Daughters of Fortune: A Novel

by Hyland, Tara

  As he left his patient to digest the news, William’s thoughts immediately turned to Elizabeth. His fiercely ambitious eldest daughter had made no secret of the fact that she wanted his job. With him out of action, she would have a clear run of the place. If it was up to her, he would never be able to return to Melville, and he wasn’t ready for that. He was only sixty-one; he’d always assumed retirement was still a way off. Now, it seemed closer by the second.

  If Robert Davies had hoped that his news would relieve William’s stress, in fact it’d had the opposite effect.

  The following day was a Saturday. William asked Hugh Makin, Melville’s chairman and one of his closest friends, to stop by the hospital. He needed to discuss how the company should be run in his absence, and Hugh was one of the few people he trusted. Hugh turned up during afternoon visiting hours with a fruit basket from Fortnum’s. He immediately dumped the basket on Piers and came over to give William’s hand a vigorous shake.

  “You’re looking well, old chap! If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were faking this whole heart attack business!” He laughed heartily at his own joke.

  William gave a thin smile. “I can assure you that I’m not.” Then he nodded at the basket in Piers’s hands. “Piers, get that taken care of, will you?”

  Every spare space in William’s private room was already covered with cards and colorful bouquets from well-wishers. Isabelle had eventually had to tell the nurses to start taking the flowers and gifts to other patients.

  “Of course.” Piers made for the door.

  “Oh, and while you’re at it,” William said, “could you get Hugh some coffee?”

  What he actually meant was that he wanted some time to speak with Hugh in private. He also could do with a break from his younger brother. Piers’s fussing was frankly beginning to grate on him. It reminded William of the way he had behaved toward their mother when she was ill, which made him feel even more aware of his age and ailing health. His memories of how the once strong Rosalind Melville had been at the end were still fresh in his mind: he was far too young to end up like that.

  Piers was mildly irritated by Hugh’s arrival. He liked having his brother to himself. He was even less happy about having to fetch Hugh coffee, like some little lackey.

  He was on his way down the corridor to the vending machine when he spotted a nurse who had been in to check William’s vitals earlier. Piers offloaded the fruit basket on her and then, in a flash of inspiration, asked her to get the coffee instead. That way he could get back as quickly as possible and not miss any of the conversation.

  He retraced his steps along the corridor. The door to William’s room had been closed. Piers was about to knock and let them know he was back. But the thin laminate door was in no way soundproof. And when he heard what William was saying, he decided to listen quietly instead.

  Inside the hospital room, William was explaining to Melville’s chairman that he’d been advised to stay off work for the next three months.

  “So what does that mean?” Hugh asked. “Are you putting Piers in charge?” Along with being CFO, Piers was also deputy chief executive. He was the natural choice to step up into William’s role.

  But William didn’t see it that way. “Please!” he snorted derisively. “Of course I’m not putting Piers in charge. I’d like to have a business left by the time I get back. I mean, he may be my brother and he’s an adequate finance director. But he’s hardly capable of managing the company outright.”

  Hugh laughed softly. “I’m glad to hear you say that. We all share that view. But it’s obviously hard to say anything to you as he’s a relative.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry,” William assured his friend. “I’m very aware of Piers’s faults. He’s the kind of person you carry along. He lacks the intellectual horsepower to ever have proper clout.”

  The other man murmured his agreement.

  “Anyway,” William said briskly. “I’ll smooth that over with him later. But first I need to ask you a favor.”

  “Obviously, if there’s anything I can do to help . . .” Hugh assured him.

  “There is,” William said. “I asked you to come out here today, because I want you to take over as chief executive while I’m away. You’ve been an excellent chairman over the past five years, you know the business well, and you have the respect of the board.” There was a pause. “I know it’s a lot to ask, for you to combine both roles. But—will you do it?”

  “I’m surprised you even have to ask,” Hugh said. “Naturally I’d be honored.”

