Kitabı oku: «An Excellent Wife?»

CHAPTER ONE

WHEN the phone began to ring in the outer office James ignored it, expecting his secretary to pick it up, or, failing that, her current assistant, a girl with hair of an improbable yellow, the colour of a day-old chick, which was very suitable since, in his opinion, she had the brains of one, too, not to mention an irritating habit of flinching every time James spoke to her. This morning, however, neither woman answered the phone. The ringing went on and on, without cessation, making it impossible to concentrate on the complex financial analysis he was studying.

At last James could stand the noise no longer. Springing to his feet, he strode to the door of his secretary’s office and flung it open. ‘Why don’t you answer that phone?’

He stopped in mid-sentence, seeing that the room was empty and that there was nobody in the smaller room beyond, the door of which already stood open.

His entire secretarial staff appeared to have deserted him. The place was a Marie Celeste. Computers were switched on, their screens blinking, a fax machine was churning out paper in a comer and a pile of letters stood waiting to be signed, but of human beings there was no sign, except for himself, and the still shrill and ringing telephone.

‘Where the hell are they?’ James leaned across the desk to pick up the phone to silence it, his jet-black hair falling over his eyes. It was getting too long; he must have it trimmed. But he hadn’t had time; he was far too busy this week.

‘Hallo?’ he curtly said, and was met with silence for a second, as if the caller had been taken aback by his impatient tone.

Then a husky female voice said, ‘I want to speak to Mr James Ormond, please.’

Miss Roper had a telephone routine which James had heard a thousand times. He followed it now, more or less, not precisely in her words, let alone her cool, clear, modulated tones, in fact more in a terse growl, asking, ‘Who is this?’

‘My name is Patience Kirby,’ she said, as if expecting to be recognised, then added, ‘Mr Ormond won’t know me, though.’

He’d already realised that. The name meant nothing to him, and if she represented some company she would surely have said so. As she clearly did not, he was not wasting his precious time on her. That was what he employed Miss Roper to do—weed out time-wasting callers and make sure he wasn’t inconvenienced. Miss Roper could deal with this woman when she got back.

‘Ring back later,’ he curtly advised, starting to put the phone down.

Before he could do so, the soft voice implored, ‘Oh, please! Is that...? Are you Mr Ormond?’

‘Ring back later,’ he repeated, his cold grey eyes swivelling to stare accusingly at his secretary as she came hurrying through the door with her blonde assistant trailing after her.

Hanging up the phone, James snapped at the two women, ‘Why am I having to waste my time answering your phone? Where have you been?’

The blonde girl gave a terrified little baa, like a lamb confronted by a wolf, and backed out of Miss Roper’s office into her own with that halfwitted expression on her face which he recognised all too well. Why on earth had Miss Roper appointed her?

James had gradually got into the habit of leaving the hiring and firing of the secretarial staff to Miss Roper. He had come to trust her judgement, but this girl was not one of her successful appointments. He must have a word on the subject when he wasn’t so busy. The girl must go; it was disconcerting to have her backing away from him in such obvious panic every time she saw him. It was making James feel like some relation of Jack the Ripper.

Miss Roper said, ‘I’m very sorry, Mr Ormond, the girls in Admin were giving a coffee party for Theresa; we just shot along there with our presents for a few minutes. She’s leaving today, as you know...’

‘I didn’t know. I don’t even know her, come to that. Theresa who?’

‘Theresa Worth. She’s on the switchboard, a girl with short black hair and glasses.’

Dimly James remembered her from that description. ‘Oh, that girl! Why is she leaving? Got a better job? Or did you fire her?’

‘She’s having a baby.’

He raised his brows. ‘Is she married?’

His secretary observed him with a wry expression. ‘Don’t you remember? She got married last year and we gave a party for her. You let us use the canteen.’

‘I remember that,’ James said, voice cold. They had created havoc in the place, throwing food about, from the sight of the floor, and chucking those paper streamers that fire out of cardboard cases and stick to everything for miles around. The cleaners had complained bitterly next day.

