by Carola Dunn
“The White Knight,” said Daisy. “Oh, sorry, it just slipped out. I didn’t mean it unkindly. Cousin Edgar’s such a sweetie.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” said Geraldine with fond exasperation, handing over a cup of tea and waving at the selection of edibles on the tea table. “Believe it or not, he was a good teacher and very competent with the boys. But you understand why I’ve taken it upon myself to deal with this business of finding his heir.”
“Absolutely. And I’m perfectly willing to … um … stand in for him in London, to the best of my ability. I’m not sure what I can do here, though, as Raymond has already refused to accept my ‘credentials,’ so to speak.” She bit into a watercress sandwich. The cress was crisp and green, quite unlike the limp, yellowish substance sold by that name at the greengrocer’s in Hampstead.
“He can hardly ban you from any room here into which I invite you, even if he is a millionaire!”
“A millionaire? Is he? Tommy told me only that he’s a businessman in the diamond trade.”
“Mr. Pearson’s last letter said he’d been making enquiries. All the diamond people know all about each other, it seems. Mr. Raymond Dalrymple is an extremely wealthy magnate.”
“If he’s filthy rich, it explains his expecting to have it all his own way.”
“The truth is, I have no idea how to handle the man. I get on comfortably enough with the local gentry—I’ve been a viscountess long enough to learn how, though sometimes it still seems like a dream. I have no ambition to scale the heights of London society.”
“I don’t blame you!”
“And I can handle a large staff with a degree of success; that is to say, the servants are not constantly leaving for greener pastures.”
“I noticed you still have Ernest. Footmen are hard to keep, or so I’ve heard.”
Geraldine flushed. “I confess I have a soft spot for Ernest, though I trust he’s unaware of it. He hasn’t the sedate temperament of the ideal footman, but he reminds me of the boys at school.”
“Do you miss them?”
“Not the school, but the best of the boys. And their liveliness. You might not think it, but I got on well enough with most of them, and with their parents when they visited. They were mostly professional people and successful business people. No millionaires, though! I have no experience with millionaires.”
“You’re forgetting Mr. Arbuckle, Geraldine. The American whose daughter was kidnapped? He was charming when he wasn’t worried half to death.”
“You got on well with him, I remember. I didn’t see much of him. And I daresay the Americans are quite unlike the South Africans in character. You’re at ease with everyone, without even trying. I don’t know how you do it.”
“I don’t exactly do it. It just happens. And not absolutely everyone. I must admit I’m a bit fed up with Cousin Raymond—assuming he’s really a cousin—before I’ve even met him. But who knows, perhaps he’ll turn out to be charming in person.”
“Perhaps. More likely he won’t care to take tea with a couple of women.”
“Won’t Edgar join us?”
“Who knows? I never venture to predict or dictate Edgar’s movements. After twenty years ruled by bells, from rising to lights-out, he deserves his freedom.”
Politely agreeing, Daisy privately wondered whether it might be more a matter of Geraldine recognising the limits of her ability to control her husband. “If Raymond wants to ask nosy questions about your finances, as I gathered from Mr. Pearson, it might be an idea to sic him on to Cousin Edgar.”
“Edgar knows next to nothing about … Ah yes, an excellent idea. Perhaps a lecture on British lepidoptera will send him quickly back to South Africa, or at least to London, where he can pursue his claim through the proper channels.” Geraldine sighed. “It would be so much easier just to refuse to see him, but I suppose that would be unthinkably discourteous.”
“Probably not wise,” Daisy agreed. “You won’t want to deliberately alienate him. He may, after all, turn out to be Cousin Edgar’s heir.”
EIGHT
“A jeweller, an innkeeper, and a seaman.” The Dowager Lady Dalrymple’s lip curled. “Each worse than the one before. And descended from a black sheep! Wasn’t it bad enough when a mad schoolmaster set himself up in your father’s place?”
