by Maggie Ford
Still, it was daunting. He wished Goodridge was with him. An older man to back him up. But that would have been silly – a mere restaurant manager poking his nose in, as she’d see it. Could turn her off any deal. No, best this was done alone and the sooner it was over the happier he’d be.
To push the invasion of negative thoughts from his mind, he turned it instead to Helen and immediately felt better. He had asked if he could take her out tonight, and she had said yes. When he’d asked where she would fancy going, she’d said, “I’d like to go to the pictures, if that’s all right.”
Of course it was all right. Not one for high living, her father had brought her up modestly, all credit to him. Edwin liked her simple ways – yet she had such bearing, fine enough to match that of any girl fresh out of a Swiss finishing school. Helen dazzled him. Tonight would be the fourth time they would have seen each other and she dazzled him.
Thinking of her Edwin reached Swift House in no time at all.
The door set in a sleek stone-pillared portico was opened to him by a young girl. For a second or two she peered at him as though he were a stranger, her round face tightening in readiness to challenge his right to be here. Then she saw his car drawn up on the drive at the same time as he said, “I’m Edwin Lett, the late Mr Lett’s nephew.” Her round face relaxed in a beaming smile.
“Oh, I didn’t know. If you want to see Mrs Lett, you’d best come in. She’s on her own.”
“Is Mr Hugh not here?”
“No, he’s off acting. Winchester, I think. Doing rehearsings or something.”
Yes, Hugh had mentioned it at the funeral though, with his mind on Helen and on the exuberant funeral gathering, Edwin hadn’t been listening much. He seldom he met Hugh without having to hear all about his acting career. Hugh, exuberant, took centre stage.
Now he was due to rehearse with some quite major company, Much Ado About Nothing, Edwin thought he had said. Hugh enjoyed the lighter role, saw it as much more suited to his convivial personality, seeing himself also as a high flier like his Uncle Geoffrey.
Edwin could remember his father never being there for him, he and his mother gallivanting off here, there and everywhere, having fun, sometimes losing, sometimes winning at the tables, usually abroad. Until the war, when Geoffrey had gone in with the rest. He and Mother had been having fun that night in Piccadilly, Major Geoffrey Lett on leave, when the doodlebug came down.
He’d been told the next day. The both of them killed outright. It had been ironic really. Geoffrey had been stationed in England throughout almost the whole war, maybe having pulled a few strings – Edwin never knew if he had or not. He’d been involved in the D-Day landings, of course, but after having been one of those who’d landed, he’d met his end on home ground hardly a mile from where he should have been that particular night giving Uncle Henry a helping hand in an extremely busy restaurant.
Like his Uncle Geoffrey, Hugh enjoyed his gambling too. No doubt selling his shares would help boost that hobby. Other than that, Hugh was a likeable guy. In fact, as cousins, he and Hugh got on very well and Edwin felt a surge of disappointment at his being away. This business included him, though whoever Marjory sold out to, he would go along with it. With no axe to grind he had no interest in the problems Letts had, needed only to be rid of it so that he could go on acting, foreseeing himself as famous one day.
The young girl was leading the way across the familiar square hall. “Mrs Lett is in the drawing-room,” she announced, ready to conduct him on into the long narrower hall that led off it.
He stopped her. “That’s all right, I know where the drawing-room is.”
The round face became alarmed. “I have to announce you, Mr Lett. It’s part of me job.”
Edwin gave in, smiling, and allowed her to do her job. Somewhere on the second floor a vacuum cleaner droned. This place had just four staff, someone who still did the cooking and housekeeping, this girl, another who probably did the cleaning, and a gardener/chauffeur. Not like when his grandmother had lived here way back before the war – a woman who ruled the roost, being bowed and scraped to by a butler, housekeeper, maids, cook, skivvy, gardeners, stablemen and lots more that Edwin couldn’t even think of – the inferior classes. The war had swept all that away.
The girl knocked on the drawing-room door and, getting a reply, went in with Edwin following, but paused so sharply that he nearly fell over her.
“Mr Edwin’s here to see you, Mrs Lett.” With that she stood back to let him continue in, taking herself off down the rest of the corridor.
Marjory Lett had been sitting in an easy chair reading. She stood up, her beautiful face welcoming, her red lips parting in a smile. Yet the clear blue eyes retained a naturally calculating glow, her voice cool.
“Edwin. How nice to see you. What brings you here?”
“I’m sorry,” he began. “I should have telephoned before coming.” He should have. Why hadn’t he? In his haste he’d overlooked that she might need prior warning. Yet if he had warned her… “I’ve come on a small bit of business which I hope you might find interesting.”
Marjory Lett allowed herself to blink, just the once, the calculating gleam returning to hold him in its gaze. The only problem in speaking to this woman who’d taken his Aunt Grace’s place was not that she was older than he by a mere ten years, or an assumed aunt, but facing that cool stare. He fought the feeling of discomfort and ploughed straight in.
“It’s about selling your controlling share in the restaurant.”
“Would you like some tea, Edwin?” she interrupted him. Sitting down, she indicated the sofa that stood sideways to the old-fashioned fireplace in which incongruously glowed an electric fire. “Do have a seat, dear.”
