Affairs of the Heart

by Maggie Ford

  He had already been confronted by the family for his failure, his own sisters quick to reproach him. They were ready enough to enjoy the profits but as soon as things went wrong, the first to complain, offering no help at all. But for Mary’s selfless act, they’d all have been finished. It was only right to express his gratitude with more than a mere thank-you after all she’d done for him. But all they saw was him taking money from his own brother’s ex-wife. They couldn’t see how close they’d all come to losing the family business and, it seemed, neither did Geoffrey.

  “So now they have a say in our business – a woman of no account and some paltry employee?”

  “She was your wife, Geoffrey,” Henry reminded harshly, exhaling a savage cloud of cigarette smoke. “Surely you’ve more respect for her than saying she’s of no account. And Goodridge isn’t some paltry employee. He’s the restaurant manager, the husband of someone who sacrificed all she had—”

  “Which I left her with,” spat Geoffrey. “Not to bloody well piss up the wall! I bet she knew what she’d get out of it. You don’t throw that sort of money around without knowing you’re going to get something out of it.”

  Henry felt himself beginning to lose his temper. “She did it with the best intentions, Geoffrey. After what she’s done for us, you should go down on your knees to her. But for her, the wife you bloody divorced for another woman, you’d now be without a bean. The bank would probably be taking everything we’ve got.”

  It was a point he had put to him and their sisters at the emergency meeting, drumming it in until they finally had to capitulate.

  When he’d first told his sisters what he intended to do, they’d refused to countenance it, their reaction: “What if the restaurant suddenly begins to make more money than ever dreamed of? This person, this employee, will reap a fortune. A fortune! Our fortune!”

  Speaking as though they were being done out of millions, they each had ten per cent of the company, which wouldn’t be that trifling an amount if Letts ever reached the giddy heights of becoming one of London’s top three or four restaurants. If it ever happened it probably wouldn’t be a private company any longer but be floated on the stock exchange as most sizeable businesses were.

  Fighting them around the table had taken it out of him. As principal shareholder, if he couldn’t call the tune, who could? His father had left Mother the controlling interest. On her death, he as her eldest son had come into the majority share while Geoffrey, whom she’d never truly forgiven for having married a girl from their very own kitchens against her wishes, received significantly less. He’d never got over it, his pitiful rebellion being to absent himself from the restaurant as much as possible. The remainder had been divided between Maud and Victoria, still keeping the business in the family. So why should making a gift of a few of his own shares to William Goodridge, whose wife had done so much for them, be so important to everyone?

  Puffing at his cigarette, Henry watched Geoffrey’s pacing. “Ours has been a family concern from the very beginning. It was how Father wanted it.”

  Devoid of expression, Henry stubbed out the smouldering butt. He felt heartily sick and tired of his brother’s carping. “I notice you weren’t so hot about it remaining a family concern when you were for us expanding. You were willing enough then to float this family concern on the open market – you could hardly wait.”

  “That was different. A second restaurant would have given us an even better standing in the world.”

  “Except that it didn’t work out.”

  That was another thing which made him feel sick, the recollection of all that enthusiasm, all the high hopes, all the money ploughed into it, the humiliation in seeing it all come to nothing, them owing thousands into the bargain.

  Geoffrey gave him a baleful glare. “And whose fault was that? What matters now is you giving away the family firm.”

  Henry sighed. They were just going round in circles. “Geoffrey, we’ve been through all this. If you’re so hot under the collar about it, you should have said something at the board meeting instead of coming here moaning about it after it’s been done. Had it not been for Mary—”

  “I don’t want to hear about Mary,” burst out Geoffrey. “What matters is the bloody cavalier way you went about it.”

  “Damn what I did! I’m talking about Mary.” Riled at last, it didn’t occur to him that their raised voices were being heard all over the house, that the staff were creeping about, ears keen so as to regale one another later with what each had heard, and that upstairs Grace had put little Hugh, with whom she’d been building coloured bricks, away from her, and was hurrying down to the library where the voices were becoming ever more heated.