“Cousin Edgar is not mad, Mother.” Daisy’s protest came automatically, having been repeated many times over the past nine years. She didn’t know why she bothered. “Nor did he ‘set himself up.’”
“At least he wasn’t in trade, I’ll allow him that much. But he could have chosen an acceptable heir. Tradesmen!”
“A millionaire, the owner of a luxury hotel, and an officer of the Merchant Navy. They’re our relatives as much as they’re his.”
“Had your father lived, he would never have permitted such a disgraceful state of affairs.”
Daisy thought it wiser, as well as kinder, not to point out that her father had left a mess of a different kind. Shattered by the death of Gervaise, he had failed to alter his will to provide for Daisy, having earlier assumed that her brother would take care of her. Though, when the flu pandemic bore him off in his turn, Edgar had been willing to correct his omission, Daisy had not been willing to sponge on her then newly discovered relative.
Choosing to work for her living had led to her meeting Alec, so all had turned out for the best—in her eyes, if not the dowager’s.
Avoiding her mother’s outraged look, Daisy took a sip of sherry, which she didn’t really care for, and glanced round the sitting room. It was somewhat larger than Geraldine’s, but the Dower House didn’t have a separate drawing room, another source of continual complaint. The furnishings were equally elegant, however, since the dowager had bagged the best of the smaller pieces when forced to move—“forced” by her own refusal to reside with the usurper, as he had proposed.
Having done likewise, Daisy didn’t blame her for refusing. It was about time she stopped complaining, though.
A bowl of glorious pink and yellow roses caught Daisy’s eye. Eager to change the subject, she got up and went to smell their fragrance. “Gorgeous!”
“That little Welsh gardener you recommended to me is still with me, surprisingly. Of course, my little plot is nothing like the Fairacres gardens. It’s so tiny, Morgan doesn’t have a great deal to do. He has no excuse for anything short of perfection.”
“Mother, no garden can ever be perfect, what with insects and diseases and weeds and the vagaries of the weather.” Not to mention that the Dower House boasted a sizable vegetable plot and orchard, not just a lawn surrounded by flowering shrubs and borders.
“Don’t change the subject. It’s a bad habit I have had to reprimand you for since you were a child. You say this jewellery pedlar is calling tomorrow afternoon? I’m free until six, I believe. It’s time I paid that woman a visit.”
“I didn’t know you and Cousin Geraldine were on visiting terms.”
“I know my duty.” Drawing herself up, the dowager spoke frostily. “I’m aware that my accommodations are vastly inferior to Fairacres, but when my daughter prefers to stay with Edgar and Geraldine—” Her tone suggested that though it pained her to use their christian names, she simply could not bring herself to refer to them as Lord and Lady Dalrymple. “However, it’s not for me to complain.”
“They invited me.”
“Only because Edgar is unfit to evaluate the claimants and Geraldine is unwilling. That lawyer friend of yours should have requested my assistance. I can’t think how you came to take it upon yourself—”
“I didn’t, Mother. Geraldine asked me because I’m a Dalrymple by birth, which neither she nor you are.”
“Well, I must say…!”
For once Daisy had left her mother speechless. She took her leave with all possible celerity.
Walking back across the park to the big house, she looked forward with dismay to the morrow. Bad enough that Cousin Raymond had not so far shown hi
mself a sympathetic person; the prospect of the dowager viscountess and the present viscountess crossing swords over the teacups made Daisy cringe.
* * *
Saturday morning promised another sunny day and Daisy’s spirits rose. After breakfast, she went for a walk along the riverside path. Edgar’s spaniel, Pepper, went with her, as Wharton, the bailiff, had cornered his lordship and driven him into his study to accomplish several overdue tasks.
The Severn slid by, reflecting the blue of the sky and the green of the willows leaning over it. A dark red butterfly with white edges to its wings flitted past. Swallows darted and swooped over the water. Daisy hoped they would confine their diet to midges and not go for the butterfly.
