A Rather English Marriage (11 page)

A couple of weeks later, Reginald was preparing to go up to London to see the family solicitor. Mary's will was to be read and her estate distributed - what there was of it. In the afternoon he had an appointment with his trustees to discuss new ways of investing his money and her bits and bobs - the odd shares, if she had any left. High time he had a chat about how his affairs were to be looked after from now on. Might even – he censored the thought, which persisted - might even pay a visit to Sabrina. Reginald dressed carefully. He chose one of his best Harvie and Hudson shirts, white with a faint blue stripe, a dark red patterned silk tie, a Christmas present from Mary, and dark red socks.

It was ten years since he'd travelled regularly to London, and his best business suit - navy blue, pin-striped, double-breasted - was tighter than he remembered. Despite the warmth of the August day he wore a waistcoat to obscure the ample curve of his belly. He chose a good pair of black shoes, dusted them with a corner of the blanket, and slipped them on to his elegant small feet. Then he stood up and examined himself in the mirror. He looked distinguished, no doubt about it. Still a fine figure of a man, he said to himself; credit to any woman.

Matters were moving more slowly than he had hoped with Liz Franks. She had turned up in the pub again, rewarding several days of hopeful vigil. She had recognized him, accepted a drink; then two more. Reginald learned that she was divorced with two grown-up children, and did indeed, as the barman had informed him, own a dress shop in the centre of town. Reggie couldn't guess her age but reckoned ‘a woman is as old as she looks, and a man's old when he stops looking'. Liz, in his eyes, was a highly desirable woman with a shapely figure, well-preserved, amusing and evidently unattached. He did not care to ask himself what she was doing alone in a pub.
The answer - that, like himself, she was lonely, looking for male company, and fond of a drink - would not have occurred to him. It occurred to Liz almost immediately, on the other hand, that Reginald was a rich widower at a loose end who would fall like a ripe plum into the arms of a younger wife. If she wanted him, he could be hers. But did she want him?

When she appeared in the pub a second time, he asked her to have dinner with him. Not dinner, she said, smiling; not just yet. But she'd love to have lunch. They had met for lunch, therefore, in a chic little restaurant in the High Street. She had told him that the shop did well, and did not reveal the problems created by high interest rates, with a mortgage on her house as well as business debts; instead, she asked about his own professional life. (Here Reginald exaggerated a little his seniority and indispensability to the firm of Jervis & Co, Importers.) Delicately, she had offered sympathy upon the recent death of his wife. Reginald's brusqueness warned her off the subject.

Liz told him about her children. Her son, Hugo, had dropped out of university in his final year and was now travelling. She did not enlarge on the reasons that lay behind this, the nightmare that she had lived with ever since discovering that he used drugs. Her daughter, Alicia - she displayed the photograph of a lovely young girl - had been a model for a time, given that up, and was now, said Liz, ‘learning the catering business'. What this actually meant was that Alicia had worked as a waitress in a number of modish London brasseries; but Reginald would not have been interested. It was the mother he was after. Lunch had gone well but she wouldn't be tied down to a definite date for dinner. Pity she couldn't see him like this, he thought, looking approvingly at his best business-suited reflection. He would suggest an evening in London soon, perhaps dinner and a show. Maybe that would do the trick.

He opened a drawer and selecting a pale blue handkerchief, just the colour to go with his shirt, tucked it into his top pocket. Using two hairbrushes, he smoothed back the thinning
grey strands, now with only the slightest kink to indicate what a fine head of thick, wavy hair he had once possessed. It still tended to curl upwards at the back of his neck and he smoothed on some Brylcreem to plaster it down. No time for a haircut: had to be in the Temple by eleven and it was well past nine already.

Elsie looked up from her hoovering as Reggie descended the stairs.

‘You look ever so smart!' she exclaimed admiringly.

‘Must dash,' said Reginald. ‘All right if I pay you on Monday?'

‘No,' she answered firmly. ‘I've got to shop for the kiddies tomorrow. All that running about in the summer has made their feet grow and their trainers is full of holes. I'd be obliged if I could have my money now.'

He riffled through his wallet and extracted two twenty-pound notes and a tenner. ‘There you are,' he said grandly. ‘That's two weeks. Don't spend it all at once.'

