John Marsden moved out of The Larches in mid-December. Two days later, in damp and drizzling weather, the Bentons moved in. An hour after the cart carrying their furniture had pulled up outside the door Molly stood in near despair in the middle of a chaos that seemed to have no great intention of allowing itself to be sorted out, wishing that not quite so many people had felt it their duty to help. Even Edward had gleefully taken an illicit day off from school and was alternately tripping over things – at twelve he had lost the neat prettiness of his early years and was becoming a gangling, clumsy adolescent – or chasing Danny and the twins around the new house until they were all worked up to such a pitch of excitement that one of the younger ones, usually Kitty, ended up in tears.
“Edward!” Arms piled high with linen, her smudged and dusty face a picture of exasperation, Molly stuck out a foot and barred the way into the empty parlour. “For heaven’s sake, stop dashing round like a maniac and make yourself useful. Those books over there—” she nodded her head at a pile of books that had tipped and spread themselves across the floor of the hall— “they’re Nancy’s. Take them up to her rooms for me, please. Before someone breaks their neck. And, please do try not to drop them on Meg’s head on the way… Oh Jack, no! Can’t you get some of this stuff into the rooms before you unload more? We’re getting in a terrible muddle.”
Jack swung the heavy box to the floor as if it had been full of feathers and several small brass ornaments fell from it with a crash and scattered across the floor. He did not bother to pick them up. “We’re paying the carter by the half-hour, lass. Sooner we get unloaded, sooner it stops costing us.” He cocked his head, listening. “God Almighty, what are those kids doing?”
“God Almighty’s the only one who knows.” Molly, muttering, dropped to her knees to retrieve the fallen ornaments. At the street door she heard Jack greet someone. She sat back on her heels. Surely, oh surely not someone else who felt duty-bound to “help”? She scrambled to her feet to find herself face to face with a completely strange young man who was obviously as taken aback at their sudden confrontation as she was. He was rather tall, painfully thin with a pale, sensitive face that was badly marred by the spots and eruptions of late adolescence. Molly judged him to be about seventeen years old.
“I’m – I’m most dreadfully sorry,” he said, his precisely accented voice cracking miserably in mid-sentence. “I didn’t realize—” He gestured at the mess, jumped as Jack banged through the door carrying single-handed a load that might have made a mule kick.
‘It’s our Nancy he’s looking for.” Jack made to dump the box on the floor.
“Jack! That’s the best china! Careful—” Molly flew to him, helped him lower the box, then turned to find the young man standing awkwardly where she had left him. “Nancy?” she asked.
“Miss Benton, yes.” He blushed. “I have a message for her. From my mother.” And then she recognized him. The Honourable Mrs Edmonton’s son.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Of course. You came once before, didn’t you? Things are a bit muddled, I’m afraid. Nancy’s upstairs. It’s probably best if I show you the way. Can you squeeze through?”
They left the noise and the chaos behind them as they mounted the stairs. From the foot of the narrow flight that led to Nancy’s two attic rooms they could clearly hear her voice and Edward’s.
“—and you think this Mr Jones’ll give you a job when you leave school next year?”
“He’s already said he will. I’m better with engines than he is already. Just imagine. Working all day in a garage. And getting paid for it!” Edward’s voice sounded as if he had seen his personal vision of heaven.
Molly ran up the last few steps and tapped on the open door. Nancy was sitting on the floor amidst a spreading muddle of books. Edward was perched on an armchair, his feet pulled up out of Nancy’s way. As they both turned expectant faces to the door Molly’s heart tightened a little to see how alike they were. Apart from Edward’s still-golden hair he was the image of the girl who had borne him.
“You’ve got a visitor.”
Nancy looked beyond her, saw the young man and smiled. “Oh, hello, Christopher. Come on in.”
Christopher Edmonton followed Molly into the room. He seemed to be having some difficulty in managing his lanky frame; his feet and hands were awkwardly big, his straight brown hair flopped forward over his forehead and into his eyes almost every time he moved and he had a little, nervous habit of jerking his head sideways in a vain attempt to flick the straying strands back.
