by Maggie Ford
“I wouldn’t be such a cad. Not after the favour you’re doing me.” She was dumbfounded as he automatically concluded that she’d said yes to him. “Thank you, Mary. I know you’ll enjoy yourself. I did forget to ask - you hadn’t been planning on doing anything else on Friday, had you?”
“No,” she burst out, suddenly excited. She never saw Will on Friday. Friday was usually reserved for washing her hair and soaking in the old tin bath her aunt kept out the back. Something told her that she should not tell him of Mr Geoffrey’s offer. After all, it was only a favour to Mr Geoffrey and no point in causing a bother. William floated from her mind. She would have to make sure to wash her hair well in time for this dance.
* * *
James Lett’s health had been declining rapidly since the summer until, with Christmas approaching, it seemed he might not survive very far past it, or if he did, much into 1921. It was heartbreaking to see him.
“I keep remembering my wedding day, when he gave me away,” wept Maud, his eldest daughter, who spent more time at Swift House than in her own home these days. Her two children were with their nanny, her husband Gilbert quite able to exist at home with a decent staff at his elbow; she felt more needed here than there.
“He wept, poor Daddy,” she recalled, weeping herself after visiting the sick-room yet again.
The house lay as hushed as if the sick man had already departed, Dr Griffith’s portly figure going and coming with urgent regularity, his pony and trap – which in this day and age he still preferred to the motorised vehicle – becoming a common sight, while the nurse he had hired glided in and out of the sick-room with effortless silence as though on oiled wheels.
Victoria, standing at the foot of the stairs as Maud passed her, made no reply. Her eighteenth birthday was three months away. She was due to come out in the spring, and had been eagerly contemplating joining that long line of debutantes waiting to be presented to Their Majesties in the glittering blue-and-gold throne room of Buckingham Palace. She could see her father not now being there for this once-in-a-lifetime event in a girl’s life, almost as glittering as her wedding day would be. It wouldn’t be the same without him, without seeing how proud he’d be of her. It was this secondary loss, symbolic of the far more real fear of losing him, that made her weep quietly in tune with her older sister who had come out years before, enough years to have forgotten how it had felt.
Together they moved into the morning-room where their mother sat waiting for them before going upstairs alone to resume her sojourn at her husband’s bedside. She was bearing it all with profound stoicism, if one discounted that betrayal of her grief in being there with him practically night and day until Dr Griffith finally had to order her to relinquish her vigil so that she too didn’t fall ill just at the moment when she might be needed. She had taken his advice, but only briefly; when he wasn’t there to see her, she crept out of bed in the dead of night to go and sit by her husband.
Henry was carrying on with the business as best he could, though he mostly left it in the hands of the head chef, the restaurant manager, and the staff they had under them, so that he could be with his father should anything happen suddenly. When he did present himself there, knowing that his supervision was needed in preparation for the busy Christmas season, it was obvious to all that his mind wasn’t on the job.
Mary, throwing him sidelong glances during one of his rare appearances, felt terribly sorry for him, noting the constant gnawing of lips that twisted the otherwise strong young face, the light-coloured hair, with its tendency to curl, not as well groomed as it had been, and the grey eyes troubled. The man these days was never without a cigarette, and puffed with a sort of nervous tic, often lighting one as soon as the other had burned away as if being without one would set his mind thinking. A slightly built man, he had always expended much energy, but these days seemed over-full of it, again as though needing to block out thoughts.
As for Geoffrey – he’d asked her to drop the “mister” at the Ladies’ Night to which he had taken her – she didn’t know whether to feel sorry for him or not. He didn’t appear half so affected by his father’s state of health as his brother, spending rather too much time at the restaurant instead of at home when, in her mind, he’d have been better at his father’s bedside while only one of them kept an eye on the business.
