Boys and Girls Come Out to Play (41 page)

“Are we going to
sing
too?” said Divver, halting in the middle of the carpet.

“Why, I should hope so,” she said: “what’s a birthday without ‘Happy Birthday?’ What an old crusty bear you are!”

“I only hope he’s in the right mood,” said Divver, kicking the carpet.

“Why, Max, what’s come over you?” cried Harriet, looking first at him, then at Morgan. “You were in a real birthday spirit. You won’t let me down now, Max?”

“I won’t let anyone down,” Divver said sulkily: “I just suggested that if he’s feeling disappointed … if they’ve pulled another fast one on him …”

“So what, silly? We want to cheer him up, don’t we?” She made testy noises with her tongue, looked around until she found a rural fan that she had laid down, and gave Divver a few little blows with it. “I hope that
you
are in better humour,” she said to Morgan.

“Believe me, I am,” he said heartily, looking warmly around the dear old place.

“Well, that’s something.” She again approached Divver with her fan: “And where is your present?”

“I’ve got it; I’ve got it,” he said, backing away.

“Well, give it to me, so I can put it next the cake with mine.”

Divver took a small parcel out of his pocket and gave it to her. “
Brown
paper!” she exclaimed. “You have no more delicate taste than Larry; not a scrap of finer feeling.”

“He’s a plain man,” said Divver, “and that’s a plain wrapping.”

“And I suppose
you
didn’t bring
anything
,” she said to Morgan. “Well, I excuse you. You live in a world of your own.” She was walking to the cake with Divver’s brown present when she turned and asked: “How about your reservation? Did you get a vacancy?”

“Everything fine,” said Morgan.

“Let me see it,” she said, dropping the parcel on a chair.

He took out the form and handed it to her. Divver looked over her shoulder and the two of them peered curiously. “Was that the earliest you could get?” said Divver.

“Pretty well.”

“Now tell me about the rest,” Harriet said to Morgan. “You go to Tutin by train and catch the boat …”

“That’s all.”

“No; but when you arrive; what happens then?”

“My mother might have a car to meet me at the North River. If not, I just go to Grand Central and take the train.”

“Where do you get off the train?”

“At our station; at Magister.”

“And then?”

“It’s only two miles to the house from there.”

“What’s the name of the house?”

“Nothing fancy, just Elmwood.”

“And so that’s where you’ll be. It sounds wonderful. While Max and Larry and I … don’t the names of the places make you homesick, Max?”

He shrugged and walked away again, gritting his teeth impatiently. Obviously, he wanted no tender reminders of the
life he was so eager to renounce; particularly if the reminders came just at the nerve-racking moment when his whole future depended on whether his new patron was to hold or lose the power to protect him.

The old man came in with a handful of little candles on a big salver. “Oh,
good
Simon!” Harriet cried; “I knew
you
wouldn’t let me down.” She held up the candles. “Look, Max!”

He managed to smile in a bleak way.

“Now, go down again, Simon,” she said, taking the old man’s arm, “and let us know just as soon as the Director steps out of the car.”

He went off, and she arranged the new candles, her fingers trembling. “Do you have matches, Max? Let’s have them ready.”

“For Pete’s sake,” said Divver. “This isn’t a coronation.”

“What’s come over you? Don’t you feel well?”

“I feel fine. Just leave me alone.”

“That’s
just
what I’ll do.”

“I just don’t like children’s parties for adults.”

They faced each other angrily. A few hard knocks came on the door, and Harriet, puzzled, ran to open it.

The Representative entered. He looked around the room in a worried way, and said: “Pardon me, madam, is the Director not back yet?”

“What is it?” she asked impatiently.

“It is very important, Madam.” He noticed the cake and looked surprised.

“Come back in two hours, Mr. Hovich,” she said, “and you’ll be sure to find him.”

“No sooner?”

“Well, one hour.”

“Pardon me,” he said again, and walked out.

She sighed. “My nerves are beginning to go,” she said, and
looked around hungrily for some occupation. Picking up Divver’s parcel she said: “You can say what you like, but I’m going to make this look decent.”