  “Good,” said a satisfied William.

  * * *

  Outside in the corridor, Piers leaned against the wall and fought to regain his composure. He was covered in a cold sweat, shaking from the shock of what he’d heard. Hearing William laugh about him like that with Hugh . . . and what had Hugh said?—that they all shared that view about him. Could it really be true, that everyone was talking behind his back, sniggering at him?

  Just then the nurse appeared with the coffee. Piers knew he needed to pull himself together. He couldn’t let either Hugh or William know that he’d heard what they were saying about him.

  “I’ll take those,” he told her. He breathed in deeply, taking a moment to compose himself. Then he pushed into the room.

  “Ah, there you are,” William said. “I’ve been waiting for you to come back so we could get started.”

  Piers stared at his brother. Liar, he thought.

  “Sorry it took so long,” he said out loud. He resisted the urge to throw the hot drink at Hugh and handed it to him instead.

  Then he turned to William. His brother. The man to whom he had devoted his life. And who had now betrayed him. Somehow he managed to smile. When he spoke, his voice contained none of the hatred and bitterness he felt. “Now, why don’t we get started?”

  37

  _________

  Early Sunday morning, Elizabeth left the rest of the family at the hospital and headed over to Albemarle Street. At Melville’s head office, she greeted the night security guard with an easy familiarity. Having updated him on William’s condition, she headed inside. As it was the weekend, the place was eerily empty. Trying hard not to feel unnerved, Elizabeth caught the elevator up to the sixth floor—the executive floor. As if on autopilot, she headed down the long corridor to her father’s office. Luckily for her, the door was open. With all the confusion and upset, his secretary must have forgotten to lock it. Elizabeth hesitated, aware that she was about to cross a line. After this, there was no going back. She reached for the handle.

  Inside, the office lay untouched. Everything was the same as William had left it when they went to meet Caitlin for lunch. Papers and files lay strewn across the floor. Elizabeth knelt down and started to clear everything up.

  Only when the office was back in an orderly state did she finally walk over to William’s desk. She pulled out his wing-backed armchair. A few years earlier, Occupational Health had installed Aeron chairs in all the other directors’ offices, but despite recurring back pains, William had refused to make any concession to modernity. Elizabeth hesitated for just a second and then sat down. She ran her hands over the leather arms, enjoying the feel of being in the driver’s seat. Then a split second later she remembered why she was here instead of her father and felt ashamed. What kind of person was she, to be thinking about her own advancement, when he was still so ill in the hospital?

  But this was no time to be sentimental. Pushing aside her guilt, she swiveled around to the desk, fired up the computer, and, after a brief hunt, found her father’s passwords written on a Post-it note. Great security, she thought. Within minutes she had accessed his personal files. She called up the address book with the telephone numbers of all the board members and spent a few minutes planning exactly what she was going to say. Then, after checking that it was a decent hour, she called Hugh Makin. If Elizabeth had any proposals, she would need to get him, Melville’s acting chief executive, on her side—wh
ich was exactly what she intended to do.

  Once she had Hugh on the phone, Elizabeth got straight to the point. She’d given it some thought, she told him, and she wanted to relocate to London. If something happened to her father again, she didn’t want to be a twelve-hour flight away. Plus—and this was the part she kept to herself—being at the head office would make it easier for her to keep a close eye on the business while William was out of action.

  Hugh listened as she ran through her carefully thought-out plan. Cole’s old job, head of strategy, had been vacant for the past few months, ever since his successor had left. She thought it made sense for her to take on that role.

  “I’ll continue to oversee the Asian operation from here,” she told him. “To be honest, it’s pretty much running itself these days, so I’ve been looking for a new challenge anyway.”

  It wasn’t hard to persuade Hugh. Elizabeth commanded a great deal of respect around the company, and he was greatly sympathetic to her wanting to be near William.

  “I’m sure your father will be delighted to have you closer to home,” he said.

