Revenge For Love - Chapter 21 The Ornate B

Meredith yanked a dress out of her closet to wear to the Fourth of July party, tossed it across the bed, and pulled off her bathrobe. This summer, which had begun with a funeral, had degenerated into a five week battle with her father over which college she would attenda battle that had escalated into a full fledged war the previous day.

In the past, Meredith had always bent over backward to please him; when he was needlessly strict, she told herself it was only because he loved her and was afraid for her, when he was brusque, she rationalized that he had responsibilities that tired him, but now, now that she’d belatedly discovered that his plans for her were on a collision course with her own, she was not willing to give up her dreams to pacify him.

From the time she was a young girl, she’d assumed that someday she would have the chance to follow in the footsteps of all her forebears and take her rightful place at Bancroft & Company. Each successive generation of Bancroft men had proudly worked their way up through the store’s hierarchy, starting there as a department manager, then moving up through the ranks to vice president, and later, president and chief executive officer.

Finally, when they were ready to turn the direction of the store over to their sons, they became chairman of the board. Not once in nearly one hundred years had a Bancroft failed to do that, and not once in all that time had any Bancroft ever been ridiculed by the press or by the store’s employees for being incompetent or undeserving of the titles they eventually held. Meredith believed, she knew, she could prove herself worthy, too, if she were just given the chance. All she wanted or expected was that chance. And the only reason her father didn’t want to give it to her was that she hadn’t had the foresight to be his son instead of his daughter!

Frustrated to the point of tears, she stepped into the dress and pulled it up. Reaching behind her back, she struggled with the zipper as she walked over to the dressing table and looked in the mirror above it. With complete disinterest she surveyed the strapless cocktail dress that she’d bought weeks before for that night’s occasion. The bodice was sheared at the sides so that it crisscrossed her breasts, sarong style, in a multicolored rainbow of pale pastel silk chiffon, then it nipped in at the waist before falling in a graceful swirl to her knees.

Picking up a hairbrush, she ran it through her long hair. Rather than expend the effort of doing anything special with it, she brushed it back off her face, twisted it up into a chignon, and pulled a few tendrils loose at her ears to soften the effect. The rose topaz pendant would have been the perfect accent for her dress, but her father was also going to Glenmoor tonight, and she refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing her wear it.

Instead, she clipped on a pair of ornate gold earrings inset with pink stones that sparkled and danced in the light, and left her shoulders and neck bare. The hairstyle gave her a more sophisticated look and the golden tan she’d acquired looked lovely against the strapless bodice of the dress; if it hadn’t, Meredith wouldn’t have cared, nor would she have changed into something different.

How she looked was a matter of complete indifference to her, the only reason she was going was that she couldn’t stand the thought of staying home and letting frustration drive her insane, and that she’d promised Shelly Fillmore and the rest of Jonathan’s friends that she’d join them there.

Sitting down at the dressing table, she slipped on a pair of pink silk moire heels she’d bought to wear with the dress. When she straightened, her gaze fell on the framed copy of an old issue of Business Week that was hanging on the wall. On the cover of the magazine was a picture of Bancroft’s stately downtown store, with its uniformed doormen standing at the main entrance. The fourteen-story building was a Chicago landmark, the doormen a historic symbol of Bancroft’s continuing insistence on excellence and service to its customers.

Inside the magazine was a long, glowing article about the store, which said that a Bancroft label on an item was a status symbol; the ornate B on its shopping bags the emblem of a discriminating shopper. The article also commented about the remarkable competence of Bancroft heirs when it came to running their business. It said that a talent forand love ofretailing seemed to have been passed along in Bancroft genes from its founder, James D. Bancroft.

When the writer had interviewed Meredith’s grandfather and asked him about that, Cyril had reportedly laughed and said it was possible. He’d added, however, that James Bancroft had begun a tradition that had been handed down from father to sona tradition of grooming and training the heir from the time he was old enough to leave the nursery and dine with his parents.

There, at the dining table, each father began to speak to their sons about whatever was happening at the store. For the child, these daily vignettes about the store’s operation constituted the equivalent of ongoing bedtime stories. Excitement and suspense were generated; knowledge was subtly imparted. And absorbed. Later, simplified problems were casually brought up and discussed with the teenager. Solutions were asked for and listened to, though rarely found. But then, finding solutions wasn’t the real goal anyway; the goal was to teach and stimulate and encourage.

At the end of the article, the writer had asked Cyril about his successors and, as Meredith thought about her grandfather’s reply, she felt a lump in her throat: “My son has already succeeded me to the presidency,” Cyril had said.

“He has one child, and when the time comes for her to take over the presidency of Bancroft & Company, I have every faith Meredith will carry on admirably. I only wish I could be alive to see it.” Meredith knew that if her father had his way, she would never assume the presidency of Bancroft’s.