Charles increasingly urged her to talk to the trustees about breaking the trust and moving into something smaller; she would have hoped he would be more helpful and positive. Summercourt should, after all, become his one day; didn’t he want that, she asked him, almost exasperated, at the end of a long Sunday when they had talked endlessly about it and surveyed the increasing ravages of neglect.
“Mummy, I have to be realistic,” he said, looking slightly hunted. “I don’t have any money; you know I don’t. I don’t earn a lot; Juliet wants to move into something better than a flat in Chiswick—”
“Which I presume Summercourt isn’t?” said Sarah coldly.
“We can’t come and live down here. I have my job, she has hers, and she would like to think about starting a family—”
“Which should have Summercourt as its home. Charles, I don’t understand you; you don’t seem to have any sense of Summercourt’s place in your life.”
“Mummy, its place in my life feels like an immense drain. Look, please try to understand. I’m sorry, and of course I love it, and I’ll be sad to see it go, but it’s simply making life harder for all of us, particularly you. We have to move with the times, and face facts.”
Sarah wondered how much of this speech had originally come from Juliet.
In the event, her parents didn’t come to the wedding. Two days before, Sarah rang to say that Adrian had had a couple of falls and was very badly bruised and with a possibly broken wrist. “He simply isn’t well enough to come, and I don’t feel I can leave him.”
Eliza was so hurt and angry she could hardly speak.
“Mummy, it’s my wedding day. Surely someone could look after Daddy?”
“No, Eliza, I’m afraid not. I understand Charles and Juliet are coming; they can represent us all.”
Eliza thought of the loving family she had grown up in and wondered for the hundredth time whether they really cared about her at all.
Not even the Marchants could come; they were away visiting relatives in Washington.
“But thrilled to hear about the baby,” Anna wrote, “and as soon as I get back, we must celebrate, the four of us. Enjoy being pregnant, darling; I never managed it, as you know.”
Eliza was rather sadly trying on her shoes the night before, and trying to decide whether to wear white tights or cream ones, when the phone rang.
“Darling? It’s Daddy.”
“Oh … Daddy. How lovely to hear your voice; you’re all right, are you?”
“As all right as I’ll ever be again.”
“Oh, Daddy. I’m so sorry.”
“Yes, well, this call isn’t about me. It’s about you. Listen, sweetheart, you have a lovely day tomorrow, and I would give anything, anything, to be able to be there and walk you down the aisle. Who’s going to do that for you, Charles?”
“Um … yes,” she said quickly, unable to face explaining that there wasn’t any aisle.
Charles had actually offered to “escort her” into the room, and she had accepted gratefully. It would be at least someone of her own.
“Good, good. Well, make sure there are lots of photographs.”
“I will, Daddy.” She smiled into the phone.
“And don’t worry about your mother. She’ll come round. I like your young man; I think he’s rather interesting and obviously going far. Take care of yourself, darling, and God bless. I love you.”
She took those words into the room with her the next day.
She took other things too: a sense of absolute happiness, and of rightness, and a heart so overflowing with love that when she looked at Matt, smiling at her rather tensely, it was all she could do not to rush into his arms there and then before any more of the ceremony took place.
The lunch at the Arethusa was great fun; Louise, who proclaimed herself honorary best man, made a very funny speech full of affection; Charles made a very touching one, saying how much he loved his sister and how he had always regarded her as his best friend—Juliet’s smile at this point became slightly strained—and Pete got very carried away and made a completely unexpected, unrehearsed speech, saying what a lovely girl Eliza was and how proud he was to have her in the family. At which point even Matt was seen to look distinctly moist eyed. And when Matt himself stood up and declared that he simply couldn’t believe how lucky he was to be marrying a girl who was “so completely special and who I love so completely much, nothing more to be said really,” Eliza burst into tears and sobbed for at least a minute on a slightly bemused Pete’s shoulder. It wasn’t a conventional wedding, and nor was it large or lavish; but it was, in the end, an extraordinarily happy one.
