by Maggie Ford
It being late February, and the weather far colder than in England, he had bought her a Persian lamb coat into which she sank cosily. Geoffrey thought of everything, even the pair of “Ritz Imperials”, up-to-the-minute rubber gaiters that fitted over evening shoes to protect them from the wet pavements where the snow had melted underfoot. For five days out of seven it had snowed, the remaining two being dull and overcast. But it didn’t matter. She was with Geoffrey – an arctic blizzard, a full hurricane, the world coming to an end could not have spoiled it for her.
Bad weather or not, New York was a breathtaking place, at times a little alarming. It was hard for eyes and senses to adjust to towering buildings; brash, noisy, crowded streets; everyone seeming to be in a perpetual hurry to be somewhere else, ignoring the newly arrived passengers from the great Mauretania. But, Geoffrey told her, New York had taken in arrivals from every comer of the earth all its life, so why should it stop for them?
By the end of their stay she’d become a tiny bit disenchanted by it all. True, everything glittered and sparkled; Times Square and Broadway were lit by a confusion of animated electric signs that reflected off the wet pavements in a glorious shimmer, a million jewels at her feet. Yet people hurrying by with heads down saw nothing, distracted by their own need of privacy as they leapt on and off single-decker buses or into the rattling, blaring taxis. Outside the Plaza horse-drawn hansom cabs clattered; everywhere music boomed; no one dreamed of speaking quietly, instead shrieking as if the listener were fifty yards away. Caught up in the bustle, Mary had learned to be private, her eyes only for Geoffrey. She too took little note of those around her, bent on their own pursuits, or of the occasional shadowy bundle huddled in a doorway, or an alley close to the warmth of a street grill that issued steam into the chill air. She learned to ignore the passing figure that dragged its feet, bent into a threadbare coat against the cold – she, who had herself felt the ache of poverty and unemployment only a few years back, forgot, as often with those newly risen in the world, to think of the joylessness so recently left behind, saw only her own glittering future, perhaps fearing some sense of guilt should she pause to reflect on the less fortunate. Like the New Yorkers it was easier to avert her eyes, even if conscious of doing so, for life was so rushed, too rushed to stop and think. And the crowds helped take her mind off it.
Private parties were a wow! It appeared that Lyndon and Barbara had friends in Manhattan, and they had invited Mary, Geoffrey and the other couple to two on Park Avenue which turned out to be quite large. Prohibition being of little concern as long as no one tried to buy drink outside, they got “kinda wild”, as one New Yorker remarked. Jazz was far more the rage than at home, and Mary, leaping and gyrating at the Cotton Club in Harlem, had found a talent she hadn’t known she possessed. Geoffrey had been hard put to keep up with her or keep her to himself.
“I don’t like you making free and easy on the dance floor with every man you see,” he’d told her several times, and she had prinked herself all the more, happily enjoying his jealousy, it proving his love for her, her prior and brief disillusion with New York diminishing.
Now it was all over. They were heading home. But there was no need to think drearily of that awhile, with life on board resuming its endless round of fun – as good as, if not better than on the way out for she was now at ease.
Now able to vie confidently with the next woman – in this, at least, New York having taught her a thing or two – Mary Lett now knew herself the wife of a prominent and successful London restaurant owner, every bit as good as any one of them.
There was much to keep passengers happy on the homeward voyage, especially the few shops that, small though they were, stocked high-priced, up-to-the-minute fashions for wealthy first-class passengers who would not dream of buying anything less. As if Mary hadn’t enough clothes, she fell in love with an exquisite evening dress in shot green brocade and silver lame with dramatic slashed sleeves that she could see would fan out as she walked or danced, complete with one of the new bandeaux in matching green and diamante that so suited her new short hairstyle.
Catching sight of it as she and Geoffrey strolled arm in arm through the shopping area prior to the Captain’s Dinner the second night out, she pulled back abruptly as the dress caught her eye, and clutched Geoffrey’s arm excitedly.
