by Maggie Ford
Mary nodded, still gazing absently through the window. Letts had been going down little by little for more than eighteen months as far as she could see. At first it had hardly been noticeable; only thinking back had the slow change penetrated. But just lately, these last six months, it had accelerated until no one could help noticing.
It wasn’t just the restaurant, either. For her it was other things, small things. Henry’s long moments of broodingthey were together, growing more prolonged; his uncalled-for flares of brief temper, hurriedly apologised for, that shouldn’t have happened in the first place; the odd way he’d become uncharacteristically careful about what he spent, he who’d always been so generous-hearted, though not foolish with money as she remembered Geoffrey to have been. Henry was by nature a careful though never a stinting man, but his care had never manifested itself as penny-pinching which it seemed to be heading towards.
Last Friday came instantly to mind. They had gone to see Careless Rapture at Drury Lane with complimentary tickets given to him by Ivor Novello himself on that evening he’d celebrated the success of his opening night at Letts. For all Henry hadn’t had to pay for them, afterwards at the restaurant he’d still been so noticeably sparing in ordering his own meal, saying he wasn’t that hungry, that she’d felt it improper to order that much for herself. And hadn’t she seen pure relief on his face when handed the bill? That hadn’t been the only time. No longer was it the best restaurant, the most sumptuous meal, the finest wine. Not that she expected him to lavish his money on her, but it bore out Will’s observations this evening. And it was getting worse. But why?
So much had changed, but it had been a year of change all round. They had a new king, Edward VIII’s coronation set for next May. A sad-looking young man these days – she remembered him years ago so happy-go-lucky, every woman’s heart-throb, girls falling over themselves to be near him, his vulnerable looks and light voice making each of them want to mother him at least. The responsibilities of kingship, which he noticeably did not relish, seemed to have aged him almost overnight, giving him a drawn look. And there were whispers in closed circles of a secret love, a divorced woman, that might not go down well with the Royal Family or the country. In Mary’s head was the memory of the slim, elegant woman with whom the then Prince of Wales had had supper in one of Letts’ own private dining-rooms. Knowing the poignancy of forbidden love, Mary knew how he must feel.
Will rustled his newspaper noisily and, folding it in half, leaned across to show the page to her.
“Have you seen this?”
Obligingly she glanced at the section indicated, seeing little of the content in her disinterest except for a picture of masses of people seeming to be fighting. “I’ve not really had a chance today with Mrs Saunders gossiping on about her family as she worked.”
“It’s about some trouble in the East End yesterday. I wonder if my parents saw anything of it. It says this had been coming on for weeks.”
He scanned and then began to read. “‘A hundred thousand people thronged the streets and built barricades in an attempt to prevent a march by seven thousand supporters of fascist Sir Oswald Mosley through London’s East End.’ It says that lorries were overturned and bricks thrown at the police and through windows, and a Jewish tailor and his son were hurled through plate glass windows by Mosley’s blackshirts. Eighty people were injured, including police, and eighty-four arrested. Thank God I didn’t carry on with that man’s doctrines, especially with what Adolf Hitler is doing in Germany.”
The news was full of what was happening to Jewish people in that country; shops being burnt, they being attacked, many being herded into ghettos, their assets frozen and Germans forbidden to associate with them. That such vicious attacks could be happening here made her shudder.
“I don’t want to hear about it,” she said sharply, but one couldn’t put off knowing what was happening all over Europe.
Hitler was not only attacking Jews but last March had entered the Rhineland in defiance of the treaty of Versailles. The people there seemed to welcome him, but it did look rather warlike. Not only that but Mussolini, dictator of Italy, had invaded Abyssinia. Now there was civil war in Spain between the fascists and Government forces, the name “fascist” raising an ominous fear in people’s hearts, her own included, that all of Europe seemed to be teetering on the edge of some unacceptable upheaval, especially France with the Rhineland so near to her own border.
A happier event in August bringing a little light relief to all this awful uncertainty had been the Olympic Games, held in Berlin, which took away some of the trepidation. Mary wasn’t much interested in the Games and hadn’t missed not being there, but of course Geoffrey and his wife had spent the whole time there, living it up.
The puzzling thing was how Geoffrey was still able to spend money so freely when Henry was growing more tight-fisted by the minute, with the restaurant obviously suffering. Where was Geoffrey getting all that money from? Surely not always from his wife. Mary decided she’d tackle Henry on the subject next time they were together. If he was being too generous to his brother while Letts was going downhill, then he was being a fool and needed reminding that one could be too open-handed. And if he could be open-handed with Geoffrey then why not be a little more generous with herself who’d given and still gave him so much more than she gave any other person she knew?
She had no qualms telling him how she felt about it. After all, their special relationship entitled her to speak her mind. If she could share her body with him, it wouldn’t hurt him to share a little of his thoughts and concerns with her, rather than just his body.
Thirteen
It seemed all things stable were being swept away.
Last month the beloved Crystal Palace, a symbol of Victorian stability, had burned to the ground in one night. Instead of mourning its disintegration, thousands flocked like hyenas to see the spectacle, mile-long queues of traffic giving fire engines problems in getting through. Five hundred firemen had fought the blaze, London’s sky a lurid red.
