The Stratton Story Read online

  The Stratton Story

  Elizabeth Cadell

  Friendly Air Publishing

  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  The Lark Shall Sing

  About the Author

  Also by Elizabeth Cadell

  Afterword

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, locals, business, organizations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locals, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1967 by Elizabeth Cadell

  This edition, Copyright © 2017 by the heirs of Elizabeth Cadell.

  “About the Author” Copyright © 2016 by Janet Reynolds

  Cover art by Aparna Bera

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Introduction

  The Stratton Story

  The memory of her late husband’s slow and painful death is fresh in Anita Stratton’s mind when she finds herself confronted with the high-voltage glare of national publicity when her first novel rockets into the best-seller lists. The furore she arouses leaves her publishers, the staid and respectable firm of Beetham Brothers, as bewildered as she herself is. A capable young secretary, Gail Sinclair, finds herself caught up in the Stratton affair when Anita asks her if she may join her on her drive through France during her summer holiday. The sunshine and warmth of rural France darkens and grows cold as it becomes more and more apparent that Anita Stratton has an enemy who will stop at nothing to destroy her.

  Chapter 1

  In winter, the view from the office windows was not inviting. In the distance could be seen a stretch of the Thames, its banks lined with cranes. In the foreground were smog-blackened buildings, their roofs thrusting out ugly chimney stacks and small, dirt-encrusted dormer windows.

  In the forest of brick and cement, only two trees survived; these grew in front of a gaunt, ugly building occupied by the century-old publishing firm of Beetham Brothers. When the wintry winds blew, the branches, like gnarled fingers, tapped incessantly on the window of old Mr. Walter Beetham’s room on the third floor and brought him every February to the point of ordering the trees lopped. But his policy was to ponder well before taking any action; he was still pondering when spring came and muffled the tapping, tormenting fingers in gloves of tender green. Soon the hideous offices on the other side of the street were screened by leaf-laden branches; the cranes vanished, and only a glimpse of water was left, shimmering in the sunshine. The Beetham Brothers could now look out, if they wished, on a view that was almost rural. “Countrified,” Miss Teller shouted to her employer, Mr. Harold Beetham, early in May, in her twenty-eighth annual attempt to pierce through his deafness and through his blindness to anything but the work on his desk. “Look, rustic. Bucolic,” she shrilled, pointing to the window. But Mr. Harold merely told her irritably that if she was feeling unwell, she might as well go home.

  Instead of going home, Miss Teller took her exasperation to the room in which Miss Sinclair worked.

  “He’s eighty-four,” she said, banging the door and speaking without preamble, “and Mr. Walter’s only two years younger. I don’t know how much longer I can go on shouting.”

  Abigail Sinclair’s eyes, large and grey and black-lashed, rested sympathetically on her colleague, but in their depths was the gleam of humour that the Beetham Brothers—and particularly Mr. Thomas—found so disconcerting.

  “Deaf-aids?” she suggested.

  “Mr. Harold won’t use them, and Mr. Walter sticks to his trumpet. You ought to know that by now—you’ve been here nearly a year.”

  “Over a year,” corrected Abigail, and looked at Miss Teller’s beanpole figure and long, thin nose and scraped-back hair and admitted to herself that the months had slipped by more quickly than she would have believed. Soon, she mused, she would be stuck fast, passed from one generation to the next, as Miss Teller had been.

  She found herself recalling the day she had come for an interview. The Jamaican lift-man had pressed the button of the third floor.

  “Mr. Harold, Mr. Walter, Mr. Frank, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Christopher or Mr. Adrian?” he enquired in one breath, rolling his eyes.

  “I’ve no idea. The agency just said the Beetham Brothers.”

  “They’s not brothers-not all of ’em. Only some of ’em. You come after a job?”

  “Yes.”

  She was to have been interviewed by Mr. Thomas Beetham, who was in need of a secretary—but he, together with the other senior members of the firm, had been engulfed by the prevailing wave of influenza, and so Miss Teller had conducted the interview. She had engaged the candidate, and Mr. Thomas, returning to the office on his recovery, rang his bell and found him-self gazing incredulously across his table at a figure he labelled, instantly and erroneously, Chelsea Set. From her smooth, fair hair to her long, lovely legs she looked like a symbol of modern youth—and a girl wearing tomorrow’s skirt in his office was, to Mr. Thomas, as outrageous as a man wearing yesterday’s stubble.

  Her expression did nothing to reassure him. Instead of the modest, even cringing manner he had come to expect in the newly-engaged employee, he encountered a survey steadier and cooler than his own. His eyes fell to the figures Miss Teller had laid before him: twenty-four years old. No girl of twenty-four should be able to summon, in these circumstances, so much poise.

  The girl withdrew; Mr. Thomas, ringing agitatedly for Miss Teller, was left with an impression of a rather square face with little or no make-up; a small nose, a humorous mouth and large, wide-set, extremely intelligent eyes.

