by Maggie Ford
All smiles, the affectionate sister-in-law, but refusing a cigarette or a drink, she came straight to the point.
“It was nice of you, Henry, to help Geoffrey out on Saturday. But he was a little upset at the way you treated him. It was hurtful. He tried to explain but then you began threatening him. Why, for God’s sake?”
Her assumed innocence made him feel instantly truculent. Something needed to be said, whether he suffered for it or not. Through a protective fog of cigarette smoke, he told her flatly that he wasn’t seeing Mary any more and that between the pair of them they’d end up draining the business dry. “If it goes under, there’ll be no more money to give you.”
A slow smile spread across her face as she sat at ease in one of the leather armchairs of the sitting-room, her slim, well-manicured fingers drumming casually on the chair arm. “Then it’s up to you, Henry, to make sure it doesn’t.”
He was pacing the floor, puffing continuously. “How the hell do I do that?” He saw her look around the room with its collection of fine porcelain, bronze and silver ornaments, its tasteful furnishings, expensive furniture.
“You manage to do well enough yourself with this lot.”
“How do you expect me to live? In a hovel? Grace would certainly ask questions then, wouldn’t she?”
“It doesn’t bother me what the hell Grace asks. You can live in a hovel or here, as you please, so long as you see your brother all right, darling. And by the way, I can’t see as you not seeing Mary makes any difference.” She got up abruptly. “Well, I haven’t time to chat. Just be sure my Geoffrey isn’t made to feel his visits aren’t welcome. I have his best welfare at heart, you know, like a loving wife should. OK, darling? Kisses, then.”
Pursing her lips towards him from a distance, she was gone, leaving him seething and hopeless, wanting desperately for someone to help lighten his load and finding no one. Not even Mary now.
* * *
Monte Carlo was bathed in sunlight beneath a cloudless, deep blue sky. Geoffrey looked about him. The pavement outside the Cafe de Paris was crowded with the fashionable set taking tea, bright umbrellas tilted against the sun’s intense heat, the chink of teacups and the babble of voices filling the still air with a concerted hubbub. Not one empty table to be seen. Geoffrey clicked a thumb and middle finger twice in quick succession at a passing waiter. On his way to serve someone else, the man instantly deviated and came over.
“Isn’t there one single damned empty table here?”
“Two people zere, m’seur, leaving zis seconde.” The man indicated with a brief nod of his head and continued on his way, winding expertly through the throng, loaded tray held high to miss every head, swaying and tilting with the agility and grace of a ballet dancer, a joy to watch.
“Bloody man!” Geoffrey swore. He felt rattled. He’d just lost somewhat heavily in a brief spell of roulette, certain he had felt a winning streak coming on or he wouldn’t have bothered so early in the afternoon. Pam had said he was pushing his luck, he’d got annoyed with her and now she had gone silent on him. When he’d asked if she fancied afternoon tea outside the Cafe de Paris, she had shrugged, tight-lipped, but had followed him just the same. Bloody girl!
“As much as he could do to be civil,” he railed to Pam as they sidled between the busy tables towards the indicated couple, now getting up to leave, laughing with each other. “Cocking his bloody head like that. Not even bothering to show us to our table.”
“Oh, shut up!” Pam hissed. The couple having moved off, she sat down. “The man was busy. Couldn’t you see that? The world doesn’t stop for Geoffrey Lett because he’s lost a bit on the tables. You’ll get it all back by tonight.”
“I bloody well hope so.” He sat down next to her, squinting against the white glare of the casino opposite that even in September reflected heat back on to the crowded pavement. Simply everyone who was anyone was here or in places like it: the London season over, they had all flocked to the South of France. The English weren’t the only ones; American voices filled the air with nasal twangs and Hollywood film stars mingled with the smart set and locals alike, brash and friendly. There were Germans too, wealthy members of the new regime, certain of themselves, boasting of their Fṻhrer, what he’d done for their country. Insufferable. The place was no longer what it once had been.