Now the monarchy, England’s own unique heritage, seemed in danger of disappearing forever as Edward VIII’s voice, lightweight but laden with grief, came over the airwaves, which Mary, like every person in England with a wireless, had tuned into. “Dickie” was informing his stunned subjects in funereal tones that he found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge his duties as king as he would wish to do without the help and support of the woman he loved.
Mary wept at those final, faintly wavering words: “God bless you all. God Save the King.”
“Oh, Will…” Her own words seemed to abuse the silence that hung for a moment on those closing words, even though hers were whispered.
It was a terrible end to a terrible year, threatening to give no hope for the one to come, the pillars not only of British society dashed down but her own. Her tears were not only for a man renouncing his crown for the woman he loved, but more for the break with Henry, their happy Friday nights done with.
Will didn’t know that and came to cuddle her to him to comfort her.
* * *
It had been an entirely wrong thing to do, she knew that now. She should have shut her mouth the moment Henry’s grey eyes darkened, but she had gone on, puffed up with her intention of putting him and the world to rights, telling him what he should say the next time Geoffrey came asking for a hand-out.
“That’s what they are, darling, blessed hand-outs. How can you allow him to do it? It cheapens him and it cheapens you.”
She should have stopped there. They’d spent a nice evening together. She had learned to ignore much of Henry’s continued care with his money, telling herself that what mattered most was that at the end of the evening they’d make love. When Henry made love to her she could forgive him anything.
And so it had been that evening last Friday, except that watching him meticulously counting his change at the supper table, as though the waiter serving them had tried
to diddle him out of a couple of pennies, had been so humiliating that she’d remained upset all the way back to their flat. How could he show himself up in public so, stinting himself so openly, and her too? And all the while Geoffrey spent and spent and spent, every penny of it his brother’s money. Mary’s anger had grown so that by the time they reached the flat she could hardly look at Henry as she took off her street clothes.
“Want some tea? Or d’you prefer a proper drink?”
It was something she always asked, but this time her tone had been abrupt. He had looked at her questioningly.
“I’ll have a brandy, darling. What’s wrong, my sweet? You sound angry.”
Unbelievable how a row can come from so small a thing, the counting of change; how words that one had no intention of saying can leap into the mouth; how one small rock slipping deep in the bowels of the earth can devastate a whole city, out of control. That was how it had felt.
She had whirled on him. “I wonder you can bring yourself to afford a glass of brandy. Are you sure it won’t hurt your pocket?”
A week gone by – she could still see the pain, the bewilderment on his handsome face. But a brick wall couldn’t have stopped the resentment this past year or so of penny-pinching had caused her when he could have so easily put an end to it by telling his brother that there would be no more money forthcoming for his incessant spending. Before she knew it all her resentment had come pouring out. He had retaliated by telling her to mind her own business. And so things had escalated until she had screamed at him that he could keep his bloody flat and his bloody love and his bloody tight-fisted ways too, that until he could treat her at least as well as he treated his brother she wanted nothing more to do with him.
She had gathered up her handbag, her coat and her hat and had stormed out, Henry’s final furious words following her:
“If that’s how you feel about me, Mary, after all this time, then that’s it – you and I are finished.”
Whatever else he had shouted after her had been cut off by the slam of the door of the flat. All week they had avoided each other – or rather he had avoided her. Her temper had quickly cooled, and she’d have made it up with him, eager to be back on loving terms, but it was too late. For the first time in her life Mary was made suddenly aware of an underlying obdurate side to Henry, of the pride he fostered stopping him making the first approach. It came as a shock, having always seen him as malleable and good-natured, perhaps to a fault in that he gave in to his brother so readily. Certainly she had thought he was loving and kind enough to forgive her anything. But she’d hurt him deeply, even though to her the argument had seemed trivial, and because it had been his love for her that she’d wounded, he’d not get over it that easily. Unless she made the first move, it was over. Yet what if she would only reap rejection? That was what she feared more than anything else, for rejection meant finality while nothing being done at all held a certain comfort that things might come out OK in time. So she did nothing.
* * *
The weeks crept on miserably into the New Year. Now it was late spring, and still she had done nothing towards making up with Henry, fearful of making the first move only to find herself turned away. The lovely Friday nights they had shared had faded to a thing of the past. The abdication of King Edward in December had been an excuse to cry for the loss of love, hidden by Will’s humorous, innocent sympathy. She was trying to put on as brave a face as her empty heart would allow, but it seemed to her that Will had an inkling of what was going on. That he asked no questions helped emphasise that fact, though how he should know, if he did, was a puzzle. Herny would certainly not have confided in him about his affair with William’s own wife for all he confided most other things in him. Not that it mattered a hoot. She felt too miserable to care.
* * *
Sick at heart Henry fetched out his cheque book, his brother hovering with an expression of humble gratitude.
“I shan’t forget this, Henry. I’ve learned my lesson this time, really I have. It won’t happen again.”
