Bond Street Story (21 page)

“The Chairman would like to see you,” she said breathlessly. “He's ... he's in the Board Room.”

She gave another quick little intake of breath. And showed the whites of her eyes as she said it. Then she whisked away again, note-book and pencils and all, as rapidly as she had come in. Even if he had wanted to say anything he would have been too late.

When Tony reached the Board Room he found his father there as well as Sir Harry. Mr. Rammell was seated in businesslike fashion at the table. But Sir Harry was standing at the window see-sawing up and down on his heels. He appeared to be in high animal spirits, and was wearing a new lavender-coloured waistcoat.

“Dam' fine woman,” he was saying as Tony came in. “Married a planter fellow. Ruined him though, just like I said. Don't see many of her sort around these days.”

Mr. Rammell looked up. He made little signalling movements in Sir Harry's direction, warning him to stop.

“Come in, Tony,” he said. “We want to have a word with you.”

Sir Harry turned and faced him. He seemed to be scrutinizing him very closely, Tony thought.

“Y'look a bit washed out,” he said at last. “What's the matter with you? Get to bed too late?”

“No. No. I feel fine, thank you,” Tony told him.

Mr. Rammell took out a soda-mint tablet. Then he put it thoughtfully into his mouth.

“We've just been talking about you,” he said.

The tone of voice was the one that Tony disliked intensely. It sounded ominously reasonable. He raised his eyebrows a little.

“Really?” he asked.

It was Sir Harry who answered. The old man had just lit another of his before-luncheon cigars and seemed to be in a brusque, rather truculent mood.

“Can't 'ave you mucking about all your life,” he said.

“Mucking about?”

“That's about it,” Sir Harry told him. “Asked y'father how you'd been settlin' down. An' he told me. How long you been here?”

“About four months.”

“An' you haven't done a damn' thing, 'ave you?”

Tony paused for a moment.

“Oh, I don't know about that,” he said.

Sir Harry gave a little chuckle.

“Well, we do,” he replied. “Time we faced up to things. You're no bloody good, are you?”

Tony thrust his hands deeper into his pockets. He deprecated the sordidness of all family rows. And this promised to be even more distasteful than most.

“I didn't ask to come into the firm,” he said.

Sir Harry spat out a piece of cigar leaf and then swung round on him.

“You didn't have no choice,” he pointed out. “You belong 'ere. Same as your father does.”

While Sir Harry was speaking, he continued to see-saw up and down on his heels rather as if he were enjoying himself.

But Tony noticed that there had been a most extraordinary transformation. Sir Harry had suddenly ceased to be a pinkish, rather benevolent old gentleman. He had become coarse. And fierce. And wolfish. It occurred to Tony that he was getting a glimpse of half a century ago. At last, he was seeing the original Mr. Rammell, founder of the firm.

“Suppose I walk out?” he asked.

“You won't,” Sir Harry answered. “Or I wouldn't have given you the chance. If I was dead, it'd all be different. But I'm not. And I don't intend to die just to please any of you. If I see you walking out, then it's y'father who suffers. Not me. If he's got no one to carry on where is he?”

Mr. Rammell's soda-mint tablet had now dissolved completely. He poured out a little sip of water from the vacuum jug beside him. Then he turned to Tony.

“It's for your own good, we're saying all this,” he explained.

But Sir Harry contradicted him. He turned on Tony.

“No it isn't,” he said. “I'm thinkin' of m'self. After what I did buildin' up this firm, d'you think I'm going to chuck it all away again? That's where you come in. You're goin' to start in at the bottom the same as your father did. Then you'll be ready when the time comes.”

Tony felt the sickness of real alarm.

“Start in at the bottom?” he asked.

Sir Harry nodded.

“That's what I said,” he told him. “Get behind the counter. Meet the customers. I did. So did y'father. Start in on the ground floor. Shirts. We've told Mr. Rawle. 'E's expectin' you.”

Tony pursed his lips up for a moment.

