PART TWENTY-ONE

THE DROSS AND THE GOLD

§ 1

Despite his father-in-law’s diagnosis, there was no sign of overstrain about the quiet young fellow in mufti who sat talking figures in George Reid’s stuffy private office, the morning after his arrival in England. One by one, Peter marshalled his facts; laid them before the middle-aged clean-shaven man at the paper-littered desk.

“But are you sure you can find a buyer?” said Reid at last. “It all seems to hang on that.”

“You can always sell things—at a price,” answered Peter. “The only trouble is _time_. One can’t conclude a deal like this in under a week. That’s where I want _your_ help. If I start the negotiations, will you carry them through? Of course, you must name your own fee.”

“I don’t take fees for helping people in the Army,” said Reid.

“But that’s ridiculous. You’re not here for your health.”

“Ridiculous or not, I won’t take any fee.” There was something very near emotion in the accountant’s voice. “You can pay for having the accounts audited if you like. But beyond that, not a farthing. Hang it all, when you fellows are risking your lives, the least we old ’uns can do is to see after affairs at home for you.”

“It’s damn decent of you,” said Peter, “but all the same, I don’t like accepting favours.”

“Favours be blowed.” Reid lit himself a cigarette. “Let’s get down to facts. First point: Are you quite sure it’s necessary to sell?”

“Quite.”

“Why? The business is perfectly solvent.”

“Because I happen to be in the Army.”

“Some one could run it while you’re away.”

“It isn’t that”—Peter spoke coldly, impersonally—“but if anything happened to me there’d be the whole tangle over again. Whereas, if I can get my fourteen thousand out, that _and_ the insurance money, at five per cent. . . .”

“Very well,” interrupted Reid. “I follow you. Point two: Who’s your buyer?”

“A firm called Beresford and Beresford. You’ll find them pretty tough nuts to negotiate with.”

“Jews?” asked Reid, who had a slight acquaintance with the cigar-trade.

“Yes.”

“Well that’s one comfort. They won’t mess about. If they want the thing, and the price suits them, they’ll have it. . . .”

§ 2

Peter had spoken with great certainty about Beresfords; but as he climbed down the prison-like stone staircase of Great Winchester House he began to wonder whether he might not have misjudged the situation. Two and a half years ago, Maurice would have jumped at the opportunity of acquiring Jamesons on the terms Peter now proposed to accept. But things had altered in the cigar-trade; perhaps the arguments he intended using would not be effective.

The whole proposition was very distasteful. He found himself hating the City, almost wishing he were back in the firing-line. And when, through various passages, he made his own offices, distaste deepened. Sitting there, talking generalities to Miss Macpherson (it would be time enough to tell her the business must be sold, after he had seen Maurice), memories thronged over him. He saw his father again, uncording a parcel of dock-samples, old George with his duster, Tom Simpson, himself as a raw youth.

Recollection conjured up many such pictures that morning: comedies, farces, tragedies, all enacted among the cedar-boxes and the mahogany furniture of 28 b. Lime Street.

After Miss Macpherson had given him the promised figures and gone off to her lunch, he prowled about the place. It seemed like a tomb now; all the life gone out of it. The faces of the two girls in the clerks’ room were as strange as the emptiness of the dusty racks.

Yet, for all its apparent deadness, Jameson & Company still made profits. For a moment, studying the rough balance-sheet Miss Macpherson had prepared, Peter doubted his wisdom in selling out. Why shouldn’t he make a fight for it, let her carry-on? There was enough money on deposit in the Bank to stall off Simpson’s executors for at least six months. The selling of goods, under war-conditions, presented no difficulty. What one could import, one could dispose of.

Still doubtful, he went out to lunch, avoiding the Lombard lest he should meet Beresford, going instead to a noisy old-fashioned chop-house where the food was as good as the service execrable. Over his chop, wisdom prevailed. For Patricia’s sake and the sake of his children, he dare not risk any more financial complications. With which resolution firmly in his mind, Peter walked down St. Mary Axe, entered the elaborate warehouses of Beresford and Beresford.

Maurice, dapper as ever, eye-glassed, patent-booted, but short-jacketed and bowler-hatted in deference to war-conditions, happened to be in the outer-office; welcomed Peter as a long lost brother.

“But what are you doing in mufti?” he asked, leading way through the glass-partitioned sales-rooms (which, Peter noticed, were as bare of stock as his own) into a green-carpeted sanctum of saddle-bag chairs and roll-top desks.

“Usually get out of uniform when I’m on leave,” explained Peter.

The little dude unlocked one of the desks; sat down at it; produced a box of fat oily Cabanas; pushed them across.