He kept reading it, thinking it would seem better as he got used to it. It didn’t.
Dear Mr. Fullerton-Clark,
I felt I should bring it to your attention that your current account is now overdrawn £2,500. This is, as I am sure you must be aware, a very large sum, and goes far beyond the £500 limit we initially agreed, and even the temporary extension to £1,000 which you assured me would be settled within thirty days. Please make arrangements to come and see me as soon as possible to discuss repayments, and in the meantime I regret I shall have no alternative but to return any cheques written on your account. As it is a joint account please inform Mrs. Fullerton-Clark of this also.
Yours sincerely,
John Winston
Manager, Sloane Square Branch
Two and a half grand, that was an awful lot of money. An impossible amount. How had he done that? Mrs. Fullerton-Clark, of course, had a great deal to answer for in the matter; that cocktail party she’d insisted they give, not to mention the endless tedious dinner parties, her bloody Harrods account, the holiday she’d booked “as a surprise” on the joint account, flying—flying, for Christ’s sake, and first class—to Venice for their wedding anniversary, and then, oh, God, the deposit on the house Juliet had found and fallen in love with near Guildford—maybe he could do something clever with the mortgage; now, there was an idea. It just crept up, month by month, the odd saving of ten or twenty pounds here and there hardly worth making, so he didn’t, but the worst thing was that insane gamble with those shares, which everyone had said were a dead cert—fifteen hundred bloody quid, worth just about a tenth of that now—anyway, he had to think of something. And talk to Juliet.
“But I just don’t understand. We’re so careful, don’t live at anything like the rate of our friends, hardly ever go out to restaurants, still haven’t joined the Ad Lib or the Saddle Room—”
“Juliet,” said Charles, “we are not careful. We”—he longed to say you—“are quite extravagant. Every month it’s the same, spending over what we can afford. I don’t want to spell it out—”
“Well, I think you’d better. Otherwise I’ll never understand—”
He spelt it out; she listened.
Then: “Well, you’ll have to ask your father. He can make you a loan.”
“Juliet, my father has no money whatsoever. I wish you could understand that.”
“I don’t, to be honest. Living in that great house with your mother’s grand family—”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake. That great house is falling down. There is no money to patch it up. My mother never even puts the central heating on; they’re stony broke. I don’t know where this idea came from that there was money in my family; I’ve told you often enough.”
“Well, obviously you didn’t make it clear. I don’t know what Daddy will say.”
“I don’t see what it has to do with your father.”
“Of course it does. You’re his only son-in-law; he’ll be so disappointed in you. And if you’re going to start buying shares, you’d better consult him; he’s made a lot of money, although I’d have thought with you being a stockbroker, you wouldn’t have made such a stupid mistake.”
“Oh, go to hell,” said Charles, and walked out of the house.
He made an appointment to see the bank manager two days later; he asked Juliet to go wit
h him. She refused.
“I don’t see why I should put myself in such an awful, humiliating situation. It’s not my fault.”
Mr. Winston was sympathetic. “I know how easy it is for young people to get into this situation. But I can’t allow this to go on, Mr. Fullerton-Clark. I’m afraid I’ll have to take a charge on your flat.”
“But … it’s on the market,” said Charles. “I’ve put down a preliminary deposit on a house.”
“Cheaper?” said Mr. Winston hopefully.
“Er … no.”
“Well, you’ll have to take the flat off the market again. I couldn’t possibly give you any kind of guarantee to a building society. My advice to you would be to look for something cheaper, use the difference to pay off your debts. You can’t go on like this.”
“Now I want you to listen to me very carefully.” Jack Beckham glared at Eliza.
“Yes. I’m listening.”
“I’ve decided that I … I was mistaken. I perhaps shouldn’t have said what I did.”
“Right—”
“And … well, I have decided that we’ll leave things as they are. That you can stay in the job.”
