In the five weeks leading up to it, they had discussed and prepared for every last aspect of the encounter, including their personal appearances. Her mourning dress, especially commissioned, was cut large to make her look smaller and younger in it. He’d let his hair grow long in order to look less serious. They both shook hands rather limply.
Once inside her father’s old office, he did not take one of the chairs arranged in two semicircles before Mr. Grave’s desk, but stood in a corner at the back of the room, looking slightly bored, to give the impression he’d come solely to accompany his wife and was little interested in the goings-on himself.
Lady Fitzhugh, she of the most impeccable posture, hunched forward in her chair and looked as if she had trouble raising her eyes to the assembly, let alone addressing them.
Her voice quivered slightly. “Gentlemen, thank you for coming this morning. It is a pleasure to have all of you in the same room. I am sure you are as grieved as I am that it is no longer my father occupying this chair, but such is the will of God and we must cope as best as we can.
“He has, as you know, left Cresswell & Graves to me as a going concern. I am young and inexperienced, therefore I have called you together and hope you may advise and guide me as to how I may best proceed.”
It was vitally important that she, though the rightful owner, did not appear to be a usurper, given that she was a woman and her husband a toff who presumably knew nothing beyond polo and shooting.
Mr. Hawkes, a wizened old man who had been a trusted lieutenant to the senior Mr. Graves, Lady Fitzhugh’s grandfather, and who no longer participated in the day-to-day operation of the business, said, “Perhaps it would be best, Lady Fitzhugh, for you to remain removed from the running of the business. A woman’s place is at home.”
Helena would have demanded whether the man had heard of Queen Elizabeth, who ran the business of England better than any man before or since. But Fitz’s wife only nodded timidly.
“Indeed you have read my heart, sir. It is a difficult task, the direction of an enterprise such as ours, requiring much perspicacity and expertise. I would have dearly loved to remain in the comfort and insularity of my home. Alas, I am the last of the Graves, and as such, it would be a complete dereliction of duty were I to turn my back on Cresswell & Graves.”
She said it with a steely resignation, a young martyr facing her doom with serenity and courage, because she knew she was doing the right thing.
From their weeks of practice Fitz already knew her to be a good actress. However, not all actors excelled as much onstage as they did in rehearsal—he’d witnessed classmates seize with stage fright during school performances, sweating and butchering their lines. But he need not have worried. She was outdoing herself.
Mr. Hawkes looked taken aback. It was all very well for him to put a woman in her place, but before such dutiful femininity he certainly could not suggest her father had made a mistake by bequeathing the firm to his only child.
Mr. Hawkes’s former protégé and current rival for influence Mr. Mortimer, a balding, thickening man in his late forties, said, “I do believe, Lady Fitzhugh, that the best manner going forward would be for you to continue to devote yourself to your home and your charitable work. And we will keep you informed of our decisions—say, annually.”
“It is most kind of you, Mr. Mortimer. I always knew I could rely on the gentlemen in this room to watch out for my best interest. Since you are so generous, there is no reason I cannot find a few days every quarter to dedicate to the business of Cresswell & Graves. I am slightly ashamed, however, of the inadequacy of my dedication—I’m sure my father would have wanted me to keep an even closer eye on things. Monthly briefings, perhaps.”
“Oh, I dare say quarterly briefings would stand you in good stead,” Mr. Mortimer hastened to say.
The other men around the table echoed his sentiment. Fitz suppressed a smile. From annual to quarterly, with no resistance whatsoever. His wife was slowly and gently sliding them into her pocket—without giving the least indication what she was up to.
“I am so grateful for your reassurance, gentlemen. You make me feel very well taken care of and I thank you. However, there is one thing that is still on my mind and that is the matter of choosing a first among equals. When my father was alive, he was that person. Now we have a dozen colleagues, but no leader. I have led a sheltered life, but even I know that an unled group, no matter how individually brilliant the members, would disintegrate into factions along lines of disagreement.”
The men around the table look at one another, some at their allies, some at their rivals. Fitz had informed her closely of his observations. Her father’s lieutenants were split between those who were content to do Mr. Graves’s bidding, and those who itched to branch out and grow.