Sincerely, Willis Wayde

by John P. Marquand

  “Mrs. Harcourt is upstairs, sir,” Selwyn said. “It is a shock to Madam, and he was so well yesterday.”

  Mr. Bryson and Bill were in the drawing room. Willis had never seen Bill look so pale and he had never seen Mr. Bryson so upset. When Mr. Bryson spoke, his voice choked and he had to stop and begin his speech again.

  “I loved him,” he said, “and I know you loved him too. I don’t know what we’ll do without him.”

  Mr. Bryson was the head of the family now, but he had a bewildered look.

  “There’s a lot we’ve got to do,” he said, “and I don’t know where to begin. You’ve got to help us, Willis.”

  He did not sound like Mr. Henry Harcourt, but then he never had, and Willis could not help thinking that Mr. Harcourt would have been amused. He could almost see Mr. Harcourt touching his lower lip when Mr. Bryson had said he did not know where to begin.

  “Is the doctor here?” Willis asked.

  “The doctor?” Mr. Bryson said. “Yes, Selwyn called Dr. Carter at once. I can’t understand why he isn’t here now.”

  “He’ll be here, Father,” Bill said. “He was out on a call and they’re trying to reach him.”

  “Yes, that’s right,” Mr. Bryson said. “I remember now. I don’t suppose there’s much to do until he comes. Let me see. Where’s your mother, Bill?”

  “She’s upstairs, Father,” Bill said, “with Grandmother Harriet.”

  “Have you called Mr. Decker, sir?” Willis asked.

  “Decker?” Mr. Bryson said. “Why, no, and of course I should have called him. Bill, go and call up Mr. Decker.”

  “Yes, Father,” Bill said.

  “Ask him to come as soon as he can. There’ll be all the arrangements, and the press should be notified, shouldn’t it? But Decker can help us with that. I’m sorry I can’t seem to keep things straight at the moment. What else ought we to do?”

  “Perhaps I ought to go down to the mill, sir,” Willis said. “Perhaps there ought to be some sort of notice posted.”

  “That’s true,” Mr. Bryson said. “Thank you, Willis. Tell Mr. Hewett, and wait for me in Father’s office.”

  “Yes, sir,” Willis said.

  “My car’s outside. Have it take you down,” Mr. Bryson said, “and then send it back. I’ll join you there, Willis, with Mr. Decker.” He stopped and his voice choked. “I keep thinking how much better Father would do all this.”

  The news had reached the mill before Willis arrived there. Old Pete Sullivan, the day watchman, was wiping his eyes with a blue bandanna handkerchief. Miss Minton, at the reception desk, was crying, and there was nothing that Willis could say to comfort her. Miss Jackman was in tears too, and her tears wilted her like a melting candle.

  “And he was right here yesterday,” she kept saying. “He was so well yesterday.”

  In fact Mr. Harcourt’s office looked as though he might be arriving at any moment, with a coal fire burning in the grate, and all the papers on his desk in order, and his appointments for the day written on his calendar. For a moment Willis stood irresolutely in Mr. Harcourt’s office, trying to face the facts, and he was aware that he was in a peculiar position. He was only Mr. Harcourt’s assistant, but at the same time he represented the Harcourt family until Mr. Bryson should arrive, and until that time he was obliged to give directions in Mr. Bryson’s name.

  “Perhaps you’d better tell Mr. Hewett that Mr. Bryson will be here in a few minutes,” he said, “and ask him if he’d mind coming up here now. Then open the safe and bring in Mr. Harcourt’s private files.”

  It was the first time in his life that he had ever deliberately assumed authority. For a few minutes, at least, he was the head of the Harcourt Mill, and he knew better than Mr. Hewett what Mr. Harcourt would have wanted. He was glad that Mr. Hewett did not resent his being sent for.

  “Mr. Bryson wanted us all to meet up here,” Willis said, “instead of in your office, sir.”

  “All right, Willis,” Mr. Hewett said. “This is a shock for everyone. Poor old H.H. I’ve never worked for anyone but old H.H.”

  Neither of them spoke for a moment and both of them must have had a vision of Mr. Bryson sitting in Mr. Harcourt’s chair.

  “How’s Bryson taking it?” Mr. Hewett asked.

  “He’s very much upset, sir,” Willis said. “Of course it was very sudden.”

