Affairs of the Heart Read online

  “Mary, I am so—”

  “It’ll have to be soon,” she cut in, unable to look up at him. “The baby is due in six weeks.”

  It sounded so formal, so cheap in every sense of the word; a contract; she a market bride. She felt as ashamed as anyone could possibly be. There had been no embrace. He had stood over her for a while and when she finally looked up at him, he had nodded, gone back for his trilby, picked it up and, moving the brim round and round between his fingers, said, “Well then, I’ll start things rolling, make arrangements.”

  “Yes,” she had mouthed.

  “I’ll get it all done and finished in a couple of weeks. Has to be registry office, of course.”

  “Yes,” she had whispered again, her whole being utterly numb.

  “Well, I’ll say cheerio then. I’ll come for you when it’s all arranged.”

  She had nodded and he let himself out of the flat, leaving her sitting there stunned, hardly realising what had transpired, unable even to feel relief. That came later and when it did, it was only relief, no joy attached at all. She realised too that not once had either of them referred to the father.

  * * *

  Two weeks later, as promised, Mary stood before the registrar, William next to her, she in a loose coat that hid as much as possible of her shape, he in his best suit. There were two witnesses whom they did not know but no one else and she was reminded of that other registry office wedding. She had been pregnant at that one too, had wondered if the man beside her really loved her or was just making an effort to give the coming child a father.

  She could hardly recall how Geoffrey had been. She knew he’d made wonderful love to her on their wedding night. That was where this one would differ; William wouldn’t do that, she was certain. If ever there was a marriage of convenience this felt it – her convenience, his sacrifice, or so it appeared.

  “Sorry there’s no honeymoon,” William said as they left, bending their heads under an extended April shower, she thanking God for cloche hats that could be rammed down over heads so that no accompanying puffs of wind could dislodge them.

  His tone was cheerful. “Can hardly go on honeymoon, you in your condition.”

  Mary laughed. It was a long time since she had laughed. The laugh was filled with sudden knowledge of her immense relief. She was married. That was all that counted. Her baby was safe.

  “How about spending it going to the pictures?” he suggested. “We could go to a really good picture palace in Leicester Square. There’s The Last of Mrs Cheyney showing somewhere – several stars from the silent days – Basil Rathbone, Norma Shearer, Hedda Hopper. I’m dying to hear them talk. They say loads of silent stars didn’t make it when the talkies came in last year. Have you seen that Mickey Mouse cartoon?” As if she’d been able to in her condition! “First of its kind. We’ll have a good laugh – at least we’ll hear what’s being said instead of watching Felix or Mutt and Jeff in silence.”

  He chattered on, finally pausing to enquire, “What d’you think, then? I admit it’s not much of a honeymoon…”

  She smiled up at him. “I think it will be a lovely honeymoon.” And she meant it.

  * * *

  The main film hadn’t been that exciting. None of the dramatic gestures of the old silent movies or the huge scenes many of them had portrayed, giving such marvellous entertainment; more like a play, set like one, a little boring. It was the audience now who were silent. The chatter, the catcalls, the audible sighs of sympathy with the mute heroine, the rustle of sweet paper, the crackle of peanuts were all silenced in an effort to catch what the actors were saying, their American accents unfamiliar and hard to understand.

  By contrast, Steamboat Willie, the Mickey Mouse film by Walt Disney – the first of its kind, as William had said – had the place in waves of laugher and more than made up for Mrs Cheyney. Unlike the stick-thin, stilted Felix, that goggle-eyed black cat stalking across the screen with his hands forever behind his back, soundless but for a pianist finking in the orchestra pit, this noisy “Mickey” with his high American voice and cheery lopsided grin, his believably funny remarks putting Mary in stitches, was rounded and almost touchable.

  But halfway through it, she stopped laughing, gripped William’s arm.

  “Oh dear!”

  William looked down at her. “What’s the matter?”

