A Perfect Heritage

by Penny Vincenzi

  ‘I see. Was it a personal matter?’

  ‘Not entirely. Although her circumstances made it more so.’

  ‘And – you arranged this with the manager at Rolfe’s – that she should not be there this morning?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And – who did you think might do her work while she wasn’t there?’

  ‘A colleague. Mrs Bailey, I really don’t—’

  ‘Because I went there this morning, to Rolfe’s, to do a store check. The Farrell counter was quite obviously not being looked after. It wasn’t very impressive. I would have liked to have known about it.’

  ‘Mrs Bailey,’ said Athina, ‘if I want to call in a member of staff I shall do so. Mrs Dawson was personally hired by my husband, as were most of the consultants, and if one of them is worried about anything, I think I should make it my business to reassure them. It’s called personnel management,’ she added. The words ‘in case you didn’t know’ hung in the air.

  ‘Well, I’m afraid it is not for you any longer to call a girl away from her work, without a word to anyone. And if that girl has a professional problem, then it is my concern.’

  ‘I would have thought your concerns were greater than that at the moment,’ said Athina.

  ‘Lady Farrell, everything is my concern. Until I am satisfied that reporting lines are in place and—’

  ‘Reporting lines? Ah, yes. Perhaps you could tell me what this nonsense is about everyone reporting their figures daily.’

  ‘Not nonsense, Lady Farrell. Those daily figures are absolutely key in helping me to assess how the business is doing. Every modern company – every retail modern company, certainly smaller ones – requires such information. You’ve never heard of Key Performance Indicators?’

  ‘I have not. I only know that their collation is causing considerable extra workload in several departments.’

  ‘Well, when we have a new director of IT – Information Technology – he or she will install a system of sales reporting, among other things. And that will make the collation of information very much quicker and simpler.’

  ‘I see. And – why have we not been informed of this?’

  ‘It is on the agenda today. I propose to brief an agency to look for one.’

  ‘Why an agency?’ asked Caro. ‘I am in charge of the appointment of staff.’

  ‘Caro, with the greatest respect, I don’t think you would quite know the sort of person we are looking for, or even where to look. I don’t know myself. Meanwhile, Lady Farrell, I would like to express my disappointment that you feel you can remove people from their places of work at will without recourse to anyone—’

  ‘Mrs Bailey, I repeat, Mrs Dawson is a friend. She has an invalid husband, feared the new regime here might be putting her job at risk and needed to know if that was likely. So I told her her job was absolutely safe, that there was nothing for her to worry about. She seemed very grateful.’

  Bianca’s expression changed. ‘Lady Farrell, you have no authority to give that kind of assurance.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘No one can give Mrs Dawson that assurance. Not you, not I, not anybody. Like everything else at the moment, the consultants, and their costs and effectiveness are being assessed. They are an extremely expensive department and they must pay their way. At this moment, they don’t seem to be. That’s all I have to say.’

  ‘So do I understand you to say that there is a serious likelihood that all these extremely nice women loyal to Farrell’s over many years, will be thrown on the scrap heap?’

  ‘You’re over-anticipating what I might be going to do. What I refuse to say is that any of their jobs are guaranteed. They can’t be. The company isn’t paying its way and I am here to find ways to make it do so.’

  ‘At an appalling cost,’ said Athina, ‘of personal happiness and security.’

  ‘Unfortunately, personal security has to be paid for.’

  ‘That,’ said Athina, ‘is one of the harshest things I have ever heard in all my years in this business.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, Lady Farrell. Unfortunately, operating in the real world requires commercial reality.’

  ‘So what am I to tell poor Marjorie Dawson?’

  ‘Nothing at the moment. Hopefully we can continue to employ her, possibly in another capacity. When will you be speaking to her again?’

  Athina hesitated, then said, ‘As a matter of fact, next Saturday. I have arranged for my granddaughter to work on the counter with Mrs Dawson, to gain some work experience. I’m taking her down there personally, to introduce her to the manager and so on.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mother, what was that?’

  Bertie had been listening to the exchange with an expression of devout misery on his face.

