by Maggie Ford
Christmas dinner, as with Christmas lunch, sumptuous though it was, was quiet. Their mother, never one for talking at table, spoke even less these days. Afterwards she and her daughters repaired to the lounge, she to gaze into the blazing log fire there, they to nibble chestnuts, sip sherry and chat, mostly of old times. Maud’s children were sent up to the old nursery to play with their Christmas toys, the menfolk retreating to the library for male conversation, brandies-and-soda and cigars, windows shut against the freezing cold outside. The room reeked of cigar smoke despite Mother’s preference to have the windows open at least a fraction in order to help lessen the odour.
Boxing Day was a mirror image of Christmas Day, except that his eldest sister Maud was with her husband’s people, making the gathering even smaller and duller. Henry found himself wishing for the solitude of his own flat where he could look out over the rooftops of London and feel the peace of a winter’s evening extending way above all the excitement and upheavals of the human race, all looking forward to a new year, 1925, a week from now, with no thought to what trials and tribulations it might bring along with the joys each person hoped for. His excuse that at this particular time of year he should be keeping an eye on the restaurant growing more busy than normal had cut no ice with Mother.
“They can do without you,” his mother had said when he mentioned his intention to leave after lunch. “Surely you can trust your own restaurant manager to get along without you being there. That’s what you pay him for.”
She must have become very out of touch – though she had never really been in touch, except through what her husband had told her – to not even know the name of the restaurant manager, the most senior of their employees. Father had left her a third share in the business but she refused to have anything to do with it; had trustingly, or wearily, handed the running of it to her sons knowing they’d look after her and not wishing to be bothered with business. Her life was here and when Henry mentioned getting back, she was quick to jump.
“I need you here much more, Henry, today of all days. You are the only son I feel I can turn to since we lost your poor father.”
“There’s Geoffrey?” he said bravely. He saw her lips tighten and knew he had gone too far.
“I hear hardly a word from him these days. I have not closed my doors to him but he behaves as though I have. I cannot speak for his movements. Nor do I wish to.”
In the face of this inflexibility Henry didn’t feel brave enough to extend the argument a second time round and his mother in turn abruptly changed the subject.
“Henry, when are you going to find yourself a suitable young lady? It bothers me that you are twenty-six and still unmarried. I know little of your private life but surely from time to time you meet some nice young ladies.”
“I lead a rather quiet life, Mother,” he excused himself. “I like it that way.”
She looked at him sharply. “Well, you have no business, liking it that way. Not at your age. You should be going out and meeting people – as I suspect your brother does well enough. Too well, I imagine.”
“That’s his business,” Henry said sullenly.
He was dying for a cigarette. He wanted to escape his mother and her awkward questions and go somewhere out of the way for a quiet smoke. But having warmed to her new subject, she seemed loath to let go of it.
“But you should be seeing a little life, not staying cooped up in that horrid London flat. You need to begin thinking on your future, marriage – to a girl of some standing who can bring something into the business as well as children.”
God, not that again! She had harked on this on and off for the last year or so. Now she was bringing it up again – coupled with the one name she never failed to bring up.
“Young Grace Chamberlain is still unmarried you know. The daughter of one of your father’s oldest friends. He still visits to me, the dear kind man, and he and his wife convey me to church in their car every Sunday without fail. If you were here more often you would get to know her much better. She was the loveliest débutante I’ve seen in a long while, and such a sweet girl. I’m forever amazed that she hasn’t yet been swept up by someone.”
Yes, he knew her, and she was a lovely girl, would have stirred his heart had it not been already touched by Mary. But Mary was married to his brother. He’d have to turn his glances towards someone else one day. Grace Chamberlain could be that someone. Yet something always stopped him.
“Eighteen months since the dear girl came out,” his mother went on. “A long time for a young girl to not have a suitor. I’m sure she refuses them because she has her eye on you, Henry.”
A discreet tap on the morning-room door interrupted her. Atkinson came in, looking first at his employer then at her son. “There is a telephone call for you, Mr Henry, in the library.”
Something about the man’s expression alerted Henry’s sixth sense that he must not ask in his mother’s presence who the caller was. “Thank you,” was all he said, and with a small dip of his head towards his mother to excuse himself, hurried out after the butler.
In the hall he asked Atkinson who it was.
“Your brother’s wife,” came the quiet reply. “She sounded agitated.”
Picking up the earpiece balanced on end beside the longstemmed telephone, he put it to his ear and heard Mary’s voice. It sounded frantic.
“Is anyone there?”
“It’s me, Henry,” he replied.
