by Maggie Ford
It did. He became lost in yet another kiss, his head spinning with the knowledge that he had asked her to marry him and she had said yes.
* * *
It was one thirty. He had forgotten all about getting back to the restaurant. They had made love, on the sofa, a spontaneous thing that neither of them had expected to happen, and had lain there wrapped in bliss in each other’s arms, he slowly drifting off to sleep. Suddenly he came awake with a start, realising that he was still here.
“God! What’s the time?” he’d burst out.
Helen, who’d remained awake, gently and repeatedly smoothing a hand over his hair, shifted her body a little to glance at the clock over the electric fireplace. Then she too shot upright.
“Oh Lord! It’s well past one in the morning. My father could be home at any time.”
If Edwin knew anything about Letts these days, he knew it was becoming very much as he’d been told it used to be before the war, remaining open until any time between midnight and two or three o’clock. With Christmas approaching rapidly, people were given to eating and socialising more and more, well into the early hours. It got later as they neared the festive season. Yet this could have been one of the quieter evenings.
“I’ve got to go,” he said, and there began a race to dress, to obliterate all traces of anything suspicious, he already making up excuses for William for not having gone back to Letts after seeing Helen home.
Even as he left the flat he could see in his mind’s eye the scepticism on Goodridge’s face, though whether laced with amusement or disapproval he didn’t know. Disapproval would be more likely. Helen’s father would see nothing amusing in what they had been up to, even if marriage was in the offing. He was of the old-fashioned sort and protective of his only daughter, and to him things like that did not happen to girls like her before marriage.
Edwin hurried through a persistent drizzle to his car, got in and revved away, relieved not to see Goodridge turning into the short mews. But then, unable to resist the temptation, he drove the short distance to Letts. It was still lit up. Customers were still in there. He should be attending them. But to make an entrance at one thirty in the morning… again he visualised that questioning look on Goodridge’s face. Yet if the place was that busy perhaps he should go in – make some excuse for being so late, delayed… by what? Not a thing came into his head as he pulled well down the alley next to the restaurant.
For a long time he sat there, thinking, the window wound down for some fresh air. Emanating through the closed door to the kitchen came the muted sounds of the last few pots and pans being noisily put away. He just hoped no one would come out and notice his Ford Zephyr and go carrying back tales to Goodridge. He’d bought this car new four months ago, before that putting up with a second-hand 1949 car that would never have been noticed. Until then, lack of money, all ploughed into getting this place back on its feet, had prevented extravagance. Now he thought about it. The place was doing wonderfully well coming up to Christmas; he felt it would continue, and by next year he’d be able to buy an even better vehicle – a Citroen perhaps. He might even get Helen behind the wheel of a car, an easy-to-handle Morris Minor perhaps.
A sudden hubbub in the street disrupted his thoughts. People were beginning to turn out, a chattering group passing the top of the alley and making towards a large car that had just drawn up, then another group, as noisy as the first. Edwin’s watch showed the time to be almost two.
After a while he got out and walked towards the road. It was quiet now. Only a few lights were on in the restaurant, with the staff clearing up. In the rain everywhere smelled damp. The stale odour of refuse from the alley mixed with the lingering aroma of cooked food, coffee and faint perfume hanging in the air. Some time later the restaurant lights began to go out one by one. Edwin moved back into the shadowy alley-way as the home-going kitchen staff, then the waiters emerged. Finally, with the place in total darkness, the tall, spare figure of William Goodridge appeared, turning left to walk the short distance home, his stride long and supple despite his fifty-eight years.
Would he find Helen still in turmoil? She’d been agitated when he’d left her, her pretty face creased with self-reproach, saying that they should never have let themselves be so carried away. His comforting arm about her and his words of love had helped soothe her, but only temporarily, he knew, for as soon as he’d left, those pangs of conscience would attack her anew, rather as they were attacking him now. He just hoped, as he waited for Goodridge to disappear before letting himself into the restaurant to go up to the penthouse where he now lived, that Helen’s face would not give her away to her ever-discerning father; hoped that she might have the sense to be in bed by the time he got home. By morning she would have had more chance to compose herself.
But what bothered him more, as he let himself in, was that while making love there had been a total blindness to the possible consequence of what he was doing, with no thought to anything but his need of her and, he’d assumed, her need of him, selfish bastard that he was. Yet Helen had been as consenting as he.
The thought was still with him as he mounted the stairs to the penthouse that had once been his uncle’s. Edwin had sold his flat by St James’s Park when he’d needed more money to help pay back the bank. With people crying out for places to live, he’d been very pleased with the good price it had brought.
The penthouse greeted him coldly. He would have to make it cosy again, ready for Helen. So far he had never asked her up here, knowing not only that she would refuse, aware that here things might happen, but that he had become ashamed to let her see it. Until now, he hadn’t much bothered with it, seeing it merely as somewhere to lay his head after a long day’s work. Now, of course, it was imperative to make it as nice and cosy as he could. He would buy a television and a small modem corner bar to replace the old-fashioned pre-war one; buy new furniture; install a shower in the bathroom, which he’d have retiled; have the rest of the place redecorated – new drapes, new carpet, lots of side lamps – the idea quite excited him for a moment as he turned on the sitting-room light, until he thought again of the fateful question that had been bugging him: what if he’d got Helen pregnant?
