Guy Renton (11 page)

Guy raised his eyebrows. “The young man's doing himself pretty well. What's the rough cost of this?”

“Seventy-three pounds, fifteen shillings.”

“So much. It looks as though he were laying down a cellar.”

“His account stands at the moment to our credit to the extent of more than twice that amount.”

“What?”

Pilcher handed him a document that filled three type-written pages. Guy read the final figure, £163
os. 6d.
How on earth could Franklin have run up a bill of that size. He glanced at the dates. Two-thirds were in May. The amount brought forward from the Lent term was under £20. £150 in a single term; what had the boy been doing? And then to put in another order, for £75. Pilcher was looking at him very straight. There was only one thing to be said, and he said it, promptly. “We can't possibly fill this second order, till something has been done about the first.”

“I thought you'd say that, Mr. Guy, but I didn't like to make such a decision on my own authority.”

“Quite, Mr. Pilcher, quite. Don't you think the best idea would be for me to drop him a little note about it?”

“I'd appreciate that, Mr. Guy. I'd appreciate that very much. Myself, I wouldn't quite know how to phrase a letter; in the case of Mr. Franklin, that's to say. He's so disarming. You couldn't find a nicer-mannered young gentleman anywhere than he.”

Guy's letter was conciliatory.

‘Dear Franklin,' it ran. ‘Our accounting staff is a little worried at the way your account has run into the red. Do you really need such a big new order? Or couldn't you send in something on account, £50, say? I'm sorry to bother you about this. I know how it is at Oxford. Everyone runs up bills and spends the first
years after he comes down paying them off in relays—which is something that someone like Pilcher who was trained in a hard school, finds hard to understand. It would be best really if you could run up your bills with hosiers and tailors, and keep things balanced here. That's what I do myself,' He wrote three drafts before he was satisfied. He did not want to be the heavy brother.

Next morning while he was still dictating his correspondence, a toll call came through from Oxford. “I'm sorry to trouble you so early: but this matter you referred to in your letter isn't as straightforward as you imagine. I'd better come up and see you. When can you give me lunch?”

“The Tuesday of next week?”

“That's rather far away. Couldn't you make it sooner?”

“What about this Thursday.”

“Fine. Where'U we meet?”

“The R.A.C. at one.”

“I'll be punctual.”

His voice was calm, assured, friendly: not a trace of nervousness.

Guy chose the R.A.C. in preference to the Wanderers' because he was uncertain as to what sartorial eccentricity Franklin might commit. In the R.A.C. there were three separate lunch rooms. If it came to the worst they could have a buffet lunch beside the swimming pool. Franklin however was dressed quietly if unusually, in light grey flannel trousers, a short black coat, a lavender grey waistcoat, a white shirt with a semi-stiff collar, a blue and white check tie, a crasis of the fashions of two cities. As always after a period of not seeing him for a little while, Guy was struck with his extreme good looks; he looked so well, so healthy with his fresh complexion and light hair; moved too with such an easy elegance.

‘I'd better do him well,' Guy thought. ‘We'll go into the restaurant.'

They got a table in the window, looking across the Mall. It was a warm bright day, and the yellowing leaves shone in the amber sunlight. The large high-ceilinged room was filling fast; most of the women wore summer frocks; there was a garden
atmosphere about it all. “This is the kind of day to drink Moselle, don't you think?” Guy said.

“You always have the right ideas, anyhow about that kind of thing.”

Franklin paused before the qualifying clause, and the nature of his smile changed, becoming conspiratorial in a teasing way, as though he were saying, ‘It's an awful bore, isn't it, having to discuss these serious problems? We both of us recognize, don't we, how ridiculous the whole thing is?”

Franklin looked round him slowly, appreciatively. “All very agreeable,” he said. “The kind of thing I miss in my city. Let's not spoil it by having this sword above our heads. Let's get it all cleared up, then we can enjoy ourselves.”

As eighteen months before at Fernhurst, Guy had the feeling that his young brother was in control of the situation, putting instead of being put at ease. Pilcher was right. Franklin was disarming, always able to wheedle people into doing what he wanted, and in a way that left them with no feeling of resentment.