  “Victoria might agree. Maud might too, after you soft-talked them. But I still don’t. You think you own the whole bloody firm. I’m seeing our solicitor, seeing if he can do something about it.”

  “There’s nothing you can do, Geoffrey. We owe our financial lives to Mary. You agreed to me doing what I did. Now it’s done.”

  “I’m damned if it is! And she can take back her damned hand-outs.”

  “If you mean Mary, speak of her by name. It’s the least you can do. It was for you as well as for me. For us. You’re beholden to her.”

  “I’m damned if I am. Scheming bitch! I know what she’s after.”

  If anger could be said to be white hot, that was how it came, Henry’s eyes blazing. “Take that back, Geoffrey!”

  “What? That she’s a scheming bitch? She always was. That’s how she got me. And if I’m right, she’s after you now. Probably wants the big fish. That husband of hers – it’s you she’s after, you mark my words. Sacrificed all she had? Christ, she could reap a fortune. Dangle a sprat in the water to hook a big fish. I know her sort. I learned about them the hard way!”

  “Take that back, Geoffrey,” bellowed Henry, “or I swear I’ll land you one!”

  It was to see these two glaring at each other, on the balls of their feet, fists clenched, that Grace opened the library door. But at her interruption each seemed to freeze, eyes turned to her on the instant while Grace stared from one to the other. Her gaze came to rest on her husband.

  “My dear, what’s going on?”

  For a moment she sounded like their mother, and each moved away from the other with a crestfallen expression, anger dissipating.

  Henry was first to recover, adopting a tone of reprimand bom out of sudden embarrassment. “Grace, go back to Hugh. We’re talking business.”

  His expression must have frightened her because she turned and hurried away, closing the door after her. But Geoffrey wasn’t done yet, for all his voice had become somewhat subdued.

  “You should have spoken to me first before taking her money,” he blustered on, though the power had gone out of his attack.

  Henry’s own voice moderated. “I couldn’t reach you.”

  “You should have waited until I came home.”

  “The bank wasn’t prepared to wait.”

  “There’s such things as cables.”

  “And where would I have sent it? You’d floated off as usual on some whim – you and Pamela.” He had never liked Pamela, had tried to bring himself to, but always failed, the woman sharp and tart with a tendency to look down on people less wealthy – “tradespeople”, a term she loved to use for those like himself, her family’s wealth – what some called “old money” – inherited down the years. Geoffrey had done well there, though whether she looked on him in that same light, Henry didn’t know nor care.

  He was beginning to feel riled again, despite a resolve to remain calm, while Geoffrey began to rage once more, “It’s my business where I holiday.”

  “Not when you overlook informing us where you are,” he flung back. “You were the same with Mother – getting married without telling her. I can understand her never forgiving you. As a director of this firm, you’ve a duty to let me know where you are.”

  “I’m not a bloody prisoner to report
to you wherever I am.”

  Geoffrey’s voice, rising, sounded petty. Henry thrust it aside, battling to keep his own voice even.

  “It was only because of that Naples earthquake and you deigning to grace us with a cable saying you were unscathed and only slightly shaken up that we knew of your whereabouts. By that time, Mary had stepped in and given me her ultimatum about the shares. Something in return for—”

  “Her ultimatum!” Geoffrey cut in. “Using the jewellery I gave her to wiggle back into the family. I can see what she had in mind even if you can’t – getting back at me. That’s what she’s doing. Wangling that husband of hers into the business. Making fools of us all.”

  “Not at all,” Henry defended heatedly. “As far as I’m concerned Mary is still connected to us by her marriage to you. She wanted to use what you left her in order to provide us with a way out of that mess. And that’s what she has done.”

  Geoffrey’s eyes had narrowed with suspicion. “Are you sure it’s not something more than you thinking her connected to the family by my marriage to her? Though divorcing her did away with that. But I know you fancied her. Does she have something over you? Does she?”