  Miss Teller explained her lapse in a manner fluent, firm and well-rehearsed. She agreed that Miss Sinclair was not the usual office type—that is, not the usual type for this office, but if Mr. Thomas would raise his eyes from his newspaper on his way to and from work, he would see a procession of Miss Sinclairs proceeding to and from their places of employment. No, Miss Sinclair had not stayed long in any job—but her employers had in every case been sorry to part with her. She did not add that the female staff of Beetham Brothers stayed so long with the firm because they belonged to a generation taught to link long service with success—and she did not think he would be interested in the fact that Miss Sinclair’s clothes made the other women in the office look like extras in an Edwardian revival. Nor did she think it worth while mentioning Miss Sinclair’s illustrious connections; Mr. Thomas was not a snob, though he sometimes found it useful to act like one.

  Miss Sinclair had stayed, and Mr. Thomas had been unable to find any fault with her work —but he had never lost his initial disapproval. There was a touch of flippancy in her manner which seemed to suggest that there was a wide, wonderful world outside which had no connection with publishers—an idea Mr. Thomas found unsettling.

  “It’s time the old ones went,” Miss Teller was saying gloomily. “But they won’t. They’ll hold out until they’re carried out.”

  She spoke in jerks, and very fast, as if anxious not to waste her employers’ time.

  “Perhaps it’s tactless to call their attention to the signs of spring,” Gail suggested.

  “I daresay.” Miss Teller’s nose gave the twi
tch it seemed to perform without its owner’s co-operation. “But those trees . . . they’re beautiful at this time of year. The view only looks like this in May. By July, the leaves are all bedraggled by petrol fumes, and by August, they’re curling up ready to drop. Now’s the one chance of getting to see the colour of spring.”

  Adrian Beetham, the newest and youngest member of the firm, came into the room and, catching Miss Teller’s last words, glanced at her curiously; spring and Miss Teller seemed to him a grotesque combination.

  “Getting fever?” he asked her lightly.

  Miss Teller, taller by three inches, looked down her nose at him.

  “If by that you mean to infer that I’m too old for spring fever, you’re quite right,” she snapped. “I shall be only too happy to remove my old bones from this office just as soon as you can persuade your grandfather and your great-uncle to remove theirs.”

  The door closed behind her with a crash, and Adrian walked to the filing cabinet and pulled out a drawer.

  “Teller’s touchy this morning, isn’t she?” he commented.

  Gail thought that Miss Teller’s touchiness was less remarkable than her ability, after twenty-eight years with the Beetham Brothers, to quicken at each reappearance of the tender green leaves. She wondered if she would one day grow dry and waspish; time did strange things. The dapper Adrian might grow like his stout and pompous father, Mr. Frank, and already there were signs that Christopher Beetham, today so brisk and so efficient, was becoming a hide-bound old fusspot like his father, Mr. Thomas.

  “Life”—Adrian agreed with her unspoken thoughts—“is most peculiar, but could you brood over it some other time? I can’t find the Stratton file.”

  “Your cousin took it.”

  “Christopher? What the devil for? I thought the social side of Stratton was my job.”

  “He said something about sales figures. Mr. Thomas had been asking.”

  “Then he should ask you, and not Christopher. All Christopher comes in here for is to look at you, for which I don’t blame him, but I wish you’d keep him away from my files.”

  “I will. I promise I will. Now will you go away? I’m busy. What did you want Mrs. Stratton’s file for?”

  “Shall I go away, as requested, or shall I tell you, as requested?”

  “Whichever you like. I suppose you want to fix this reception?”

  “I do. How am I supposed to organise it if nobody lets me find out when, and where, and how many?”

  ‘‘I think Mr. Harold wanted to decide when and where.”

  “Harold! My God! That means we can shelve the matter until next Christmas. I suppose he knows that Mrs. Stratton is talking about going abroad? This book’s got to be launched before she goes.”

  “ ‘Launched’ is good,” Gail commented drily.

  “Eh? Oh yes, I follow you; you mean the ship’s well out to sea-serial rights, film rights, book-of-the-year I daresay, and so on and so on. Doesn’t that make things difficult enough without having Christopher and Thomas and Harold poking about? And this reception is—”

  “I’ve just remembered. Miss Teller said Mrs. Stratton had agreed not to go abroad until after the reception.”

  “So Teller’s in on it, too? That’s splendid. Such a help.”

  “Don’t get peevish.”

  “I am keeping my temper remarkably well. I am, after all, the one who’s supposed to be pulling this thing together.”

  “Why not Christopher?” she asked. “He discovered Mrs. Stratton, didn’t he?”

  Astonishment widened Adrian’s eyes and diminished his air of sophistication.

  “Is that all you know about it?” he asked.

  “How much more is there?”

  “How ... Oh well, I was aware that you gave the Beetham Brothers only a fraction of your time and interest,” he said with heavy sarcasm, “but I should have thought that even you would have heard how we came by the book. Christopher must have told you the story.”

  “Well, Christopher didn’t.”

  “Then I will. It came about—”

  “Look,” Gail broke in, “I don’t have to worry about how you get hold of books, or why you’re publishing them. My job is to keep behind Mr. Thomas, and that s full time. My sole concern with authors is to fend them off until somebody’s ready to deal with them.”

