Gripped By Drought Page 22

  “I do not,” replied Mr. Rowland Smythe firmly, regarding his host with suspicious eyes. Feng sighed.

  “You soon will.”

  “But I don’t want to know anything about them,” Smythe protested. “Nat Gould is good enough for me.”

  “Your wishes will not be consulted. But, for heaven’s sake, pray do not mention Nat Gould at dinner.” Then, seeing that the discussion would be protracted, Feng said hurriedly: “Here comes Frank. I suppose you are going to talk sharply to him?”

  “I am. But not until to-morrow. I’ve travelled two hundred miles to-day and I am entitled to relaxation. But about those Russians––”

  “Please do not let us discuss them. I am sick and tired, Smythe, of Russians. If you won’t talk about finance, let’s talk about pictures.”

  So they talked pictures–which was Smythe’s hobby–till Frank Mayne joined them, whereupon Feng offered him tea, which he accepted. From then on Mayne and Smythe monopolized the conversation, for it was the first time they had met since before Mayne had gone to England.

  A few minutes before the dinner-gong was due to be struck, Feng conducted Mr. Rowland Smythe to the Atlas drawing-room. Ethel Mayne and several of her guests were already assembled. The several pairs of french windows were wide open. Two electric fans circulated the air. The lights were blazing, although the sky beyond the windows still retained the sea-green of twilight. To Ethel, who was wearing a frock of apricot georgette with an imitation black tulip pinned to her bosom, Feng said:

  “Permit me, Mrs. Mayne, to present to you Mr. Rowland Smythe. Smythe, Mrs. Mayne.”

  “I am glad you came to Atlas deciding to stay the night, Mr. Smythe. And so sorry that we could not put you up here. But really the house being so small, a few people fill it to capacity.”

  “It did not enter my head to complain, Mrs. Mayne. Mr. Ching-wei is treating me admirably. And I am, indeed, fortunate in meeting Frank’s wife. You will allow me to call your husband by his Christian name? I am, to him, much like an uncle.”

  “Of course I don’t mind,” Ethel said, whilst Feng wondered if Smythe meant the allusion to the relative in a sinister sense. “Now let me make you known to my friends.”

  The three Singleton girls satisfied Smythe’s sense of feminine perfection, and quickly pleased him with their vivacious camaraderie. Mr. Eric Tanter’s hair was close-cropped, he was scrupulously groomed, but his voice was soft and languid. Mr. Bancroft was about forty years old really, but appeared to be nearer sixty. His hair was grey and scanty, his blue eyes were deep-set and steady. Three vertical lines were deep-cut between his brows. Like Tanter, he was perfectly groomed, but unlike Tanter his voice was deep in tone and crisp.

  “Glad to know you, Smythe. Marlow of Younger Jones was talking to me about you a few weeks ago. Says you are the most travelled man in Australia. Vandyke Wilson, the author, is a relative of yours too.”

  “Yes. But, mark you, he claims the relationship, not I,” Smythe replied, a note of protest in his voice.

  “Why not? My wife thinks a lot of him. Here she is.”

  At the moment Mr. Rowland Smythe had his back to the pair of french windows through which entered a regal woman. The general conversation was stilled. Smythe caught one of the Singleton girls making a moue at Mr. Tanter, and then swung round. He saw surveying the gathering through rimless glasses a tall woman dressed in a severely cut gown of bright heliotrope. Her chin was square. Her mouth was large, straight, and grim. Her nose was long. Her hazel eyes were wide-spaced and magnetic, and her forehead was high and broad, revealed the more by the mode of hairdressing, which had drawn the straight, light-brown hair close across her head to the back. Feng distinctly heard him mutter: “My God!”

  And then Smythe found himself being introduced, and heard a powerful, penetrating voice, which came from lips that hardly moved, yet was distinct.

  “Ah! I have heard quite a lot about you from your nephew, Vandyke Wilson,” Mrs. Leyton Bancroft said, as though she were a school teacher examining an insect brought by a pupil for her inspection. “For an Australian writer Vandyke Wilson is quite good. The influence of the Russian school is marked in all his work. There”–at the sound of the dinner-gong–“you must let me talk to you after dinner.”

