“Well,” his father said as he caught sight of him, “here’s the secretary,” and from this, and something in Mr. Burnaby’s manner, Marcus knew that all had gone well, so far at any rate. When he had hung up his hat and coat Mr. Burnaby was taken into the drawing-room, where Mrs. Brownlow and Margaret were waiting to receive him. He was introduced and a few minutes later they all went in to lunch.
At first they talked about Mr. Burnaby’s drive to Belfast—for he had come by car—but soon Mr. Brownlow brought the conversation round to the subject of stocks and shares. Though he didn’t put the question in so many words it was clear that he wanted to hear how Mr. Burnaby’s fortune had been made. And up to a point Mr. Burnaby seemed quite willing to tell him. He spoke with surprising candour of his early speculations, of how he had bought shares with borrowed capital and sold them again at a profit: but he didn’t tell them how he knew which shares to buy.
Mrs. Brownlow was probably not very much interested in the share market, or in gossip about old stock-exchange sensations. What she did want to know, as she had announced more than once since Marcus’s return, was whether or not Mr. Burnaby was related to the three old Miss Burnabys who had lived in Mount Pleasant when she was a girl.
Mr. Burnaby said that he was their nephew, and this started an exchange of reminiscences that went on till the end of lunch. It turned out that Mr. Burnaby’s brother Charles and Mr. Brownlow’s brother Henry had both at one time been members of a football club called Albion which had since gone out of existence; that he had once been at a party which Mrs. Brownlow had been prevented from attending by an attack of mumps.
“And I was so disappointed,” Mrs. Brownlow said, with a sigh. “I can remember to this day the dress I was going to wear. It came from Brands’—the old Brands’ you know—when they were on the other side of Donegall Place.”
Marcus listened with a sort of benevolent superiority. If they went on like this, he thought, everything would be all right. But when lunch was over and they were sitting in deck chairs in the garden Mrs. Brownlow changed the subject abruptly. “I hope you’ll give Marcus plenty to do,” she remarked almost aggressively.
“I’ll do my best,” Mr. Burnaby responded good humouredly.
“I’m sure you will,” Mrs. Brownlow said, “but I’m afraid it’s that that’s been rather puzzling us. So far as we can gather from Marcus you haven’t employed a secretary up to now—and we rather wondered in that case why you suddenly wanted one.” She coloured slightly and added, “I hope you won’t think I’m rude or inquisitive, but I don’t want Marcus to be idle, or grow into idle habits.”
Mr. Burnaby lit a fresh pipe. “Do you think Marcus is inclined to idleness?” he enquired.
“No I don’t,” Mrs. Brownlow returned briskly, “but I think it’s bad for any young man to be left without sufficient to do. It’s enough to ruin the strongest character.”
“I quite agree,” Mr. Burnaby said. There was a pause. Evidently he regarded the subject as closed, for his next remark was quite irrelevant. “I love the scent of wallflowers,” he announced. “I got a sudden whiff of them there—it’s such a warm, clean scent. It always reminds me of a house where I used to stay when I was a boy.”
Marcus sniffed sympathetically, but the wallflowers eluded him. The acrid odour of Mr. Burnaby’s pipe seemed to pervade everything. He wondered if Mr. Burnaby thought he’d got off with it—for he hadn’t: Mrs. Brownlow was quite visibly preparing to renew her attack. “I was wondering how you managed before,” she said. “If you need a secretary now you must have had a great deal too much to do before.”
“Yes indeed,” Mr. Burnaby told her. “That’s just it. I have too much to do, far more than I want. What I intend is to teach Marcus to do it all. The harder he works the better pleased I’ll be—and I’ll make him work.”
“But what is the work?” Mrs. Brownlow was driven to demand.
“The work,” Mr. Burnaby repeated thoughtfully. “Well, you know, property requires a certain amount of management, and one way and another I’ve a good deal of property. If you don’t look after it things begin to go wrong, and before you know where you are, you’re in no end of a mess. I’m reaching the time of life when one wants to take things more easily. One loses interest in business after a time. Twenty years ago I couldn’t have enough of it, but lately I’ve begun to wonder what was the use of it all, following the markets day after day, trying to make more and more money. . . .”