“Well, that’s very nice of you, Jack. Er … what happens if I don’t want to?”
“Of course you bloody well want to,” he said.
There were, he said, conditions. “I don’t want to hear anything about your being tired. I don’t want you to be away. I—”
“Er, excuse me,” said Eliza.
“Yes?”
“Do we convert my office into a labour ward?”
“What?”
“Well, if I can’t be away … I mean, this baby’s got to come out sometime.”
“Don’t be so fucking ridiculous. You know perfectly well what I mean.”
“Ah. So I can have a day or two off?”
“You can have a week,” he said, grinning at her, “possibly with an extension for good behaviour.”
“Right. OK. Well … thank you.”
“The thing is,” he said, “you’re the best fashion editor in London at the moment. Everyone says so. And if I want you here, I suppose I just have to put up with your … your condition.”
“I suppose you do.”
“Now what do I do?” she wailed to Maddy. “I’ve got my job back and I’m over the moon, of course, and Matt won’t let me do it.”
“Has he said so?”
“What, since Jack told me? Of course not. I … well I haven’t told him. I’m just waiting for the right moment.”
The fact of the matter was that she couldn’t bear to, in case he simply forbade her to accept. She adored Matt, and she was incredibly happy about the baby, but if she was deprived of her work, a large piece of the jigsaw that was her would be missing …
When Jack had told her she was the best fashion editor in London, she felt literally that she could have flown; she savoured those words, went over and over them in her head; she felt stroked and sleek and dizzy with them. She was that most elusive, sought-after, fought-over thing, a success. It was a prize beyond anything she could have imagined. She could not, she would not, give that up. She would manage Matt somehow. Somehow …
Mariella was coming to London on a shopping trip, not merely for her, but for Giovanni. Eliza was rather charmed that he bought his clothes in London—it was, Mariella explained, because he was not an aristocrat.
“The old families dress in Italy and the new ones in England. That is how it goes. He has his shoes made in Lobb; he buys his suits at Henry Poole; he has his shirts made in Savile Row. His ambition is to look like an English gentleman.”
She invited Eliza and Matt to join them for dinner. “We are staying at the Ritz. I need to meet your husband. Shall we say Wednesday?”
“Wednesday would be lovely,” said Eliza, trying and failing to imagine Matt dining with the Crespis.
It was a surprisingly successful evening, even though Eliza could tell that Mariella was struggling not to compare Matt unfavourably with Jeremy. She herself was very taken with Giovanni, who was tall, charming, and elegant, with thick silvery-blond hair and sculpted features. He clearly adored Mariella, constantly blowing her kisses across the table.
But the real love affair of the evening was between Giovanni and Matt, who formed a mutual admiration society, trumping each other’s stories of early successes, of risks run and dangers confronted, and agreeing that business was the most potent drug in the world.
“Nice chap,” said Matt as they sat back in their taxi. “Don’t know what my dad would say, me consorting with wops.”
“Matt!” said Eliza. “Honestly, you are so dreadful. Sometimes I think you do it on purpose.”
“Course I do,” he said, and grinned at her.
“I have to say,” Geoffrey Judd said, glaring at Charles. “You’ve let us all down, especially Juliet. Managing your money isn’t very difficult; you simply need some self-discipline.”
Charles longed to say it was Juliet who lacked the self-discipline. Instead he looked at his hands and metaphorically bit his tongue.
“What’s more, I think we’ve all been deceived, leading us all to believe you owned that house, giving Juliet false expectations when it’s nothing of the sort.”
This was too much. “I’m afraid, Mr. Judd, you don’t understand. The house is owned by a family trust, holding it for my mother and then for future generations.”
“Same difference, as far as I’m concerned. And a drain on any resources you may have into the bargain. Well, none of my money is going into it, I can tell you.”
“I wouldn’t dream of suggesting such a thing,” said Charles.
