by Maggie Ford
He trained his eyes on the brilliant dazzle of Piccadilly Circus. “I wish I had your faith. Now I’ve had more time to think about what I’ve done, it’s a bit overwhelming.”
“You’ll be all right,” she said confidently. “It’s in your blood. I know it is. My father will be there helping you. If you still wish to keep him on.”
Edwin turned to look sharply at her. “Of course I wish to keep him on. He’s important to me. You both are.”
She didn’t reply to that last part, but was suddenly reassured. “He knows the place from top to bottom,” she said hastily, “its workings and its problems. With him there you can’t go wrong, Edwin.”
One hand came up to cover hers. The touch was tender. “I hope so,” he said quietly. “I’ll need all the help I can get.”
Tender though the touch was, it was firm and sent a thrill of pleasure through Helen, for the moment making her feel more certain of his feelings for her. Even so, she tried not to respond too much to it, lest he withdraw his hand. Instead she said, “It’s in his interest to see it succeed. He has his own few shares.”
“It’s in everyone’s interest,” said Edwin. “I’ve given a lot, all I’ve got. When everyone else was only too willing to pull out, your father was the only one who believed in it. Nor do I want that woman Uncle Henry married smirking from a distance, or have Hugh or Aunt Vicky coming back at me to taunt me that didn’t they say I had to be mad. It just has to succeed.”
The emphasis on that one small word said so much more than all the others put together. Yes she knew what he had given, and felt only contempt for those who had been all too ready to sell out, especially the woman who had married his uncle, proving that it was only his wealth she’d been after by making off with all she could get hardly a month after his death.
Like him, Helen wanted to see Marjory’s face as she saw the restaurant rise again like a phoenix, becoming again one of the best in London, and realised her mistake in allowing it to go out of her hands. Edwin had spoken volumes when, prior to going off to conclude the business deal, he said he hoped never to have to set eyes on her again. “I remember on the day she married my uncle,” he said, “she told me I could call her Aunt Marjory. I never did. Aunt, indeed! She’d never take the place of my real aunt.”
Helen only faintly recalled his Aunt Grace, Henry Lett’s first wife. She remembered the woman as being a sweet-natured person, though Edwin had once let slip that he had always thought her oddly cool towards his uncle and could never understand why because he had been a loving man. Well, his aunt could live on in his memory. Marjory Lett with her new money would fade away, no doubt seek some other well-heeled man to marry.
“I know you’ll make it succeed,” Helen said with absolute conviction, and as the taxi slowed to negotiate the heavy traffic going towards Leicester Square and the Wyndham Theatre he took her hand in a strong grip.
“Helen, I’ve known you only a short while but you’re one of the very few loyal people I know. It makes me feel good knowing that you have faith in me and I know I could do anything if I had you beside me. Helen, will you marry me?”
The question, bursting out like that, took away her breath for an instant. Lost for words, she stared at him, mouth agape. He appeared to realise that he had sprung this on her far too suddenly. He gave a little laugh.
“I’m sorry, Helen, I don’t know why I said that the way I did.”
She found her tongue. “You mean you didn’t want to say that.”
He looked full of remorse. “I didn’t intend it to come out the way it sounded. All I know is that if I’d stopped to rehearse it, I’d never have been able to get up the courage. Honestly, Helen, I didn’t intend to spring it on you like that. But I do want to marry you.”
“Why?”
“I’m in love with you.”
She was staring at him. “You can’t be. We hardly know each other.”
How could he be in love with her in such a short space of time? They’d met in November. This was February – three months later. He didn’t truly know her. She didn’t really know him. And here he was proposing marriage. They needed more time together. This was far too hasty. Was he merely looking for a convenient prop to boost him in the venture that she could see was terrifying him? She’d told him about the money she’d soon be getting from that trust. That had to be it, even though he didn’t seem to be the kind of person to use her that way.
“How long does it take to fall in love?” he queried, frustration beginning to sound in his tone. The taxi had drawn up outside the theatre but he appeared unaware of it. “You must know I’m in love with you.”
“I don’t.” Anger was beginning to mount up inside her. She pulled her hand away from his. “Sometimes you seem more occupied with your restaurant than me.”
“That’s not true.”
“This where yer wanted, chum?” cut in the cabby, having reached back to slide open the glass partition. “Was Wyndham’s, weren’t it?”
Distracted, Edwin shot him a glare. “What?”
“This where yer wanted ter go?”
“Yes, this is it. But could you possibly take us around the block again?”
“If yer say so,” came the resigned reply.
In the driving mirror, Helen could see the middle-aged man’s lips twitch into a grin. Why did it make her feel even more annoyed? Edwin had turned back to her, had taken her hand again. She made to withdraw it but then let it lie limply beneath his.
“What d’you say, then, Helen?” he asked. “Will you say yes?”
“We hardly know each other,” she said in reply. “And you’re wealthy. I’m not in your class.”
“Now that’s stupid!”
The cab was going very slowly. She felt irritated by the driver, quite obviously ready to cooperate to the full with his male passenger’s wishes. It was all the same to him where he went, and he might get an extra-large tip for this. She could imagine the thought ticking over in his brain just as the meter was doing at this moment. In fact he wasn’t only taking them around the block but left down another street, making a meal of it.