  “I wish this hadn’t happened when business was sliding off,” Mr. Hewett said. “Bryson’s pretty out of touch with things. Well, we’ve all got to help him.”

  “Yes, sir,” Willis said.

  “I’ve always told old H.H. that he ought to use Bryson more,” Mr. Hewett said, and he seemed to forget Willis’s age at the moment. “There’s no one to take over except me, and I’ve never been in the front office. We ought to get Briggs down, and we’ve got to get your father down. Miss Jackman, send for Mr. Briggs and Mr. Wayde. Let’s see, what else ought we to do?”

  Willis was not used to indecision, because it had not existed in Mr. Harcourt’s time.

  “Perhaps we’d better get a notice ready,” he said. “I’ll try to dictate one, sir, and we should prepare telegrams to the stockholders and the family. Then Mr. Harcourt had customers coming up from Providence this morning.”

  “You’d better see them,” Mr. Hewett said. “Bryson won’t want to and he won’t know anything about it. There ought to be some telegram signed by Bryson, and I suppose there’ll have to be a stockholders’ meeting.”

  The mill’s balance and equilibrium were lost already, and it seemed to Willis that he, and not Mr. Hewett, was doing the thinking. Mr. Briggs was of very little help.

  “All right, boy wonder,” Mr. Briggs kept saying. “Let the boy wonder do it.”

  Willis had never got on well with Mr. Briggs and he had never been so aware of Mr. Briggs’s limitations. He was glad when his father intervened.

  “Oh, shut up, Briggs,” he said. “The boy’s doing the best he can. Maybe it’s lucky we’ve got somebody—even a boy wonder.”

  “Well, it’s a damned funny situation,” Mr. Briggs said. “I always told H.H. he should have got somebody older.”

  “Yes, it’s a damned funny situation,” Alfred Wayde said, “but Hewett and I can run the works for the time being, and maybe you’d better try to sell belts for the time being. I haven’t seen you selling any lately.”

  “What do you mean ‘for the time being’?” Mr. Briggs asked.

  “Exactly what I say,” Mr. Wayde answered. “I mean this is purely temporary.”

  “Now, boys,” Mr. Hewett said. “Now, boys, we’ve got to pull together.”

  Everything was under reasonable control when Mr. Bryson finally arrived with Mr. Decker. Mr. Hewett outlined the various steps they had been taking, and Mr. Bryson sat in his father’s chair and gazed at the portraits on the wall.

  “Alfred,” he said, “I’d just as soon you wouldn’t smoke that pipe in here. Father always hated pipes.”

  “I’m sorry,” Alfred Wayde said, “he never told me so. Well, I’d better be going now. The crane’s broken down in Number Three.”

  “We’ve all got to pull together,” Mr. Bryson said, “and I hope we’ll make a good team, but I haven’t got much mind for details today, what with all the—the arrangements.”

  “That’s all right, Bryson,” Mr. Decker said. “We’ll take care of everything. I guess I’d better see your father’s papers.”

  Then Mr. Briggs said that he had better go upstairs, and Mr. Hewett said that he had better be going but he would be on hand when he was needed. Mr. Decker was the one who gave a final O.K. on the notices and telegrams while Mr. Bryson sat doing almost nothing.

  “You know,” Mr. Bryson said, “I’m not good for much here today. Willis, you know better than anyone what Father was doing. I authorize you to run the office today just the way he would have run it. Just let me know if anything important comes up. Mr. Decker and I will be very busy.”

  It was obviously a great
relief to everyone when Mr. Harcourt’s sister, Mrs. Blood, drove out from Boston. She had Mr. Harcourt’s lightness of touch, and his air of arrogant indestructibility, but instead of his kindness she had a cold, impersonal compassion. She was like one of the Fates in Greek mythology, the lady with the shears who cut the thread, or she might have been like Penelope, who was always making a tapestry in the daytime and destroying it at night. At any rate Willis remembered what Mr. Bryson had said when he heard that Mrs. Blood was at the house.

  “Thank God,” he had said, “Aunt Ruth is here. She’ll know where everybody ought to sit in the church.”

  Fifteen minutes after Mr. Bryson had expressed his relief Miss Jackman came in to say that Mrs. Blood wanted him on the telephone and Mr. Bryson asked if she could not call later, because he had to deal with a number of immediate business matters; but Mrs. Blood wanted to speak to him at once, and Willis still remembered the telephone conversation.

