by Maggie Ford
‘Of course, the majority of us are for the Royalists, aren’t we, Chris?’ she said, ‘us’ meaning people like her, Letty deduced. ‘Lots of us are thinking of going to Spain to support them. We have to fight for the rights of others, not just ourselves, even if it does mean with our lives! You’re thinking of going, aren’t you, Chris?’
She laid a hand, heavy with huge rings and chunky bracelets, over his, blue eyes gazing very intensely into his dark ones, while Chris gave his parents a sidelong glance, and half nodded.
Letty drew in a sharp breath, fear spreading through her like spilled oil. ‘Christopher! You’re not!’
‘I was only thinking of it.’ He toyed idly with his crêpes suzette, stuffing a large piece into his mouth to prevent the need to say more, prevented too by the loquacious Bunny going off at another tangent.
‘I say, this business of Edward and Mrs Simpson is rather off, don’t you think? He’ll never be allowed to marry a divorcee. Imagine … Queen Wallis!’ She gave a peal of laughter that made heads turn.
Letty smiled, wishing this birthday dinner would hurry to its end.
‘What’s this about going to fight in Spain?’ she taxed Chris later. ‘Don’t you think you should first sort out your life here?’
‘It’s only an idea,’ he said, not meeting her eyes so that she knew it was more than that. ‘It’s just that I can’t see myself settling down to some boring old job. There’s nothing in England.’
‘What about all this law you’ve been studying? If that doesn’t interest you any more, your father could find you a good position with him if you wanted it. It’s an expanding business. Employs hundreds of staff. As managing director, your father would find you something worth while.’
The handsome young face grimaced. ‘I want to see a bit of the world. Have a bit of excitement.’
‘Then go abroad on holiday!’ she railed at him, beset by fear. ‘There are so many places you can go. It needn’t cost you a penny. Your father and I will pay for it. Why not take a cruise to America or somewhere? But not Spain, darling. You can’t want to go there.’
‘They’ll need men. It’s serious, you know, Mum. I don’t want to holiday. I want to help in preventing upstarts from imposing their will on a country – like Mussolini’s doing in Abyssinia. We have to help prevent tyrants and dictators from invading other countries.’
‘No one’s invaded Spain,’ she argued desperately. ‘It’s their own quarrel. It had nothing to do with anyone else. And, anyway, what can you do on your own?’
‘There are thousands who think the same as me, Mum. If everyone went, like they did in the last war, it would help stop it. Bunny says it’s the thin end of the wedge.’
Letty’s mouth was bone dry. ‘Don’t you realise, you could be killed?’ She saw him smile nonchalantly.
‘Don’t be silly, Mum! It won’t be that kind of war – just peasants fighting the government. And we’ll be with the government troops with heavy artillery. I’ll be all right. Don’t worry.’
It was like hearing a little boy about to meet an opposing rugby team. But she remembered the war of twenty years ago. Albert Worth, Vinny’s first husband and Chris’s foster father, a slightly rotund, pompous but kindly man, had been killed; Billy, a strong young man, was gassed, wrecked for the rest of his life before dying prematurely; David, Chris’s own father, was taken prisoner by the Turks and to this day had never spoken about it.
What in God’s name did Chris know about what he saw as the excitement of war? Of bullets that tore away jawbones, shell splinters that blinded, bombs that shredded men to pieces, gas that choked them to death? And now they had even more horrific weapons: planes that flew at four hundred miles an hour to drop bigger, more devastating bombs.
To Chris going to war held a similar pull as it had for men like Billy – a promise of adventure, excitement and noble heroism.
The truth was, he wasn’t settled here at home. How could he be? David arriving at weekends, sharing her bedroom, then returning to his home in Barnet on the Sunday. To Chris it must seem sordid, embarrassing. She knew how he must feel, but to wish himself into a war … it was unthinkable.
Her blood going cold, she recalled her sister Vinny’s words at her dad’s funeral: ‘I hope you never have to lose him, like I had to do.’