If anything even more handsome than his brother and slightly taller, Geoffrey had always blatantly concentrated his energy on himself rather than the business. These days he was here far more than ever yet contributed little towards the running of the place. His excuse, that he was needed, struck Mary as somewhat implausible. His brother did what was required. It didn’t need both, the place already in capable hands, the head chef in sole management of catering and ordering, the restaurant manager in charge of the service side of things, neither warranting supervision.
Mary couldn’t help wondering if she was the attraction, though she immediately reproved herself. He might have taken her to that Ladies’ Night – which she hadn’t particularly enjoyed, out of place amid all those fancy people – but that didn’t give her leave to think herself something special in his eyes. She’d merely been a handy alternative when he’d been let down, the favour done, appreciation given in the outfit he’d let her keep. She’d not said a word to William about it all. Good job he didn’t know. Hopefully he never would, the lovely things locked away in her chest of drawers. Yet the looks Geoffrey gave her left her wondering if this wasn’t why he was here so often. But such suspicions had no real foundation and she chided herself for even thinking they had.
* * *
Her instincts were not so groundless as she imagined. Geoffrey’s mind was definitely more on Mary Owen than on his father. He made the most of the opportunity to confide in her, often interrupting her while she worked.
“I don’t know how I am going to shoulder all the responsibility of this place when my father is no longer here. I’m not even twenty-one yet. At that age a chap should still be having a decent time.”
In this she did feel sorry for him. Then, when she thought of herself, she wasn’t so sympathetic. From a very young age she’d had to cope alone. Her aunt, always a bit woolly in the head, was now becoming prematurely senile at fifty-four so that Mary had to fend for the two of them, and she now only nineteen. She had no time for people who couldn’t or wouldn’t shoulder up to responsibility. She even felt a stab of contempt for him beneath the fascination he still held for her.
“You should look on it as a challenge and face up to it,” she told him bluntly, aware that the rest of the office was regarding them with a mixture of envy and disapproval – envy especially from the twenty-two-year-old Edith Ramsey, who’d confessed that she thought him an absolute dream, though she couldn’t know that the boss’s son and the humble Mary Owen had been out together, if only on a single occasion.
Her bluntness must have hit home, or else he too had become aware of eyes turned in their direction, for he nodded without speaking and walked away, his bearing very upright, leaving her regretting what she preferred to see as an obvious blunder on her part.
* * *
Mary Owen had accused him of not facing up to a challenge. Well, Mary Owen wasn’t aware of it, but she was one of those challenges. A delightful little thing, but stubborn; since the Ladies’ Night she had been unbearably formal, politely listening to what he said to her, as polite as she was with Henry. But he didn’t want politeness. He wanted sighs and amorous looks from her. He wanted her to leap at his next offer to go out with him. But instinct told him he’d have to be prudent, making it appear as a small thank-you for the favour of her company at the Masonic do.
Nevertheless, it was weeks – just days before Christmas to be exact - before he plucked up courage to ask if he might convey those thanks by taking her to the theatre. Nothing grand (lest he overwhelm her again and frighten her off), just moderately priced seats to a modest show, a play or something. Did she like plays? Perhaps a pant
omime would be was more to her taste. He hated pantos, considered them childish… well, they were for children, but she might like it. It was the price he was prepared to pay for a chance of her favours.
He caught her as she was leaving to go home, and, matching her own formality hastily explained that he wanted to thank her for all she had done in keeping him company at the Ladies’ Night.
Her expression was one of amazement, the tawny eyes so clear they appeared to adopt a brittle, unwelcoming look. It was Saturday night. She was meeting Will outside. He’d be taking her home and then they were going to see the film everyone was raving about, Charlie Chaplin’s first full-length film, The Kid. She’d heard it had made people cry as well as laugh and she was eagerly looking forward to it. The last thing she wanted was be late.
“You’ve already thanked me.”
“I still don’t feel it was adequate.”
“You bought me a dress. I’d have thought that was enough.”
“But I want to thank you just one more time. I’d like to ask if you’d care to let me take you to a theatre.”