  “Yes, Aunt Ruth,” Mr. Bryson had said. “Yes, Aunt Ruth … Well, can’t Mildred help you about that? … Then why don’t you ask Bill? … Or Bess, or somebody else? … No, Aunt Ruth, I can’t let you have Willis now. I’m very busy here. There are a great many things that Father hasn’t told me.… I said I want Willis to help me here.… Well, all right, if you put it that way, Aunt Ruth, but I want him back in half an hour. There are some people coming from Providence.”

  Mr. Bryson’s face was red when he hung up the receiver.

  “Mrs. Blood wants you at the house for a few minutes, Willis,” he said, “but don’t stay any longer than necessary.”

  Mr. Jethro, the undertaker from Clyde, and two younger assistants were waiting in the hall of the big house. One of them was Mr. Jethro’s son, Cliff, who had attended high school with Willis.

  “Do you know, Willis,” Mr. Jethro asked, “who is going to select the casket?”

  Willis could only tell him that he would ask Mrs. Blood.

  Mrs. Blood was in the library, sitting straight in a stiff-backed chair. In all the years Willis had known her he had never said much to Mrs. Blood, but at some point in their acquaintance Mrs. Blood must have made up her mind about him, and now she seemed to take him as much for granted as though he were Mr. Decker.

  “Well, Willis,” she said, “how is Bryson doing?”

  “I think he’s rather upset, Mrs. Blood,” Willis answered.

  “Confused, you mean,” Mrs. Blood said. “Bryson’s always confused when anything unexpected happens. Henry always wanted to do everything about everything ever since he was a boy, and now see where we are. Henry should have sold the mill, of course, to that horrid man. What was his name?”

  “His name was Mr. Nagel,” Willis said.

  It was amazing to hear Mrs. Blood speak so freely, just as though they were relatives and contemporaries, but then everyone was unstrung that day.

  “Yes,” she said, “Mr. Nagel. Henry always kept his hand on everything, but he might have realized he couldn’t run his own funeral. Did he leave a list of pallbearers with Mr. Decker?”

  “No,” Willis answered. “Mr. Decker was just speaking of it.”

  Mrs. Blood sighed in an exasperated way.

  “It isn’t like Henry not to have expressed a few wishes, but then Henry always did ignore facts if they didn’t interest him. Well, I’ve made out a list.” Mrs. Blood picked up a piece of note paper from the table beside her. “You’ll find your name on it, Willis. Do you own a cutaway coat?”

  “No, Mrs. Blood,” he said.

  “Then that man Mr. Jethro will have to get one for you, and I want you to have this list typed and all the people notified.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Blood.”

  “Then I want you to call up the obituary editor of the Boston Evening Transcript. They will have an obituary of Henry already prepared, I’m sure. I want you to ask him to give the details to the Associated Press. Bryson would only forget about it if I were to ask him. That Mr. Jethro is waiting outside, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, he’s outside, Mrs. Blood,” Willis said.

  “I suppose Henry knew I’d be here,” Mrs. Blood said. “Well, I am, and Bill has gone to get the clergyman. Mr. Bowles, isn’t it? I hate the way he reads the service. I want Mr. Swithin up from Boston. I want you to call Mr. Swithin.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Blood,” Willis said, “I’ll telephone him right away.”

  “I don’t know why Harriet should be so upset,” Mrs. Blood said. “She’s buried one husband already, and these things have to happen. Mildred and Bess are upstairs with her now. Tell Selwyn I want to see Bess, please, and that will be all for the moment. You’d better get back to Bryson now, and I’ll want you this afternoon to help me with the seating at the church.”

  Then suddenly Mrs. Blood burst into tears, and it was the last thing that Willis would have expected. It was as though the whole Harcourt place were crumbling when Mrs. Blood began to cry.

  Willis met Bess in the passageway just as he left the library, and they both stopped and looked at each other, and then she threw her arms around him.

  “Oh, Willis,” she said, “thank God you’re here.”