It sounded frighteningly prophetic now – almost like a curse.
The last days of 1936 were full of portents. The country’s new king announced his decision to abdicate rather than take the crown without Wallis Simpson; people felt for him as he gave his reasons. Some, like Letty, knew only too well the pain he must have experienced to come to this. But to everyone it was a blow. Preparations for his coronation were quickly transferred to his brother, to be crowned George VI on 12 May 1937.
In December Crystal Palace burned to the ground. Having become an institution, many considered it an ominous sign and weren’t so much surprised as alarmed by the abdication a few weeks later.
In December too David was told that his father-in-law was slipping away fast. He and Madge hurried to the bedside, sat until the early hours, but Lampton passed away without regaining consciousness.
They attended the funeral some days later, then with the solicitor and interested parties heard Lampton’s will. Letty waited that weekend, but when David didn’t show up, was left in a ferment of anxiety as to why. She dared not telephone, Madge possibly being there, she had no wish to put the cat among the pigeons – cat being the operative word in Letty’s thoughts where Madge was concerned.
A week of heart-rending uncertainty, indecision, insomnia, niggling anger which she managed to submerge when David turned up the following weekend. Anger that dissipated as he came in from the wintry weather, offering her a kiss that was just as cold. His face was bleak as he took off his trilby, scarf and overcoat, hung them in the hall.
‘How did it go – the funeral?’ she asked as they went on into the living room. She couldn’t bring herself to ask the reason for his not seeing her, but busied herself mixing him a warming scotch and soda while he sat down in the armchair by the brightly glowing gasfire.
‘Like most funerals,’ he said woodenly. ‘Though there wasn’t much crying done. Most were more eager to hear what he’d left them. He’d outgrown their love years ago, I think. His brother Robert seemed the most upset.’
‘And Madge?’
‘Madge!’
His scathing tone made her look at him as she handed him the drink.
‘What’s wrong, David?’ she asked.
It was a while before he answered, sipping his scotch, staring into the fire while she went and sat opposite.
‘He said once that as long as I was married to her, he would divide his shares in the company equally between us. He left me one hundred. To Madge, he left nine hundred.’
Letty’s heart went out to him. ‘Oh, David, that’s really hateful. He must have been as vindictive as she is.’
‘He was all right,’ David excused quickly. ‘It was her – she got to him. She must have done.’
‘Does that mean she has control?’
‘No.’ He smiled bitterly. ‘Not quite. Oddly enough, I have. But only by a fraction. The shares my father left me just about give me the edge over her. Trouble is, the rest are held by Lampton’s brother Robert, and my cousin Freddy.’
The shareholders in Baron & Lampton’s had never strictly interested Letty before now. With her own business to deal with and all that it entailed – hers still a one woman band and shares of little concern – she’d heard the names mentioned, but had taken little account of them.
Now they assumed momentous significance in her mind. David supplied the reason within seconds.
‘All she has to do now is to nobble her uncle.’
‘But you said he doesn’t like her, that you and he get on well.’
‘True. But it doesn’t mean that she might not try to twist him round her finger.’
‘I don’t think she could,’
Letty said with conviction.
‘You don’t know her,’ David said despondently, but Letty still felt confident.
‘There’s still your cousin Freddy. He’s on your side, isn’t he?’
David nodded without speaking, remained gazing into the fire, and Letty could see he wasn’t convinced, realised then just what damage Madge could do, knew just how keen she would be to do it.
Not knowing quite what to say, how to comfort him, she came and sat on the arm of his chair, wordlessly putting her arm about him. It mattered little to her if David had no business, had not a penny in the world, but it mattered to him – it mattered that he hoped to leave his shares to Chris, for his future, a future he could now see being plucked away from his son by the wife he detested.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
It was quite wrong to expect Chris to settle down, even if Madge hadn’t hit the roof when David suggested finding somewhere for him in the company. ‘The last thing I would sanction would be having your bastard around,’ she said in front of everyone prior to their monthly board meeting. Mr Hawke of Hawke & Walsall, Company Secretary, had frowned his disapproval of her remark.
