Two Solitudes

by Hugh Maclennan

  McQueen turned from the window, letting his glance rest casually on the furnishings of the room before he became immersed in work. By the window was an oversized globe on a heavy wooden stand. Behind his desk was a relief map of Canada, ceiling-high, dotted with coloured pins at various points to indicate where his enterprises and interests were located. An oriental rug covered the floor. Opposite his desk was an oil painting of his mother, with fresh flowers in a bowl beneath it.

  Because of the manner of its furnishing, this office had acquired something of a romantic reputation in Saint James Street. Some men considered it eccentric. Few were permitted to enter it, and those who did exaggerated the luxury of its furnishings afterwards. It did nothing to lessen the respect in which McQueen was held as a man who kept his mouth shut about all important matters, talked freely of trivialities, and was uncannily successful.

  A change of expression appeared on his face as he crossed to his mother’s portrait. Every morning Miss Drew put a dozen fresh flowers in the cut glass bowl on the small table beneath it. The flowers were never arranged quite to suit him, and now he spent some time moving the stem of each daffodil until the effect met his approval. He looked up at the picture. His mother’s was a small, sad face, lips tight, hair in a frizz over her forehead, neck enclosed by the sort of dog-collar made fashionable by Queen Alexandra. Her face as a whole distilled a Scottish kind of sternness, a Scottish melancholy that finds pleasure only in sad ideas. Except when he was alone in the room McQueen never even glanced at the portrait, but whenever he had a decision to make he shut everyone out and communed with the picture, and after he had looked at it long enough he was usually able to feel that his mother was silently advising him what to do. It was the most closely guarded of all his secrets.

  Now he turned to his desk and his expression changed again. His eyes, widely set and intelligent in his moon-face, became opaque in their blueness. His lips compressed themselves. Deliberately he read through his mail and the letters crackled as he thumbed them through. When he reached the bottom of the pile he buzzed for his secretary.

  Miss Drew opened the door soundlessly and stood waiting. She was fifty, she wore nothing but tweeds winter and summer, her hair was dull grey and she had been with him since the beginning of his career in Ontario twenty years before. He suspected that she knew the details of his enterprises as well as he did himself. But not the sense of balance, the delicate grip of the whole; not the logical feel for cause and effect that pulled the future out of mystery and sometimes caused McQueen to wonder if he were a genius.

  Gaunt and angular, spectacles on her long nose and note-book in hand, she waited until McQueen indicated that he was ready to give her dictation. She pulled a chair to the side of his desk, opened her book and held her pencil poised. Nothing could have been less personal than Miss Drew at this hour of the morning.

  “Any calls?” he said at last.

  “Mr. Masterman’s secretary phoned to remind you of the meeting on Friday. Mr. Buchanan called. I put the memorandum with your letters. Mr. Tallard called. He wants to come in today before lunch.”

  “Ah!” said McQueen.

  “I told him to come at eleven-fifteen unless he heard to the contrary. He left a room number at his hotel.”

  “Good. Don’t call him. Show him in at once when he comes.”

  The letters took three-quarters of an hour in dictation. McQueen spoke in a rotund voice unleavened by any expression and he used every worn-out phrase known to business. He was so wordy that all his correspondence was half as long again as necessary. When the last letter was finished, Miss Drew picked up the papers he had handed her one by one and rose to leave.

  “What time did the cable go to Lloyd’s?” he said, leaning back with his thumbs hooked in his waistcoat.

  “Just after you left last night.”

  He nodded. He knew that if any further news had arrived from London she would have told him, but the matter was on his mind and it relieved him a little to refer to it. In 1913, anticipating the war, he had purchased three tramp steamers at bargain rates from a foreign firm. A fortnight ago one of them had been torpedoed in the Irish Sea with eleven fatalities. McQueen had not been able to sleep the night the news arrived. The war had suddenly been removed from headlines and statistics where he could calculate and understand it, to a level sharply personal.

  “Anything I’ve overlooked?” he asked.

  “Well, perhaps I should remind you that this is the day Mrs. Methuen comes in for the check on her investments.”

  “Yes, I know. When you bring me her list, bring the file on the Hamilton Works, too.”

  Miss Drew went out as soundlessly as she had come and in a few moments she was back with the two files. Taking them from her, McQueen glanced briefly at the list of investments and thrust it to one side of his desk. “When does Mrs. Methuen come in?” he said.

  “At ten forty-five.”

  “Very good. That’s all. I don’t want to be disturbed.”

  He concentrated on the papers in the file relating to his factory in Hamilton. Alone with the figures, at peace with them, seeing in his mind every detail in the factory they tried to define, the outlets, the sources of raw materials, he tried to weigh the profit and risk involved in maintaining the independence of the machine-tool industry he had built out of practically nothing. It was his oldest enterprise and he was proud of it. But now Irons had indicated a desire to have him merge in a combine with him, and Irons’ conception of a merger was about the same as a shark’s when it encounters a herring. McQueen tried to calculate how Irons could be made to lose interest.

