by Maggie Ford
Six weeks after the Hatry business, the man arrested but so far not brought to trial – and thank God for it, with financial houses again looking less hard-faced – Henry answered the private telephone in his bedroom.
Geoffrey’s agitated voice sounded in his ear. “Henry, you seen the paper?”
“Not yet.” Thursday’s Financial Times had been delayed yet again. Henry made a mental note to have a word about it with the lad who usually brought it.
“Then turn your wireless set on to the BBC News,” came Geoffrey’s voice, high with panic. “Do it now. I’m coming round. Be there as soon as I can.”
The phone going dead, Henry placed the receiver back on its hook and as advised went into the lounge and turned the on-knob of the wireless, twiddling the dial until the smooth voice of the daily news announcer became audible and clear.
“… panic this morning on the New York Stock Exchange with prices falling catastrophically. Much of the cause of panic is being blamed on ticker-tape machines lagging behind dealings, but near-hysteria selling is abundant everywhere. With orders to sell at any price and salesmen seeking non-existent buyers, stocks are being dumped overboard at whatever price they will bring.”
By mid-morning Henry was smoking like a chimney, still taking in the accounts of near riots in Wall Street, the New York police riot squad having been called out and several ruined speculators having already thrown themselves off high buildings. He opened the door to Geoffrey’s ring, he having sped from his country place in Epping in his high-powered Vauxhall in well under an hour.
Together they listened as finally the bottom dropped out of the market and the certainty of the collapse sent shock waves around the financial world.
“It can’t concern us,” Henry said to Geoffrey’s worried expression.
“It could. Don’t you see? We’re looking to float a company, people to invest. Can you see them clamouring at our door now? First Hatry, now this. Where next? No one will take chances now. And we thought we were hard done by a few months ago when the Savoy offered to buy fifty-one shares in Letts. You said, not on your life! But who’s going to bale us out now? The bank won’t. Investors won’t. Soon the bank’ll want to be repaid. They’re as scared as any of us. Before long we’ll see every one of our creditors hanging on our necks, refusing to do another thing for us until they see the colour of our money. We can’t pay ’em all. All right so long as bills come drifting in, but if they start coming in a deluge, what do we do? There’ll only be the trust left to fall back on.”
Henry turned on him savagely, the wireless voice forgotten. “We’re not touching that. I told the bank that.”
“I know you did. But what happens when they start calling in their loan? Where do we turn? We could go bankrupt.”
“We don’t touch the trust.”
Grace came out from her bedroom, dressed for the street in a cream outfit and matching cream cloche hat, gloves and shoes. “Is something wrong? Why are you both shouting?” she enquired.
“Business, my sweet,” Henry told her. “Where are you off to?”
“Hairdressers,” she said blithely, picking up her handbag, also cream. “I’m having my hair Marcel-waved. It will be ready for the rather longer hairstyles coming in.” Just about presenting her cheek for him to peck and say “toodle-oo” to her, she gave him a smile. “I’ll be a couple of hours, dear.”
When she had gone, Henry turned back to his brother, the disembodied voice of the wireless droning on unattended. While his wife had been talking about her hair, his mind had been winding itself around the inevitable. Now he gave despondent tongue to it, his heart having plummeted as low as had the Wall Street share prices, knowing how those men must have felt who had flung themselves to their death from high windows.
“The truth is, Geoffrey, we haven’t enough money to see us through this, and that’s it.”
“Then what do you suggest?” Geoffrey’s enquiring tone was hot and argumentative, the impact of what his brother had said not yet registering.
“I suggest…” It was hard to say this. “I suggest we call it a day.”
“Call what a day?” The tone was still heated.
“The other place. The whole project. We can’t go on with it, Geoffrey. We dare not start throwing good money after bad. The bank won’t fork out any more. We won’t find any decent investors now. We don’t exactly owe money except to the bank, but soon we will. Our profits from here won’t cover it. I was doing my sums while I was listening to that.” He jerked his chin at the still chattering wireless. “After paying for this month’s workmen’s wages and materials, and with the insurance rising with every improvement we make to that place, we’ll be down to rock bottom in no time at all as regards any more outgoings. If we call a halt now and resell the place, we can at least salvage something to pay back the bank with. Otherwise—”
“You mean, let it all go?” The look on Geoffrey’s face told of his seeing all that high living to come fading away, and how Pamela would react to that. “We can’t, Henry. We’ve spent so much, staked all we had on it. Let’s wait a while. The market’s sure to pick up again. People will come back. I’m sure of it.”
No more did Henry want to see all those dreams going under, all the money they’d spent out go for nothing. At this stage it was nigh sacrilege.
True, by close of business as they sat tied to the wireless set taking in every last word of the news between the other programmes the BBC cheerfully put on, the market was reported to have recovered to some extent, thanks to reassuring statements by the big American bankers. But Henry’s foreseeing eye told him that the time of the over-confident bull market had gone, and with it thousands of small investors, now in ruins, millions of dollars wiped out in one morning of frantic fruitless efforts to find buyers, countless small and large companies having lost everything, finding themselves bankrupt with the suddenness of an earthquake. Henceforth a dark and cautious bear market would rule for unforeseeable ages.