“Maybe not, but the fact remains that my daughter can’t have the home or the lifestyle she was very much led to expect. She wants to have children, you know, like any young woman; she’s not going to get them the way you’re going on. Anyway, I’m prepared to make you a loan to pay off your overdraft, so you can start afresh, get a mortgage on that house Juliet’s set her heart on. I’ll want a formal repayment plan, but I’m prepared to be reasonable about it, nothing too steep while you get yourself sorted out. How does that sound?”
“That’s … that’s very generous of you, sir.”
It really was all he could do; the alternative was quite literally bankruptcy, which would mean the end of his job on the stock exchange.
Adrian had had another fall and broken his pelvis. Sarah rang to say that she knew he would love to see Eliza. “It’s been quite a long time.” Eliza lost her temper and said she would have been down quite often if they hadn’t been so hostile to Matt; Sarah said she was sorry, but it had been a terrible shock about the baby.
“Mummy, if I’d been pregnant with Jeremy’s baby you’d have been over the moon with excitement. But of course I’ll come and see Daddy. I’d have come before if you’d asked me. I just felt so hurt. I can’t come this week; next Saturday all right?”
“Yes, I suppose so. And if Matt wants to come, then he’ll be—”
“Honestly,” said Eliza, interrupting her, “I don’t think he will.”
But Matt, unpredictable to the last, insisted that he would go with her.
“I don’t want you driving all that way on your own. It’s not good for you to get too tired, and long car journeys are probably not good for the baby, you getting all shaken about—”
Matt’s devotion to his unborn child continued to surprise and delight her. He insisted on attending her appointments with the doctor, to her considerable embarrassment. He had more or less auditioned all the hospitals and insisted that he would pay for her to have the baby privately, if that seemed to be the best option. However, Eliza had established that one of the most highly regarded obstetricians in London, one Professor Anthony Collins, worked at the maternity unit of the Fulham and Battersea, an NHS teaching hospital, where he had established a culture of excellent education on all aspects of pregnancy and childbirth, including one evening that fathers were encouraged t
o attend, close family bonding, and the admission of fathers to the labour ward if both parents wanted that. This was so revolutionary a notion that there had even been letters to the Times about it. Eliza said hopefully she was sure Matt wouldn’t want it, and that he’d faint, but he said he wouldn’t miss it for the world and that he wanted a grandstand view.
“No,” said Matt, “no, no, no, no, no. That clear enough for you? You are not going to work when you’ve had the baby.”
“But—”
“Eliza, no. You are not sacrificing that baby in favor of your career. Do you really think photographing a few frocks is more important than bringing up your own child? I’ve never heard anything so … so disgusting, frankly.”
“Of course it’s not disgusting. And I don’t think my work is more important than my child. But I just don’t see how being away from it—him—for a few hours a day is so terrible. And I really don’t think I’m cut out for full-time motherhood.”
“Well, you might have thought of that before you got yourself pregnant.”
“That’s unfair!”
“Is it? I don’t think so. I tell you what I think, Eliza: I think you’re so fucking impressed with yourself and your life as a lady fashion editor, getting your arse licked all day long by all that fancy riffraff you seem to like so much, you can’t face giving it up. I’ve heard them at parties and in the office: ‘Oh, Eliza, you’re so marvellous; oh, Eliza, darling, what a wonderful editor you are; oh, Eliza, you’re so clever.’ It makes me want to throw up. Well, right now I think you’re pathetic and self-centred and attention-seeking, with a pretty rotten sense of values, and it’s not good enough. Not good enough for the baby and not good enough for me. So … is that quite clear?”
She had walked out after that and gone to the office, where she had smoked at least five of the cigarettes Matt had ordered her to give up and sworn and cried and talked to Annunciata and rung Maddy, both of whom agreed that Matt was a monster and was not to be given in to, and she said of course she wasn’t going to give in to him; it would be marital suicide; she would do what she liked with her life—and she even went out for a drink with Annunciata to give herself Dutch courage for the evening’s battle.
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