Legacy Of The Past

‘Why, yes. Jeff asked me to go to the Seventies Club.’

‘Oh!’ Madeline nodded.

‘Do you mind?’

Madeline ran a tongue over her lips. ‘No. No. Why should I?’

‘No reason, but I’ve noticed you don’t really enthuse about my going out with him.’

Madeline half-smiled. ‘I’m sorry, darling. Of course you must go.’

Diana shrugged. ‘Well, it’s something to do,’ she said lightly.

‘Yes. Besides, Adrian will probably be round later. He said he had some marking to do, but I guess he’ll find time,’ Madeline smiled wryly.

‘He always finds time for you,’ murmured Diana slyly.

Madeline compressed her lips. ‘Yes, that may be so. But that means nothing, Diana, absolutely nothing.’

Diana shrugged regretfully and began carrying the dishes through to the kitchen. Madeline stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray and walked through to the bedroom. She was becoming a little tired of Diana’s insinuations about herself and Adrian. Truthfully they were insinuations based on fact, but Madeline had no wish to make insinuations reality.

As she dressed in dark blue stretch slacks and an Italian silk over-blouse, she found herself wishing, not for the first time, that Joe was still alive. Diana was growing up now and becoming quite a responsibility in many ways. Also, she had worshipped Joe and he had adored her. He had been a bachelor for so many years before he married Madeline and he had found Diana utterly irresistible. Madeline wondered now whether her marrying Joe had precipitated his condition. He had certainly had more responsibilities and had worked hard in the years following their wedding. But his illness had been incurable, and the doctors had told her numerous times that she had made his last years happy ones.

She decided to leave her hair loose and emerged from the bedroom looking youthfully attractive. Diana was touching up her make-up with a deft hand. She wore only dark eyeshadow and lipstick, her olive skin not requiring any further cosmetic.

She looked critically over her shoulder at her mother.

‘Does Uncle Adrian approve of slacks?’ she asked pointedly.

Madeline looked amused. ‘I can hardly see how it matters,’ she answered lightly. ‘I’m wearing them, not Uncle Adrian.’

‘I know, but honestly, Mum, you’ll probably marry him one day and then you really will have to dress more in keeping with your position.’

‘My dear Diana, I have no intention of marrying Uncle Adrian. I’ve told him, and incidentally you, so a hundred times. Heavens, I’m thirty-three, not fifty-three, and although I’m sure it seems a great age to you, I don’t intend taking to my rocking chair yet.’

Diana frowned. ‘Uncle Adrian is no older than Daddy, would have been had he—’ She halted.

‘Oh, darling, I know. But that was different.’

‘How?’

Madeline glanced at her watch. ‘Isn’t it time you were going?’

Her daughter shrugged. ‘I suppose so. Okay, suit yourself.’ She pulled on the duffel coat. ‘I’ll go, then.’

‘All right, darling. Look after yourself.’

Diana kissed her mother’s cheek and whirled out of the flat. Madeline walked into the kitchen. Evidences of Diana’s hasty washing-up session were to be found on the floor which was almost swimming with water. The dish-mop was soaking and causing a wet stain to trickle over the window ledge and down the tiles to the sink.

Madeline squeezed out the dish-mop and taking the large mop she soaked up the water from the floor, wiping clean the parquet flooring. Then she put away the dishes which Diana had left on the bench, and returned to the lounge.

She had just settled herself in front of the television when the door bell pealed.

Lazily, she rose to her feet and padded to the door. Opening it, she found Adrian Sinclair waiting to be admitted.

Adrian was a tall lean man in his early fifties. Twenty years older than Madeline and a bachelor, he found his secretary utterly charming and desirable and all his hitherto undisturbed feelings were being violently churned by her apparent lack of romantic interest in him. Frankly, Madeline wondered what it was about her that appealed to older men. She found Adrian intellectually stimulating but emotionally cold, and marriages were not built on intellect alone. He made no headway in any other direction with her.

‘Come in, Adrian,’ she said, smiling now. ‘Is it still as cold?’

‘Colder,’ remarked Adrian, coming in and loosening his overcoat. ‘Hmm. This is a cosy room, Madeline. I always feel at home here.’

‘Good. I’m pleased.’ Madeline closed the door and relieved him of his coat before following him across the room. ‘Do you want a drink before I sit down?’

‘Thank you. I’ll have a small whisky.’

Adrian seated himself on the couch in front of the television where Madeline had been seated before his arrival and after pouring the drink, Madeline joined him.

She enjoyed Adrian’s companionship and his ready humour and was glad he made no strong attempts to force their relationship into anything more. He often broached the subject of marriage, but Madeline had tried to make it plain from the outset that there could never be anything more than friendship between them.

Adrian came to the flat as often as he was able, whether or not Diana was at home. He liked Diana and she was very fond of him. He had been Uncle Adrian since she was eleven years old and she saw no reason to change that now.

He owned a house in Otterbury, run for him by an efficient housekeeper. The house was near the Otterbury Secondary School of which he was headmaster, and although it was large and rather gloomy for a man living alone, he liked it, and kept it well filled with a selection of objets d’art which would furnish a museum. Madeline had sometimes mused that should he ever marry and have children about the house he would be in an eternal state of anxiety about his collection.

‘There was an accident on the Otterbury road today,’ he remarked now, casually. ‘Two cars and a lorry collided. It was in the late paper.’

‘Oh! Was there?’ Madeline suppressed her own knowledge of the accident. She had no intention of telling Adrian any more than Diana about her own mishap. Like Diana, he deplored her constant use of the scooter on the busy road and would have preferred her to use public transport on those evenings when he was unable to bring her home.

‘Yes. Some people move too fast for safety. Most of these collisions could be avoided with a little forethought.’

‘Oh, I agree,’ averred Madeline, sitting down beside him, and hoping her face would not give her away. ‘The traffic from Sheridans moves pretty fast.’

‘It does indeed. I’ll be glad when those houses are finished beyond the factory. Then those blighters won’t have to come into Otterbury to take the London road. Most of the cars make a racetrack of that stretch outside the school. I’m eternally grateful our crowd are away before them. Can you imagine what it would be like with a swarm of cyclists leaving our gates and trying to integrate with that lot? Heaven help them!’

Madeline accepted a cigarette from him and after they were both smoking, she said: ‘Have you ever been round the Sheridan factory?’

‘No. Not since it was opened. I once went over the site during the early stages of construction. It’s a terrific place. Apparently it will employ about five thousand men when it’s fully operational. They’ve brought several key workers over from Italy, of course, and from their factory near Detroit. I’ve heard that Nicholas Vitale himself has come over from Rome to make sure everything is going satisfactorily. Of course, he’s only here for a visit. He’s the big boss. His father started the business, you know. A man called Masterson is running this end. He’s an American, I believe, and he’s bought his family over. They’ve leased that house near Highnook. Ingleside, I believe it’s called.’

‘Yes, I know the place, Adrian. It’s enormous. Didn’t it belong to some penniless member of the aristocracy at one time?’

‘Yes. Old Lord Otterbury himself used to live there years ago.’ Adrian chuckled. ‘Trust Americans to install themselves in the local stately home!’

Madeline laughed. ‘It must be nice to be free from money worries.’

‘My dear Madeline, you too could be free from money worries if only you would let me take care of you.’

‘I know, Adrian, and I appreciate it. But I just can’t see myself as a headmaster’s wife, dispensing tea and sympathy to the parents of the children. I’m not the type, I’m afraid.’

‘Nonsense, Madeline, you would adapt yourself easily.’ Adrian sighed. ‘Seriously though, Diana would be agreeable to your marrying me. She’s like a daughter to me already.’