III
He summoned Aggett by signal to share the meal, and when he arrived gave him cocktails and a carefully censored account of the business negotiations with Mr. Fane-Herbert. For several days, well aware that negotiations were in progress, Aggett had pressed for information, only to be met by a shaking of Ordith’s head.
“Not yet, my dear fellow. Honestly, I don’t know how we stand. I’m not clear in my own mind how far Fane-Herbert has advanced. All in good time. As soon as I have anything definite to tell you, I shall let you know at once.”
Aggett had waited impatiently, but with a show of patience. Upon Ordith’s good-will depended his chances of leaving the Service and of obtaining a position on the technical staff of that imaginary firm, Ibble and Ordith. He had, therefore, a personal interest in the foreshadowed amalgamation. He knew, too, that until these arrangements for amalgamation reached their final stage Ordith and Mr. Fane-Herbert, though they were ostensibly allies with regard to the Eastern Contracts, would continue to provide for the competing interests of their respective firms, strengthening each one his own position in preparation for the ultimate settlement.
Aggett feared that this rivalry, conducted under the cloak of friendly co-operation, might cause a rupture. Ordith, confident of his own powers, might snap his fingers at Ibble’s; or Mr. Fane-Herbert, relying upon Ibble’s weightier establishment, might decide to remain independent of the younger firm. Amalgamation was almost certainly to the interests of both parties; without doubt it was to Aggett’s interest. Breakdown now would be disastrous, and Ordith, he knew, was prepared to go far to prevent it. But could he be trusted?
Aggett was not without misgivings. A disagreement in detail, a slight on Ordith’s pride, an angry word—Aggett imagined his friend gathering up his papers and walking out of Mr. Fane-Herbert’s room, never to return. Moreover, Aggett perceived clearly by what personal, as distinct from commercial, motive Mr. Fane-Herbert was urged towards the amalgamation. He had no son worthy to receive his vast bequest of influence and wealth—for Hugh’s powers were obviously inadequate. And the firm of Ibble was to him more than a business. It was his life’s work. For its sake he had sacrificed many things that when he was young he would have sworn never to sacrifice. In it he had invested not only money, but an unrealizable capital of labour and affection, and his sentiment insisted that, when he was gone, Ibble’s should continue to be identified with one of his own blood. Yet, if none of his own blood possessed the necessary ability, outside help must be accepted. There was but one way to compromise. His daughter must carry on the personal tradition; her husband must provide the administrative capacity. Also, because Mr. Fane-Herbert had learnt not to give without receiving, he was determined that the husband must bring with him more than brains. He must add like to like, possession to possession. And the choice had fallen on Ordith, who was qualified in youth, ability, and endowment.
But Mr. Fane-Herbert’s view of the world led him to believe that the amalgamation without the marriage ought to be opposed. If she were not tied to Ordith, Margaret might marry any fool, and cease to exercise the influence on policy which her immense holding would place at her command. She might even sell out, and devote the proceeds to God knew what ridiculous frippery. The Fane-Herbert tradition might come to an end. He might lose his immortality.... The projects of marriage and amalgamation were therefore inseparable in Mr. Fane-Herbert’s mind. This was the fact upon which Aggett dwelt. Ordith must act, must act immediately. Every moment of delay was dangerous, pregnant with discord. The marriage once effected, the settlement once made—the settlement was the point—there could be no retreat from amalgamation.
As Aggett came ashore he had decided, at the risk of unpleasantness, to draw Ordith’s attention to this aspect of the matter; but he was soon to discover that the risk was unnecessary. Lunch was a tedious meal, at which conversation on engrossing topics was debarred by the presence of others, but when it was over, and the patron saints of armament firms had been invoked, in silence but with perfect understanding, over many a glass of wine, the two men returned to their quiet corner and were again at ease.
“It amounts to this,” said Ordith presently. “Point one, the Eastern Contracts: he has been doing good work, so have I. There’s much yet to be done, but the outlook is excellent.”
“Does he know that you have been squaring your own yard-arm when he wasn’t looking?”
“He does. I know as much of him. That cancels out.”
“Right. I don’t like it—I’ll tell ye why in a shake. But go on.”
“Point Two, the Amalgamation: we have both agreed to support it—I, of course, on my father’s behalf—but on one condition. Point Three, Yourself: your billet is fixed. You go on the permanent staff. Start at fifteen hundred—I’ll get seventeen-fifty for you when it comes to the point. Rises after that by agreement. As for those plans and gadgets in my cabin, there’s nothing said yet. Nothing can safely be said of them till the amalgamation’s completed. But you stand in with me there. You’ll have to trust me.... Satisfied?”
“Yes,” said Aggett, “though I fancied two thousand.... But what about Point Two and that condition? You skidded over that, sonny.”
Ordith laughed—perhaps with embarrassment. “Simply a—er—personal matter,” he said, and stopped.
Aggett glanced sidelong without moving his head, and winked. “What’s up with ye, Ordith? Think I don’t know? Stammering lover, eh? The part don’t suit ye.... Bo-oy! Couple o’ cocktails.... Yes, you son of a ——, two piece, two peecee! Chop chop!” He held up two fingers at the blinking Chinese waiter. Then to Ordith: “That’s to celebrate.”
