Читать книгу Peter Jameson - Gilbert Frankau - Страница 22

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“Limousine-Landaulette body would be best,” said Peter. “We want something that will do either for town work or touring.”

“How about a cabriolet?” asked Patricia.

“If it’s not too heavy for you to drive.”

It was a Saturday afternoon, the first in July; and they were lunching in the low-roofed, cabin-like grill-room of the Carlton Hotel. The brass clock on the white mantelpiece pointed a quarter to three; most of the tables had emptied; but Peter and his wife sat on. The choice—that of their first automobile—needed careful discussion.

It pleased her to see him sitting there, boy-like for the moment, liqueur-glass poised steadily in his firm hand, inevitable cigar between his lips. The six months since his return from Hamburg had not been over-happy ones for Patricia. Always, she had felt the City pulling against her, taking him from her. Always, he grew more absorbed, more reticent. But now it seemed as though, just for a flash, the pal she had married was hers again.

“Aren’t I getting a little old to drive a car?” she asked.

He looked at her carefully before he spoke; took in at one glance smooth complexion, perfect teeth, the clear eyes and the glossy hair under the gray toque. Then he said, “Don’t talk rot, old thing.”

“And either way,” she went on, “it’s an extravagance.”

“An extravagance we can afford.”

For, really, it looked as though dreams would come true. Turkovitch’s defection—owing to Bramson’s application for shares—had only meant two thousand pounds instead of the anticipated three. Nirvana’s bank, approached with a profit-earning balance-sheet and guaranteed by Peter, had loaned the five thousand for their new advertising campaign. Jamesons, in sole control of the Beckmann brand, were making more money than ever before. Only that morning, Hagenburg had placed an order on which the profit made even Peter a little dizzy.

Of course there had been difficulties. Elkins and Beresford did not surrender their customers without a struggle. The re-organization of the manufacturing staff proved a shade less simple, Bramson a shade less capable, than anticipated. Home-trade climbed a trifle too slowly. Still, it climbed; and Peter was winning, winning all along the line. Now, only the finest of hairs divided gamble from certainty.

“An extravagance we can afford,” he repeated.

“I’m so glad,” she said, “not for the sake of having a car but because. …” For the first time in their married life, she almost felt shy with him.

“Because of what?”

“Because I know you can’t bear failure.”

“Failure,” he laughed; then, growing serious, “No. I’ve no use for failures. The man who ‘goes under’ doesn’t strike me as pathetic—only as idiotic.”

“You mean the man who fails to make money.”

“Good Lord, no. Money’s nothing. At best, only the counters with which we are paid for winning certain games. Mine, for instance. By failure, I mean not getting what you go for. Never mind what it is—fame, money, tranquillity, distinction. A girl or a seat in the House of Lords. As long as you know what you want, and get it, you’re a success.”

“But some people don’t want anything in particular.”

“I’ve no use for that kind.”

Her trained mind told her that the man had voiced his whole creed. Her woman’s instinct resented it. “He didn’t want her like that. She was only a side-issue. ‘Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his’—cigarette-factory.”

“Idiot” said her reason. “Idiot! You’ve been married eight years. …”

“If we want to be with Francis in time for tea,” said her voice, “you’d better ask for your bill.”

Peter paid; and they passed out, picking up his hat and stick from the cloak-room; climbed the carpeted stairs into the Haymarket.

It was the zenith of London’s last, maddest “season”; but her pleasure crowd—the dancers in her night-clubs; the befeathered scantily-draped women of her Opera House; the placemen, the panderers and the nincompoops who made pretence of governing her—had departed; were “week-ending” in pseudo-rusticity, twenty, thirty, a hundred miles away. And real London, heart of Empire, rested quietly in the soft sunshine—glad to be free of such parasites—as Peter and Patricia made way through her empty streets to Bloomsbury.