Glancing away from the bright glare of elegant buildings, Geoffrey scowled at the as yet uncleared surface of the neat little bow-legged wooden table. “Can’t seem to win anything these days. Why doesn’t someone come and clear away this bloody mess?”
“Give them a chance. And for God’s sake, Geoffrey, do shut up. And anyway, I don’t know why you’re so churlish. So you lost a few pounds. There’s plenty more where that came from. Just pop off a telegram to Henry.”
Geoffrey glowered. “I can’t keep on worrying him.”
“Yes you can,” Pam said confidently and smiled at the approach of a couple with whom they’d become friendly, the Channons – rich, prosperous friends of royalty.
She made room for them as they came to sit, they calling, “Hello there! Had a good morning? We’ve been swimming. Delightful, sea’s as heady as wine. You to the casino later?” To which Pam nodded firmly.
* * *
Christmas Day this year was spent with just Will, Helen and herself. Henry had asked Will to take over the restaurant for him on Boxing Day while he spent it with his wife’s people at Grace’s bidding. Geoffrey and Pam were away too. Naturally. So Boxing Day saw her and Helen on their own.
Will’s parents had suggested she and Helen go to them but Mary felt, perhaps a little masochistically, that she rather wanted to wallow in her own company and gracefully declined, saying she’d be too tired to go out after preparing for the day before and, anyway, she’d have to be up early next morning, needed at Letts’ reception desk.
It was a fib. She went seldom now, only if the place was extra busy, which wasn’t often these days. Boxing Day would probably be busy, though nowhere as brisk as it had once been, Henry still appearing to have lost all interest in it. With so many other fine places around, the Dorchester, the Ritz, Claridges and the Savoy among them, attracting visitors from America and the Continent with plush offerings, Letts had become rather left out.
There had been a brief hope of recovery during the weeks leading up to the coronation of George VI in May, but business had dropped off rapidly after that. During the London season, some of the fashionable set still loyal to the old name of Letts had again patronised it for a while, but that spurt of bookings had been brief too, not enough to sustain any momentum with Henry displaying little enthusiasm still. It was mystifying yet Mary felt unable to approach him as she’d once done. He seemed so depressed of late. Whenever Mary had a chance to speak to him she had to be careful what she said, not only to avoid any reference to the old days of their Friday evenings together and the love they’d once shared, but to the predicament of the restaurant itself. Touchy, he read criticism into every word, even Will no succour for him these days. Not only was the restaurant going down and down but he too. Nothing she could do to help him, and she wanted so much to. Sometimes she wanted to run away screaming, anything to relieve the tension that hung over them.
Busy or not, she saw no reason to put in an appearance this Boxing Day. Henry not being there, what was the point? And she had a filthy cold that had arrived a few days before Christmas. It had been a miserable Christmas, she trying to keep away from Helen in case she caught it, trying not to hug her too much when she’d run to her in excitement about the toys that Father Christmas had brought.
Kissing Will goodbye, Helen still tucked up in bed, a place Mary too felt more like retreating to, she went back to huddle before the blazing gas fire and think dismal thoughts. The loss of Henry’s companionship on Fridays was still hard to bear. Over a year had gone by and she still yearned for him. Sometimes when she did work she’d catch him looking at her with pain in his eyes and she hoped he didn’t detect t
he pain in hers. Just as well they no longer met – it would have been only a matter of time before others had realised their secret and provoked an awkward situation. But she pined for the past, for their Fridays, even for those clandestine meetings in the office.
* * *
Mary had long ago ceased to have anything to do with the office side of things. That was in the hands of a very competent young man, loyal as the day was long. In the staff room, where those unable to get home for lunch ate, she would often sit with Mr Collins.
In February 1938, sharing his table, she noticed he seemed bothered. “I’m just wondering just how much longer my job here is going to last,” he said when she asked him what was the matter.
“What do you mean?” She took a small sip of her coffee.
Simon Collins was toying with his cheese sandwich. “I’m wondering just how much longer this place’ll keep going the way things are.”