“Oh, darling, isn’t that exquisite? Can’t you just see me in that?”
Geoffrey smiled indulgently. “Don’t you think you’ve enough clothes?”
“Nothing that everyone hasn’t already seen. I simply can’t wear the same thing I wore to the Captain’s Dinner on the way out. People would notice.”
On the way out, her dresses had been conservative, her tastes still modest. She now felt ashamed of them, New York having done something to her that was now beyond repair. “Oh, darling, it’s a dream,” she pleaded. “Oh please, Geoffrey, can’t I have it?”
He bit his lip over a hasty reckoning of resources which were getting alarmingly slim, he having somewhat underestimated the cost of this honeymoon. But his restaurant was booming. He’d recuperate his expenses in no time. He relented, and seconds later Mary was trying the dress on without one glance at the price tag as the glorious garment slipped over her figure as though made for it.
In a week her tiny bulge had grown quite pronounced, she noticed. Staring at it with dismay that morning as she stood naked before the mirror of the dressing-table in her cabin, Geoffrey had come to stand behind her to see her body from her viewpoint and had put his hands over the tiny swelling.
“It suits you,” he said. “Makes you look quite seductive.”
She hadn’t prinked and blushed, hadn’t replied. What would he say when she was seven months, all bloated and distended and half the size of a house?
But the Molyneux dress, cut to drape, did a marvellous job of hiding what showed at the moment. On that point alone it vindicated the extravagance and Mary closed her eyes to the cheque Geoffrey passed to the woman who had attended them.
She wore it at the Captain’s Dinner, the resultant turning of heads proof enough that once she’d had this baby, she, on Geoffrey’s arm, would virtually take London by storm. She would be the talk of the town and he would gain even more patronage because of it. She intended to see Geoffrey the most talked about, the most seen, the most sought-after man in London.
Thus she dreamed as she attended on-board parties, moved sylph-like through the ornate first-class dining-room to their table, enthusiastically participated in endless deck games or lounged in comfortable chairs on the upper deck. Out of the cold wind, she lay snuggled in her Persian lamb coat, a deep-crowned hat pulled down over her ears and a cosy plaid wool rug pulled up to them for all that the sun shone quite warmly approaching England. Later, and in the huge, domed first-class ballroom in one of her beautiful ankle-length evening dresses, she was aware of eyes turned again and again in her direction. She was learning her part well.
It was good to see Geoffrey looking on with pride and in their honeymoon suite they made love every night of the five-and-a-half-day crossing, he less intimidated by the baby she carried as it began to appear that love-making wouldn’t harm her.
In all this time they hadn’t once discussed the future, too full of each other. Now, during the last night before docking at Southampton, Geoffrey spoke of it as she lay in his arms.
“When we get back,” he said, “I’ll have to find a flat for us.”
That was fine; she was happy with that. But he went on, “The only thing that worries me is that I might not be able to be with you every single day for a while.”
A small void immediately made itself known somewhere inside her as she worried that, having married her, having had the most fantastic honeymoon with her, Geoffrey was now content to leave her to herself, his duty done. That couldn’t be.
“You don’t mean to leave me in a flat all on my own?” she protested.
Geoffrey smiled. “Well, I shall get you a maid and a cook.”
But when she looked at him, glum and scared, his face broke into a grin and he added quickly, “And when the baby is bom we’ll have a nurse to look after it while you and I go out and about and enjoy ourselves. You’ll meet all sorts of people, Mary, I promise.”
The relief that washed over her as he kissed her, gently, tenderly, with all the love that she realised afresh he possessed for her, was itself almost as excruciating as the dismay a moment before.
“I do love you, Geoffrey,” she whispered. “I love you so very much.”
“And I love you,” he said, lightly, and kissed her again.
Twelve
Henry glared at his brother from across the library. “So you’ve hidden her away.”