  “Mrs. Stratton’s different. She—”

  “She’s certainly different. She’s good-looking, she dresses well and she doesn’t think she’s a genius. Compare that with some of the other female writers we get in here.”

  “That alone ought to have roused your interest,” Adrian pointed out.

  “Why? I knew she’d gone from poor widow to rich author in three straight sets; I’m not paid to find out how she did it. That’s your job.”

  “Couldn’t you call it keeping a finger on the office pulse?”

  “That’s Miss Teller’s job. Now will you go away and let me work?” She looked up at Christopher Beetham, who had entered the room. “Is that the Stratton file you’re nursing?”

  “Yes. Want it?”

  “Adrian wants it.”

  Christopher handed it over.

  “You’ve got to deal with the invitations,” he told Gail.

  “I thought that was coming.” Gail spoke resignedly. “Got the list?”

  “It’s in the file. It’s to be at the Courtier.”

  Gail made no comment. It was the most exclusive restaurant used by the Brothers, but for Mrs. Stratton, she knew, they were pulling out all the stops.

  The two men went out; the door closed and then opened again and Christopher took a step into the room. “Fixed the dates for your trip yet?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Gail said. “June the eighth.”

  “If you’re driving, and you leave on the eighth, you can’t possibly get to—”

  “I’m booked on the car ferry to Bordeaux. I get off there and drive the rest of the way—which isn’t far.”

  “What date are you meeting your brother at San Sebastian?”

  “Ninth, I hope. Tenth if I’m delayed.”

  He hesitated before putting his next question. Like all the Beethams, he had found her impossible to classify. In his experience of women, which was considerable, that serene air in unmarried girls over twenty-three invariably pointed to a nicely-balanced sex life-but this girl had thrown his theories out of gear. Her flat was always swarming with her brother’s Naval friends; her sister was married to an ex-Naval Commander and their farm in Sussex was a home-from-home for his still-serving comrades. Her circle was almost entirely male, but as far as he could discover, they all got the same treatment - cool and friendly. Not too friendly and somewhat too cool.

  “I’ll be around San Sebastian in the middle of June,’’ he said. “I suppose the car wouldn’t take an extra passenger?’’

  “That question,” Gail told him, “has been put to me several times a day, over this telephone as well as the one in my flat, ever since I agreed to drive Tim’s car out to Spain to meet him. They all identify themselves as his girl friends, but they’re not the same as the ones he left here two years ago, which puzzles me. I don’t see how he could have made all those new contacts from the quarter-deck of a frigate cruising in Far Eastern waters.”

  “What they call Naval operations, I suppose. Well, I’m sorry I can’t make one of the party.” He glanced out at the mild sunshine. “It’s beginning to look like holiday weather. All the same, I’d better get some work done. Which reminds me that your boss wants to see his list of luncheon fixtures. Take it in to him, will you?”

  Her boss was his father. She picked up the large black book in which the engagements were written, and made her way to Mr. Thomas’s room, sensing, as she walked through the main office, the quickening in tempo that had been brought about by the spectacular success of Mrs. Stratton’s novel.

  It was a success unparalleled in the firm’s annals.

  The resulting volume of publicity had pr
oduced in the Beetham Brothers a variety of emotions, but dismay was uppermost; they had a feeling of having been rocketed to the top of the pops, a position they had no wish to occupy. They prided themselves on having maintained, for over a hundred years, a steady and well-deserved profit from authors who, while producing nothing sensational, had an appreciative and faithful following. They were gratified by Mrs. Stratton’s success, but they would have been more gratified if it had been more moderate.

  Her modesty and composure had won the admiration of all the Brothers. She had followed all the advice they gave her. She had surrendered herself to the literary agent recommended by Mr. Walter. She had earned Mr. Thomas’s gratitude by her avoidance of what he called the more vulgar aspects of publicity.

  He looked up as Gail entered, and gave his usual nervous cough. His room was large, but dark; the light from its single window was reduced by heavy curtains chosen by Mrs. Thomas, who as the senior surviving wife felt herself entitled to choose the office decor. Her more unfortunate mistakes were relegated by Miss Teller to Mr. Thomas’s room; he had the bottle-green rug, the Beethoven bust and the plastic chrysanthemums. On a shelf stood a vessel which Miss Teller referred to as the unguentarium.

  You wanted to ask about your appointments, Mr. Thomas?”

  “Ha. Yes. Yes, Miss Sinclair. Yes, yes. Thursday was what I had in mind. Thursday. What did I have on on Thursday? That’s to say, this coming Thursday. Thursday of this week.”

  “You’re lunching with Miss van der Ryls.”

  “Ha. No. You must do something about that. Mr. Harold, perhaps. I can’t do it. I’ve got Mrs. Stratton coming to see me. Very important I should be free to lunch with her. See Mr. Harold, will you?”

  “Yes, Mr. Thomas. The same restaurant?”

  “Dear me, no. No, no, no,” said Mr. Thomas, horrified. “Telephone to Alberto.”