  In spite of inward shrinking, Smythe heard himself saying that the coming talk would be an anticipated pleasure.

  Throughout the meal he spoke seldom, although on his right sat the prettiest of the Singleton girls and on his left his hostess. The two uniformed maids who waited surprised him with their efficiency: the stiff-backed, perfect butler who hovered about the serving table created in him wonderment. He learned that in the kitchen reigned a chef, whose cooking vied with the best. The dinner comprised seven courses. Over the wine Bancroft whispered to him:

  “Do you do much reading, Smythe?”

  “Yes. Every week I read the contents of five financial journals, and manage to get through a couple of Edgar Wallaces.” At that Bancroft turned in his chair so that he came to face Smythe. Smythe’s reply to Bancroft’s whispered question was spoken in a firm, normal voice. Feng, then talking to Tanter, ceased, his interest at once arrested. “You mean that you read the works of Edgar Wallace?” Bancroft inquired in surprise.

  “That is what I mean,” Smythe confirmed. “I think”–and now he took them all into his confidence–“I think that after a man has saturated his brain with market reports, company flotations, and wool sale prices, he is entitled to relaxation. I find relaxation in novels of the detective type. I read wholly for amusement. When I tire of amusement I go back to my financial journals.”

  “Surely you have read your nephew’s books?” Tanter said, suppressing a yawn.

  “He once sent me a couple. I find no amusement in pathological studies of morons and sexual half-wits.” There was a hard glint in Smythe’s bright blue eyes when his gaze became centred on Tanter, who was cynically smiling. “Personally, I prefer a good honest murder to the dirty morass of sex; hard-working, dangerous-living crooks, to the drug-craving, unnatural characters of the sex novel. Vandyke Wilson’s work may please the Australian literati. It doesn’t please me. I am one of the huge following of the writers of detective fiction. I go into a shop and spend seven shillings and sixpence on the novel I am sure is going to entertain me, and when I, and hundreds of thousands like me, buy a novel with hard cash, we are the masters of literature.”

  Tanter actually yawned in a polished manner. Mayne kept silent. Feng was experiencing unrevealed delight at Smythe’s breakaway. But of them all, Smythe himself was the most surprised. Bancroft, then sitting next him, pressed his knee with secret approval.

  Feng relieved the situation by introducing the subject of historical novels, and mentioned several of Dumas’s masterpieces, in which facts were subjugated to his undoubted art. But worse was to befall the iconoclastic Smythe. As soon as he entered the drawing-room, Mrs. Leyton Bancroft led him to a corner.

  “Mr. Smythe, I am going to talk to you very seriously,” she said, with all stops out. “That clever nephew of yours should make you a proud man. It is regrettable that his financial position should keep him tied to a desk all day, and permit him to exercise his literary talent only after office hours, when he is consequently fatigued.

  “It has been my pleasure to review his novels in an important Melbourne daily. I have given him encouragement because his work reveals profound study of the great creative Russian novelists. Privately he tells me that he adores Micheliski, and the immortal Dotski. In no uncertain fashion has he been influenced by Marcel Murnsivity. Your nephew’s The Progress of Lucien Halloday is almost the great Australian novel we have so long been awaiting. Now–don’t you see that you could serve literature in a most valuable way?”

  “How, madam?”

  “Well, cannot you see that if your nephew was relieved of the necessity of working in an office he could bring to his literary work a fresh, untrammelled mind?” Since Mr. Smythe appeared a little
dense, Mrs. Leyton Bancroft, the famous Australian critic, forbore to press the conclusion, but withdrew, circled, and attacked from a different angle. She continued:

  “It is a tragedy to Australia that so much encouragement is given to the crude, sensational novels produced by common bushmen and others. My life has been devoted to directing Australian literature, if not into, then parallel with, the immortal stream flowing from the Russian giants. Several young authors, among whom is your nephew, are influenced by the great creative Russian novelists, and I consider it the duty of every decent Australian to encourage them as much as possible, so that the modern trend in Australia should be swamped. It would assist the school of literary thought which I am directing if you were to make your nephew an allowance, so that he could give up the office work which is destroying his brilliant brain. Given the chance, he will become a second Carlplaty, a reincarnation of the mighty Dotski, a famous pupil of that wonder man, Alexander Micheliski.”