Henry glanced up, his eyes flinty. “Yes it will. Lately it always does. It’s become an illness with you and it’s not as if you were a born winner.”
But Henry himself was, in a way, holding the key to this ready source of replenishment. Geoffrey had phoned him earlier this evening asking if it was convenient to come and see him. Henry knew all too well what that meant – the man was short of funds again.
Geoffrey always had liked a little flutter. Over the past year, however, this had become serious gambling, sustained by easily obtained money. For him it had become a policy of easy come, easy go. A brief phone call, like this evening, and then he would race up to London in his sports car to present himself at the door with the hopeful expression on his face Henry had come to know well.
“Pamela suggested I come over, said you’d help me out. Sorry, Henry, just a small advance out of my next remuneration, that’s all, if that’s OK? Pay it back soon, old chap, I promise.”
But he must know he was owing on his next remuneration already, in debt to the business by thousands. Thank God Grace wasn’t here to ask awkward questions, though Geoffrey always asked if she was there before coming over. Not that that ever stopped him, but if she was, at least Henry would be forewarned and ready to manoeuvre Geoffrey out of the way before she could indulge in awkward small talk after asking if he was well and how Pam was. Away from inquisitive eyes he’d write out the cheque, hating the sickening gratitude with which Geoffrey accepted it, as if he didn’t know why his brother was always so generous and patient. It would have been a whole lot easier to bear were Geoffrey’s gratitude not the lie it was. A satisfied smirk as he pocketed the cheque would at least have been honest – were there such a thing as honesty in blackmail.
This weekend, with Hugh away at school, Grace was at Swift House taking time to visit her family nearby. She invariably left on a Friday, his chauffeur taking her in the car, and would phone when she was ready for him to send the car back for her. Such weekends had hitherto been wonderful, he and Mary taking advantage of his penthouse for the odd moments together as well as their Friday evenings. Not any more. Yet Pam and Geoffrey remained on his back. Parasites, the pair of them.
It came to him as he watched Geoffrey fold this present cheque to place in his inside jacket pocket that, with he and Mary no longer meeting, Pam’s hold over him was considerably diminished. Immediately the thought popped like a bubble. It would still be there so long as there was the fear of Grace being told, even though it was over. Sometimes he wondered why it mattered. She was seldom here and when she was, she took little interest in him. It was the possibility of Mary being hurt that was his deepest fear. Shakily, he reached for a cigarette and lit it, savagely blowing out a cloud of blue smoke.
“Thanks, Henry,” Geoffrey was saying, his tone returning to entreaty over Henry’s previous remark. “You know, old chap, I do win quite a bit at times. I just had a small run of bad luck on this occasion.”
“Small?” Suddenly angered, Henry couldn’t help himself. “Fifteen hundred bloody quid in one go – you call that small?”
“I’ll pay you back.”
“Like hell you will! When have you ever done that?”
“If I wasn’t already owing it… These people are on my back and I am a trifle desperate this time. It’s quite a tidy sum. Afraid I slipped up, Henry.”
There was no need for all this fawning. He meant not one word of it. “So you’re in debt elsewhere,” he said sharply. “And like last time and the times before that, I’m expected to pay your damned debts. That’s taking a damned liberty.” Geoffrey was looking offended, but Henry, now worked up, pressed on. “I can’t go on financing your gambling debts, Geoffrey. You have to draw a line somewhere.”
“I know. But I was told the nag couldn’t lose.”
“Then you were told wrong.”
“I was winning. Those first three races went great. Just a bit of bad luck. I got carried aw
ay.”
Henry’s flinty expression hadn’t altered. “As always.” He sucked in more smoke. “Next time let me have some of what you owe me out of your winnings before it all goes, all right?”
There was no reply but Geoffrey’s face spoke for him. Henry’s temper was in danger of boiling over. It took all his will to hold it back. He was so sick of it all. It was making him ill. “All right, I’ve paid it off for you this time, Geoffrey, but that’s it. You get into any more debt gambling and you’ve had it with me. Do you understand? God! Can’t you see the way this business is struggling? I suppose not – you hardly ever show your bloody face. But the moment you need money, here you are looking like something one’s dragged penniless from the gutter. Stop throwing it away on horses and in casinos and start acting your age. You’ve got a wife and a son. Try to behave as if you have. I’m telling you now, Geoffrey, you get in debt again, you stay away, you understand? Or God help me, I’ll throw you out bodily.”
Geoffrey was moving towards the door, backing away from the look on his brother’s face. “All right, calm down. I’ll get Pam to sort me out. She’s a good girl. But thanks for this, old man. I will pay you back. I promise.”
Henry knew hell would freeze over before that promise was ever kept. He knew too that he could expect a visit from Pam. She would put his irate feelings into perspective and next time he would continue to pay Geoffrey what he needed. None of it bore thinking about and as the door closed behind Geoffrey he once again cursed the fool he’d been the day he’d fallen into Pam’s trap.
* * *
Her visit came on the Monday. He was upstairs when she called, and he thanked God that Grace had decided to stay at Swift House until mid-week.