“And the big boys are then in business on their own account?”
“They have the millions needed for promoting nationwide, the marketing set-ups to put their products into every shop in the land and, finally, to make offers to undercut you.”
“Five pee off a packet?”
“Maybe. Or, preferably, bonus offers to the shopkeepers of the twelve-for-the-price-of-ten variety to encourage them to stock it. Whatever happens, in no time at all you are out of business. You’ve produced a successful new product and yet you’ll be lucky to get out of it still wearing your shirt.”
Murray grimaced.
“A hypothetical case,” reiterated Knight. “Just to illustrate what I mean. Any woman who has trouble with her nylons will tell you similar stories about chaps who have invented tights that won’t ladder being driven to the wall by the big names in industry.”
“I’ve heard them,” admitted Murray. “That’s another facet. Preventing a product reaching the market rather than taking one over to sell.”
“And you’ve heard of Japan, too, I suppose. How they used to rename some spot in their country so that they could stamp ‘Made in Sheffield’ on their pirated products?”
“Lighters,” said Murray, “were a bit of a scandal at one time, I seem to remember.” He grinned. “But you have specifically absolved our host from all involvement in such chicanery?”
“Most certainly. I was merely suggesting why he—and I—don’t discuss our business affairs outside our offices.”
“Well, as I said to begin with, I don’t really know what he does, except that I once heard that his company does specialist engineering.”
“And markets it,” said Knight. “He sells abroad quite a lot.”
“Would it be indiscreet to ask where you come in?”
“A little, perhaps. I’d thought up something I couldn’t manage. I was advised to approach Hugh.”
“For what? Financial help?”
“Not quite. Expertise and facilities would be nearer the mark. When one is only expecting to produce and sell relatively few of some item it may be pointless—or even impossible—to install the plant necessary to do the job. If somebody with the necessary machines is willing to let you muck in …”
“At a price?”
“A fair price.”
“He has to be assured of a return, presumably?”
“Or be knowledgeable enough to accept a risk.”
“Ah! I see. He will then co-operate for the common good.”
“Quite. It’s not an unheard-of practice, but not all that general.”
“Hugh risks money on stage productions. It seems to be his way of life.”
“It’s not all that dangerous if you know your business. I’m satisfied that Carlyle does. Then the risks for all concerned are minimised.”
“I’m sure. Ah! There’s my wife. Come along and meet her.”
“Daddy an engineer?” Rosemary Carlyle smiled at Maurice Fowler, the middle-aged cameo actor who was reputed never to be out of work because virtually every show in every medium needed a father or uncle, rogue or saint for which parts his particular versatility seemed to be ideally suited. “You could say that, I suppose, though he is not qualified as one, except perhaps by decades of experience.”
“I set great store by experience, my dear.”
“But you are a trained actor, Mr. Fowler. Drama school and all that, aren’t you?”
“Of course. And I had a long apprenticeship in spear-carrying after that. Come to think of it … ,” the well-known features creased into a cherubic smile. “Come to think of it, I’m still spear-carrying. This week I appeared as a lawyer, to read a will. Nothing more was required of me. Last week I was the mayor of a small town. Before that … let me see … ah, yes! I was a patient in a hospital scene leading the panic when there was a fire in the ward. And so I go on, my dear. Thank heaven for television repeats.”
“But I’ve seen you in the theatre when you weren’t carrying a spear. I enjoyed your performance in The Squash Court. That was a big role and it ran for a long time.”
“You’ve no idea how much an old actor loves to hear a pretty young girl praise his work. But you said your father isn’t an engineer, although I’ve always understood he owns an engineering company. We actors are very nosey about our Angels, you know, and your father is a sort of member of one of the higher orders of heavenly beings.”
“Daddy is a physics man. Applied physics, actually. That’s halfway to being some sort of engineer, I suppose, as it includes a lot of mechanics and maths and stuff like that. And he also has a degree in business studies. He’s supposed to be pretty hot on modern methods of running a concern.”
“Just what we need in our business,” conceded Fowler. “Very few of us know how to cope with that side of things. Ah! Isn’t that Carla Sanders in the doorway?”
Rosemary turned to look towards the open French window. “Yes, I think it is. I don’t know her, but I heard she was coming.”
“What’s she doing here?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“She’s in Round the Barley. It only opened on Thursday. She can’t have … I mean, your father wouldn’t have suggested that the understudy … not so soon.”
“She shouldn’t be here,” agreed Rosemary, “but she injured a leg and ankle on Thursday night after the show. You must have heard about it.”
“No, not a word.”
“Well, she fell down a flight of iron stairs, or some such thing.”
“She would,” muttered Fowler. “Shallow little piece of goods.” He seemed to recollect that Rosemary was still listening. “I beg your pardon, Miss Carlyle. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Rosemary laughed. “Please don’t worry about that, Mr. Fowler. My mother and father were saying much the same thing earlier today.”
“Were they? I imagine they thought she should have appeared in her play, even with a game leg. The real trouper does.”
“I haven’t seen the show, but I believe there are a number of important scenes which depend very much upon the girl’s physical prowess and her nimbleness of foot to avoid importunate males.”
