by Maggie Ford
“Well, he acts as though he’s eighty.” Mary intended having the last word. Someone was fiddling the books. Someone who knew how useless the old retainer had become. “Henry ought to get rid of him. I bet a younger man would find a discrepancy or two somewhere.”
“Henry says he hasn’t the heart to dispense with him.”
“What about Geoffrey? What does he say about it?”
“I haven’t seen him for weeks. Neither has Henry. No good turning to Geoffrey for anything so long as his share of the profits comes rolling in. You should know him, Mary. You were married to him. He doesn’t care a fig so long as he knows the money is there to spend.”
Since the collapse of Henry’s hopes of expanding the business, Geoffrey had acted as though Henry had committed the most heinous of sins in using the cash from the sale of her jewellery to get the business out of trouble, and in showing the gratitude to create William a shareholder. Recently he had all but melted into the background, almost a sleeping partner. With no mother now to lay down the law, he did as he pleased while Henry worked himself like a slave. Not that Letts obliged anyone to work like slaves; it seemed to have the power to shackle the hearts of such as Henry and William willingly. It even shackled her, who’d had no dealings with its running in recent years. Now, however, hearing how little profit was coming in despite all Will and Henry’s hard work, William remarking that it seemed to him there were more overheads than he thought there should be, Mary was intrigued.
“Has anyone spoken with the office manager?” she asked. When she had worked in the office the then manager’s eyes had hardly ever lifted from the accounts. It seemed this one was more engaged telling his employer that places like Letts naturally create a great deal of outgoings and that in his opinion much of it stemmed from the present head chef – who, he continually hinted, was not half as capable of ordering as wisely as Sampson once had. “Not everyone’s a Mr Sampson,” appeared to be his favourite remark.
“When someone starts laying the blame at someone else’s door,” Mary observed as Will donned his black waistcoat and jacket, ready to leave, “it’s time to take a look at the one laying the blame.”
Will gave a short laugh. “Perhaps you should install yourself in the office,” he challenged at the door, “a lady Sherlock Holmes. Solve the crime!”
There was mild sarcasm in the tone, probably not intentional, but she rose to it. “You never know, I might do that,” she said huffily, presenting her cheek for him to peck.
Closing the door after him, she went to pour herself another cup of tea, Helen still sleeping. Mary stood by the table, sipping her tea, deep in thought. But her thoughts had moved from the situation of the behaviour of finances to those of emotions.
The thoughts assailing her were of the night she and Henry had made love. That night had been repeated the following week, causing her to scoff at her fear, but it had proved to be the last time.
The week after that had seen the general election, a landslide for the National Party, a complete rout for the Labour government, every member of the former Cabinet having lost his seat bar one. But Mosley’s New Party had been completely destroyed. Disillusioned, Will stopped attending meetings, which Mosley nevertheless continued to hold, as tenuously as a bulldog unable to let go of the tattered remains of the seat of a pair of trousers long after the wearer had fled.
It all meant, of course, that a crestfallen William stayed home after work, giving Henry no more opportunity to call on her. She ached for Henry’s touch, and in desperation allowed Will to make love to her, much to his surprise and joy. But it was hard to respond. Closing her eyes and imagining it to be Henry helped, that alone making her come alive and gasp with short-lived pleasure. If Will knew he would have been so hurt. The last thing she would ever want to do was hurt him. But oh, how her heart cried out for Henry.
Mary put her teacup down sharply as both meditations, financial and emotional, came together in a blinding flash of brainwave. Will’s jest was the answer. Were she to coax Henry into having her on the staff, whether she helped in solving the unaccountable loss of money or not, she’d be near him, he sneaking off from the restaurant, she waiting in the darkened office. It brought memories of how she and Geoffrey had made use of that place – but this time there would be no one to walk in on her, for it would be Henry himself making love to her and Will had no cause ever to go up to the office. Henry’s wife away or contented in the penthouse with her young son, their hideaway would be perfectly safe. The thought made her insides twinge with anticipation, her need of him an agony.