Miss Roper looked guilty, as well she might.

‘Is this girl going for good? She isn’t just having maternity leave?’ asked James.

‘No, sir, she and her husband are moving back to Yorkshire. Theresa isn’t coming back.’

‘Just as well; she seems to have been quite a nuisance so far.’

‘She’s very popular,’ Miss Roper told him indignantly. ‘We all like her.’ Even if you don’t, said her brown eyes. ‘And I assure you, Mr Ormond, we weren’t gone more than a minute, and I told the switchboard not to put any calls through until we got back. I’m very sorry you were disturbed. I’ll investigate and make sure whoever put the call through comes along to apologise in person.’

‘No, don’t bother, I’ve already wasted enough time. Just make sure it doesn’t happen again.’

‘It won’t,’ she promised, very flushed.

He couldn’t remember ever seeing her look so flustered before. She was always so neat and calm, a small sparrow of a woman with brown hair and eyes, who wore a lot of brown, too: brownish tweed skirts in winter, brown linen in summer, with crisp white shirts.

She wore grey and black, too, actually, but whenever James thought about his secretary he imagined her in brown. The colour expressed something essential in her personality. Brenda Roper was older than him by twelve years. When James had begun working at the bank, fourteen years ago, after leaving university, Miss Roper had been assigned to him by his father, then managing director, who had handpicked her from the various candidates, and she had been with James ever since.

In the beginning, when he’d been unsure about himself and struggling to find his feet in a family firm run by a dictatorial father, James had found her efficiency slightly intimidating, which was why he had insisted on calling her Miss Roper, instead of using her first name. Using surnames to each other had seemed to put their relationship on the right footing, made James feel more in charge, less of a newcomer.

They still continued the same polite formality today, although James knew that most of his executives were on first-name terms with their secretaries. From time to time James had hovered on the point of using Brenda Roper’s first name, but had always drawn back from changing a long-established and successful habit.

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving the office?’ he demanded. ‘Anyone could have walked in here, could have stolen the cash from the safe or operated the computers, retrieved secret information from the private files, endangered one of our projects.’

‘Not without the code words, Mr Ormond,’ Miss Roper said quietly. ‘Nobody can hack into our private computers without those, and you and I are the only ones who know the codes. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you we were going out; I didn’t want to interrupt you.’

‘In that case, why did you both go? You should have left the halfwit behind. At least she can answer phones, even if she can never take a message properly.’

From the outer office they both heard a muffled squeak.

Miss Roper gave James a reproachful look. ‘Lisa does her best, Mr Ormond.’

‘It isn’t good enough!’

‘That isn’t fair. Believe me, she’s a capable girl, she works hard. It’s just that you make her nervous.’

‘I can’t imagine why!’

Miss Roper drew an audible breath, her eyes rounding into brown saucers. She opened her mouth as if to say something, and then the phone began to ring again so she moved swiftly to answer it, looking faintly relieved, like someone snatched from the brink of making a disastrous move.

James walked back into his own office, slamming the door behind him. He had a feeling they had both been rescued from a dangerous moment, too. Sitting down behind his wide, green-leather-topped desk again, he picked up the report he needed to finish studying before lunch. He had the ability to switch off his immediate surroundings and focus all his energy on his work without being distracted by thought of anything else, yet he was always very punctual for appointments. He would stop work at exactly the right moment in order that he should not be late for his lunch with Sir Charles Standish, one of his directors, with whom he needed to discuss the report he was reading.

Charles had once worked for the firm they were studying; he would be able to supply details this report did not contain. James liked to know everything about a company before he made up his mind about it. This particular company might be ripe for a take-over bid by one of the bank’s biggest clients, who had asked James for his opinion before they reached a decision. He could not afford to make a mistake.

Miss Roper came in with his coffee five minutes later and began to murmur another apology as she poured strong black coffee from the silver coffee pot on the silver tray, both of them inherited from his father who had always used them.

‘I really am very sorry you were disturbed,’ she said quietly. ‘I know you have a lot on your mind this week.’

