Italian Invader

by Jessica Steele

  'Well, I'm glad somebody thought to let me know there'll be two extra for dinner,' Madge grumbled good-naturedly. 'Want a cup of tea, Elyn?' she asked.

  But suddenly Elyn was finding that she couldn't look the housekeeper in the eye either, and, doing a swift about-turn, she waved her briefcase and said, 'Can't stop, I've some paperwork I want to go through.'

  In her room Elyn exchanged her smart office suit for shirt and trousers and a light sweater, but, unable to settle to anything, she went to stand at her bedroom window. The house was set in its own grounds, but Elyn saw neither the well manicured lawns nor the avenue of beautiful trees. Her attention was rigidly on the drive, as she watched for her stepfather's return.

  In actual fact, though, it was Guy who returned first. She saw his car headlights, saw him pull round and on to the standing area, and, just in case he'd any plans to go out that night, she hurried down the stairs to meet him.

  'You're in first—that's unusual,' he commented in friendly fashion when he saw her.

  'How was the dentist?' she just remembered to ask.

  'Barbaric! You look worried,' he said, coming closer. 'What's up?'

  'Huttons have the official receiver in.'

  'No!'

  'Straight up,' she told him.

  'Strewth!' he gasped. Then, 'How will that affect us?'

  There was no way of dressing it up, though he'd have had to have his head well and truly buried in the sand to have not heard something of the discussions she'd had at home with his father. 'Badly,' she replied bleakly. 'Are you going out tonight?'

  'I was, but…'

  'I've contacted Sam, he and my mother will be here soon, I expect.'

  'Things must be bad if the old man's agreed to cut short his break,' Guy opined.

  'Can you stay in? It—er—might affect you more than any of us,' Elyn suddenly realised, and saw, as Guy sud­denly looked serious, that it had just dawned on him too that the ceramic art studios he had been led to be­lieve he might one day part-own might not be his after all.

  'I think I'd better,' he agreed anxiously.

  Both she and Guy were downstairs in the hall when an hour later the solid front door again opened and Ann and Samuel Pillinger came in.

  'Get Madge to bring some tea into the drawing-room in ten minutes; we'll talk in there,' Samuel decided, as he and his wife went up the elegant staircase to freshen up.

  'They're home,' Elyn told Madge, but made the tea herself, and put four cups and saucers on a tray.

  'And thirsty, by the look of it,' Madge quipped—and Elyn couldn't bear to think of her home without her.

  It was fifteen minutes before they were all assembled in the drawing-room. Elyn hadn't thought for a moment that her mother would not be there, since she must be aware that her financial security was sounding shaky. Which was fine by her, but Elyn was quite relieved that her stepsister was at present away visiting friends. She was fond of Loraine, but felt that there were far more serious matters to deal with here than to have Loraine throw a fit if, as seemed likely, her allowance came under threat. Time to deal with that later.

  'I've checked,' Samuel Pillinger opened, 'and there's no mistake. Huttons have gone under—taking our money with them.' His solemn glance went to his wife, then to his son, and finally settled on his stepdaughter. 'How do we stand, Elyn?' he asked quietly.

  Elyn cleared her throat. 'We don't,' she answered huskily.

  'We fall?'

  'I'm afraid so,' she agreed miserably, and, reaching for her briefcase, she got out figures which she had checked so frequently she knew them by heart. 'I wish it were different, but it isn't, and no amount of wishing can alter the fact that we can't pay the staff wages, let alone our other commitments.'

  'It can't be as bad as that!' Guy broke in to protest.

  'If Elyn says it is, then it must be,' stated his father. 'Let's have a look at your figures, Elyn.'

  A full half-hour went by with the atmosphere in the room going from serious to gloomy to downright de­jection. Though at the end of that half-hour they were all agreed, her mother included, that whatever else hap­pened, the staff wages were top priority.