To her joy he was all for it, aware without saying what her being there implied. A nursemaid was found for Helen, and Mary took up her old job as a comptometer operator, the new office manager with no idea who she was. During the next year his darkened office after everyone had gone became the rendezvous for a brief joyous half-hour whenever Henry could get away from the restaurant.
“If there’s any underhandedness going on here,” Henry whimsically remarked on one occasion they were together, “it’s us.”
Mary had laughed, but there was a serious intention to do what she could to uncover any dishonesty. After all, no company survived long once a crook found a foolproof way of milking its finances. If she did uncover a culprit – and there had to be one – Henry would be so proud of her. It was for his sake she was doing this. There was also a matter of personal acclaim in proving her worth, not just as his mistress. In this she felt so much happier.
“You don’t seem to mind my being late as much as you used to,” Will told her after his customary apology for being late home. “You’re looking a lot happier lately. I’m glad.”
Indeed she was happy. There were times of course when she wished she was married to Henry, and she would feel that wish weigh heavy on her. But one thing she did know – her affair had taken away the humdrum aspect of marriage to Will and in some odd way had actually improved it.
* * *
William couldn’t help but relish the change in Mary. No longer did she fret over his long hours of work, nor was she as cold towards him as she had been. Whatever had brought about this improvement in her, he thought best not to question it.
Always at the back of his mind was the pact he’d made with Henry Lett all that time ago. Neither he nor Mary ever mentioned it, other than that once when she’d voiced her suspicions. She had never asked outright and he in turn kept well away from the subject, but sometimes he couldn’t help wondering what her true feelings on the matter were, for although she had never shown any bitterness towards Henry, he sometimes wondered what really went on deep in her mind.
Less and less was he looking at Helen and seeing only Henry’s child. Three years old now, she often felt like his very own – she certainly knew him only as her daddy – until he was brought up sharply by the memory of Henry’s startling request. Four years since he had asked Mary to marry him and she’d accepted, but did that love she’d had for Henry still linger? He wasn’t prepared to ask.
Once, quite recently, he had made the mistake of enquiring. She had looked at him as though he’d asked her to put her hand into the fire, and had then become upset over something totally unrelated.
But this past twelvemonth she had been so different. He had always been very conscious of the lack of that which usually binds a marriage. It had hurt, but loving her, he had lived in hope of something more than mere affection being awakened in her one day, hopeful that with understanding, patience and tenderness he’d get her to love him and to forget Henry.
In all else she was a good wife. In the circumstances of this marriage he had no right to ask for more. But the change in her over this past year had given him hope. She laughed with him more and seemed much less upset when he was too tired to take her out anywhere.
Perhaps it was being at the restaurant again that had improved her outlook. Women in her position, of course, did not work and he preferred to call it “business”, she contracted to winkle out a v
illain. Once the person was exposed, her job would be done. But the best thing to come of it all was that Mary had become so much more loving towards him.
Ten
“Henry, I’ve found it!” Mary practically fell into his arms in her eagerness to tell him what she had discovered.
All this weekend she’d been forced to wait, he away at his house in Halstead Green with Grace and Hugh – something to do with the christening of his sister Victoria’s new baby girl whom they intended to call Sheila.
It was difficult curbing her excitement at her discovery. She had told Will about it for all she’d been bound by strict confidence. He had warned her to say no more until Henry came back on Monday. But Henry hadn’t come back until this evening, by which time she was in such a foment of impatience that it had made her head ache. Now as he came into the empty office she rushed at him.
“Henry, I’ve found out what’s been happening.” Henry caught her as she hurried on. “The cash discrepancy. I’ve traced it to Mr Leeman.”
Henry’s amused smile disappeared. “You can’t be accusing him. He’s one of our most trusted people. No, Mary, you must have it wrong. He’d never stoop so low as to fiddle—”
“It has to be him,” she cut in, hardly noticing Henry’s sharp tone. “Your office manager. He’s been forging your signature and using Geoffrey as a sort of cover.”