Without looking up, James waved a dismissive hand. ‘Just make sure it doesn’t happen again. In future, there must always be someone on duty out there. I don’t pay you to have to answer the phones myself. You’ll be wanting me to type my own letters soon!’

‘You can’t type, Mr Ormond.’

James looked up then, eyes narrowed and wintry, flecked with ice. ‘Is that meant to be a joke, Miss Roper? Or was it sarcasm?’

‘No, it was simply a statement of fact,’ she said, without sounding contrite, and lingered by his desk, as if having more to say.

Impatiently James asked, ‘Well?’

‘A Miss Kirby is on the phone, sir, asking to speak to you.’

He frowned. ‘Kirby?’ The name was familiar but he couldn’t place it until he remembered the earlier call. ‘Patience Kirby?’

Miss Roper gazed at him with eyes that seemed to James to hold a secret, almost furtive smile. ‘Yes, that’s right, sir, Patience Kirby. Shall I put her through?’

He glared. ‘Do you know her?’

‘Me?’ She looked taken aback. ‘No, Mr Ormond, I don’t know her. I thought you did.’ The secret smile had disappeared from her eyes.

‘Well, I don’t. Who is she?’

‘I’ve no idea. I didn’t ask; I assumed it was a personal call.’

‘What gave you that idea?’

‘Miss Kirby did.’

‘Oh, did she? You don’t surprise me. While you were out I took a call from her, and that was the first time I heard her name.’

‘So, shall I put the call through?’

‘Certainly not. Find out what she wants and deal with it yourself.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Miss Roper backed out, closing the door.

James picked up his cup of coffee and sipped as he continued working. It was exactly the way he liked it, strong and fragrant. He always had his coffee at this hour, served in a delicate porcelain cup, white with a dark blue trim edged with gold, one of an early Victorian set which had belonged to his father before him. It was still complete, not a cup or saucer broken, and lived in a glass cabinet when not in use. Bank employees handled it with kid gloves. They knew how much it meant to James Ormond: one of the symbols of continuity in the bank, a link with his dead father and grandfather.

He always drank two cups, ate one thin shortbread biscuit from a flat silver box. He was a man of routine, established very early in life by his father, who had been a strict disciplinarian and who had trained his only son to run the merchant bank, Ormond & Sons, on precisely the lines Henry Ormond’s father had laid down some seventy years ago. They might now use new technology, electronic wizardry that made their work much easier, but in other ways nothing much had changed.

Their offices were in the City of London, within walking distance of the rambling outer walls of the Tower of London. From this floor James had a good view of the River Thames and a fascinating panorama of London, old and new. The glint of golden flames on top of the Monument to the Great Fire of London which had destroyed so much of the old city in the reign of Charles the Second, the dome of St Paul’s blocking in the skyline behind them, and in front of that the delicate spires of eighteenth-century churches crowded ever closer between the towering glass and concrete of late twentieth-century skyscrapers on both sides of the river.

James Ormond rarely looked at that view and barely saw it if he did occasionally glance out. He rarely looked up from his desk unless he was talking to someone, or was going out of the office. He was always at his desk by the time his secretary arrived; he customarily got to the office by eight and would have liked his secretary to get there by that hour, too, but Miss Roper had a mother living with her for whom she had to get breakfast and who she had to see settled in a chair by the window of their flat, with the television switched on, before she would leave. She paid a neighbour with children at school to come in five days a week to take care of her . mother and their flat until she got home.

James had suggested that Miss Roper should get the neighbour to come an hour earlier, but apparently the woman had to get her children off to school first, and the children needed to have a good breakfast and be taken to the school gates in person by their mother. The way these women organised their lives was maddening. It would have been far more convenient if he could have persuaded Miss Roper, and her neighbour, to see things his way, and organise their lives to suit him, but when you came up against their domestic responsibilities these helpful, sensible, capable women became immovable objects, politely deaf to the most rational of arguments.

The phone on his desk rang and James absently reached out a hand to pick it up. ‘Yes?’

