Argentina.
To maximize the output of the general staff, all employees from senior vice president to janitor were educated in their chairman’s precepts and operating techniques. Although the cost of these classes and seminars was deducted from salary, Stace regarded it as a testament to the value of the lessons learned that nobody complained.
Stace was inordinately proud and protective of his only daughter and youngest child, who was streaks ahead of the rest of his brood in intelligence and capability. The three boys had left home as soon they could, intent upon setting out upon the road that they believed would lead to even greater glory than their father had achieved, were such a thing possible. Which it was not, and they quickly lost heart and, unable to support themselves, accepted positions in their father’s companies; where, in the absence of any undeserved preferment, none of them had risen higher than middle management.
Arbella was different. As bored and listless as she appeared to be most of the time, she had as strong a will as her father when she cared to exert it. Lacking his idiosyncrasies, she was not only spirited but sensitive and imaginative. There was a hint of her true character in the bantering way with which she reproved him, when he had gone on too long and boringly about some topic, or organ, close to his heart…the vital pump itself…panaceas for industrial unrest…his pancreas.
‘Now then,’ said Arbella. ‘I think we’ve had enough on medical subjects for today, Daddy, if you don’t mind, fascinating as they are to hear about over the breakfast table.’
Stace smiled indulgently. ‘These are no mere bromide theories, my dear. The truth bears any number of repetitions, that is his lordship’s nostrum.’ (His lordship never considered that by ruthlessly editing such recapitulative pronouncements, which made the utterances of the novelist Henry James seem Neanderthal by comparison, he might have added even greater productiveness to his day.)
Arbella looked out of the window at the teeming rain. ‘Papa, though it’s only a few steps to the car you must promise to wear the heated lining in your raincoat today, and your thermal scarf and gloves and broad-brimmed waterproof hat. It’s not just wet but very cold. And don’t forget your inhaler. See to it, Garforth, would you? You know how careless he is.’
Stace’s smile broadened. The family pheromones were in fine fettle, that was clear, and it was time to go to work. As usual he saw his daughter to the door: she insisted on walking every day to Sloane Square Underground station, rhinoviral Mecca and Petri dish of micro-organisms though it was, come rain or shine.
Shortly after waving goodbye to her from the window with a silk bandanna, Stace—encased and muffled to the eyeballs—exited himself, the Bentley made its glissando away from the curb, and his lordship turned his mind to the minutiae that would occupy him for the remainder of the day.
*
Her eyes her nose her hair her lips her teeth
Were all special order, very top-drawer,
And as we worked she glowed from underneath.
You had demanded not a single flaw,
Down to construction of the tiniest
Feature, each detail of her perfect frame.
You called yourself a human Architect,
And said You had endowed us with
A gift to rival the talent of Pygmalion.
We were amazed to hear such praise for
Our steady hands and modest skills,
As if we could be capable of such artistry.
No: that je ne sais quoi of hers that grew
And grew crossed all our lines, and came from You.
Chapter Two
Arbella said more during her early morning colloquies with her father than the entire rest of the day. It did not seem that way to the rich and trendy Sloane Ranger set that constituted her social network, and her business circle too, given that so many of her acquaintances worked in the same industry that she did as a broker at Lloyd’s of London.
Although she was not sociable by nature,
To maximize the output of the general staff, all employees from senior vice president to janitor were educated in their chairman’s precepts and operating techniques. Although the cost of these classes and seminars was deducted from salary, Stace regarded it as a testament to the value of the lessons learned that nobody complained.
Stace was inordinately proud and protective of his only daughter and youngest child, who was streaks ahead of the rest of his brood in intelligence and capability. The three boys had left home as soon they could, intent upon setting out upon the road that they believed would lead to even greater glory than their father had achieved, were such a thing possible. Which it was not, and they quickly lost heart and, unable to support themselves, accepted positions in their father’s companies; where, in the absence of any undeserved preferment, none of them had risen higher than middle management.
Arbella was different. As bored and listless as she appeared to be most of the time, she had as strong a will as her father when she cared to exert it. Lacking his idiosyncrasies, she was not only spirited but sensitive and imaginative. There was a hint of her true character in the bantering way with which she reproved him, when he had gone on too long and boringly about some topic, or organ, close to his heart…the vital pump itself…panaceas for industrial unrest…his pancreas.
‘Now then,’ said Arbella. ‘I think we’ve had enough on medical subjects for today, Daddy, if you don’t mind, fascinating as they are to hear about over the breakfast table.’
Stace smiled indulgently. ‘These are no mere bromide theories, my dear. The truth bears any number of repetitions, that is his lordship’s nostrum.’ (His lordship never considered that by ruthlessly editing such recapitulative pronouncements, which made the utterances of the novelist Henry James seem Neanderthal by comparison, he might have added even greater productiveness to his day.)
Arbella looked out of the window at the teeming rain. ‘Papa, though it’s only a few steps to the car you must promise to wear the heated lining in your raincoat today, and your thermal scarf and gloves and broad-brimmed waterproof hat. It’s not just wet but very cold. And don’t forget your inhaler. See to it, Garforth, would you? You know how careless he is.’
Stace’s smile broadened. The family pheromones were in fine fettle, that was clear, and it was time to go to work. As usual he saw his daughter to the door: she insisted on walking every day to Sloane Square Underground station, rhinoviral Mecca and Petri dish of micro-organisms though it was, come rain or shine.
Shortly after waving goodbye to her from the window with a silk bandanna, Stace—encased and muffled to the eyeballs—exited himself, the Bentley made its glissando away from the curb, and his lordship turned his mind to the minutiae that would occupy him for the remainder of the day.
*
Her eyes her nose her hair her lips her teeth
Were all special order, very top-drawer,
And as we worked she glowed from underneath.
You had demanded not a single flaw,
Down to construction of the tiniest
Feature, each detail of her perfect frame.
You called yourself a human Architect,
And said You had endowed us with
A gift to rival the talent of Pygmalion.
We were amazed to hear such praise for
Our steady hands and modest skills,
As if we could be capable of such artistry.
No: that je ne sais quoi of hers that grew
And grew crossed all our lines, and came from You.
Chapter Two
Arbella said more during her early morning colloquies with her father than the entire rest of the day. It did not seem that way to the rich and trendy Sloane Ranger set that constituted her social network, and her business circle too, given that so many of her acquaintances worked in the same industry that she did as a broker at Lloyd’s of London.
Although she was not sociable by nature,
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