“Geoffrey?”
Henry’s tone had become instantly sharp and protective, but Mary ploughed on eagerly.
“I happened to look in that stuck drawer of the old filing cabinet out the back. I forced it open on Friday night after they’d all left. It wasn’t stuck because of being broken. There was some cardboard jammed at the back, I think deliberately.”
She paused for breath then started again. “I discovered it had been thrown out because the filing clerk complained of it being so stiff to open and that you let them buy a new one. I was told the old one hadn’t been in use for at least eighteen months, but that Mr Leeman wouldn’t let it be taken away – said he might find some use for it. Well, it seems he did that all right. On Friday I thought of it suddenly, and it was like a miracle—”
“Darling!” He was holding up one hand to stop the excited flow. “What has all this to do with Geoffrey?”
“I’m trying to tell you,” she said impatiently. “You know Mr Leeman has to send off regular cheques to Geoffrey after you’ve signed them? I found some torn up and stuffed into that so-called broken drawer under a load of other old papers. I pieced them together. Each one had a mistake of some sort on it and been cancelled as null and void. Then I found a bit of paper with your signature done over and over again. He has been forging your signature, Henry. He’s been sending your brother a rewritten cheque, then making another out for himself, passing it off as expenses, and with the same date trusting it won’t be so noticeable. He knows how doddery old Beevish is getting. I don’t suppose Mr Beevish keeps as strict accounts as he once did. He should have been retired years ago, but I know you keep him on like some family retainer. And Leeman has taken advantage of his age.”
“I’m as much at fault as he is,” mused Henry. “I didn’t even bother to look into it. I took it for granted Beevish had it all in hand.”
“There you are, then,” Mary declared. “Leeman probably did it once and, when it wasn’t queried, got bolder. That silly old accountant of yours didn’t even notice. Leeman’s been skimming off a bit here and a bit there for ages. But with Christmas coming up, he got bolder. He’s probably been throwing away the deliberately spoiled cheques but forgot those he’d first hidden in case of trouble. I don’t know what excuse he’d have given if they had been discovered. He probably had one lined up. You ought to get the police in, Henry. And get them to look into his savings. I bet you’ll find it very rosy.”
Henry grabbed her to him, held her in tight embrace. “Mary, you’re a marvel! I’m so proud of you.”
That evening he made love to her on Mr Leeman’s own desk, sweeping telephone, blotting pad, ink stand and all else on to the floor, leaving them still lying on the floor when they left.
“That’ll give him pause for thought,” he laughed as he locked the office door behind them. “Now it’s over, our twice a week in this office must come to an end. What I’ll do is rent a little room nearby where we can be together in comfort. Now you’ve so cleverly solved this wretched business, you won’t be here any more. I don’t want our meetings to end here.” He kissed her long and hard. “I want you all the time, Mary…”
“No.” She broke away from him, leaving him staring at her. “Somehow this never seemed cheap or underhand. But renting a room especially for it would make it feel sordid. I don’t want it to feel like that.”
He stared at her through the darkness in surprise. “I’d never let you feel like that. I love you, Mary. I couldn’t go on without you. Are you trying to tell me you want it to be over?”
“Oh darling, of course not.” She too could not bear to think of her days with Henry no longer there to make love to her. “What I’m saying is, you’ll be giving Leeman the sack, without references, if he’s not sent to jail, which I think he will be. You’ll need someone else in charge of this office. Why not me? I’ve got used to working here again. To think of going back to being just a wife, a housewife… I’d die of boredom. And the misery of being without you. I want to continue working – here. I want to become something. Henry, please let me stay. I could do such a lot of good here. I could even manage the reception desk as well.” And why not? Not only was she still pretty but she had gained poise over the years. She’d be an asset. She was aware of her ability to turn heads, radiating a certain something – she wasn’t sure what except that it was that something the silent film star Clara Bow, the It Girl, had possessed. All three men in her life had told her that. Using that talent she would attract the customers. Men used to male staff all the time would welcome a pretty face here.