“I bloody well won't,” he said at last.

Sir Harry's cigar had gone out. He took some time in re-lighting it. Then he looked across at Tony.

“Then that about finishes y'father,” he said. “He's just sent off a note. Make 'im a bloody laughing stock if it gets round that 'e can't even control 'is own son. I tell you if that 'appened I'd rather see that fool Preece sittin' there than him.”

Mr. Rammell took another sip of water.

“Certainly make things very difficult,” he said. “Make them very difficult indeed.”

For the first time during the whole interview Tony spoke direct to his own father.

“Oh, God,” he said. “Haven't you got any mind of your own?”

Naturally, Mrs. Rammell took Tony's side. It was fantastic—utterly fantastic—she said, that any son of hers should be expected to serve behind a counter. But for goodness' sake leave her out of it. Even if her feelings counted for nothing, at least remember poor Tony's. It would be martyrdom, she contended. Absolute martyrdom for anyone of his talents to be forced to sell shirts whether they had his own family name on the neckband or not.

Altogether it was one of the worst evenings of Mr. Rammell's life. That was because he had to take full responsibility for everything. It would have been as much as his life was worth to confess for a single instant that the whole idea had been Sir Harry's.

Because Tony disliked emotional scenes intensely, he decided to go out to dinner. Moreover, he felt in need of good sober advice. That was why he went along to see a friend. He chose Derek in his small flatlet over the dress shop in Sloane Street.

“And now if you please the idea is,” he finished up, “that I should start selling shirts for them behind the counter. So I bloody well told them where they both get off.”

Derek filled Tony's glass and then his own.

“What d'you propose to do if you leave?”

Tony paused for a moment, twirling the stem of the wineglass round in his fingers.

“After all you must have
some
plans,” Derek went on.

“Oh, I don't know,” Tony replied. “Get back to ballet some
how. Do something worthwhile. I suppose you wouldn't like to have me in with you, would you?”

Derek shook his head. His line was interior decoration.

“No scope,” he said. “You have to keep this game personal. It's such a racket.” He stared for a moment into the space between the two gilt Cupids and the Venetian chandeliers somewhere in the direction of the mantelpiece. Then he resumed.

“In any case,” he said. “I think you're making entirely the wrong decision.”

“You mean about selling shirts?”

Derek smiled. It was his best feature, his smile. And certainly he had practised it often enough. It was superior. Engaging. Enigmatic. And now seemed to be exactly the right opportunity for using it.

“If necessary,” he replied. “Not for always of course. Only for the time being. But think of the copy if you ever wanted to write a book. Blow the gaff completely. They could never hold up their heads again. It could be rather wonderful.”

Tony shook his head.

“Not for me, thank you,” he said.

Derek smiled again.

“It's absolutely the chance of a lifetime,” he went on. “If you accept, you've got them exactly where you want them. And think of the publicity. They'd be terrified. Positively terrified. One word from you, and they'd be finished.”

Tony stood staring at him.

“Can you imagine me behind a counter?”

This time Derek did not even bother to look in his direction.

“Can you imagine me on top of a step-ladder?” he asked. “But it has to be done, you know. If I were in your position I wouldn't hesitate. If you went about it in the right way you might even get them to stock a few decent patterns.”

He shot out his own shirt cuffs as he was speaking.

“Look at these,” he said. “Could I get anything like this at Rammell's, I ask you? Pure silk. And mauve. I get them from a little man in Knightsbridge.”

Tony finished his drink and got up.

“Oh, go to hell,” he said.

 

It was all Mr. Preece's idea that there should be any such thing as a Staff get-together.

Not that it was in any sense original. On the contrary he had first learned of the scheme in an American publication called
Sales Efficiency.
The magazine had just published a special supplement on department merchandising, and there was one section devoted entirely to staff relations. Mr. Preece had read the supplement on the way down from Victoria in the electric train. And by the time he reached Carshalton he had come to dislike everything about it. But it was there that his natural conscientiousness took over. Just because it was so American was that any reason why it shouldn't be tried in Britain? Even if he personally disliked meeting people, shouldn't he steel himself to overcome that dislike? And if it was really true that errors in stock delivery had declined by 7.2 per cent after social contact had been established between the stockroom and other departments, wasn't it his duty to make the experiment?