“Oh… Henry…” It sounded as though she was weeping. “I had to ring you. Marianne’s in hospital. Geoffrey’s there. They say it’s diphtheria. She had a cold. At least, we thought it was a cold – Dr Posford said it was – but she was incubating diphtheria and we didn’t know. She’s so ill. I think she might… I think she’s going to… Henry, she’s so ill…”
Her words, which had been tumbling out in a continuous gabble so that he could hardly catch all of them, broke off.
“Mary, calm down,” he instructed.
By now he himself was hardly calm, his heart racing. “I’ll come over. Do you want me to come to the flat or go to straight to the hospital?”
“I’m at the hospital now.”
“What one?”
“King Edward’s.” In a dither she explained where it was, ending, “Henry, please, hurry!”
Returning to the morning-room, his heart thumping like a hammer in his chest, he told his mother. Her expression did not alter except for a rapid blink or two of her eyelids.
“Why should she want you? Her husband is with her. Isn’t that enough?”
“I think it’s Geoffrey who wants me there,” he said hastily, but it did occur to him as he drove that it was strange that Mary should ask him to go to her when she did have Geoffrey there.
* * *
The parents were at the bedside when he was shown to the isolation ward where Marianne lay in a single room. Through the glass he saw a tableau that made a stone of his heart – the motionless child’s face on the pillow, Mary crumpled over her, Geoffrey with his arm around Mary, his face buried in the nape of her neck.
Neither moved as he went in, the nurse silently closing the door behind him. The air was still and full of the feel of death. There was no need to confirm what he was seeing. Standing to one side, he felt useless, empty, was already weeping inside at Geoffrey and Mary’s grief, mostly at Mary’s, she so utterly tom down.
He wanted with all his being to take her in his arms and comfort her. But all he could do was stand by, his chest tight with misery.
* * *
“Mr Goodridge – are you all right?”
William came to himself with young Edwin’s voice in his ear. For a moment he stared at the young man as he fought to get his bearings. Good God! Where had he been? He made an effort to smile.
“Yes, of course, lad.” His tone sounded strained. “I must have gone off into a world of my own for a moment.”
Had it been a moment? Or had he been sitting here in his dream of the past for s
everal minutes? Or had it been several hours? In his mind it had been half a decade. It came as a shock to become aware, not of the genteel clatter of cutlery and the continuous babble of soft voices against a background of soft 1920s music, but the thump of the juke box, the brittle clanking of glasses and harsh, hurried chatter of a busy lunchtime pub.
“I’m sorry to have gone off into a daydream,” William said hastily, and smiled. “A fault of age, I expect.”
Edwin gestured away the statement, making William realise that the boy had no idea of all that had gone on during that decade. How could he explain? It was important to do so. Perhaps he should try.
It suddenly seemed imperative he did tell him about those days when to the young and wealthy the years had been one long summer and they the gorgeous butterflies that, without concern or understanding for the less privileged who squirmed below them, flitted here and there in the warmth of their own bright sun, sipping a little of this, a little of that, quite unaware that when their long summer finally died, most butterflies would too.
He had to make Edwin understand – and this time he wouldn’t go off into silent reverie but relate how it was, the pitfalls awaiting a butterfly, how they could fall prey to the unexpected, how harshly life could treat even the most privileged, and maybe it was worse for them, for in their acceptance of being privileged they hadn’t noticed the traps which the poor always saw looming.
Maybe there was time to explain a little more to Edwin so he would see what a wonderful place Letts had been and could be again, and be taken by it.
Next in The Lett Family Sagas:
Affairs of the Heart
An emotional saga of love and second chances, perfect for fans of Katie Flynn and Rosie Harris.
Find out more
About the Author
Maggie Ford was born in the East End of London but at the age of six she moved to Essex, where she lived for the rest of her life. After the death of her first husband, when she was only 26, she went to work as a legal secretary until she remarried in 1968. She had a son and two daughters, all married; her second husband died in 1984. She wrote short stories from the early 1970s, also writing under the name Elizabeth Lord, and continued to publish books up to her death at the age of 92 in 2020.
Also by Maggie Ford
A Brighter Tomorrow
A Fall from Grace
A New Dream
The Lett Family Sagas
One of the Family
Affairs of the Heart
Echoes of the Past
First published in Great Britain in 2000 by Severn House Publishers LTD
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2021 by Canelo
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
31 Helen Road
Oxford OX2 0DF
United Kingdom
Copyright © Maggie Ford, 2000
The moral right of Maggie Ford to be identified as the creator of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781800324381
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Originally published as Butterfly Summers by Elizabeth Lord
Look for more great books at www.canelo.co