by Maggie Ford
She hadn’t been near there since concocting that story for William Goodridge about having to attend a conference. She wondered if he still worked there. Probably not. Geoffrey never mentioned him and she’d never asked. Dismissing her worry as immaterial, Mary shrugged it off as, finally ready, she and Geoffrey left.
* * *
William was pleased with himself having deftly prevented a scene, though unsure if he’d done the right thing. Scenes were said not to be good for trade, yet a rousing argument bordering on fisticuffs between a couple of celebrities brought people in for days afterwards, hoping to enjoy a sequel, especially if they were in the public eye and should know better.
To William’s mind being in the public eye seemed to exacerbate the pomposity that usually caused these unwarranted scenes when the parties involved should be keeping their heads down. Titled gentlemen with their mistresses; stage idols who needed public adoration rather than condemnation; Members of Parliament needing their constituents’ support; all forgot themselves after a few lunchtime tipples or a late-night supper with too much champagne.
This row had arisen when Mr Samuel Woodward, the well-known City banker – a short, stocky, red-faced man, proud of his acid witticisms but not so easily enjoying them when directed at him – had aimed a caustic if jovial remark at an acquaintance on the next table who was entertaining two ladies of the stage, one of them the celebrated Madame Celestine Vollard. The dig had to do with the other being lucky enough to have two for the price of one judging by what had been ordered – expensive jugged hare for the gentleman, Mr Gordon Gilmore, Tory Member of Parliament for Fendle under Stanley Baldwin, as always on Saturdays, with just chicken and salad for the ladies, who no doubt needed to watch their figures. The victim hadn’t seen the humour of the jibe.
Throwing down his napkin on to the table he swivelled in his seat to glare at the tormentor. “Exactly what are you insinuating, sir?” he roared.
Woodward let out a deep bellow of laughter.
“Oh, my dear man, no need to go off half cocked. Cocked? A joke?”
“A poor one. And certainly out of order in public. Filthy minds—”
Madame Vollard, a fiery French woman, who had been feeding her toy poodle bits of chicken under the table, intercepted in the contralto singing voice that had made her name. “I do not know you, monsieur, but you are a silly, silly little man.”
Woodward glared, joking put aside. “Gilmore, kindly restrain that woman’s insults.”
“That woman!” came the female scream. “I am called that woman? Is you who insult. You… British pig! I am Madame Vollard, not that woman!”
“Yes, restrain yourself,” Gilmore said, “or I shall call you a damned filthy-minded blackguard – which you rightly are!”
William, striding from his station desk, was in time to intervene as both men leapt up to take a swing at each other, but not quick enough to prevent jugged hare being knocked all over Madame Vollard’s lap. The other young lady leaped clear of the splashes, her long slim legs catching the legs of the chair, tipping it over with an intrusive rattle.
“Sir! Sir!” William attempted to calm the antagonists, risking a chance slam in the face from the already flailing fists, so far none landing on any chin. “This is no way to behave. Please, Mr Gilmore, your guests…” The risk of being flattened by a wayward blow was diminishing. “Your meal has been spilt down Madame’s beautiful dress.”
Madame Vollard was screaming, “Look at my dress!” Her voice echoed through the whole restaurant, whose customers were now having a whale of a time as onlookers. “It is ruined! Who is to pay for the cleaning bill? It is the fault of the waiter, the silly man! To put Monsieur Gilmore so dangerously close to such an abominable man!”
All the time the little dog had been yapping excitedly. Now it skittered out from under the table as Woodward went to pick up his own fallen chair and deftly nipped him on a convenient wrist.
The man gave a howl. “That’s it!” he yelled. “That’s the last time I come here. We’re leaving. My bill, if you don’t mind!” Dragging his napkin from under his chin and his silent wife from her chair, he proceeded to the foyer – thus avoiding waiting for the bill to be brought to him – threw his money on to the counter and, grabbing his wife’s hat and wrap and his topper from a straight-faced commis, swept from the premises. The other party left soon after, the remaining customers settling down to relish a jolly good recount of the entire invigorating diversion from an otherwise ordinary lunch.
