Various Flavors of Coffee (14 page)

“But you didn’t finish it.You left the man with a caterpillar in-side him, and I have hardly been able to concentrate on arithmetic ever since.”

“You see, Robert,” Emily murmured behind me. “The artist does have some responsibilities after all. Though since the Frog never concentrates on her arithmetic anyway, you must not feel too guilty.”

“I should not want to be liable for poor sums,” I assured the Frog.“Let me see . . .”

A moment’s thought, a little jotting on a scrap of paper, and it was coming—

“I am timing you, Robert,” Emily said. “You have to do it in less than a minute.”

“That is hardly fair.”

“Was it fair that you sold more leaflets than me because you are a man? Forty seconds left.”

“I need a little longer—”

“I should stop protesting, if I were you, and concentrate on writing.”

“Oh, very well—” “Too late—”

“I have it!” I jumped up.

“‘This really is most vexing,’ The missionary said,

‘That dratted caterpillar is Still living in my head.’

‘I did not offer him free board, Or ask him here to stay,

But now he is so comfortable, He will not go away.’

—so said this mournful cleric; He gave a heavy sigh;

And as he did so, from his mouth There flew a butterfly.”

It was nonsense, of course; but it rhymed, after a fashion, and scanned—almost. The Frog applauded, and Emily smiled fondly, and just for a moment I felt a sense of triumph greater than the publication of any sonnet in the
Yellow Book
could have given me.

[
seventeen
]

er heart is singing. Her head is troubled.

Not by the small white lie she has told Robert—Emily knows perfectly well that it was not him who tried to kiss her at the ball, but he was taking his duties as a chaperon so seriously that evening that it had amused her, initially, to tease him a little; and then, when she saw how envious it made him, she had allowed his misunderstanding to develop, and ultimately become something much more—no; what is perplexing her is that this relationship, according to the codes of the time, does not exist.

Those who court might fall in love; those who fall in love might marry.There is no room in the rituals of her class for those who do not officially court, who are thrown together by fate, or— even worse—by work.

She doubts her father will let her marry him; she is not even sure, yet, if that is what she wants herself.

So she does what she can; gently singing his praises, but not so much that her father could suspect her of losing her head.

She tells him that Robert—“although a silly young man, and still quite the most annoying aesthete”—is working not only hard

but well; that he would be an asset to the company, when he has only grown up a little. She points out that, as an artist, he has a kind of expertise which none of their other employees has; that he sees things in a way that might be extremely useful to them.

Her father listens, and nods, and does not suspect.

One person
who does suspect, though, is Jenks. And this presents its own problems, because for some time now she has been aware that her father’s senior secretary harbors a certain fondness for her—a fondness bound up, she is fairly sure, with a sincere regard for her professionalism, and her reticence, and the careful way she comports herself in the office; all the things, in fact, which have allowed his affection to remain implicit, and therefore manageable, and which she has now kicked over in the madness of her affair with Robert.

So she feels both a little guilty and a little foolish. But since the nature of her relationship with Jenks is unspoken, she does not think he will embarrass himself by saying anything.

She has not reckoned, however, with the force of his antipathy for Robert. One afternoon, as she is transcribing her shorthand notes, the secretary enters the room and carefully shuts the door behind him.“Miss Pinker,” he begins.“I must speak with you.”

She knows immediately what he is going to say. She wishes she could somehow just skip to the end of the scene, with him closing the door behind him, without them both having to go through the awkward bit in the middle.

He surprises her.

“I would never dream of telling you what you should or should not do.” He speaks fiercely, avoiding her eyes.“And I would never criticize a fellow employee, let alone one who has been fortunate enough to acquire your good opinion. But I have to tell you that

on at least two occasions,Wallis has been seen frequenting a certain street in central London, the nature of which leads me to . . . to question his character.”

“I see,” she says calmly.“And which street is this?”

“A part of Covent Garden well known for its . . . associations.” “And you were there? You saw him?”