‘Most uncalled for,’ he said when they had gone into the meeting. ‘A most unseemly remark. She may hold a tidy investment in this concern, but she does not sit on the board and has no say here. She certainly should not be coming here for the sole purpose of stirring up dissension no matter how you and she, Mr Baron, conduct your private lives.’
‘I can’t stop her coming here,’ David said stiffly, as he took his seat at the head of the long polished oak table, a secretary with her notebook and pencil at his side. ‘And Mrs Baron and myself consider our private lives to be private, you understand?’
Mr Hawke had frowned even deeper, the lines on his face forming canyons. ‘Quite. But if I may venture to say so, you might think it best, under the circumstances, not to allow your boy … er, your son … to come into the company – at least for the time being. Better all round, don’t you think?’
David nodded wordlessly, wondering how to explain to Chris.
In fact Chris had no interest in being found a job in his father’s firm.
‘It’s nice of Dad, but I want to see what I can do off my own bat.’
‘Are you thinking of going in for law?’ Letty probed with purpose.
‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ he said apologetically. ‘Can’t see myself in it somehow. Stuffy lot, solicitors. Wouldn’t mind a stab at politics though. Bit young for it yet perhaps, but I’d like to make a start.’
Somehow, Letty couldn’t see much future in counting local votes, canvassing, listening to speakers, or whatever budding politicians of twenty-two got up to. But he was at least thinking of something.
Ideas of going to fight in Spain had faded with the going of Bunny. He had a different girl now, had been with her for six months which Letty thought encouraging. A pretty girl – tall and skinny, with a pleasant face and extremely fair fluffy hair which Letty suspected was ten per cent natural, ninety per cent peroxide. Her name was Eileen Cochrane, a sister of one of Chris’s erstwhile college chums.
At least, if anything came of it, Letty thought hopefully, she’d not have the name Beans. Chris had kept the name of Bancroft until last year when he’d agreed to take his father’s name. David in his wisdom had sewn the seed several years ago but hadn’t pursed it until Chris was absolutely sure in his own mind that was what he wanted.
He had also explained about his investments in Baron & Lampton’s, his intention to leave them to Chris, and about his heart trouble. Chris had emerged from the talk with his father more subdued than Letty had seen him in years, and had finally agreed to his name becoming Baron. Letty thought Eileen Baron would sound very nice and looked forward to something coming of this budding relationship, overwhelmingly relieved that Chris appeared to be smitten enough to make him forget about Spain, death and glory. It was an immense relief to Letty who took to Eileen like a duck to water for that reason alone.
Chris and Eileen got engaged the following April, a month which in their case turned lovers’ thoughts rather heavily to romance. A month in which Letty had thought of David, thought of her life, her beginnings, where it had led her; sometimes wondered what it had all been for. Over the last two years she had lost interest in her business. With a manager now, a competent buyer and a gifted dealer who practically ran everything, including exhibitions, she could sit back.
Over the years she had gained fame, prestige, wealth, the things Dad had always dreamed of, had never achieved. She had time now to notice the passing of her days without David, bringing a sense of foreboding. She awaited her weekends with him with a longing more suited to someone half her age. She was forty-eight and had begun to study each tiny new crease on her long, still graceful neck, every fine vein on her once fresh cheeks; she had also begun to colour her hair, discreetly, endeavouring to push back an onrush of grey and retain the once vital auburn.
David’s hair was entirely grey now – a distinguished pure grey that enhanced his looks for all that his fifty-eight years were taking a toll. His life with Madge wasn’t easy, was even less easy with all that hurrying here from Barnet and back again each weekend. Trying to pretend to Madge that he wasn’t seeing his mistress – for that was what Letty was – was telling on him. Even though Madge knew full well what he was doing it pleased her to keep him on a leash, it was destroying him. He was suffering ever increasing pain in his chest that worried Letty terribly.