Mr. Brownlow sighed. He too was sick of it all—and he was an older man than John Burnaby. He too had been trying year after year to make more and more money, but recently it had seemed that he could only make less and less: indeed the nature of the struggle had changed: it was now a matter of seeing how little he could lose.
Mr. Burnaby went on talking rather slowly in a sort of sing-song voice. Somehow he built up a picture for them of Marcus at work, Marcus in a big study sitting at a leather-topped desk strewn with papers, Marcus answering the telephone, Marcus giving instructions, asking for advice occasionally perhaps, but on the whole a model of discretion and efficiency, a prop on whom his chief would come to depend more and more as the years went on.
Mr. Brownlow saw a Marcus who might return eventually to take the weight off his shoulders. Even Mrs. Brownlow was impressed, and to Margaret it all seemed wonderful. She felt jealous of Marcus. Why should all this happen to him? She could learn to do it far more quickly, and far better she was sure—and she would have loved to meet the sort of people Mr. Burnaby no doubt knew—other millionaires, all sorts of important people who would come to stay. They wouldn’t all be old and some of them were sure to have sons. There was bound to be lots of time off: there was bound to be bathing and tennis. She was quite sure Mr. Burnaby didn’t live in Donegal all the year round. In winter the whole household would move to London, with perhaps a spell on the Riviera. She wondered if there was a steam yacht and decided immediately that there was bound to be. Marcus had boasted a bit, talked of houses all over the place, though Margaret wasn’t quite clear as to their whereabouts.
While Mr. Burnaby was actually speaking Marcus had been more impressed than any of them. He had seen the same picture as they had seen, but when Mr. Burnaby stopped he began to feel confused. It wasn’t that he disliked the idea of looking after Mr. Burnaby’s affairs: being important in any way appealed to him. It was just that he wondered exactly what he would have to do. All the same he was filled with confidence: he would be able to do whatever was wanted. He knew too that the matter was now decided, and when presently Mr. and Mrs. Brownlow went into the house for a private talk with Mr. Burnaby, he felt no anxiety as to the result, only a pleasant excitement.
By the time Mr. Burnaby’s car appeared they were all together once more, having afternoon tea in the drawing-room. Everything had been settled. Marcus was to start work on the fifteenth of June.
CHAPTER XVIII
MARCUS felt very shy when he arrived again at Mr. Burnaby’s. He had travelled from Belfast by the afternoon train and been met at Portmallagh by Black with Mr. Burnaby’s car. Black had been in his chauffeur’s uniform and the car was a Minerva. It all looked very grand. Marcus could only think of himself as the new private secretary—green, and probably inefficient. The adventure with Caldwell seemed more remote than a dream.
Mr. Burnaby had been on the look-out for him, and met him at the hall-door; but somehow it was not the Mr. Burnaby of his previous visit. It was Mr. Burnaby the millionaire, the successful business man, the personality who had made such an impression on Mrs. Brownlow and Margaret. Marcus noticed his English accent. He was quite accustomed to English accents—in England. In Ireland, an English accent always sounded rather domineering and harsh. Marcus responded automatically. His own public school accent, which had been fading during the last year at home, returned in full strength. Listening to them, only
an Englishman would have known that they were both Irish.
This tension, or lack of ease, lasted all through dinner, but once they were alone together in Mr. Burnaby’s study it began to disappear. “Well,” Mr. Burnaby remarked, lighting a pipe and settling himself in his chair, “everything seems to have gone very well so far. Are you ready to begin work in the morning?”
“Oh yes,” Marcus replied, but both question and answer had a double meaning for him. He had come prepared to do two kinds of work. Ever since Mr. Burnaby’s visit he had been getting new clothes. He had even a new watch and a new fountain-pen—parting gifts from his parents—the old ones being relics of school, battered and unreliable. All this preparation to be a millionaire’s secretary had pushed the true nature of the work into the background of his mind. Now, as if curtains had been drawn back, and a brilliantly lit stage revealed, he had a sudden vision of what his real work was to be. The room, the fire, Mr. Burnaby. . . . everything was almost the same as it had been that first night after his journey with Caldwell. Marcus felt a surge of enthusiasm. “Why not begin tonight?” he suggested. “I’ll begin tonight, if you like.”