“
In
decent, you mean,” he replied, slouching up and down.

“And Jimmy,” she said, ignoring Divver, “when the ’phone rings,
you
answer it, while Max and I stand ready with the matches.”

They stayed silent for a few minutes, Morgan sitting, Divver pacing, Harriet turning the plain brown package into a bauble of silver paper and golden twine. Then the ’phone rang, and Morgan took the receiver.

“It’s him,” he said.

They all frantically struck matches until all the candles were alight. They heard steps in the passage. Harriet took Morgan and Divver by the arm and stood between them. “Oh, lay off!” snapped Divver, pulling away. The door opened. “Now, all together:
sing
!”
she cried.

They went to it in loud and wobbly voices:

Harriet ran forward, put her arms around her husband’s neck and kissed him. Over her shoulder he looked at Divver and Morgan, his hair becoming whiter as his face became redder.

“I am sure this is all very well meant,” he said.

“It’s your birthday, Larry,” said his wife, simultaneously trying to skip and to hide her face on his shoulder, the only refuge from his expression.

“Congratulations, Boss,” said Divver.

“And mine too,” said Morgan.

“I am sure you are all very kind,” he said; and added irritably:
“Yes, dear, thank you, thank you,” and dislodged his shoulder.

The look of indomitable martyrdom that had been on him when he entered and had been swept away by surprise, now worked back into his features, surmounting even his exasperation; as though he were determined that a mood which he had been rehearsing during the drive from the city was not going to perish in demonstrations of love and friendship. Even his wife sensed this, and lowered her voice when she referred him to the cake and the presents. “A little later, thank you,” he said, and took a chair. “It was very kind of you to come too,” he said to Morgan humbly, and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. “Perhaps we should blow out the candles, if you don’t mind,” he added; and the dirty smell of smoking wicks drifted through the room.

His receptionists were now in the position in which he normally placed those around him: they had been clearly informed as to his mood and had made haste to fall in with it. Now they could only wait in silence for him to develop it or explain it away. As usual, the engineer was in no hurry to do either, knowing that he could proceed most happily after someone else, in nervousness, had said something tactless. His wife turned out to be that person: she said: “Larry, Mr. Hovich was looking for you: he said it was important.”

At once, he sat up straight in his chair, switching his temperament from suffering to valour. His eyes flashed; he asked: “What was his business?”

“Oh, Larry; I didn’t ask. I wanted you to have the cake first. But he’ll be back in a half-hour.”

At this, the engineer rose to his feet, clenched his fists and exclaimed—in the rage that had been present all the time below his disguise—“I can guess! They’ll see! They’re going to fire me like yellow dogs, through Hovich; refuse to see me in person, and kick me out through him. By God, I’ll make them
pay! The dirty politicians: I’ll show them that they can’t butter me up with smiles and compliments and then sneer at me behind my back: I’m no Irishman with a vote!”

“Suspect double-cross, huh?” said Divver, gruffly indicating his desire to stand by his friend rather than be trampled underfoot by him.

“Yes,
Mr.
Divver,”
said the engineer, glaring at him; “any fool could see that much.”

His wife now followed hopefully in Divver’s tracks, employing however, a more disarming, feminine approach to safety. Shaking her head gently and smiling faintly on the company, she said: “How
silly,
how amazingly
childish
it all does seem! Certainly, no one could have done a better
job
than Larry. So what
fools,
to make him think that they somehow don’t
trust
him.”

“Just what do you mean by that?” her husband shouted.

She gave a little scream. “Nothing, Larry; nothing at all.”

“Then why say it?” he bellowed. He looked in Morgan’s direction for the next stupidity, and not finding it, rose to his feet and gave the bell-rope a tremendous tug. When Simon appeared, he said: “Send Hovich.”

Now, perhaps because he felt that more anger would diminish rather than increase his stature, the engineer produced a manuscript from his brief case and said to Divver calmly: “I must thank you for letting me read this second part of your article. I am sure your magazine has been as interested as I have been. You give the most ordinary things a significance that a person like myself would never suspect.”

