So Little Time

by John P. Marquand

  Of course, it all came back to Jeffrey’s mind at once.

  “I’m awfully sorry, Madge,” he said, “I won’t be a minute,” and he began running up the stairs.

  He had wanted to talk to Milton Cooke about investments, of course, before he went to the Coast, and for some reason, which he could never get clear in his mind, having everything right was a part of the background when one talked investments. There was a slight professional tenseness to everything, just as though the doctor were coming for a purely social visit, which demanded that you look fresh and healthy.

  “Oh, Jeff,” Madge said, and he stopped on the stairs. Madge had never lost the habit of calling him back just as he was leaving. “Jeff, you’ll remember to ask him about who is to take the exemptions, won’t you?”

  “Madge,” Jeffrey said, “I’ve told you—there’s no use bothering about that when nobody in God’s world knows what the income taxes will be next year.”

  “Well, Jeff,” Madge said, “it won’t do any harm. He’ll know more about it than you do.”

  “I don’t want to make a damned fool of myself asking him such a question,” Jeffrey said.

  “Well,” Madge said, “just to please me, won’t you ask him?”

  He did not know why he should be sensitive about appearing financially foolish before Milton Cooke. After all, he did not have implicit confidence in Milton’s judgment, and yet he depended upon Milton because Milton was in the Standard Bank and knew about such things. What was more, Madge always depended on Milton, because Milton was what she described as “a man of business.” When Madge’s father had died, she had started right away having Milton look after her things, because she had to have somebody, and Jeffrey was not a man of business. It was true that Milton had sold some of Madge’s things, which had gone up later, and had reinvested the proceeds in South American bonds and in a German department store with branches in Berlin, Munich and Hamburg. It had not seemed to Jeffrey a wise choice at the time; but then, Milton had private sources of information. It was true that all the bonds defaulted, but as Milton said, that was water over the dam, and if you had distribution, you could cut losses. And Madge said it was water over the dam, too, and that no business man could always be right, always, and besides, Milton was “in touch.”

  When people from the Internal Revenue Bureau began to call upon Jeffrey, after he had paid his income tax, with all sorts of questions which he could not answer, Madge had said that Milton ought to look after his things too, because he was looking after her things. Besides, Milton was a friend—they had been in the same class at Harvard. Jeffrey had never known about this until Milton had told him one day, shortly after he began looking after Madge’s things, and shortly after that, Milton had asked him to lunch at the Harvard Club at one of the tables where there were waiters and not self-service. Shortly after that, Milton had asked them to his apartment for a quiet little dinner, and while Madge and Laura, Milton’s wife, talked in the other room, Milton had told Jeffrey what a headache everything was on Wall Street. There might have been a time, Milton said, when one man, with reasonable intelligence, could supervise his own savings, but now it was getting to be more and more of a science. Only the other day, Roger Newell—Jeffrey knew Rodge Newell, didn’t he?—well, Rodge had come to him in an awful state, because his things were all mixed up; and the Statistical Department at the Bank had looked over Rodge’s things, and then Milton had rechecked the suggestions. It changed Rodge’s whole setup. He had been in a very dangerous position, but now he was sixty per cent liquid and this was the time to be sixty per cent liquid. Milton didn’t care what Babson or what any other of those professional dopesters said, liquidity was the only safe position for the next six months, and Milton hoped that Jeffrey was liquid, and particularly not tied-up in chemicals. And speaking of liquidity, how about a highball? Then Jeffrey asked Milton what about du Pont, and Milton asked if Jeffrey owned any. When Jeffrey said he did, Milton said that it was typical. Anyone like Jeffrey, who didn’t work downtown, would own du Pont—not that du Pont wasn’t a fine stock with a real potential leverage. It depended on what else Jeffrey had on his list. Then Milton said that he didn’t want to be personal, but why didn’t Jeffrey let him see the list and let the Statistical Department go over it. The things he had should after all be co-ordinated with Madge’s things—and after that, Milton began handling Jeffrey’s things. Shortly before the fall of France, Jeffrey had suggested to Milton over the telephone that it might be well to sell some common stock, but Milton had said that now was the time to hold on with the big orders for heavy goods coming from France and England. When everything dropped Milton had said you should take the long view. It was a matter of holding on, and no time to be liquid.

