by Maggie Ford
She had been afraid, remembering that there had been no movement from the baby all day yesterday and during labour, that it must have died. The nurse said it was merely resting for the hard work ahead, and no sooner had that been said than she had been told urgently to “push!” She had been sure her veins would burst with the effort, but moments later had come a flood of something wet, a slithering, and there it was, the nurse saying afterwards, laughing as she put the cleaned and wrapped baby into Mary’s arms, that if she hadn’t been there to catch it, it might have hit its head on the bottom bed rail, it had shot out so fast.
Told now that her husband was downstairs, Mary gave a shriek of joy and the baby jerked with shock, her tiny arms instinctively coming up as though to catch hold of something.
“Oh, please have him come up. I want him to see his daughter.”
The nurse smiled indulgently. The father was already on his way up, could be heard taking the stairs two at a time.
He came into the room and Mary smiled at him from the bed, very proud of her work.
“Darling, are you all right?” He was leaning over her, attentive, would have held her close but for the baby there. Mary gave a triumphant giggle.
“I’m fine,” she told him. “No trouble at all. It was so quick. I was terribly brave.”
“Of course you were, my love.”
“And this is your daughter. Say hullo to her.”
He moved back as though stung, then, as she moved the shawl back to reveal a round, amazingly smooth little face, he tentatively reached out and touched one tiny hand, which, feeling the warm safe touch, curled about one finger and gripped tight.
“God!” was all he could say for a moment, then looking back at Mary, he carefully leaned over and kissed her gently, rewardingly. “I’m proud of you,” he whispered. “So very proud.”
Fourteen
The two men stood listening intently.
“Can you hear it?” Henry said, having called William over from his station in the restaurant to join him during a quiet mid-morning period.
This past year Henry had struck up quite a close relationship with him, although William had never sought it. Since Henry Lett’s visit to his home in March of last year when he had told him, almost vehemently, that he would see him do well here, he had climbed so fast that it took his breath away. Station head waiter these last ten months – one of several, each of them in charge of six or more tables – was quite a jump from a humble commis. It was certainly a huge jump from having been dismissed.
Had it not been for that mystifying visit when Henry had unwittingly allowed him a peep into his feelings for Mary, he might have wondered what the man saw in him to favour him so. But it was obvious Henry was using him to get back at her in some way for marrying his brother, though what he expected to achieve in compelling her to see the worth of the man she’d given up for Geoffrey, William had no clear idea. Unless Henry too was seething that it had been his brother who had claimed her instead of him.
William, for his part, had washed his hands of Mary immediately after Henry had informed him of her marriage. He refused to acknowledge the pain that still lurked, and he hadn’t looked at any other girl since. His parents were at a loss to understand why, and he had been obliged to fob them off by saying he was too dedicated to his job to bother with girls at this moment.
“Can you hear it?” Henry persisted when he didn’t answer.
William cocked his head, frowning, as Henry went on, “Listen! Can you hear it now? A faint echo of some sort.”
Yes he could, just about. The spasmodic conversation of a scattering of customers enjoying mid-morning coffee – the place would be bulging of course by tonight – was rebounding faintly off somewhere or something in the spacious restaurant. Not enough to bother people, he would have thought.
Henry, however, was a stickler for things being just right, unlike his damned brother who would turn up whenever he fancied and pile on the charm as he blithely moved between tables or stood in the foyer like some tall blond god. Customers recognising him would pause to chat or to share a joke, none of them seeing beneath that bloody hedonistic, hail-fellow-well-met charm of his. Then he’d disappear for days on end, to Henry’s obvious chagrin.
Henry was equally as popular as his brother though in an entirely different way. People respected him, were happy to open their hearts to him, felt confident he’d guard their little secrets with his life if need be. With his brother they merely loved a good belly laugh. It was a good combination, William supposed grudgingly, customers enjoying the best of both worlds.
