The Player on the Other Side (5 page)

Touched, Tom Archer said gently, ‘Shall we get on with the mail?'

‘The mail. Oh, yes.' The eldest York removed his unrimmed glasses, whisked a Sight Saver from his top drawer, polished both lenses, restored the glasses to his eyes, dropped the Sight Saver and the four used tissues in his wastebasket, picked up the envelope on top of the heap, turned it over, put it down. ‘Mr. Archer — I don't quite know how to say this — would you sit down?'

Archer looked surprised and sat down in a facing chair. Robert York brought his cupped hand to his mouth and coughed delicately twice. Then he leaned back in his swivel chair and surveyed his ceiling with intensity, as if searching for something.

‘As you perhaps know,' he began, ‘I at all times prefer to avoid the, ah — the emotional approach to things. I have never understood emotions very well. I like things to, ah — come out even. I mean to say, right-wrong, good-bad, yes-no. That sort of thing. Can you understand that?'

Tom Archer, heroically suppressing a quotation from Hegel which sprang to his lips, said instead, ‘Yes, indeed.'

‘I lost my temper with you over the Salvadors,' Robert York went on, heroically also, ‘for the curious reason, I think, that I had had some words with my cousin Percival earlier in the day. It must be that the, ah — vessel of one's emotions has a limited capacity, that it fills up stealthily, as it were, and then — a few insignificant drops more, and it overflows. Is that possible, Mr. Archer?'

‘It's not only possible,' Mr. Archer assured him, ‘it unfortunately happens all the time.'

‘Yet it rather relieves me. Yes, it relieves me. You see, my cousin —' His precise voice became less precise, blurred, then faded away as in a bad overseas connection.

After a moment Tom Archer stirred. ‘Maybe, Mr. York, you really don't want to talk about it.'

York started. ‘I beg your pardon?' Archer said it again. ‘Oh, but I do, Archer, I think I do. And now I feel that I may. That is, I find myself trustful of you after — well, you know what I mean.'

‘I believe so, sir.'

‘At any rate, my cousin asked me for money. Demanded it, really. I refused. To refuse a loan to a blood-relative who is coming into several million dollars shortly must strike you as very strange, Archer; but I felt that I must. As a matter of principle. My distaste for Percival's squandering and dissolute ways was quite secondary.

‘You see,' Robert York continued at a faster, warmer pace, ‘I have always deemed it my duty to carry out the spirit as well as the letter of Nathaniel York, Senior's, will, and I have more or less assumed the burden of seeing that my cousins do likewise. Uncle Nathaniel's bequests to us were contingent upon our living in the four houses for a specified number of years, and I have confidently interpreted this — recalling our uncle's impeccable life and his pride in the family traditions — as far more than a mere matter of residence. As I have repeatedly told Percival — the latest occasion, in fact, was the other day — a York occupying a York house in York Square assumes the moral obligations and perhaps even the legal obligation to do so with honor and propriety. I went so far this last time as to suggest to Percival that I might have to take the matter up with the courts, that his unseemly mode of life might actually be an implicit breach of Uncle Nathaniel's will that would disqualify him from his portion of the principal inheritance.'

‘And what did Mr. Percival say to that?' Archer murmured, although he was reasonably sure of what Mr. Percival had said to that.

‘A great many unpleasant things expressed in the most unbridled language,' said Robert York uncomfortably. ‘Also, he laughed in my face. I suppose he was right about the legal aspects, and I knew it — probably that's why I was rather more emphatic in my refusal of his request than I should otherwise have been.'

The admission apparently cost him something. He reached for a fresh tissue and patted his brow.

‘Knowing Percival,' Robert York went on, not without a brightening of tone, ‘I feel certain that I could, ah — readjust the resulting coldness between us even now by advancing him the money. But if I did that, you see, Archer, Percival would construe it as a weakness of character, and then I should never be free of his demands. And I
am
free now, Archer — I assure you of that. The, ah — terms in which I couched my refusal, much as they distressed me then and now, had at least one virtue: I'm quite sure he won't ask again.'

‘Frankly,' Tom Archer said, ‘I think the end in this case heartily justifies the means. I know how you shrink from being unfair to anyone, but this wasn't unfairness, Mr. York — you were actually doing Mr. Percival a favor to refuse him.'

