by Maggie Ford
Now Hugh had come back and in that short while had begun to cause her more trouble than before.
At first he had behaved himself, but soon it had all started up again. She sensed him hovering, never far away, found him there beside her when she least expected it. When he wasn’t in London with Edwin, which seemed too often for comfort, he constantly watched her. This weekend had been the last straw.
“Don’t you think he’s been here long enough?” she asked now. “It’s about time he found a place of his own. He lives off us, don’t you see? And you let him. All that time he was absent, we heard hardly a word from him. Now he’s back why can’t he start putting in the same hours as you? He’s always loafing around this place while you work your socks off.”
Edwin began buttering his slice of toast. “To tell the truth, darling, I’m rather glad he’s not there. He gets under my feet too. I’m glad to see the back of him sometimes. He has no idea of what’s involved in running a restaurant, even after all this time. He had a hard knock earlier this year but it hasn’t cured his love of acting. Given half the chance he’ll be off again. I haven’t entirely forgiven him for going off like that.”
“You should never have allowed him back,” Helen fumed.
She saw Edwin give an apathetic shrug.
“He is family. Getting rid of him would mean going through all that performance with the rest of them again. It’s simpler to let him stay on.”
“But you’re paying him good money for nothing.”
Again Edwin shrugged, this time with a more positive negation. “I can’t be dealing with this just now, Helen. Sometimes I wish your father were still with me. I miss his help and advice. Michel is very good, but he’s not William Goodridge. There’ll never be another to match your father in all he’s done for Letts.”
“He was so ill last winter.” Her initial point was slipping away from her. “He had to retire in the end.”
She remembered how bad her father had been earlier this year. She had gone to stay with him whenever she could, leaving the girls in the care of Muriel Cotterell who was proving to be an apt and trustworthy nanny with whom they both got on very well.
“I know, but I still miss him.” Edwin bit into the toast he had now spread with marmalade. “Hugh is worse than useless.”
“You should have guessed that much before you invited him into the business in the first place.” She was dying to get back to her original point.
She saw Edwin give her a wry smile.
“I couldn’t see him out on a limb without a penny.”
“After walking out like he did, he came crawling back with his tail between his legs.”
It seemed the play in Cambridge hadn’t lasted that long; had proved a flop. What money Hugh had made had apparently gone on gambling: cards and the horses. He’d even had to sell his car to honour his debts, had turned up at the restaurant in July with a handful of IOUs which, taking pity on him, Edwin had settled. Now he had a new car, so God knew what he was getting out of Edwin at the moment. Edwin refused to say. No doubt he felt guilty in front of her while Hugh paraded around the place as though he owned it, making eyes at her, and then making that preposterous invitation on Saturday evening.
“And already he’s been able to buy another Jag,” she continued. “Not any old car, but a Jag! How on earth can he afford that in that short while?”
She needed to get back to her original idea of getting rid of Hugh. At first he’d been the soul of good behaviour but it hadn’t lasted. She wasn’t sure whether to be angry with herself or him at the way things had begun to take a turn. She was annoyed with herself mainly, aware of the old attraction stirring inside her. She’d tried to ignore it but he must have sensed something.
This time she hadn’t had the children as an excuse to keep him at bay. Angel, seven in the autumn, was in her second year at infant school and Gina had been allowed into the infants this month. She was the youngest in her class but bright enough for them to have stretched a point since there were only two weeks or so to go to her fifth birthday.
Her only escape from that probing gaze Hugh had again begun giving her was to visit her father. Since the most recent attack of his bronchitis last winter he was no longer his old self, but he welcomed her visits though she never let on why she came so often.
Today had been spent stewing over Hugh’s proposal, his presumption as ridiculous as the tingle of temptation she’d felt had been abominable. How dare he imagine she would go to bed with him? Yet, with the children staying the weekend with Aunt Victoria – she would not be present at Gina’s birthday party and had asked for them to spend the weekend with her – with Edwin having broken his promise to come home Saturday evening, though he’d be home on Sunday, and with Mrs Cotterell and Muriel gone home for the weekend – she and Hugh needed little looking after – they were entirely alone. Indeed, he’d begun by mentioning the fact.
Having come home around ten and gone up to his rooms, he had come down again to stand in the doorway to the sitting-room looking at her and grinning. When she had asked where he’d been, he had said, “Down at the pub.” Judging by his silly grin he’d knocked back more than a few whiskies.
When she’d asked what he was grinning at, made uneasy by it, he had said, “Seems there’s only you and me here this evening. I thought I might keep you company. Cheer you up a bit?”
She’d told him coldly, “I don’t need company and I don’t need cheering up. I’ve plenty of things to do before going to bed.”
“Such as what?”
She’d stared hard at him. “Such as – well…”
There was nothing to do. She missed not having the children here – no creeping into their bedrooms to kiss each of them goodnight before going to bed herself. Most of the evening she had been lounging full-length on the sofa watching television, which was what she usually did until bedtime. She’d been contemplating having a leisurely soak in the tub before retiring to read for a while, but ten o’clock was rather too soon to go to bed. Thinking back it was what she should have done.