  “Jeff,” he heard Madge calling, “Jeff, they’re at the door.”

  “All right,” he called, “I’ll be right down.”

  “Well, hurry,” Madge called back. “Don’t keep them waiting.” For some reason, he felt, too, that it was not right to keep Milton waiting.

  Milton was bald and wore horn-rimmed glasses. He was in a dinner coat and Laura was in a dinner dress.

  “I came in late,” Jeffrey said, “I’m awfully sorry.”

  “Oh, no,” Milton said, “you’re not late. We’re early,” and Laura laughed.

  “You know Milton,” she said. “I call him my alarm clock. Milton’s always on time.”

  Milton must have been on time for school when he was a little boy. He must have been on time at all his lectures later, on time when he worked in a bond house downtown, on time to his luncheons at the Harvard Club, on time for golf dates, and now he was on time to dinner, right there on the tick. Jeffrey wondered what Milton had gained by it. It made Jeffrey think of Milton as someone trying to deal with certainties when there were no certainties, trying to balance columns and averages when there were no averages. It would come out all right in the end, Milton always said. You had only to look at the curve of industrial activity. There had been wars before, but there had also been curves of industrial activity. Jeffrey often wondered whether Milton really believed it.

  “It’s such a lovely apartment,” Laura said. “I’m awfully glad that Milton let you take it.”

  Madge laughed and looked at Jeffrey.

  “If Milton says we can afford it, it must be all right,” she said, and Laura laughed.

  “Don’t you love it,” she said, “the way Milton always treats his people as though they were children? And the queerest thing about it is that Milton doesn’t like children.”

  Milton stood with his hands clasped behind him, gazing out of the window at the lights on the river.

  “They’re complicated,” he said. “You’d know if you ever set up a trust fund for children. If they die before their majority, where does it go then?”

  “To the Government,” Jeffrey said.

  “Oh, no,” Milton said, “it’s not as bad as that.”

  Milton’s expression was patient and serene, as though he had some secret information that the clouds were breaking somewhere.

  “In certain brackets,” he said, “perhaps; but for most people, hardly as bad as that. They’re not going absolutely crazy in Washington. You see, some of them have some money themselves, some of them.”

  Jeffrey felt as he always did when he knew that he must talk to Milton about business after dinner. In a way, it was like preparing for a confessional, or for a minor operation, something which was personal, but would not really hurt. Milton with his pencil would probe into his affairs, discovering his carelessnesses and his extravagances, but they must not talk about business at dinner. They must find something else in common, and this was always hard, because Jeffrey’s mind was always on what he was to say to Milton afterwards.

  Milton was talking about the S.E.C., and about a scandal that had broken downtown, and Milton had known the man very well. No one had been as surprised as Milton. It was not so much the money that was involved, as the disloyalty. I
n times like these, one should be loyal to one’s class. It had hurt morale badly downtown, but it was just as well to have it over and out in the open and not hanging fire.

  Jeffrey sat listening, watching Joseph pour the sherry.

  “Joseph,” he said, “will you leave the brandy in the library—”

  The dining room seemed like the place where you waited in the Bank before the grilles of the safe-deposit vault. Milton’s voice was as suave and confident as the voice of the man to whom you showed your key and who guided you past the tiers of the safe-deposit boxes to the one that had your number. Then you went into a little cubbyhole and opened up the box, and all around you was the rustling of heavy paper and the soft snipping of scissors, busy with the coupons. It was a world that was unfamiliar to Jeffrey, it was a world of saving and estate building, where you tried to keep what you had and to make a little more.

  “Laura, let’s go into the living room,” Madge said. “They can have coffee in the library and have their talk.”

  “We don’t want to go, you know,” Milton said. “But then, it won’t take long.”