‘All the best, sir,' she said as he left.

The streets round the Temple were choked with cars and it took Reginald so long to find a parking place that he arrived at Tidmarsh, Spencer, Tidmarsh over ten minutes late. The receptionist welcomed him coolly and Reggie smoothed his hair nervously as she rang through to say he'd arrived. She was black, a fact which astonished Reggie, as did her immaculate voice and composed manner.

‘Would you come this way, please, Mr Conynghame-Jervis?' she said, and he followed her through to Tidmarsh's spacious office, whose tall windows overlooked the green square in the centre of the Temple buildings.

They were all there waiting for him: his nephew, Vivian, and Susan, his thin-faced, angular second wife. Also the twins from his first marriage, Thingy and Thingummy. Good-looking girls they'd both grown into, he noted again with pleasure.

‘Morning Vivian,' he said. ‘Susan. Hello, girls. My how you've grown! Parking's appalling round here, Tidmarsh.'

‘
Do
take a seat Squadron Leader,' said James Tidmarsh silkily, subsiding back into his own. ‘Now that you're here …'

Reginald sat down, the buttons on his waistcoat straining. This is it, he thought. Now we have lift-off.

When they married in 1942, just before he was posted to North Africa, Mary's parents had settled quite a generous sum upon her. She had the income from a trust of £25,000 and quite a nice little parcel of shares. Their generosity had surprised him, for he'd never thought them well off. But then, she was their only child. Reginald, never seriously short of money himself, had left her to play with her shares or not, just as she liked. He was amused sometimes to see her pore over his
Financial Times
or
Standard
at home in the evenings, watching prices move up and down. He regarded it as a little hobby for her, and as long as the money paid for her clothes and hair dos, Christmas presents and trips to town to see old school-friends or whoever it was she did see, he found no reason to interfere. She didn't consult him, and not that he told her this - he wouldn't have known how to advise her. His view was that they paid accountants and stockbrokers to look after that sort of thing. Reggie grumbled at their fees and let them get on with it.

Old Tidmarsh, lugubriously conscious of his role as the family solicitor, began by fastening his eyes on them all in turn. ‘It is not usual,' he started sonorously, ‘to call the beneficiaries together in order that they may hear a will being read. Indeed, in this day and age, it is commonplace for most wills to be sent through the post. However, in the circumstances, I suggested, to the late Mrs Conynghame-Jervis, that it might,
in this instance
, be correct. Preferable, even. And to this the late Mrs Conynghame-Jervis assented.'

Get on with it, man! Reggie thought irritably, just as Tidmarsh, after droning through the formalities, finally came to the point.

‘The value of the stocks and shares on the day of the deceased's death, 2 June 1990, amounted to £621,043. In addition she held unit-trust funds amounting to £141,756. The
late Mrs Conynghame-Jervis owned a half share in the matrimonial home, currently valued at approximately £475,000. She left no personal debts.'

Reginald struggled to take in the implications of these figures. Mary had somehow increased her parents' money to over three-quarters of a million pounds. Mary was
rich
. She had played her cards close to her chest, never told him any of this - true, she never
asked
for anything - but all the time she was rolling in it. Well, now his worries were over. He fixed his eyes on James Tidmarsh's grey, impassive face as he began to read out the will.

‘This will is made by Marigold Elizabeth, wife of Reginald Vivian Conynghame-Jervis, on the sixteenth day of March, 1989. I hereby revoke all former wills and codicils made by me…'

Let's get to the point, thought Reginald again, more irritably. He stared intently at his own plump crossed legs. Shoes could be cleaner.

‘I desire that my husband, the afore mentioned Reginald Vivian Conynghame-Jervis, if I should pre-decease him …'

Reginald looked up.

‘… be permitted to continue living in the jointly owned matrimonial home, The Cedars, Nevill Park, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, but that after his death, my share of its then value should go to the British Association for Adoption and Fostering, to aid those who are childless. Its furniture and all contents, with the exception of specific bequests mentioned hereinunder, shall remain for his use during his lifetime.'