“Of course it’ll keep going. It’s been going since the middle of the last century.”
“Things just aren’t right.”
Mary put down her coffee cup. “Things are a bit dull at present, yes. But they’ve been so before. You don’t have to talk of losing your job.”
Collins put down his sandwich and looked at her. “Miss Goodridge.” He called her “Miss”, the recognised title for married women who worked. “I pride myself on being good at my job. I like to think I am. I run that office. I am in charge of accounts, I supervise the filing, the correspondence, the post, and my staff are loyal to me and honest. But now and again there are some figures I do not understand, not discrepancies, but the accounts do not always appear to balance as they should, and it worries me and causes me loss of sleep that a finger of suspicion might become pointed at me. More, I am aware of sums made out to Mr Geoffrey’s expense account – for no good reason, as I can see – and at times it seems outgoings far outstrip incomings. Unreasonably so, and that isn’t right. And it all has to do with money to Mr Geoffrey. What does Mr Henry want with such sums for his brother?”
He broke off guiltily. “But it’s really none of my business. I shouldn’t have spoken except that I’m worried this place is going to fall down leaving me with no job.”
“No, say what you’re thinking,” Mary urged, but he shook his head and, picking up his tea and plate of cheese sandwiches, and getting up from the table, he paused to look down at her.
“Shouldn’t’ve said what I did. Breach of confidence. Please excuse me, Miss Goodridge.”
Leaving her staring after him, he went to the tea counter and there drained his cup and, picking up his remaining sandwiches, put the plate on the counter and made for the door leading back to the office.
After that he seemed to purposely avoid her, saying he had finished if she came to a table he was sitting at, or using one of the other two if she was already sitting down. It was an attitude that planted suspicion in her mind, despite the fact that she did not know exactly the content of that suspicion except that it somehow smacked of something not quite in order and which somehow involved Geoffrey. It wasn’t her place to go poking her nose in, yet it seemed imperative she find out. To delay the matter could spell awful trouble.
All Mary could think of was finding a way to confront Henry himself without seeming too inquisitive. Even that was fraught with problems, but something told her that he needed help. The trouble was, would he welcome help from anyone, especially an outsider as she seemed to be these days?
Fourteen
There was only one way. To bluff, tell Henry to his face that she knew what was going on and hope he might confide in her. They having been so close at one time, he owed her that much. But what if there was nothing to confide? When it came to it, misgivings filled her that not only was she about to stick her nose in where it wasn’t wanted but that she could be barking up the wrong tree. Yet he was looking harrassed lately. Something had to be wrong.
She found him eating in the little side room off the kitchen where he usually snatched the occasional meal if the place was busy. Today it wasn’t busy. He could have gone up to his own quarters for a more leisurely lunch with his wife. Mary wondered why he hadn’t – but she wasn’t here to wonder about such idle things.
It struck to her as she came in at his bidding to her tentative tap on the door that he had become instantly tense, a guarded, even defensive look on his face as though he had been expecting someone whom he had no pleasure at seeing. Finding her there, his smile was visibly one of relief.
“Mary! I thought—” He stopped abruptly, then stood up from the table and hurried to pull out the chair opposite him. “Come and sit down. You don’t mind me carrying on eating, do you?”
He was being too light-hearted as he went back to his meal; far too devil-may-care compared to the attitude she’d first noticed. Henry had never been devil-may-care, unlike his brother, and she had always felt warm and safe in his presence, had always felt him to be trustworthy and honest even though since the break-up of their affair the tension between them had lingered for all their outward friendliness towards each other. At this moment, however, she was aware only of the furtiveness that this past year or so had come to dominate him, and this present gallant attitude did not sit well with her.
Made immediately uncomfortable by it, she decided to come straight to the point as she sat down on the chair he had pulled out for her.
“I’ve been talking to Mr Collins in the staff canteen. He seems worried he might lose his job.”
