‘Er...yes. Yes, I was...’
Beth took a quick gulp of her coffee.
What would Dee say if Beth were to admit to her that she had done no such thing, that she had quite simply been so excited at the thought of selling the wonderful stemware she had seen that every principle of financial caution she had ever learnt had flown right out of her head?
‘Kelly rang me today. She was telling me that she and Brough are hoping to make an extended trip to Singapore and Australia...’
‘Mmm...they are,’ Beth agreed.
She ought to have asked her bank to make proper enquiries over the Czech factory. She knew that, of course. Not just to ensure that they were financially sound, but also to find out how good they were at meeting their order dates. She could even remember her bank manager advising that she do so when she had telephoned him to ask him for extra credit facilities. And no doubt if he hadn’t been on the point of departing for his annual leave on the very afternoon she had rung he would have made sure that she had done so.
But he had and she hadn’t and the small, nagging little seed of doubt planted earlier by her inability to make telephone or fax contact with the factory was now throwing out shoots and roots of increasingly strong suspicion and dread with frightening speed.
‘How will you manage whilst Kelly’s away? You’ll have to get someone in part-time to help you...’
‘Yes. Yes, I shall,’ Beth agreed distractedly, wondering half hysterically what on earth Dee would say if she admitted to her that, if her worst fears were confirmed and her incorrect order had not been a mistake but a deliberate and cynical ploy to take advantage of her there was no way she would need any extra sales staff because, quite simply, there would be virtually nothing in the shop to sell.
Another fear sprang into Beth’s thoughts. If she had nothing to sell then how was she going to pay her rent on the shop and the living accommodation above it?
She had absolutely nothing to fall back on, not now that she had over-extended herself so dangerously to purchase the Czech glass.
Her parents would always help her out, she knew that, and so, too, she suspected, would Anna, her godmother. But how could she go to any of them and admit how foolish she had been?
No, she had got herself into this mess, and somehow she would get herself out of it.
And her first step in doing that was to locate her supplier and insist that the factory take back her incorrect order and supply her with the goods she had actually ordered.
‘Beth, are you sure you’re all right...?’
Guiltily she realised that Dee had been speaking to her and that she hadn’t registered a single word that the older woman had been saying.
‘Er...yes...I’m fine...’
‘Well, if it would be any help I could always come and relieve you at the shop for the odd half-day.’
‘You!’ Beth stared at Dee in astonishment, surprised to see that Dee was actually flushing.
‘You needn’t sound quite so surprised,’ Dee told Beth slightly defensively. ‘I did actually work in a shop while I was at university.’
Had she hurt Dee’s feelings? Beth tried not to show her surprise. Dee always seemed so armoured and self-contained, but there was quite definitely a decidedly hurt look in her eyes.
‘If I sounded surprised it was just because I know how busy you already are,’ Beth assured her truthfully.
Dee’s late father had had an extensive business empire which Dee had taken over following his death, managing not only the large amounts of money her father had built up through shrewd investment but also administering the various charity accounts he had set up to help those in need in the town.
Dee’s father had been the old-fashioned kind of philanthropist, very much in the Victorian vein, wanting to benefit his neighbours and fellow townspeople.
He had been a traditionalist in many other ways as well, from what Beth had heard about him—a regular churchgoer throughout his life and a loving father who had brought Dee up on his own after his wife’s premature death.
Dee was passionately devoted to preserving her father’s memory, and whenever anyone praised her for the good work she did via the charities she helped to fund she was always quick to point out that she was simply acting as her father’s representative.
When Beth and Kelly had first moved to the town they had wondered curiously why Dee had never married. She had to be about thirty, and surprisingly for such a businesslike and shrewd woman she had a very strong maternal streak. She was also very attractive.
‘Perhaps she just hasn’t found the right man,’ Beth had suggested to Kelly. That had been in the days when she herself had believed that she had very much found the right man, in the shape of Julian Cox, and had therefore been disposed to feel extremely sorry for anyone who was not so similarly blessed.
‘Mmm...or maybe no man can compare in her eyes to her father,’ Kelly had guessed, more shrewdly.
Whatever the truth, one thing was certain: Dee was simply not the kind of person whose private life one could pry into uninvited. And yet tonight she seemed unfamiliarly vulnerable; she even looked softer, and somehow younger as well, Beth noticed. Perhaps because she had left her hair down out of its normal stylish coil.