Peter Jameson. Gilbert Frankau
it was time to join the ladies—that the young man knew nothing whatever about international politics. …
They played family bridge, half-a-crown a hundred, Violet and her husband permanently partnered. Patricia—who had cut herself out of the first rubber—stood watching them. And again thought troubled her.
This—family parties, theatre-going, houses in Kensington, five servants, a summer holiday with the children, mornings at home and afternoons at the skating-rink—oh! it was all right, a very reasonable and nice existence. But could it go on? Obviously, it had to go on. … Mentally, she shook herself; laughed a little. What did she want? A lover? No, very definitely no. She was not that sort of woman; had too much self-respect. … What then? “Colour”—the words came involuntarily to her mind: “Colour! That’s what I need. Colour—and warmth.”
But when her family had departed, and she sat alone again in the drawing-room, Patricia Jameson took herself firmly to task. “If I don’t take more exercise,” she decided, “I shall become like one of those unpleasant creatures one meets in novels: the misunderstood married woman.”
Before going to bed, she tiptoed through the night nursery; looked lovingly down on the two dark-brown heads of Evelyn and Primula; and thereafter slept—even as they—dreamlessly.
§ 2
Punctually at nine o’clock next morning, Peter arrived.
Looking at him through the dining-room window, as he stood paying the taxi, as he walked—carrying his heavy leather dressing-bag easily as though it had been a dispatch-case—up the steps, he seemed to Patricia, above all things, an adequate person. The long, blue, belted Chesterfield over-coat—fur-lined but not fur-collared; the gray squash hat; brown gloves; ribbed socks; brown, carefully-polished brogue shoes; all betokened, in her eyes, efficiency. And when, after the usual greeting to Smith—(“Mrs. Jameson in the dining-room? Right. Just take this coat of mine, will you? And you might unpack for me at once”)—he came into the room, the impression deepened.
The cheek she kissed was newly shaven; the dark hair smooth-brushed; the moustache clipped soldier-fashion. He had—an invariable habit—taken his bath on the boat; arrived spick and span, ready for the day’s work. The gray eyes were clear, healthy: unusually merry, she thought.
“Breakfast?” she asked, after he had returned her kiss. “It’s quite ready.”
“Rather. Eggs and bacon for choice. Something English after all that German tripe.”
“Peter, your language is really getting atrocious.”
“Sorry, old thing. But honestly, Hamburg is the limit. I haven’t averaged four hours’ sleep all this week. What’s happened to the town in the last six years—I don’t know. They’re all crazy, I think. What with old Beckmann’s lobsters and young Beckmann’s dressed crabs. …”
He relapsed into silence; seeing again the champagne dinners at Forti’s, the red-wine lunches at the Rathaus, the smoky, tinselled Tanz-klubs, the whole nauseous pageant of heavy-handed vice and tawdry luxury with which the commercial classes of Germany were trying to ape the natural gaiety of France.
“Still, I got what I went for,” he added, as Smith brought in the Sheffield-plate breakfast-dishes, the big silver tea-pot.
They sat down.
“And what did you go for?” asked Patricia, serving him.
“It’s rather a long story,” he began—Peter rarely talked business to his wife—“but I’ll tell you if you like.”
“Yes, do.”
“Well, you know Jamesons have had the Beckmann cigar-agency for years and years. …”
“But those Beckmanns live in Havana, don’t they?”
“The old man, Heinrich Beckmann—he’s the senior partner—lives in Hamburg: the junior partners—his nephew Albert, who’ll inherit the business when Heinrich dies, is one of them—run the factory and the banking show in Cuba. But nothing big is ever decided without the old boy’s consent. When that bally Trust started, Beckmanns thought our old firm wasn’t big enough to handle their English market. So they took in two other concerns. That was when I first went into business. The governor never had any contract about the brand; trusted to their honour.” Peter sniffed: even after nine years the old sore still rankled. “Can I have another egg? By Jove, it’s good to be home again.”
“Really good?”
“Rather. …” He looked round the comfortable room appreciatively. “But I was telling you about Beckmanns. Sometime ago I said to Simpson, ‘Simpson, let’s get that sole agency back again.’ Simpson said—he’s a pessimistic blighter—‘It can’t be done.’ That was six weeks ago. The contract’s in my bag upstairs.”
He paused, preening himself, quietly but quite obviously vain. She thought him very young at that moment; more like a boy of twenty-three than a man of thirty. “But how?” she asked.
“Bluff, my dear. Absolute and unmitigated bluff. Albert’s come home—to get married, I think. So I wrote him a chatty letter, saying—well wrapped-up, of course—that we were thinking very seriously of giving up our cigar business. I said Simpson wanted to retire, and that the cigarette business was so profitable. …” He laughed. “Anyway, it came off. The old man wrote imploring me not to decide in a hurry; Albert wrote to me; they wired Havana, and Havana wrote to me; they invited me, at their expense—they’re as mean as they’re rich—to come over to Hamburg. I kept them waiting ten days. Then I went. Pat, you would have laughed to see me allowing myself to be persuaded—on my own terms—to sign a ten-year agreement with them.”
“But, Peter,” interrupted his wife, “was it quite”—she hesitated—“straight.”
“Straight?” He thought it over. “Yes. Just as straight as raising the pot on a busted flush. I stood to look silly if they’d called my bluff, didn’t I? And anyway, it’s jolly good business.”
They sat silent for a minute or two. And again she was conscious of his adequacy. What he went for, he got. By his getting, she and her children benefitted. That was the Law, inviolable since the days of the cave-man. Weaklings to the wall—to the strong man, the fruits of his brain, of his industry. …
“I’m glad about this contract, in more ways than one,” he said suddenly. “You see, it’s a certainty. And certainties are always worth having. Nirvana isn’t a certainty, not yet. It’s a gamble.” The confident tone eased off a shade or two. “Once or twice, I’ve been rather harassed about it. Finance. …”
“We might run to a car next year now,” he added.
Came Nurse’s tactful knock, and the children, merry-eyed, attired for the Park.
“Hello, Daddy,” they chorussed, and romped over to be kissed.
“Where have you been, Daddy?” asked Primula.
“Germany.”
“Where’s Germany?”
They catechized him for a few minutes; informed him of their own well-being, of a train recently purchased; kissed their mother; and hurried off—having tasks to perform, serious tasks with hoops and sticks, in which their parents had no part. In concentration on the immediate job, Peter’s kiddies were uncannily like their father.
“I must be off to the office,” he announced as soon as they were out of the room. “Anything on for tonight?”
“No, dear.”
“Right. I may be a little late. About seven, I expect. …”