“It’s not stupid,” she said. “I keep remembering that my mother was once married to your father.”
“What’s that got to do with it? If you’re suggesting that has anything to do with us, it doesn’t. They divorced and he married my mother.”
“My mother had a daughter by him.” Helen couldn’t help a tremor in her voice. It seemed their families were too closely linked for Edwin to be asking her to marry him, yet common sense told her she was being foolish.
“Who died at eighteen months,” he bit back.
“Yes, my father mentioned it to me, years ago.”
“He mentioned it to me too, though I knew. He told me a lot after my uncle died, maybe too much, I don’t know. Maybe it would have been better to have kept some of the things to himself.”
The words sounded bitter. Her father had said that he’d had doubts at the way he had tried to entice Edwin into thinking seriously about acquiring the restaurant, that he might have laid it on too thick. She wondered if some of it had come as a shock, hence the bitter ring to his tone.
She herself knew little beyond that her mother had once been married to Geoffrey Lett. The Lett family meant nothing to her. Until now.
“What did my father tell you?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Too much to go into now. Some things I knew already and some that I didn’t, and I’ve a feeling there was a lot he left out, though of course I’ve no idea what. What really matters is how you feel about me.”
He broke off to glance out of the cab window and, seeing its direction, pulled himself together with a visible lift of his shoulders before turning back to her.
“Look, Helen,” he said. “We’ll be outside the theatre soon. If you can’t give me an answer yet, all I need to say now is that I love you and I want to marry you. Why not think it over at least?”
She needed
time for it all to sink in. Deep inside her she had hoped something would come of their being together, but the suddenness of his proposal shook her. It lacked gentleness, was out of character, not like the Edwin she’d come to know. Nor was she one to bend to demands, her father telling her often enough that she was her mother’s daughter, and this was what Edwin’s proposal had been, a demand.
“A woman of determination,” her mother had been described as being. “Never given to allowing herself to be browbeaten no matter what life threw at her.”
There were times Helen wondered what life had really thrown at her mother, but Dad had never said even though she had asked once or twice. He’d merely smile secretively and say, “She was a woman and a half, was your mother.”
Helen brought her mind back to Edwin as the taxi pulled up once more outside the brilliantly lit theatre. “You’ll have to give me a little time, Edwin,” she told him. “I can’t deal with this right now. I do care for you.” She didn’t dare say the word love, though that was playing such a strong part in her heart that it was strangling her. But she felt she needed to trust him a little more as well. No girl should be railroaded into saying yes. “But I need to think,” she finished. “You do understand?”
He seemed to collapse a little. “Of course,” he said, opening the cab door and helping her out before paying the fare with a larger than usual tip.
“Thanks, chum,” she heard him murmur to the driver, as though the drive around the block had helped solve a lot of problems for him. Perhaps he was hoping for her reply to be soon. She too wanted to give it soon, but that depended. What she needed was his full attention and to know that she didn’t play second fiddle to his work. Wasn’t that what all girls wanted?
Four
Helen watched her father getting ready for another day in the restaurant, already in the dark attire required of a restaurant manager. He ought to have had a restaurant of his own by now, but had harboured no ambitions in that direction.
“I’ve seen the problems and heartaches that can go with having one’s own business. Soul-destroying, that’s what it is,” he would tell her. “Like this, I can come home at night and put it all behind me. With a business, no matter what it is, you’ll take it to bed with you and wake up with it in the morning, take it away with you at weekends and if you ever give yourself a holiday, you take it on that too. Not for me, poppet. Let someone else do the worrying at the end of the day.”
“But you do worry, Daddy,” she had told him so many times. “You do bring it home with you. I’ve watched you. And all for someone else’s benefit.”
His reply would be an indulgent smile, accentuating those increasing wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, and a hand tousling her head. These days he didn’t touch her hair any more, respecting her wish to keep it tidy, but his response to her pleas never changed. Most likely he was extremely happy in what he did and saw no reason to spoil it.
He was beginning to hurry himself, pouring out a final mug of the coffee she had made for their breakfast before setting off.
She too had to be off soon. She worked very near by, in the accounts department of a Regent Street department store. But there was still time.
“What do you really think of Edwin Lett?” she asked, putting their used cereal bowls in the sink and coming back to the table for the mugs, her father still drinking his.
“Edwin? Why do you ask, poppet?” He paused over what was left of his coffee and leaned forward slightly, a little playfully, to gaze into her face. “Has he upset you?”
Helen shook her head, but somewhat unconvincingly. “We’ve been going out together for five months now. But lately he seems to have cooled off.”
“He has his hands full with the restaurant,” said her father, draining his mug. “Can’t be going off here, there and everywhere like normal chaps.”
“He’s become so serious and sombre these days. He was so light-hearted when we first met.”
“That’s what I mean, poppet. He has a lot on his mind.”
“You know I told you he asked me to marry him, that February in the taxi taking us to a theatre.”