* * *
For some while after Edwin left, Helen sat on the sofa where they had so recently made love with the feeling that she could hardly face herself. She didn’t feel cheapened, her love for Edwin was strong and overpowering even now, but it was hard not to wonder if he had seen her as easy. Surely he didn’t.
After a while she got up and began moving about the flat, doing little unnecessary tasks, unable to bring herself to go to bed. It was too suggestive of what they had been doing. Edwin had asked her to marry him and she had consented but that didn’t excuse what they had done.
Slowly she got into her nightdress and came to sit on the sofa again. Edwin had said that he’d be here tomorrow morning to ask her father for her hand in marriage – all so outdated, but he had meant every word of it. She tried to feel consoled by that but it wasn’t working. All she could think of was how she could have allowed herself to be so carried away. And what would they do if Dad said no? She could hardly see Edwin flying in the face of his refusal and demanding that she elope with him. But if Edwin did ask her to do so, could she? The thought of hurting her father like that was utterly abhorrent.
Another, less weighty thought struck her as she finally decided that she must try to sink her thoughts in sleep: that it seemed ludicrous for her father, an employee of Letts – without question its most respected member of staff, but an employee nevertheless – having to be virtually beseeched by Edwin, his boss and half his age, to look kindly on him. In this, Edwin was behaving like a subservient.
Hearing her father’s key in the lock, Helen threw the room a hasty glance to make sure that all was as it should be, that there was no sign of what she and Edwin had been up to – although she had already checked the second Edwin had departed – and fled to her room, diving into bed and pu
lling the covers up to her chin.
She didn’t reply as her father softly called out to her. Laying very still, trying to regulate her breathing as though asleep, she heard him creep into her room to drop a light kiss on her forehead with a whispered, ‘Goodnight, poppet,’ that he didn’t expect her to hear. Tiptoeing out, he closed the door gently behind him.
Left in darkness, her eyes wide open, part of her still shrank from what she and Edwin had done. But the other part of her experienced a deep flow of warmth spreading slowly through her body, and she knew she would love Edwin until the end of her life.
That alone should have lulled her to sleep. It didn’t. The thing preventing sleep was the memory of having made love without any protection, so suddenly had it happened. In the midst of her joy she had thought of it too late and was now being kept awake by a useless exercise of counting the days to her next cycle. She had heard somewhere that certain times of the month were safe but had no idea when they occurred. As if that would make any difference now. It wasn’t even possible to still the heavy thumping of her heart with the consolation that if something had happened, at least Edwin had asked her to marry him and they could always bring the wedding forward.
With this going round and round in her mind she made a concerted effort to sleep, squeezing her eyelids tightly together, but it was useless – she was never going to be able to sleep this night.
When next her eyelids opened again it was to the broad daylight of a sunny Sunday morning, her father already in the kitchen, setting about making breakfast if the sound of a boiling kettle and the frying pan being laid on the cooker was anything to go by.
Soon, to the appetising aroma of frying bacon, Helen ran a bath, sank into it and washed her hair. Refreshed, she wrapped herself in a dressing-gown and went into the kitchen. The night was past. A few hours’ sleep had made a lot of difference and now she could face her father without having to avert her eyes from his. If something had happened, Edwin would see her all right.
* * *
He arrived around eleven o’clock. To Helen it had seemed a lifetime waiting. Hearing the doorbell, it was she who rushed to answer it, her father holding back deliberately and leaving her to go.
She’d already had told him over breakfast that Edwin was coming and that he had something to ask him.
“Sounds important,” he’d said, and she had leapt on the conjecture.
“Oh, it is – very important. But I don’t want to say anything until he comes.”
Her father had nodded sagaciously and got on with his eating and scanning his Sunday Times. His nod said quite plainly that he had guessed what Edwin was coming here for. The one thing it didn’t reveal was whether he intended to approve or not. Helen felt a surge of hostility towards him, something she had never before known, but was immediately angry with herself. William was the dearest of fathers.
Thoughts of elopement kept racing through her mind as she tried to eat her own breakfast, an almost impossible feat. Finally she gave up to clear the table, energetically washing up and stacking away just so as to push that eventuality and any subsequent adverse thoughts from her mind.
In the same vein she tidied, dusted, made the beds, folded clothes and sorted out already tidy drawers and cupboards, unable to sit down or rest. By the time Edwin arrived, she was dressed and groomed and felt as though she had done a whole day’s manual labour.
Her father was the epitome of politeness. “We’re just about to make coffee, Mr Lett, if you’d care for a cup,” he said, behaving exactly like an employee speaking to his boss. Helen cringed inwardly and leapt to the rescue.
“Dad, Edwin has something he wants to ask you. I’ll make the coffee while you two talk.”
Again she cringed as Dad, half bowing, indicated for Edwin to be seated, as though they were in the restaurant instead of her father’s own home, he the master here. She hurried off to the kitchen but left its door ajar so as to hear what went on and be on hand if needed. But with the kettle having been boiled ten minutes ago, it almost immediately began making a devil of a din, reducing whatever she was trying to overhear to a mere mumble.
