‘Yes, now I can walk you home, or take you out more often – both of you, I mean. I’ll have a car permanently in London now.’ Ben’s words were spilling fast and Edie sensed he was selling her on this idea. ‘I’m no longer going to be a man who lives with his parents and nurses a broken heart that still beats for the girl he’s always loved.’
His words silenced her. Edie felt instantly smothered and reminded of past days, but neither was she shocked. She’d felt his proposal coming for weeks. Since allowing him to steal quietly back into her life as the good friends they’d always been, it didn’t seem surprising that he might rekindle his hope for a future together.
He passed what appeared like a nervous, long-fingered hand through coarse black hair. It stayed in place as though made of wire. It gave Ben a luxuriant look. He would never go bald, Edie thought. But then neither would Tom, and she knew whose dark hair she would prefer to feel against her skin. Ben watched her through chocolate-dark eyes carefully. Had he rehearsed this? She felt instantly sorry for him, still as boyish in his looks as his moods; still looking for her approval, still wanting to impress her and yet at the same time own her, control her . . .
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, realising she wasn’t going to fill the awkward silence. ‘Nothing’s changed for me.’ He daringly took her hand, looking concerned at her silence. ‘Forgive me, Edie. I wanted to help you celebrate, not make you feel uncomfortable.’
‘There’s nothing to forgive, Ben. You’ve always been very sweet to me.’
‘Ouch!’ He let go of her, reached for his wine and sank a big gulp. ‘I hate being thought of as sweet. Anyway, now there’s a little boy to worry about. You know how much I enjoy him. He needs a father. I want to —’
‘He has a father.’
‘I mean, your son needs a man in his life. He’s surrounded by women.’
Edie forced herself to breathe despite how suddenly suffocated she felt. ‘His name is Tommy. You never say it.’
‘Tommy,’ he replied.
‘You don’t like it, do you?’
He shrugged but she saw the guilt as he dropped his gaze quickly. ‘You couldn’t blame me for it not being my favourite name. But his middle name I like enormously.’
‘Ben . . .’ He looked up. ‘I hurt you. I loved another. I still do.’ She noticed a different, unreadable expression now ghost across Ben’s usually open face. Edie shook her head. ‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ he said, clearly smiling with an effort. She detected the false note in his bright tone. ‘Sorry, I was just thinking about the old days and how boring I must have seemed. I did so love you, though, Edie, and impossible though it seems, I think I love you even more now. I let you go because I had to. But I don’t have to any more. I need you to know that I don’t care that you were in love with another man.’
‘That I married another man,’ she corrected.
‘Tom’s not coming back, Edie,’ he said carefully, searching her face.
Edie twirled her glass, staring at the sparkles of colour the candlelight cast in the crystal. She made a helpless mental note to remember them for a design using crystal beads that was flitting around the rim of her mind. ‘I’m not dense. I’m just stubborn about accepting it.’ She looked back up at Ben’s earnest expression. ‘I don’t believe he’s dead. I think I would know it in here,’ she said, touching her heart. ‘That’s my problem.’
‘Well, if it’s any consolation, I have long ago accepted that you did love Tom. And there was no room for me once he arrived into your life. But now that Tom’s gone . . .’
She couldn’t respond, refused to join him in this conversation and instead let the silence hang between them.
Ben cleared his throat softly. ‘Yes . . . now he’s gone. And you’re still the same gorgeous Edie I was always in love with, except now there’s Tommy and he needs more. I know you’re lonely even though you have a child and Madeleine and a host of new acquaintances. I know you’re still the same Edie in here,’ he said, touching his chest. ‘You want Tommy to have a brother or sister. You still like the idea of being part of a family. You still believe in marriage.’ He shrugged. ‘You’re still Jewish. No one understands you better than I do, or can offer you what you need more than I can.’
Now she had to correct him. She opened her mouth but he held up a hand.
‘Wait, Edie. Just let me say this. I’ve come to see all that you are, all that you want to be, and I realise I made errors before in underestimating you and your needs, your dreams. I’m different now.’
