“Is that what it used to be called?” asked George, surprised and impressed. “I never heard that.”
“I’m well up in the history of this house, believe me. I read it up from the archives when I thought we were going to live in it. It was a pub, for centuries before it was used as a private house, and that was the sign, The Joyful Woman. Lovely, isn’t it? Goes right back to about 1600. And before that it was a private house again, and before that, until the Dissolution, it was a grange of Charnock Priory. But now it’s The Jolly Barmaid, and that’s that.”
“Business is business, I suppose,” said George sententiously.
“Business be damned! He’s willing to run this place at a loss rather than let his son have any part of it, that’s the beginning and the end of it.”
“Was his son going to have some part of it?”
“He was coming in with me. We put together all we could raise between us to bid for it. We were going to convert the barn into a studio for him and Jean, and Nell and I and the kids were going to have the house. You know the barn? It’s right across the yard there, beyond where he’s laid out the carpark. It’s stone, built to last for ever. It would have made an ideal studio flat. But somehow his loving father got to know about it, and he thought a few thousands well spent to spite his son.”
The Armiger family quarrel was no news to George, or indeed to any native of the Comerbourne district. It was natural enough that Armiger, self-made, ambitious and bursting with energy as he was, should intend his only son to follow him in the business, and marry another beer heiress who would nearly double his empire. Natural enough also, perhaps, that the boy should react strongly against his father’s plans and his father’s personality, and decline to be a beer baron. The story was that Leslie wanted to paint, and most probably the rift would have been inevitable, even if he hadn’t clinched his fate by getting engaged to a humble clerk from the brewery offices instead of falling in with his father’s arrangements for him. Variations on the theme were many and fantastic from this point on; what was certain was that Leslie had been pitched out of the house without a penny, and the girl had either left or been sacked, and they had married at a registry office as soon as they could. Once married they had dropped out of sight, their news-value exhausted. What was news was that Armiger should still be pursuing them so malevolently that he grudged them even a home.
“There must have been a limit to what he was prepared to throw away in a cause like that,” suggested George mildly. “He likes his money, does Armiger.”
Wilson shook his head decidedly. “We went to our limit, and he was still as fresh as a daisy. Maybe he does love his money, but he’s got plenty of it, and he loves his own way even more.”
“Still, Leslie shouldn’t have any difficulty in getting credit, with his expectations, , , “
“He hasn’t any expectations. He hasn’t got a father. This is final. And believe me, the news went round fast. They know their Armiger. Nobody’s going to be willing to lend money to Leslie, don’t think it. He has the thousand or so he got from his mother, and what he can earn, that’s all. And can you think of anyone round these parts who’s going to ally himself willingly with somebody on whom Armiger’s declared total war?”
George couldn’t. It wasn’t just the money and power that would frighten them off, it was the sheer force of that ruthless personality. There are people only heroes would tackle, and heroes are few and far between. “What’s young Leslie doing?” asked George. Come to think of it, that made young Leslie a hero; and starting heavily handicapped, too.
“Working as packer and porter and general dog’s-body at Malden’s, for about eight pounds a week,” said Wilson bitterly. “He’s never been trained to earn his living, poor devil, and painting isn’t going to pay the milkman. And a baby on the way, too, so Jean will have to give up her job soon.”
Armiger had erupted into the saloon bar again, sweeping newcomers towards the free drinks, dispensing hospitality in the grand manner. They followed the compulsive passage of the cannon-ball head through the crowd, their eyes guardedly thoughtful. He seemed to have a party with him now, he was busy seating them in a far corner of the big room.
“Parents usually come round in the end, however awkward they may be,” said George without too much conviction.
“Parents, yes. Monoliths, no. Leslie never had but one parent, and she died nearly three years ago, or she might have ventured to stick up for him when the crash came. Not that she ever had much influence, of course, poor soul.”
Wilson was craning to see past undulating shoulders to the group in the far corner, and the passage of a waiter with a loaded tray had just opened a clear corridor to the spot. Others were equally interested in the spectacle. A woman’s voice said dispassionately: “Vulgar little monster!” and a man’s voice, less dispassionate, murmured: “So that was Kitty’s red bus I saw in the carpark. I thought there couldn’t be two like it round here.”
There were three people with Armiger. The man was everything that Armiger was not, and valuable to him for that very reason; George was familiar with the contrast and all its implications. Into houses where Armiger’s bouncing aggression would not have been welcomed Raymond Shelley’s tall grey elegance and gentle manners entered without comment; where negotiations required a delicacy of touch which Armiger would have disdained to possess, he employed Shelley’s graces to do his work for him. Nominally Shelley was his legal adviser, permanently retained by the firm; actually he was his other face, displayed or concealed according to circumstances. Middle-aged, quiet, kind, not particularly energetic or particularly effective in himself, but he supplied what Armiger needed, and in return Armiger supplied him with what he most needed, which was money. He was also Kitty Norris’s trustee, having been for years a close friend of her father. And there was Kitty by his side now, in a full-skirted black dress that made her look even younger than her twenty-two years, with an iridescent scarf round her shoulders and a half of bitter in her hand. So that, thought George, admiring the clear profile pale against the subdued rosy lights, is the girl who gave our Dom a lift home the other night. And all Dom could talk about was the car! How simple life is when you’re as young as that!
The third person was a handsome, resigned-looking, quiet, capable woman of forty-five, in a black suit, who was just fitting a cigarette into a short black holder. The movements of her long hands were graceful and strong, so was her body under the severely-tailored cloth. She let the men talk. Intelligent, illusionless eyes swept from face to face without noticeable emotion; only when she looked at Kitty she smiled briefly and meaningly, owning a contact with her which set the men at a slight distance. Women as efficient as Ruth Hamilton and as deeply in the business secrets of their employers frequently entertain a faint contempt for the temples they sustain on their shoulders and the gods they serve.