by Maggie Ford
‘We’ve attended so many functions this month,’ she said. They were always being invited somewhere, his profession demanding it. ‘You know I needed another couple of new gowns. I can’t be seen in the same ones over and over again. People will notice.’
‘But those you already have you seldom wear more than twice,’ he began gently, but it sounded more like an accusation to her.
Leaping up from the table she cried out, ‘I refuse to be questioned every time I ask for a couple of pounds or so. If I had my own money I wouldn’t need to…’
She broke off, seeing that patient look steal into his blue eyes which, she had lately come to realize, meant something other than patience; an icy gaze more alarming than any outburst of anger or raised voice – a warning stare she imagined he’d give a business opponent.
It wasn’t as if she had ever been frightened of him. She could never be that, but the look did unsettle her, hurt her. Instantly she changed her tone.
‘If I had my own money, I wouldn’t need to bother you so much,’ she repeated. ‘I’ve been wondering – if you showed me how one invests in stocks and shares, I might feel less… troubled about… about troubling you so often.’
She was making a mess of the explanation but the icy expression had vanished and he was smiling indulgently, for a moment making her feel once more like a child being taught its ABC.
‘And you could spend it as you wish?’ Spoken slowly, it was more a statement than a question. ‘And when you’ve exhausted it all, what then?’
He paused, gazing at her from the other end of the breakfast table, the query in his voice still lingering.
She thought quickly. ‘Investing – rather like having to earn it – I will know how to look after it. I had to look after what money I had before I met you. I know I can do that again.’
She waited for his answer while he seemed to be considering his reply. Finally he laid down the knife and fork he’d been using and indicated for her to approach his end of the table, which she did after a moment’s hesitation.
‘Now listen, my dear,’ he said indulgently, ‘if this is what you really want to do, then I will help you. But you must be guided by me so that you come to no harm. Speculating on the Stock Exchange is no light matter. One can lose everything in the blink of an eye.’
‘But one can also gain,’ she reminded him.
‘Quite so, but you should realize, if you are going to embark on such a venture, you will have to apply your mind to studying the market at all times. At all times, do you understand? It cannot be done frivolously.’
‘I had to watch carefully enough after I left home,’ she reminded him. ‘I had no resources. I had to keep my mind on what went out and what I had left to see me through a week. I had no one to help me then.’
As her eyes misted at the memory, he took her hand, patted it gently. ‘I know, my dear.’ He grew thoughtful for a moment then, letting go of her hand, he stood up and went towards door.
‘Where are you going?’ she called after him, mystified.
‘To fetch yesterday’s Financial Times from the library. I shall be back in two ticks, my dear.’
His sudden enthusiasm had taken her by surprise and moments later he reappeared with the thick, pink broadsheet, saying, ‘We’d best go into my study,’ and taking her hand, led her from the breakfast room. Spreading the paper on the desk, he made her sit in his brown leather swivel chair, himself remaining standing, leaning over her.
For the next two hours he explained the intricacies of stock market dealings, his tone low and patient, yet she could detect a faint hint of enjoyment. It felt they were closer than they had ever been in all their married life as he explained a little of the jargon used that would help her understand what she read.
‘You must realize that as a novice you are up against those who have been investing for half their lives.’
‘But I have you behind me,’ she said eagerly.
‘But you’ll still have much to learn, my dear. There are well over two thousand quoted companies to choose from, so you must identify the shares and judge if they are going to behave as you hope. It can become quite time-consuming, but utterly fascinating should you find you’ve a natural bent for it.’
As he continued to explain and she to listen attentively, his voice grew solemn and patient; a tutor and his pupil.
‘There are many types of shares – blue chips, recovery shares, growth stocks… But we will not go into this just yet.’
He was turning the financial pages slowly, pointing out the various options, most of it going over her head as yet.
‘You will need a portfolio,’ he was saying close to her ear as he bent beside her. ‘A collection of different shares and other investments designed to spread your risks. There are risks attached – which shares are good and carry low risk and those which could prove far from good. There’s a deal of luck attached. You must use your own judgement carefully. With many successful investors it is instinctive. You are a beginner, but you will have me beside you to guide you. And I will guide you, my dear, so that you do not make any glaringly wrong decisions. I will do all I can to keep you safe.’
Madeleine nodded, biting her lip as she tried to take it all in. In all the time she had known him he’d never spoken of his stockbroker business or his own dealings. Now so much candid information came as a surprise.
‘Don’t let it worry you, my dear,’ he was saying, seeing her look of concern. ‘I’ll be here to prevent you making any costly mistakes. Companies are more than a mere set of investment figures. The smallest, unexpected turn of events, and everything you’ve made could be lost. It has happened before and it will happen again. You have to be prepared for the unknown. But I will run you through profit and loss accounts and balance sheets of whatever companies you intend to invest in.’
He paused, smiling indulgently. ‘I will explain anything that confuses you – if you still wish to go on after all I have explained and all I still have to explain to you.’