‘Miss Wallis, sir,’ his secretary said in the remote voice she always used when she talked about Fiona. James was quite aware that Miss Roper did not like Fiona, and the hostility was mutual, he suspected, although Fiona was simply cool whenever she mentioned his secretary. Fiona never wasted energy on anyone who was no threat to her. Miss Roper seemed to hum like a vacuum cleaner with unspoken dislike, however.

This morning Fiona sounded listless and fuzzy. ‘Darling, I’m sorry, I’ll have to cancel dinner tonight. I’ve got one of my migraines.’

‘Cheese or chocolate?’

She laughed huskily. ‘You know me too well! Cheese, darling, at dinner last night, with my father. I had the merest sliver of Brie. It looked so delicious I couldn’t resist it, and I did hope I’d get away with it this time, but no such luck, alas. I’m almost blind with migraine this morning.’

‘How can you be so silly? Why risk triggering a migraine just for a piece of cheese?’ It was unlike her to be weak-minded, but she landed herself with one of these migraines every week or two by giving in to a passion for both cheese and chocolate, knowing perfectly well that a migraine would probably follow within eight hours.

‘I know, it was crazy, but I had the teeniest bit, James, and I do love Brie.’

His mouth twisted. ‘I despair of you. I hope you’ve at least taken your pills?’

‘Just now, but they haven’t started working yet. I’m at the office, but I’m going home to lie down in a dark room. It will probably take eight hours for me to get over it, so I have to scrub round this evening. Sorry, James. Maybe tomorrow night?’

‘It will have to be Saturday; I’m having dinner with the Jamiesons tomorrow night. Ring me on Saturday morning and don’t eat any more cheese! Or chocolate!’

She blew him a kiss. ‘I’ll be sensible. Bye, darling.’

He hung up, irritated that his planned evening should be ruined by something so unnecessary. They had been going to have dinner at a new restaurant someone had recommended, then go on to a club to dance for an hour or two. It was a favourite way of unwinding for both of them. They both loved the smoky, dark atmosphere of their favourite nightclub.

Fiona, an ice-blonde with hair the texture of white spun sugar and eyes of arctic blue, and he had been seeing each other for a year now, and he knew her family and friends expected them to get engaged any day.

She was probably the most suitable girl James had ever dated, and she would make an excellent wife for a man in his position, but he hadn’t proposed yet.

Fiona worked in her father’s stockbroking business, had a clear, hard mind for business, was tall and elegant, with perfect taste. He admired her looks, her clothes, her exquisitely furnished flat in Mayfair and her red Aston Martin, about which she was almost passionate—far more excited than she had ever seemed about James, he sometimes thought.

But then he wasn’t sure how he felt about her, either. Was he in love with her? He swung his chair round to face the window and gazed at the grey, glittering waters of the Thames, as if they might give him the answer to that question, but honesty forced him to admit to himself that the possibility had never arisen. He had never been ‘in love’ in his life.

He had fancied girls from time to time, had been to bed with some of them, although not with Fiona, who had told him early on in their relationship that she did not believe in sex before marriage. He had been faintly startled by that, had wondered if she might not be rather cold, sexually, a thought which was faintly offputting. He had tried a few times to get her to change her mind, but when she’d gently refused James hadn’t particularly cared. He wasn’t desperate to get her into bed, he discovered.

He knew that that meant he wasn’t in love with her—but then what did being in love really have to do with getting married? You didn’t need to be in love to have a good marriage; all you had to do was choose the right woman.

Someone who shared your interests and attitudes, a beautiful woman like Fiona, who made other men envy you, who looked good at your dinner table, who could discuss international finance or world affairs or politics rationally, without getting emotional or losing her cool. Fiona would never make heavy demands on his time or expect him to change the way his life was organised. What else did he want from a woman?

It was a little disturbing that neither of them felt any urgent desire to make the final jump, perhaps because they were both so comfortable as they were.