Her hesitation encouraged him. “I can keep you company, Helen.” His voice was low and seductive. “We can have a drink or two and a chat.”
“We’ve nothing to talk about,” she said coldly, but he wasn’t to be deterred.
“Oh, I don’t know.” He shrugged. “You can always find something.”
“I don’t feel like chatting,” she said. “I’m thinking of going to bed.”
He sauntered into the room and came to sit next to her, first gently easing her legs off the sofa to do so. “No Edwin then?”
“You know there’s no Edwin!” She felt cross that without protesting she had allowed him to alter her position like that, as if it was his right to do so. “He’s at work – where you should be instead of boozing in a pub.”
Telling him off made her feel better about having him touch her without permission. But he merely smiled, gazing down at his hands.
“He did say he wouldn’t need me tonight. Nothing much doing in September. Better to be there as it gets busier towards Christmas.” He looked up at her, his face brightening. “So here I am, helping him out in other ways by keeping you company for him.”
“I don’t want your—”
She broke off as his hand stole over hers, the other arm moving around her shoulders. “Come on, Helen! Don’t try telling me you enjoy being all on your own. Don’t you miss his company?”
“Of course I do, but…”
“Don’t you miss… this?”
He leaned over her and before she could resist the arm that had eased her body towards him, he kissed her, a lingering kiss that nothing would interrupt this time.
Had it been loneliness that had made her not pull away – a hunger for some comfort that Edwin, so full of his restaurant, failed to give and that she had lost the will to ask of him? Was their marriage going slightly stale without either of them realising it? Whatever it was, she hadn’t drawn back fro
m the heat of his lips against hers, his hand on her breast, warm through her blouse then slipping through the opening that had somehow appeared between the buttons, and the oh-so-lovely manipulation of her bare flesh, all of it sending a need through her body that had been so long lain aside.
No words were said. She felt Hugh’s hand leave her breast to slip down to the securing button of her slacks, the hand travelling firmly down over her abdomen and on between her thighs, fingers probing. It was the sudden shock of her natural response to the sensation it produced that brought her to her senses. She struggled a little. “Hugh, don’t!”
When he failed to stop, her voice grew louder. “Hugh, I said stop!” She’d struggled more fiercely, grabbing his wrist to try and jerk it away. “You can’t do that here!”
She hadn’t realised how those last words could be misconstrued. He had let her pull his hand away – or rather his fingers had withdrawn to leave her quivering – and he leaned back to gaze at her.
“You’d like it more in bed, then?”
“What?”
“You want us to go to bed? I’ll guarantee to make you happier than you’ve ever been, Helen.” He got up and as he pulled her up with him the last of the reeling sensations fled, leaving her astonished at what she had let happen, and filled with fury that he could dare to assume her compliance to such a suggestion.
Seconds later she had given him a resounding smack across the cheek. She thought he was going to hit her back as his hand went up to be clapped to the already rising redness, his eyes blazing.
“You fickle bitch!” he exploded. “You lead me on and then back out. Is that your style?”
“I never led you on,” she yelled at him. “You thought you’d play on my feelings about Edwin always being away working – take advantage of it. Well, I am lonely and I want Edwin here. And maybe things aren’t as rosy as I would like. But I’m not that frustrated!”
He looked at her with a crooked, knowing grin. “Oh, I think you are, my dear. I think you’d take anyone who happened to be handy if it wasn’t for your blasted high morals. Don’t you think I knew that by the way you rose to what I did? You were ready for it. I just jumped the gun too soon. If I hadn’t, you’d have let me take you, I could feel it. I could feel you pumping—”
She had screamed at him then. With no one else in the house to hear, and the house isolated from others around, she had shrieked at the top of her voice, had run past him to her bedroom and, locking the door, had flung herself on her bed to weep with fury at him, at herself, at the circumstances which had almost caused her to succumb to temptation, and made her still want to, even as she wept.
Edwin had put in an appearance, that was virtually all it was, yesterday mid-morning, full of contrition at having left her on her own on Saturday night and trusting she hadn’t been too lonely with the children away as well. Mutely she’d waved away his excuses, the replicas of those he’d given on the phone on Saturday afternoon, ones that she had got used to hearing over the years.
Now at the breakfast table this morning, with him saying he would be leaving for London in a couple of hours or so, she had begged him to stay home.
“There can’t be that much doing at this time of year,” she had cajoled. “Why not give yourself some time off? You work so hard.”
“I don’t have your father there now to help out.”
“But you have other staff. Surely you can rely on them.”
“I’d sooner be on the premises making sure all goes well.”
“It will.”
“No, Helen, I’d rather be there.”
Yes; he would rather be there than here with her. And see what had nearly happened because he wasn’t giving his time to her! It was a good job she had had the presence of mind to stop it before it had gone too far. But would the will power be there next time? The sensation of Hugh’s probing fingers still lingered in her mind.
“If you must leave,” she had demanded, “then take Hugh with you.”
Totally innocent, he’d pulled a wry face at her over his breakfast cup and said, “Between you and me, I’d rather he stayed away. More trouble than he’s worth.”
It was then that she had burst out, “I want him out of here!”