Up to her, though Reggie. Won't make any difference to me. Funny, though. She never talked about adopting a child. Would have been easy, back in the Fifties. Never knew she wanted to. Taboo subject, of course. Never mentioned. Still … his concentration snapped back into focus.

‘I bequeath to my husband, Reginald Vivian, five thousand pounds a year, and release him from the obligation to repay such sums of money as I may have lent to him in the course of our married life and which may still be owing.'

Reggie flinched. The odd bill paid now and again - can't have amounted to more than a thousand a year, two at the most. Why was she making him sound like a sponger, in front of everyone? Man and wife are one flesh. Those didn't count as
loans
. He'd have done the same for her, if she'd asked. Funny, come to think of it, that she never did. He hadn't noticed till this moment. She paid Mrs Thing, O'Murphy, but that was her department. And the wine-merchant. Quite a number of bills, if you began to tot them up. No wonder the bank manager had been binding away these last few weeks.

‘I give the remainder of my property, after all taxes, duties, costs and any debts have been paid, to my beloved nieces, the twin daughters of Lord Blythgowrie, Celia and Felicity Conynghame-Jervis, to be divided between them in equal shares and held in trust for them until they shall marry or until they shall have attained the age of thirty, whichever is the sooner; these monies to be payable directly and only to the said Celia and Felicity, for their enjoyment and disposal, in token of my loving thanks for their affection and support.'

James Tidmarsh looked up. ‘As far as I am able to ascertain at this stage, that clause means that you, Celia, and you, Felicity, should receive approximately £250,000 each, after payment of estate duty.'

He smiled thinly at their astonished young faces. The two girls had clasped each other's hands, and it was evident that the bequest was completely unexpected. Their father smiled, too.

‘Well,'
he said.
'That's
awfully good of her. Dear Mary …'

Nobody looked at Reginald, who was staring intently at his feet, one of which shook slightly. He uncrossed his legs. His face began to burn. He glanced covertly across at the two young women, sitting tidily in their neat black jackets and short skirts, legs tucked under their chairs, eyes demurely downcast. They, too, were high-coloured with emotion. Yet his first reaction was not indignation but, rather, sheer surprise.
But
, he stuttered mentally, but, but …
Mary?
He'd known that she dabbled now and again on the stock market, but had had no idea that she was so successful at it; no idea
that she had been so fond of his nieces. How could she be? She hardly ever saw them! He began to feel indignant, as though he had just learned that his wife had cheated him. Nanny, Nanny, it's not fair. Tell her it's not fair to keep secrets from me. It's
mean
.

Tidmarsh's assistant was whispering something to him. Tidmarsh nodded, and looked up.

‘Before I go on to the remainder of Mrs Conynghame-Jervis's bequests,' he said to Reggie, ‘I should give you this letter, which she left with me the last time she redrew her will, with instructions that I should personally see that it was handed to you.' The whey-faced assistant crossed the room smoothly to hand over the letter. Reginald tucked the envelope into his inside jacket pocket. Could do with a cigarette, he thought. No one else was smoking.

‘Would you bring me an ashtray?' he asked, and the deferential figure checked his glide and looked at Tidmarsh. An ashtray was found in some bottom drawer and placed on the floor beside him. Reggie expelled a long vee of smoke.

‘Right ho,' he said. ‘Cleared for take-off. Carry on.'

When the formalities were over, he declined the offer of a glass of sherry, shook hands with Vivian and smiled at the girls.

‘You'll forgive me if I leave you. Lunch appointment, you know. Business calls.'

‘We'd love to come down and see you, Uncle Reggie,' said Celia.

‘You've got my number. Give me a tinkle,' said Reginald. ‘Treat you to lunch …' biting back the words Or rather, you can treat me. They both kissed him on the cheek, their young skins petal-soft, a faint breath of scent wafting around him. Susan leaned her immaculate face beside his for an instant; Vivian shook his hand in a manly grip.

‘Be in touch, everyone,' said Reginald as he left the room. ‘Keep me informed, won't you, Tidmarsh? There's a good fellow. Toodle-pip.'

He waited till he was sitting in his car before taking the letter from his jacket and ripping open the envelope. The sight of his wife's handwriting gave him a pang which dispelled his rising sense of outrage. The letter was dated 16 March 1989.