She had addressed him as though he were a teenager. But he sat.
“It is really nice of you to drop by, you know. And to come such a way from London. But, of course, you drove. I plan to sell this place too, you know. Too large and empty since your uncle went. I shall move back to London. So much more doing there.”
“What about Hugh?” he heard himself ask, for the moment completely distracted from his errand.
“Hugh? He’s never here, is he? I don’t think he cares to rattle around in this place all on his own either. I know he can hold decent parties here. But then, there are so many other places to do that. We had a talk about it, and he agreed that London was a far better place to be.”
With Marjory’s powers of persuasion, no doubt. The same method that had got Uncle Henry to lose interest in the restaurant: a fluttering of eyelids, that wide, blue, compulsive stare, those full lips stubbornly thinning.
“The place is outdated,” she continued in a chatty vein. “Draughty. It costs the earth to heat and it’s a bore having to employ staff to keep it running. A modem flat in London, a woman popping in two or three times a week, and so many places to eat out, would be so much simpler and streamlined.”
Edwin could feel his hackles rising. “Uncle Henry loved this place.”
“No, I don’t think he did all that much. He was far happier, he told me, in that penthouse of his above the restaurant than here. The place gave me the shudders the moment he showed it me. His first… your aunt… died there, you know. The moment I saw the place I actually got the shivers. That’s why we came here to live more or less permanently. It was the one thing he did insist on even though I tried hard to convince him that being in an entirely different flat in London would have been far more convenient with a lot more social life.”
So in a roundabout way she’d scotched her copybook. How she must have suffered tucked away in this Essex backwater, precluded from the high life a woman of her type craved, and not purely for love of Henry – a sacrifice to keep him sweet rather than happy. Edwin hid a grim smile. But she was having her own back now, ridding herself of every trace of this marriage to Henry Lett, putting even his home up for sale.
True, Edwin had never found it that cosy when he visited – which had no
t been very often, he had to admit – but to realise that this might be the last he’d ever see of it… Nostalgia perhaps, but still, the last of his uncle’s memory, the last of what was part of the Lett family, was being torn down. Marjory was destroying everything.
“About what I came here for—” he began, but was again interrupted.
“Oh, we must have some tea. I’m dying of thirst. Or would you prefer something stronger?”
“Tea would be fine,” he said. It was far too early for “something stronger”.
He waited while she got up and went to the door. The days of ringing for servants had gone long ago. The sound of vacuuming had ceased. He sat fuming as Marjory called out, “Carol?”
From somewhere came a faint reply.
“Could you bring us some tea and a few sandwiches and cake?”
Again came the distant response, this time a longer one.
Marjory’s tone grew resigned. “Very well, Carol.” She came back into the room and sat down again.
“She has to make it yet. Says it will take her fifteen minutes to do sandwiches and tea, though I expect that’ll be more like twenty. But I’m sure you will be staying a bit longer than that. It’s nice of you to call. I’ve not seen a great deal of the family since your uncle died. A few friends have been here, but it is a bit of a nuisance for them to come all the way from London.”
He needed to get off his chest what he had come to say. He needed to be firm, polite but firm. Steeling himself, he launched straight in.
“The reason for my being here is in regard to a meeting I understand you are going to have next week with people offering to buy us out. What I want to say is, if you’re willing, I can match their offer. Keep it in the family.”
She was staring at him. “Where did you hear what the offer was, or that I even intended to sell? Did Hugh tell you?”
“I haven’t heard from Hugh.”
“Then who did?”
“Does it matter? I just want to say that I can match what these people are offering you.”
“How?”
“That doesn’t matter either. Just that I can.”
She had become faintly flustered, like someone playing for time. “I’ve virtually promised them, Edwin. I can’t go back on a promise.”
“Yes you can. This is business. A mere verbal promise? You’ve not signed on any dotted line. What’ve you got to lose by taking my offer?”
Marjory had regained control over herself. “It isn’t very good business if you’re intending only to match the going price.”
He glowered. “Should that be any skin off your nose, Marjory? Unless you’ve a special point in not wanting it to stay in the family. What difference would it make to you whether it does or doesn’t? You’ll get your money.”
He saw her smile. Sweet. Yes, sweet as a meadowful of flowers, all held behind barbed wire.
“Edwin, dear. I’m businesswoman enough to know you’ll be only too willing to top their offer to get what you want.” And you intend to get what you want – play us off against each other, sit back and watch the bidding go up. He wished someone else was here with him. Why hadn’t he thought of bringing his lawyer along? Already he was sinking out of his depth. Callow. The way he felt at this moment, would he ever have the wit to run a large restaurant?
Uncle Henry had. And he’d been only twenty-two.
Edwin recalled hearing how the place had gone down alarmingly after his grandfather’s death, having to be brought up again by sheer hard graft. But Father had been there to help. And there was the difference. Who did he have? Mr Goodridge, an already ageing man. It was useless. Awareness of the uselessness of it tightening his lips, he made to get up. It was then that he saw Marjory frowning at him.
“All right,” she said suddenly, almost in alarm. “How much?”