“And you came home very much at odds with the world. I would have thought you’d be pleased, flattered. I know I was.”
“No, you weren’t,” she shot at him. “You had a look on your face as if you were as unsure about it as me, but you wouldn’t say why. Anyway, if you were thinking it was far too soon for him to say things like that, I agree with you.”
“I suppose I was thinking something like that. That was probably why I looked so worried.” He put down his cup and glanced at his watch. “I must be off.”
“Before you go, Daddy, what I want to know is do you think he still feels the same about me? He’s never asked me again and it’s been three months since he did. Perhaps he’s changed his mind.”
Even as she said it, she was conscious of a lowering sensation inside her chest, her heart grown heavy.
“He still takes you out and about,” pointed out her father. “If he didn’t like you he wouldn’t do that.” His expression grew briefly mischievous. “Do you want me to ask him?”
Helen pushed the weight aside to gaze at her father in horror. “No!”
He laughed and made to pat the crown of her head, then remembered that she’d only just done her hair, the short, fair waves combed tidily back from her face just so, and withdrew the hand to touch her cheek instead.
“I didn’t think you’d want me to do that. But he does still take you out, poppet. I gather you’re seeing him this evening.”
“To the cinema,” she supplied. “To see From Here To Eternity.”
“That’s supposed to be a good film. Well, there you are then. He’s still interested in you. Probably biding his time as you asked. I suppose he did somewhat jump the gun in February. We men are like that. Can’t wait.”
Again he laughed, and bending to kiss her on the cheek, said, “Don’t be too impatient. And have a nice evening, poppet. I expect you’ll be home and in bed before I get in. Most likely Mr Edwin will have a look in at the restaurant after he’s brought you home.”
Her father had adopted the more formal address in speaking of Edwin, it having to do with business, but became casual again almost immediately. “Friday night’s always a late night. I expect we’ll be there until the small hours, as usual. The place has begun to look up tremendously these last few months, thank God. See you, poppet.”
Picking up the empty mugs as he left, Helen deposited them in the sink with the cereal bowls and spoons and, turning on the hot tap, she squeezed a drop of washing-up liquid into the water. Thoughtfully she rinsed the few things, putting them on the draining board to dry themselves. When she came home at lunchtime she’d put them away.
Daddy was right, Letts had begun to look up. Maybe it was the worry of making a go of the place that had made Edwin withdrawn of late, but he had warned her that night in the taxi going to the theatre that he was having doubts about how much he’d taken on.
Many times since then she’d regretted the way she had reacted to his proposal, for in truth she had lost her heart to him. In fact she’d already lost it on their second meeting in November, even breaking things off with Alan Rees whom she’d been going out with for nearly a year. He too had dropped vague hints about getting engaged some time in the spring, but fortunately she had not given him any answer.
She had always had plenty of boyfriends and had once actually got engaged, to a Richard Stevens, but had broken that off on discovering that while with her he had also gone out several times with one of her friends. For a while it had hurt but she’d got over it. She’d been nineteen. As for other boys, none mattered: they came and went, even some of their names escaping her now. Then Edwin had come along and she’d found herself in danger of falling in love with him. In love perhaps for the first time in her life. Yet despite having been with him for five months she still didn’t truly know what really went on in his mind. Having blurted out i
n February that he wanted to marry her, he’d never asked her again. But whatever was in his mind, she was not prepared to ask. She needed to be one hundred per cent sure of the man she would finally marry without having to beg.
Her mother had thought she had been a hundred per cent certain, so she gathered from Daddy, when she married Edwin’s father. At that time a mere kitchen hand, an employee of his, she’d been carried away by his high standing, and what girl’s head wouldn’t have been turned by the attentions of Geoffrey Lett, who to all account had been handsome and debonair and adventurous? And she had come unstuck.
Helen did not want the same fate. Yet she was in love with Edwin. And the thought came into her head as she dried her hands and went to get ready for work, What if he never asks me again? She would get on with her life, of course. She had that determination – her mother’s determination, as her father had said many a time – but inwardly it would destroy her.
“Oh, don’t be so damned dramatic!” she burst out in irritation to the empty kitchen. Destroy her! No man would ever achieve that. But her heart ached with questions and doubts as she left the flat to take herself off to work.
* * *
The place was taking up all his time lately. All he wanted to do was to see Helen, yet this place laid first claim on him every time. It was only common sense to realise that if he wanted it to thrive he must put every effort into it, give it all the time it demanded, be seen by the customers, the old valuable patrons slowly coming back, saying how much he looked like Henry Lett in his heyday, though far younger of course.
“It’s looking good, don’t you think, Mr Lett?”
William Goodridge moved alongside him as he leaned his elbows on the balcony rail to gaze down at the crowded restaurant. On the same level as them, people were dancing to a foxtrot, doing that slow manoeuvring step suitable for small, crowded dance floors. Others sat up at the bar with its new chromium plating, maple surfaces and uncluttered glass mirrors. They sat on leggy bar stools upholstered delft blue and cerise with fine gold lines, as were the chairs clustered around the low maple tables – the colour scheme he’d chosen to run throughout the whole restaurant.