Are you, Ben? She didn’t believe him; if anything he was becoming more embedded in the ways of the older generation – his occupation alone pushed him deeper into tradition. Edie suspected the idea that women would very likely win the equal right to vote alongside men in the next decade privately disturbed him. He did have a fascination with Tommy, though – she had sensed that long ago – and his fondness for her child was as hard to dispute as it was to fathom. Of all children to love, why would he fall for the child of the man he loathed? Perhaps because Tommy was captivating in an innocent and helplessly sunny way, or maybe it was just another way to exert control. Tom’s wife, Tom’s child . . . trying to make them both his. And her son was everyone’s friend. He gave his affections with great ease and Ben had obviously been as seduced as Madeleine or Lulu. And he was a boy – that would be important to a traditional man like Ben. Tommy was dark and small. Was Ben convincing himself that Tommy could pass as his son? Edie felt sorrow ripple through her; it didn’t need much imagination to see that if echoes had shapes, then Tommy was an echo of his father and would grow as tall and strong as the next boy.
Ben was still talking. ‘I want children too, but we have time.’
‘I would like Tommy to have a brother or sister . . . or both,’ she sighed and saw his hopes lift. She shouldn’t have shared that.
‘Edie, I can hire the help you might need so that you can have family and career. I know you want to go to New York . . . we can take a transatlantic cruise for our honeymoon.’ His eyes were shining with eagerness in the candlelight and Edie could tell he’d been planning this all carefully. ‘I won’t rush you. Just please say you’ll consider what I’m asking and not ignore the fact that we’re both lonely. I can make you happy, Edie, if you’ll let me.’
‘You forget I’m still married, Ben.’
He shook his head. ‘And you forget I’m a solicitor. There are legal ways to deal with your situation. I can legally adopt Tommy. I can give him my name.’ She tried not to shrink back when he took her hand. Tommy Levi? Or would he want that name changed to Daniel Levi once they were married? ‘Just think about it, Edie.’
She nodded without commitment but with no intention of Tommy being anything but Valentine. ‘Tell me about Sol,’ Edie said, shifting subject as smoothly as she could.
‘It’s not good. The cancer has spread.’
‘I wish he’d said something to my father.’
Ben shrugged.
‘I’ve been remiss in not seeing him. He was my father’s close friend.’
‘Sol understands.’ He cleared his throat. ‘He’s never fully forgiven himself for Tom’s disappearance.’
‘There’s no blame to be laid. However, perhaps saying it aloud – offering forgiveness – is something I can give him before he passes away. I think I’ll take Tommy on the bus and visit him tomorrow.’
‘I’d come with you but I have to drive my parents to Brighton.’
‘No need,’ she said before smiling, remembering it was every late August that a most important birthday occurred. ‘Great Aunt Esther?’
He nodded. ‘You see, you do belong in our family. Her ninety-second. Mother says she’ll live forever.’
She could almost hear the cogs in his brain turning and before he could offer up the inevitable invitation, she gave a small, embarrassed yawn. ‘Wish her well from me. Now, I’d better go,’ she said, taking out the cloakroom ticket from her clutch bag. ‘I said
I’d pick Tommy up by seven. Thank you for a most lovely evening. Actually, can you get this for me?’ she said, handing him the ticket. ‘I’ll just powder my nose.’ She rose from her seat, glad to make her escape.
When Edie returned Ben was already at the doorway with her coat and folder. He hailed her a taxi and after the expected expressions of good luck for her long-awaited debut, he surprised Edie by placing a gentle but perhaps overly familiar kiss, aimed deliberately for her mouth. ‘Think about what I said,’ he murmured into her shock. ‘Not for a day since November 1919 have I ever stopped being in love with you.’
‘Ben, I don’t —’
‘Nonsense,’ he said with such confidence it felt like a reprimand. ‘We were so in love before you lost Daniel, before Tom came along. You’ve just forgotten.’ He grinned and banged the top of the taxi. ‘See you very soon. My love to Tommy.’