He said nothing to Madge about it, preferring her not to know, but Letty knew how bad it was at times when she saw him grimace, watched him furtively take one of his tiny tablets and perk up a few minutes later. But the intervals between were becoming shorter and shorter. He had regular check-ups at the hospital, always coming back with a smile saying everything was fine. He was smoking more than ever, and that, Letty concluded with loathing, was Madge’s fault.
‘She won’t leave a thing alone,’ he told her. ‘Every time there’s a board meeting she presents herself at the office, hovering outside until it’s over. She says she should be a director. Freddy Wheeler, my idiotic cousin, thinks so too, but Mr Hawke and Robert Lampton are against it. They’re of the older school, think women have their place in the home and not running businesses.’
‘Huh!’ Letty exploded, making him grin and cuddle her to him, telling her she was different.
But David was a worried man with Madge turning up at the board meeting in May to make a nuisance of herself, as usual, Freddy going on about her rights to have a say in the firm as its second largest shareholder after the MD himself, and David compelled to shut him up rather sharply, which reaped a baleful glance from his cousin.
Madge was still hovering when they came out of the boardroom, her face creased with pique. She made towards Mr Hawke who, hurriedly evading her, mumbled something to David about another engagement and took his leave without waiting for the glass of brandy David’s secretary was pouring for directors and managers.
David would have shouldered his way towards Madge through the small knot of colleagues, but Freddy was already there, handing her a drink as though she had every right to be present.
It was hard to say anything to her before Freddy Wheeler. The moment he moved away, David intended to manoeuvre Madge gently out of the offices, going with her to make sure of it. She had no place here.
Seeing her talking closely to his cousin, it struck David that they were a well-matched pair. At fifty Freddy wasn’t so much young in looks as behaved as if he was, delighting in retaining that ridiculously boyish name of his. It was hard for Freddy to be serious for long. He had always sported a debonair attitude in some ways matching the sense of frivolity which Madge too assumed despite being forty-eight. It was the same age as Letty. But Letty could give her a ten-yard lead for poise and elegance even now, and she hadn’t been born into it as Madge had – in her it had been born, even though she’d started life in the slums of East London.
They were amusing each other now, sharing some joke, Madge’s bubbling laughter dominating the room. She had a hand on Freddy’s arm, letting it lie there, her eyes fixed upon his cousin’s, his upon hers. The sight made David frown but he thrust away the thought as quickly as it had come to him, turning aside to talk to one of his managers.
Britain was in the grip of nervous anxiety. Germany had been rearming for years while Britain had failed to do so, implicitly believing that another war like the last one couldn’t possibly be repeated. Baldwin’s Government had believed it, and while the new coalition Government under Chamberlain had still teetered along upon the path of indecision, Germany had walked into Austria and was readying itself for its next move, pressurising Czechoslovakia none too gently into handing over large areas of its country.
Letty, like everyone, went in fear of war. Many of her clients were Jewish and had opened their homes to relatives, refugees from Germany and German-dominated areas, all with horrifying tales to tell of Hitler’s regime with its satanic hatred of their race. As summer wore on, it looked as though these horrors might easily happen here.
‘They’re digging trenches in Hyde Park,’ she told David when he came one weekend in September.
One beautiful Friday she’d gone there on her own and seen the smooth grassy tracts disfigured by the long dirt gashes and piles of soil, in anticipation of bombs over London itself. In its way it struck her as even more ominous than the strange silvery whale-like objects called barrage balloons that during the week had been floating some hundred feet above the city on the ends of steel cables anchored to the ground. She’d watched them moving with almost comical majesty one way and then the other in the warm air currents above London, feeling far from laughter. Then had come the first issue of gas-masks, terrifying the life out of her, seeing again the men in the trenches engulfed in creeping yellow fog, coughing up their lungs, temporarily or permanently blinded. Now it might all happen here in her own city. It was unthinkable.
