Page 24 of The Secret Word
Apparently, this meeting with key employees was a weekly event, and the chief way in which Wright kept up with his empire. Today, however, Chris was the entire focus of the meeting.
The clerk in charge of the books was easiest. He used the same double entry bookkeeping system that Chris had been taught. It had been invented in Venice at the dawn of their merchant empire, and had spread across the Western world because, in the hands of someone who understood it, it saved time and supported good decision-making.
The mining engineer was much harder to match, and Chris would have been lost in a welter of terms that might as well have been foreign for all the meaning they’d had for him beforeyesterday’s tutoring session. Gins, baulks, rolley ways, Davy lamps, and so much more. Picking his way through the thicket of industry-specific words, Chris was able to make intelligent remarks and ask pertinent questions. Or, at least, he hoped they were intelligent and pertinent.
The third man was the manager—the man who made it possible for Wright to ignore his empire, confident that it was running smoothly in his absence. “Josh Flint watches all the people who work for me,” Wright had said, during the introductions, “And I watch Josh Flint.”
Flint spoke less often than the other two, but his questions were the hardest, for he was interested in Chris as a manager of people, and Chris had never managed servants or employees—for himself, or for other people.
Except that perhaps he had, for something Clem had said yesterday afternoon came to his rescue. They had been riding home after the visit to Aunt Fern, and he had been wondering whether his relatives would co-operate with a masqueraded estrangement.
“You will talk them round,” she had said. “You have a gift for understanding what people need and talking them into believing you can give it to them.”
He repeated some of that to Flint. “I am not in charge in my current position,” he said. “I cannot give orders to those who are not under my authority, and no one is under my authority. But I can persuade, and I do. It is a matter of understanding what motivates a person—what will make them want to oblige me. Perhaps I show people how they will benefit from doing what I ask or giving me the information I need. Or perhaps they are motivated by praise, or by interest in what they are doing.” He shrugged. “It works for me.”
“Arrant nonsense,” grumbled Wright. “I give orders and they are obeyed.”
“Because you are the man with the power, sir,” Chris pointed out. “They know it is in their interests to do as you tell them.”
“That is true,” the manager said. “They obey because otherwise they fear they will not have a job.”
Wright nodded. “And quite right, too.”
The manager nodded. “I have Mr. Wright’s full authority in my daily activities, Mr. Satterthwaite, but I have often found it more effective to explain why a particular action should be taken. Cheerful co-operation can be more pleasant and more productive than grudging compliance.”
Wright made a grunting sound, but whether it indicated agreement, disagreement, or merely distaste at the line of conversation, Chris could not have said.
What would Clem say?
Chris usually had no trouble focusing on the task at hand, but today his mind kept drifting to Clem, or if not her, his relatives. He had an estate! Or, at least, heprobablyhad an estate. If the trustee refused to accept that he was who he said he was, how would he prove it?
Billy knew who he was, of course. Billy remembered him tagging along behind his father from time to time. But would they accept Billy’s word? Would Billy even give it? And what would he want in return? Chris’s debt to Billy was growing to alarming proportions, all the worse for being undefined.
Grandfather would be able to identify him, too, if the old scoundrel cared to do so. But Chris had no idea where his grandfather was, and in any case, Chris was even less inclined to owe a favor to his grandfather than to Billy. Even before he was abandoned, the child Chris had known Grandfather was not a man to rely on.
And once again, he was letting himself get distracted. Fortunately, the one part of his mind that was still attending to Wright could replay what had just happened. Wright had askedhis three employees to rate Chris’s chances of being useful in the business.
“The best yet, sir,” the bookkeeper had said.
The manager had agreed. “Not that the others would have done at all. Mr. Satterthwaite is at least not afraid of hard work.”
“He has a lot to learn,” the engineer was saying when Chris forced his attention back to the conversation, “but I am cautiously pleased, sir.”
His pursed lips said Wright was not entirely pleased with their responses. “If I let him marry my Clementine, will he do?”
Do for what, precisely? Was Wright planning to retire?
The bookkeeper expressed it in blunt terms. “You mean, if—heaven forbid—something happens to you before your grandson is old enough to take over, will Mr. Satterthwaite keep your enterprises thriving?”
“Aye,” Wright replied, though the twist to his mouth suggested that he was not pleased to contemplate his own demise.
“You appear hale and hearty, sir,” Chris commented, wondering if the man had had some bad news from the doctor.
“I am as yet, but I’m a realist, Satterthwaite. As you need to be. I was thirty-five when Clementine was born. Perhaps I should have wed again after her mother died, and if I had, perhaps I’d have a boy growing up who could take over in a few years.”
He looked into the middle distance, perhaps contemplating that desirable possibility. “Clementine’s Ma was my second wife, you know. My first died and so did both her children. I didn’t have the heart to try a third time.”
Chris felt a surge of pity Wright, a quite unexpected sentiment towards a man who had, up until now, had provoked only irritation or even anger.