  'By tomorrow word will have got out about Huttons— you can't keep a thing like that quiet,' Sam declared. 'But as yet no one knows the extent of credit we allowed them or the disastrous effect their going to the wall has had on us. I'm afraid, Guy, that you'll have to go in to work tomorrow as if nothing has happened, while Elyn and I visit the bank, and solicitors, and anybody else I can think of who might give us a chance of clawing our way out of this damned hole.'

  Up until then Ann Pillinger had stayed silent, but, as Elyn glanced over to where her mother was seated taking everything in, she was startled by the harshness of her expression and the vehemence of her words as she erupted suddenly, 'It's that damned Italian's fault! If that Zappelli man hadn't pushed in and bought out Gradburns, we'd never be in this fix!'

  Again Elyn's innate sense of fairness struggled to the surface. While she held no brief for the wretched con­tinental philanderer, she didn't think in all honesty that he had 'pushed' in. So far as she was aware, no one else had made a bid, and Gradburns, so she'd heard, had snatched at his offer.

  Though before she could give voice to her thoughts, Sam Pillinger was already agreeing with his wife. 'You're right, my dear. Damned interloper!' he mut­tered feelingly.

  'But…Elyn didn't get very far before, to her sur­prise, her stepbrother chipped in.

  'He took some of our best staff too!' he complained acrimoniously.

  'And our best customers…' Sam joined in, and for the next ten minutes, while Elyn stayed silent, the other three resentfully took Maximilian Zappelli apart.

  When later that night in bed she was visited by a wisp of something akin to guilt because she had not once spoken up in honest defence of the man, Elyn dismissed that wisp of guilt out of hand. Speak up for him, for goodness' sake? Her thoughts flitted back to the dreadful predicament Pillingers were in—and devil take it, she fumed, her family were right! Why on earth should she defend the womanising Latin!

  Thoughts of Maximilian Zappelli were far from her mind the following morning. Mr Eldred, the bank manager, had heard of Huttons' demise, and wasn't at all happy about her stepfather's bright idea of in­creasing their overdraft.

  'Then how am I going to pay the staff their wages at the end of the month? Tell me that?' Samuel demanded.

  'You have three weeks until then. Might I suggest you take a look at your share portfolio?' Mr Eldred hinted.

  'Sell my shares?'

  They came away from the bank with Sam Pillinger muttering darkly about having done business with that particular bank for donkey's years, but where were they when you really needed them.

  A man of honour, he considered that the wages bill should have top priority, and had given instructions that his shares should go. But as the week went on, the situ­ation became totally hopeless when other suppliers of Huttons, who were still reeling from the shock of knowing that they were not going to be paid, refused to supply Pillingers until their outstanding accounts were settled.

  The writing had already been on the wall, but, having made a valiant effort to keep his company, Samuel at last had to admit defeat. But it was an honourable defeat in that when, on the last day of October, the firm closed down, having sold everything he possibly could sell at short notice but without a penny to call his own, he had managed to avoid bankruptcy, and owed no one.

  'I'm so sorry,' Elyn murmured gently as she stood with him and Guy saying goodbye to each member of their workforce in turn as they filed by.

  'Me too, Dad,' said Guy, in the lull. 'What's to do now?' he asked, and although Elyn herself had been wondering the same, she was still staggered by his reply.

  For, 'Have a bit of a rest, then start up again,' she distinctly heard his father reply.

  'Start up again!' she exclaimed, and as both father and son stared at her, 'We haven't the money, Sam, to start
up anything!' She tried to make him see. 'We don't have any money to live on, to…' She broke off, re­alising that, artist that he was, artist that his son was, neither of them, even now, had fully grasped the reality of the situation. She tried another tack. 'I rather thought that, having sold all the movable equipment here, you— er—might be thinking in terms of selling the kilns, the buildings, the…'

  'What?' he exclaimed, astonished. 'Sell—for the Italian to buy! Never!'

  As far as Elyn was aware, Maximilian Zappelli wasn't remotely interested in the Pillinger building. Though rather than provoke Sam by saying as much, when none but the most insensitive must see what a painful day this must be for him, she stayed quiet while he went on, 'My father started this firm—I'll get it going again, just see if I don't!'