“I’ve a message from Mother.” He handed her a note. Nancy tore it open, glanced at it swiftly, then tucked it into her pocket “Thanks. Tell her I’ll let her know tomorrow, would you? Oh—” She seemed suddenly aware of her duty as a hostess. “Sorry, you haven’t been introduced, have you?” She nodded in Molly’s direction. “My sister-in-law – and landlady – Mrs Benton. And this is my young brother Edward. Christopher Edmonton.”
They murmured how-do-you-dos. There was an awkward silence. The boy, despite his obvious nervousness, showed no inclination to leave. Molly shifted from one foot to the other.
“Well—” she began.
Christopher Edmonton hardly seemed aware of her. He had eyes only for Nancy. “Please, Miss – Miss Benton,” he blurted, “may I stay and help? It wouldn’t be any trouble, honestly.” Nancy’s rooms, while not as disordered as the rest of the house, since some of the housekeeper’s furniture had been purchased and left in place, were nevertheless in some turmoil.
“Well – I—”
“Please. I’d very much like to.”
Molly stared. Could it be that Nancy did not hear the desperate eagerness in the young voice, see the wistful ardour in the eyes? “I’ll leave you to it, then,” she said.
Nancy was back among her books. “Thanks, Moll.”
Christopher perched on the arm of Edward’s chair, leaning forward, his straight hair tumbling across his forehead. He looked a child himself. His eyes did not for a moment leave Nancy’s face.
Molly closed the door and went thoughtfully downstairs.
Molly heard from Adam Jefferson only once before the New Year – a brief, polite note inviting her to take luncheon with him one day during the week before Christmas. The note made no mention of business, and Molly knew that she should not go. She mentioned it to no one, carried the note around with her in her pocket for four days, being as determined one moment to refuse as she was the next to accept. She did not doubt that the invitation was a personal one, and experienced a stirring of excitement at the thought. She had found Adam Jefferson both provoking and attractive – a dangerous combination at the best of times. He had about him an energy, a compelling life-force that fascinated her. She had, she knew, never met anyone like him, and the memory of his undisguised interest more than once tempted her to ignore the plangent voice of common sense. But in the end common sense – and propriety – prevailed and a week after receiving his note she sent a stiff little refusal, allowing herself the luxury of regretting it almost the instant it left her hand.
It was as she came back into The Larches after posting that letter that she almost cannoned into Christopher Edmonton, who was standing, alone and forlorn-looking, at the foot of the stairs, awkwardly clutching an enormous pile of books.
“Hello,” she said in some surprise. “You look like an abandoned bookshelf.”
He coloured. “I hope you don’t mind. Your little boy let me in.”
“Nancy’s still in the office. Are the books from your mother? You can leave them if you like.” She knew her own tactlessness the moment she had spoken. His ears and the back of his neck glowed uncomfortably pink, his hair fell forward, and in flicking it back he dropped two of the books.
“They aren’t from Mother, actually. They’re a few things I promised Nan – Miss Benton, that I’d lend her.” He was struggling to pick up the fallen books without losing the rest.
“Let me do that.” Molly picked up the books and balanced them on top of the pile in his arms. Byron. And an anthology of poetry from the nineteenth century. She took mercy on the lad’s embarrassment. “Look, why don’t you go upstairs? I’ll tell Nancy that you’re here.”
“Thank you. Thank you very much.” His face scarlet, he turned and mounted the stairs. Molly watched him, her face pensive. Poetry? Since when had Nancy been interested in poetry? And had she yet realized that the mere mention of her name was enough to produce a look of quiet devotion on the young – the very young – Mr Edmonton’s face? Molly doubted it. She considered for a fleeting moment the thought of some sisterly advice, but dismissed the idea almost as soon as it formed. It was none of her business. Christopher Edmonton’s puppy love would die its own death, probably without Nancy ever realizing that it had existed.