  Henry found himself turning abruptly away, fumbling agitatedly for another cigarette. “Don’t be so bloody stupid,” he burst out as with shaking hands he lit the thing. “She’s a married woman.”

  “Why should that stop you?”

  Again a wish to thump his brother. Yet to attempt to would merely lay his own soul bare. How could he reveal the truth? Truths have ways of resurrecting other truths, truths that need to remain buried. Should it get back to Mary that he’d engineered William’s marriage to her in order to save his own reputation…

  “I couldn’t see the place go under,” he said instead. “All this fuss over giving someone a few shares as thanks for a good deed!”

  Geoffrey gave a derisive snort. “A good deed. Huh!”

  Henry turned to face him squarely. “It didn’t come out of your pocket, Geoffrey. But for Mary there’d be no restaurant left for anyone.”

  He’d been dumbfounded when William had come to him to say that with the jewellery Geoffrey left her on their divorce Mary had been able to raise two-thirds of the amount needed to pay off the bank; that the bank would be lenient and let the rest be paid off later. Embarrassed, he’d protested that he couldn’t take such a sum from her and insisted that if she’d told him what she was doing he’d have prevented her doing it.

  But he knew why she had done it. She still loved him enough to make such a sacrifice. Instead of lightening his heart, he’d been mortified that her marriage to Will had made no difference to her feelings for himself; that Will, generous to a fault, was the loser. He must know, or feel, that he was. An image of her and William together sprang into his head; the man trying to please, to satisfy; the woman smiling but not returning that love as much she might; the man frustrated, trying to cope because his situation told him he must; turning his back, trying to sleep. Which of them lay sleepless and staring into the darkness? Maybe both. “I can’t take her money,” he’d said lamely.

  William’s voice had been forceful. “You have to. You can’t hurt her twice. She’s done this thing for you. Take it. Unless you want to add more to the harm you’ve already done her.”

  “It leaves you both with no nest egg for the future,” he’d said.

  William had become ill at ease. “No need to feel anxious. She wants something in return. For me to be given a few shares in the restaurant.”

  The relief that flooded over Henry had surprised even him. Mary, at last feeling her feet, had become tough. Indeed, he’d felt a stab of admiration for her. Had he not granted her wish, would she have withdrawn her offer and seen his beloved restaurant, his life, taken from him? He still wondered about that.

  Geoffrey’s voice brought him back to the present situation. “I’m not happy about all this. Not one bit.”

  Henry lit up another hasty cigarette to cover the entreaty in his own tone. “Do you think I wanted it this way? Just remember, Geoffrey, it was your ex-wife who saved us.”

  “With my money,” Geoffrey reminded acidly. He was stalking towards the door. There he turned and looked balefully back at his brother. “If you think I’m going to thank her, however, you’ve another think coming, old man. As far as I’m concerned, she’s done nothing for me. If you enjoy eating humble pie, that’s up to you. But remember, brother, with this selfless little act of hers, she’s got you just where she wants you. Though what you two’ve been up to for her to be so bloody generous, I wouldn’t care to guess.”

  Guess all you like, Henry thought with a caustic sense of the ironic truth behind that departing remark as the door closed sharply leaving him alone in a now silent room.

  Stubbing out his barely begun cigarette, he stood gazing at the golden freckling of dust motes caught in the shaft of sunlight from the tall windows, then went and took another cigarette from the ebony box on a small table, entirely forgetting the one he had this minute put out. Throwing himself into the winged leather armchair, he lit up, sending a cloud of blue smoke wafting upwards to mingle with the shaft of dancing dust caught in the August sunlight.

  Mary would never hold anything over him – she cared for him. He felt the stirring of longing deep in his stomach. He still loved her but she was beyond him now. He had done that all by himself too.

  * * *

  “Sorry, Mary.” William’s posture exuded apology. “Late night again.”