  He pushed the file away, still thinking. Facts and figures were no help to him in this problem. He had a distinct idea that Irons was not so much interested in acquiring the machine-tool factory as he was in guaranteeing that McQueen himself should come under his domination. This was Irons’ method. He seldom built up any enterprise himself, but he had a genius for absorbing control from others. He dealt with men, not facts. He was notoriously uneasy if he saw a rising man who seemed both formidable and capable of retaining his independence.

  Stubbornly, McQueen continued to weigh the incalculables. A victory over Irons would not be unpleasant. He might go in with him, avail himself of the superior financial strength Irons would bring to the company, and then fight him for control. But no, that would be stupid. He was not strong enough for that yet. Nor could he risk an open out-witting of Irons. He might manage it, but the time would come when Irons would ruin him for his temerity. It must be his own special kind of victory, that for a time appeared a defeat.

  After a time McQueen reached a decision. Irons was an impatient man, and he was arrogant. When he met a man across his desk and felt in a position to despise him, he was satisfied. The sensible course for McQueen was to do nothing. When he met Irons across his desk, and he had never dealt with him yet, he would see to it that Irons formed the right opinion of him. And the right opinion in this case must be that McQueen would be a nuisance to associate with; also that he was too small-minded ever to become a rival. McQueen chuckled. He would make himself appear fussy and indecisive. He could already see Irons staring at him with those biting little eyes of his, deciding that he was a second-rater, that he could be scorned and overlooked with safety.

  McQueen permitted himself another smile, almost sheepish. After all, an appearance like his own was sometimes an advantage. He liked to compare himself to a cushion. He was always ready to yield to pressure, but it was in his nature to resume his natural shape, very slowly, once the pressure was removed.

  He was still smiling to himself when Janet Methuen arrived at eleven o’clock. McQueen had not expected her to be on time. No Montreal woman ever was. He had spoken to her about the habit several times because it upset his sense of precision. Now as she came in, some of his annoyance showed on his face and this flustered Janet. In turn, her embarrassment produced an answering embarrassment in McQueen. However blank a face he managed
to show to men, with women he felt the shyness of a boy at his first party. He covered it now with a clumsy brusqueness.

  “Sit down, Janet,” he said. “Sit down.”

  Janet Methuen glanced nervously from side to side, then crossed the oriental rug to his desk, looking more as if she were entering a strange drawing-room than a business office. She dropped into the chair he had pulled up for her.

  “It’s too bad to have to bother you like this, Huntly. But you know what a fool I am about business. You know I have to…”

  He sat down carefully, settled himself in his chair and raised a hand in a gesture designed to make her hold her tongue. It was a firmly plump hand and carefully manicured. There was a black signet on the little finger and a dust of dark hairs showed near the wrist. “That’s what I’m here for,” he said.

  Janet laid her bag on the desk and flattened it with a gloved hand. She watched with habitual nervousness as McQueen adjusted his pince-nez and picked up the list of her securities. Because she had made a successful marriage into Montreal society, she was acutely conscious of those who belonged to that society and those who did not. McQueen did not. But the time was not far distant when he would. It was only a matter of patience and care to make no false moves on his part. Janet’s father-in-law, General Methuen, had indicated his liking for the man; he never seemed to be aware of the true cause of McQueen’s interest in him.

  As she looked about the room Janet’s eyes were inclined to dart from one thing to another; they were large eyes, almost beautiful in her small neat face. Intense restlessness was her most marked characteristic, and as a result she was much too thin. She was barely thirty. There was no trace on her figure to indicate that she was the mother of two children. Except for her excessive leanness, she bore no resemblance to Yardley. Today she wore a black broadcloth suit, a black straw hat, and a white georgette blouse was visible under her jacket where it opened over her chest; and it was a chest, not a bosom. She had no idea that McQueen greatly admired this flat neatness, for no woman with a bosom could be quite a lady in his eyes.

  A room that contained two people and no conversation got on Janet’s nerves. “I feel terribly grateful to you for all this trouble, Huntly,” she said. “Really I do. I was saying to General Methuen only last night…”

  McQueen’s hand rose again to silence her. Without raising his eyes from the papers before him, he muttered, “A promise is a promise. When Harvey went overseas I said I would look after his affairs.” Then he closed his lips tightly.

  Looking for something to do to quiet her uneasiness, Janet stretched out a gloved hand and picked up a copy of the Gazette from the corner of the desk. After a quick glance at McQueen, she began to read. Her eyes darted from column to column. They came to rest on the report of a speech against conscription made by a politician with a name she couldn’t pronounce.

  “Isn’t it terrible about the French-Canadians, Huntly?” she said.

  “Eh?”

  She displayed the paper, holding it by the corner so that it hung down diagonally. “At least where Harvey is he doesn’t have to read this sort of thing. It makes me quite ill.”

  “Please, Janet. Just a minute!”

  “I’m terribly sorry.” Her voice trailed off and she picked up the paper again. She read a few lines and then looked up to see if he was angry. He appeared to have forgotten her presence entirely. After a few minutes he shuffled the papers, matched their edges, then pushed them from him and took off his glasses.