  Elizabeth, who wasn’t as certain that he would like the idea of her maneuvering herself into a position of power, kept quiet as Hugh verbally signed off on her appointment.

  It was only once that was all tied up that she finally got around to calling Cole. He wasn’t particularly happy when he heard what she’d been up to. “You’re transferring to London?” he repeated disbelievingly. “For fuck’s sake, Elizabeth! Didn’t you even think to discuss this with me first?”

  London wasn’t the only reason he was mad. She hadn’t been in touch for the past day and a half. But what with her father’s heart attack . . . after phoning Cole initially to tell him what had happened, she hadn’t found time to call again. She felt a twinge of guilt but quickly pushed it aside. He’d always known her ultimate plan was to come back to England one day.

  “Look, Cole, I honestly didn’t think you’d mind,” she said, trying to placate him. “And it makes sense for you to be here, too. You’ll be closer to your business, and you can start thinking about diversifying into other areas, like you talked about before.”

  It was hard for Cole to argue with his wife’s logic. But still . . . He couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought to discuss such a major move with him first. And what worried him most was that she didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong with that.

  By the time Elizabeth flew back into Tokyo the following morning, he’d calmed down. In fact, overnight the idea of moving to London had begun to grow on him. He’d been suggesting for a while that it was time to put down roots. It was Elizabeth who’d always said that she wasn’t ready to give up their hectic city lifestyle. Maybe this would be his chance to get her to settle somewhere.

  Elizabeth only stayed a week in Japan. Just long enough to hand over the everyday running of the Asian operations to her trusted assistant. It was agreed that Cole would stay on to organize the rest of their relocation and then join her in a month or so.

  As he watched her getting ready to leave for the second time in two weeks, he thought how much he wished she didn’t have to go again. “Hey, hon, I’m gonna miss you,” he said impulsively, gathering her up in a bear hug.

  She squeezed him back. “I’ll miss you, too,” she said. But he had a feeling her mind was already on everything she planned to do at Melville.

  38

  _________

  Back in New York, Caitlin’s friends were appalled when they heard her plans. Giving up her business? Moving to London and going to work for her estranged family? It all seemed so sudden.

  Alexis tried to talk her out of it. “It’s professional suicide,” she declared.

  “It’s family,” Caitlin rejoined.

  The publicist sighed with frustration. “But I didn’t even think you liked them!”

  “Neither did I.”

  Alexis saw the steely look in Caitlin’s eyes and knew she was wasting her breath. That was the problem with easygoing people. When they said no, they meant it.

  Closing up shop in New York was more straightforward than Caitlin had imagined. She finished up her outstanding contracts within a couple of weeks, put in a good word for her freelancers with other designers, and repaid her original investors—thankfully she’d made enough money to be able to do so. Then she arranged to rent out her apartment for the next year.

  But, while practically it might have been simple enough to pack up and move her life to London, it was harder to justify to the outside world. Alexis wasn’t the only one who thought she was crazy to be going to work for Melville. The company was seen as a dog in the industry. Just when her career was taking off, she was throwing it all away to take an unnecessary risk.

  But, to Caitlin’s surprise, as the time to leave New York drew closer, she found she was actually excited about going to work at Melville. Maybe at first she’d agreed to it simply because she felt guilty about William. But lately she had realized this was something she wanted to do—professionally, for herself. While Alexis and all her friends in the business warned that she was ruining her career, she believed this could actually turn out to be her crowning achievement. To revitalize a dying brand like Melville, to do what Karl Lagerfeld had for Chanel, Tom Ford for Gucci . . . Sure, she had enjoyed success with her own business. But this would be on a different scale. This was her opportunity to shape a global brand.

  She arrived back in London a month after William’s heart attack. At his suggestion, she’d agreed to move into Eaton Square for the time being. She sensed that he felt closer to her that way, even though he wouldn’t actually be there himself, as he was recuperating down in Aldringham.

