The Collected Short Stories - Jeffrey Archer [190]
“Come on, darling,” said Henry finally. “Let’s go and have dinner.”
Victoria rose loyally but reluctantly and dressed for dinner while Henry sat in the bath, knees to nose, trying to wash himself before changing into evening dress. This time he phoned the front desk and ordered a taxi as well as reserving a table at Maxim’s.
The taxi driver did accept his pound note on this occasion, but as Henry and his bride entered the great restaurant he recognized no one and no one recognized him. A waiter led them to a small table hemmed in between two other couples just below the band. As he walked into the dining room the musicians struck up “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.”
They ordered from the extensive menu, and the langouste turned out to be excellent, every bit as good as Henry had promised, but by then neither of them had the stomach to eat a full meal, and the greater part of both their dishes was left on the plate.
Henry found it hard to convince the new headwaiter that the lobster had been superb and that they had not purposely come to Maxim’s not to eat it. Over coffee, he took Victoria’s hand and tried to apologize.
“Let us end this farce,” he said, “by completing my plan and going to the Madeleine and presenting you with the promised flowers. Paulette will not be in the square to greet us, but there will surely be someone who can sell us roses.”
Henry called for the bill and unfolded the third five-pound note (Maxim’s is always happy to accept other people’s currency, and certainly didn’t bother him with any change). They left, walking hand in hand toward the Madeleine. For once Henry turned out to be right, for Paulette was nowhere to be seen. An old woman with a shawl over her head and a wart on the side of her nose stood in her place on the corner of the square, surrounded by the most beautiful flowers.
Henry selected a dozen of the longest-stemmed red roses and placed them in the arms of his bride. The old woman smiled at Victoria.
Victoria returned her smile.
“Dix francs, monsieur,” said the old woman to Henry. Henry fumbled in his pocket, only to discover that he had spent all his money. He looked despairingly at the old woman, who raised her hands, smiled at him, and said:
“Don’t worry, Henry, have them on me. For old times’ sake.”
A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE
Sir Hamish Graham had many of the qualities and most of the failings that result from being born to a middle-class Scottish family. He was well educated, hardworking, and honest, while at the same time being narrow-minded, uncompromising, and proud. Never on any occasion had he allowed hard liquor to pass his lips, and he mistrusted all men who had not been born north of Hadrian’s Wall, and many of those who had.
After spending his formative years at Fettes School, to which he had won a minor scholarship, and at Edinburgh University, where he obtained a second-class honors degree in engineering, he was chosen from a field of twelve to be a trainee with the international construction company TarMac (named after its founder, J. L. McAdam, who discovered that tar when mixed with stones was the best constituent for making roads). The new trainee, through diligent work and uncompromising tactics, became the firm’s youngest and most disliked project manager. By the age of thirty Graham had been appointed deputy managing director of TarMac and was already beginning to realize that he could not hope to progress much farther while he was in someone else’s employ. He therefore started to consider forming his own company. When, two years later, the chairman of TarMac, Sir Alfred Hickman, offered Graham the opportunity to replace the retiring managing