‘Now, yes. But not always. I came originally from a little village in East Lancashire on the edge of the moors. A few miles away from where I used to live it’s as wild as this, and you get some queer folk—people—up there.’ She seemed to hear the flat Lancashire accent creeping back into his voice. ‘I still go back sometimes. They tell me what they think of me up there. I’ve a brother and sister there yet, living in the same old way.’
She didn’t know anything about these people, but she remembered certain Scots novels. ‘They don’t make a fuss of you, I suppose, because you’re now an important person and have made a lot of money?’
He laughed. ‘Well, this is the way it works. They respect the money but not me. They care about money up there, know what it’s worth, and don’t pretend to despise it. Now in other places, particularly in the South of England, they pretend they don’t care about money and they also pretend to think a lot about me, who happen to have plenty. The other’s the best way, though I don’t think so when I’m there and they’re putting me through it.’
Margaret couldn’t resist it, he seemed so willing, almost anxious, to be communicative. ‘How did you come to make such a lot of money? I mean, how did you begin?’
He looked across at her with thick, raised brows. ‘That’s a queer question.’
‘I’m sorry, it’s rather a rude question, I know. But it’s a question I’ve always wanted to ask someone like you.’
‘Oh, I’m not offended, don’t think that,’ he cried, leaning forward and then settling himself more comfortably in his chair. ‘It was queer because I happened to be thinking about the very same thing.’ He stopped and looked with half-closed eyes at the fire. Margaret, released from her curiosity for a moment, wondered what Philip was doing. He was a long time returning from that mysterious top landing. But was he though? No, he had only been gone a few minutes. She returned with a rush to her companion, who had suddenly lifted his head and was now looking across at her. ‘Would you really like to know?’ he enquired.
She nodded. ‘Yes, I’m really curious.’ If it was to be a tale of high finance, Philip would be back before it had hardly got under way. But she couldn’t help feeling that it was going to be something more personal, for even in that dim light she seemed to recognise on his face that plunging look which men put on when they were about to unburden themselves.
‘Unless you’re very lucky,’ he began, ‘you only make money by wanting to make it, wanting hard all the time, not bothering about a lot of other things. And there’s usually got to be something to start you off, to give you the first sharp kick. After you’ve got really started, brought off a few deals and begun to live in the atmosphere of big money, the game gets hold of you and you don’t want any inducement to go on playing—d’you follow me? It’s the first push that’s so hard, when you’re still going round with your cap in your hand. It’s my experience there’s always something keeps a man going through that, puts an edge on him and starts him cutting, and it may be some quite little thing. A man I knew, a Lancashire man too, was an easy-going youngster, thought more about cricket than his business, until one day, having to see the head of a firm, he was kept waiting two hours, sitting there in the general office with the clerks cocking an eye at him every ten minutes. He’s told me this himself. “All right,” he said to himself, “I’ll show you.” He walked out when the two hours were up, and that turned him, gave him an edge. He did show ’em, too. I don’t say, of course, that every man who says something like that to himself brings it off, but some do. Well, it was the same with me.’
‘What was it then that made you so ambitious?’ And Margaret looked at him speculatively.