‘You think so, Archer? You really think so? I must say I'm very glad to hear you say it. Yes! Well, then …

‘The mail, sir?'

‘Of course! The mail.'

And Robert York with as nearly a cheerful an expression as his Madame Tussaud face could perform, picked up the topmost envelope of the little heap of letters, accepted the letter opener that Tom Archer had for some moments been holding in readiness, slit the letter, returned the letter opener to Archer and withdrew from the envelope an oddly shaped card with the letter J stamped on it.

6

Y's Gambit Declined

‘You'd think,' snapped Emily York, ‘that he could do without his silly old nap just this
once.
'

Ann Drew said soothingly, ‘He's a man of very regular habits.'

‘I admire regularity and I certainly approve of his. But there
are
times.' She uttered the phrase with the completeness of a sentence.

Ann rose. ‘Excuse me a moment, Miss York. I'll go up and get Miss Myra.'

‘It isn't as if I had unlimited time, like certain others around here,' said Emily, glaring at her nickel-plated wrist-watch. ‘I'm due at the League Conference by half-past eight.'

‘I'm sure this won't take very long,' Ann said from the door.

‘Unwed mothers,' added Emily, evidently assuming that the two words were pregnant enough with priority and haste to require no elaboration.

Ann Drew turned away then, so whether she smiled or not Emily York was not to know.

After a while the doorbell rang. Emily bounded to her feet, computing instantly that her cousin Myra and Ann Drew were still upstairs, thus presenting her with an opportunity to try to do what another might flabbily pass on as beyond accomplishment. She strode on her sensible heels to the front door and swished it open.

‘Good
evening
, Percival.' She had been right.

Percival York bared his teeth and pushed past her into the sitting room. He slung his expensive homburg onto a commode, turning and collapsing in continuous motion until he came to rest on a love seat, at the two extremities of his spine. He rolled a yellowing eyeball across the opposite wall, or rather at the clutter that obscured it: the East Indian whatnot stand, all spools and mother-of-pearl inlay; the faded print of Gainsborough's ‘Blue Boy'; the Albany, New York, version of an Arabian prayer rug; the modernistic japanned shadow-box bearing an unsplendid specimen of
Euphorbia splendens
, or crown of thorns, and another and nameless succulent, both somehow achieving sadness without (like some sad house plants) bravery; and in the corner, on a massively ugly pedestal of some quasi-mahogany, the marble head of a laughing girl of extraordinary beauty. ‘This place,' said Percival York, ‘always reminds me of a novel by Dickens.'

Emily had seated herself straitly in a straight-backed chair, as if to admonish his sprawl, but at Percival's growl she inclined her body forward, ever ready to encourage the wastrel in cultural conversation.

‘Oh, really? That's very interesting, Percival. Which Dickens novel does it remind you of?'

‘
The Old Curiosity Shop
,' said Percival, and the cultural conversation expired without a struggle. ‘I wish we'd have these bloody blood-is-thicker-than-water sessions somewhere else, the way we used to.'

‘You know perfectly well how confused poor Myra gets if she has to go out,' said Emily coldly.

‘I know how confused poor Myra gets when she
doesn't
go out. At my place, now,' Percival added, apparently more to be offensive than to express an immediate need, ‘we could at least have a drink.'

Emily set herself for the argument she knew was futile. ‘Unless my nose deceives me,' she began. But then she shrugged. There would be other opportunities. ‘Here's Myra.'

‘Who's going to be here?' It came as a cooing, rather than speech. On Ann Drew's arm, Myra York had sidled in and was looking tremulously about with soft-focused eyes.

‘It's all right, Myra dear,' said Emily crisply, reciting the ritual assurance. ‘Just the four of us. And Ann, of course, and that nice young Mr. Archer.'

‘Don't worry, Myra,' Percival drawled, ‘the ol' beau hasn't shown his face yet.'

Myra York blanched. Ann Drew frowned. Emily barked his name. Percival scowled at them all and slumped further, sardonically watching Myra expel two large matched tears. ‘I really,' she cooed, ‘don't know what you mean.'