  “I’ll think about it,” temporized the exceedingly uncomfortable Smythe; but the only matter he could think about was the string of alarming Russian names owned by bewhiskered, wild-eyed men. And why shouldn’t Australia have her own culture, her own home-grown literature?

  Five minutes later he seized the chance to whisper to Feng Ching-wei:

  “Let’s sneak across to your place for a spell. I want a breath of honest-ta-goodness Scotch.”

  2

  At ten o’clock the following morning, Smythe, Mayne, and Feng Ching-wei sat in conference in the last-named’s studio-drawing-room. Smoking a cigarette, the financier was seated comfortably in a leather-lined chair, at his feet an open shallow dispatch-box. For the moment, both Mayne and Feng felt as wayward sons about to be lectured by a justly indignant father. Smythe said:

  “Last night you mentioned that Thurston, the English wool millionaire, stayed here for a couple of weeks. What was his opinion of the wool market?”

  “He thought that the market was bound to fall a little,” Mayne said quickly, even nervously. “Yet he was wrong, as the market firmed, and our national clip brought a record price.”

  “Precisely,” Smythe agreed with a vigorous nod of his round head. “Thurston was wrong, though, only in regard to time. The future will prove him right about the falling market.”

  The financier tossed his cigarette-end into the ash-tray on the table with swift accuracy. He stiffened in his seat. As though wiped off with a sponge the usual look of benevolence vanished and was replaced by a grim sternness that appeared almost ludicrous on a face so red and round. The tone of his voice was metallic.

  “It is like this, Frank,” he continued with impressive distinctness. “Synthetic silk is going to have a slight effect, but the effect it will have on the wool market will be small compared with the effect to be caused indirectly, but no less certainly, by the feverish activity on Wall Street. It predicts the collapse of the long post-war boom in world trade. History proves that such trade collapses are always preceded by international gambling in stocks. Following the boom, inevitably comes the slump. To-day the world is crammed with goods which the mass of the people are becoming too poor to buy. I have to say, here and now, as I have to say elsewhere, that the present price of wool cannot continue, simply because the present trade boom cannot last.”

  “Well?” urged Mayne when Smythe paused to secure a sheaf of documents from the dispatch-box. When the wool man resumed his voice was less harsh.

  “For the first time since nineteen-five my firm is interested in Atlas. Your last clip filled nine hundred and ninety bales, which averaged twenty-two pounds a bale, the total value of the clip being just over twenty-one thousand pounds. That was a drop of fifteen thousand on the clip before. As a personal friend, as well as on behalf of my firm, I warn you that, with the prospect of falling prices ahead and another dry summer facing us, you must, as a matter of common-sense safety, be most conservative in your future expenditure. Your wool cheque has failed to wipe out your overdraft with us to the extent of some five thousand pounds. Add to this the ordinary trade debts, and we will get at the total deficit facing Atlas.”

  “But you will stand by us for another year, surely?” Mayne interjected; to which Smythe instantly replied:

  “Most certainly. Without any doubt. Both Old Man Mayne and you have been among our most valued clients. Nevertheless, there can be no sentimentality in business. My principals are quite prepared to see Atlas through this dry time, because Atlas is not mortgaged. As business men, using other people’s money, they would hesitate to do so if Atlas was mortgaged. I can but concur with their views. Between us, and as a sincere friend, my opinion of Boynton and Reynolds is that they are the biggest financial octopus in the Southern Hemisphere. So watch your step.”

  “But why panic? What is five thousand or fifty thousand to the total value of Atlas?”

  “Little, I know,” Smythe agreed patiently. “What I want to impress upon you is the fact of the bad principle of being financially behind. The curse of this country is that nine-five per cent. of all businesses, from factories to wheat farms, are loaded with a mortgage. Mortgages are the rule and not the exception they were fifty years ago. They are the very devil, but they rule in the hell of depression. Admitted, there are times when a business man cannot help seeking a mortgage, but there is no time when he cannot strive with all his might to lighten a mortgage. You made an advance on Westmacott’s place, I know.”