Did she wish to go on? She’d thought it would be so easy, seeing how easily he seemed to make money. Now, listening to him, she realized what a huge venture she was taking on. What did she think she was doing, she a woman, trying to invade a man’s world?
Yet seeking any other way to find enough money for an investigator to trace her baby, with James seeming so reluctant to help, was impossible. It was a mystery why he was so ready to grant her wish in this venture when he denied her the opportunity to find her child. Well, now she’d do it on her own.
And so she began to cut her teeth on the mysteries of stocks and shares, listening to James, acting on his advice, slowly learning as the months crept towards Christmas, ever fearful of making a wrong judgement as James had warned could happen to anyone and lose what she’d reaped; her rewards were modest but growing steadily. So far she had been fortunate.
Practically dedicating himself to the task, advising, warning against this or that move, he was at times almost overcautious, behaving as though it was all too much for someone like her to get her head around, causing her to resent the implication that it was because she was a woman. In a way he was right as she fought with the seemingly endless aspects of the money market. But as the months went by she was slowly growing more conversant with it all so that by Christmas she found herself needing James’s routine advice less and less, although his expert advice was still worth listening to.
She’d discovered that she had a flare for it, a sixth sense that seldom led her astray. She had begun too to notice that while he’d congratulate her on her cunning he seemed to attribute it more to luck than judgement, as if a woman shouldn’t be deemed capable of calm judgement. It nettled, but her purpose was of greater importance than getting riled by his attitude, every small success put by with the purpose of accruing enough to hire herself an investigator to find her baby. She was aware that after all this time it could be a lengthy business but was determined that James’s attitude was not going
to stand in her way.
Neither had she revealed anything of her plan to Anthony; hadn’t even told him she was dabbling on the Stock Exchange. Theirs was another world when they were together. Nothing should spoil that. So long as she didn’t fret on how long the search for her baby might take, life was sublime every minute she was with him. She prayed constantly that it would never end.
Then, just after Christmas James fell ill with pneumonia, and knowing her place had to be with James, her time with Anthony had to be curtailed.
‘It’s only until he recovers,’ she told Anthony but he wasn’t happy.
‘And how long is that going to take,’ he returned peevishly. ‘I need you.’
‘He probably needs me more,’ she shot back at him a little sharper than she meant to. ‘He is my husband and a wife’s place is by her husband’s side if he’s ill. I want to be with you, darling, more than anything, but what can I do?’
She was worried for James but at the same time angry that his health was interfering with her and his nephew’s time together. There was a small voice inside her head which insisted that if pneumonia should chance to end James’s life, she’d be free to marry Anthony. Though she fought hard to push such wicked thoughts away they persisted. But as winter faded and James recovered, she found herself deeply relieved – not because he’d survived, but more that she would have been assailed by such a terrible sense of guilt if he hadn’t, almost as if the thought itself would have caused him to die.
Although he had recovered, it wasn’t the same any more. Illness had left his chest so weak that even the warmer months of early spring didn’t seem to help his improvement. There were frequent bouts of bronchitis, their doctor now a frequent visitor, and with James needing specialized care, a nurse was procured. It all put a stop to most of her social arrangements, especially those parties she was known for, as James needed peace and quiet.
More and more Madeleine felt obliged to be with him, and James, less able to go regularly to his place of business, felt obliged to leave the running of it in the hands of his partner, George Foster. He hardly ever left the house these days, and his expressions of gratitude were no help to Madeleine, leaving her feeling guilty on the rare occasions she managed to steal away to see Anthony.
‘We really can’t go on like this,’ Anthony said as she began to dress herself ready to go back to James. The shock of his words pierced her heart as if he had struck into it with a knife.
‘Are you tired of me?’ she exclaimed then broke down as a sudden flood of tears overwhelmed her already miserable being; stood before him still half dressed, head bent, trembling hands covering her face.
Anthony, still naked, was beside her instantly, enfolding her in his arms. ‘Good God, Maddie! Of course not, my darling! I didn’t mean it to sound that way.’
‘It was the way… the way you said it,’ she sobbed into his bare chest. ‘It sounded so… matter of fact.’
‘I didn’t mean it to sound that way. I was only thinking of you, my darling, being torn in two.’
‘Then what do we do?’ she asked, gulping, just managing to control her sobs.
‘Bury this feeling of guilt, sweetheart, and start to come here again on our old regular basis. I can’t bear not seeing you. I long for those afternoons we spent together. Now it’s just as and when you can tear yourself away from him. I even feel jealous thinking of you there and me here. Sometimes I even catch myself wishing he would die and we could be together, always.’
The last was said in a whisper, almost inaudible, but so passionate that Madeleine felt her heart go cold. She reached up and held his face between her two hands.
‘You mustn’t say such things, Tony!’ she burst out. ‘I love you with all my heart. I sometimes feel the same – us… unable to be together all the time? I want to be with you, always, but we mustn’t ever think such wicked things as that…’
She heard her voice trail off, knowing he was aware of her identical feelings, but she was too worn down to try convincing him otherwise, loathing herself for such wicked thoughts – thoughts she couldn’t help having.