  The funeral was held at two o’clock on Thursday at Saint John’s Church in Clyde. Willis stood by the door with Mr. Roger Harcourt and Bill and two of the Haywards, in his rented cutaway that was tight underneath his arms. He had memorized the arrangements and he was the one who had whispered to the others where the family and friends should sit and pointed out the foremen from the mill and employees of over twenty years’ standing. He had never before heard the words of the Episcopal service—“I am the resurrection and the life” and “In my father’s house are many mansions”—words that were like a wave that finally covered Mr. Harcourt and all his life. He followed the casket again into the April daylight and finally stood by the open grave gazing at the granite stones of the other Harcourts. Afterwards he was asked with the other ushers and the family to the house, and he remembered the gathering in the living room, which Mr. Harcourt would have enjoyed, especially because everyone was obviously thinking of the provisions of the will.

  Actually the will had been surprisingly simple, since Mr. Harcourt had made provision for his issue long ago, and had transferred large blocks of the mill stock to Mr. Bryson, Bill and Bess. After a series of bequests to charities and to the servants, the remainder of his estate, including his house on the Harcourt place, was left to his widow under trust for her lifetime. There was only one provision that was peculiar. Mr. Harcourt’s remaining holdings in the mill were left to her outright.

  Willis imagined that Mr. Bryson and the other members of the family must have been surprised by this, but Mr. Bryson never showed it. The mill, as Mr. Bryson stated in a letter to the stockholders, would continue under his direction in accordance with tradition and with his father’s expressed wish.

  “Willis,” he said, “I want you to be in the same position with me that you were with Father. I’ve been rather out of touch with things, but you’ll back me up, won’t you?”

  “Yes, sir,” Willis said. “I’ll do the best I can.”

  “I’m going to try to induce Mr. Roger Harcourt to advise me with the management,” Mr. Bryson said. “Roger has a very good head for business.”

  Willis knew even then that it was a ridiculous way to divide authority. If he had been thirty-five or even thirty, he could have told Mr. Bryson what he thought, but not when he was in his early twenties.

  “You’re the boss, Mr. Harcourt,” he said.

  Mr. Bryson slapped him on the back.

  “Don’t say it that way, Willis,” he said. “You and I are old friends. If you were only older, I’d ask you instead of Roger to help me out, but you can help us both.”

  “Yes, sir,” Willis said. “I’ll do anything I can.”

  That ensuing year at the Harcourt Mill was a history of confusion and diminishing profits, and all sense of security was gone. In June, the week before the stockholders’ meeting, Mrs. Harcourt aske
d Willis up to tea.

  “Willis,” she asked, “how do you think Bryson is doing?”

  Of course Willis could not give her a true answer.

  “I’m so confused,” she said. “Roger was here yesterday and he was so depressing about Bryson. He says we ought to sell the mill. Bryson won’t hear of it, but Roger says with his stock and mine we can make him. What do you think, Willis?”

  He told her that business was bad—not only at the mill but everywhere else—but the mill was a modern, well-coordinated plant which controlled patents whose value would increase rather than diminish. There might be a cut in the dividend this year, as a purely precautionary measure, but there was a large cash surplus, and ample working capital placed the mill in a strong position in case of future crises.

  “Willis, dear,” Mrs. Harcourt had said, “it’s such a comfort to hear you say this. It’s just what Bryson told me.”

  Of course it was what Mr. Bryson had told her, because it was what Willis had told Mr. Bryson, and it was just what Mr. Harcourt would have said if he had been alive.

  Summer moved into autumn and business still grew worse. Autumn moved into winter, and because of falling orders the mill was operating at half-time, and there was a cut in the office force in January. Any organization, as Willis knew now, should have its second team ready to take over in case of sudden change, but there were simply no substitutes at the Harcourt Mill ready to move in and close the ranks, because Mr. Harcourt’s efforts to infuse new blood had come too late and Mr. Bryson and Mr. Roger had been utterly unprepared. There was only one thing that saved the situation. Mr. Henry Harcourt had always been conservative in paying dividends, and thus for years some of the earnings had gone into surplus. As the Harcourt Mill entered the depression, its cash reserve was so large that its directors could have voted dividends for several years if the mill had not earned a cent. The surplus had been large enough to carry subsequent loss, but watching Mr. Bryson in the office was like watching an unskilled artist endeavoring to finish the canvas of a master, and Willis winced at every bungling stroke. In February Mr. Bryson lost the Haverford account. In February Mr. Hewett announced that he was retiring, and a week later Mr. Briggs quarreled with Mr. Bryson and handed in his resignation. It was all right, Mr. Bryson said. He never could control Briggs, but the trouble was that Mr. Bryson never could assume leadership.