If they did marry, Fiona would have to sell her flat and move into his Georgian house close to Regent’s Park, in which he had lived all his life, his father having inherited it from his own father, old James Ormond the first, who had founded the firm and bought the house in 1895. James couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. If he felt passion for anything it was for his home. He loved every brick of it, every painting, piece of furniture, even every blade of grass in the garden.

Thirty-five, and very settled in his ways, he did not want his well-run life to change. He expected it to go on in just the same way for ever, even if he married and had children. He wanted children; he would like a son to inherit the business in turn, one day, and then maybe Fiona would want a daughter after that, but neither of them would want a large family. The children and the home would be Fiona’s province. She would get a nanny, of course, and continue to work, at least parttime. She was an only child, too, and would inherit her family business, but she liked to make decisions and be in charge; she would enjoy taking care of their home and family.

Yes, he was sure they would build a good life together, but there was plenty of time. No hurry.

The telephone on his desk rang again and he swung back to pick it up, saying curtly, ‘I thought I told you I didn’t want interruptions? I hope this is urgent.’

‘I’m sorry, Mr Ormond, but Miss Kirby has rung again and insists on speaking to you. This is the fourth time she’s rung; I can’t get rid of her.’

‘Have you found out who she is? Has she told you what she wants to speak to me about?’

Miss Roper’s voice was expressionless and discreet. ‘She says she wants to talk to you about your mother, sir.’

James stiffened, his face losing all its colour, turning pale and immobile.

There was half a moment of silence. He heard his wristwatch ticking, a pigeon cooing on the windowsill outside, and from the river the sigh of a spring wind.

His voice harsh, he said at last, ‘My mother is dead; you know that perfectly well! I don’t know what she’s up to, but I do not want to speak to her, now or ever. Hang up, and then tell the switchboard not to put through any more calls from Miss Kirby.’

Dropping the phone back on its rest, he leaned back in his chair, his hands flat on the leather top of the desk, grey eyes bleak as they stared straight ahead.

His tie was too tightly tied; he couldn’t breathe. He angrily loosened the knot, undid the top button of his shirt.

Nobody had mentioned his mother to him since he was ten years old and she had vanished from his life for ever. He hadn’t even thought of her for years. He didn’t want to think about her now.

What was this Kirby woman up to? Was this some sort of blackmail attempt? Maybe he should have got Miss Roper to call the police? Or the security firm he employed to check on dubious clients? He could easily find out everything he needed to know about this Kirby woman, from where she had been born to whether or not she took sugar in her tea. But why waste time and money? She couldn’t be any sort of problem to him.

Oh, no? Women can always be a problem, he thought grimly. Even someone as rational and sensible as Fiona did crazy things, like eating cheese when she knew it gave her migraine. Miss Roper was prepared to annoy him in spite of the very high salary he paid her, simply because she had a mother living at home when she could easily find her a nice, comfortable nursing home where she would be well taken care of day and night. Women might have good brains, might try to think calmly and reasonably, but they usually ended up thinking with their hearts instead of their heads.

His mouth was oddly dry; he needed a drink. Getting up, he walked over to a discreetly concealed cabinet in the oak-panelled wall.

Opening it, James selected a tumbler and poured himself a finger of good malt whisky, dropped ice cubes into the glass and shut the cabinet again, then walked back to his desk, nursing his whisky.

He rarely drank before the evening, apart from a glass or two of wine during lunch. He sat down, leaned back, sipping the whisky. He must put the whole stupid incident out of his mind and get on with his work.

He looked at his watch. Half an hour left; he might still finish the report before he had to meet Charles, if he wasn’t interrupted again. Finishing his drink, he turned his attention back to the closely typed pages.

He was on the final page when a confused noise began outside. James looked up, frowning. Now what?

Someone was shouting—it was Miss Roper’s voice, he recognised a second later with amazement, since he had never heard her shout that way before.

‘No, he doesn’t want to see you! Look, I’m sorry... You can’t go in there! Stop...’

The door fell open and bodies crashed through into his office. Three bodies, to be precise. Miss Roper. Her halfwitted assistant. And a third woman, who rolled across the floor in a flurry of arms and legs and fiery red hair in a tangle of tight, exploding curls, finishing up close to him.