  ‘Lucy has been to see me, told me about her plans to be a make-up artist. I think it’s a splendid idea, I’ve encouraged her—’

  ‘Mother, you shouldn’t have done that! Priscilla and I are very opposed to this plan of hers to leave university. We’d told her we can’t possibly encourage it.’

  ‘She told me. A great mistake if I might say so. Far better in this economic climate to have some practical experience than a fairly useless degree. I’ve agreed to loan her the money for the fees of this course she wants to do.’

  ‘Mother!’ Caro, unusually, came on to her brother’s side. ‘I think that’s a little unfair to Bertie and Priscilla. Lucy is their daughter.’

  ‘And she’s my granddaughter and I like to help her. She can earn a bit of money and gain a great deal in other ways.’

  ‘And who will pay her this money?’ asked Bianca, who had been listening patiently.

  ‘Farrell’s can pay her. She will be working, after all; she’s not just going to sit there all day.’

  ‘No, Lady Farrell, Farrell’s will not pay her. There is an absolute freeze on any extra staff, as you very well know,’ Bianca said evenly.

  ‘But she’s part of the family!’

  ‘Then I suggest the family pay her. Ah, look, sandwiches! How very welcome. I have here the agenda for the rest of this meeting, so may I ask you to look at it while we begin our lunch?’

  Athina stood up. ‘I’m sorry. I really don’t feel I can stay for the meeting. I have been extremely upset and, I might add, humiliated. I am shocked at you, Mrs Bailey, I had thought you had more humanity. Clearly I was mistaken. Bertie, Caro, you can stay if you wish. I am leaving.’

  ‘So – she left,’ said Bianca, recounting this to Patrick over supper. ‘And Caro and Bertie stayed. I think they felt they had to, or it would have looked as if they were totally under her thumb, which of course they are. She – Caro – is completely useless, but I do like him more and more. I wish I could find something I thought he could do but so far . . . oh God, Patrick this is a tough one! And I still don’t know what I’m doing: the more I dig, the less there seems to be there. No good people, no systems, nothing to build on. It’s a classic.’

  ‘There must be some good people.’

  ‘There’s Susie and Jemima, of course, but I brought her in. Lady Farrell is an asset, I suppose, or could be, but she’s a complete nightmare and warfare’s now open between us, so it will be even more difficult than it was . . .’

  ‘There must be something right with the company,’ said Patrick. ‘You said yourself they had the magic.’

  ‘I did, didn’t I? I suppose it was with the potential, the name, the legend. Certainly not the products which are simply awful, apart from The Cream. That’s a little nugget of gold, that and the Berkeley Arcade shop, but I can’t work out how they’re going to work together. I’ve mined the data until I’m blue in the face, can’t find anything. I’m beginning to feel as if a huge millstone is settling round my neck.’

  ‘You always say that, when it comes to your data mining, it can be something bad as well as something good,’ said Patrick, ‘a major cock-up just sitting there, something you can remove, and then a lot of things go right b
ecause of that.’

  ‘I know – darling, you’re so wonderful, the way you listen to me and remember things, it must be so boring! But I can’t find anything, not even a cock-up. Now that’s serious! Grrr! Oh, I’m sorry, let’s stop. I’m looking forward to dinner tomorrow, that’ll distract me . . .’

  Chapter 11

  She would resign. It was the only thing to do. She was hating it now, looking so stupid at meeting after meeting and that was not a situation she enjoyed. Well, who would? She knew that she wasn’t up to the job any more – if she resigned she could do so with dignity and it would appear her choice. If she hung on, there would be no dignity whatsoever.

  And her mother’s behaviour was – well, not ideal. Caro didn’t like Bianca Bailey and she hated the way she operated, but they had signed up to it out of necessity, and they had to go along with it. She wondered if she might point that out as forcibly as she could to her mother? No. Athina didn’t take kindly to criticism.

  Of course, Bertie would be let go. He was so hopeless, so timid. God knows what would happen to him. He was only fifty-seven, far too young to retire, and had no discernible business talents – no talents whatsoever, in fact.

  Well, Bertie was not her problem. She wrote a note to Bianca asking if she could see her first thing on Monday morning to discuss the future.

  Caro had spent most of her life in a state of frustration. She had read law at university, and dreamed of a career at the Bar but her mother had crushed this ambition and told her her future lay with Farrell’s.