“Trust goods. But not at all bad,” he said.

Peter lit up; took the chair at the side of the desk; asked:

“Is your brother Charlie in town?”

“Yes. He’ll be back from lunch in about ten minutes.”

“Good,” said Peter. “I’ve come round to talk business. It’ll save time if you’re both here.”

“Business?” queried the other, letting the monocle drop from his eye-socket. “What sort of business?”

“Tell you when Charlie comes in. How are things in general?” They settled down, Maurice on tenterhooks to find out what Peter could be driving at, to desultory trade-gossip.

“Too much Government control for my liking,” said Maurice. “Still, except for the freights, I’m not grumbling.”

His brother came in: a fat little man with goggly eyes and red hands, one of which he extended cordially to Peter.

“Very glad to see you back, Peter. Very glad indeed. When’s the war going to be over?”

“Peter’s come round to talk business,” interrupted Maurice.

“Business!”—Charlie hung up his soft hat—“what sort of business? I didn’t know there was any business left to talk about.”

He also unlocked his desk; sat down at it; took out a cigar-box; selected a weed. Looking at the two of them, Peter could not help a totally unreasonable feeling of contempt—contempt not only for them, but for himself for wanting money from them. There was a little of the Weasel’s rasp in his voice as he began:

“The business is this. As you know, Simpson is dead. There’s no one left to carry on Jamesons. And so, I’ve got to sell it. I’ve come to you first. You know almost as much about the show as I do. If you want it, you must make up your minds within twenty-four hours. . . .”

“Rather rushing things, aren’t you, Peter?” interrupted Maurice.

“Possibly,”—it must be remembered that Peter knew his men pretty well—“but what am I to do? Leave doesn’t last for ever; and I’ve got to have the whole thing settled before I go away.”

“But what’s the price?” Charlie’s mind moved more directly if less rapidly than his brother’s.

“Well”—Peter spoke slowly—“of course you’ll take stock and book-debts at a valuation. We shan’t quarrel about that. The only question is how much the goodwill’s worth.”

“Goodwill!” Maurice screwed his monocle back into his eye. “My dear Peter, you must be joking. I shouldn’t dream of paying for goodwill.” (“Then he’s a buyer!” commented Peter’s mind.) “A cigar importing business has no goodwill. You and I decided that years ago. It’s a personal business.”

“Not under present conditions. The import-licence represents a share in an absolute monopoly.”

“Only while the war lasts.”

They wrangled about goodwill for ten minutes. Then Maurice said casually:

“I suppose you’ve got to pay out a good deal of money to Simpson’s estate.”

“A certain amount,” admitted Peter, “and frankly that’s one of the reasons why I’m anxious to dispose of the business. You see, it’s a bad time to get rid of outside investments”—he spoke as if he had millions of them—“and although Simpson’s capital was not enormous, I don’t feel inclined to realize a lot of shares so as to replace it.”

“So you want us to do it for you,” said Maurice.

“Your position’s different to mine. You’re both here to look after things: I’m not.”

“That’s quite true,” interrupted Charlie.

Maurice, who wanted the business badly but did not wish to appear over-keen, looked angrily across at his brother; took up the running himself.

“You’d want to be paid in cash, I suppose?” he said.

“Take your own time about that,” answered Peter largely. “If it suits you better to pay me out as you realize the stock and book-debts, I don’t mind. There’ll be interest, of course.”

Maurice came back to the question of goodwill; was sheered off by Peter; began to fish for figures. But these, his antagonist refused to give.

“My accountant’s working on them,” he prevaricated, “they’ll be ready tomorrow. But it’s no good showing them to you unless you’re prepared to deal.”

“Can’t you give me some idea? I’m only trying to find out if we can afford it.”

It was time to fire the last shot. “Maurice,” said Peter, “you know as well as I do that there’s no question of affording. All you’re asked to do—barring the payment for goodwill—-is to take over sound stock and good book-debts; realize on ’em; and pay the money over to me. If you don’t want to do it, say so; and I’ll either sell the show to Elkins or tell my accountants to liquidate.”

“You’re in such a hurry,” began Maurice. “Can’t you leave us till tomorrow?”

“No, I can’t.”

“But about this goodwill. How much do you want for it?”

“A year’s profits.”

The two brothers looked at each other; and Peter, watching, saw that he had the fish hooked. They didn’t want Elkins to have the business. They didn’t want it liquidated. They wanted it for themselves.

“Look here, Peter,” began Maurice ingratiatingly, “you and I are old pals. Of course, I quite see you must have this thing settled quickly. But I’m sure you wouldn’t want us to pay more than it’s worth for the business: any more than _we_ should like to pay you less.”