Edie felt lost for words at his condescension and knew her expression must have looked equally as blank. She dug deep for a smile but came up wanting and instead forced herself to nod, not sure what other gesture to give. And as the taxi eased away from the kerb, Edie was highly aware that Ben’s kiss felt as awkward now on her lips as it always had.
20
It was Saturday and Alex trailed after his mother in the orangery, holding a small basket she’d thrust into his hands fifteen minutes earlier. It was now filling with dead leaves that her sharp garden snips and equally sharp gaze had dealt with.
‘Mother?’
‘I heard you, Lex.’
‘Well?’
She straightened and eyed him. ‘What do you want me to say?’
‘That you approve, perhaps.’
‘I suppose I do.’
‘But?’
She sighed, pulled off her gloves and threw them into the basket with the snips. ‘Put that down. Let’s have some coffee. It’s too cold for this today anyway.’
Cecily led her son into the morning room, where comfy armchairs hugged a small but merrily dancing fire. She pulled on a long tapestry ribbon that rang a bell in the bowels of Larksfell and told the staff that the Wynters were ready for their coffee to be served.
‘Well?’ he said.
‘Let’s wait for our refreshments. How’s everything? I haven’t seen you in what must be a fortnight. Bramson said you’d been up north? I swear you’re avoiding me.’
He shook his head. ‘I was checking out our investments in the steelworks at Newcastle. Shipping of the passenger kind is the future.’
‘Really, darling, you should know your father’s business dealings didn’t hold an iota of interest for me and yours don’t either. Is that rude?’
He laughed. ‘Your candour is.’
‘Oh dear, and I thought that was what my Wynter men liked best about me.’
He leaned in to give her a kiss as he helped her to her seat. ‘It is, Mother. To answer your question, everything is fine.’
They made some small talk about the family; whether or not Phelps was indeed the best match for Charlotte, the fact that Fern was coming around more often again and that Rupe needed distraction of the work – rather than social – kind. They both agreed to go ahead with the scholarship in his father’s name that one of the universities was hunting and to make a large donation to King’s for its new library.
The coffee tray duly arrived and Bramson supervised as a maid laid out the cups on saucers and a tall pot.
‘I’ve warmed the milk as you like, Ma’am. Would you like me to pour for you?’
‘No, that’s fine, thank you, Elsie. My son enjoys waiting on his mother,’ she said and the shy girl grinned back before she left.
Bramson nodded at them both and left. Alex poured the coffee, enjoying inhaling the aroma of the infusion from the African beans his mother had roasted to her specifications in Hove. But with the intoxicating smell came a memory of yearning.
‘I think I would have run across no-man’s-land naked for a cup of real coffee in my darkest days.’ At his mother’s unhappy expression, he added: ‘I can’t help it. The most simple experiences can trigger a memory,’ Alex said.
‘You must try not to remember, darling,’ Cecily said, surprising him. ‘We all know it must have been awful but everyone is looking to the future now.’
‘The future isn’t easy, Mother. The boom following the war has been short-lived and stocks are crashing all over Europe. It hasn’t affected us Wynters, for reasons I shan’t risk boring you with, but people are doing it very tough out there in the real world . . . people like Elsie.’
‘I think we look after our staff rather well,’ Cecily said, accepting her coffee. ‘Better than the Favershams treat theirs, for instance.’
‘I used Elsie simply as a metaphor for all the working families of Britain. Times are going to stay hard for most of the population. Unrest will be next, as the workers begin to get rankled at conditions, lack of pay rises, the usual problems, and after all the suffering they feel they have a right to expect more from employers.’
‘Alexander, I could reel off a dozen fine families to you right now who have all lost two or more male members of their family. I think our level of society paid just as high a price as Elsie’s lot, as our men felt obliged to head off to war and lead.’
‘I know, I know, Mother. I was one of them, remember?’ He gave her a soft look of apology. ‘This wasn’t what I wanted to talk to you about. It’s about Pen.’
‘Hmm, Pretty Penny,’ she said and sipped at her coffee. ‘Ah, that’s hitting the spot.’