  She looked sleepily at him over the top of the counterpane, drawn up to her chin against the freezing chill of December, for all the flat was excessively warm, as ever. He was always complaining of the flat being unbearably warm. She sat up, looked at the bedside clock then back at him.

  “One night, Will,” she said, unsmiling, “I am going to get your bed sent over to you.”

  “I said I was sorry,” he whispered, moving towards her to drop a kiss on her proffered cheek, still creeping on tiptoe though there was no need. Helen, in her own little room, would not hear him if he were to walk normally on the carpeted bedroom floor. Tiptoeing was a sort of deference he always adopted for coming home at three in the morning.

  The kiss accepted, she sat back on her pillow. “You could pop over to let me know you’re still around. It’s only a couple of minutes across the way. Or telephone to see if Helen is all right. Or me. That takes only a minute.” Stripping off his black jacket and waistcoat, he put them carefully on hangers in his wardrobe, undoing his bow tie and unbuttoning his shirt and trouser fly, turning his back on her to clamber out of the rest of his clothes. “Christmas in a week. Not had a minute. People already celebrating.”

  “Yes, I know that,” she conceded lamely.

  He got into his pyjamas. “Getting busier each night. Festive season.”

  “I know that too.”

  With William moving off into the bathroom, still with exaggerated care, to brush his teeth and have a quick wash, Mary let the palm of her hand move reflectively across her lips to her cheek and the nape of her neck. More than half a year had gone by since Henry had given him those shares. Talk about Greeks bearing gifts! They had in their own way virtually fettered Will to the restaurant, his whole time now given over to it. He spent so much time there it seemed as though it had become his very soul.

  Whenever she pouted at his being so seldom at home, he’d laugh off her fear that she was losing his love for her and say, “I love you, Mary, every bit as much as when I first saw you. It’s for you, for all three of us that I need to give so much time to the restaurant. It will get better, I swear, then you’ll have me all to yourself again. And I’ll have you. I can’t wait, darling.”

  Left to care for Helen, for the flat – little of that with a daily coming in – preparing meals for herself and Helen, he most of the time eating at the restaurant, she couldn’t help but fret. Often she recalled days when she and Geoffrey hardly saw the inside of their home except to give part
ies. What parties they’d been. What a marvellous life it all now seemed.

  Not that she and Will didn’t live well, but the social world she’d once known had gone. With Helen she’d wander along to Oxford Street, Regent Street, Mayfair, Kensington, looking in the shops, seeing the rapid changes in fashion. So much had altered – skirts were now calf-length, frills and feminine curves had returned, hair grown longer and Marcel-waved, make-up less dramatic than once it had been, less harsh, a woman again looking like a woman and not like some immature boy.

  Aware of how the fine new styles put to shame what was still being worn by ordinary women, current fashions for most of them an unaffordable luxury, she’d buy herself something in one of the fine shops like Harrods. Often she would come away wondering what had been the point when there was nowhere to wear it these days.

  “You shouldn’t mope around the place so,” William said when she spoke of boredom. “Get a nanny in to look after Helen and go and seek out some of your old friends.”

  But she had no old friends – not ones she cared to see.

  “What about the women in this neighbourhood? They’re a nice class of people.”

  But women in this neighbourhood lived their own lives, had their own social set, went out with their husbands, their children left in the care of a resident nanny or one they’d hired from an agency. She could have done the same had Will kept reasonable hours and had he not been too tired to take her out when he did come home.

  “Then join something. There must be ladies’ clubs around here,” was his argument. “You’ll soon find new friends there.”

  But she wanted him, to be introduced to his friends the same way that Geoffrey’s friends had become hers, until the divorce when they’d all drifted away.

  It was no use – so full of his own life, Will was incapable of seeing how isolated she was becoming, the kind of associates he was making not encompassing her. He’d tell her about them when he was at home, these last twelve months having become involved more and more in the running of the restaurant.