“How's it all come about?” he asked.

Franklin shrugged. It was very simple. They had formed a club. They were short of capital so he had offered to stock the cellar: he could get wine, he had explained, on credit, and thanks to his trade discount, supply it cheaper than the Oxford merchants. “Duke and Renton would get the same price as the trade gives them. Half of the discount would go to the club, and half would go to me. Everyone would be pleased.”

The plan was so simple in appearance that Guy had to think fast before he saw the snag to it.

“Surely you realize that's illegal: you're acting as a wine merchant without a licence.”

“That's a mere technicality.”

“Oh no it isn't. We supply wine at trade terms to the family and a few shareholders on the understanding that they'll be drinking it themselves. We don't expect them to make a profit on it.”

“As long as Duke and Renton make their profit I don't see they've any cause to grumble.”

“Maybe they haven't. Anyhow what went wrong?”

“Nothing, as far as I know. Everyone was delighted with the wines. They said they were better than they could get in Oxford. I've probably got the firm a number of life-long customers. Everyone was so pleased that another club to which I've just been elected made me their vintner and asked me to get the same wine that we had in ours. Which is why, you see, it's so important that that order should be met at once. My new club will be out of wine unless it is.”

“But surely these clubs don't bank on being given wine. Don't the members pay for it?”

“Naturally, but you know what Oxford is. Everyone lives on credit. Members sign their bills: they don't settle them till the end of term and not always then.”

“Yes, I can see that, as regards this new account. But what about last summer? They couldn't all have left their bills unpaid.”

Franklin flushed. For the first time he was a little disconcerted. This was the crucial point and they both knew it. He hesitated, then he smiled; his most disarming smile.

“I knew you'd ask me that. Well, I was rather stupid. I hadn't had much experience in these things. I ought to have kept two separate accounts; as it was, the cheques came in in driblets, ones and twos. I told myself that at the end of the term I'd add it all up and settle the account with Duke and Renton; but you know how it is at Oxford; your expenses mount without your knowing it. It's the first banking account I've had; when the end of the term came there wasn't any money there.”

“You mean you'd spent one hundred and fifty pounds over your allowance?”

“Not quite all that. There were some outstanding bills and not all the wine was sold.”

“Round about a hundred would you say?”

“About that.”

There was a pause. “Does that sound a great deal?” Franklin asked.

Guy shook his head. A hundred pounds, when you were nineteen, in your first year at Oxford. He'd got in debt himself. And it had been easier for him; he was older, he'd been in the army, used for four years to signing cheques. A hundred could
melt very quickly. He was thinking fast.
Bis dat, qui cito dat.
If he resisted the temptation to play the heavy brother, he might make a friend for life of Franklin; or at least might make himself for life the friend that Franklin needed. Franklin had been so much a mother's son, had never had a father in the way that he himself had. Everything depended upon the next two minutes. It was high time anyhow that he took control.

“I don't think a hundred's a great deal. I know what Oxford is. I'll tell you what we'll do. I'll take care, as the Americans say, of last summer's account. We'll regard it as a loan. When you get a chance to pay me back, I won't say ‘no' but there's no hurry. Then we can start this new term, and this new club on a clean sheet. We'll fill that order right away, but we shall expect a substantial payment on account at Christmas. If you keep the accounts separate, that should not be difficult. And there'll be, of course, a certain amount of back payments coming in. About sixty pounds' worth. Now let's enjoy this
pâté.
It's quite good.”

On the way back from lunch, he called in at his bankers and asked to see his ledger. When this new cheque had been met, he would be dangerously near the red. He'd have to lie low for a little; wait for invitations, instead of issuing them. It was lucky he had no commitments or responsibilities.

That evening he dined at No. 17, calling for Margery at her office to drive her out. She was looking tired: burning the candle at both ends, he presumed. She worked an eight-hour day and dined out four nights a week. Add on to that the business of getting out and back from No. 17.

She hardly spoke during the drive; and on her arrival hurried straight upstairs. “Have a good strong cocktail waiting,” she adjured him. “I'll be fifteen minutes.”