Alex frowned, his gaze drifting to the flames.
‘Lex?’
He seemed not to hear her.
‘Alex, are you all right?’
‘Forgive me,’ he said, sounding worried. ‘Something you said . . . it . . .’
‘What did I say? We were talking about Penelope Aubrey-Finch, weren’t we?’
It was gone, whatever it was. ‘Yes . . . um, yes, we were.’
‘Darling, are you sure about this?’ his mother asked, sounding tired. ‘Is she really right for you?’
‘Do you mean her age?’
‘Her age, her history with us . . .’
‘Except she’s not a blood relative, Mother. And I would have thought her family, pedigree, everything about her, in fact, would suit the Wynter aspirations perfectly. She’s young, I agree, but she’s surprisingly composed.’
‘I do know what you mean,’ Cecily admitted. ‘And I would be lying if I didn’t also tell you that I have more time for Penelope than I do for most young women I meet. But are you ready for marriage? Ready to really settle down? Perhaps you need more time . . .’
‘I find her utterly charming and if I refuse her now . . . I may hurt her enough to lose her.’ He drained his coffee. ‘She told me last night that if I choose not to marry her – and she’s fully accepting that I may not – then she’s going off on a transatlantic voyage and then a grand European tour. She may even choose to live in America permanently.’
‘Good grief,’ she said with appropriate shock, but then skewered her son with a look. ‘Do you really care?’
‘What an odd remark.’
‘I don’t think so. A mother knows her child. You can trick the world but you can’t trick me.’
Alex now inhaled visibly with exasperation. ‘What do I have to do? Burst into song? Do a tap dance?’
‘Be quiet, Lex. Now listen to me. When I asked you to engage with life and take up social opportunities, I did not mean for you to marry the first girl who caught your eye.’ She held up a finger to stop him. ‘Hear me out. Penny is a favourite of mine, and your father loved her like a daughter, so you can be confident nothing would have made him happier than to see the two of you walk down the aisle together. But!’ She leaned forward, placing her cup and saucer on the table beside her but not allowing him to wriggle off the skewer she had him on. ‘She deserves so much more than being a convenient means to an end for you.’
‘That’s grossly unfair.’
‘Is it? You don’t love her, Lex, do you?’
He lifted a guilty shoulder and looked at his hands. ‘She’s waited a long time, Mother, carried a torch around for me when most would have given up. She’s proved her love. I can learn to love her, can’t I?’
Cecily’s lips tightened.
‘I will be very attentive.’
‘But absent.’
‘No. I’ll make a promise to you now that if —’
‘I mean in here,’ his mother said, covering her heart.
Alex took a long, deep breath that was full of sadness. He shook his head. ‘I can’t let it go. I’ve tried throwing myself into work – thinking distraction would help. I’ve tried attending all of Pen’s social engagements but I loathe them. I went fishing in Scotland – hoping isolation and silence would open up my mind. And I just felt lonely. I’ve even taken up gardening – have you noticed?’
‘Clarrie showed me your new roses.’
‘I don’t know why but I see old roses in my mind and I thought maybe planting new ones and cutting their blooms might trigger something. But nothing’s coming. I’m now of the belief that I have to start from scratch. It’s not the life I yearn for but then I don’t know what it is I’m yearning for. So I shall build a new life and make that work, or I might as well be dead in the trenches with the rest of the Tommies.’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘I’m dead in here, Mother,’ he revealed, echoing her gesture by covering his heart, and could see her grimace at his honesty. ‘I can’t explain it. I don’t love Pen as I imagine I’m supposed to but I am terribly fond of her and I know I can bring her happiness if I agree to what she wants. And she is extremely determined to be my wife. I have no defence against her. To say anything but yes is to hurt her deeply and I have no alternative. So why not? I can make it work.’
‘You could also ruin her life.’
He shrugged. The gesture looked helpless rather than heartless.
‘What greater insult is there to a woman than unrequited love?’
The Tailor's Girl Page 27