Common sense told him that they must pull out. And the matter did not end there. People would have to be paid off. The bank must wait a while, hopefully be a little clement. With investors they could have done it. But there were no longer any willing investors. Henry had never felt so sick in all his life and he knew Geoffrey was feeling exactly the same.
Four days later, the shares of the London Stock Exchange, lying in the direct path of the first shock waves from Wall Street, fell sharply, confirming the end of not only the Lett brothers’ hopes, but the hope of the whole country. By early 1930, world economic slumps following the Wall Street crash, the country’s unemployed would already top one and a half million – five hundred thousand more since Labour had come into power, the blame laid at its feet even though the United States and Germany too had several times that many out of work. Across the world ordinary people in despair blamed their governments. And the idle rich continued unaffected, their wealth safe in property, land, jewellery and art treasures.
Only those like Henry and Geoffrey Lett, who’d stuck their necks out at the wrong time, felt its weight. Doing his utmost to find a buyer for the half-completed restaurant while Geoffrey sulked; never having been faced with any such crisis before, and wishing he had taken Mother’s wise words about his father being content enough, Henry hardly noticed the profits still being reaped by their one establishment, a mere drop in the ocean to what they owed the bank.
He stood now on a dismal Sunday morning in November 1929, gazing at the outside of his dream, the road behind him Sunday quiet, the place itself hushed and forlorn amid the debris of discarded tools and rubble within the fencing, upon which hung a huge red and white hoarding announcing “PLOT AND BUILDINGS FOR SALE” with more information in smaller letters as to where to apply.
The times he had stood amid the chaos and noise of reconstruction, his mind’s eye visualising the end result, the bright interior, his mind’s ear hearing the buzz of conversation from happy diners, the music to which they wo
uld eat and dance… It had all come to nothing, the heartache all the worse for having had the dream in the first place. And to add insult to injury, there was the money that had been thrown away on it, and money still owed to the bank with nothing to see for it. Dead. Not only that, but Mother had had another stroke, terminal the doctor was afraid, her left side useless, she only able to croak a few words. The fates seemed against them all this year.
* * *
They gathered around the bedside, the whole family, Henry hardly able to keep from glowering at his sister Victoria.
Having mentioned his thoughts on the family trust fund to her, he had sworn her to secrecy when she’d told him how appalled she was by his even considering it be thrown away merely to pay back the bank, his and Geoffrey’s having been debts incurred by themselves alone. She had forgotten that her husband and Maud’s had at one time been all for coming in on it – at a later date, of course, when the second restaurant had proved itself. Ignoring his wishes, she had relayed to Mother what he had said and Henry was sure this shock alone had brought on the second stroke, evident by her croaked words as she lay with her left side totally powerless: “Not… to be touched… your father’s will – nest egg… for his children.”
Invested in gilt-edged shares, there was a clause that it was not to be used for any expansion of the family business except with agreement by all. It was his seeking that agreement which had led to Mother’s condition and for that he blamed himself as much as Victoria, though she had been wrong in not keeping it to herself, knowing Mother’s condition.
He had already upset their mother with his suggestion early last year of floating the company on the Stock Exchange.
“I do not want that,” Mother had sighed from her bed where she had taken herself for most of the day despite her doctor’s advice that she could and should keep herself mobile. “Go public? No, Henry.”
But he had tried to go public. As far as he could see it had been the only way. He remembered a conversation with William Goodridge. “I’m starting to lose my nerve a bit over all this,” he’d admitted to him as financial teeth began to bite. “Sometimes I wish I’d never started it. But my brother’s snapping at my heels. As fast as I make money, he’s going to spend it.”
“Can’t you curtail him somehow?” William had suggested boldly, in a position of late to speak his mind.
Henry had shrugged. “He’s a director. It’s not easy.”
He remembered the scene so well: standing on the brass-railed balcony above the diners, William surveying the crowded restaurant below, the lively chatter and the clash of cutlery on crockery echoing up to them. At mezzanine level, the small circular dance floor was filled with couples, a four-piece dance band striking up a one-step. Colourful, noisy, lively music and shrill laughter added its own share of echoes, the fabric-covered pillars doing little to allay the fault after all, yet somehow it increased the buzz of the place where a hushed atmosphere might have been daunting. People felt able to express themselves in loud talk, and that was its allure. Henry recalled wondering if the second restaurant when it was completed would be able to create this same atmosphere. Oddly he remembered not being sure. Even then doubts had crept in, doubts he had thrust aside hardly noting them. Now he did. This Letts was unique, could never be duplicated, and there had been a feeling in his bones even then that he was doing the wrong thing in pursuing the path of a second restaurant which might not only prove a white elephant but might even diminish this place. At that point William had blurted out: “Mr Henry, do you think you’re doing the right thing - this new restaurant?”
Henry had looked at him as though he had blasphemed. “Right thing?”
“Pouring all this money into it. Trying to entice investors. None of them keen to take a chance, most of them only out for themselves.”
Henry had been offended. “Because they’ve not seen the finished product. Once we convince them how great this second place will be, how it will pay, they’ll be all for it. I see it paying for itself within a year of opening.”