Mr. Burnaby smiled. “I think it’ll be time enough in the morning,” he advised. “You’re tired tonight and I don’t want you going to sleep over it—which you might quite easily do.”
“I’m not tired at all,” Marcus assured him. “I won’t be sleepy at all. Travelling doesn’t make me sleepy. I mean, you’re just sitting there resting.”
“All the same,” Mr. Burnaby answered, “I think we’d better leave it till the morning.”
Breakfast the next morning was at half-past eight. Marcus was a minute or two early, but he found Mr. Burnaby waiting for him. Immediately the bell was rung and Kate brought in the porridge. During the meal they didn’t talk much. Mr. Burnaby was a quick eater, and as before he finished first. He pushed back his chair and took a pipe from his pocket. As he filled it he watched Marcus with an expression that was friendly, slightly amused, and at the same time completely reassuring. It was clear that he had something to say, but he waited till his pipe was lit and burning to his satisfaction. Marcus in the meantime tucked into toast and marmalade.
“Now,” Mr. Burnaby began at last, “we’re going to start at ten prompt. That’s exactly an hour from now. We’ll work till twelve at least, perhaps till one, and during that time I don’t want there to be any interruptions of any kind. During every minute of that time I want you to be able to give yourself completely to your work. There must be no wandering of your attention. We won’t be interrupted from outside, and I don’t want you to have to go out for any purpose whatever. Do you understand?”
Of course Marcus did understand. As soon as he had finished eating he compared his watch with Mr. Burnaby’s and immediately retired to the W.C. Next he went to his room and refilled his fountain-pen, though it wasn’t actually empty—just in case there should be any notes to take. Afterwards he walked up and down the drive in the sunshine, and back and forwards across the grass between the house and the shore. At five to ten he returned to the house, and with a pleasant feeling of excitement, climbed the tower stairs. On the landing at the top he hesitated for a moment; just as he was about to knock, he heard Mr. Burnaby’s voice calling to him to come in.
He saw immediately that the room had been altered since the night before. All the pictures had been taken down and most of the furniture had disappeared. Two wooden chairs, the table, and a large wooden chest were all that remained. On top of the chest was a thick tartan motoring rug. “You can wrap that round you if you’re cold,” Mr. Burnaby told him. Marcus saw that the fire had not been lit.
“Oh I won’t be cold,” he declared. “I’m quite warm really.”
The table was close to the door and one of the chairs was behind it. “Sit down there,” Mr. Burnaby ordered. He himself was standing in the middle of the room like the Captain of a cricket team placing his field. He looked hot, and his scanty, grey hair was standing out sideways. His feet seemed to be just touching the ground rather than resting on it.
He went to the chest and took out a framed picture, measuring perhaps thirty inches by eighteen. Keeping the back to Marcus, so that the picture itself was hidden, he carried it to the far end of the room. There he turned it round, so that it could be seen, and hung it from a nail on the wall. “Try to get there,” he said.
The picture was an oil-painting. It showed a ploughboy with two farm horses, a white horse and a black horse. The boy was mounted on the white horse and held the black horse by a rope halter. The horses were standing at the edge of a small pond, with their heads drooping down towards the water. In the background was a row of dark trees. There was a gap in the trees, with a glimpse of open country beyond. The sky was a twilight grey.
“Get into it?” Marcus asked.
“No. Get to it.”
Mr. Burnaby left the picture and went to the corner on Marcus’s left, where the other chair was. Marcus put his elbows on the table, with his chin between his hands, and looked at the picture. He thought at first that it was a very plain sort of a picture, quite nice, but rather dull. Then he began to get interested in a queer, dreamy kind of way. There was a suggestion that the country beyond the dark trees was filled with life and light and beauty. Marcus gazed at it. He imagined himself riding the black horse. Slowly the horses would begin to move, there would be a few splashes, a squelch, squelch of their feet in the mud at the edge of the pond, and they would find themselves going slowly towards the gap in the trees, and beyond . . . .