“I haven’t hidden her away,” came the affronted reply, prompting Henry to make a great play of staring around the library, gazing past his brother to the wall beyond and saying with flippant sarcasm, “Well, I can’t see her.”
The remark was childish and not what he had intended to say, but Henry was angry. His brother had floated in minutes ago, brightly asking where Mother was as though he hadn’t a care in the world. No thought to how she would receive him. As a matter of fact she had already seen him driving up in a smart new Calcott – Geoffrey always had over-expensive tastes – and had withdrawn to the morning-room, her face stiff, saying that she would consider whether or not to greet him when he felt inclined to come and see her. Henry knew what that meant. Geoffrey would have to tread carefully in regard to the marriage alone. In what way would he approach the even more important matter of Mary’s pregnancy, if he dared to do so at all? Henry could see his present bravado letting him down.
“I’ve got us got a flat,” Geoffrey was saying doggedly.
“You mean you’ve got her a flat. Bit sordid, isn’t it?”
“Why sordid?”
“If it wasn’t, I’d have thought you would have been a bit more open and honest about it all, brought her with you to meet Mother, the grandmother of her child, when it’s born.”
“You haven’t told her anything, have you?” Geoffrey burst out.
Henry almost grinned. “About your marriage, yes, as you asked me to. About Mary being pregnant, most definitely not. Bad enough having had to break the news of your skulking off to get married like some blasted thief in the night. Mother was utterly shocked and very, very upset. How do you think she’ll be when she learns you had to get married?”
Geoffrey’s lean face clung to its stubborn expression. “I shall tell her. In my own way. In my own good time.”
“And when will that be?” Henry’s taut shoulders sagged and he drew a cigarette case from the inside pocket of his casual jacket. “Best not leave it too late,” he warned through a wreath of smoke as he lit up.
* * *
William, waiting impatiently for Mary’s return after her week away from work, saw it stretch into two and then three. At the end of the third week, growing ever more concerned, he went to her home and knocked on the door.
He knocked several times but there was no reply. Mystified, he walked away, all sorts of reasons for her non-appearance going through his head. Perhaps the conference had taken longer than expected. But surely not this long. And wouldn’t she have written to him – a small note at least – telling him what was happening, hopefully saying she couldn’t wait to get home and see him? Had she been taken ill? But bad news travels fast and he’d have been told. Had she taken her aunt on holiday? No one had answered the door.
For a short while he contented himself with that possibility, but by the time he reached home it had been swept out of his head as ridiculous. Mary hadn’t that kind of money to throw away. She earned better wages than once she had, but it still wasn’t all that much – certainly not enough to go away on holidays with – and as well as that, she was saving hard, like himself, so they could get married. Anyway, it was March. Who ever went on holiday in March? And surely she wouldn’t have gone without letting him know what she’d intended to do. Something must have gone wrong. Had she had an accident? Was she lying in some hospital way up north? Was she…
With a gasp, William struck that last, foolish thought from his mind. If anything bad had happened, he would have known; everyone would have known. No – it was nothing like that. But it was mysterious, and after the first pangs of anxiety, he began to feel annoyed, then angry. She had no right.
“Don’t worry about it,” his father said when he confessed his feelings. “It’ll all turn out to be nothing at all.” But his mother said, “Still, she should have let you know, love. Now come and eat your dinner.”
* * *
“Heard the news, young Goodridge?”
Samson stood before his quarry, legs astride in a posture he always adopted when about to enjoy himself at another’s expense.
William, in no good mood with no word yet from Mary, well into her fourth week of absence, gave Chef a belligerent glance as he came into the kitchen to collect an order.
“Heard what?”
“That gel you were sweet on, going around with. I heard she went and got herself married.”
“Sorry, Chef?” William took hold of a dish of Duchess potatoes in one hand and one of mixed vegetables in the other. “I haven’t got time for games.”
Samson ignored his terse reply. “To the boss. Didn’t you know?”