  The subject was dropped when Hugh Burrell came into view. Sam held out his hand, his little speech of regret at the ready. But his hand was ignored, as he was ig­nored, as Guy too was ignored. Hugh Burrell did stop in front of Elyn, however, his sly eyes giving her the once-over. 'Thanks for the Christmas present!' he said nastily and, while it registered with Elyn that losing his job so close to Christmas hadn't made him any nicer a person, it also registered that this man resented her— and bore her a grudge. She was glad she would never have to see him again.

  It was a sad day for all three of them, but eventually they locked up the building and went home. They went in their separate cars, but arrived at the house in convoy.

  'Was it so bad?' she heard her mother gently greet Sam, and felt proud of her parent that, unlike his daughter, she was being far more supportive now the blow had actually fallen than she had at first shown.

  'I need a stiff drink,' she heard him reply—and saw a sulky-looking Loraine, who had been told her al­lowance wouldn't be there in the bank on the first of the month as usual, came out into the hall.

  'And I desperately need a little money, Daddy,' she told him soulfully.

  At once Ann Pillinger's gentle tone fell away. 'Then get yourself a job, and start earning some!' she slammed at her.

  'Daddy!' Loraine wailed—but, perhaps for the first time in his life, Sam didn't seem to hear her, and went into the drawing-room with his wife.

  The idea of finding herself a job was ever present in Elyn's mind, even if her stepsister had no such in­tention. The thought of debt began to prey on her mind, but, scan the papers though she might, Elyn saw nothing locally that paid very much. She did spot a couple of jobs in London which she could do, and which paid ex­tremely well. But, since her aim was to earn enough to be able to put something into the family coffers, it would be defeating the object if she worked away from home and had to pay out half her income on rent and living expenses in London.

  Her best talent lay in administration, she recognised that, but such jobs, in either Bovington or Pinwich, were few and far between. She took to looking for jobs in any other field, but anything unskilled paid unskilled wages.

  As yet none of them had had the heart to tell Madge Munslow that they could not afford to keep her, and, as November began to draw to a close and, beside an assortment of bills arriving, another pay-day for the housekeeper loomed, Elyn started to feel desperate.

  If the rest of the family were busy looking for paid work she would be surprised. But with Guy seeming to adopt his father's 'something will turn up' attitude, and Loraine—between loves at the moment—mooning about the place, and Elyn's own mother seeming to have joined the 'something will turn up' brigade too, Elyn was starting to get quite cross with the lot of them. That afternoon she went out and sold her car.

  'What on earth did you do that for?' was the aston­ished reception that news brought over the dinner-table.

  'Because Madge will need paying in a few days' time, and a few other day-to-day running costs will require paying too,' she answered.

  'I didn't ask you to sell your car!' Sam declared proudly, and all at once Elyn wasn't cross any more, but upset that she had hurt his pride.

  'I know you didn't, Sam,' she assured him gently. 'Just as I didn't ask you to buy me that car for my eighteenth birthday—but you did. Anyhow,' she found a light note to tease, 'I'm sure one of the first things you'll do when you're on your feet again will be to buy me another one!'

  That crisis of bruised feelings passed, but as November gave way to December Elyn started to grow desperate again. She had got a good price for her car, but with that money being the only money available among all of them, it was going down at an alarming rate.

  Elyn was in a desperate frame of mind when a day or so later, as she scanned the early afternoon edition of the local paper, she saw a job that not only paid well but was within daily travelling distance. Her initial re­action on seeing who the firm was, though, who were advertising for someone to take charge of a statistics section, was to quickly go on to the next advert. But, having scanned every other ad in the situations vacant column without seeing a thing that paid remotely as well, nor sounded half as interesting, she glanced back again, and again, to the advert.

  Her family would go mad if she so much as applied, much less was successful and actually got the job. But the money was excellent, and—she nibbled anxiously at her lower lip—money was what they needed, quite fran­tically—and nobody else was bringing any in.

  But I'm not a statistician! She started to get cold feet, and talk herself out of it. Nonsense, said an inner female that was made of sterner stuff, she was highly numerate and could read a balance sheet as easily as she could read a novel—so what was difficult about statistics?