“Ah! That’s why she was cast, is it?”
“Apparently the gymnastics have been very carefully arranged and even more carefully rehearsed. Daddy was saying it would look stupid for an amorous young male not to be able to grab a girl so patently lame, whereas, if the various bits are done exactly as rehearsed, it looks quite natural for him to end up falling over a tea trolley or with his head cracking a bedpost.”
“I see. So there’s a great chance for the understudy, eh? That would not please Sanders in the least. I suppose the invitation to this party was by way of recompense for her injury, was it?”
“Something of the sort. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Mr. Fowler, I must go and greet her.” Rosemary grimaced. “The duties of a hostess, you know.”
Fowler smiled. “Of course, my dear. That is, if you are not too late. She seems to have latched very firmly onto that young man.”
“Tom! Good heavens, I must fly. I don’t want her getting her hooks into him.”
“If he’s your boyfriend, watch him, my dear. Sanders eats nice young males like that for breakfast.”
Tom Chesterton said to Rosemary: “I thought you said that the McRolfe bloke wouldn’t be here?”
“Daddy said he wasn’t coming.”
“Until Daddy told him you’d be here, I expect. When he heard that, whatever excuse was going to keep him away suddenly disappeared and he found himself free to come.”
“Now you are being stupid.”
“Am I? He hangs about you like a truffle-hound snorting round the roots.”
“So what?”
“What do you mean, so what?”
“First off, I can’t help it if the man fancies me. After all, you say you do, so that puts the two of you on a par. Second, I rather like having men thinking I’m attractive. I’d be a pretty poor sp
ecimen if I didn’t like it, and an even worse one if it didn’t happen.”
“I see.”
“No, you don’t. You want to monopolise me. Fair enough. But I’m still a free agent and I can talk to any man I want who wants to talk to me.”
“Or who wants to be boss of an engineering firm.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Do I have to spell it out?”
“I think you’d better.”
“It’s very obvious that McRolfe would like to step into your father’s shoes, and the best way he can see of bringing it about is to marry his daughter.”
Rosemary’s nose was in the air. “Thank you very much for the compliment. And what do you want to marry me for?”
Chesterton grinned. “Your sweet self. I’d be a hopeless engineer.”
“And a hopeless anything else,” replied Rosemary heatedly. “So now, if you’ve finished, I’d like to go and speak to my parents’ guests.”
“McRolfe, you mean?”
“I shall make a point of speaking to him.”
“In that case, my beloved, I shall return to the spot from whence you dragged me, protestingly, a few minutes ago.”
“Back to Carla Sanders, you mean?”
“Who else round here has such obvious allure for the rejected male?”
Rosemary turned without a word in reply and hurried off among the guests. As she did so, a voice behind Chesterton caused him to swing round.
“Having a spot of bother, Mr. Chesterton?” The voice was Anglicised, but the faint “air” instead of “er” in the middle of Chesterton betrayed a Scots background to the keen ear.
“Nothing of any importance,” growled Tom, annoyed that his tiff should have been overheard and, even worse, commented on by this thin, beaky, middle-aged man whom he had only met briefly once before when visiting the Carlyle office with Rosemary.
“I heard you mention McRolfe.”
“What about it?”
“Mr. Carlyle has a high opinion of the laddie. He’s one of his senior managers. An up-and-coming young man.”
“I know who McRolfe is.”
“Then you’ll know he’s a design man.”
“Yes.”
“And why do you think a designer should be so highly thought of in a specialist engineering firm like Carlyle’s?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea. I am not an engineer myself and know very little about the Carlyle business.”
“But you’d not be averse”—he pronounced it avairse—“to learning a little more about it, perhaps?”
“You are obviously intent on telling me whether I want to hear it or not, Mr. Carpenter.”
Carpenter laid his hand on Tom’s arm and said quietly: “McRolfe is using his position at Carlyle’s to further his own ends.”
“That is quite an accusation, Mr. Carpenter.”
“Maybe aye and maybe hoohaye.”
“I don’t know what you mean by that, but if you have definite knowledge of professional misconduct by McRolfe, shouldn’t you be telling it to Mr. Carlyle rather than me?”
Carpenter stood with his head on one side for a moment. “I just thought the hint might be of use to you in seeing that the lassie doesn’t end up in McRolfe’s arms.”
“Thank you very much. From all of which I take it you have no proof against McRolfe to present to Mr. Carlyle. In other words you’re making the whole thing up.”
Carpenter shrugged. “I like to help young lasses and lads …”
“Oh, cut it out. What are you really after, Mr. Carpenter? Could it be that you hope I will pass on to Mr. Carlyle what you have just told me? For some purpose of your own?”
Carpenter shrugged and stared at Tom for a moment, the scraggy neck and hooked nose giving him a buzzardlike air. Then he shook his head. “I’ve tried telling Carlyle.”
“But he wouldn’t listen, is that it?”
“Aye. He wouldn’t listen.”
“In other words he was loyal to a member of his staff about whom there was some unspecified accusation with no proof to back it up.”
Carpenter shrugged. “Take it any way you like, laddie. But when I first met you with Hugh Carlyle’s daughter I thought you were a fine pair. I’d not like McRolfe to come between you.”