“Yes. I have a friend who is performing at the Lyceum. I have been to see the show three times—it is a great success.”

“Well, there you are,” she says, relieved. “You were there quite innocently, and doubtless Robert was, too.”

“I’m afraid not. I was waiting at the stage door—it backs on to the side of the street I am referring to.Wallis was . . . Wallis was not waiting for anything. He was entering one of the buildings. It is a place quite notorious for what goes on there.”

“Are you quite sure of this?” He nods.

“To blacken someone’s name without absolute evidence—”

“I would have said nothing!” he cries.“If I had not been sure— if it had been anyone else—but how could I stay silent, knowing what I know? If something had happened—if there had been some,” he swallows, “some beastliness on his part toward you. Imagine if that had happened, and I had done nothing.”

“Yes,” she says. “Yes, I do see that. I must thank you for speaking out.”

“I will talk to your father, and have him dismissed.”

“No,” she hears herself saying,“I will mention this to my father myself, when the moment is right.”

“Surely it would be better coming from a man—”

“It is a delicate matter. It should be handled delicately. I will choose the most appropriate time.”

He frowns.

“I do not want my father to feel pressurized into acting precip—

itately.The Guide is very important to Pinker’s—essential, even, if we are to steal a march on Howell’s. Robert should finish it before any discussion is had.”

“So you are going to say nothing?”

“You have spoken to me. That must have been difficult, and I appreciate it, but now it is done, you have discharged your responsibilities. It is I, after all, not my father, who would be at risk—”

“If you will not speak to him, I must.”

“Please, Simon,” she says.“Let us leave it. Please? For my sake.” He is hurt, she can tell—not because she has rejected his advice, but because he is suddenly seeing her in a different light. “Well, I have said my piece,” he says abruptly, turning to the

door.

As he goes she says, “When was this? That you last saw him, I mean.”

“The last time was on Friday evening.”

She thinks:
Earlier that afternoon, we had kissed.

A mixture
of emotions kick their way across her heart.Anger and disgust, principally. But then—she is a modern woman—she tries to think rationally.

Perhaps it is partly her own fault. Perhaps she is somehow inflaming his passions with her kisses, and he must find release in— She cannot bear to think about what he finds release in.

For a week she cannot bring herself to touch him. And then they discover that muscat grapes and coriander seeds share some of the same floral characteristics: that hazelnuts and freshly churned butter have a similar milky, creamy fragrance. As they join the various parts of the Guide together, so they find the hidden connections between different tastes and aromas—a spectrum ranging from sweet to sour, from flowery to spicy, a palette of the senses. And somehow when Robert takes her in his arms, everything that

happens in that other world, that dark mirror-land where men keep their secret desires, seems not to matter, to have no bearing on the guilty pleasure she feels.

And—another emotion she had not expected to feel.When she does think about those other women, the faceless, nameless women who lie with him in the mirror-land, she is surprised to discover that what she feels for them is not pity or even disgust. What she feels is a sudden, disturbing, jolt of envy.

[
eighteen
]

t last the Guide really was complete. The perfumer

had made up a dozen stout mahogany boxes, which opened at the side to reveal an ingenious series of shelves holding thirty-six glass-stoppered bottles of aroma. Meanwhile, a printer was running off the pamphlet which explained how the scents should be used. I must confess to a touch of vanity here: I insisted the pamphlet be bound in calfskin vellum, ostensibly so that it would withstand the rigors of the field, but actually because this was my first printed work and I wanted it to look as much as possible like a volume of verse.

The conclusion of the Guide left me in something of a quandary. Since I was being paid by the word, there was now no obvious reason for me to remain at Pinker’s. But equally, no one could claim that by remaining I was wasting their money.To Emily I muttered something about wanting to refine my phrasing when the first reports came in from Pinker’s agents, but we both knew that my motives were quite different.