  “I think some of those mining shares ought to be converted into war bonds. They’re sound enough as they are, but these days…”

  “Whatever you say, Huntly. I told you I don’t know.”

  He tried to be patient. “But Janet, you must attempt to understand what you’re doing. Harvey would want you to understand.”

  Step by step he explained to her what happens to money when it is transferred from one security to another, and the results on her income from this particular transfer. “It’s a matter of judgment, in the final analysis. There will be a slight decrease in your income, but not an appreciable one. Not appreciable at all. On the other hand, after the war, if the mining shares…well, let’s look at it purely from the standpoint of patriotism. You understand–”

  “Oh, yes. It’s clear now. Do it by all means,” she said hurriedly.

  He nodded, drew a deep breath and swung his pince-nez gently on the end of a black cord. “Otherwise everything is in fine shape,” he said. “A fine, conservative list. It should last forever.” He allowed himself to smile at her. “Now tell me about yourself. About the children. Everything all right? I haven’t seen you in a month.”

  “Oh, yes. They’re all right.” She lifted the newspaper again, her forefinger pointing to the conscription speech on the front page. “Huntly, why don’t they put these people in jail?”

  “Now then, Janet, now then! Wouldn’t that be an unconsidered thing to do? After all, that’s how the French are.”

  “But General Methuen says they’ve let us down. And he always used to stand up for them against Toronto people. Before the war, of course.” She laid the paper down on the desk and folded it firmly. “He’s terribly disappointed in them now.”

  “You mustn’t get yourself worked up,” he said.

  “I can’t help it. I am worked up.”

  Yes, McQueen thought, there was no doubt about it, Janet was tired. She worked on every war committee in Montreal. She spent two hours a day in a canteen in one of the railway stations, and this was the worst job of all. She had told him last winter that some of the soldiers used horrifyingly vulgar language when they talked among themselves, and she had asked him if they were good troops.

  Janet also rationed herself strictly in the matter of food. She studied the reports of the British Food Controller every week, and was careful to allot herself the same rations allowed people in Britain. To make herself feel worthy of the British she was prepared to go hungry.

  “Tell me what you hear from Harvey,” McQueen said.

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  “You mean you haven’t heard from him lately?”

  “No. Not since I saw you last. I just don’t know.”

  There was fear in her eyes. He saw it, and then he looked at the clean lines of her nose and cheekbones, so clean they would soon be gaunt. She was such a nice little woman. She was passing so bravely through a difficult time. Indeed, she had never found life easy. He felt soft with sentiment as he thought about her. As she began to talk about her two daughters and some of the trouble they were causing her, he thought about the night he had first met her four years before.

  He and General Methuen both served as trustees in the Presbyterian Church, and the general had been greatly impressed by the dexterity with which McQueen had bargained off two contractors against each other. As a result, one of the contractors had agreed to build the minister a new manse at little better than cost. The general decided that McQueen might well be a man worth cultivating, and on an impulse invited him to dinner at his home on the slope of the mountain. It meant that McQueen at last had something more behind him than a bank account and a reputation on Saint James Street.

  The Methuen family had been leaders in the Square Mile of Montreal society from the days of the old garrison, when Sir Rupert Irons’ grandfather was still in his shirt-sleeves. The general himself had served in the militia, been a lieutenant-colonel in the Boer War, and now was a brigadier with the home guard. His daughter-in-law was a stranger to Montreal society, but marriage had opened the door for her. The wife of a Methuen was acceptable without question.

  That night at dinner McQueen first became acquainted with Janet and her husband, Harvey Methuen. Afterwards he had cultivated the acquaintance carefully. Harvey was the kind of young man McQueen had always envied. He was an athlete, he was physically powerful; but he was also charming, with British manners and mannerisms. He played golf and tennis, some polo on his own ponies, he rode wel
l, was a member of a hunt club, and had been an officer of the militia since his days at the Royal Military College. His suits came from Saville Row, his shoes from Daks, his pipes from Dunhill, his values directly from his immediate background. He was big, curly-haired, and frank. It was McQueen’s private opinion that he had no real ability, but this was no handicap. A man like Harvey Methuen had no need of it.

  “How long is it going to last, Huntly?”

  Her question brought him back to the moment. There was warmth behind her words; warmth, dread, and the haunting fatigue produced by anxiety that had never left her since Harvey’s regiment first reached England in December, 1914.

  “About three years,” he said.

  She bent her head and for a moment covered her face with her hands. McQueen sat looking at her, annoyed with himself for such a blunder.

  “Listen, Janet,” he said quickly. “That was a slip of the tongue. It won’t last much longer. By Christmas it will be over, probably.”

  A pathetic hope appeared for a moment in her eyes, then faded into defiance. “You don’t have to be kind to me. I haven’t suffered. I haven’t really given anything to help win the war.”

  His mind performed a rapid calculation. It was a miracle that Harvey was alive after all this time. He had beaten the law of averages by nearly two and a half years. But he had been wounded a year ago, recovered, and was back in France again.