“Oh, that was only a Papal knighthood; this is a far more solid thing.”
“Hamish, you astonish me! ‘Only a Papal knighthood’! You’re beginning to sound almost like a Prot.”
“In this country if you’re in the money business you have to learn to sit at the table with the Prots. They have most of it their own way. R.C.s and Jews needn’t apply. And I’m thinking very hard about the money business.”
“Surely you have all you need?”
“What a man needs and what he wants may be very different things. Don’t forget, I came from very poor people, and the hatred of poverty is in my blood. Now listen: the lumbering business isn’t what is was; it’s changing, and I don’t want to change with it; I want something new.”
“At your age?”
“What about my age? I’m only sixty-seven. I’ve other people to think of. Now, you know that for years people—widows and old people and the like—have been coming to me and asking me to look after their money for them.”
“And you’ve done it, and made money for them. For me, too.”
“Yes, but I don’t like it. You trust me, and I’m pleased you do, but this thing of private trust is no way to do business; in business nobody should have total responsibility for anybody else’s money. So I’m thinking of unloading the lumber trade, and setting up one of these trust companies.”
“In Blairlogie? Wouldn’t it be very small potatoes?”
“No, not in Blairlogie. In Toronto.”
“Toronto? Man, are you crazy? Why not Montreal, where the big money is?”
“Because there’s other big money, and it’s in the West, and Toronto will be the centre for that. Not yet, but you have to be ahead of the procession.”
“You’re away ahead of me.”
“And properly so. Why wouldn’t I be? You’re a doctor and you look after my health; I’m a financier, and I look after your money.”
“Well—when do you take the big step?”
“I’ve taken it. Not many people know, but recent events are pushing me ahead fast. Gerry O’Gorman and Mary-Tess want to get out of Blairlogie; after that come-down over the Knight of St. Sylvester business they’re very much out of love with this little place. They’ll move to Toronto, and Gerry’ll set the thing on its feet.”
“God! Is Gerry up to a big thing like that?”
“Yes. Gerry has powers that have never been roused. And he’s honest.”
“Honest! What about Blondie Utronki?”
“Honest about money. Women are quite a different thing. And I’ve told Gerry there’s to be no more of that monkey-business, and Mary-Tess has him under her thumb forever. He can do it. Gerry has great ability as an organizer, and people like him.”
“He’s no Prot.”
“Not yet. But Gerry isn’t nearly as good a Catholic as he was before that little sanctified rat Beaudry did the dirty on him. Give him time, and give him Toronto, and we shall see what we shall see. Anyhow, that needn’t show too clearly. Didn’t I tell you Cornish is to be a knight?”
“I don’t follow you at all.”
“Well—look here. The Cornish Trust—Gerry is Managing Director, I’m Chairman of the Board (and I’ll keep the real power in my own hands, you may be sure), and Sir Francis Cornish is President, and the grand show-piece of the business. And Cornish is a bigoted Prot, as I have good cause to know.”
“Will he do it?”
“Indeed he will. He’s always been pestering me for a place in the business, and now there’s a place just right for him.”
“Can he manage it?”
“He’s very far from being a fool. He’s got a splendid war record, and that counts for a lot. And he doesn’t want to come back to Blairlogie. As president he’ll have no power I don’t choose to give him, and Gerry’ll watch him like a hawk. It’s tailor-made, Joe.”
“Hamish, I’ve always said you were a downy one, but this beats everything.”
“It’s not bad. Not bad at all. Everything has suddenly clicked into place.”
“All things work together for good for those that love the Lord.”
“Don’t be cynical, Joe. But if you mean that, you’re right. Even the third generation is taken care of. Gerry’s boys are good lads, and they’ll grow up to banking and trust business.”
“And what about young Francis? Will Cornish let you cut his son out of this big game?”
“Francis is a fine boy. I like him best of the lot, and I won’t see him pushed aside. But he’s not just what I look for in a boy who’s to grow up to be a banker. However, that’s not too great a problem; Mary-Jim writes to her mother that there’s another young Cornish on the way. If it’s a boy—and as you always tell your patients, it’s fifty-fifty that it will be—he can grow up to the family trade, which will be money, and a very good trade it is.”
“I just hope he’s all right.”
“What do you mean, Joe?”
“Are you forgetting the lad upstairs?”
“He wasn’t Cornish’s son. Cornish is sound. The father of that poor creature must have been a degenerate.”
“But he is Mary-Jim’s son as well.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“Now Hamish, you know I hate to say unpleasant things—”
“I know only too well that you love to say unpleasant things, Joe.”
“That’s a nasty dig at an old friend, Hamish. But you must remember I’m a man of science, and science has to come to terms with facts, however unpleasant they may be. It takes two to make a child, and if there’s something wrong with the child, which of the two is responsible? You told me the father of that poor idjit upstairs was an unknown man, a soldier—”
“God knows what he may have been. Rotten with disease, probably.”
“No, not probably at all, for Mary-Jim has never shown any hint of what you’d expect from any such association, so you can’t blame it all on the man.”
“Are you blaming it on my daughter?”
“Easy, now, Hamish! Easy, man. Just give me another dram of that fine whisky, and I’ll explain. Because I’ve thought a lot about this matter, I can tell you, and I’ve read every book I can get hold of that might throw light on it. I lent you that book by Krafft-Ebing hoping you’d get a clue, but it seems you haven’t.”
“That book was full of dirty rubbish.”
“Life’s full of dirty rubbish. I’m a doctor and I know. If you’d read that book in a scientific spirit you’d have understood what it says. Krafft-Ebing’s the great name in this field still, you know, though he died a while back. But I’ve been reading Kraepelin, his successor, who’s the foremost man in this sort of medicine now, and there are certain points on which he and Krafft-Ebing are in full agreement. Now, if you’d read that book instead of skipping over to the earwax stories, you’d have taken in a very pertinent fact to what we’re discussing: a healthy, well-brought-up young woman has no sexual desire whatever. Oh, some romantic notions out of books, maybe, but not the real thing. She’s no notion of it, even if she has a rough idea how babies come. Now, look here: A very closely guarded, well-educated Catholic girl finds herself in a hotel room with a strange man. A servant, trained to keep his mind on his job, never to betray anything you might call humanity. Does he rape her? Not so far as we’ve been told. She said to you that one thing led to another. What thing was that one thing, Hamish?”
“That’s enough, Joe. You’d better be on your way.”
“No, it’s not enough, Hamish. You’ve got your head in the sand, man. And don’t order me to go, because I’m speaking to you as your family’s medical adviser—have been since I don’t know when—and this is nasty medicine I’m giving you, to make you well. I’m not saying Mary-Jim is a light woman. May this whisky be my poison if I ever thought any such thing! But even the purest woman may be victim of a disease of the mind—”
“Joe—you don’t mean Mary-Jim’s touched?”
“It’s not a permanent thing, Hamish, so far as I know. But it exists, and it attacks the young. In the profession we call it the furor uterinus.”