“Of course not,” smiled Peter. He knew Maurice Beresford in his “between-you-and-me-and-the-gate-post-and-as-old-friends” mood.

“Well, why not leave the details to our accountants? You want to sell. We’re quite prepared to buy. A few hundreds one way or another can’t make any difference to either of us. Don’t you think that’s best, Charlie?”

Charlie looked up from his desk; began, “Well, I think we ought to know how much money is involved”; caught his brother’s eye; ended up, “Yes. I think that would be the best way.”

“There’s only one thing,” said Peter at parting, “I think you ought to keep on our old Staff, at any rate until they can find other jobs.”

“My dear Peter,” purred Maurice, “we’re so short-handed that they’ll be a god-send.”

But when Peter broke the news to Miss Macpherson, she said, very firmly: “Oh, I don’t think I’d like to work for Beresford & Beresford, Mr. Jameson. I’d rather go into one of the Government Offices. You see, to have carried on while you were away would have been a kind of war-work, wouldn’t it? Whereas if I went to them. . . .”

She left the sentence unfinished, and its hearer a little amazed. For Government Offices did not pay the same wages as private employers; and patriotism in money-matters—except his own, about which he always felt a trifle foolish—was a little beyond the scope of P.J.’s imagination. . . .

§ 3

The Beresfords lost no time in getting to grips, no opportunity of pointing out the worthlessness of the concern they proposed acquiring.

At his very first interview with George Reid, their intermediary—the dignified portly principal of Messrs. Guthrie, Guthrie, Jellybrand, Sons and Guthrie—made their attitude very clear. He was given to understand, he said, that Jameson & Co. had been for many years prominently associated with a German firm, domiciled in Cuba, who had recently been black-listed by the British Government for serious misdemeanours. Under the circumstances, and as patriotic merchants, his clients felt some diffidence in negotiating.

When Reid (primed by Peter who had anticipated the argument) pointed out that Beresfords had also, prior to the war, traded with Beckmanns, and that they had only abandoned trading with them because _his_ clients, Messrs. Jameson & Co., refused to supply further shipments, Mr. Guthrie professed bland ignorance.

The matter—went on Mr. Guthrie—was not of vast importance: still, it undoubtedly affected the question of goodwill. And, while on the subject, he felt it only fair to say that—had Messrs. Beresford taken _his_ advice—they would have thought twice before entering into negotiations at all; as, in his opinion, the excess profits tax would swallow up any increased earnings that could be made. However, his clients had pledged their word, and he would be glad to have the balance-sheet—which, with Mr. Reid’s permission, he would take away and study at leisure.

Followed a long letter, querying the item of “furniture and fixtures,” alluding once again to the debated question of goodwill, suggesting that the book-debts should be guaranteed by the sellers, the stock valued by some independent expert. Followed another interview, a demand to examine the lease of the premises, and—(“I told you so, Reid,” said Peter when he heard of it)—a very tactful request for a copy of the contract with Beckmanns!

Meanwhile Maurice insisted on entertaining Peter and Patricia to dinner at Claridges’: a dinner during which he assumed the deal already completed, and after which, over enormous cigars and exiguous liqueurs, he did his best to settle all disputed points in his own favour.

“Horrid cynical little man,” commented Patricia after he had dropped them at Harley Street.

“Oh, we’re all thieves together in the cigar-trade,” answered Peter. “If I were in Maurice’s position and he in mine, I should do just the same. He knows that if he can only play out time till my leave’s up, he’ll get the business at his own price.”

“Well, I think it’s very mean of him.”

“Don’t be so foolish, Pat”—Peter laughed the new bitter laugh she was growing to hate. “There’s no sentiment in commerce.”

She thought of their mad happy Christmas together; and sighed. He had reverted to his old absorbed self, the Peter of Nirvana days: grim, concentrated, efficient. She was his chattel again, no longer his pal.

That sentiment swayed him, that he hated parting with the “old business,” that his weakened resolution needed constant screwing-up to bluffing-point—Patricia did not realize. She knew that he was fighting a losing battle against time, felt dimly that his financial anxieties were more on her behalf and the children’s than his own. And for these things her heart sympathized with him: but her neglected love suffered, suffered impotently.

Reason asked: “Why _do_ you love this man?”—and found no sure answer. Reason told her that he was hard, incapable of any but the most casual affection; that his fidelity indicated nothing but lack of temperament, that he would have been happier unmarried. But Instinct, ousting reason, replied: “And in spite of it all, you _do_ love him.”