  “Jeff,” Madge said, “you’ll be sure to ask Milton about—that, won’t you?”

  Jeffrey often thought that the library was made for private talks, and for nothing else. Milton seemed to belong more to the library than he did, perhaps because much of Milton’s life had been spent in quiet talks in libraries. Milton sat down near the desk, and Jeffrey closed the door, and Milton unsnapped his brief case.

  “Here you are,” he said, “the powers, in triplicate. We might as well sign them now and get it over with. Write where your initials are marked in pencil.”

  Milton laid the powers of attorney before Jeffrey, gently.

  “Take my pen,” he said. “It works pretty well.” Milton always had a fountain pen that worked and he always said that it worked pretty well.

  “Just in case anything comes up while you’re in Hollywood—” Milton said—“not that anything will come up.”

  Milton was always sure that nothing would come up, but then, you never could tell. Milton seemed to have a dusty sort of immortality. He made Jeffrey feel that he might die, but that somehow Milton never would, since estates and investment lists must go on forever. Milton was reaching into the brief case again, his fingers moving adroitly through the papers.

  “Here we are,” Milton said, “here’s the whole picture.” Milton always referred to it as a picture. “You’ve got a good deal of cash on hand. We might invest a little. There’s International Nickel.”

  “Don’t you think we’ve been losing enough,” Jeffrey said, “in International Nickel?”

  “You never lose,” Milton said, “when you’re holding. Only when you sell. Now, let’s look at the rest. Railroads, industrials; we’re low on utilities, but it’s just as well, considering what they’re doing in Washington. Now, let’s see, how much money do you think you’ll make this year?”

  “God knows,” Jeffrey said. “Maybe none at all.”

  “That’s what makes your picture interesting,” Milton said. “You see, most of my clients don’t make money. It’s a question of a fixed income from securities.”

  “Yes,” Jeffrey said, “I know.”

  “You haven’t saved much, have you?” Milton said. “I wish that we could fix it so that you’d be a little more secure.”

  “There’s no way to fix it,” Jeffrey said. “I’ve never been secure.”

  “Have you ever thought,” Milton said, “of saving and letting Madge spend her income? So you’ll have something to fall back on—well—when you don’t do so well in Hollywood.”

  Milton looked up, and the light was reflected from his glasses.

  “No,” Jeffrey said, “I don’t want that.”

  “It would be nice,” Milton said, “if you could leave something, have something to show for it all. Of course, the income tax is unfair on earned income, very unfair.”

  “Why should I want to leave anything?” Jeffrey asked. “Madge can leave it.”

  “I know,” Milton said, “but it would be nice to have something to show. If you had a little backlog—”

  “It’s too late for a backlog,” Jeffrey said. “Never mind it, Milton.”

  All he had wanted was to sign the powers of attorney. There might have been a time when he would have listened to Milton’s advice, but now it sounded futile and as dry as dust.

  “You see,” Jeffrey said, “I don’t see any good in worrying. There’ll be inflation. The whole thing’s going to go.”

  Milton nodded patiently, as though he had heard and heard the same remark. “There will always be money. There will always be estates,” Milton said.

  “What makes you think so?” Jeffrey asked.

  “Because I believe in common sense,” Milton said. “Eventual common sense. Let’s look at it this way.” Milton raised two fingers. “We will either get into this war, or we won’t get into this war. Now, if we do get into this war—but we’re not in it yet—we must act as though we weren’t going to get in it until the times comes.”

  “Well,” Jeffrey said, “do what you want to, Milton.”

  There was a moment’s silence, a helpless sort of silence.

  “You see, Milton, I’ve never had much money, excepting what I’ve made. I suppose that’s why I don’t mind so much.”

  Milton took off his glasses and looked at them and put them on again.

  “I’ve thought about it,” Jeffrey said, “but I don’t see that there’s much we can do, I really don’t.”

  “You mean we ought to give up,” Milton said. “You mean we shouldn’t try? What do you think’s going to happen?”