“Maybe,” William had said stoically. “But at the expense of this place, taking custom away from here. Might you not be spreading the butter a bit too thinly, two lots of staff to pay, two lots of overheads, double insurance… ?” He had broken off as Henry glared at him. “It’s only my opinion, Mr Henry. I’m not a financier, but… I only see it from an ordinary man’s view…”
“Damnation, Will!” The explosion had burst from him. “Yes, you’re an ordinary man, not a financier, and have no business telling me—” He’d pulled himself up sharply, recalling the sacrifice William had made over the business of Mary, a sacrifice that could never be repaid. Moderating his tone, he had apologised, adding, “But we can’t go back now. We’ve spent too much, owe money in all directions. We have to go ahead, you see.”
William had nodded and, leaving him, had made his way down to the restaurant, passing the crowded dance floor.
Then had come the Hatry business. He should have known then. He should have listened to William Goodridge. Now his mother lay dying and he was virtually broke in that they owed the bank thousands. But with Mother gone the house would come to him. If he sold that… Seconds later he was wishing himself dead for the thought that had smote him.
Half an hour later his mother passed quietly away. And he wept.
Seven
A vast change had come over Henry Lett these last six months. Not that he allowed it to show before his customers; he was the same with them as he had ever been; smiling, friendly, accessible and sociable, ever attentive to their little confidences, ready with a laugh and a witty aside. They still loved him.
With his staff he was a different man: sharp, carping – often over the smallest of errors – harassed and grim. At their home – Grace preferring Swift House these days to the hubbub of London and wanting to be near her own family – he was sulky and easily irritated. Unable to cope with his changes of mood, she turned even more toward Hugh, now a handsome toddler already displaying the spirited wilfulness of his Uncle Geoffrey, difficult to handle except by his mother whom he adored and whose gentle nature he could twist around his littlest finger.
Unable to cope with the excuses Grace made for him, Henry spent nearly all his time in his old flat over the restaurant or harassing his staff as he brooded on what might have been and on the repercussions from his failed venture. The bank leaned ever more hard upon him as the months progressed, tired of his palming them off with meagre amounts from the profits the original restaurant brought in, now seeking repayment in full of their loan.
Troubled, he’d had a blazing row, all over some little thing, with his head chef, Sampson who, having had a better offer from P & O Shipping Line, quit to perform his considerable skills aboard one of their liners. His replacement was as skilled but not as flamboyant and his dishes were to Henry’s mind not as imaginative as Sampson’s – another pinprick to add to all the rest in his side.
He was still unable to come to terms with his bitter disappointment, unable to share it with anyone. After half a year of bearing it all alone, it was to William that he spoke, in sheer desperation needing to lighten his mind, though even William could not possibly help materially.
“I don’t know for how long this place is going to go on,” he told him dismally, standing with him in the spot where they usually exchanged the odd comment, the balcony, in a way finding it more convenient to discuss matters of the restaurant gazing down at it rather than in the office. Odd how easily he could confide in this man, almost as an equal, a man who’d listened to so many confidences from him and in his way had quietly and unobtrusively solved many of them.
What Henry Lett didn’t know was the fear his words had brought to the other man, who was presently seeing the great restaurant folding and he himself being thrown on to the dole queue. After all he had achieved, all he had worked for. In that moment his anxieties were every bit as great as those of his employer.
“The bank is
climbing on my back,” Henry continued. “I’ve managed to stall them so far, but all I seem to be paying back is the interest on what’s owed. I can’t keep up. Nearly all the profits from this place go to pay back the loan, yet it still isn’t enough. Now they’re clamouring for it to be paid up in full or else. I’ll have to find thefrom somewhere. But where from, I don’t know.” He gave a sigh, preparing to move away, his chest for the moment lightened by the confession.
It struck William, in the midst of his shock, that Henry Lett never referred to the management as “we”. As if his brother – and partner – did not exist.
“What does Mr Geoffrey say to all this?” he ventured in vain hope that perhaps Mr Geoffrey who, it was said, spent money as though it were no object, might have the answer if consulted.
Henry paused in taking his leave, gave a despondent, if slightly whimsical shrug. “Little point talking to him. He insists it’ll all come right in the end. I’ve told him that the bank will be quite within its rights to foreclose on us if things go on too long. Had the other restaurant been going, they’d have been paid back well before now.” There was another great sigh and this time his shoulders drooped. As if to support himself, Henry put his hands on the gleaming brass rail of the balcony, letting them support his body. “They’re saying if I don’t come up with at least half of what is owing within one calendar month, they’ll call in the whole lot. I know what that will mean. I’m at my wits’ end.”
Trepidation flooded an even greater deluge through William’s breast. “You mean you could lose the restaurant?”
Henry smiled wanly, gazing down at the place he loved. “Ironic, isn’t it? A going concern. And they’re willing to destroy it all – for their pound of flesh.”
“Can’t you still float the company on the stock market?”
“The only offers with the size of that bank loan looming are the big men looking for a majority share. My father would never have allowed that. The business going out of the family – Mother would turn in her grave.”