It took many years before Patricia, looking back on that dark week, realized herself one of those women whose love can only walk hand-in-hand with their _respect_; that whatever this man of hers might do or say, instinct, stronger than any reasoning power, gave her the key to his motive: and always, that motive was the same—a desire, voiceless but founded on sure conviction, to do the right thing. . . .

Still, it was a beast of a week! Try as she might, Patricia could not wrest his mind from his business problems to herself. Even during their visits to Francis, he seemed incapable of putting the thing aside. She grew to resent the constant messengers bringing bulky envelopes from Reid, the servants, “Your office wants you on the telephone, sir,” the afternoons he must spend in the City.

For Peter had no intention of allowing Maurice to play out time. He hustled Reid till Reid hustled Guthrie; met this point; refused that; threatened here; was purposely dilatory there; used every artifice to bring matters to a climax before the Thursday morning when he must return to France.

In the end, by luck rather than judgment, he succeeded. Maurice Beresford (afraid lest Peter should carry out his latest threat—to liquidate Jameson & Co. altogether) suggested a conference. They met, the two accountants and the three principals, at Guthrie’s offices; sat down in his mahogany board-room to a long session. Talk, as usual at such meetings, coiled away from essentials; wound itself into interminable knots over unimportant minutiæ . . . till Peter’s temper, long held in leash, got the better of him.

“And don’t you think, Mr. Jameson,” began Guthrie blandly, “that the transfer should be made as from the date of the balance-sheet?”

“If you want to know what _I_ think,” Peter flashed back at him, “I think we’re all sitting round this table like a lot of blithering idiots, talking sanguinary rubbish. Anyway, I’m fed up with it. Look here, Maurice”—he turned on the little man furiously—“you’ve been mucking about for six days. I’ve met you over the guaranteeing of the book-debts, the price of the fixtures, and the indemnity for repairs under the lease. What the hell more do you want?”

Guthrie, ruffled out of his portly dignity, sat silent and disgruntled; Reid’s eyes twinkled; Charlie Beresford fidgeted uncomfortably; but his brother, screwing monocle into eye-socket, retorted calmly:

“I don’t want to pay anything for goodwill.”

“Then the deal’s off.” Peter began to gather up the papers in front of him. “If you won’t pay more than the actual value of the assets, I’ll wind up the show myself. . . .”

“But . . .” began Maurice.

“Though why the devil you’ve wasted all this time, God alone knows,” finished Peter. He completed the collection of papers, rose to go.

For once in the history of Beresford & Beresford, the junior partner saved the situation. Maurice, not realizing Peter’s temper unassumed, thinking it a bluff, sat silent; leaving Charlie’s frightened acquisitiveness to exclaim:

“I don’t see why we shouldn’t pay _something_ for goodwill. Only, it’s a question of how much. Couldn’t we compromise, Peter?”

Our Mr. Jameson sat down again. The outburst had steadied his nerves; his commercial judgment revived. Inwardly, he laughed a little: it seemed quaint that his loss of temper should have brought the Beresfords to heel so quickly. But what he actually said was:

“Compromise? Why the whole amount’s only chicken food.”

“Damn dear chicken-food,” commented Maurice. “You’re asking a year’s profits. That’s about two thousand five hundred pounds.” He changed his tone. “Look here, Peter, your time’s valuable, so’s mine. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. The indemnity under that lease of yours might run into a lot of money. Supposing we waive it, and give you a thousand in cash for the goodwill.”

Pouted Guthrie, recovering his dignity: “That seems to me a very liberal offer.” . . .

And at twelve hundred, Peter compromised. It was a weak thing to do, and he knew it weak as he did it; but time pressed, and somehow he felt sick of haggling. The old Peter, the Peter who would have fought up to the last ten-pound note, had left his patience at Ypres!

But it was the old Peter who insisted on the immediate exchange of letters; who dictated the rough agreement to Guthrie’s pert blond typist; appended steady signature at foot.

“And about the contract itself?” asked Maurice Beresford as the party, all smiles and handshakes, broke up. “You’ll have that sent out to you, I suppose?”

“It won’t be necessary, Maurice. Reid has my power of attorney. You see”—our Mr. Jameson couldn’t resist a last crow over old opponents—“I never expected to bring you up to the scratch before I went away!”

But Maurice only chuckled, “Well, there’s _one_ thief less in the cigar-trade anyway, Peter”; and insisted on accompanying him to the corner of Lombard Street. . . .

§ 4

A man’s money-standard is of necessity comparative. Five pounds is a fortune to the beggar; ten thousand a charity-subscription for a millionaire. But in Peter’s case money had hitherto represented more than mere coin to spend or save as the mood happened: it had stood for the measure of success in his career. So that, as he walked home through Lombard Street that fine April evening, he bore, in addition to the weight of his loss (and no man, pauper or millionaire, _likes_ losing money), another heavier burden—the burden of failure.