“That’s very nice of you. And now, Mr. Carpenter, if you would excuse me, I think I’d like to join my friends.”
“Andrew.”
“Rosemary.”
“How are you, Andrew?” Rosemary was finding it slightly difficult to be natural with this young man. She still had Tom’s words in mind and, deep down, felt there was some justification for them. At twenty-nine, McRolfe had reached a senior and responsible position in the Carlyle company. Her father, she knew, had the highest regard for his ability as a design engineer and it was this fact that had helped the man to rise so quickly. But underneath there was an ambition which had played an equal part in taking McRolfe so high so quickly. Smooth-haired, long-faced, with rimless spectacles, he looked more of the academic than the practical man of the design board and test bench. But he was practical enough, as Rosemary knew. He had made a set at her. So much she guessed. But she wasn’t so sure about any underlying affection in his moves. Tom had noticed the man’s manoeuvres. Had read them as the first moves to becoming a member of the Carlyle family, with the firm within his sight if not yet his grasp. The question was, had Tom read the motives correctly?
“Well enough, Rosemary, thank you. How are you?”
It was heavy going. Rosemary wished now she hadn’t been quite so high-handed with Tom.
“I’m fine, thank you. It is nice to see you, especially as Daddy said you wouldn’t be here.”
“I had a previous engagement which I felt I couldn’t break and then, to my delight, the little meeting I was to have attended was put off. So I was able to phone your mother to ask if I could be reinstated on the guest list.”
“I see. Are you going to have a drink?”
“Well, now, let me see. Perhaps a hock and seltzer. A little white wine topped up with carbonated spring water if such a thing is possible.”
“Perhaps it would be better if you were to help yourself, then you would get it right. And you might like to leave your jacket indoors if you are too hot. It will be quite safe in there.”
“I think perhaps I will keep it on.”
“Just as you like, of course, but you do seem to be weighed down by it and the evening is gloriously warm.”
“Of course. Maybe I will later.”
“Good. Off you go then, and I’ll see if there is anybody else without a drink.”
“I shall see you again, I hope?”
“I shall be about,” said Rosemary. “Circulating, you know.”
“Joanna,” said Margot to one of her close friends, “how nice of you to come.”
“Couldn’t resist it, Mags. Apart from seeing you and Hugh, Robert and I just had to be here to see all these actor types. We get the same treat every year on Hugh’s birthday and we regard it as an annual outing.”
“Your mother is a little better, is she?”
“Much better, thank you. Sitting up and taking nourishment.”
“I had expected that Robert would be looking after her tonight.”
“Not on your life. As I said, he’s here, like me, to look at all the stage people, though I’m positive he’s more interested in the so-called decorative ones than people like dear old Maurice Fowler.”
“He’ll be in luck then. Carla Sanders is here.”
“That’ll suit Robert. He’s a great leg man.”
“In that case, he could be disappointed. She’s got a leg injury and is wearing a trouser suit to cover the bandages.”
“Something serious, I hope?”
“Actually, it is. By that I mean she’s missing her new show because, besides spraining the ankle, she has gashed the lower part of the leg.”
“Opened it up?”
“Quite
a bit, and for somebody whose legs—among other things—are her fortune, it could be nasty. Scars on one of one’s best features are not exactly desirable in her particular meat market.”
Joanna laughed. “We’re being catty, Mags.”
“Are we? Look at her now. Four males round her.”
“Anybody would think she was in season.”
“By all accounts she always is.”
“No comment. Ah! Here’s Hugh.”
“Joanna, my pet!” Carlyle reached upwards from his wheelchair to hold her as she kissed him. “Lovely to see you. I’ve had a word with Robert and told him where the special bottle of malt is hidden.”
“How are you, Hugh?”
“Thriving, old love. Thriving. Margot is cross with me. Thinks I’m doing too much, but I’m fine.”
“You look a bit tired.”
“Old age, my dear. Wrinkles round the eyes and all that. I’ll have to have a bit of cosmetic surgery to restore me to my former beauty and then grow a beard to hide the scars.”
“You can joke, Hugh, but just you take it easy.”
“I’ve promised to.” He took his wife’s hand. “Mags and I are going on a cruise so that I can laze in the sun and have salt-water baths. Isn’t that so, my poppet?”
Margot smiled. “If we ever get round to it.”
“Get round to it, my sweet? I’ve already made a tentative booking. Kept our options open, of course, so that you could choose exactly which particular trip you’d like to take. Three or four to choose from. Atlantic Islands, Med, West Indies and so on. In September, I thought.”
“I didn’t know you’d got that far, darling. You didn’t tell me.”
“I was proposing to. Tomorrow, after all this is over. Just the subject for a comfy Sunday morning chat. We’ll make the decision then.”
Margot shrugged prettily. “Men!” she said in mock despair to Joanna. “Now, I’d better see what’s happening about food. These monsters will soon start growling for something more than caviare canapes.”
As she left them, Robert Culp came up. “Can I freshen your glass, Hugh? You’ve been carrying that stranded slice of lemon about ever since I got here.”
Bitter Water Page 5