The water level was about eight feet below the path, but Pepper, undeterred, scrambled down to go for a dip. Presuming he knew what he was doing, Daisy didn’t call him back until he started to paddle determinedly after a pair of crested grebes. He took no notice, giving up only when the birds submerged and swam off underwater. Then he turned downstream on a diagonal towards the bank.
By the time Daisy caught up with him, he had climbed out onto a dilapidated floating landing stage. After shaking vigorously, he scampered up the equally dilapidated wooden steps and greeted her with more enthusiasm than she quite cared for.
“Down, boy! I’d better ask your master if he wouldn’t mind having the steps and dock repaired. I bet Derek and Belinda are getting too old to be satisfied with puttering about the backwater. The boat probably could do with an overhaul, too.”
A little farther on, they crossed a wooden footbridge over the backwater. Surrounded by willows and alders, it was overgrown with reeds and scummed with pondweed. Watching scarlet dragonflies dart and hover, Daisy realised Pepper’s intention too late. She grabbed for his collar but she missed. He took a flying leap from the bridge into the stagnant water, so he was both soggy and mucky when she left him—with apologies—with Bill Truscott in the stables.
By that time, the day was growing hot and humid. The sky was hazy, with the feel of thunder in the air. After lunch, Geraldine told Lowecroft they would take coffee on the terrace. Ernest moved the wicker chairs and table into the wedge of shade provided by the house. Daisy, Geraldine, and Edgar settled there, looking out over the crazy paving and the low parapet to the lawn, with its huge chestnut, and the gardens, gently sloping down towards the river, marked by the willows on the bank. Daisy broached the subject of refurbishing boat, steps, and dock before the children came to stay in August.
“Of course, my dear. I’ll write it down immediately.” He took out his fountain pen and his lepidopteran notebook.
“And it might be a good idea to have the backwater cleaned up a bit, dredged perhaps. Though the dragonflies seem to like it as it is. Which reminds me, I saw a very pretty butterfly by the river. Dark reddish brown, with white edges. I think there were spots, too.”
“Blue spots? Among the willows? Camberwell Beauty!” He jumped up and glanced about him. “Where’s Pepper?”
“He got wet and dirty this morning. I left him in the stables for Truscott to deal with. Sorry.”
“No matter, no matter. I’ll have Ernest fetch him.” He dashed off towards the conservatory, a Victorian excrescence that disfigured the south façade of the original Tudor house. There he kept his collections. Lord Dalrymple was not among those lepidopterists who slaughter their prey and pin it to a board. He liked to collect eggs and caterpillars and observe their transformation into moths or butterflies, then free them to fly off and produce another generation.
A few minutes later, he came round the corner of the house, binoculars round his neck and his collecting satchel slung over his shoulder. He’d had no need to change his clothes as he was wearing a faded blazer, a barely discernable school crest on the breast pocket, over ancient cricket whites. They watched his broad-brimmed straw hat recede between two marble fauns, beneath the dangling seedpods of the pleached wisteria alley. Pepper trotted after him.
Enervated by the heat, Daisy and Geraldine stayed on the terrace, chatting in a desultory way about Edgar’s birthday house party and wondering how best to entertain such a disparate group as it seemed destined to be.
“But will all of them be coming if the heir has been identified by then?” Daisy asked.
“I’m afraid so. Edgar says they’re all family and must all be invited, however many ‘all’ turns out to be. He doesn’t often put his foot down, but when he does, he can be extremely obstinate.”
“And is everyone invited for the whole week—ten days, really, with both weekends—as we are?”
“He wants the family to have a chance to get to know one another. Of course, some of them may not be able to come, for the entire time or at all. I shan’t send invitations until Mr. Pearson is able to tell me who are the actual relatives.”
“Everything seems a bit vague so far. I hope he finds out in time for Cousin Edgar’s birthday celebration, at least.”
“It might be better not to know who the heir is until afterwards. Otherwise the majority are going to be resentful the entire time. Yes, Lowecroft? What is it?”
“The dowager viscountess has called, my lady.”
