The Complete Short Stories of Evelyn Waugh - Evelyn Waugh [119]
“The papers are all in your own hands?”
“So far as I know.”
“If anything of the kind was to turn up, we could rely on your discretion. I mean it would do no one any good . . . I mean you would want your father to be remembered by his exhibited work.”
“You need not worry,” I said.
“Splendid. I was sure you would understand. We had a spot of unpleasantness with his man.”
“Jellaby?”
“Yes. They both came to see us, husband and wife, immediately after the accident. You might almost say they tried to blackmail us.”
“Did you give them anything?”
“No. Goodchild saw them and I imagine he gave them a good flea in the ear. They had nothing to go on.”
“Odd pair the Jellabys.”
“I don’t think we shall be worried by them again.”
“Nor by me. Blackmail is not quite in my line.”
“No, no, my dear fellow, of course, I didn’t for a moment mean to suggest . . . Ha, ha, ha.”
“Ha, ha, ha.”
“But if anything should turn up . . .”
“I shall be discreet about it.”
“Or any studies for the paintings he did for us.”
“Anything incriminating,” I said.
“Trade secrets,” said Mr. Godley.
“Trade secrets,” I repeated.
That was almost the only amusing incident in my London season.
The sale of the house in St. John’s Wood proved more irksome than I had expected. Ten years before the St. John’s Wood Residential Amenities Company who built the neighbouring flats had offered my father £6,000 for his freehold; he had preserved the letter, which was signed, “Alfred Hardcastle, Chairman.” Their successors, the Hill Crest Court Exploitation Co., now offered me £2,500; their letter was also signed Mr. Hardcastle. I refused, and put the house into an agent’s hands; after two months they reported one offer—of £2,500 from a Mr. Hardcastle, the managing director of St. John’s Wood Residential Estates Ltd. “In the circumstances,” they wrote, “we consider this a satisfactory price.” The circumstances were that no one who liked that kind of house would tolerate its surroundings; having dominated the district, the flats could make their own price. I accepted it and went to sign the final papers at Mr. Hardcastle’s office, expecting an atmosphere of opulence and bluster; instead, I found a modest pair of rooms, one of the unlet flats at the top of the building; on the door were painted the names of half a dozen real estate companies and the woodwork bore traces of other names which had stood there and been obliterated; the chairman opened the door himself and let me in. He was, as my father had supposed, a Jew; a large, neat, middle-aged, melancholy, likeable fellow, who before coming to business, praised my father’s painting with what I believe was complete sincerity.
There was no other visible staff; just Mr. Hardcastle sitting among his folders and filing cabinets, telling me how he had felt when he lost his own father. Throughout all the vicissitudes of the flats this man had controlled them and lived for them; little companies had gone into liquidation; little, allied companies had been floated; the names of nephews and brothers-in-law had come and gone at the head of the notepaper; stocks had been written down and up, new shares had been issued, bonuses and dividends declared, mortgages transferred and foreclosed, little blocks of figures moved from one balance sheet to another, all in this single room. For the last ten years a few thousand pounds capital had been borrowed and lent backwards and forwards from one account to another and, somehow, working sixteen hours a day, doing his own typing and accountancy, Mr. Hardcastle had sustained life, kept his shoes polished and his trousers creased, had his hair cut regularly and often, bought occasional concert tickets on family anniversaries and educated, he told me, a son in the United States and a daughter in Belgium. The company to which I finally conveyed my freehold was a brand-new one, registered for the occasion and soon, no doubt, doomed to lose its identity in the kaleidoscopic changes of small finance. The cheque, signed by Mr. Hardcastle, was duly honoured,