Sincerely, Willis Wayde Read Online Free PDF Page B

mother was asking about what he will do for school.”
    â€œOh,” Alfred Wayde said. “Yes, Cynthia wants me to stay put somewhere until Willis gets to college.”
    Willis never forgot that scrap of conversation about the conveyor belts. Later, when he was able to understand its significance, he understood why they were living in the garden house. If it had not been for the Klaus patents, the mill would have lost business all through the twenties and would not have survived the depression, and it was his father who had advised the purchase.
    Selwyn tapped softly on the open door of the library.
    â€œMr. and Mrs. Bryson Harcourt are with the ladies in the drawing room,” he said.
    The long drawing room with its tall French windows looked over the south terrace. If it represented the late Victorian period of decoration, all its furnishings, down to the useless articles that cluttered the tables, possessed their peculiar relationship. Its two crystal chandeliers from England, its mantel of Italian marble, its groups of chairs and sofas, and its ornate lamps—now converted from kerosene to electricity—were cumbersome taken by themselves, but they all added a personal quality to the room. Somehow they reminded you of the people who had gathered about the grand piano and had walked over the huge wine-colored carpet, which was growing worn. It was one of those rooms that could never be imitated. Even if Willis could have gained possession of all the room’s furniture, it would never have been possible to have arranged those component parts into the pattern he remembered. And the people standing near the fireplace, even down to his mother and father, were part of the pattern.
    â€œMildred,” Mr. Harcourt said, “you haven’t met Willis Wayde yet, have you? Willis, this is my daughter-in-law, Mrs. Harcourt, and Mr. Harcourt. I’m sorry you didn’t bring the children over, Mildred.”
    He spoke as though Willis were a grown-up guest, but then his manner always was the same with everyone. He had been born with that sort of inner assurance you could never pick up from any book of etiquette.
    â€œHappy to meet you, ma’am,” Willis said, and he could hear his own voice from that past balanced awkwardly between childhood and adolescence.
    If Mrs. Bryson Harcourt did not look entirely happy to meet him, nevertheless she managed to smile. She was tall and angular in her green silk dress, taller than her husband.
    â€œHow do you do?” she said to Willis, and gave his hand a strong quick shake. “I’m sorry I didn’t bring Bill and Bess over, Governor. I just didn’t think about it.”
    She always called Mr. Henry Harcourt “Governor.”
    â€œHello, young fellow,” Mr. Bryson Harcourt said. In many ways he was a picture of what Mr. Henry Harcourt must have been when he was younger. His clean-shaven face was tanned and he had a trace of the Harcourt lower lip, but his features always seemed less in focus than his father’s.
    â€œWe can only stay for a minute, Governor,” Mrs. Harcourt said. “We just stopped over to see how you were.”
    â€œI’m bearing up, Mildred,” Mr. Harcourt said. “We had Decker and the lawyers over at the mill today, Bryson.”
    â€œI was at Marblehead racing,” Mr. Bryson said.
    â€œOf course,” Mr. Harcourt answered. “I should have remembered. How did you come out, Bryson?”
    â€œThird,” Mrs. Bryson said. “Almost second, Governor.”
    â€œMildred always hates to lose,” Mr. Bryson said.
    â€œOf course I do,” Mrs. Harcourt said. “Married couples never ought to sail in the same boat. Bryson, didn’t you tell the Governor you weren’t coming in today?”
    â€œIt doesn’t make any difference,” Mr. Harcourt said, “but see me the first thing tomorrow, won’t you, Bryson?”
    â€œAll right,