  On that note of bravado she grabbed up the phone in her room and quickly dialled the number, and as a voice said, 'Good afternoon, Zappelli Fine China,' she felt as if the words were screaming through the whole house.

  Feeling like the worst kind of traitor, Elyn stamped down hard on such feelings. They needed money! For goodness' sake, get on with it. 'Good afternoon. Personnel, please,' she requested.

  As simply as that she was put through and, having stated her business, in next to no time was sitting staring at the phone back on its cradle. She had an interview at eleven o'clock tomorrow morning! She had an interview at Zappelli's!

  It had fully been her intention to acquaint her family with what she had done at dinner that evening. And indeed, she opened her mouth several times to do just that, but each time her courage failed her. There'd be hell to pay, she knew that, and she suddenly decided that, since her paper qualifications for the job were next to non-existent, there was every likelihood that she wouldn't get the job, so there was no point in upsetting everyone needlessly.

  Calling herself a coward, she later went upstairs to her room, having half decided that, since she was more certain not to get the job than to get it, she wouldn't turn up for interview in the morning after all.

  She did, of course. It seemed like a point of honour somehow that, having made the appointment, she should go through with it. Dressed in one of her good business suits, she let herself out of the house at ten o'clock the following morning. It took her fifteen minutes to walk to the railway station, and, after a wait of ten minutes, she caught the train which would put her down at the next stop. She alighted ten minutes later in the town of Pinwich.

  Zappelli Fine China was a further ten minutes' walk away from the centre of town, but she was in plenty of time, and had no need to hurry.

  She arrived to keep her appointment with a Mr Christopher Nickson with five minutes to spare, and was not kept waiting more than a few minutes beyond the appointed time. 'So sorry to keep you waiting, Miss Talbot,' the young man apologised pleasantly, clearly liking what he saw as he escorted her to his office. 'Now,' he began once they were seated, 'are you currently employed?'

  One of Elyn's earlier causes for a feeling of dis­comfort had been that once they knew that she had any­thing to do with Pillingers the interview would stop there, but there was no way of avoiding it. 'I worked for Pillingers,' she began. 'Mr Pillinger is…'

  'A
h yes, one or two of the Pillinger people have started here,' he interrupted with a smile as he confided, 'I moved up from Devon last month, and only started here myself on the first of December.'

  From then on Elyn started to relax. Since he was not a local man—and since Talbot was a common enough name, so clearly he did not know of her connection with Pillingers—if things went badly—and suddenly she started to want as well as need the job—then neither he nor anyone else would be any the wiser.

  'Now—' he resumed, and went on to give her more details of the job, and to ask if the job still appealed and if she thought she could do it.

  'Yes, on both counts,' she told him, truly seeing nothing difficult in the work he had outlined, and the mathematically inclined part of her raring to have a crack at it.

  'Great,' he smiled, and, picking up a pencil, 'If you could just give me a list of your qualifications—just for the record, then…' He looked up and broke off. 'Is something wrong?' he enquired.

  'I don't have any qualifications,' Elyn had to confess, adding quickly lest he should terminate the interview there and then, 'But I know figures. I'm good at them!' This was no time for false modesty. 'If you'd like to give me an aptitude test or something of that sort, I'm sure I could prove that.'

  She caught the train back to Bovington knowing that Christopher Nickson had been delighted with the results of the test which, after about half an hour of scurrying around, someone had worked out to give her. His promise to be in touch though, had left her not knowing whether she had the job or not.

  For that reason, and believing that if they did have an applicant with paper qualifications she could say goodbye to the job, Elyn decided against saying any­thing to her family about having gone for the interview. There now seemed little point in needlessly causing a family upset.

  Trusting that Christopher Nickson would be in touch as he had promised, be it only to say she had not been successful at interview, she stayed near to the telephone over the next couple of days. If anyone was going to ring announcing themselves as 'Zappelli Fine China here', then she wanted to be sure that she was the one who took the call.