Now William stopped, so sharply that he nearly lost his grip on the mixed vegetables. “What’re you talking about?”
“About that Mary Owen who used to work here in my kitchen. I s’pose we should call her Mrs Lett now. Mrs Geoffrey Lett.”
“This some kind Of joke?” But a weight was growing in his chest.
The head chef’s grin vanished. He almost appeared sorry at the look on the other’s face. “I thought you might’ve known, young’un. I thought maybe you and her had parted company. You don’t talk of her, do you? Anyway” – he brightened a little – “that’s the news. Little Mary Owen went off a few weeks ago and has come back Mrs Geoffrey Lett. Sorry if that’s been a shock to you, Goodridge. I thought you and her… well, you know. Go and ask someone if you don’t believe me.”
He wasn’t sorry at all, only taken aback, perhaps, by the look William guessed must register on his face, for he felt it himself: blank, cold, flesh stiffening as though in death.
Without a word, William turned, and balancing a dish on the palm of each hand, pushed through the swing doors and into the restaurant.
His body reacting automatically, for his mind seemed incapable of thinking, he went through the process of serving and clearing away, moving to the beck and call of diners though his ears hardly heard what was said, merely that requests seemed to be conveying themselves somehow to him.
But Eustace Emmanuel, the head waiter and a very exacting man, wasn’t happy, his hands animated. “Hurry. You are far too slow. You dawdle, and we are so busy. Ees it you have a late night last night enjoying yourself? I tell you: you do not perk up, I see you not keeping your position.”
Will was normally quick and efficient, and around six weeks ago Emmanuel had recommended he be trained to serve dishes other than vegetables – another small step up the ladder that had overjoyed William, seeing his salary about to rise. Until now, judging by his superior’s smile, he had managed to please.
“I’m sorry,” William responded, only half his mind on the apology.
“There ees no time for sorries,” echoed Emmanuel. “Two wrongs make no rights. So move more quickly, please.”
William moved more quickly. Too quickly. Haste coupling with thoughts that remained elsewhere, he spilled a couple of peas into the lap of a lady diner, an actress from a nearby theatre. Fortuitously, she benevolently waved away William’s apologies, saying as she flicked the tiny green orbs off a skirt of the same colour, “It’s only a pea, dear man, no harm done. I’ve had worse on me, darling – haven’t I, Edgar?” The question full of connotation, her escort saw the joke, though not before Emmanuel, his eyes on his trainee
the whole time, had taken a more sombre note of this bit of clumsiness.
William’s mind returned to the shock of the news about Mary. Hardly able to believe it, telling himself he couldn’t believe it and that after work he must seek the truth, he managed to blindly bump into a rather corpulent man pushing his chair back and getting up to seek the gentlemen’s toilet. The silver tray of starters destined for another party of diners wobbled precariously. Thankful that it didn’t crash to the floor with a clang loud enough to startle the whole vast restaurant, he counted his blessings as the man chuckled heartily and said, “Whoops, me lad!” in a jovial sing-song fashion. “Nearly had a fine mess on our hands,” he continued and decently allowed him by before getting out.
William, seeing his station head waiter frown, resolved to put all else out of his mind but his job, and realised he hadn’t even apologised to the fat man as any good waiter should have done, whether the incident was his or the customer’s fault. Again he pulled himself up sternly.
Obviously not sternly enough. Minutes later he fumbled a serving of sole a la bourguignone so that the fish broke over the edge of the plate, to the intense irritation of no less than Mrs Pansy Lambert, a regular and much-cherished customer. Wife of Alfred W. Lambert, a well-known money-lender and millionaire, she was not given to a sense of humour, merely a sense of wealth. Unlike the jolly, rather voluptuous actress with the peas, the voice of the millionaire’s wife shrilled angrily across the restaurant, causing other diners to pause in their conversation and crane their necks towards the suddenly raised voice.