Rachel Lindsay - Business Affair Page 2

  "Your call to London, mademoiselle."

  Anxiety stirred in Kate like the leaves stirring on the palm trees and she hurried across the hall to the telephone box.

  "Hello," she said. "It's Kate Warwick here."

  "Mademoiselle Warwick?"

  "Yes," she said impatiently. "Yes, it is."

  ""Ne quittez pas, mademoiselle."

  The line went dead and Kate held the receiver. A few moments went by and suddenly static crackled against her ear and above it, faint and far away, she heard Charles' voice.

  "Kate, is that you?"

  'Yes. I received a telegram from Dad asking me to call him."

  "I'm taking all the calls now."

  "Why?" Fear sharpened her voice, made it so high that it broke. "Charles, what is it? What's happened?"

  Again crackle distorted his words and tears of exasperation filled her eyes. "I can't hear you," she cried. "Operator! Can't" you do something to the line? It's terrible."

  ""Un moment,'s'il vous plait."

  Kate leaned against the telephone .box, her heart pounding as she waited. Suddenly she heard Charles again, his voice much clearer.

  "Now look, darling, don't get upset at what I'm saying, but you'd better come home right away."

  "There's something the matter with Dad, isn't there?"

  "I'm afraid there is. If you leave on the first plane in the morning, I'll meet you at the airport."

  "But you've got to tell me now!" she cried. "I can't wait till I get home. How ill is he?"

  "He's had a stroke." Charles' voice faded and then grew louder. "He's alive, Kate, but you'd better come home quickly."

  CHAPTER II

  THE first person Kate saw as she stepped out of the Customs at London Airport into the terminal hall was Charles. In the six months since they had last met he appeared thinner and more polished, a dark suit accentuating his paleness.

  "Kate! How wonderful to see you again." Gripping her hands tightly he led her downstairs, checked all the luggage and then opened the door of a waiting car.

  As they glided down the road, Kate turned to look at him, her eyes so dark a grey that they appeared almost black. "Don't bother trying to gloss over the facts, Charles. I want you to tell me the truth. What chance has Dad of recovering?"

  "It's difficult to say. Even if he—even if he lives, he .might never be able to walk or talk again."

  "Oh no! I can't believe it!"

  "I'm afraid it's true. He's completely paralysed."

  "When did it happen ?"

  "In the office yesterday. We were discussing some business and he suddenly keeled over. I called a doctor and we rushed him home. I knew you'd prefer that, rather than send him to hospital."

  Through her tears she looked at him. "Will he recognise me?"

  "He's not in a coma, if that's what you mean. But you'll have to be very brave, my dear. Knowing how dynamic your father was it's not going to be easy when you see him." He offered her a cigarette and lit it Through the flame their eyes met and he touched her hand. "I'm only sorry you had to come back to such bad news."

  "I should never have stayed away so long."

  "But the rest has done you good. I've never seen you look so well."

  "I'll have to be well if I'm going to step into my father's shoes."

  "Don't think about that for the moment," he said. "We'll talk about it later."

  Kate stared out of the window, marvelling that only a few hundred miles away the day was gloriously sunny with a brilliant blue sky. Here everything was rain-washed : the grey roads, the grey-green fields, the grey skies. Sighing, she closed her eyes, cigarette smoke drifting up her nostrils,

  It was a strange homecoming. She had always envisaged her return after six months as being one of gaiety, of flower-filled rooms and crystal chandeliers ablaze with light. But as the car drew to a stop in the quiet Kensington square, the house in front of her was silent, as grey and gloomy as the weather.

  Mrs. Perkins, who had looked after Kate ever since her mother had died, opened the door to her, and seeing the woman's strained face and red-rimmed eyes brought the realisation of John Warwick's illness so forcibly home that Kate felt the colour ebb from her face.

  "Oh, Perkie," she said brokenly, "I never thought Dad would end like this."

  "There now, love, don't take on so." The housekeeper held out her arms. "Your father's got many years ahead of him yet You mark my words."

  Wishing she felt as optimistic, Kate walked into the drawing-room, stopping on the threshold as an elderly man got up from a chair.

