At last with a laugh she released him, but not before a wave of heat brought the blood to his cheeks. Quickly he countered it, forcing a reproving smile.
“You mustn’t try these sort of tricks, my girl, or you’ll come to a sticky end. In the first place you’re too damned attractive, and in the second you might pick the wrong man.”
“But I’ve picked you.”
“Now, listen, and be serious.” He turned the conversation determinedly. “There’s something I’ve been thinking. It’s this. As you’re not quite up to the mark, I feel we ought to scratch from the tournaments.”
“What!” she exclaimed, losing her air of indolence. “Pack up. After we’ve gone all the way to the finals and are practically sure to win?”
“If we do, and scoop in all the prizes, we’re sure to be blamed for pot-hunting.”
“I don’t care about the prizes—that plated tea-service and cheap Woolworth china I frankly wouldn’t touch with a barge pole. But if I start something I have to finish it, convince people I amount to something—especially that prissy Kindersley bitch. I got my self-respect to think of. I want to show that we’re the best in the ship.”
“Well, we may be, but why rub it in?”
“Because I want to rub it in. And when I want a thing I usually get it. I may be a bit down now but I pick up quick. I’ll be on top of my form in no time.”
“All right then,” reluctantly he pacified her. “Have it your way. But we must play Saturday at the latest. It’s the captain’s dinner that night and the presentation comes before the concert.” He rose. “Now I must get on with my round. See you anon.”
Saturday came, they did play—in the afternoon—and, as Moray had anticipated, won all three events. Mrs Kindersley and her husband fought hard in the deck-tennis match, but as Doris, quite herself again, played a fast aggressive game they were scarcely good enough. The climax came in the final set when Kindersley, reaching too far, missed his footing, skidded, then upended himself on the deck with a fearful thud.
“Oh, do be careful.” Doris leaned over the net with mock solicitude. “You’re rocking the boat.”
Not many spectators attended the event and a hollow silence greeted the remark. Indeed, when the match ended the applause that greeted the victors was less unenthusiastic than perfunctory. Moray was annoyed although Doris, who was again in high spirits, did not appear to notice any lack of warmth. Nor did her parents who, inevitably, were present. When Moray came off the court Holbrook took his arm and drew him into the smoke-room.
“I thought you and me ought to have a chat, doctor,” he remarked, with an approving smile, when they had found two armchairs in a quiet corner. “And the better the opportunity the better the deed. Will you have a spot of something? No? You’ll not refuse a lime-juice then. And I’ll just take a chota peg of Scotch and soda.”
When the drinks were brought he raised his glass.
“Good health! You know, lad, you remind me of my own young days. I was ambitious too—a chemist’s assistant in Bootie, making up prescriptions for ignorant G.P.s who didn’t know an acid from an alkali. Many’s the time I had to ring up and say: “Doctor, you’ve prescribed soda bicarb, and hydrochloric acid in the same stomach mixture. If I make it up it’ll blow the bottle to bits.” Maybe ’twas that sort of thing first gave me the idea that there was money in Pharmaceuticals that actually worked. When I’d saved a bit and married the wife and opened my own bit of a shop in Parkin Street, I started off with a few of my own prescriptions: Holbrook’s Headache Powders, Holbrook’s Senna Paste, Holbrook’s Anti-Sprain Liniment. I remember that liniment, it cost me three farthings a bottle, and I sold it for one-and-six. Damn good stuff too, all the Rugby League teams used it, it’s still one of our lines today. Well, that was the beginning, lad.”
He took a slow swallow of his drink, then resumed, explaining the growth and expansion of his business, not boastfully, but with the quiet North Country assurance of a man who has built up an immensely successful enterprise and amassed a fortune from it. Holbrook’s were now one of the biggest manufacturers of chemists’ supplies in the United Kingdom, but the bulk of their profits came from the marketing of a large number of highly profitable proprietary medicines ranging from cough cures to anti-bilious pills.
“And don’t you despise them, doctor, they’re all first-rate prescriptions, I can show you testimonials by the thousands. I’ve kept a personal file of grateful letters that would warm your heart.” Holbrook nodded confidingly and warmed his own cockles with another swallow. “So as we stand now we have the main factory in Bootle, a secondary unit in Cardiff, and big distributing warehouses in London, Liverpool, Glasgow and Belfast. We do a tremendous export trade with the East, and that’s why my son Bert is out opening up new offices and larger stockrooms in Calcutta. But that’s not all, lad,” Holbrook continued, knowingly prodding Moray with a forefinger. “We have plans, big plans, for extending to America. Once Bert gets through with Calcutta I’m sending him to New York. He’s already spied out a good factory site there. Mind you, it’ll be a different kind of trade in the States. Times are changing and we’ll go in for high class stuff, vitamins and such-like. We might even have a go at some of the new barbiturates. But believe me, whatever we do we’ll make a slap-up success of it.”
He sat back, pulled out a cigar and lit up, wheezed a little, then, his twinkling eyes still holding Moray, be smiled.
“These are my prospects, young fellow me lad. Now what about yours?”
“Well, sir,” Moray had coloured slightly at the directness of the question, “when I get back from this trip I have a hospital job waiting on me. A good one too, with opportunity for research work and . . . a salary of five hundred a year.”
“Ay, that’s a job, lad, right enough and, saving your presence, a pretty ordinary one. I asked about your prospects.”
“Naturally, I’m hoping for advancement . . .”.
“What kind of advancement? A move to a bigger hospital? I’m pretty familiar with that line of country; It’ll take years. Once you’re in the hospital service you’re bogged down in it for life. And for a smart young fellow like you, with brains and personality, that would be a crime.”
“I don’t regard it as such,” Moray said stiffly.
“Well, I do. And I wouldn’t tell you so if the missus and I didn’t think the world of ye. Now look here,” he tipped the ash off his cigar end, “I’m not a man to beat about the bush. We could use a young medico like you in our business, especially in the American plant. You could advise us on technique, work out new prescriptions, lay out our advertising and, since ye speak of research, get busy in our new laboratory. There would be plenty of opportunity for you. And from our point of view it would help us to have a professional man on the board. As to salary,” he paused, riveting Moray with a friendly, bloodshot eye, “I would start you at fifteen hundred quid a year, with a possible bonus, and annual increases. Furthermore, I’ll go so far as to say that, in time, if things went well between us, there might even be a partnership in store for ye.”
Thoroughly taken aback, stunned, in fact, Moray averted his gaze. The nature of this startling offer, while it had a sound basis of commercial logic, was in reality as transparent as the porthole through which he now viewed with embarrassment the slowly heaving sky. And Holbrook meant it to be transparent. How to refuse gracefully, without hurting the old boy’s feelings without indeed alienating the entire family, that was the problem. At last he said:
“It’s extremely generous of you, Mr Holbrook, and I feel deeply honoured by your good opinion of me. But I’ve accepted the hospital appointment, given my word. I couldn’t break it.”