Christmas came and went; one of the best, they all declared, that they had ever spent. On Christmas Day the whole family were at The Larches and the still-sparsely furnished rooms rang with laughter and talk and the tinkling sound of the Polyphone that Molly, to the children’s delight, had bought. But while the two days were certainly a pleasant break Molly was aware of an impatience to begin the new year, an eagerness to get back to work. There were occasions when she found herself taking little active part in the celebrations; her mind was busy, her thoughts elsewhere. Once or twice she caught Jack’s sober eyes upon her.
With Christmas past and the New Year safely launched she threw herself wholeheartedly into the job of staffing Stowe, Jefferson’s new offices. More and more she left the routine work of the agency to Nancy, who was more than happy to assume the responsibility. Only the occasional ripple disturbed the peaceful surfaces of their lives; Jack and Nancy were increasingly at loggerheads about Nancy’s commitment to the suffrage movement – ‘the cause’ as she insisted upon calling it, to Jack’s irrational irritation. Molly was careful to stay out of their arguments. In fact, she was becoming aware that she habitually went to absurd lengths to avoid argument with Jack, for if the tension between Jack and his sister could be acknowledged, accepted and to a certain extent eased by the occasional outburst, the inexorably growing strain that was making itself felt between husband and wife had no such outlet, for neither of them would admit to its existence. To an outsider, however close, their relationship seemed warm as ever. Only they knew that they made love now only on rare occasions, that the long evenings spent in the parlour were quiet with a silence that grew not so much from companionship as from a gradually widening distance between them. Jack had taken to visiting Annie and Charley once or twice a week; invariably Molly was too busy to go with him. She would not complain, would not, from pride, point out that she too had worked a long hard day and that the washing and ironing, the housework that took up so much of her time in the evening were arduous chores that tired her sometimes to exhaustion. Jack was a strong and kindly man. He loved her, she knew that beyond doubt. But he did not, could not, understand her. He was torn, she knew, between pride at her achievement and unacknowledged resentment of it. Other men’s wives were satisfied with house and children and responsible, caring husband. Why must she be different? Since Molly herself hardly knew the answer to that question they never discussed it. And so the words that might have eased, might have led to understanding, were left unspoken and the seeds of estrangement were sown. And beneath the everyday tensions, the hurts, the resentments lay something of which neither of them spoke. Jack wanted a son. He treated Danny as his own, doted upon the girls, would profess utter satisfaction to anyone who enquired, but Molly knew too well the thought that gnawed at him, knew it and could not soften. No more children. They had agreed it, and she would hold him to it. The twins’ premature birth had been a nightmare never forgotten. She resented fiercely, if silently, the fact that Jack could apparently dismiss it now and expect her willingly to go through it again. She would not admit, even to herself, that there were other, more selfish and more practical reasons why she did not want another child. And so, as the first weeks of the year flew by, Jack and Molly slipped into habits of coolness that were well disguised to all but themselves.
She was hardly herself aware of how often Adam Jefferson crept into her thoughts until the afternoon that she lifted her head from the papers she had been studying to find him conjured whole, elegant and sure of himself, in the doorway of her office, just as she had imagined him so many times, just as she had known he would come. Nancy hovered uncertainly behind him.
“Mr Jefferson to see you,” she said, her surprised eyes on the elegant back.
“Since lunch is a meal that obviously doesn’t impress you very greatly,” he said, with no preamble beyond a smile, “I’ve come to take you to tea.”
Molly stood up. “I really don’t think—”
“Nonsense.” Adam Jefferson walked round the desk, drew the chair from behind her as if he had been an attentive servant. “We’ve business to discuss. And I’ve no intention of discussing it here.”
“But—”
“You surely aren’t going to argue with your biggest and most important customer?” The dark eyebrows lifted, the hard, straight mouth smiled just a little.
“No, of course not,” Molly said tartly. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Good. Then get your coat and hat. I’ve a motor car outside. I’ll go and get her started. Wrap up well. It’s cold.” He was back through the door before she could answer.