Seconds later her mind had shut down on this confusion of thoughts as his lips closed over hers with a fierce need, the two of them sinking back onto the already crumpled bedclothes.
Nineteen
Whether James could read her mind or merely harboured a premonition of his demise, he said to her one day, quite out of the blue, ‘I feel I am being such a burden to you, my dear.’
They were sitting in the lounge where he’d insisted on being despite yet another attack of bronchitis, Madeleine holding his hand as she often did these days.
‘You’re not a burden, James, not at all,’ she said, her tone sharp with guilt, but his fingers tightened feebly about hers.
‘I fear I am,’ he said. ‘I’m so grateful to have you by my side. Had I not met you…’ He broke off to another bout of coughing, his chest sounding tight and painful. It was late April and yet still he suffered. There seemed no end to it.
Waving away the nurse sitting nearby as she jumped up to help, he went on, ‘I don’t know how long this blasted condition will last before it sees me off, but in case it does—’
‘James, don’t say things like that!’ Madeleine burst out, but he let go of her hand and held up his own to still her protest.
‘In case it does,’ he continued. ‘I need to do something for you… Something you’ve wanted for a long time. Just lately I’ve been giving more thought to it. Of course, if anything happens to me you will be left safe and comfortably off, but I need to know that you will not be left on your own.’
‘Please,’ she began in alarm, now certain that he knew about her and Anthony, but again he held up his hand to quell her outburst.
‘I’ve decided,’ he went on, interrupted by yet another heavy bout of coughing and then recovering, while she sat tense with dread of what he knew. ‘I have decided, my dear, to engage a reputable enquiry agency—’
‘James!’ she could only gasp defensively, but again he cut her short.
‘My way of expressing my gratitude for all you have done for me,’ he continued, misinterpreting her outburst. ‘I have held off for so long but it now seems time I made an effort to grant you your wish.’
He stopped to regain his laboured breath, a sound that would usually have pierced right through her, though not this time as she sat tense with self-recrimination, wondering how long he had known.
‘I can’t say they will be successful,’ he finally continued, slowly now. ‘All I can say is that we can but try, my dear.’ Was he talking about her and Anthony?
‘I don’t understand, James,’ she said.
His hold on her hand again tightened a little. ‘I’ve decided to try and trace your daughter for you, my dear. The firm I have in mind has a fine reputation of being very successful tracing missing persons. And if they do prove successful, and I pray for your sake that they are, I will rest content knowing you’ll not be left entirely alone when I’m no longer here.’
There flooded over her an intense sense of relief together with another of overwhelming joy. Quite overcome by the gratitude he was trying to show, all she could do was half collapse in his arms, weeping stupidly.
‘I’ve done nothing to deserve this,’ she whispered almost incoherently as she wept.
‘But you have,’ he said quietly, patting her shoulder. ‘You have filled an elderly man’s lonely life, and this is the only way that I can thank you.’
Recovering enough to sit up, Madeleine made no reply, her earlier joy melting away to be replaced by her own weight of guilt and the deceit that she and Anthony had practised so cruelly and for so long.
She realized that he was still speaking, so quietly that it seemed to be from a great distance. ‘But for you,’ he was saying, ‘I might well be sitting here, alone, dwelling on a beloved wife taken from me, wanting only for my illness to take me so I could be joined with her again. But you changed all that and
I need to see you happy and not left on your own when my time comes. Helping you find your daughter is the only way I can thank you.’
Madeleine made no reply as his voice died away, but her sense of guilt continued to mount. If only he knew how she really felt about their marriage. She hadn’t really wanted him to die; had only wanted a solution to present itself so that she and Anthony could be together without causing him hurt. But that had been impossible, trapped in a marriage to a decent man she liked but couldn’t love.
And now he was prepared to do this thing for her, this one thing she wanted above all else, other than to be with Anthony always; she felt weak with guilt and gratitude in equal measures.
‘You mustn’t think so highly of me,’ she said in a small voice.
But he had already closed his eyes like a weary soul looking for the chance to drift away from the heavy weight of living.
* * *
She’d not told Anthony what his uncle had offered to do. Somehow she felt, maybe foolishly, that it might affect what the two of them had together. Once, when she’d mentioned there being a baby somewhere, he had gone silent. She learned then that it was better not to mention it ever, lest it caused a rift in their relationship. Bad enough that James’s illness during the winter kept them apart more often than they’d have wanted, Anthony terrifying her on one occasion by saying, maybe without thinking, that if James’s ill health continued indefinitely, he couldn’t see what future there was for them.
She had burst into tears that had deteriorated into sobs, crying that she wouldn’t want to live if he left her. He’d immediately cuddled her to him, saying he hadn’t meant it, apologizing too for his lack of feeling towards his uncle. But she knew how he felt deep down inside for she felt the same.
‘We can’t let it come between us,’ she cried, sobbing against his shoulder. ‘I want to be with you but I can’t just walk away from him when he’s so ill.’
