Lynda Plante - The Talisman

When Barbara returned to her own room, she couldn’t sleep. She went over the whole evening in her mind — Edward’s smiling face, his perfume, his roaring laugh... She had known instantly, almost the moment she saw him, that he was different — there was something intensely exciting about him. That was what really set the brothers apart — Edward was dangerous. When she finally slept, her body turned and she reached for the pillow, pulling it to her — pulling Edward into her arms.

Installed in Alex’s elegant house, Barbara caused an uproar with the servants as she moved furniture around, and hired two more maids. She couldn’t wait to begin her career as a socialite. She found Alex as sweet as ever, but lacking in the one thing she had married him for — social contacts. She began to get bored, itchy, with everything set up in the house to entertain and no one to lavish invitations on.

Alex closeted himself in his office with calculators and files, trying to determine the flow of finances and redirect them into various projects of his own. The property development side alone was now an incredible size, and with the profits from the night club Edward had been buying buildings with cash. According to what Alex had fathomed out he now owned almost a two-mile stretch of warehouses and Thames waterfront. The discrepancies between the accounts and the cash were enormous, and night after night Alex worked on the terrifying jumble of scraps of paper, leases and deeds, until he threw his hands up in despair. The company could be prosecuted at any time, the Inland Revenue would have a field day.

Edward’s return did not make his appearances in the office any more frequent. Alex could never contact him, he was either out supervising his new boutiques in Carnaby Street or he was at the night club. Alex left him messages, memos, but never received a word in reply. Also, a couple of Alex’s own business ventures were not going as well as he had hoped. Yet again he was warned that, with the new gaming laws being introduced, their club, and hence a valuable asset for laundering money, was near to closure.

Bundles of documents would be left on Alex’s desk — more new companies, more lists of salaries to be paid out, instructions for large sums of money to be withdrawn, all with hastily scrawled messages telling him to lose the transactions in the books.

Alex worked late every night, not helped by a constant stream of workmen installing Edward’s new toy, the security system. Loose wires hung in every corner of every office.

Nor was there any respite for Alex when he went home to Mayfair. Barbara would be sitting waiting for him, wanting to go here or there, wanting to be introduced to everyone she could think of, and Alex was so tired he simply wanted to eat his supper and collapse into bed.

‘Alex, I’m bored out of my mind, for Chrissake, I sit here all day, I sit here all night! What in God’s name do you expect me to do? I can’t just sit, I wanna do things, I gotta do something... is there nothing I can do in the business?’

Her Texas twang grated on his nerves, and he snapped that perhaps she should take some elocution lessons.

‘Fine, I’ll start tomorrow... You want eloquence, fine, you mind telling me who’s gonna even hear my goddamn voice? We don’t see anyone, we don’t meet anyone, I am bored! Jesus Christ, I come all this way and the only people I meet are goddamn Americans over here for the season — I bought a horse for the girls, stabled it in Hyde Park, that should keep them quiet. Alex, are you even listening to me?’

She snatched the newspaper from him and threw it across the room. ‘Alex, will you just listen for a minute, all you have to do is to tell me what to do and I’ll do it, but I don’t know where to begin.’

Alex got up, kissed her, and apologized. ‘Okay, my love, start donating to charities. Make sure they are the big ones and directly connected to royalty. Donate, then offer your time to help out at functions. You want to meet people that’s the way to do it... Then...’ He picked up the newspaper and opened it, and Barbara was about to shout at him again when he passed it to her and pointed out an article. ‘That bank’s in trouble. It’s a private bank run by a family. See if you can’t get to them, they’re well connected, but rumours in the City have it that they’re on their way out. See what you can find out, open an account there or whatever, send the lawyers in first and say you want to make a large deposit...’

Barbara moaned that that wasn’t really what she had had in mind, but Alex kissed her neck and unbuttoned her blouse. ‘I think we should maybe take the bank over, the family’s got the connections but they’re broke — that’s your task, sweetheart, so get cracking.’ Suddenly he sounded, even to his own ears, like his brother.

Barbara donated massive sums to charities, and soon got caught up in so many charity functions she hardly had the time for her elocution classes. She was invited to lunches, balls, dances, teas, and for the first time since she came to England she started to enjoy herself.

The St James’ Bank was overawed by Mrs Barkley. Her lawyers had paved the way and there was quite a reception waiting for her. She made an impressive entrance — the Rolls, the chauffeur, the furs, but most important was the amount of money she wanted to transfer from her Texas accounts. She was evasive, playing them along and suggesting that perhaps they should take time to think about the arrangements. Next, Barbara invited the bankers to a small dinner party, knowing they would come, and set about making sure her guest list was full of society names.

Alex was impressed, Barbara was doing far better than he had ever bargained for, although he could do without the frequent dinner parties. He found her circle of ‘friends’ growing in number, and they were useful to him. The dinner parties became bigger and better, and at long last she began to feature in the society columns. Soon she had every gossip columnist eating out of her hand, and paid for it highly. She became close to the American Ambassador and his wife, and began to dominate many charity functions. She was a natural hostess, and learned faster than Alex would have given her credit for. He began to admire her, and to love her even more.

Barbara was in her element, she had made it, and she was now even more choosy about who she talked with, who she invited to her dinners. Now she was looking for openings to move yet another step upward.

Barbara’s daughters had both been shipped off to finishing school in Switzerland. On their return to London, the elder girl, Selina, had found it difficult to adjust to her new life and a whole circle of new people, and became very quiet and withdrawn. However, Annabelle, the younger, took to it all with an energy and vigour inherited from her mother. She made many friends, ensuring that they were all from titled families, and moved effortlessly into the young jet set.

Barbara put all her efforts into making good marriages for her daughters, and she discussed a possible suitor with Alex. It would not only mean a good step forward into society, but a strong business move. The St James’ Bank heir, Conrad St James, was hand-picked for Selina, financial arrangements with the family having been concluded satisfactorily. Alex Barkley took over the bank, giving Conrad a job for life, and in return Conrad married Selina. She had very little say in the matter, led like a lamb to the slaughter.

The wedding was an elaborate occasion, the cathedral packed with four hundred guests, followed by the reception at the Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane. It made every society column, and took up the whole of the gossip diary in Queen magazine.

When the newly weds departed for Rome on their honeymoon, Barbara heaved a sigh of relief. Next, she wanted to get Annabelle married. Annabelle had grown taller, and she had her mother’s perfect figure. Lord Henry Blackwell, who was as shy as Selina, had been earmarked for her. Unlike her sister, however, she did not bow down to her mother, and they fought like cat and dog. She had a mind of her own and a strong one; she knew exactly what she wanted, what clothes she wanted to wear, and she was as adept at social climbing as her mother. With her friends from school, many of them titled, she could always get around her mother by saying, ‘But Lady Somerton’s daughter was with me.’