Edwin had shaken his head, annoyingly playful. “Don’t foist him on me!”
When she had repeated it even more vehemently, prompting him to ask, “What’s he done to upset you, then?” there had been no way to explain.
The idea of being alone with Hugh for another day appalled her. She made a great pretence of thoughtfully stirring her coffee.
“I was thinking, I might pop up to London myself and spend the day with my father. It’ll be nice for him. I could stay overnight if you’re not coming home. I’ll ask young Muriel to get the children from school and perhaps Mrs Cotterell can stay the night.” For extra payment Mrs Cotterell was always willing, saying they were never any trouble. “They’ll have their eyes glued to the TV until bedtime anyway,” Helen ended.
On Tuesday she would browse through the shops in nearby Chelmsford, have lunch out, then pick up the children from their school and take them to the pictures in Chelmsford – a Walt Disney film was showing there – and they could have a nice meal before coming home. Anything to keep out of Hugh’s way. On Wednesdays she attended a local women’s guild – she could remain behind helping out until the children were ready to be picked up from school, and maybe on Thursday…
Helen brought her mind back with a stem jerk. She couldn’t go running off here, there and everywhere forever. Something would have to be done about her and Hugh. But what?
It was Hugh himself who solved her problem. Whether he had got the message that Saturday evening or not, he kept out of her way for the rest of the week, announcing on the Tuesday that he would be spending some time in London. No doubt looking for someone else to seduce, she told herself, not without a disconcerting stab of regret which she fought to ignore. At least she could relax – if that was the word.
To Helen’s immense joy Edwin decided not to stay in London the next Saturday evening. “About time I had a weekend off,” he told her. “I can go back on Monday.”
Michel Marat had now been there several months and Edwin, for all his capacity for imagining that no one could run the place as efficiently as he himself did, apparently now felt he could leave the man in charge.
It was wonderful having him home for a whole weekend. And no Hugh, though it wouldn’t have mattered if he had been around with Edwin here.
* * *
He was in his study on the Sunday evening when Hugh turned up.
Tapping on the study door, Hugh entered to his cousin’s invite. The first words out of his mouth were, “Can I have a word with you, Edwin?”
Frowning at the now familiar hangdog expression, Edwin prepared himself for the worst. Hugh was short of money again, no doubt, yet he reaped a decent enough salary.
He tried not to sound too terse. “What is it?”
“I know you’re not going to be too pleased about this,” began Hugh, seating himself in the nearby armchair. “The thing is, I just happened to be reading the Theatre News and noticed there was a company doing auditions for a new play. I thought I’d pop along to see what it was all about. Just to keep my hand in, you know. The thing is, I’ve been offered a part.”
Hugh’s eyes grew full of entreaty. “Edwin, I can’t turn it down. It’s a great chance. Trouble is, I won’t be able to be in the restaurant and the theatre at the same time. I wanted to know what you thought.”
“You’re seldom in the restaurant as it is,” remarked Edwin.
It was obvious that Hugh was taking his comment as hopeful rather than caustic. His handsome face began to beam. “So you don’t mind, then?”
Edwin wanted to kick himself for his mistake. He did not return the smile. “As a matter of fact, Hugh, I do mind. I took you into the business in good faith, but what help you’ve been is minimal.”
He could see
his cousin’s face begin to drop, but he ploughed on. Something needed to come out, something that had been stewing in him ever since taking Hugh in.
“I did it for you, not for myself,” he continued. “Aunt Victoria and the others were well pleased. But I think I’d have done better to have persuaded Sheila’s Paul into the business rather than you.”
Eighteen months back his cousin Sheila had married a promising young junior executive in her father’s own company. With William Goodridge now retired for good, Edwin had mentioned the young man coming into the restaurant business, feeling he owed Sheila something as one of the family, but the offer had been turned down flat. Sheila’s husband had thanked him but said that he wanted to get to the top of his own tree. It had felt akin to a snub and Edwin had smouldered under it for some time until Hugh had taken up his offer.
“But you’re my cousin,” he went on. “My nearest relative. I had the temerity to imagine it would make a good future for you. It seems I’ve been barking up the wrong tree.”
“Edwin,” appealed Hugh. “You can’t begin to understand how people like me feel. The theatre is in my blood. I can’t help it.”
“That may be,” said Edwin, “but it doesn’t mean you’re any good at it. You’ve said you’ve never made much headway – bad luck, I think you term it. Well, when you hit bad luck yet again don’t come to me asking for a hand-out or to be taken back into the business. I won’t be so stupid next time.”
For a moment Hugh glared at him, then the comers of his lips moved down into a sneer. “You can’t brush me off like that, old man – take me into the business then take me out again as you please. I’m in for good unless you want a legal wrangle over it.”
Edwin fought not to show his anger. “That’s true. But whatever bed you make for yourself you’ve got to learn to lie in it. You can’t just keep swapping beds as and when you please.”
“I can’t see Aunt Victoria and the rest of them being too happy if you do brash me off,” said Hugh.
Edwin shrugged. “It seems I can’t prevent you doing what you want. All I’m doing is putting things on the line so you know my feelings about it.”