Ordith smiled. It wasn’t worth while to get angry with Aggett. “It was rather odd,” he said, “I didn’t care to be too direct about the—about my personal point. It’s devilish difficult to introduce your own marriage into a business discussion without making it sound too business-like. Oh yes, you may grin. It’s damned easy for you to be cynical at long range.... But to me, although you may choose to think otherwise, and although I may at times have given you reason to think otherwise, to me this marriage is something more than a business proposition. I nearly left it out for decency’s sake; very nearly decided to take my chance without preliminary safeguards.”
“But you didn’t leave it out, after all,” said Aggett drily.
“No, Aggett; as you observe, with such sympathetic understanding of my character, I didn’t, after all. You never know; the most callous father may be touched by sentiment and drive a hellish hard bargain at the last moment. Then I should have looked a pretty fool. Besides——”
“Besides, I’ve always read in the pretty story-books that all the best brought up young gents approached the parents first. So you’re in good company.” Aggett drained his glass and shouted for more cocktails. “Drink up, ol’ man, and come to the point.”
“Well, I was infinitely tactful—screwed up my courage and shied off again half a dozen times. Then, thank Heaven! Fane-Herbert opened the subject himself. I thought he had been keeping something back. ‘Ordith,’ he said, ‘you must pardon my questioning you on a side-issue. I shouldn’t venture to do so if I was not reasonably certain of being able correctly to anticipate your answer.’”
“Sounds like a lecture,” said Aggett.
“Probably he had thought it out. He was talking at the picture above my head. ‘I think we’d better be frank,’ he went on. ‘I think you ought to know that I regard your marriage with Margaret as an essential adjunct to any scheme of amalgamation.’ Then he explained why. He as good as told me—but polite as the Devil himself, mind you—that he wouldn’t associate Ibble’s with Ordith’s unless he had guarantees that I should look after the Fane-Herbert interest. And, where I am concerned, he regards a husband’s self-interest as the only reliable guarantee.”
“D’ye blame him?”
“No,” said Ordith, with faint irritation.
“Then the thing’s fixed.”
“You think so? There’s another person concerned, you know.”
“The girl? She’s as keen as mustard. Besides, she’ll do as she’s told.”
“The last statement may be true,” Ordith said, with his trick of formality. “The first is, unfortunately, a lie.”
“I’ve watched her dance with ye.”
“But dancing is not marriage.”
Aggett exposed his teeth. “Less difference than ye think,” he rapped out.
Having reached a stage of mental development at which virginity seemed an unjustifiable defiance of manhood, he delighted in the marriage of any woman he had known unmarried. He was satisfied by it as numberless people, who had no interest in legislation or in the constitution, were satisfied when the House of Lords had its wings clipped. He never refused an invitation to a wedding unless it was that of a widow.
Margaret was a girl the prospect of whose taming particularly pleased him.
“You mark my words,” he said. “She may jib the first time. But you stick to it—it won’t last long. If she tries to stand out, she’s got no one to talk to, not a soul to plot her little rebellion with. Ye soon get fed with rebellin’ alone. The girl don’t stand a chance.”
“Very pleasantly put to the prospective husband.... Incidentally, the father isn’t a brute.”
“How d’ye mean? Surely he’s fixed? You said he was fixed.”
“He might conceivably unfix. He can’t exert pressure beyond a certain point. What’s more, Aggett, I don’t want him to.”
“Now that’s generous of ye, that is—not ‘beyond a certain point.’ God! Ordith, old man, that’s you all over. But don’t ye see that there’s no goin’ back for Fane-Herbert now? It ain’t jus’ a pers’nal question. He’s got Ibble’s behind him.”
Ordith nodded. He reflected that he himself might have conducted this affair differently if Ordith’s had not been behind him.... And yet—well, it was no damned good to sentimentalize now. He called for more drink as a set-off to Aggett’s frequent generosity, settled himself in his chair, and, banishing misgiving as only the greatly successful men of this world can banish misgiving, allowed Aggett to talk.
Aggett liked to generalize on this his favourite subject. His aids to the imagination and the care he took that his friend’s glass should not long remain empty produced in Ordith a brightening of the eyes and a certain fixity of smile. From the state of mind of which these were the outward signs Aggett drew vicarious pleasure. He explained, with careful avoidance of personalities which Ordith might have resented, his theory of the advantages to be obtained by impetuous attack upon girls of the difficult kind.
“No good hummin’ and hawin’ from t’other end of the room. They can hum and haw better than any of us. ‘Engage the enemy more closely.’ That’s the signal. I always have a feelin’ with the villain in the story-books. I like the breakin’ of these proud young things.”
Never a word of Margaret herself.
Ordith was scarcely listening now, but, as the speaker intended, his thoughts followed Aggett’s, though with change of phrase and manner—followed them through the succeeding talk until at last he rose to go.
“Go an’ prosper, sonny,” Aggett said; “an’ Ibble an’ Ordith’s and all thy gods go with thee.”
Ordith started on his way to the Fane-Herbert’s. It was irritating to one on his quest to be reminded of the assistance of these gods. He didn’t like to think of Margaret in their net—compelled. “She’s got no one to talk to,” Aggett had said. “It ain’t jus’ a pers’nal question. He’s got Ibble’s behind him.... The girl don’t stand a chance.” Poor little Margaret! Poor little——
But Ordith dragged himself out of that slough.
“Ass!” he said. “No good whining that drivel. Too many cocktails.”
He took off his hat, stood still, and gathered self-control. Then, looking at his hat, he thought it a pity that he was not in uniform. Even upon Margaret, used to it as she was, the blue and gold would have produced effect. As he approached the house his mind was clear and calm.