Peter Jameson. Gilbert Frankau
enough, it was not Patricia but Hubert Rawlings who clinched Peter’s decision.
§ 5
It was a month and three days since the outbreak of war. Paris—thought Peter, as he sat alone in the back office at Lime Street—was practically safe. Still, it might easily be six months before the Cossacks got to Berlin. Meanwhile. …
The telephone-bell jangled; he took up the receiver, heard his brother-in-law’s voice.
“Peter Jameson speaking. … That you, Hubert? … Right, I’ll be in if you come along at once.”
Hubert Rawlings, Publicity Agent, had not been worried with any whispers of the “English-speaking spirit.” The contemptible cry of “business as usual” found him a ready convert. Government officials, eager to do anything except fight, had decided on a campaign of advertising, as wasteful to the country’s purse as it was degrading to its patriotism; and in Hubert Rawlings they discovered an invaluable henchman. Posters, leaflets, newspaper-stereos—one more revolting to decent folk than the other—spawned themselves in his lower-middle-class mind, spewed themselves over London and the provinces. Officially, he made no profits on these transactions, actually. … And in addition, there was always the advantage of being “in with the Government.” One might get … Heaven knows what one mightn’t get. … Also, one had “opportunities.”
Such an “opportunity” brought Hubert Rawlings to Peter’s office.
He came in, silk-hatted, morning-coated, flower in buttonhole, perfectly at ease. Already his voice had assumed a faint touch of the “Whitehall manner.”
“How do you do, Peter?” he said. “I hope you didn’t wait for me.”
“Afternoon, Hubert. Take a pew. What’s the trouble?”
“I came,” announced Rawlings mysteriously, “to ask you if you’d like to have a share in a—little deal some friends of mine are interested in. I need hardly tell you it’s all fair and above-board, or of course I shouldn’t have anything to do with it. Still—” he dropped his voice. “Naturally, anything I say remains strictly between the two of us.”
“Of course,” said Peter.
“It’s like this,” went on Rawlings. “I, we, happen to know that there will shortly be a big demand for a certain article.” Encouraged by Peter’s non-committal attitude, he waxed confidential. “I may as well tell you what the article is. It’s overcoats.”
“Overcoats?”
“Yes. For Kitchener’s Army. You know, I presume, that owing to shortage of dye, there has been a delay in the deliveries of khaki. A very serious delay. So the men are to be provided, as a temporary expedient, with civilian great-coats. Ready-made. Do you follow me so far?”
“Perfectly,” said Peter stiffly. The other, had he been looking, might have noticed a dangerous quietness in his brother-in-law’s attitude.
“Now I, we, have an option on ten thousand of these overcoats. There are four of us in the deal so far. The coats work out, for cash, at fifteen shillings. … The War Office is paying twenty-five. That”—the voice became unctuous—“means a profit of. …”
“Five thousand pounds,” snapped Peter. For a moment, old habits asserted themselves; he was tempted. A thousand more for Nirvana! Then all the emotions of four weeks blazed into cold flame. He got up from his chair, eyes black with rage; controlled himself in time; and said slowly:—
“Don’t slam the door as you go out, Rawlings.”
“But surely …” began the other.
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Yes, but …”
“Damn your eyes, will you get out of this office before I throw you out? …”
Rawlings went.
§ 6
Two nights later—at the very moment when the Beasts in Gray, muttering “Grosses Malheur” as they shuffled through darkling towns, were reeling back to the Aisne before the Armies of France and a handful of Englishmen—Peter Jameson and his wife sat over their coffee in the drawing-room at Lowndes Square.
All through dinner, he had been absorbed and reticent. Now, he put down his empty cup on the little table by the side of his armchair; took a long pull at his cigar; began to speak. For a month she had watched him; speculated about him; hoped; doubted; realized his difficulties. But she had given no hint of her feelings: this was a matter for a man’s own conscience; no woman, not even his wife, possessed the right to influence him.
“I want to talk to you,” he said.
“Yes, dear.” A little of what he must say, she knew. Her eyes kindled to the prospect of it.
“Pat,” he began, “I don’t think I can keep out of this thing any longer. It wouldn’t be”—he fumbled for the expression—“quite playing the game. But if I go, there are risks. …”
“Naturally.” She schooled her voice to calmness.
“I don’t mean those sort of risks. If anything happened to me, the Insurance would be paid. I went round to see the Phoenix People about that this morning.” Unaccountably, the reasonableness of the view irritated her. “I mean business risks. To begin with, there’s the factory.”
He began to talk about Nirvana; tried to show her only the financial position. His personal feelings, he felt, must not be allowed to complicate a simple issue. But the intonation of his voice betrayed the feelings behind it; and she realized, for the first time, how much Nirvana meant to him.
“You would hate to give it up,” she interrupted.
“It would be rather,” he hesitated for a moment, “a wrench. Still I’ve discounted that. Of course, the whole thing’s a gamble. But I’m not going to quit yet. After all, I shan’t go out for some time. Meanwhile, I can keep in touch. Only I won’t put any more capital in. If Reid and Bramson between them—I saw Reid yesterday and he’ll do his best—can manage to keep her going: well and good. If not, we must cut our losses.”
“Will they be very heavy?”
“They might be. But that isn’t all. …”
“Oh, what do you care about losses?” her heart cried out in her. “He’s going. He’s a man. What else matters?” And then, suddenly, fear held her, battling down reason, patriotism, pride, everything except itself. …
But the man’s voice went on talking—coolly, logically, impersonally. That he was voicing the spirit of a great sacrifice, that Patricia realized the sacrifice, loved him for it, that the “pal” he had known for eight years existed no longer, had become at a word his mate, his woman to do with as he would—these things were hidden both then and for long after from Peter Jameson, cigar merchant. …
“So you see,” he said, summing up the case as he saw it, “it means a big risk. If the factory goes down, if Jameson’s business doesn’t improve, if Simpson won’t renew the partnership agreement in January, if one or any of these things happen, it might mean giving up this house. …”
Inwardly, the bathos of it made her laugh. If he could give up so much, surely she could give up her little. Reason and the training of years came to her aid. To him, she was still the pal, only the pal. Nothing more than that!
“I quite follow,