“Bring the file on the new staff with you,” he called over his shoulder, “we’ll look at them over tea…”
Tea at the Royal Hotel was taken in the Palm Court. Molly stood in some dismay by Adam Jefferson’s side at the top of a flight of wide marble steps that led down to the spacious tea room, chandelier-lit, in which potted palms and plants were patches of jungle-green and silver tea services and cutlery gleamed on dazzling white tablecloths. Above the clatter and hum of conversation the strains of Strauss rose lilting from behind a discreet screen of living green on the far side of the room.
“But I’m not dressed for a po – for a place like this!” Molly was humiliatingly aware of her smart, businesslike, deadly dull grey wool, her windblown hair.
“Mrs Benton,” the oddly distinctive voice, close in her ear, was warm, “you look absolutely stunning. There isn’t a woman in the room to touch you.”
She surveyed the splendour of feather and fur, of stones that sparked fire in the electric light, and took miserable leave to doubt it.
The waiter indicated a table by a tall window that looked out onto the busy winter street. “Will that be satisfactory, Sir?”
“Perfectly. Thank you.” Adam Jefferson stood back, waiting for Molly to precede him.
The table looked a mile away, a gamut of eyes to be run before she reached it. She hesitated, but since the only alternative to following the waiter was to ask to have tea served on the steps where they stood, with head high and a back like a ramrod she threaded her way to the table by the window. As she settled herself in the high-backed chair, the silver and china, the tea and a great plate of fancy cakes was laid ceremoniously before them by a pretty waitress in neat black and white.
Molly could find absolutely nothing to say. She stared at the steaming water jug and tried to marshal words that were light, intelligent, entertaining.
None came.
She stole a look at her companion from beneath her lashes. He was watching her with something of the same attention that she was lavishing on the water jug, and a spark of laughter lurked in his eyes. In nervous silence she poured the tea, managing predictably to splash too much milk into one cup and too little into the other.
“Sugar?”
“No, thank you.”
She passed him a cup that rattled humiliatingly in its saucer as she held it. He put it down, toyed with his spoon. Around them conversation ebbed and flowed like a tidal sea; no one else, it seemed, was dumbstruck.
“Are you—”
“Do you—”
They began in the same breath, broke off, laughing.
“After you.”
“Do you want to talk about the work I’ve done so far? Oh, no—!” Her hand went to her mouth.
“What is it?”
“The file. I’ve left it in your motor car.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “Don’t worry. The car’s been garaged. I daresay that I can find someone to go and rescue your file.” He looked around for a waiter.
“Well, actually,” she said diffidently, “I can probably do without it. If you have a pencil and paper? I’ve all the names and figures in my head.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” More confidently, she took the proffered pencil and notebook, pulled her chair closer to the table, cleared a space on the spotless tablecloth. She sat for a moment chewing the pencil thoughtfully. “I’ve been looking at those extra figures you sent over, and it seems to me that it might well pay you to employ someone to concentrate on the North and South American business. Someone who’d specialize in the day-to-day running, and leave you free for the more important projects…”
The tea grew cold in the pot and, still absorbed, they hardly noticed it. The orchestra played, broke for an interval, came back and played again. The tables around them were vacated and reoccupied. The buzz of conversation died a little, the tired steps of the waitresses were less hurried.
“So you see, I’m sure you’ll find that in some cases you’ll find it better to pay a little more for well-qualified staff. The pool, I’ll look after – if that’s satisfactory. And of course we’ll always have replacements if you’re short-staffed, or if there’s a real panic.” Molly put down her pencil.
He watched her for a moment, smiling, then extended his hand across the table. “Congratulations. You’ve done a splendid job.” Molly hesitated before offering her own hand, all the confidence engendered by the last hour draining from her as she became mortifyingly aware in the pale, glittering light of red knuckles and rough skin. He took her fingers in his, squeezed them lightly, held them for noticeably longer than a handshake would warrant. She tried, half-heartedly, to disentangle herself. He lowered his arm so that their clasped hands were resting on the shining starch of the tablecloth.