  "I'm Carr Burnett," he said abruptly. "Dr. Harmer called me in as a consultant this afternoon. I take it you're Miss Warwick?"

  Kate nodded. "I'd like you to be quite frank with me, Mr. Burnett I want to know the truth about my father."

  "There isn't very much to tell," the specialist said. "He's a strong man for his age, but it was a very bad stroke. The only thing we can do is wait"

  "Can I see him?" Kate asked.

  "By all means, but don't ask him any questions because it's impossible for him to answer and it might agitate him."

  They walked up the stairs to the first floor. A faint smell of antiseptic permeated the hall and at the end of the corridor a white-capped nurse disappeared into a room. The doctor pushed open the bedroom door and another nurse by the bed stood up. Kate walked over and looked at the man lying motionless in front of her. In twenty-four hours John Warwick had become a travesty of himself. The face so full of life and movement seemed to be carved from marble, the immobility of his body making him appear years older.

  Kate moistened her lips and glanced across at the doctor, who nodded.

  "You can talk for a few minutes," he said, "but I'd like him to get some sleep."

  Kate kneeled down until her face was close to her father's. "What a fright you gave me," she said softly. "But you've nothing to worry about now. The doctor says you'll be completely well again in a matter of weeks." Her throat closed with tears and she forced herself to continue. "You needn't worry about the business either. Charles and I can manage it very well between us." Grey eyes looked into hers, seeming to grow lighter as the pupils narrowed. She had a strange feeling that her father was desperately trying to talk and laid her cheek against his. "Relax, Dad," she whispered. "I'll come in and see you again in the. morning."

  Charles was waiting for her in the drawing-room, on the trolley in front of him a silver salver with coffee and sandwiches. "I thought you might be hungry," he said.

  "I don't feel I can eat a thing."

  "You must try. You've got to be strong now, Kate. I'll do all I can to help you, but you've a difficult time ahead."

  "I don't see why. We both know the business backwards."

  "Perhaps so. But since you've been away a lot has happened." He rubbed his hand down his cheek and she noticed how pale he was.

  "What are you trying to tell me, Charles? It's not like you to be tongue-tied."

  "I know, my dear, but I've never found myself in a situation like this before." He poured a cup of coffee for himself, added two lumps of sugar and sat down. "Your father told you that when you came back he would have a surprise for you. I don't suppose you've any idea what he meant by that?"

  "None at all. If you remember, I wrote several times and asked you."

  "I was under orders from him not to tell you. I wanted to, but—" He shrugged. "You know what the old man's like when he makes up his mind about anything."

  "What are you trying to tell me?" she repeated. "Don't bother mincing words, Charles. Something's wrong and I must know what it is!"

  "Very well." His voice as precise as if he were reading the minutes at a board meeting, Charles told her that before leaving for the cruise her father had put his signature to final plans for building an annexe to the store. It was a project involving nearly half a million pounds, and although the board of directors had been against it, John Warwick had refused to listen. "Your father had great fai
th in the future of Warwicks and the Northern Bank were prepared to back his judgement. As you know, for the past few years we've been siphoning all our profits back into the firm. Bit by bit the whole building has been renovated and restored. Damn it, Kate, we're the most modern department store in the whole of Europe, and that's saying something."

  "Go on," she said patiently. "Tell me the rest."

  Charles hesitated. "Well, the Northern agreed to advance him the money and we went ahead with the new building. Half-way through, the architect in charge died and another one was called in. A month later he told us that the foundations were insecure—owing to some miscalculation or other. I don't know all the facts, but the long and short of it is that it's going to cost a further hundred thousand pounds to finish. Your father flung every ready penny he had available into the scheme. The annexe itself is almost as big as the main store. It's across the road from us but is being linked by an underground tunnel."

  "You don't mean he bought the bombed site?"

  "Yes, and paid a packet for it too."

  "But why didn't he tell me? I'd no idea."