Helen felt her hackles rise. Why was she being consigned to a kitchen while they discussed her? This was 1954, not 1900 – the days when women’s lives were managed for them were long gone.
In a fit of offended pique, she turned off the kettle and strode back into the lounge to stand over the two men, who both looked up in surprise.
“Well?” she demanded of Edwin, her hands on her hips. “Have you asked him yet?”
Edwin half smiled, then, reading her steady gaze, dropped his own. “Not yet.”
“Then I will.” Her lips thinning, she turned immediately to her father. “Daddy, Edwin and I want to get married.”
Her father was not as easy to outstare. “I thought that was what he’d come to ask, but it’s an awkward thing for a young man.”
“Maybe it is,” snapped Helen. “It’s also old-fashioned and quite silly. So I’ve come in to sort it out. It’s simple enough. I want Edwin and me to get married. All we’re asking, Dad, is do you mind?”
William knew he should have been prepared for this. He’d always tried to bring her up as he thought a girl should be, not too pushy, obedient but not subservient, not submissive but willing to be guided. But Helen had often shown herself to be her mother’s daughter. She showed it now and for a second it was like looking at Mary. A wave of trepidation passed through him, partly the nagging awareness that Helen was Mary’s daughter but not his. The other was that it might already be too late to reverse things. These two seemed in too much of a rush to get married for his liking.
“Not straight away?” Concern already ringing in his tone, he silently admonished himself. Surely he wasn’t thinking she and Edwin had been up to something and she might be… he could not form that hovering word.
Helen’s determined lips had begun to relax. He’d been wrong to even dare think what he had been thinking. As for his other worry, he knew too late that those three words of his had innocently been tantamount to giving permission as Helen broke into a huge smile and bent forward to kiss his cheek.
“No, not straight away, Daddy.” Her voice was teasing. It also revealed relief and happiness. “We could make it some time in the spring or maybe early summer.”
He couldn’t return her smile. The moment loomed before him that now should be the time to confront her with who her true father was. Why in God’s name had he left it so long to tell her? If he didn’t speak now, it would be too late. Leaving it and leaving it would only cause her more pain and bitter disappointment. She must be told and he must face the fading of joy on that face he cherished so much. Edwin already knew his secret of course, but he didn’t care about Edwin, only about how much it would hurt his daughter being told at this late stage in her life. But it had to be done.
He opened his mouth to speak but, seeing her ecstatic expression, his courage melted. All he could do was to gaze up, straight-faced, into her happy face.
Edwin had risen to stand beside her, his face too wreathed in smiles. “We’ll need to do a great deal of planning for it, Mr Goodridge. I want us to have the best wedding ever, and a wonderful honeymoon somewhere really special. I can’t thank you enough, Mr Goodridge. I shall take care of her.”
He sounded so young, so immature. No longer was he acting as William’s employer; Edwin was looking on him as his benefactor, a man to please and to thank for allowing his daughter into his care. He was the boy, and William the man who had given his decision.
So as not to be left looking up at the pair, William also rose, standing taller than either of them. “Let me know when you’ve set a date. I shall need to know how long I have to set aside enough funds for all this.”
“Oh, no, Mr Goodridge, I should be able to take care of everything.”
“No doubt you can,” said William severely. “But Helen is my daughter and it’s my prerogative to provide for her special day.”
>
He knew he wouldn’t be able to match what Edwin probably had in mind, but he would no doubt eventually capitulate and let them go ahead with whatever they had planned, merely putting in what he could towards it. It was odd to imagine being father-in-law to his employer.
What did worry him was Edwin being aware that he was Helen’s cousin; worse, that she had no inkling of it. How long before Edwin let slip to her? If that did happen he would at least be free of the weight of it, but did it matter who told her? It would still send her world crashing about her to know that she had for so long been kept in the dark.
It had to be his responsibility, no one else’s. But until then, he must trust Edwin to keep his promise. How could he have let it go on for so long? He should have told her when she had been eighteen and he had mentioned that trust coming her way when she reached twenty-five. He should have told her then, but he’d let her believe it to be what he had put away for her at birth.
There had been a nasty moment when in her happy surprise she’d expressed amazement that he could afford to have put aside all that much. Even then, completely lacking courage, he’d laughed it off as something he’d done when he had come into a bit of money and considered it better to put into a trust for her. Overwhelmed by such kindness, she had flung herself into his arms in love and gratitude, while inwardly he’d cringed, feeling a physical stab of pain at his bold-faced lie. He should have explained then. But he hadn’t.
Now, he wondered, would they all come to suffer because of his crass cowardice? Dear God, he hoped not.
It was a sober, thoughtful man who offered the couple a benign smile.
Seven
All week Helen had half expected to see Hugh come rushing round asking her out. She hadn’t relished the task of telling him about her engagement to Edwin, but there’d been no sign of him. When Edwin told her that the London play he’d been in had finished and he had gone off to Stratford-upon-Avon rehearsing with the RSC, of which he had become a member, mostly in very small parts though he saw it as an honour to be with them, she was glad and relieved.