Henry regarded her, a strained smile on his lips. He did not look well, hadn’t looked well for quite some time. There was nothing specific about him, just an ageing and drawn look, though he was still as handsome as ever he’d been. Her heart still flipped over whenever they met, ached that they were no longer lovers, burned with hope that one day it would again be as it had been.
“Now, why should he think that? He’s a good man. I can rely on him one hundred per cent. He knows his job inside out.”
“Maybe a little too inside out.” The remark flew out before she could stop it and she saw Henry’s smile change to a frown making him look even older and more strained.
Of course he should look older. He was nearly forty. But until lately the years had improved him – there had been hardly a line on his face, and a certain composure that helped to heighten still more the confidence he had always instilled in people. These days, however, he had become nervy and agitated, only just managing to contain a sharpness towards others that, surfacing at unguarded moments, took them by surprise and, being unexpected, hurt all the more. Mary herself had more than once this past year felt the sting of his tongue, and for her it did hurt, knowing how gentle he had always been with her.
Now she was deliberately putting herself in the direct path of it. She told herself she must be mad as she faced the frown that was at once querying and censuring her remark. She hurried to give it substance.
“Mr Collins is an astute young man. Very little escapes him in that office. And now he is deeply concerned.”
“And he told you that.” Henry’s tone was harsh. “And told you his reasons. I should have expected such an astute young man in a position of confidence to have kept confidences pertaining to my business to himself. He rather disappoints me.”
Realising that she was inadvertently becoming the instrument of the poor man’s dismissal, Mary hastened to rectify the harm she might have done him. “But you’ve just admitted that he is a good man.”
“I’m beginning to wonder. People have a way of surprising one.”
Ideas of tackling Henry on his mysterious overspending dissipated as she hurried to reverse what seemed to her the possibility of the office manager’s livelihood being destroyed. “It was just a remark he passed without thinking because he was worried at the amount going out in excess of what’s coming in. He was concerned that the place might go down and he be sacked.”
“He most certainly will be after this.”
“No, Henry, pl
ease.” His tone frightened her. “It’s my fault. I’ve made more of it than I should. Don’t take it out on him. I came to you because I’m worried – for you. Tell me what’s wrong. There is something wrong, I know.”
“There is nothing wrong.”
“Don’t give me that, Henry. I know you, remember? We weren’t lovers for all those years for me not to know you. I have your child to prove it.”
She held his gaze as he looked up at her. She saw his eyes narrow, grow hard and accusing. “So you too want to blackmail me.”
“Why would I want to do such a thing?” But tiny wheels had begun to spin in her head. “Henry, what did you mean when you said too? What’s going on? Is that why so much money is going out? Because you’re being blackmailed? I know the money is going out. Mr Collins wouldn’t be so worried about the possibility of the restaurant going down and down if it wasn’t. I’m surprised your accountant hasn’t noted that more money is going out than coming in.”
She didn’t know that Henry’s accountant had already pointed out the fact, Henry fobbing him off that the more exorbitant outlays were Geoffrey’s expenses as the company’s representative abroad. It not being an accountant’s place to forbid overspending, he had merely warned Henry to take more caution.
Geoffrey had also come into Mary’s mind. One who spent money like water, always in need of funds. She remembered how he had spent on her when they had been married, boasting that he could always get Henry to advance a bit here, a bit there. Henry had always been there to help him out of a spot and sometimes she had felt Geoffrey had taken a little too much advantage of it. But surely he’d not blackmail his own brother. What reason had he to?
“Who is it doing this, Henry?” She ignored his bluster that no one was on his back. “Why are they doing it? What is it they’ve got over you?”
The look he gave her in answer to her last question stabbed her like a knife through the heart. In that instant she knew it involved herself as well as him. She racked her brains but could only think that Geoffrey could know nothing of her affair with Henry unless Henry had told him – and she was sure he wouldn’t have done that. He had made a point of wanting to keep their relationship secret. But if Geoffrey had somehow found out, would he stoop to such an evil thing?