel has made me—and the offer that Simcoe is making the stockholders of Harcourt Associates eases my conscience in this regard. If I am repeating myself, I am only doing so to be absolutely clear.”

  The point had arrived when further talk was unnecessary, and both of them must have seen it.

  “You’ve been very clear,” Roger said. “I’m completely with you about selling, and I see what you mean now about my seeing Mrs. Henry Harcourt’s trustee.”

  “I’m glad you get my point,” Willis answered. “It seems to me only fair that he should know of my personal intentions.”

  “I’ll see he knows,” Roger Harcourt said, and he laughed briefly. “He’ll vote her stock with ours. By God, I’m glad I don’t have to play poker with you, Willis.”

  The tension inside of Willis relaxed, but he still spoke carefully.

  “I’m afraid I don’t quite follow you,” he said. “I don’t want you to feel that I’m using the personal offer that Mr. Nagel made me as any sort of a threat. It isn’t. It’s an integral part of the general picture.”

  “Don’t worry,” Roger Harcourt said. “He’ll vote Mrs. Harcourt’s stock with ours. I’ll call you up as soon as I’ve seen him.”

  Roger pushed himself up from his chair.

  “I always enjoy it when you and I think alike,” he said. “Thank you for the luncheon, Willis, and as I exit may I add that I feel I’ve been in the presence of true greatness? It is a pleasure to see an artist working.”

  “I wouldn’t say that I’m an artist, Roger,” Willis said, “but I am grateful for our little talk and relieved that we have reached an area of agreement.”

  In later days Willis often wondered if there were any way in which he could have made a better presentation. On the whole he was reasonably sure that he had done the best he could. At least he had stated the facts candidly, and in a difficult negotiation it was always best to choose candor.

  The worst part of the day was his visit to the Bryson Harcourt house on Beacon Street. That visit, more than anything else, indicated a severance, and it was always painful to view the end of old associations. Willis might have been less shaken emotionally if he had been accustomed to serious illness, but his own father and mother had always been in excellent health, and when Sylvia’s father, Professor Hodges, had died at the Mt. Auburn Hospital two years before, his death had been so sudden that there had been no atmosphere of the sickroom.

  Willis had always hoped that he had not shown his consternation when he saw Mr. Bryson Harcourt seated in a wheel chair with Mrs. Harcourt standing in the background. He managed to smile in spite of the sagging appearance of half of Mr. Bryson’s face.

  “It’s so good to see you, Willis,” Mrs. Harcourt said, and she shook hands with him in her old vigorous way. “This is Willis, dear.”

  But Mr. Bryson recognized him, though he spoke so thickly that Willis could only distinguish half the words.

  “He’s asking if there’s anything new at the office,” Mrs. Harcourt said.

  “Nothing that isn’t first-rate news,” Willis answered, and he found himself speaking loudly. “Everything is under control until you get back with us.”

  Then Mr. Bryson’s speech grew clearer, or perhaps Willis had become accustomed to it.

  “How was the golf at Pinehurst?”

  The question made a lump rise in Willis’s throat.

  “Pretty good, considering,” Willis answered.

  He could not get Mr. Bryson’s next question, but Mrs. Harcourt did.

  “He wants to know what you went around in,” Mrs. Harcourt said. Though Mr. Bryson was lingering in the shadows, he still wanted to know about the golf.

  “Well,” Willis said, “I got a ninety-one on Course Two but I took three strokes getting out of the trap on the tenth. That’s a very tricky hole, the tenth.”

  Half of Mr. Bryson’s face was like a mask but the other half followed every word.

  “Which trap?”

  “The first on the right, sir,” Willis answered. “The deep one.” He laughed. “It was like being in the crater of a volcano, taking those three strokes.”

  A minute or so later Mrs. Harcourt nodded meaningfully to Willis.

  “It’s great to see you, sir,” Willis said, “and I’ll be looking in again sometime very shortly. Now don’t worry about the office. Everything’s all right.”

  Mrs. Harcourt walked down with him to the front door.

  “Oh, Willis,” she said, “we all thank God that you’re here looking after everything.” He had never felt so close to Mrs. Harcourt.

  “Believe me,” Willis told her, “I’ll always do the best I can, the very best for everyone.”

  He was always glad that he had made this promise to Mrs. Harcourt, and he believed that he had kept it. All anyone could do was do one’s best.

  All that day left an impression of hurry, but there was plenty of time between appointments. It was only his mind that was hurried. There were fifteen minutes to spare, when he reached the office, before Bill and Bess could possibly arrive, plenty of time to compose his thoughts, but there was still that sense of haste.

  “Hank,” he said to Hank Knowlton, “when Mrs. Ewing and Mr. Bill Harcourt are here, keep me off the telephone. And I wish you’d find out where I can reach Mr. P. L. Nagel in Chicago, because I may want to speak to him after they are gone.”

  It was almost like letting the cat out of the bag to mention P. L. Nagel, but then Hank Knowlton was reliable.

  “If it gets to be after five o’clock,” Willis said, “send everybody home except Na
ncy at the switchboard, and I wish you’d stay too, Hank. There may be something I want to take up with you.”

  There was no use telling him what it was, because Hank was pretty good at educated guessing.

  Actually the meeting with Bill and Bess had not been nearly as difficult as Willis had anticipated. Although of course there had been the emotional strain and the sentiment about the Harcourt Mill, it had been a warm and friendly meeting, with kindness and sympathy on every side, a sympathy which was intensified by his call on Mr. Bryson, because Willis was still distressed when he saw Bill and Bess.

  “Well, well, Bess,” he said, “how lovely you look this afternoon.”

  There was always something fresh and out-of-doors about her, although she never had the taste for clothes that Sylvia had, and Bess was not careful of her weight like Sylvia.

  “Oh, Willis,” Bess said, and she kissed him and clung to him for a moment and he was as touched as he was surprised, “isn’t it dreadfully sad?”

  “Yes, Bess, dear, it is,” Willis said, “but your mother’s wonderful.”

  “She is wonderful,” Bill said, “and so is Father. He shows a lot of sportsmanship, I think.”

  “That’s very true, Bill,” Willis said. “You know, he asked about my golf score down at Pinehurst.”

  “Did he?” Bill said. “Well, that’s just like him.”

  Everything they had said was simple, but taken together their words wove themselves into a fabric of genuine affection.

  “Your mother,” Willis said, and he was aware of a catch in his voice, “said a very sweet thing to me just as I was leaving, something I shall never forget—‘We all thank God,’ she said, ‘that you’re looking out for everything.’”

  “We do, Willis,” Bess said. “We really do.”

  It was the real Bess speaking, without mockery, that afternoon. In fact they all of them were at their very best.

  “Well,” Willis said, “I’m glad it’s that way, and I’m glad we all know each other well enough to trust each other—but let’s all sit down, and, Bill, if anybody wants a drink, there’s everything in that portable bar there. Do you remember how tickled your father was with that portable bar?”