  "He wanted to surprise you. The new store is going to house all the women's wear—clothes, furs, shoes, hats, perfumes, cosmetics—everything in the fashion line. Only women are going to serve there and all the colours are in pink or silver." Charles leaned forward. "He intended to call it Warwick Women."

  Tears poured down Kate's cheeks and she fumbled for her handkerchief. So this was to have been her surprise! A store exclusively for women. For years she and her father had discussed it, but always he had turned the idea down, reiterating that it was a scatterbrained scheme that could only have been thought of by a girl. Yet all the time he had intended to do it for her, and doing it could very well have caused his stroke.

  She crumpled her handkerchief in her hands and looked at Charles, intuitively knowing that there was more to come. "When will the building be finished?"

  "Within a matter of weeks. The decorators are there at the moment."

  "And what's our position with the Bank?"

  "Terrible." Charles put down his empty coffee cup. "As soon as they learned of your father's attack they were on to me. Not that I blame them, they've got to safeguard their money and—"

  "We've always paid them back before. Why should they be scared now?"

  "Because trade isn't good. You know that as well as I do. Things have been falling off for a long while now. The boom, years are past and competition has never been more severe. We owe the Bank a packet and with the old man no longer able to run the business you can't blame them for getting nervous."

  "But I'm perfectly capable." Kate flung back her head. "I've been at Warwicks since I was eighteen. I'm not a child."

  "But you're a woman. And you're in a man's world."

  She took a cigarette from the silver box on the table beside her. Shivering, she struck the match and flung it into the empty grate. "I'm cold, Charles. Could you switch on the electric fire?"

  He stood up, his expression troubled. "There's no point in getting too warm, my dear. We've got to go out again. The Bank have called a special directors' meeting for two-thirty and it's almost that now."

  "A directors' meeting! Whatever for? Charles, are you keeping anything else back from me?"

  "My dear, I've already told you the worst. We owe the Bank nearly half a million pounds and our credit is at its lowest. We're in their hands, I'm afraid, and we must listen to what they say."

  "You mean they'll be there?"

  Charles' laugh was bitter. "Be there! They're practically running the place! And the trouble is that they're entitled to. That was one of the stipulations when they loaned us the money. The managing director himself has a seat on our board now—Mr. Riddell."

  "Jim Riddell!" Kate smiled with relief. "That's wonderful! I've known him since I was a child."

  "Friendship doesn't count when money is at stake," Charles said seriously. "And this is very strictly a business affair."

  When she entered the panelled board-room with its long mahogany table and straight-backed chairs, Kate knew immediately that Charles was right. There was nothing social about this atmosphere!

  The men stood up as she came in, all wearing dark suits and dark ties, all murmuring conventional words of sympathy, patting her hand because she was a girl, yet treating her with deference because she was John Warwick's daughter. Determined not to play for sympathy, Kate took her place at the head of the table. She hesitated before sitting down in her father's chair, and then with a defiant tilt of her head, did so.

  "Gentlemen," she said, her voice high and shaky, "the meeting is now open."

  For more than an hour the financial position of Warwicks was discussed, and as she listened to the astronomical figures bandied across the table, Kate's head began to reel. In the end it amounted to precisely what Charles had told her earlier: over the past five years every penny had been sunk back into the business and so intent had her father been on expansion that he had risked being undercapitalised in order to compete with his competitors. The new annexe had been' the final disaster. His sudden collapse had made the Bank realise that they had staked everything on the ability of one man, who was now a helpless paralytic unlikely to recover any of his former strength. Viewing it logically, Kate could not blame them. Yet surely Jim Riddell might have allowed them a few months' grace?

  "You've known us a long while," she said to him quietly. "And you know our business is a solid one. We're no flash-in-the-pan success."

  "I understand all that, Kate, and I agree with you." Jim Riddell's face was high with unexpected colour and he stuck his finger into the collar of his shirt.

  It was a gesture of embarrassment she had never expected to see from him and she realised that although she might find the meeting distasteful, it was equally so for him.

  "I give you my word," she said earnestly, "that you'll be paid back in full."