  He looked disturbed, much more disturbed than Jeffrey. “We’ve got to keep on trying.”

  “All right,” Jeffrey said, “you go and keep on trying.”

  “Look at it this way,” Milton said. “You have your place in Connecticut. You’ll want to leave it to your children. You like it there. You’d like to have your boy—what’s his name—Jim—have it, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes,” Jeffrey said, “I’d like it, but he couldn’t afford it. You know that.”

  “Well,” Milton said, “perhaps, but we don’t know yet. You would like to keep it for yourself, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes,” Jeffrey said, “but maybe I can’t. I don’t know.”

  Milton picked up his brandy glass and laughed softly.

  “My God,” he said, “you don’t believe that anything is permanent tonight.”

  Jeffrey was facing the fact that nothing which Milton considered permanent was going to be permanent. The apartment was not permanent. He could see the books at auction somewhere with the Georgian chairs. He could see the whole thing going.

  “Oh, well,” he said, “I suppose there’ll be something left.”

  “Of course there will,” Milton said. “You leave it to me, Jeff. Where are those powers? Oh, there they are,” and he snapped his brief case shut and looked at Jeffrey over his glasses.

  “I hope you don’t talk to Madge like this,” he said.

  “No,” Jeffrey said, “of course I don’t. Let’s go in and see the girls.”

  The girls were sitting on the sofa by the fire. They looked up and smiled and moved a little, as women always did when men came in after dinner.

  “Well, you weren’t long,” Madge said. “Have you got everything settled so soon?”

  “Yes,” Milton said, and he laughed. “There wasn’t much to settle.”

  “Jeff’s so careless,” Madge said, “he always leaves things at loose ends. It’s like having a medical check-up, isn’t it? Now, I can get him packed tonight and get him off tomorrow.”

  Jeffrey smiled. “And if I die on the way,” he said, “just call up Milton and open the tin box. Everything is there.”

  “Oh, Jeff,” Madge said, and she looked startled, “Jeff, please, don’t say things like that.”

  Madge never liked to joke about de
ath. But then, that was what Milton was there for, because Madge knew that Milton, or someone like Milton, would live forever.

  34

  Dear Jim:…

  Superficially, everything had been the same that winter as any other winter—too much the same, when it should not have been. There had been a limited national emergency, and then a national emergency, and hemispheric solidarity and lend-lease, and the Draft Act; and convoys meant shooting, and shooting meant war. With each step Jeffrey had expected something to change but nothing had, on the surface. You saw the same shops on the cross streets. You saw the same books in the bookstore windows, yet nothing should have been the same, and that was what disturbed him most. He was going out to the West Coast as he had every winter for a number of years, but it should not have been the same.

  He had known for the past three weeks, ever since Hal Bliss had called him from Beverly Hills, that he would be going. Madge was used to it—she had not asked to go. He knew exactly what he was going to take and where he would stay—at the Bronxville in Beverly Hills, and Hal would let him have a car so that he could drive out to the studio. Jesse Fineman had arranged for his tickets, a compartment all the way. His bags had been brought up from the storeroom in the basement, and now they were open in the study—the heavy pigskin bag which he had bought in London, and the smaller suitcase for the train, the fitted suitcase which Madge had given him one Christmas and his brief case and the case for his portable typewriter. They were going with him, and he was leaving all the rest of it. He wished he could get the idea out of his mind that Madge and the apartment might not be there when he got back, though what might happen to them he could not remotely imagine. He tried to tell himself that it was a mood. He wished that he could get the idea out of his mind that he was saying good-by to something he would never see again, for of course he would see it all again. There had been talk of change for years and nothing could change so quickly.

  “Darling,” Madge said, “I wish I were going with you.”

  It was nice of her to say it. She had been out there with him once or twice, and she knew very well that it had not worked. The hours were too irregular. There never was a chance for them to do anything together, and as Madge said herself, it was all too queer—a lot of fun, but no one there was leading a real life, and Jeffrey supposed they weren’t, according to her standards. She was simply being nice when she said she wanted to go—she did not really want to.