She gave a little frown. “When?”
“Tonight?”
“Oh, no, Mr… I mean Geoffrey. Not tonight.”
He couldn’t pretend he wasn’t crestfallen, but his smile creased his face with assumed casualness. “What about next Saturday?”
“Not a Saturday. I go out with William Goodridge every Saturday.”
At least it wasn’t an outright refusal. He was encouraged. “One day in the week, then. How about a Friday?”
At the dance, made a little loose-tongued by all that wine, she had told him that on Fridays she always washed her hair and never saw Goodridge. That was why he’d plumped for it. She could wash her hair beforehand, as she had that last time. Despite having been a bit overwhelmed, she had enjoyed that night. He had been a perfect gentleman; had kissed her hand rather than her lips when returning her to that shabby little row of houses in Soho, all the time aching to kiss her lips, to touch her. If she consented to go out with him this time, he’d be bolder and get his kiss, maybe a little more. Having once gone out with him, she’d do so again, he was certain of it. He only needed to get her into the habit. She would soon forget this Goodridge chap who couldn’t afford a fraction of what he could give her.
That evening at the Ladies’ Night she hadn’t stopped talking about this William Goodridge, a commis de rang in his father’s restaurant who was apparently courting her, though, she’d mentioned, he hadn’t yet proposed as such. Geoffrey vaguely recalled the tall, upright, good-looking man five years older than himself who waited at tables as though that was his sole joy in life, an expression on his lean face of utter dedication to his work; a young man with a prominent Adam’s apple whose bearing and application indicated a promise of his going a long way in his career. One thing was for certain, on commis wages he could hardly possess two brass farthings to rub together for himself, much less provide any sort of future for a stunning girl like Mary. Yet she seemed full of him, where the two of them went – mostly places that didn’t cost much, it sounded like, he saving hard eventually to have enough to ask for her hand. And good luck to him.
Not for a minute did Geoffrey contemplate stealing her from the man in order to make her his wife, for all she set his loins afire when he wondered what she’d be like in bed. Had he been married, she’d have made a perfect mistress. As it was, he wasn’t even courting; had celebrated his twentieth birthday earlier this month, was far too young to think of settling down although he knew of several girls who’d snap him up given half the chance. Time enough for that.
She was looking at him contemplatively, and, to his joy, asked, “What theatre?” She added, “I’d love to see Chu Chin Chou again. It was so lovely.”
“Isn’t once enough?” he asked. She shook her head vigorously, her eyes bright. Geoffrey sighed. So be it, then. Maybe he’d be rewarded for his pains. He hoped so. Mary Owen was more than a body could bear.
Perhaps afterwards they’d have an evening meal, somewhere quiet and secluded. Wiltons perhaps, where they could dine, just the two of them in one of its alcoves, and maybe he would hold her hand, speak about himself, his home life, his sick father, his already grieving mother, and, with her sympathy pricked, she would let him kiss her, gently, and then… who knew? He might be doomed to disappointment even then. Mary was proving a strong-minded person: not exactly prudish, but not easily fooled either. Still – nothing ventured, as they say. The challenge made him all the more eager to have her for himself. A challenge like that he could handle.
Six
Chill blasts of an early March downpour gusting in through the open door as a very damp porter hurried in and out with a delayed delivery of produce hardly pierced the heat of a kitchen preparing for midday lunches.
The head chef, having spent his morning going through the staff duty roster, upbraiding late arrivals, checking their excuses and solving maintenance problems, was now fretting at the delayed delivery of his order when he should have been checking the soups and sauces and the usual change of menu – one dish per section per day – as well as completing a hundred and one other tasks. He was not happy. It took a great deal of perseverence and patience to supervise a staff of thirty or more people. Samson possessed very little of either and by this time was a man on a short fuse.