  "I'm not suggesting that we won't. But when anyone thinks of Warwicks they think of your father. And now that he's so ill…"

  Kate lifted her head, her voice firm. "I'm in charge. Doesn't that satisfy you?"

  "It might satisfy me, but I'm afraid it won't satisfy my company. You must appreciate I'm not speaking personally when I say all this to you."

  "Go on," she said. "Don't mince matters."

  "My dear, I'm trying not to be hurtful, but after all you're only—"

  "A woman I" Kate finished for him, her eyes flashing with anger. "I may be a woman, Jim Riddell, but I know as much about this store as any man sitting here today." Her voice rang out, and so angry was she that she did not attempt to lower it, nor realise that as she spoke the door opened and another man came in; a bulky man who, even in a dark city suit, looked as if he would be more at home hunting big game.

  "I'd rather sell everything we possess than be left owing you a penny!" Kate continued. "I'll do anything to keep my father's good name."

  "I assure you we have every faith in your father." Jim Riddell's voice was strained. "It is unfortunate that he should have become ill at such a time, but now that this building extension has been started, we have no option but to go ahead with it. I must warn you, however, that you'll have to make an enormous profit this year if you intend to pay off part of your debt to us and yet still show a profit to your shareholders."

  "What suggestions can you offer me—I'm sure you've something on your mind?"

  "As a matter of fact, I have. In order to satisfy my bank that everything possible is being done, we'd like to place one of our own men in joint charge of Warwicks with you."

  Kate stared at him. "You must be joking! If you want to examine our records—our books—"

  "It's not a question of that. We want a man of our own choosing to be with you during these next strenuous months. You've been ill and—"

  "I'm perfectly well now! And I don't intend to have anybody telling me how to run Warwicks."

  "Mr. Brent has no desire to do that.
He will merely be here to safeguard the interests of the Northern."

  "No!" Kate said passionately. "I won't have it! You've known me a long time, Jim. How can you say a thing like that?"

  "There's nothing personal in all this."

  "Women like to make everything personal," a harsh voice interpolated. "That's why they're no good in business."

  Kate swung round and looked at the man by the door. Returning her stare, he walked across to the table. Although heavily built he moved lightly and as he reached over and shook Jim Riddell's hand she saw the ripple of muscle across his arm and shoulder. He was not tall, probably her own height, yet he seemed to dominate the room. Clean-shaven, a blue stubble darkened his jaw line and his hair, thick and faintly wavy in the front, was flecked with silver, as were the heavy eyebrows above the coldest blue eyes she had ever seen. They were so pale a blue as to appear almost grey, but as he sat down and looked at her they changed colour, becoming deeper, more piercing.

  Jim Riddell cleared his throat. "This is Marcus Brent, the man I was telling you about"

  The antagonism Kate had felt from the moment she saw the man now crystallised. So he was the one the Bank had appointed to watch her! It was a good choice too; he had the characteristics of a bulldog, the same heavy jaw and nose, the same wide, thin-lipped mouth. His large hands were unclasping a briefcase and from it he withdrew a mass of papers.

  "I've gone into all the books, Jim," he said brusquely, "and they're in a hell of a mess." He looked at Kate. "Forgive my language."

  "That's all right," she said coolly. "You needn't pull any punches with me. What books were in a hell of a mess?"

  'Yours."

  "What right did you have to take them?"

  Without answering he turned to the man at his side. "We'll never get any money back this year. And as far as I can see we'll have to invest another twenty- thousand pounds on fittings and decorations for the annexe."

  "I'm prepared to accept your word on everything," Jim Riddell said.

  Kate looked round the table at the intent faces watching the two men by her side. These were her own board of directors, men appointed by her father, who surely owed him some loyalty? Yet they were agreeing to everything as if they had no choice. She clenched her hands on her lap, forcing herself to acknowledge the bitter truth that indeed they did not have a choice! Jim was right: she must make the best of a bad job and accept Marcus Brent. But why did he have to be a man like this? The mere sight of him roused her irritation. She glanced at Charles and saw the expression of sympathy on his face. How different he looked from Marcus Brent: so urbane and polished, so tall and elegant.