  The night before she was due to start at Melville, Caitlin stood in the second-floor library, looking out across the street at the park bench where her mother had once sat, and contemplated the task ahead of her. She couldn’t wait to get started.

  The following morning, her first day at Melville, Caitlin made a point of arriving early so that she could spend some time walking along Old Bond Street. The area had changed a lot in recent years. After falling out of fashion in the eighties, Bond Street had in the past decade seen a renaissance in its fortunes, with hip designer stores opening up—the likes of Versace, Lacroix, DKNY. The established names such as Melville looked decidedly somber and tired next to these stylish young boutiques. It would be up to her as the company’s head designer to address that problem.

  To Caitlin’s surprise and relief, it seemed everyone at Melville was just as enthusiastic as she was about her new role. That was made evident ten minutes later, when she entered the company’s rather grand Albemarle Street headquarters and found herself being treated like royalty. The beaming receptionist knew who she was on sight. She congratulated Caitlin on her recent CFDA win and offered her tea or coffee, then a magazine—all of which Caitlin declined—before finally calling the design team to let them know she’d arrived.

  “Gosh, it’s so good to have you here,” enthused Jessica Armstrong, one of the design assistants, who’d been sent down to collect her. She looked more than a little star struck to meet Caitlin. “I’ll be showing you around today. I hope that’s okay?” she asked nervously.

  A pretty, petite girl of no more than twenty, she told Caitlin that she’d come to work at Melville straight out of school four years earlier. “I didn’t get the grades to go on to college, so I thought I’d get some practical experience instead.” It turned out that, despite her age, she was one of the longest-standing employees. “A lot of people have left lately,” she explained with a little embarrassed laugh as they stepped into the elevator. “Although I’m sure that’ll change now you’re here.”

  Melville’s design department occupied the entire third floor of the company’s headquarters, which made it sound far grander than it was. In a tall, narrow building, with a central London location, space was inevitably limited. Caitlin checked out the workroom first. With its yellowing walls
and bare concrete floors, it was a rough, raw space, noisy and crowded, with the design team, pattern cutters, and machinists all crammed into the same tiny area.

  “It’s pretty crazy in here right now,” Jess pointed out unnecessarily.

  Caitlin gave a brief nod. With—what was it?—eight weeks to go until the October collection, the workroom was in full swing, the samples already being made for the showing season. Reams of cloth lay rolled out across the cutting tables; the burr of the sewing machines was constant and unrelenting; mannequins stood with half-pinned garments on them.

  “And this is the showroom.” Jess led Caitlin through interconnecting doors to the area where Melville exhibited its collections to buyers and the media. Caitlin hated the formal, chandelier-adorned room on sight. It was stuffy and antiquated. Like Melville, she thought.

  “Why don’t you just show me what everyone’s working on?” Caitlin suggested once the tour was over.

  The girl nodded, as enthusiastic as a puppy. “Yes, yes. Of course.”

  While she scurried off to get the sketches together, Caitlin went into her new office—a small area of floor space that had been enclosed with plasterboard walls. She was beginning to feel the weight of responsibility resting on her shoulders. As she’d walked the floor with Jess, she’d noticed the hope in her new team’s eyes. It had suddenly struck her that it wasn’t just Melville she was here to save—there were jobs at stake, too. She couldn’t let everyone down.

  Seeing the plans for the upcoming collection didn’t make her feel any better. The team was putting together yet another set of simple, elegant English classics: double-breasted jackets and blazers, tailored trousers and calf-length skirts, silk blouses, complete with heavy gold buttons, and loose jersey dresses. The palette of colors was heavy on brown, beige, and cream. It was safe but uninspired, in Caitlin’s opinion. A reworking of what had been done before—right down to the scarves, shift dresses, and satin shirts sporting the Melville monogram, the double m. Caitlin knew that it was part of the company’s tradition, but really . . .