The only thing that he drew the line at was the drinks.
Sales Efficiency
had made rather a special point of the drinks. “After the closure of the store, introduce a sunny home atmosphere,” was what the editor had said. “Give your cashier a high-ball. Two if necessary. Breakdown the inhibitions born of long routine. Concentrate on contacts. Make people mingle. Be one of them. The part that the intelligent General Manager has to play at a good Staff get-together is to listen. Listen and learn ...” Not knowing—scarcely daring to imagine—what he was going to learn, Mr. Preece called the first Staff get-together for the 17th.

Naturally, Irene Privett was there. She had no alternative. Miss Hallett told her that it would be expected. Indeed, from the whole department it was only Miss Kent who was absent. But what could she do? It was only at the week-end that she had met her own dreamy American. And, as he was going back on Friday—all of 6,000 miles he had reminded her—she felt that she owed him the last few hours of her company for which apparently he was now craving. Besides with twenty-three other girls at the party she felt sure she wouldn't be missed. Not unless Mr. Preece began nosing round and checking up, that is.

And Tony Rammell was there because there seemed to be no obvious way of avoiding it. Miss Underhill had given him the invitation personally. She had silently slid the card on to his blotter as though it were an ice-pack that she was delivering. Then Mr. Preece himself had rung up on the internal telephone. It was the first time since Tony had been there that anyone had actually used the instrument. And it was therefore rather flattering.

Finally, Mr. Rammell himself had put it to him point blank. Told him to go.

“You go along. And try and be of some use,” he said. “Let them do the talking. Just keep your ears open, and pick up what you can.”

Mr. Rammell, too, had read that month's edition of
Sales Efficiency.
He knew exactly how the game should be played. It was merely that he did not feel strong enough to play it himself.

“As a matter of fact,” Tony began. “I was going out this evening ...”

But Mr. Rammell interrupted him. This was not a moment when he felt like entering into an argument.

“Then go out some other evening,” he snapped back.

But there he paused. Perhaps Mrs. Rammell was right. Perhaps sometimes he was unduly terse with the boy. Didn't make the effort to draw him out. He came across from the door.

“As a matter of fact,” he went on, “I'd appreciate it if you looked in. Preece's idea, not mine. Like to hear what you think of it. Needn't repeat it if it's no use.”

It was no good, however. That first remark of his had done it. On the other side of the desk Tony was regarding him with an expression that might have been not his son's but his wife's. And the most maddening thing about it was that on Tony's face lay the half smile that Mrs. Rammell always used when she was particularly irritated.

“You've already told me to go,” Tony said. “Shall we leave it at that?”

Without the drinks that
Sales Efficiency
had so carefully recommended, the Staff get-together led off to a pretty slow start. Mr. Prescott of Stock Deliveries, a pale, heavily-spectacled young man with a lot of wrist and ankle, was the first to arrive. He shook hands with Mr. Preece in a quick, experimental fashion and then began furtively to move away. Not that Mr.
Preece would have embarrassed him if he had remained. Mr. Preece couldn't think of anything to say either.

And when Miss Hallett got there she was frankly tired. It had been a long day already without this. Ever since five o'clock she had felt one of her headaches coming on. That was why she was so untalkative. Altogether Mr. Preece simply couldn't make it out at all. He had been listening hard ever since he got there And so far, he was still waiting for something. Not that he need have bothered. Because up to the present, nobody had said anything.

There were about a score of them already assembled when Tony got there. And they had arranged themselves discreetly in the manner of all easy, carefree, English parties—the men on one side of the room and the girls on the other. There was an air of slightly nervous expectancy hanging over the company as though at any moment they were afraid that Mr. Preece might start addressing them.