Free Old Sins by Penny Vincenzi Page A

effectiveness and coughs being a constantly recurring problem in the pre-antibiotic era, came back for more and still more, recommended it to their friends, and took to keeping a spare bottle permanently in their medicine cupboard, a suggestion added to the original label as a result of one of Julian’s overnight delivery drives, the time he always had his best ideas.
    They trod a delicate path, he and Letitia; their capital had all gone and they lived very much from hand to mouth. The pharmacists were slow to pay, and he had difficulty getting credit for his raw materials. They fortunately had paid cash for their factory building, and had First Street on a mortgage; but for two months they were unable to meet the payment on that. ‘It’s too ridiculous,’ said Letitia cheerfully, over breakfast one morning, looking up from a pained letter from the building society, ‘here we are, dining out every night with the very best people in London – just as well or we’d be quite hungry a lot of the time – and we are threatened with having the roof removed from over our heads.’
    Julian looked at her warily. ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘What I say, darling. The building society are threatening to repossess the house.’
    ‘Oh God,’ he said. ‘What on earth do we do now?’
    ‘You don’t do anything,’ said Letitia firmly, ‘just get on with delivering today’s orders and pressing them all for payment. I’m the financial director, I’ll go and see the bank.’
    Which she did; Julian never quite knew what she said to the manager, but he saw her leaving the house, a suddenly much smaller and drabber figure in her oldest clothes, her face devoid of make-up, a plentiful supply of lace-trimmed handkerchiefs in her shabbiest handbag, and returned to his duties as sales manager feeling the future of the company and the home of its directors were in very safe hands.
    Before going out to dine with the Countess of Lincoln that night, they drank to their modestly generous new overdraft facility in gin and tonic minus the gin, and Letitia assured him they had a breathing space of precisely two months and oneweek before their cash-flow situation became critical once more.
    ‘And now I am going to go and get ready; I’ve bought a most lovely new dress, with a hundred yards of material in it and a pair of those marvellous platform soles exactly like Princess Margaret’s, just wait till you see them.’
    ‘Mother, how can you possibly afford new clothes when we can’t buy gin or pay the mortgage?’ said Julian, laughing.
    ‘Oh, darling, I have my account at Harrods and they are dreadfully patient about payment, and we certainly can’t afford to go round looking as if we haven’t got any money.’
    ‘Mother,’ said Julian, ‘I don’t know what you’re doing working for this company. I’m surprised you’re not chairman, or whatever a woman would be, of the Bank of England.’
    ‘Oh,’ said Letitia, ‘I very likely will be one day. I’m just doing my apprenticeship. Now, what you have to do, Julian, is take a very hard look at those customers of yours and which ones aren’t paying you quickly enough. We can’t afford charity.’
    Julian was certainly not over charitable with his customers, nor was he yet in a position to refuse delivery to slow payers (although he had learnt which of his customers warranted more time and attention than others); but he was learning pragmatism in places other than the bedroom. One of his very first orders came from an old man called Bill Gibson in a small chemist shop in North London; he had taken two cases of the cough linctus and paid Julian on the spot; moreover he had told other friends in the business to see him and take some of his wares as well. Julian owed him a lot and he knew it. Bill had a struggle to keep his shop going, but it was the only living he had, or knew how to manage, and he had no pension to look forward to, it was literally his lifeblood. Besides he loved