The Elderbrook Brothers (13 page)

Mr Talavera, though he seldom took a photograph and never
with any enthusiasm, had once been a photographer by profession and was still so described in the Bank's records. His premises, number 57
b
, took some little finding; but Guy found them at last, situated above a florist's shop which he had passed many a time on his way to and from the bus. They were approached by a narrow side stairway, at the top of whose second stage Guy came upon a door with a letter-box and a brass knocker, above which, as if hoping to escape attention, a card was affixed (with two rusty-headed drawing-pins) bearing the one, odd, improbable word:
Talavera
.

He knocked; waited; knocked again. The door was opened by a girl he did not at first recognize.

‘Yes?'

‘Is Mr James Talavera at home?'

She was a shade less pretty than he had generally thought her, but in a way more appealing. Her youngness, which was like that of a week-old foal, made him feel older than his years and vaguely protective.

‘I'm not sure. Do you want to be taken?' Seeing his blankness she explained: ‘Do you want your photograph taken?'

‘No. Oh no.' A smile warmed his voice. ‘I'm from the Bank.'

‘From the Bank?'

‘From Cousins Bank,' said Guy firmly, ‘where your father has an account.' He had suspected her of obstructiveness, but seeing himself mistaken he hastened to say, with another salvo of charm: ‘I'm on the staff there. I've often seen you.'

‘Me? Oh yes. I think I've seen you too. You sit at the back somewhere, don't you?' He smiled agreement and she said: ‘I'll tell my father. Will you come in?'

Guy's quarry was discovered in a large, high, bare room which had obviously been a photographer's studio but was now being put to other, vaguer, and more general uses. He was sitting at a round, one-legged, mahogany table, a smallish baldish yet somehow boyish man, dreaming amid a litter of
books, papers, wire trays, and the unwashed implements of a late breakfasting. Light slanted down on him from a tall window; above him was a skylight, half-curtained, and behind him a square sky-blue screen on wheels. Just in front of this screen, at ceiling height, ran a horizontal pole from which depended dark velvet curtains, now looped back at each side. The total effect was at once theatrical and homely. Mr Talavera might almost have been posed at his table, ready for the curtain to rise on the first act. But there was nothing studied or selfconscious about the man himself. He was ordinary and friendly: ordinary with a difference, and friendly with the merest hint of shyness. His long dolorous nose and wide blue eyes gave him a touch of distinction.

‘Someone from the Bank to see you, Jimmie,' said Miss Talavera.

‘Ah,' said Mr Talavera, rousing from his dream. ‘Good morning.'

‘Good morning, sir,' said Guy. The ‘sir' was not obsequious. It was Guy's way of striking a note of hearty good breeding. ‘It's about your account, of course.' He glanced questioningly towards the girl.

‘That's all right,' said his host. ‘My daughter Nora. Mr …?'

‘Elderbrook,' said Guy. ‘From Cousins Bank,' he added, not sure that his mission was quite understood.

‘She calls me Jimmie,' said Mr Talavera, ‘but she's my daughter for all that. And my confidential secretary. Nothing wrong, I hope?' A distracted look came into his eyes. ‘Sit down, won't you? Have a drink.'

As the only chair in sight was already occupied by Mr Talavera himself, Guy remained standing. And the offer of a drink seeming too vague to require an answer he thought it best to proceed straight to business.

‘I'm instructed to give you the Manager's compliments, Mr Talavera, and to ask you if you will be so good as to pay in early, today.'

‘Oh? Why's that?' He turned to Nora. ‘Anything in the post, my child?'

‘Nothing of
that
sort,' said Nora. She glanced at Guy: ‘How much?'

‘There's a cheque of yours in the clearing this morning,' said Guy, addressing himself to Talavera, ‘payable to Garter Shortt & Entwistle.'

‘Quick work,' said Talavera. ‘They only had it yesterday.'

‘It's for £160,' said Guy, and smiled.

It seemed unnecessary to say more, since this client must know as well as he did that there was not that amount to his credit.

‘And you want me to pay in to meet it?'

‘Yes,' said Guy. ‘That's the position.'

‘Dear me, what a pity!' But still his thoughts seemed elsewhere. ‘Nora ducky, any whisky left?'

‘Not for me, please,' said Guy.

‘If not, run round and fetch a bottle, there's a good girl. I've got one golden rule in life, Mr …'

‘Elderbrook.'