  “Yes. When times change I’ll pay the balance, and Atlas will be greatly improved by the elimination of the bottle-neck.”

  “You should have bought the place. It was yours for any sum.”

  “I couldn’t take advantage of Mrs. Westmacott’s desperate plight.”

  “As a business man my respect for your intelligence has gone down.”

  “I am sorry. I cannot help it.”

  “But my respect for you as a man has gone up,” Smythe added with a quizzical look. “Now, show me the extent of your indebtedness to outside creditors.”

  When Mayne had left to interview Barlow, Smythe said in low tones:

  “When I was last here, Feng, we discussed a certain matter. If you have rendered Frank the advice I suggested you should render, it does not appear that he has acted on it.”

  “He has not done so, but the situation then was not so disturbing as it is now.”

  “The general situation, do you mean?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “And the wife, eh?”

  Feng nodded, saying:

  “A spider woman.”

  “Then the wife must be brought to heel,” snapped Smythe impatiently. “A butler! A chef! A chauffeur! Russian-mad guests! Ye gods!”

  When Mayne returned with a statement of liabilities the financier examined them whilst pinching his under-lip with stubby forefinger and thumb. When he spoke his tones were kinder.

  “At the present date you are down to the extent of eight thousand pounds, Frank. Last year you showed a small profit of four thousand. Actually you are worse off by twelve thousand pounds.”

  “It is bad, isn’t it?” Mayne admitted, frowning. “Our personal expenses have been heavy–too heavy.”

  How like Old Man Mayne was the son! was Smythe’s thought. Another man would have emphasized the enormous expense of the artificial feeding. Another man would have made light of a deficit of twelve thousand pounds. He recalled to mind Old Man Mayne in those far-off difficult days, when he was obliged to borrow, and suffered loss of self-respect in doing so. And now here was the son also reduced to borrowing suffering in like manner, yet most obviously impotent to refuse his wife’s demands. A spider woman! Begad! Feng was right. She’d suck the life-blood of her mate now that the mating was over.

  “Yes, it is bad,” he agreed with more cheerfulness. “It might have been worse, however; it might have been horse-racing. My principals, of course, will want Atlas for security, but the sum you will require to tide you over to the next shearing will not place Atlas
in any danger–other things being equal. You will very soon have to continue the artificial feeding, because at all costs you must pull your breeding ewes and rams through this dry spell. My earnest advice to you is to plan as though you knew for a certainty that you will get no rain until next June. Stop all your improvement work. Reduce your labour costs. And–and––”

  For a little while he was silent. They both knew that he was carefully weighing the words he intended to use. Then: As you know, Old Man Mayne’s favourite saying was: ‘Look after the pence and the pounds will look after themselves.’ You told me, Frank, that your private fortune totals about nine thousand pounds. You surprise me! I thought you would have been paying the fool Government’s income tax on at least thirty thousand. Well, well! Doubtless you were a good advertisement for Australia whilst you were in Europe. Now you must set your mind on making up a depleted bank balance. As one having a long experience of finance, as one who is as much your friend as I was your father’s, act on this advice. Cut–cut–cut! It is only one word, and a simple one. So easy to remember. Cut your household expenses. Atlas can’t afford the great creative novelists of Russia these dry times. Cut your personal expenditure to the bone. Cut everything and everybody, bar pulling through this drought every sheep you possibly can.”

  Mr. Rowland Smythe heaved himself to his small feet in the manner of an old horse. His round, red face was now beaming, and his final strictures were sweetened with goodhumour. The papers he relocked in the dispatch-box, the box he laid on the table, whilst he took and lit one of Feng’s cigarse

  “What are you paying the butler?” he asked. “Three hundred per annum.”

  “Equal to three thousand of these quite good cigars. Well, I’ll arrange for twenty thousand pounds to be placed to your credit, and I will send on the necessary documents for signature. If you cut–cut–cut, you will pull Atlas through as easily as you have done before now, and as your father did many times before you. What are you paying your chef?”