Half an hour after both parties had left, William was still grinning to to himself each time he recollected Madame Vollard’s expression, that rouged mouth wide open, eyes bulging in her handsome face as first the jugged hare went down her and then her little dog took a nip from her by the hated enemy, Woodward. Still grinning, William made a mental note not to put those parties near each other ever again, for they would surely return, for all their threats. People always did, Letts being one of the liveliest restaurants in town, especially at night when parties of men about town entertained lady friends to supper and late-night dancing.
Five minutes later William’s smile was wiped from his face as he saw two people enter the restaurant, the woman’s escort leaving her briefly in the foyer while he spoke to Mr Henry who’d come down from his private flat to have the earlier incident related to him by the restaurant manager.
The woman stood alone, a little nervous, seeming isolated from those arriving and leaving around her, none of them noticing her. William knew the gentleman, her husband, of course, but her – little remained of the young girl he’d once known. The last time he’d said goodbye to her had been the day she had told him, lied to him, that she had been required to go off to some fictitious seminar to help out with the clerical work. But there had been no seminar – she had slunk off to get married. Not a word to him, not word or sight of her since, not even an apology or an excuse.
He felt the sickness rising up in his stomach, his face turn pale, his lips grow numb. Quickly he turned away and went on with his normal duties. She wasn’t going to cost him his job this time; he was too good at it, had worked too hard to gain it – with a little help from Henry Lett of course, with that strange wish to promote him over the heads of others which he still found mystifying.
Fifteen
It still stuck in her mind, like a thorn under the skin, that day Geoffrey had taken her to see his mother. More than twelve months ago and even now the memory caused her to cringe.
It had been a day of trauma right from the very start, seeing William Goodridge, he treating her as just another customer, and then, when she had been too pent up to eat the sole fillets a la Lyon she had ordered, hearing him enquire, polite and suave, “Is Madam’s lunch not to her taste? Does Madam wish to change her order?”
Polite, yes, but there had been an edge to it – maybe the politeness itself – that had disturbed her so that she had been wretched all the way to Geoffrey’s mother’s home in Halstead Green, a cold, staid-looking mansion in acres of grounds that had put the fear of God into her from the moment she saw it.
The senior Mrs Lett had been no less cold and staid – enough to have put off Queen Mary herself – with the added advantage of being tall enough to look down on her youngest son’s wife, which she had done adequately. Mary still believed that the woman’s sole purpose in consenting to meet her had been to mortify her.
They had stayed a mere couple of hours in that frigid, unbending presence but to Mary it had seemed a lifetime and she came away vowing that if she never saw the woman again it would be a blessing.
She often wondered what would have happened had they disclosed Marianne’s existence, Geoffrey having forbidden her to mention anything about her. It had hurt, but he had said he needed more time to tell his mother and, as gently as possible, that it was best. She’d have preferred to have seen the evil woman squirm, but it would have been Geoffrey, her son after all, who’d have been hurt, so she had kept her mouth shut.
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Geoffrey had eventually told his mother in August, some time after Marianne’s second birthday, stupidly assuming she’d give way once she heard about her granddaughter. Instead, there had been a frightful row. He hadn’t spoken about it much, but Mary had cried bitterly when he had finally said that his mother had told him that she wanted nothing to do with his “virtual bastard”. He’d held Mary close, saying he wanted nothing more to do with his mother himself and suspected her of not being entirely right in the head since his father’s death. But it did not help Mary, who now hated the woman with all her heart and soul.
Well, it was all in the past now. Despite being aware of the woman ever hovering in the background, it had been an exciting, eventful year. Henry often came to see her, apparently taking their side in the matter of Marianne. He would spend hours at the flat, whether Geoffrey was there or not, playing with the baby and chatting to Mary. It puzzled her that he seldom seemed to go out anywhere unless on business, appeared always wrapped up with the restaurant as if married to it. Once she asked him why he still hadn’t any young lady in tow. After all, he was twenty-six; it was time he should have been married.