‘There, now,' said Ann Drew, dabbing at her with a handkerchief; and Emily straightened up to a little more than straight, a cobra-like movement, and hissed, ‘Percival, you are a —'

‘Su-u-ure I am,' Percival York drawled, looking at last quite pleased, as if he had accomplished something and was rather proud of it.

The doorbell rang again, and Myra York uttered a little shriek and sprang upright. Ann Drew quickly put an arm around her shoulders. ‘It's all
right
,' she breathed, ‘it's all right.'

‘It's just Robert,' said Emily, ‘and I suppose Mr. Archer.' She glanced at Ann Drew, all occupied with Myra, distraught; Percival supine; and she visibly computed that preoccupation plus insolent non-co-operation equaled another trip to the door for Emily. She rose and went out.

‘It's just Robert,' Ann echoed to Myra's papery ear, ‘and I suppose Mr. Archer.' She half pressed, half lowered Myra York back into her place on the divan.

‘It's just Robert,' mocked Percival, ‘fresh from his 7:31
P
.
M
. beauty nap, a lost cause if ever I saw one. Right, Annie?'

‘I'd like you to call me Miss Drew, please,' said Ann.

‘Okay, Annie, anything you say. Now watch,' he said leering at her. ‘Robert'll walk in, give
you
a hello, and call the roll of
us
. Then he'll sit down and cough twice. Twice, mind you.' He rocked back until his nape thumped the back of the love seat, to stare again at the place where the wall met the ceiling.

‘What is it, dear?' Myra murmured.

‘Nothing,' said Ann, which was not true. For sitting so close to Percival's tusked leer, she had shuddered.

‘I do think, Robert, you could have gone without your forty winks this
once
. We've all been waiting.' Emily entered with Robert, while young Archer stepped along behind them in an oddly oriental manner. This was the resultant of several divergent forces, one being his position of male secretary, which made him certainly not family and yet not a servant, either. Another was the pulsing anticipation Tom Archer always felt when he entered a room containing Ann Drew. A third was his reluctance to enter this room at all, for he had an inkling of some of the events scheduled. The sum totaled a bland, stooped carriage and the impression that he would bow rapidly from the waist at the slightest excuse.

‘Good evening,' Robert York said to Ann, ignoring Emily's scolding; and immediately, taking a brief bearing on each of the others, ‘Myra … Percival …,' and indicating the straight chair to which Emily was headed, so that his greeting was also a command to sit-so-we-can-get-started, ‘… Emily.' Then he sat down in a hideous brocaded Morris chair and coughed, twice.

Percival leered, in triumph this time, at Ann, who looked away. Robert held out a hand and young Archer placed an attaché case in it. ‘This,' said Robert, opening the case, taking out a ledger, opening it at a broad orange bookmark and placing it on his knees, ‘this should not take very long.' He thereupon covered the ledger pages with his forearm and spoke over them. ‘But before we begin, I should like to say —'

Percival groaned.

‘— a few words. First of all, on the matter of Mr. Thomas Archer here. Mr. Archer has recently proved, beyond the scintilla of a doubt, that he is a young man of resource and integrity. Not that such proof is or ever has been necessary. Nevertheless, I now find it possible to delegate to him certain of my family duties and responsibilities which have kept me from pursuing my personal affairs as freely as I have wished. Actually, the delegation of these duties is a
fait accompli
. I am merely making it official.

‘You have been aware for some time that Mr. Archer is thoroughly conversant with our mutual affairs, from these household details' — he tapped the ledger — ‘to the supervising of our investments and accounts. He will continue as heretofore, with one change.'

Robert York drew a folded blue-backed paper from his pocket and agitated it. ‘This is a power of attorney, permitting Mr. Archer to act for me — that is, for us — in three areas: matters of maintenance of our houses and common property; the supervision of our investments and other paper holdings; and finally' (his deeply grave tone made this finality one of cosmic importance) ‘Mr. Archer will begin on the climax of my many years' work in philately — the remounting in uniform volumes, and the complete cataloguing, of my stamp collections.'

He passed the paper to the astonished Archer. ‘But, Mr. York,' Archer protested.

‘Not a word, Archer. It's the right thing to do and I've done it.'