Geoffrey wasn’t here this evening. Just as well, for he’d have happily chided Henry for making a fuss about a little thing like an imagined echo.
William wasn’t sorry on his own account either. He could never feel at ease with Geoffrey around. He did his best to hide his feelings, but every now and again he’d catch Henry watching him and knew that the dark looks he gave Geoffrey Lett hadn’t gone unnoticed. Geoffrey, on the other hand, appeared not to see a thing, the self-opinionated tyke! That was all he was – wealthy, self-assured, but as much an unmitigated tyke as the lowliest unemployable street beggar.
The trouble was, the way he felt when Geoffrey Lett was about, with his brilliant laugh and his strutting, made for an atmosphere which wasn’t good for the customers, and it was a wonder that Henry hadn’t reconsidered his offer to keep him on. There were times he wondered himself why he stayed, but it was really a form of rebellion in not allowing Geoffrey to push him out or see him walk out and thus enjoy even more triumph over him.
“William, where d’you think it’s coming from?”
Pulled back to the present by the enquiry, William applied himself to listening intently. Yes, now he could hear a distinct echo of the voices from the tables below the balcony on which the two men stood. From up here it seemed to be all around them. “It’s hard to tell,” he admitted.
“But what’s causing it?” asked Henry in a mystified tone. “It was Lady Matlock who pointed it out yesterday. She said she wasn’t too happy eating with the whole place ringing in her ears. I know she prides herself on keen hearing, but I’m not too overjoyed at having a valued customer notice it. I want this place to feel cosy and pleasant. It can’t be if it’s echoing every damned word that’s spoken.”
William was already casting an attentive eye around the restaurant: the huge mirrors along one long wall that made the place look even larger; the high, domed ceiling; the balconies that ran along two sides of the place, each supported by a colonnade of four somewhat plain Roman Doric columns, and the wide, short flight of carpeted stairs leading up to the bar and dance floor area. The bar was resplendent with gilt decor and maroon plush stools, and the dance floor, a circular area of dark gleaming hardwood under an imposing chandelier – at the moment unlit - was surrounded by several slim-legged gilt chairs and tables, three or four maroon plush sofas and a few easy chairs. But the echo seemed to emanate from the restaurant area itself.
“Mr Henry,” William said, using the polite term for all that they had this past year become quite close. “I think it has to do with those pillars. Plain stonework does tend to throw back noises. That might be the cause.”
“Why didn’t they do it before?” Henry queried. “They’ve been there long enough and no one’s noticed it until…”
“Lady Matlock pointed it out,” William finished for him with a wry grin. Hadn’t he too failed to notice until it had been pointed out to him?
Henry didn’t smile. To him this was a serious matter. “Well, it mustn’t be pointed out again. As soon as one customer notices it, others will automatically. Lady Matlock has only to mention it and they’ll all be straining their ears. We can’t have that. But we can’t take the pillars down. They help support the roof. Shoring it up would cost thousands.”
“Why not paint them?” William suggested. “A good thick coat of paint would stop any echo. Get a top artist, or several top artists, to eac
h paint a pillar in their own style. Fabric helps too – if it is the stone that’s causing the trouble. Paint and fabric would absorb it. Why not do it in this Egyptian style everyone’s gone crazy over since the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb? Every woman you set eyes on these days is dressed like Cleopatra!”
The tomb of the boy Pharaoh, discovered last November by Lord Carnarvon, had revealed an unbelievable treasure trove with promise of an apparently continuous stream of riches still to come. Since then the English had gone wild, consumed by – the papers coining the phrase – “Tutmania”. Women wore weird Egyptian-like bangles, Pharaoh-like headbands, feathers and dresses beaded with Egyptian patterns, some actually trying to walk as they imagined those ancients had. People decorated and furnished their homes with anything that looked Egyptian; even household products bore wrappers with hieroglyphics depicting the stylised Egyptian figures found on the wall of the boy king’s tomb. It was about time Letts cashed in on the craze.