She had misinterpreted his expression, read into it a decision to back out, saw herself losing a good chance, for who could say if the first party might even at this stage withdraw? At least here she had this bird in hand, and she was prepared to grab it before it flew off. Edwin felt his spirit rise.
The maid came bustling in with a noisy rattle of the tea trolley, looking pleased with herself at having brought it quicker than she’d promised. But, seeing her employer wave her away, her jaw dropped several inches and, turning the conveyance round, she rattled out the way she’d come, all in one unbroken, rather huffy operation. Marjory hadn’t once taken her eyes off Edwin.
“How much?” she demanded again.
Three
He’d come away from Swift House triumphant. Having upped the asking price by a mere fraction of what the other party had been prepared to meet, he had expelled any doubts Marjory might have had. It had been precious little to sacrifice, for when his solicitor made further enquiries it transpired that the other party’s offer had been their top one.
All along he’d had this nagging feeling that Marjory had already pushed them to their absolute limit and his suspicion had paid off. Later he heard through his solicitor’s dependable grapevine that when she’d asked them to meet what he had been prepared to give her, they had shaken their heads, gathered their papers and had withdrawn without ceremony, saying that even a place like Letts wasn’t worth fighting over. But he already guessed what was in their mind. They had their own grapevine and had no doubt predicted that without much experience of running a restaurant, he would make a complete mess of it and have to sell and that later they’d get it at far less than this first offer of theirs. Big concerns could afford to play a waiting game.
Two weeks later the necessary papers were drawn up and signed. Benjamin Raymond, the family solicitor, lugubrious as ever and even more so about this venture, had asked if he was at all sure of what he was letting himself in for.
“Completely sure,” Edwin said confidently, Mr Raymond regarding him as though he saw straight through that facade to one mass of jelly.
* * *
“It’s done,” Edwin announced in the taxi taking him and Helen to the theatre early in February. “The family business back in the family.”
In the dimness of the cab, she turned to look at him. He had invited her and her father to spend Christmas and Boxing Day with him, saying he had too much on his mind to go to parties and needed time to think. It had turned out to be a lovely two days.
In these couple of months he had changed. The boy had become a man, going from the lively and easy-going person she had first met to a serious-minded one with a load on his shoulders. She was happy enough with the change; if anything it made him more attractive.
It had been so nice, the three of them in his luxury flat. It had been cosy and snug with the heavy curtains drawn against the wintry weather outside. There had been plenty of good food despite Edwin having sold his family home and now borrowing heavily from the bank to regain control of Letts. She only hoped his Aunt Vicky was appreciative of all he had done, she after all being one of the directors.
Edwin had apparently had a long argument with his cousin Hugh against following his stepmother by getting rid of his share of the business, finally persuading him to hang on to some of his shares. That alone boosted her certainty that under Edwin the restaurant would rise again.
During Christmas he’d been sweet and attentive, yet at times he was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that she wanted to share the anxiety he must be experiencing in having ploughed all he had into the venture. For a man with little knowledge of running a high-class restaurant it was a great worry and she longed to take some of the weight off him. The money from the trust her father had put aside for her would have helped considerably but she wouldn’t be able to use that until next year. She had resisted the temptation to buck him up by trying to be too lively and he seemed to appreciate that. The last thing she wanted was for him to think she was trying to smother him.
“I’m sorry if I seem to have neglected you,” he said now. “It’s been a tough time these last couple of months. I wanted so much to
see you but it’s been hopeless.”
So far he’d taken her to the theatre, to the cinema to see The Robe as she’d asked, and to a New Year party which he hadn’t seemed to enjoy. Consequently neither had she and he’d brought her home only half an hour after 1954 had been heralded in.
Each date had ended with a lingering goodnight kiss at her door but when invited in for a coffee he’d declined, whether because her father had been working and he felt he might not be able to trust himself if they were alone, or because he had too much on his mind, she’d been at a loss to fathom. But those ardent kisses had to count for something.
“I think you’ve done wonders, Edwin,” she ventured and, taking the initiative, threaded her arm through his. She was overjoyed for him but, as he remained sombre, it was best not to be too demonstrative about it.
“I’m not so sure,” he mused, turning to gaze from the taxi window at the brightly lit stores they passed. “It’s a great deal I’m trying to take on.”
Helen remained silent, not sure quite what to say.
“I suppose I should have taken more of an interest in the running of it,” he continued. “But then I had only just turned sixteen when both my parents were killed. My Uncle Henry took over the entire running of the place. His sisters, Aunt Maud and Aunt Vicky, never had any dealings in it so long as their shares paid out each year. Their husbands had their own businesses. I may have inherited my father’s share of the firm but I was too young to see any reason to bother my head with it. And of course I went into National Service for two years, mostly in Germany. I just got on with life on the interest from my father’s shares and the money he left me, as well as the proceeds from the home farm. Now that’s tied up as collateral for this damned great bank loan around my neck, and still I’m blowed if I know what I’m doing or even if I’ve done the right thing.”
“Of course you’ve done the right thing,” she tried to encourage him. Her arm tightened on his, if only to remind him that she was here.