The whole street, the gold-deviced signs that had hung three hundred years and more outside stolid buildings, buttressed on millions, the marble-pillared windows, the iron-shuttered entrances, mocked at such failures as his own; seemed glutted with money, money to be picked up by anybody with brains and nerve. He hurried through it; left the low black bulk of the Bank of England behind him; struck westwards through Cheapside.

It was late, and most of the shops had closed. He slackened his pace to the slow dawdle of the man who thinks.

“Failure!” thought Peter. “Argue round it as you like—the result’s the same.” And so thinking, there came over him another wave of that bitterness which, under the Voluntary System, is reserved for those who fight for their country while others, equally fit, stay safe at home. Tolerance for those others, clean pride in himself were submerged in that bitter wave; the scum of thought floated upwards.

“A fine fool I made of myself,” he argued, “rushing into the army. Why didn’t I wait? All these people at home are making more money than ever. Marcus must be coining it out of Nirvana. Beresfords’ will get back the purchase-price of Jamesons in six months. If I’d only stayed at home!”

He began to rail, as so many railed in that black time, against the very thing to which he had dedicated himself. “What are we all fighting for! The country? Oh, hell! A lot ‘the country’ cares. Look at it. Every one having the time of their lives—more money being made and spent than ever—politicians at £5,000 a year yapping of patriotism, munition-workers getting ten pounds a week—while poor bloody Tommy is blown to bits for seven bob.”

“Poor bloody Tommy!” The thought acted as a life-buoy in the storm of anger. What right had he, Peter Jameson, Lieutenant and Adjutant of Gunners, he Peter with his cushy job at the front, his security from want at home, to grouse at hard luck, while men—(thought pictured them clearly)—trudged the shelled duck-boards to Railway Wood through endless nights, clung to its whizz-banged breastworks through endless days? And among those men—a dozen confided stories leaped to mind—were plenty who had sacrificed not half an inherited fortune, but everything: men with assured positions, skilled mechanics, dock-foremen, master-printers, who had thrown up fine jobs, whose wives struggled along on ludicrous separation allowances, because. . . . “Because of what?” asked thought. And reason answered thought in one clear sentence: “Because they were _men_!”

Evening had come as he dawdled. Twilight brooded over London. But now no twilight brooded over the soul of Peter Jameson. The burden of the past week dropped from him as a heavy pack drops from weary shoulders. He stood upright in a sudden blaze of clarity. Let the old, the emasculate, the pimps and the panderers haggle in their market-places, babble at their talking-shops: his path led clean away from their market-places and their talking-places, clean across the seas into that other country where neither his money nor his talk but only a man’s manhood availed him: a loathsome and a desolate country, a country of fear and mud and boredom intolerable, of maiming and of death: yet a country above whose desolation shone always the one clear light—the Light of Duty!

§ 5

A little of that new vision which had been vouchsafed to him, Peter confided to Patricia, haltingly and half ashamed of it, during their last night together; and after he had fallen asleep she lay for a long time, listening to his easy breathing, hoping and fearing for him, wondering about him.

Her own patriotism was a simple star-clear faith in birth and flag; his, she had never yet entirely understood. It seemed to her a voiceless sullen creed—superstition rather than belief. Striving to analyse it, a fantasy came to her. It was as though she stood among the ruins of a huge temple in the midst of a desolate city. Outside, guns flashed and boomed: their flashes illumined the black sky above the roofless temple. Round her, on the brick-strewn floor, among the fragments of granite pillars and stained-glass windows, knelt men—thousands upon thousands of armed and helmeted men. Their helmets were dinted, their arms foul and bloody, their drab uniforms wet and clotted with yellow slime. And from a ruined altar, One spoke to the men on their knees, saying:

“Know ye the Whys and the Wherefores of this thing ye do?”

Then the kneeling men answered as with one voice:

“Neither the Whys nor the Wherefores of this Thing are known to us; nor do we care to know them. Only we know that this Thing we do is the Fine Thing: and with that knowledge we are content.”

Then said the One at the altar: “This is My Work which ye accomplish.”

But the men on their knees answered him: “What is that to us? We have set our hands to this Work and, Thine or another’s, we will accomplish it. For this Work is the Fine Thing.”

And so saying they rose from their knees, man after helmèd man; rose and passed out into the desolation of the city. . . .

* * * * *

But fantasy proved no consolation to Patricia when, once again, she bade _her_ man good-bye!