Henry’s eyes gleamed as the idea caught him, in turn stimulating ever more ideas. “We could do the whole place out. I wonder how much would it cost? I’ll have to go over some figures with Geoffrey. The place could stand the outlay, I’m sure. It’s doing so well. Yes, I wonder.”
He was talking to himself. William, now forgotten, prudently returned to his station which he’d left temporarily in charge of a young but promising commis de rang who looked mightily relieved to have his station head waiter come back to take over again.
* * *
“Yes, you’re going to have to tell her. That child is a year old; how you’ve kept it from Mother for so long is beyond me. You can’t go on like this.”
“I know that!” Geoffrey barked, his hackles rising.
He had come here early, going up to the small private suite above the restaurant where Henry often stayed after a long night entertaining guests, guessing he’d be there this morning after having had a late Saturday night. In fact he’d woken his brother up, hoping for Henry’s support in confronting Mother, an unenviable business which he had put off far too long. He hadn’t expected Henry to start telling him what he already knew – that he couldn’t go on like this.
At first Henry’s conversation had been all to do with changing the restaurant’s decor. Enthusiastically greeting Geoffrey as he struggled out of bed, he’d gone to the bathroom to relieve himself, all the while talking through the half-open door about Ancient Egyptian styles, asking what did he think and saying that they’d have to discuss costs. It had taken him a while to realise that Geoffrey was here merely looking for Henry’s help in paving the way for him before facing Mother, and then it seemed Henry preferred to take him to task himself.
Angered, Geoffrey’s instinct was to feign nonchalance.
“Truth is, I don’t care any more,” he said to the invisible Henry, who could be heard washing rather noisily. “She didn’t want to know about my marriage, refuses to meet Mary, so what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
Henry emerged from the bathroom to begin feverishly dressing in casual shirt and trousers. His tone was sharp. “Of course it’s going to hurt her, finding out how you’ve kept her in the dark all this time.”
“I told you I don’t much care. I’m beginning to change my mind about telling her anything. We’ve been married one year and four months and she still won’t recognise Mary. It’s bloody insane. Mary and I are happy. We’re having a good time. Why rock the boat?”
And indeed they were having a good time. Little Marianne (Mary had insisted on the name Marianne partly because it was so similar to her name and partly because she remembered her weekend in Paris with such affection that a French-sounding name seemed appropriate – “Marianne Lett, it’s got a lovely ring to it,” she’d said and he had agreed) was no hindrance. They had a full-time nurse, Penelope Ambrose, to look after her, which gave him and Mary all the time they wanted to themselves.
“The longer you leave it” – Henry was occupying himself looking for a tie – “the harder it’s going to get.”
“That’s exactly why I came asking for your help.”
Henry stood up, looked at him and nodded. “To make it easy for you.”
It was a statement rather than a question. For a moment Geoffrey stared sullenly at him, hating the truth, then, turning, he let himself out of the apartment without another word.
But Henry was right. He must tell Mother. That he and Mary had kept their secret for well over a year was little short of a miracle. Several times they’d had narrow squeaks; on one occasion in May, pushing the perambulator through Kew Gardens for the air, they’d had to turn sharply down another path as he glimpsed a distant familiar face. What if, recognising him, the gossips got to Mother before he did and told her that Mary had been seen pushing a baby carriage?
“We should move further away,” he had said at one time, but the flat was so convenient to the West End and everything going on there.
There had been a couple of rather awkward moments at parties, too. Reintegrated into the social circuit, Mary had been asked if she was feeling better. She had burst out unthinkingly, “Oh, it was so quick…”
The woman had blinked. “Quick? Darling, but Geoffrey said you’d been ill for months.”
Mary had hastily gathered her wits. “I mean I finally got better quite suddenly,” she managed, ignoring the enquiry, “What exactly was wrong, dear?”