Her mind wandering, Mary became aware that he was laughing. “You can’t do everything, my love.”
Mary pouted. “I’ve been in the background for too long, Henry. I want you to show your gratitude for what I’ve done by letting me be seen in Letts, just as you expressed your gratitude when you made Will a shareholder. Do the same for me. Then you can find that room somewhere.”
For a moment Henry stared at her, then with the promise sinking in slowly, he relaxed, kissed her again, and whispered, “Mary, my darling girl, whatever you want.”
* * *
Christmas 1933, as with every year since Mary’s marriage to Will, was spent with his parents in their flat in Shoreditch. A sort of ritual, all his family in the one small front room, it was all about eating throughout the day, singing around the piano in the evening and playing cards into the small hours, finally leaving for home for a few hours’ rest before returning Boxing Day. She and Will never spent Boxing Day there, however, preferring to stay quietly at home.
With no family of her own she was always made warmly welcome. Her poise and accent, refined over the years, was of no consequence to these people who marvelled only over her and Will’s obvious well-being while his aunts crooned over the four-year-old Helen as they crooned over all the little ones.
“Oh, look at ’er little dress – all Christmas red. Ain’t she just a peach, though? Bet that dress and them shoes cost a bob or two.”
His uncles were loudly envious. “Done well fer yerself, Will. Look at them togs. Talk abart the Duke of bloody Monte Carlo!” Slaps on the back to go with it, while other relatives gushed over Mary.
“You look smashin’, luv. Where’d you get that luvly suit out of? Wish I could afford one like that.”
His dad, a little better off this year, one of the lucky ones to have found work, said to her, “Our Will’s done well fer ’imself. Who’d’ve thought it, him a restaurant manager? Always knew he’d get somewhere. Nice ter know that he’s got you be’ind ’im.”
She wasn’t sure if Will had ever mad
e any mention to his father of the sale of her jewellery helping to get him where he was – though given time, he would have got there under his own steam, she was certain. But she was glad at his father’s pride in him.
His mother, as usual, heeded nothing but her table being lightened of as much food as possible by the end of the day, proof of everyone having a good time. “Come on, luv, eat up. Another piece of chicken – more brussel sprouts – a bit more stuffing?”
But it was always noisy and hot and tiring. She had to admit to relief in having Boxing Day with just the three of them, Helen surrounded by her new toys, Will stretched out before the fire, for once not having to work.
New Year’s Eve was as different from Christmas as anything could be and something she always looked forward to. This one was as good as any there had been as the minutes ticked by to 1934 with a hundred or more invited friends and celebrities building up to the awaited crescendo, she not the least of them.
During the past year Mary had more than made her mark on Letts. After a few months on the office side of things getting the accounts up to scratch, the cunning Leeman having been given eighteen months for embezzlement, Henry, true to his word, had allowed her to try her hand on the reception desk. She had shone. Everyone who was anyone now knew her as well as they knew William or Henry, or – to a lesser extent of late – Geoffrey. It was as if she had never left the society stage, except that fashions and postures had altered, were less uninhibited, mannerisms smoother, life slower.
This evening on Will’s arm she was greeted as readily as though she alone ran the place, certainly as exuberantly as Henry, he with Grace at his side, pale and insipid beside the golden tan of Geoffrey’s wife.
Pamela cut a stunning picture. Tall, slim, breathtakingly beautiful: no wonder Geoffrey had fallen for her. There had been times when Mary felt she could never come up to her; when Geoffrey left, all her self-esteem had been stripped from her so that she had felt ugly and disgusting, no better than a discarded piece of cabbage leaf. But she had pulled herself up, helped by the two men that now mattered in her life, Will and Henry, both in their ways important to her well-being.