Singapore Grip - J. G. Farrell [8]
‘Oh dear, he must be a Hungarian this time!’ thought Mrs Blackett, raising a hand to her brow.
Downstairs she found Walter still in the drawing-room, musing in front of the most important painting in his collection, the one which he had not had time to show Joan’s young guest. He merely greeted her revelations about the diary in code with a shrug, however, and told her to calm herself … any family with growing daughters must expect occasional difficulties of this sort. It was in the nature of things. Mrs Blackett retired, by no means reassured.
The painting which had pride of place in Walter’s vast drawing-room and in front of which he was now standing, was not yet another view of an embryonic city, but of a man. It was a portrait of old Mr Webb himself, a bearded, sharp-featured gentleman of great dignity. Walter, when given the opportunity, would lead his guests up to this portrait and speak with respectful warmth of his former partner, the man without whom he himself ‘would never have amounted to anything’. For it had been Mr Webb who had given young Walter Blackett a chance to compete with the giant firms of the Far East like Guthries, Jardines and Sime Darby, by agreeing to merge his own powerful business with Walter’s fledgling. And they had got on well together, too, so that in no time a real understanding had been established between them. Besides, growing older now, Mr Webb had needed the energy of a younger partner. In due course Blackett and Webb Limited had been the result.
A lesser man, as he grew weaker, would have held grimly on to everything, with the result that within a few years both the rubber and the agency business would have tumbled about his ears. But old Mr Webb, never afraid to face unpleasant realities, had realized that the years ahead would be too much for him. Perhaps, too, he had dimly perceived some of the approaching hazards of the next decade: in particular, the growing rivalry with Japan in the markets of the Far East. There are few things in life more difficult than for a man to retire from the business he has founded and built up himself. Yet this difficult feat had been managed, at least reasonably well, by Mr Webb when Walter had taken over completely in 1930. And there had still remained a firm bond of mutual respect between the two men.
After his retirement Mr Webb’s main interest had been in a small estate business known as the Mayfair Rubber Company which he had kept back, he would explain, as an old man’s plaything. He was chairman of this company but his duties were not onerous: the Mayfair was one of the assortment of independent companies whose day-to-day management was handled collectively by Blackett and Webb with an efficiency that neither of them, alone, could have matched. No, it was more likely, if the truth were known, that he had seen the Mayfair as a convenient Old Gentleman’s Home. From this point of view there was something to be said for the Mayfair, however slender the yield from its estate in Johore.
When he retires an elderly gentleman needs a pleasant place to live: the Mayfair had maintained its Singapore headquarters for many years back, not in the commercial district as you might expect, but in a rambling, palatial bungalow in Tanglin, adjacent to Walter’s own splendid mansion so that only a pleasant stroll through two compounds separated them. A retired gentleman needs the respect and assistance of those around him … who is more respected and assisted than