  ‘Frankly, Caro, Bertie isn’t up to much; you could find yourself in my position one day, running the company. And I find it hurtful, that you should wish to reject your heritage.’

  Partly for the sake of peace, and partly because the promise of inheriting Farrell’s was undeniably attractive, Caro gave in. And hated every day of her new life.

  She met and married Martin Johnson a year later; he was attractive in a rather dry way, successful and rich. She was not in love with him, but she saw in him a chance to escape from Farrell’s, certainly for five or ten years, raising his children and being a good corporate wife. But the children did not materialise; after several wretched years, as she miscarried eleven times, and was then told she had no chance of conception, she went back to Farrell’s more by way of an escape than inclination. A serious depression had ensued a few years later, born of the awareness that her fine brain was rotting quietly and a sense of absolute humiliation that she could not fulfil even her most basic function, that of motherhood. And her husband, aware that she had never loved him, embarked on a series of affairs which he scarcely tried to conceal.

  She recovered from the depression, but it was replaced by an ongoing bitterness, which had never left her.

  ‘This is nice!’ Bianca smiled at Jonjo. ‘Great choice.’

  ‘Glad you think so.’ He seemed less at his ease than usual. ‘Let’s get some drinks and shall we go to the table or stay at the bar till the others come?’

  ‘Oh, the bar.’

  ‘Right. Well, shall we get some champagne?’

  He shunned the house champagne, insisted on Roederer. Bianca exchanged a brief smile with Patrick; they were both familiar with Jonjo’s excesses, found them amusing, but endearing.

  He didn’t sit down, kept a watch on the door. His phone jangled; he looked at it, seemed to relax a little.

  ‘Ah. Nearly here. Five minutes.’

  ‘Who, Saul Finlayson?’

  ‘No, no, Guinevere. She’s stuck in traffic.’ The waiter appeared with the champagne and glasses.

  Jonjo looked slightly anxious. ‘Should we open it yet, do you think?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Bianca.

  ‘Only thing is – don’t want it to go flat before she gets here . . .’

  ‘Jonjo, it won’t go flat in five minutes. Now sit down, please,’ said Bianca, taking a sip and wondering if it was really worth the extra fifty pounds. ‘You’re making me feel dreadful.’

  ‘Sorry. It’s just that – ah, here we are!’ He rushed outside to greet a large black Mercedes which had just pulled up.

  ‘He must be in love,’ said Patrick.

  ‘Hmm. You know what? I’m not getting good vibes about Ms Bloch. I think he’s exhibiting terror rather than love. Anyway, time will tell. Oh, my God! Patrick look.’

  A dazzling vision had come through the door ushered by Jonjo. Guinevere’s photographs did not do her justice. She was over six foot on her Louboutin heels at least, with hair falling in great golden ringlets over her shoulders, a small face, perfectly made up, with blue eyes almost too big for it, a small straight nose and a pouting mouth, very full, very sexy. She was wearing a white bandage dress (Victoria Beckham, thought Bianca), only just long enough, and her arms were perfect, slender but toned, and her incredible golden legs moved her smoothly and very slowly over to the bar. Everyone had stopped talking and she acknowledged the fact with a dazzling smile. Patrick, clearly as impressed as all the other men, stood up and held out his hand to her.

  ‘Hello, I’m Patrick Bailey.’

  ‘Hello, Patrick.’ Her voice was low and throaty, with an American-European accent: German, Bianca supposed, given the name.

  ‘And this is Bianca, Patrick’s wife,’ said Jonjo, chipping in a little late. ‘Old, old friends of mine.’

  ‘Really?’ Her gaze settled on Patrick. ‘You look too young to be an “old, old friend”.’

  Patrick, thought Bianca, don’t fall for that, don’t, I shall be so ashamed . . . Patrick fell for it.

  ‘Oh, afraid I am,’ he said. He was actually blushing.

  ‘Guinevere, glass of champagne . . .’ Jonjo urged her into a seat, sat down beside her, poured her a glass.

  ‘Thank you; I’m exhausted, I’ve been working all day in the studio.’