James was so stunned that he didn’t even move; he just sat there behind his desk, staring down at her.

Clutching at a chair to stop herself falling, Miss Roper burst into stammering explanation, on the verge of tears.

‘I told her...said she couldn’t...she forced her way past me. I’m sorry, I did my best...she wouldn’t listen.’

Her assistant was already backing out, away from James’s terrifying presence, making gasping noises of panic and alarm. He took no notice of her, expecting nothing else from her by now, and in any case far too intent on the third person who had imploded into his room.

She was at his feet, quite literally, suddenly reaching out and attaching herself to his shoes with both hands, clinging on like a limpet.

‘I’m not going until you let me talk to you!’

James looked at Miss Roper again. ‘Is this who I think it is? The Kirby woman?’

‘Patience Kirby,’ said the girl, her slanty hazel eyes fixed on his face. ‘Please, Mr Ormond, just give me five minutes of your time, that’s all I ask. I won’t go until you do.’

‘Call Security, Miss Roper,’ James ordered, flintyhearted.

Miss Roper gulped and headed for her own office.

‘You might as well get up,’ James told the girl. ‘I am not listening to you. If you aren’t out of here in one minute my security men will carry you out. And let go of my feet!’ He couldn’t move with her tethered to him, except by dragging her along with him.

Her hands let go of his shoes, but she immediately shot up and clasped his legs instead, wrapping her arms around them. ‘Why won’t you listen to me?’

‘You tiresome female! Let go of me, will you? You’re making yourself ridiculous—this isn’t some soap on TV; this is real life and you are in serious trouble. I could have you arrested for forcing an entry and physical assault!’

‘I’ve got a message from your mother,’ she said, ignoring his threats.

‘My mother is dead!’ James heard the running feet of the security men along the stone floors in the corridor from the lift. Thank God, they would be here soon to end this embarrassing scene.

‘No, she isn’t, she’s alive.’ She bit her lip, frowning. ‘You didn’t really think she was dead, did you?’ The small face lifted to him had an annoyingly childlike look: heart-shaped, with large, beautifully spaced glowing eyes fringed by a ludicrous number of thick ginger lashes which shone in the sunlight like gold, a small nose and a wide, warm mouth. She wasn’t pretty, but she was oddly appealing. Not his type, of course; he preferred women to be elegant and coolly beautiful, with good brains, like Fiona, but he could imagine that boys of her own age might find this girl adorable.

‘My mother is dead!’ he insisted, his teeth snapping out the words.

‘Did your father tell you that? And all this time you’ve believed she was...? Oh, that’s terrible.’ Tears actually formed in those eyes. One began sliding down her cheek while James watched it incredulously.

‘Stop that!’ he muttered. ‘What are you crying about?’

‘It’s so sad...when I think of you... How could your father lie to you like that? Only ten years old, to be told your mother was dead! You must have been heartbroken.’

He had been. He remembered the coldness that had sunk into him, the misery and anguish, the sense of betrayal, of desertion. Of course, his father hadn’t told him his mother was dead. His father wasn’t a man given to telling lies. He had told him the cold, bitter truth.

‘Your mother has run off with another man and left us both,’ his father had said curtly. ‘You’ll never see her again.’

James had been taken off to stay with an aunt who had a bungalow at Greatstone, on the Kent coast, and had stood, day after day, on the beach, staring out at the grey, heaving waters of the English Channel, listening to the melancholy cry of gulls, the slow, sad whisper of the tide rising and falling on the sand. Whenever he heard those sounds something inside him ached, a stupid emotional echo of almost forgotten pain.

‘But she isn’t dead! She’s alive!’ said Patience Kirby.

‘She’s dead to me,’ James said tersely.

It was too late now for his mother to come back. He had spent a quarter of a century living without her; he had no need of a mother now.

Three security men burst into the room, big men in dark uniforms and peaked caps, ready to do battle with whatever they might find.