Her mother shook her head. “I hate seeing you young girls drink spirits.”

“Do you think it's any worse than all the chocolates, the muffins, and the cream buns that the Victorians consumed? And look at the Edwardian tight-lacing: that really was bad for girls.”

“Was it, dear? I suppose it was.”

Mrs. Renton answered without animation. Margery was the one in whom she took least interest. That morning she had
received some photographs of Lucy's children. She spread them out for Guy to see. “They're the best I've had. Isn't this a charming one of George. How he has grown. If you compare it with the one she took at Easter when they were at Swanage . . .”

She had an album in which she had pasted all the photographs. She set the new ones side by side with the most recent ones. “Look at Digby. I'm not at all sure that for his age, he isn't even sturdier than George.”

“What about Rex, did Lucy say what he was doing?”

“Not in particular. There's nothing he could be doing, is there?” Once again she spoke without animation. She had been interested in Rex when he had appeared as a dashing courtier; but now that he was married and a civilian, had fulfilled his function and begotten children, he was not a person she could feel curious about. Personally Guy was more than a little curious about Rex. He had given up his bungalow at Wentworth, and gone back to Wessex, to try to make his estate pay a dividend. Guy thought this a dangerous move; Rex had been safer playing golf. Unlikely things tended to happen to men who had once been active and now had nothing to do but potter about a farm. They went religious or indulged strange vices: they became difficult and cranky. Rex was in his opinion the likeliest of them all to prove a problem child.

“I saw Franklin to-day,” he said. His mother's face lit up.

“How was he looking? Why was he in London? Why didn't he come out here?”

“He was looking fine; very well and handsome. He had to see his dentist; and there was something he wanted to ask me about.”

“No trouble, I hope?”

“Heavens, no. He was wondering what club to join. I advised the Oxford and Cambridge. I think it's better for brothers to belong to different clubs.”

“So do I, dear, and to go to different schools, if they are likely to be contemporaries. That's what I was telling Lucy. George as the elder must of course go to Fernhurst, since Rex was there, but I don't think Digby need.”

“Digby might feel aggrieved if he was sent somewhere else.”

“Might he? I suppose he might. Anyhow it's a long time off. Franklin looked well you say. I get a little worried about him
sometimes. I hear such wild stories about Oxford. All this drinking, and no discipline. They've only once won the Boat Race since the war. That doesn't sound right, does it?” Guy laughed.

“If you'd seen him to-day, you'd have been spared that worry. He leads a much healthier life than I do, now that I've stopped playing football. Golf over week-ends isn't a fair equivalent. I'm putting on weight. I'll have to diet.”

“Will you, dear? Perhaps you should. I remember when your father ...”

“What about that cocktail?”

Margery was back again. She had changed out of her dark tailor-made coat and skirt into a tubular sheath of mauve-grey marocain. Her tiredness had vanished with her city clothes; her lips were vividly red against the soft creamed whiteness of her cneeks. She looked like a reminted coin.

“Is it really cold?”

“Even the glass is iced.”

She sipped, pouted. “A Bronx. Well anyhow it's cold.” She gulped it. “My, I needed that. Yes, I'll have another.”

She sat down, stretched out her legs towards the fire, resting her feet upon a stool, her ankles crossed. The short low-waisted skirt barely reached her knees. Her legs were long and lithe. A lot of men must like her. What was she making of it all? The doorhandle turned again; his father, very venerable in a velvet smoking coat, and a high stiff collar. How white hair suited him.

“Darling,” his mother said, “Franklin's been up to-day. Guy lunched with him. He said he was looking very well.”

It was a cosy family evening: of a kind that they had not had for quite a while. Most Sundays Guy came out to lunch. Very often he dined there on the Saturday and stayed the night. Barbara was invariably there, but as often as not she had friends with her, while Margery was rarely in on Saturdays. Most weeks Guy came out at least one evening, but there were often guests. Though his father had given up formal entertaining, he kept open house, inviting out a special customer to taste one wine against another. It was rare for them to be just the four together.