  “Will. I think we’re going to have to leave. I’ve such a pain come on. It could be all this laughing, but I think the baby’s started.”

  He was on his feet instantly, upsetting the person next to them. To the annoyance of all those around them, he began, in the height of the best joke from Mickey, helping Mary up. The two of them shuffled awkwardly sideways between the seats, her protruding stomach catching the back of the heads of people in front as she trod on the toes of the people behind her in trying to get past, several of whom were far from pleased.

  “Cor! Mind ’ow yer go, missus! I ain’t made of cement! Ain’t used to ’avin’ bloody elephants tramplin’ all over me feet in pitcher palaces.”

  She mumbled “sorry” as came another’s angry remark, “The moments some blessed people choose!” Stoically battling her way onward, she wished she had been given a seat at the end of the aisle in readiness for such a likely exit. But the place was crowded – had been when they’d entered.

  Bundling on past another irate gentleman who had already had one dose of these two barging past him earlier to get to their seats, and more or less echoing the same sentiments as his neighbour about untimely exits, Mary looked only to get to the end of the row, and out of the place.

  Even the lady at the end who had obligingly swung her feet into the aisle had one helpful foot trodden on by William. She let out a polite little squeak of pain but said nothing as, losing his balance a little, he put a heavy hand on her shoulder to stop himself falling.

  Muttering an apology, he regained equilibrium and, with one hand under Mary’s arm, assisted her up the sloping aisle to the exit while the ongoing antics of Mickey Mouse continued to send gales of laughter around the cinema. Out in the fresh, damp if sooty-smelling air of Leicester Square, another twinge of pain bent Mary over.

  “Will, I’m sorry,” she gasped. Straightening up carefully as it passed, she gave him a warning smile.

  “If this is anything like my last one, it could pop out at any minute. I had Marianne early and very quickly – no trouble at all. This one could be early too, and just as quick.”

  Speaking Marianne’s name no longer brought the heartache she’d always felt before. There was a new baby to think of now. “Come on, Will, we must get home!”

  “Home” was a flat Henry had found a week earlier, above a men’s attire shop in Angel Court quite near the restaurant. Henry had arranged to pay the rent, saying it could be written off as a business expense. Business expense? For a head waiter? But Will seemed happy enough with it. Maybe Henry had said it was a tax dodge, with Will ready to go along with that.

  Anyway, why shouldn’t Henry pay? It was his child she was having. He could count himself fortunate in William’s timely intervention. An added gesture of his gratitude had been to promise to put William in as manager when his proposed second restaurant was finalised, Henry as excited about the venture as a cat with two tails. The flat and his promise to William were indeed handsome. He could easily have shirked responsibility and let her get on her own way. It must have been a great relief to him when William had visited her and, seeing her condition, had proposed to her. A timely get-out for both her and Henry it seemed, and she would never cease to be grateful to William.

  It was only a step from Leicester Square to the flat but they took a taxi. Just as well. There was barely time before she went into labour properly. But rather than the baby shooting out as had her previous one, it went on for nearly forty-eight hours, the attendant midwife calling in the doctor, saying the child was too big to pass easily. Mary was exhausted by the time the baby, an unexpectedly large but beautiful girl
, finally thought fit to enter the world.

  Her brow still damp with sweat, Mary looked fondly at the result then turned her gaze to William who, the moment he was allowed, had hurried in to kneel beside her, taking one of her hands in his.

  “Are you all right, Mary my love?”

  She nodded wearily. “I never want to go through that again.” If it was said that once the baby arrived, the mother forgot all the pain and strain of bringing it into the world, Mary no longer believed it, maybe because she’d expected as easy a birth as her last.

  William had hardly looked at the child. But then, it wasn’t his, was it? She thought of how Henry would feel when he knew. He’d feel something – regret, maybe, that he could never tell anyone. She harboured no bitterness against him, merely sadness for him and a little for herself. She had Will to care for her. Dear William. If only she loved him all would be so wonderful, complete. She’d loved him once, years ago; she might again.