Pinker never commented on my presence. Occasionally, though, he found me small tasks to keep me busy. This happened

so frequently, in fact, that I even began to wonder if it was deliberate.

One day
he placed before Emily and me half a dozen squat tins with roughly printed labels. One bore an elaborate picture of an angel, another a picture of a lion. “What are these?” Emily asked, clearly as unfamiliar with them as I was.

Her father’s eyes twinkled.“Shall we taste them, and find out?”

We had boiling water brought up, and cupped the first tin’s contents. It was coffee, but of a poor quality.

“Well?” Pinker demanded. “Very ordinary.”

“And the next?”

I proceeded to the second tin. “If I am not mistaken, this has been glazed with sugar water to lend an artificial sweetness.”

It was the same with the others: they were either bland, tainted, or flavored with additions.

“Can you tell us where these excrescences came from?” I asked. “Certainly.” Pinker tapped one of the tins.“This is Arbuckle’s. I had it sent over by boat. It has a quarter of the entire American market—over a million pounds by weight in a year.When you ask for coffee anywhere from New York to Kansas City, this is what

you get.”

He pointed to the second tin. “This is Chase and Sanborn’s. They have from Boston to Montreal. In that territory, hardly a cup is sold that is not produced by them.

“This is Lion coffee. . . . This is Seal. . . . This is Folgers, of San Francisco and the gold rush lands. And this is Maxwell House, which hails from Nashville and the South.

“In all, just six makes—brands, as they call them over there— share out the coffee consumption of the most vigorous nation on earth. Six! Inevitably, their proprietors wield colossal power. You

have heard me talk of the Exchange, I think, Robert?” I nodded. “The Exchange is a remarkable place. But it is also the scene of a great, ongoing conflict—a conflict between those who wish our industry to be free, and those who seek to control it for their own ends.”

“How can anyone control an entire industry?”

He went to stand by the ticker machine, still endlessly tossing its chains of white tape onto the floorboards, and gazed at the symbols as he spoke.“These six have made a private arrangement with the Brazilian government. They have effectively bypassed the Exchange; as they say over there, they have cornered the market. If the price is too low, they buy up stocks to create a shortage, and release them only when prices are better. Or if the price is high they simply refuse to sell, and sit back and wait for it to fall to a level that suits them. And all because the public have learned to trust their name.”

“It is the standardization of which you spoke, the first time you interviewed me.”

“Yes.” Pinker pursed his lips. I think he was judging how much to tell me of his plans. “It is the future,” he said at last. “And we must beat it, or be left behind. Remember Darwin.”

“But they are in America. England is something else entirely.” Pinker shook his head. “We are all one market now, Robert.

Just as there is one price for the raw product, so there will eventually be one price for the finished article. And what persuades a housewife in Sacramento or Washington to part with her money will also work in Birmingham or Bristol.”

“You don’t intend to sell a coffee as poor as these, though, surely?”

Again Pinker hesitated. “I am going to reduce the number of my blends to two,” he said.“Both will trade under the brand name ‘Castle.’ Castle Premium will be supplied to the Temperance Taverns, Castle Superior to the shops.Thus the customer will have

the reassurance of knowing they are buying the same trusted name for home use that they enjoy when they go out.” The phrases tripped off his tongue, polished and slippery.

“The same name, yes, but not actually the same coffee,” I pointed out.

“I suspect that is a distinction that will pass most people by. It is for the greater good, Robert—our success will mean the success of the Taverns, and the success of coffee, and thus of temperance: we will create a sober, more efficient economy that will be of benefit to the whole nation, and to the nations which supply us, but no one will help us do it.We must play the game in order to win it. And so we must look to America, and the new methods.”

“But you do not control the market, as the Americans do.” “No.”

“Then that is, surely, a flaw in your plan.”

“Let us just say it is something which must be factored in.” “In what way?”

“All in good time, Robert. All in good time. In the meantime, will you give some thought to how my blends might be constructed?”