This was how William found him as he crept through the kitchen on his illicit way back from the outside toilet. Pale eyes watched his approach, the man’s arms akimbo, his chef’s hat seeming to adopt an even more white and starched look at this intrusion, every vestige of the man affronted at his domain being used as a thoroughfare for the call of nature. To his mind the serving staff should be using the other, if chillier, damper way. He planted himself in the centre of the gangway, knowing this would oblige the offender to ease between him and one of the blazing coal-fired ovens to skirt round him.
“Hell’s bloody name! Who said you could come through my kitchen?”
William came to a stop. “It’s pouring with rain out there, Chef.”
“Scared of a bit of wet, are we? Making this a bleeding habit, are we?”
It had only been the one occasion but William held his irritation at the unreasonable onslaught in check. After all, he was at fault, he supposed.
“Sorry, Chef,” he muttered as he made to side-step the ill-tempered bulk. But as he came abreast of him, Samson’s expression altered to one of unpleasant mischief which put William’s back up, prompting retaliation. “It was an emergency, Chef. It won’t happen again. I’m very sorry.”
He had to raise his voice above the din of a kitchen in full swing, thus diminishing what little respect he should have conveyed.
Samson’s heat-flushed fair cheeks darkened. Samson had no liking for him, William knew. Not since he’d handed that slice of bread to Mary the day she came begging for work without a by-your-leave, tantamount to laughing in the great man’s face. Chef had neither liked it nor forgotten it.
“Sorry! Are you indeed?” Samson taunted.
Better not to argue. William made to move on around him but the man shot out a hand and grabbed his arm.
“As it happens I’m feeling a tiny bit sorry for you, young Goodridge.”
It was a strange statement. William paused to look squarely at him, their eyes level, both men being tall, one slim, the other thick-set.
“Yes, I certainly am,” Samson continued, grinning now. “You can’t be all that overjoyed, the boss’s youngest son taking a shine to your gel.”
William became attentive, taut. “Who do you mean, Chef?”
“Now who else should I mean? The King of England? Didn’t you know Geoffrey Lett had treated her to a little outing? Two, I gather, by all accounts. Seems he asked her to a Masonic do. Before Christmas that was. Then to a theatre as a little thank-you, so I hear. I mean, any gel would be flattered by attention like that. I’m surprised she didn’t tell you!”
That last remark sm
acked of insinuation that he was being two-timed. “Where d’you hear all this?” Will demanded.
“Just what I heard.” But Samson’s continuing grin was saying, That’ll take him down a peg.
“Well, you’ve heard wrong, or whoever you heard it from is a liar!” Shrugging free of the other’s grip, William sidestepped him and hurried on through the kitchen.
“Look to that gel she works with,” Samson’s voice followed him. “Envy makes for loose tongues. While you’re about it, look to the heirs to the throne – the boys. Specially if she’s not said a thing to you about it.”
* * *
It seemed impossible that Samson’s information had any weight to it as, with the March weather warming, he and Mary strolled along the Embankment that Sunday afternoon watching the different types of craft on the Thames, she clinging to his arm with a possessiveness that put the lie to everything the man had said.
She was chattering on blithely, and it was impossible to imagine her as any other than his girl. But he needed to broach the subject. Nevertheless, at the same time a voice in his head was advising him of the folly of asking outright. He could insult her. He could anger her. He could be told the truth and not know how to face it. Or be told an untruth and know it for a lie. He could lose her.
He didn’t want to lose her so he remained silent. But his head seethed with conflicting thoughts. If what Samson had said was true, it was important she tell him of her own accord. But she hadn’t so far.
If it was true, maybe it had been of no importance to her. Maybe she had merely obliged her employer’s son by accepting his invitation to take her out on those two occasions. Reluctant to appear ungracious, she had probably seen it as a small token of thanks from him for all her work.
But what person forgets to mention a thing like that? Surely all that glitter and opulence must linger in her head. Mary was an ordinary girl from a poor background and would never take such an experience so much for granted that she could forget to talk about it. Why then keep it secret? And why the need to?