Most occasions were much the same, with over-inquisitive women asking how she felt and why Geoffrey hadn’t let her be seen since their marriage in New York, and remarking on how quaint it was to go all that way just to get married. (They had had to tell people that their marriage had taken place in America to explain away the fact that nobody had been invited.) “And keeping you under wraps for so long, a pretty thing like you, darling. Said you were ill.” Time and time again Geoffrey had managed to rescue her, saying it was because she had been rather delicate for a long time after their marriage, ignoring enquiries as to why she should have been. “Something foreign, no doubt,” had been the general conclusion to the mystery.
After a while questions grew less, finally dying away. There was no reason for anyone to know about Marianne, her first birthday celebrated quietly, just the three of them and her nurse. Few society couples aired their offspring in public – such a bore – but in time it would be made known they had a child and no one would be counting – too busy enjoying themselves. As yet Geoffrey still had no wish to rock the boat, but Henry was right. He’d have to tell Mother before she heard it elsewhere.
That was if she was at all interested, he thought resentfully as he made his way back down the stairs and along the passage behind the restaurant, aware of the staff arriving, the head chef’s voice dominating, Mr Samson always the first in the kitchen.
* * *
Geoffrey had decided Mary should be with him when he saw his mother. She was instantly clutched by terror when at the end of September, having let two months go by before telling her of his decision, he sprang it on her one morning in bed.
Her reaction was immediate. “Oh, Geoffrey, no!” The pleasure of lying in late was seeping away. “I can’t. That’s if she even lets me over the threshold.”
“We can hardly have the door closed in our faces if we just turn up,” he consoled, his tone light. “Once she sees you, she’ll like you.” But Mary was far from certain. The happy life she’d grown accustomed to, his mother a mere tiny cloud on the horizon, now threatened to fall about her ears.
These past months had been so wonderful, and she had fallen into it quite naturally as if having known nothing else but a life she’d never have dreamed two years ago of having. Parties, theatres, Headingly, Wimbledon’s Centre Court, Ascot, Covent Garden Opera House, tennis parties, night-clubs and mingling with high society had all come her way. She had even been included on the exclusive list of guests at Westminster Abbey for the wedding of the Duke of York and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon last April, the Prince of Wales having included Geo
ffrey in his own close circle of friends.
Mary had felt like a duchess alighting from the hired limousine, had moved like one in her fantastic Chanel dress bought especially for the occasion as she and Geoffrey entered through the great Gothic entrance to take their seats albeit at the very back of the dim Abbey. But she didn’t mind. As a guest of no less than the delicious Prince of Wales who turned the head of every young woman, all hoping he might look in their direction, Mary had felt more than honoured. Not being further included in the royal reception at Buckingham Palace wasn’t at all an anti-climax – she felt privileged to at least have been invited to the ceremony.
So many wonderful things had happened this past year. But now came the reckoning, having to meet Geoffrey’s formidable mother whom she should have met at the very outset of her relationship with Geoffrey but hadn’t due to her condition.
“I need to settle myself down before we go anywhere near her,” she told Geoffrey as they got ready on that Saturday morning, when she realised she could no longer wriggle out of it.
He’d have taken her on the Sunday, Geoffrey said, but his mother went to church in the mornings and preferred to lunch alone. Memories of the old family Sunday lunches were painful to her, with her daughters married, her husband dead, her youngest son to her mind a virtual prodigal and her eldest son more often than not living in his apartment above the restaurant. Her afternoon would be taken up having the vicar and like persons to tea, then going to church again for evensong, home to a quiet supper, then to bed early. Her Sundays were sacrosanct, not convenient for receiving any whom she hadn’t invited. All this he told Mary with a caustic ring to his tone and she realised he viewed the prospect of facing his mother with her with as much reluctance as she.
“Can we have lunch somewhere before we arrive?” Mary asked.
“We could grab a bite to eat at our restaurant. You might feel more at home there,” Geoffrey suggested hopefully, his use of “our restaurant” immediately stifling her nerves with a blanket of pride as she readily agreed.
