Читать книгу The Missing Angel (Sci-Fi Novel) - Erle Cox - Страница 6

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At the age of thirty an avalanche smote the life of Tydvil Jones. In the one six months he lost both his parents. Early in the year, a moment of indecision settled the fate of his mother. The driver of the motor car was severely censured by the coroner, though the jury brought in a verdict of misadventure.

Just six months later, his father relinquished his life as unobtrusively as he had lived. Their actual loss had little effect on their son. Neither had been demonstratively affectionate. None the less, the result was to sweep Tydvil from a harbour of comparative calm into an ocean of serious responsibilities.

He knew when he succeeded to the control of Craddock, Burns and Despard, that his father's death had made him a wealthy man. But when the figures relating to the estate were known, conferees of the deceased merchant opened their eyes with astonishment, and the State Treasurer of the day licked his lips over the death duties.

Thanks to his previous attitude towards his staff, the succession of Tydvil Jones to the throne of C. B. & D. was accomplished without friction or unrest. Despite its great prosperity, the thirty years of conservative autocracy of the late ruler lay heavily on the warehouse. Without undue haste, and carefully feeling his way, the new ruler instituted reforms that sent a sigh of relief from basement to roof.

But, from the day he assumed the reins, Tydvil began to live a double life—but not in the usually accepted sense of the term. One was the domestic life in which he was the subject of an autocrat. The other, his real life, was as ruler of an establishment capitalised at three-quarters of a million, and controlling the destinies of some four hundred fellow beings.

From his elevated position his horizon was enlarged. He came into direct contact with his peers in business, who received him with some circumspection, having heard stories of his peculiar views. It was not long before they recognised that he was a man not to be despised in the game of buying and selling by which they all made a more or less honest living.

Outside their common interest, however, they were at a loss what to make of him, and he could not understand them. But after relinquishing the first very natural idea that he was pulling their legs, they summed him up as a most amazing prig.

There was some justification for their verdict. He had been brought up to believe that a theatre was a vestibule to Hades, and shared with race-courses and hotels the distinction of wearing the hall-marks of depravity. If you hammer a doctrine, however fantastic, into a human being from childhood, it will take an immense amount of eradicating.

But, in these early days of his responsibilities, Tydvil did a lot of quiet thinking and observing. It did not take him long to arrive at the conclusion that it was he and not his business associates who were abnormal. Then the revolutionary truth gradually shaped itself in his mind, that all his life he had allowed others to do his thinking, and he awoke to the knowledge that all his ideas apart from his business, were second hand.

At home he allowed no sign of his changing ideas to be noticed. He entered into his social activities as an observer rather than a participator. His admiration for his associates faded when he noticed how they fawned on Amy. He also awoke to the fact that it was the cheque book of Tydvil Jones rather than Tydvil Jones himself that commanded the respect given to him. He obtained a good deal of cynical amusement from watching how eagerly Amy lapped up the flattery of her friends.

It was about this time that Tydvil began to study his wife. But it was a study of her habits and customs and not a study of her comfort. Amy was good looking; there was no doubt about that. But there were lines about her mouth that were seldom seen by anyone but her husband. They showed up immediately he questioned any act or opinion of hers. When her friends complimented him on the unfailing sweetness of "dear Amy," Jones agreed cheerfully and dutifully, but the thought of those lines was always in the background.

Few but he recognised the diamond hardness of the sweet nature of Amy. He had occasionally met other women who took the good things of life thankfully and graciously. They were women who laughed naturally and who did not want to reform society.

Once, experimentally, he suggested a modification of her Spartan hair dressing and more expensive frocks. After Amy's first shock of surprise, her discourse on frivolous dressing lasted for 45 minutes. Who had hinted she was unbecomingly clothed? Had she ever shown a tendency to extravagance? Nothing but her knowledge of his impeccable life saved him from a suspicion of having sideslipped from grace. Indeed, her insistence on returning to the subject of the reasons for his suggestion awoke in Jones the thought that she would find the pain of a misdemeanour eased by the joy of reforming him, if necessary.

However, as he listened to her homily, he tried, without much success, to reconcile her ideas of economy in dress with a twenty-roomed house, three motor cars and eight maids.