“I am seriously glad you enjoyed it,” said Divver.

“It is not every day—as you well know after today’s events, Divver—that it occurs to anyone to pay
me
any attention. So I am pleased and grateful.”

“Oh, nothing, nothing!” replied Divver, smiling bashfully:
“All in the line of duty—and a pleasant change from it, too.”

“I have nothing,” proceeded the engineer, “to say about your remarks concerning myself; compliments should receive more objective judgment. But would I be giving proof of loyal friendship, would I be faithful to your conception of my character, if I failed to tell you my honest opinion of certain sections?” He turned the pages of the carbon.

“You would not,” said Divver. “Shoot. I am no prima donna.”

“Good. Now … here … I am interested to know, and I quote: ‘… at his elbow, an alert old Polish foreman, bowed in his knotted figure but more than erect in psychological stance and devotion to the labour in hand.’ Now, who may that be, may I ask? Surely not Hovich?”

Divver turned a little pale, but he answered with a laugh. “Just a touch of poetic license—yes, I admit that completely frankly: poetic license used to convey the sort of
atmosphere
that is often truer, at bottom, than the simple fact.”

“That much I gathered,” said the engineer: “nonetheless, I assume you had
some
figure in mind?”

“Well, yes, among the foremen …”

“
Which
foreman?”

Divver made no reply.

“The only one resembling your description is old Thalberg, a shark of the first water if ever I saw one: the man who is said to have sold his daughter to one of Pilsudski’s secretaries. Perhaps you were not aware of that: but you knew he is the most unscrupulous man in the whole mine?” When Divver still said nothing, the engineer concluded triumphantly: “Poetic license is a fine thing, when it does not constitute misrepresentation. A moment ago, my wife mentioned the word ‘trust.’ Well, I have a feeling that your young friend’s mother, who I understand is your employer, would not be pleased if
she were informed that the trust she reposes in you is sacrificed to what you call ‘atmosphere’.”

Morgan saw that Divver was looking at him with intense dislike, and he said stoutly: “I don’t intend to run off home and tell her, Mr. Streeter.” But this tactless loyalty made Divver look positively savage; and the engineer said sharply: “No one has suggested that you intended to, sir.” He and Divver both fixed their eyes on Morgan, the engineer as surprised as if a midget had run in and bitten him, Divver as sour as a guilty man facing the chief witness for the prosecution. How ashamed and furious he must feel, Morgan thought; and how I wish I could tell him that I am as innocent as an angel of becoming a stool-pigeon and am here only to enjoy the peace of human voices again, quite regardless of what they say.

The engineer, too, seemed to know Divver’s position, because he returned the manuscript and started on another tack that proved equally pertinent and shocking. “You will be glad to hear,” he said, “that although I was not permitted to see the Minister, I
was
able to have a few pleasant words with the Maximilian Co., from whom as you know, we ordered our troughs and replacements.”

“Indeed?” said Divver. “Well, that’s something.”

“Yes,” said the engineer,
“they,
at least, were pleased with us, Divver, with the work that you and I have tried so hard to accomplish. And, as no doubt you know, it is the custom of the average established firm to give thanks for large orders with small donations—not a bribe
before
the fact, but something quite different; a token of appreciation
after
the fact. And when they handed such a one to me, my first thought was: Divver must have a cut of this cake.”

“I wouldn’t think of it,” said Divver.

“Why?”

“I don’t know: I just …”

“Do you mean that you could not accept my assurance that such a donation is honest and above-board?”

But Divver was too cowardly to argue away the money on the ground on which he had refused it. He replied: “The point is simply that I do not deserve it. I have worked with you purely for my own enjoyment”; and he again looked sourly at Morgan.

“Your enjoyment, sir, has been of inestimable service to me,” said the engineer, sitting down at his desk and taking out a cheque-book. “And you yourself were kind enough to inform me that you believed it to be of greater value than your professional work.”

“I am a completely untrained, unpractised ignoramus in the art of gold-mining,” Divver exclaimed. “I know nothing of business, nothing of practical approach, of science, industry, life. I am simply a foreign correspondent.”