‘Precisely. One golden rule, I was saying. When you come to your last half-sovereign, don't save it, spend it. Spend it on something you don't need.'

Nora was setting out tumblers on a corner of the table which she had cleared for that purpose. She went out of the room and presently came back carrying a siphon of soda-water and a bottle half-full of whisky. With his gaze fixed on her father Guy lost sight of her for a moment; then, from behind the screen, she suddenly appeared dragging a chair for him to sit down on. He hurried forward to relieve her of the burden, thanked her warmly, said ‘You have it, please: I'll stand ‘, and after some amiable argument was persuaded to sit down and draw up to the table. Nora was dark and rosy-cheeked, with the rounded comeliness of her seventeen years. She had the grace of a kitten and the bloom of a flower, and her self-possessed grown-up manners somehow only emphasized her youth. Taking no notice whatever of his disclaimers she
handed him the potion which her father poured out for him.

He took it, at last, meekly. He was half-amused and half-suspicious. He had never tasted whisky, and he wondered what was behind this unexpected hospitality. But he was not set in his notions; he was very willing to learn; and if this was the way a business talk should be conducted it was high time he knew about it.

‘The trouble is, sir, that the Manager will feel obliged to return the cheque unpaid, unless you can provide funds to meet it.'

Mr Talavera looked shocked and sad. ‘He wouldn't do that, surely?'

‘I'm afraid so. By four o'clock,' said Guy, eyeing his still untasted whisky. ‘Head Office,' he explained, with a sudden dazzling smile, ‘takes a very strong line about unauthorized overdrafts.'

‘It wouldn't be the first time the account's been overdrawn.'

‘Not the first, but the worst,' countered Guy. ‘You'd like to see the figures, I expect. I've a note of them here.' He handed a slip of paper.

‘It's not,' said his host presently, after sorrowfully examining the figures, ‘it's not that I don't
want
to provide the funds, my dear boy. I'd like nothing better. It's simply that I haven't got any. If you were to hand me a hundred sovereigns I'd pay them in with the greatest pleasure in life. But, not having them, can't be done. You see my point?'

Since he had delivered his message and received an unequivocal answer, there was no logical reason for Guy to prolong the interview. But the look with which Mr Talavera now confronted him made him curiously reluctant to get up and go. Besides, he had not finished his whisky. Funny stuff. He was hard put to it to conceal his dislike of it.

‘But,' said Mr Talavera, ‘if that cheque is dishonoured it will be a very sad day for me indeed.'

His quick, gay, apologetic, rueful smile had the effect of
sudden sunlight in a wintry scene. He had the look of a boy of twelve.

‘I'm sorry,' said Guy.

‘Yes,' poor Jimmie went on, ‘it was going to be a very nice little deal. That trifling cheque represents a ten per cent deposit on the purchase of a useful little property.'

‘And you'll lose it. Dashed hard lines,' said Guy, taking another sip.

‘That doesn't trouble me. I don't want it. And between you and me, dear boy, I couldn't pay for it if I did.'

Guy raised his eyebrows. ‘And yet you paid a deposit? If you don't complete the purchase you'll lose that hundred and sixty.'

‘
I
don't want it, but there's somebody that does, don't you see? By getting in first I stand to make a useful little sum. We're talking in confidence, aren't we, Mr …?'

‘Naturally.'

‘As a business man you may ask why I didn't merely buy an option.'

‘That
was
in my mind,' said Guy mendaciously, looking very shrewd.

‘Answer: because they wouldn't let me have an option. And so …'

Guy did some quick thinking. The germ of an astonishing idea had come into his head. He felt old and bold, and highly stimulated; and not with whisky either, he told himself.

‘Of course, Mr Talavera, if we could be sure——'

‘Sure, you mean, that I'm on a good thing?'

‘Exactly. Well, in that case … you understand that I have no authority, but …' He smiled meaningly, one man of the world to another.

‘But it might make a difference, eh?'

‘It might, certainly.'

‘To your attitude to my little cheque.'

‘To the Bank's attitude,' Guy modestly corrected him. ‘I'm only a——'

‘Yes, quite,' said Mr Talavera. ‘A word with the Manager, eh? From me or from you? I wonder.'

‘I'm sure Mr Baker will be happy to see you, if you like to come along,' said Guy, in his grandest manner. ‘But, on the other hand——'

‘It would come better from you, dear boy?'