“Well?” Mr. Burnaby said suddenly.
Marcus was startled. “Yes?” he answered questioningly.
“Where were you?” Mr. Burnaby asked. “What did you see?”
“We were riding on horses’ bare backs. We were just coming up to the gap in the trees: they’re old, gnarled, hawthorn trees. The leaves are dark on them. The blossom is over and the berries are formed, but they’re green still, not. . . .”
“No good.” Mr. Burnaby stopped him, making an impatient movement with his hand. “No good at all: you’re just day-dreaming, imagining things. It’s quite pleasant: anyone can do it. I don’t want you to imagine things in your mind. I want you to project your mind itself. We’ll try something else.”
He returned the first picture to the chest and took out another. It was a picture of an old mill with a big, wooden water-wheel. The mill was on the right of the picture in the foreground: on the left, level with the lower part of the water-wheel was a piece of dark grass with some small figures standing on it. In the background were tall trees: no sky was visible: the trees were a deep, bluish green—almost black.
Mr. Burnaby hung this picture on the wall where the first had been, and Marcus looked at it. There was dead silence in the room: the outer world was cut off in sound, in sight, in smell. Marcus began to hear his own breathing, though he couldn’t hear Mr. Burnaby’s. He gazed and gazed—but nothing happened. His eyes wandered from the picture to the frame, and round the frame. It was an old gilt frame with studs on it: there was dust on the studs and in the crevices of the frame. He noticed the texture of the canvas in a place where the paint was thin: he could see the marks the brush had made on the paint: in one place a small piece of hair from the brush was embedded in the paint. Marcus looked at the figures on the strip of grass: they weren’t really all there: their faces were just blobs, and when you looked closely you could see that their arms didn’t fit properly.
What exactly had Mr. Burnaby expected him to find, he wondered. What did he mean him to do? He couldn’t quite remember the instructions. He was to look at the picture for something. His eyes remained fixed obediently on the picture, but he could see Mr. Burnaby gazing at him intently from his chair in the corner. He realized that he was no longer really looking at the picture. He had lost interest in it. He couldn’t co
ncentrate on it any more. He was really watching himself and Mr. Burnaby. He would have to tell Mr. Burnaby, and hope he wouldn’t be annoyed. “I’m afraid it’s no good,” Marcus said. His voice startled him. It seemed to begin outside of him, as though it was someone else who was speaking, but the sentence ended quite naturally. He blinked.
Mr. Burnaby was surprised. He didn’t look annoyed or disappointed. “I thought you’d managed it that time,” he remarked. “However, I suppose you’d better have a shot at something else.”
They tried eight pictures altogether, but by the end of the morning they seemed no further on than when they had started. Marcus began to think that the pictures were a hindrance instead of a help. “Would it not be better if I tried to get up into the ceiling, the way you talked about before?” he suggested at last. “The pictures seem to kind of put me off.”
“I don’t think so,” Mr. Burnaby replied. “I don’t know why they should: besides, I have a particular reason for wanting to use them. In any case there’s no hurry. We’ll try again tomorrow.” He looked at his watch. “It’s a quarter past twelve. We’ll make a note of what we’ve done and then it’ll be time for lunch.” He handed Marcus a large, stiff-backed exercise book. “I want you to make notes of everything you do. Never leave them till the next day. If you possibly can—there may later be some occasions when you can’t—make notes of what you have done each day the moment you have finished your experiments. I always do—at least I always have, since I gave up business and devoted myself to this work.”
He sat down at the opposite side of the table and taking out a fountain-pen opened a book exactly similar to the one he had given Marcus. He turned over a good many pages already covered with small, round handwriting, till he came to a blank page. At the top of this he put the date and after that Marcus thought—though it was difficult to read upside-down—“First Experiments with Marcus Brownlow.”
The Burnaby Experiments Page 13