  ‘Have you?’ said Bianca. She had googled Ms Bloch and didn’t like what she had seen of her very abstract bronzes, most of them rather phallic, some extremely so. The prices seemed to her absurd, starting at £20,000, rising to £50,000. A clear case of the emperor’s clothes, in her (admittedly uninformed) view. ‘Very commendable, working on a Saturday.’

  ‘Well, I felt – you know – inspired. One has to catch those moments, I find. Don’t you?’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t know,’ said Bianca. ‘My work is a great deal more prosaic than yours, I’m afraid. But it must be marvellous, what you do.’

  ‘It is, of course. I feel very fortunate. What line is your work in?’

  ‘Oh, management,’ said Bianca vaguely.

  ‘Really? I would love to hear all about it.’ The blue eyes flicked at Bianca briefly, then settled on Patrick. ‘And you?’

  ‘Oh, I’m in finance.’

  ‘Finance? With Jonjo? Thrilling, that world. Excuse me . . .’ she whipped out an iPhone, ‘I’m just tweeting where I am and who with. It’s such a pressure, isn’t it, keeping up, on Twitter? Oh my God, Joan is in town. I’d forgotten.’

  ‘Joan?’

  ‘Collins. Very amusing tweet here about the airport queues. She came to my exhibition in St Tropez, she’s a complete sweetheart.’ A long pause. ‘Oh, God, Stephen is just so funny!’

  She was lost in a twittering universe.

  ‘Jonjo! I’m sorry. Had an argument with some traffic.’

  ‘Saul, hello mate.’ A cockney accent always appeared, Bianca had noticed, when Jonjo was with anyone in the financial world. ‘You know Patrick, of course, this is Bianca, his wife, and this is Guinevere Bloch. You’ve probably heard of her.’

  Saul Finlayson looked rather vaguely round the table.

  ‘Don’t think so. Hello, Guinevere, hi, Patrick. Nice to meet you, Bianca. I’ll sit next to you, if I may – I hear you want to vet me. Or that’s what Jonjo said. Hope I’ll do.’

  He said this rather seriously; then flashed a sudden smile at her, gone almost before she had seen it. No photograph could have prepared her for the reality of him: not good-looking but absolutely
arresting, with the startling green eyes with dark brows and lashes at odds with the blond hair, the wide face and high forehead; none of it seeming to fit together somehow. He was very thin, quite tall and strangely restless, shifting from one foot to another even as he stood there, greeting them. He was wearing jeans, a white, rather crumpled shirt, and a pair of very kicked-about Timberlands. He certainly didn’t spend any of his millions on his clothes, she thought.

  ‘No thanks, Jonjo.’ He turned his head as a glass of champagne was proffered. ‘I’d rather have a beer.’

  ‘Saul, I’ve just been tweeting that we’re all here.’ Guinevere tossed her golden ringlets back, leaned an imposing golden cleavage towards Saul. ‘Can I add you?’

  ‘If you do,’ said Saul, looking at her, and there was only a glimmer of a smile, ‘that thing goes down the toilet.’

  He means that, thought Bianca. It seemed unnecessarily aggressive, however much she sympathised with him.

  He turned back to Bianca.

  ‘I read you’d got a new project.’

  ‘Yes.’ She felt flattered that he should know.

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Too early to say.’ She could do economy of words too.

  ‘Of course. Dumb question.’

  Silence.

  ‘I think I’d like a sherry,’ said Guinevere suddenly, throwing back her golden ringlets. ‘This place is all about Spain, so why are we drinking French champagne? Jonjo, can we have sherry? And – oh my God! There’s Leon and Mardy, they must join us!’ She jumped up and glided towards the door; her bottom, Bianca noticed with a touch of pleasure, was just a little too rounded for the dress.

  ‘That is a terrible creature,’ said Saul in Bianca’s ear. ‘Thank God I’m not staying.’

  She turned, intending to look cool, and found his face six inches from hers, intent gaze probing, and felt a rush of – what? Hard to say. Irritation and confusion in equal measures. If he was trying to charm her, he wasn’t doing much of a job.

  ‘She’s – she’s all right,’ she said.

  ‘Really? I’m surprised you should say that. Friend of yours?’