He smiled winningly. Guy shrugged his shoulders and looked modest once again.

‘Right!' said Mr Talavera. ‘In the strictest confidence, then——'

‘That's understood.'

‘——in the strictest confidence,' he repeated joyously, ‘this is how the matter stands.'

It was wonderful. They understood each other perfectly.

After ten minutes' earnest conference Guy rose to take his leave. Mr Talavera shook him warmly by the hand.

‘You'll do you best, 1 know. Will you telephone me?'

‘I think not,' said Guy, consideringly. ‘I'll look in again if I may. It'll take a little time, you know. It's not only Baker. He may insist on consulting Head Office. I don't say he will, but he may.'

‘Don't let him do that, old boy,' said Mr Talavera, shaking hands with him again. ‘If we let him do that, the day's lost. Nora my pet, what are we having for lunch?'

‘There's a pork pie,' said Nora. She glanced towards Guy, benign invitation in her eyes. ‘And pickles. Do you like pickles, Mr Elderbrook?'

‘I … well, yes, I do quite like them.' Big business had no terrors for Guy, but he was socially inexperienced and these sudden hospitalities unnerved him.

‘Shall we say one o'clock then?' said Mr Talavera.

‘Awfully kind of you. But I'm afraid I don't get my lunch-hour till one-thirty.'

‘Splendid. We'll make it one-thirty. Good-bye till then, Mr …'

‘Elderbrook,' said Nora. She smiled maternally, shaking her head. ‘Poor Jimmie!'

His brain buzzing with thoughts, Guy walked slowly back to the office. Friendly people: you couldn't help liking them. But that was neither here nor there. Was Jimmie Talavera as simple as he seemed? And as shrewd? Never before had Guy encountered so odd a mixture of the two elements. Excited though he was, tingling with a sense of crisis, he was in no danger of losing his balance. He had played for time and won it. He had time to think things out. Not much time, but enough. There was a chance and there was a risk: the one must be weighed against the other and the consequences duly considered. His plan, as yet, was far from clear to him. One thing only was certain: he had not the least intention of sharing poor Jimmie's secret with Mr Baker.

STANTON WOLD was a region of undulating heath and woodland punctuated by occasional small holdings and farmsteads. From a high level, say from the ridge of the Beacon, these rectangles of coloured cultivation made a bright unfinished pattern amid the surrounding wildness. Not that the wildness itself went entirely unchecked. The forest was nowhere dense. There were deep culverts, and places where a man could live and die unseen if he were so minded, but the ways through were well-defined and comparatively open. It was a leafy, fragrant, earth-smelling, sun-freckled path that Felix found himself following in the company of Aunt Ellen. He carried an easel and a large portfolio; the campstool, and the rest of her impedimenta, she insisted on carrying for herself. Squiring Miss Winter was the last thing Felix had expected to be doing. He had been pitchforked into the part by Mrs Meldreth, whose incorrigible benignity sometimes took the form of arranging your day for you as though you had been
three years old and assuring you with a smile of irresistible sweetness that you were going to enjoy it very much. ‘Now, Ellen my dear, you really must paint me one of your nice water-colours. There are some splendid little bits about here. Felix will show you where to find them. You'll like that, won't you, Felix?' Felix said: ‘Of course, Mrs Meldreth.' What else could he say? And Mrs Meldreth had remarked, with adorable complacency: ‘And he'll carry your things for you, Ellen dear. That
will
be a help, won't it? Shall I have some lunch packed for you both?' But Miss Winter had elected to come back for lunch: there was a limit to her complaisance.

It was impossible to be cross with Mrs Meldreth. Besides, what did it matter? He had no plan; Tom had taken himself off; and he was consequently at a loose end and open to any not-too-unreasonable suggestion. He might indeed have joined Tom in an equestrian expedition across country, had not Tom confessed, or rather boasted, that there was a wench at journey's end, the buxom daughter (Felix gathered) of a village beerhouse. Tom seemed confident of having (in his own phrase) some fun; he had nothing of Felix's callow diffidence and finedrawn scruples; and Felix, divided between curiosity and repulsion, did his best not to disapprove. And so, averting his mind from the problem, he had ‘drifted' in his usual direction and was now condemned to do the polite thing by Miss Winter. He was neither ready nor reluctant for the office; and the faint brief smile, the hint of amused irony, with which Miss Winter acceded to her hostess's proposal suggested that his indifference was matched by her own.