He had given her a strange look. “I probably set my sights too high.” Then he had laughed, a little hollowly she thought. “There’s only one I know who fits the bill, and I can’t have her.” He had refused to be goaded further by her teasing him about who that might be, and she had finally let it go. But she did enjoy his company. He was so different from Geoffrey in many ways.
Unlike his brother, Geoffrey was full of life, always wanting to be somewhere else. He had filled the whole of 1924 with fun and excitement. He and Mary were seen at so many social events it was said a party wasn’t the same without them; his repartee never flagging and always looked for, she hardly missing out any chance to dance, an expert at it to the delight of the opposite sex and the envy of her own as she kicked up her heels to all the latest jazz tunes. They often threw wild and expensive parties in their own spacious flat until it became quite the place to be. Even Prince Edward was seen there on occasion.
New Year’s Eve had them celebrating at no less than three separate parties, at one of which she had her first experiment with opium, the odd sensation it gave her leaving her vowing never to try it again though others seemed to enjoy it immensely. But the parties had gone on throughout the year: some wild, some not quite so wild, but most of them eventful and full of excitement one way or another.
One they’d gone to in May had seen Oswald Mosley, the fiery upper-crust ex-Tory MP who had crossed the House soon after Labour won the election, striking up a fierce political argument ending in a fight, with the police having to be called in. Impeccable and unruffled, Mosley had laid an arm about Mary’s shoulders, guiding her out before the police began making arrests. He and had then gone back for Geoffrey, his thin lips smirking under that trim moustache of his as he remarked, “No sense in courting trouble” – rather incongruously after having personally started it all – and then departed, as untroubled as if nothing unusual had occurred.
There were so many varied pleasures. They had gone with friends to see Cecil B. De Mille’s film The Ten Commandments, giggling, behaving more like children than responsible adults, afterwards dancing at a night-club until the small hours. They had invaded Paris for the 1924 Olympics, some of the women Mary knew passing out in the heat though she had revelled in it and Geoffrey had made friends with the muscular American swimmer, Johnny Weismuller, who took three golds for his country and for a while stole her heart.
Paris was the place to be, Paris and London. Paris with the Prince of Wales, being seen in all the smart places. London and concerns about whether there’d be a season or not. She’d become quite used to travelling, to all this night-life, endless cocktail parties, cabaret, horse racing, motoring, motor race meetings, house parties and tennis parties, Ascot and the royal enclosure, where she had bowed as their Majesties passed in their carriage and for which occasion she had bought three exorbitantly priced hats. She and Geoffrey were often in danger of living beyond his income.
Popping off here, popping off there, Mary was no longer worried about slipping into Letts and seeing William Goodridge there when there were so many fine people to mingle with. Geoffrey knew how to attract all the right people; Jackie Coogan hot from Hollywood and treated like royalty; the controversial Noel Coward whose play The Vortex was raising so much clamour; famous hostess Mrs Laura Corrigan who had this year sent reply-paid cables from India for her Grand National house party. The list was endless.
But sometimes she longed for a quiet time, just she and Geoffrey and Marianne; Geoffrey putting on gramophone records or just listening to the wireless – still a novelty – but mostly giving some time to Marianne. She saw too little of her daughter, looked after so well by Penny. Often it didn’t seem she was her mother at all, for all that she loved her dearly.
Sitting at her dressing-table making her face up for the Christmas Eve party they were off to, Geoffrey still in the bathroom finishing shaving, she was thinking of Marianne when Penny Ambrose came into the bedroom after knocking and being asked to enter.
Mary turned from the minor, expecting to see Marianne with her, waiting to be kissed goodnight before going off to bed. Instead Penny was alone, her rather plain, square face a little strained.