“Thank you for coming.”
“Thank you for making me come.”
“And has it been such an awful experience after all?”
She laughed at his perception, wrinkling her eyes and shaking her head. He released her hand.
“Good. Now. I propose a toast.” He lifted his teacup. “To our continued association,” he said solemnly, sipped and pulled a face. “Damn me, the pot’s gone cold. And you haven’t eaten a crumb! Come along, now, this will never do. I’ll get some more—”
As he waved the waitress over and ordered a fresh pot of tea Molly looked around her, astonished to discover that all of those things that had seemed so alien, almost frightening, when first she had arrived now had the reassurance of familiarity. The emptying room no longer threatened. She found herself thinking of the waif who had wandered down Regent Street, just a stone’s throw from where she was sitting now, remembering too the girl who had gone to tea in that same street with Harry, Charley and Annie.
What would she have thought of the young woman who sat here now?
“Penny for them.”
She shook her head. “Nothing much. I was just thinking about the way things change. The way people change. Without ever really noticing it. One day you open your eyes and look around you and – bang, there it is. Different.”
He tinkered with his spoon, watching her. “Not for everyone. It depends. On who you are, what you are, what you want. Most of all what you do about it. Some people can live a lifetime in a prison they have built themselves on the instructions of others, and never know what they have missed. Such people never open their eyes and look around. Never find anything is different. Because they are afraid. Narrow. Grey people in a world of colour. Cardboard people. Not worth bothering with.”
“Isn’t that a little unkind, Mr Jefferson?” she asked softly. She was aware that over the past hour an intimacy had grown between them that was at odds with the brevity of their acquaintance. She had the strange feeling that she had known this man, and he her, all of her life – and was aware enough to recognize if not to resist the practised talent that induced the feeling.
“Adam,” he said, as if he had read her thoughts.
She hesitated, then quietly amended her words. “Adam.”
“It may not be kind, but it’s true. And I think that you know it. You can’t spend your life worrying about what’s kind and what isn’t You’d drown in a sea of sentiment. Life is to be lived, to be taken and wrung of every drop of enjoyment, every experience to be had. It offers nothing free. And if, as you say, the world is not kind – who really wants it to be? It’s exciting. And beautiful. And often a little perilous. You won’t try to tell me that you don’t prefer it that way?”
She did not reply.
He leaned forward. She thought she had never seen anyone in whom the flame of life burned brighter. The incisive, sharp-drawn face drew her eyes like a magnet. She realized with something of a shock that she could sit so for hours, simply listening to his voice, watching the hard, sensual mouth, the quick-moving, expressive hands. In that moment it came to her beyond doubt that her first impulse had been right: she should not be here. The man who faced her, smiling so peacefully, could mean only danger.
She poured tea, sipped it slowly. When she spoke she was astonished to find that her voice was as collected as she could wish. “Do you always get so passionate over tea?”
“Only on Tuesdays and Fridays. Or when I see something or someone that I want very badly.”
“Today’s Thursday,” she said.
“Yes.”
There was a very small silence. “I see. I’ll say one thing for you, Mr Jefferson. You don’t beat about the bush.”
“I thought it was Adam?”
“And I thought that this was a business meeting?”
“Business is over,” he said, his voice very soft. “This is pleasure. Pure pleasure.”
“An important ingredient in your life, I gather?” She tried to keep her voice light, to keep the treacherous note of excitement from it.
“Of course. The pleasures of success. Of battles won, and battles lost. The pleasures of love. What would be the point of life without these things? We’re on this earth just once. If we don’t take what’s offered and enjoy it to the full, then we’ve no one to blame but ourselves.”
“And if someone else gets hurt in the process?”
The curt movement of his head held slight irritation, but he laughed nevertheless.