  Hearing her sigh, he got to his feet. “You’re worn out, dearest. I’ll leave you to rest.” To which she nodded and closed her eyes.

  * * *

  Things were going exceedingly well. At last they had got their feet off the ground, with Mother not well enough to argue. In August she’d had a small stroke and, though only slight, it had put her in a frame of mind to not find it in herself to care any further how the business did. The bank was being a little awkward still, needing to delve into the firm’s books again and again, making Geoffrey fret and fume at each delay as further reservations were expressed. But banks will be banks. And Geoffrey was forced to be patient.

  By early September 1929 the bank finally seemed ready to allow a sizeable loan. Not before time, though not as much as they’d hoped for. Jumping the gun a little, Henry had secured premises near Marble Arch as early as April, at no small cost. Though a little old fashioned, they lay in an ideal position. But now added on were architects’ fees for redesigning both frontage and interior, surveyors’ charges, insurance payments, working expenses, overheads and endless other costs to be taken into account. But the place was desirable enough to be worth all the outlay he could see lying on the horizon.

  “We’re going to have to bump the money up somehow,” Henry had told Geoffrey at the time. “Going to have to find a financier or two.”

  Since then they’d spoken with several worthy investors who had expressed provisional interest. For all the huge costings it was looking rosy.

  “By next year we’ll be up and running.” Geoffrey nodded hopefully to Henry’s prediction, cash as always a problem with him, all the more with Pamela’s natural bent for spending.

  She knew how to spend, going through money like a knife through warm butter, unlike Mary who for all her penchant for shopping had at times expressed at least a little guilt about spending too much and now and again had pulled in her horns just to please him. Pamela, having brought a good bit of her own family’s money into the marriage, deemed herself entitled to spend as she pleased, and not just on clothes but on diamonds, stables, hunting, exorbitant parties at the lovely big house her parents had given them in Epping. Now she was worrying him for a yacht – not just a nice little coastal yacht but one big enough for an army of guests and capable of cruising the Bahamas, not merely the Med. Either way it meant paying a crew, he being no yachtsman. With just one restaurant it was well nigh impossible keeping up with her. So he looked forward to 1930 with great anticipation, after what Henry had said. But more cash was needed if they were to even get off the ground.

  Full of optimism, they sought a city house, a gilt-edged firm. But there the rosy dreams began to fade as one after another financier turned them down, seeing only a premises too in need of refurbishment to reap them rewards as quickly as they’d have liked. It was a financial friend of Geoffrey who recommended one of his firm’s partners as a likely investor.

  “The gentleman in question is Mr Clarence Hatry. In my books he’s a financial wizard.”

  A board meeting arranged, they sat while the pale-faced, unsmiling man with a trim moustache, heavy-lidded eyes and a cold, blue, calculating stare under a receding hairline – every inch a financier and a little awesome in his manner – scanned balance sheets, profit and loss accounts and gross and net profits, the results of years of good management, which Henry laid before him.

  Holding their breath expectantly, they watched the man’s index finger trace firmly and swiftly down page after page, column after column, but when he finally looked up, his words, terse and to the point: “I regret, gentlemen, the proposition does not interest me,” stunned them rigid.

  That was all. Lost for words, they sat silent as he gathered his briefcase and left the room with not so much as a “Good day to you, gentlemen”.

  Angry but undeterred, they sought others. And after a few weeks a sprinkling of less astute investors, beguiled by Geoffrey’s winning ways and suave tongue painting a marvellous picture for them, promised to give thought to the venture.

  Seeing sufficient cash about to roll in at last, Henry went on laying out to surveyors and architects, borrowing from the bank at a percentage that rather took his breath away. But it was a good venture. A couple of years of hard graft getting it going until it began paying its way, then in would come the profits, hand over fist, for all the years to come. And who knows, this might be followed by yet another premises – even a chain of restaurants across the whole of England, one in all the large cities. And then the rude and arrogant Mr Clarence Hatry would be forced to laugh on the other side of his face.