“Mrs Lett, I think you ought to take a quick peek at Marianne. She’s weepy, she wouldn’t eat her supper and now she feels hot.”
“Hot?” The flat was a little hot, fires in every room against the chill December air outside.
“I mean, she has a slightly high temperature. And she keeps moaning. I don’t think she is well, Mrs Lett. It seems to me more than just a cold.”
Mary sighed. Penny was a qualified nurse. She should know if Marianne was unwell or not and take the necessary steps. But of course she was doing that, reporting to the mother first.
It was probably nothing at all. So far Marianne had escaped every one of those children’s ailments that abounded. Dr Posford, keeping a regular check on her, marvelled that she was always so healthy, even when she had been teething. She usually even escaped colds, and if she did catch one it was soon over. So it was a little shock to hear Penny say she thought Marianne was not well.
“I’ll come and have a look at her,” Mary said. There was still plenty of time before leaving for the party; it would take about fifteen to twenty minutes to get there in the new Ford. She thought of the midnight-blue dress she would be wearing, bought for the occasion, though she would have to pull in her horns after this. One couldn’t just keep on buying new – Geoffrey was getting a little worried about money and Christmas was such an expensive time.
She followed Penny into Marianne’s bedroom. Quite large, it doubled as a nursery. She’d said to Geoffrey that they would eventually have to find a house with a proper nursery as Marianne grew older. “And a garden for her to play in.” The park was all right, but one couldn’t expect her to go there for the rest of her childhood, always with a nurse in charge.
Marianne was sitting on top of the bedclothes, her little lips drawn down, her blue eyes moist, her cheeks bright pink. She looked miserable and was making little high-pitched moaning sounds, as Penny had said. Mary put out a hand and felt her forehead. Warm, not hot, but certainly not right. She bent over her.
“Don’t you feel well, darling?”
Marianne shook her head, still too young to describe exactly how she felt, only able to string simple words together.
Mary bent to kiss her cheek. That too felt warm – dry and warm, not natural. Fear took hold of her. She straightened up. “I think we’d best get Dr Posford.”
“I think it’s only a feverish chill,” he said when he came. “You keep this flat too warm, you know. When she goes out, the contrast is a shock.”
“We didn’t want her to feel cold indoors,” Mary excused.
“Mollycoddling,” he snorted as he pulled the covers up over the child after examin
ing her. “Cold rooms never hurt anyone so long as one is adequately clothed. Overheated rooms breed germs.” He was a man of the old school, apparently frowning on comfort, though Mary suspected he himself enjoyed it well enough judging by the exorbitant fees he charged.
Geoffrey came into the nursery, shaved and dressed in his evening clothes, having taken ages about it so that he hadn’t seen Posford’s arrival. Geoffrey looked splendid, Mary thought with a small twinge of adoration in her stomach. He also looked worried, finding the doctor here.
“What’s wrong? I came to get you, Mary. Is Marianne all right?”
“She picked up a little chill,” Mary said. “I thought we should call Dr Posford, just to be sure.” She saw a look pass over Geoffrey’s eyes and knew he was counting costs again, thinking of the hefty fee for calling Posford out, imagining the man growing fat on unnecessary call-outs. But Marianne’s health came first, didn’t it?
A small pang of irritation replaced the one of love as Posford said, “Keep her in bed for a few days. She’ll be fine.”
* * *
Henry had come home for Christmas. He’d rather have stayed in his penthouse above the restaurant, but Mother had asked him to come. She had asked his sisters and their families who had also responded, though Geoffrey hadn’t come. He wouldn’t, with Mary not welcome. Had he done so, bringing Mary with him, Mother couldn’t with any decency have turned them away, but their stay here would have been miserable. Best they stayed away.
But Henry felt keenly disappointed. How wonderful it would have been with Mary here, if all had been different – a breath of fresh air, she’d have made his Christmas. As it was, though a sizeable enough gathering it was far from a jolly one, maybe because the remaining member of the family wasn’t here, certainly because the head of it would never again be.