“Kindness again? Molly, my dear, people are getting themselves hurt all the time – you, me, the other fellow. You can’t waste energy crying for the world. I ask no quarter, but neither do I give it.” He leaned forward. “Don’t let the world fool you into obeying its piffling rules, Molly Benton. You aren’t that kind. Follow your own path. Be yourself. Every moment is precious, and there are no second chances. Do you see yourself, in fifty years, as an old lady looking back and saying, ‘I wish I had done’?”
She saw the gleam of gold on his lifted left hand. Oddly, it was a shock.
“Does your wife agree with your – unusual philosophy?” she found herself asking coolly, well aware that it was none of her business.
He released her hand. “In her own way, yes.”
“Oh?” She let the silence lengthen.
He sighed. “My wife Caroline married me with, I assure you, very few illusions and with a very clear understanding between us. Each of us had something that the other wanted, and in the way of such things, we struck a bargain—”
“You make it sound like a business deal.”
“I suppose you could call it that. Aren’t all marriages, in a way, however prettily they’re wrapped up? Caroline wanted me—” there was no trace of vanity in the words “—and I wanted a partnership. My wife’s maiden name was Stowe.”
Stowe, Jefferson and Partners.
“I see.”
“I’m perfectly certain that you don’t.” He relaxed suddenly, smiling again, the slight edge gone from his voice. “Don’t waste your concern on Caroline. She’s more than capable of looking after herself, I assure you. Now, shall we order more tea—?”
The room had almost emptied. Nearby a waitress hovered, watching them.
“I—” Molly reached for her gloves. “—I think perhaps we should go?”
“Of course.” He signalled to the waitress. “My bill, please.”
She pulled her gloves on, tried not to watch his strong hands, which rested in tense stillness on the table. She was aware that during the afternoon a strange, half-antagonistic excitement had built between herself and this man whom she barely knew. She was certain that he felt it, was not sure indeed that he had not deliberately engendered it. As he assisted her politely from her chair they barely touched, yet his nearness disturbed her and she stepped sharply away from him.
As they drove to Stratford in the windy half-darkness of the late afternoon they talked of the interesting impersonalities of business and of money. As they pulled up outside The Larches Molly found herself mentioning the bequest that had come to her son, and that Jack had insisted Danny keep.
“I suppose I should do something with it for him. The solicitor is being a little – unhelpful.” It was hardly the word, she thought, for the unpleasant Mr Ambler.
“I’d be pleased to advise you. You could do a lot worse for your son than investing it with us. The return will be good, I promise you.”
“Oh, I don’t really care about that. I just want to be rid of it.” She blushed a little in the darkness, aware of how silly that must sound. “I just want it kept safe for Danny until he’s twenty-one.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it. I’ll be in touch some time over the next week or so.”
Had she known he would say that? Was that why she had brought up the subject? She did not know.
“Thank you. And thank you for tea.”
He jumped down from the driver’s seat, leaving the engine running, moved round to the passenger side to help her down.
“I’ll see you soon, then?” Her hand was fast in his, his voice was serious.
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
She took a slow breath. “Yes.”
He ran back around the car, swung himself back up into the driving seat, lifted a hand in farewell.
She watched the noisy, gleaming machine nose its way down the street beneath the lamps and turn the corner at the end, stood still until the sound of its engine had been swallowed by the darkness and the noise of the other traffic.
The house, though lit, was surprisingly quiet. She took off her coat in the hall, fluffed her hair, braced herself for questions and opened the door of Nancy’s office.
Christopher Edmonton turned as she entered. His hair was dishevelled and his face chalk-white.
Molly stared. “Christopher? What are you doing here? Where are Nancy and the children?”
“The children are at the shop with your sister-in-law. She says not to worry, Mrs Benton – she’ll keep them for the night if necessary—” He stopped, fidgeting with his hands, his knuckles cracking.
“Keep them? Why should she keep them? Christopher, what is all this about? Where’s Nancy?”
“She – bit a policeman,” the boy blurted miserably. “She’s been arrested. She’s in prison.”