  Six

  Bounding into the office three weeks after Clarence Hatry had turned them down, Geoffrey thrust the Daily Mail under his brother’s nose.

  “You seen this, Henry?”

  Hardly giving Henry, who had been studying some figures, time to look up, he continued, “That bloody Hatry chap – gone down – crashed – under arrest.”

  “He’s what?”

  “Under arrest.”

  Henry glanced at his goggle-eyed office staff and hustled Geoffrey to one side, out of their hearing. “What d’you mean, under arrest?”

  “Shady dealings, calculated swindles, making out false prospectuses. They say hundreds who’ve been involved in his enterprises have come a cropper. Cheeky swine – he knew he didn’t have the money to invest in our project, yet he seemed so cool. We could’ve been caught up in that.”

  Geoffrey’s mien was animated as Henry took the newspaper from him and read. He had to admit it was difficult to keep a twinge of delight and triumph from invading his own breast. Hatry had got what he deserved, the ignorant bastard! It was tinged with a tiny bit of disappointment, however. He had made a promise to himself that Hatry would be forced to laugh on the other side of his face one day, but he had wanted it to be because of their own success proving the man wrong, not from his own private doings. Still, it was triumph of a sort.

  “That’s what I call a damned narrow squeak,” Geoffrey said, breathing sighs of relief. “Could have got our own damned fingers well and truly burnt.”

  But there was a backlash which in the excitement of the moment they hadn’t seen. With the fingers of so many financiers actually burnt, those who’d been giving thought to investing money in Letts’ second restaurant promptly pulled out, scared. Like most of these things, it would blow over, Henry said.

  “But not soon enough to get us out of difficulties,” reminded Geoffrey.

  Nor was the bank as friendly as it had been, sensing their difficulties.

  “I hope,” Mr Bryant, the stony-faced manager, said when Henry came to see him, “that your finances remain sound, Mr Lett. Architects’ fees, workmen’s wages, surveyors’ fees, et cetera, et cetera, all need to be promptly paid. Should any of them begin to doubt your worth, they will call in their money without a qualm. They won’t wait around, especially with this Hatry scandal fresh in all minds. Everyone on edge. From the figures you’ve given us, the present bank loan will not in itself be adequate to co
ver everything.”

  “I must admit,” Henry obliged hopefully, “the building fund’s a wee bit low for my liking. But we’ll manage if we go careful. Perhaps the bank might be willing to enlarge the advance we already have.”

  The manager leaned forward, forearms flat on the leather desktop, hands expectantly clasped before him, his granite features wearing down sufficiently to beam as far as they could. “I believe you’ve a trust fund. A hundred and fifty thousand pounds, I think? With that in mind, the bank would be willing to advance a further sum provided that your company would be willing to match it with the amount of that trust fund.”

  Henry blinked, his head already juggling with how any larger sum would be repaid within the time limit the bank would undoubtedly set. But the family trust fund?

  “I think that would not be possible,” he heard himself saying in a terse tone. It was almost with relief that he saw the manager shake his head and spread his hands apologetically. The loan they already had was frighteningly large, and all the while money going out. Great chunks of the original bank loan of £150,000 had been eaten into by various expenses: the purchase itself, insurance, professional fees, materials, workmen’s wages, as well as unforeseen expenses such as delays, disputes, the collapse of some scaffolding two months ago, and all this before the new premises had hardly taken shape. It would be months, perhaps another year before it could open and start drawing back some of the money spent on it. By that time…

  As he came away from the bank, Henry put his mind to attracting investors from wherever he could and with all his might. Hopefully the Hatry scandal would die more quickly than expected. There had to be financiers out there not scared witless by it. Henry hoped so, crossed his fingers and prepared to face the future without calling on the bank for more help. The family trust fund had to remain intact, no matter what.

  * * *