“Oh dear!” Geraldine ineffectually patted her hair, which was as always perfectly neat. “You’d better show her into the drawing room. I’ll be with her in a minute.” She waited as the butler bowed and left. “Daisy…?”
“I won’t desert you. Don’t worry, Mother just wants to meet Cousin Raymond. Like the rest of us, she’s dying of curiosity.”
“Oh dear! This interview is going to be difficult enough without—Sorry, dear, I don’t mean to imply … But it is awkward! I wonder whether Edgar will put in an appearance?”
Daisy had no answer. “I’m sorry I mentioned the Camberwell Beauty.”
“For pity’s sake don’t mention it to your mother! I’d hate her to get the impression that Edgar is chasing after a lady of doubtful virtue from South London!”
They went into the house through a door in the north wing, a Regency addition with Strawberry Hill Gothic pretensions, including a hexagonal turret. It was much cooler inside. Geraldine hurried to the cloakroom to check her appearance. Daisy couldn’t decide whether it was more proper to wait for her or to go straight in to greet her mother—the minutiae of etiquette had always bemused and bored her, one reason she was the “unsatisfactory” daughter. Violet had always been the good girl.
Before she made up her mind, Geraldine reappeared. Daisy let her lead the way into the drawing room.
The Dowager Lady Dalrymple was standing at the French window on the far side, silhouetted against the comparative brightness, looking over the terrace, the lawn, and the gardens. Daisy hoped she hadn’t got there soon enough to see them sneaking round by the side door.
The dowager turned on hearing their footsteps. “Good afternoon, Geraldine.”
“Good afternoon, Maud.”
“Hello, Mother.”
“Won’t you sit down? To what do I owe the pleasure?” Geraldine enquired, as if she didn’t know.
“Isn’t it obvious?” the dowager declaimed, her voice throbbing. “You cannot suppose I have no interest in the man who is to take the place of my husband and my son?”
“Cousin Edgar succeeded Father,” Daisy objected. “Besides, this chap who’s coming this afternoon may not be the one.”
“A shopkeeper! A hawker of baubles! At least a schoolmaster may be a gentleman. Of sorts.”
Geraldine bridled. “Edgar is a gentleman in the best sense of the word,” she said with some heat.
“Precisely.” She paused to let her meaning sink in. “When do you expect this … this person to call?”
“Mr. Raymond Dalrymple did not give a precise time, just midafternoon.”
“Not a gentleman. In any sense of the word.”
“He must be driving down,” said Daisy. “One never knows when a puncture will strike.”
“For a writer,” said h
er mother, “you use words rather inaccurately. A puncture cannot strike.”
“You will take tea, won’t you, Maud?” Geraldine said hastily. “Daisy, would you mind ringing?”
Lowecroft, arriving in response to the bell, seemed more deferential than usual towards Geraldine. Daisy got the impression that he was, in his dignified way, cocking a snook at her mother. Clearly conscious of his altered demeanour, Geraldine perked up. The dowager, no fool, missed nothing of the byplay. Her lips tightened.
Daisy wondered whether the butler had been listening at the door and heard her mother’s snide remarks. He wouldn’t take kindly to denigration of his master, whatever his own opinion of that eccentric peer.
“Tea, Lowecroft. Unless you’d prefer lemonade, Maud?”
“Lemonade would be pleasant,” the dowager acknowledged reluctantly.
“Good idea,” said Daisy.
Supplied with lemonade and crisp, sweet, light-as-air wafers, Daisy’s mother got round to asking after her grandchildren. As she had completely ignored their existence the previous day, Daisy took this sudden solicitude with a pinch of salt. A wayward impulse made her begin with Belinda, in whom the dowager had even less interest than in the twins.
“Belinda’s doing very well at school. She’s even thinking she might like to go on to university, though it’s much too early to make a decision, of course.”
“Belinda…? Oh, your stepdaughter. I cannot approve of excessive education for young ladies … but of course, the child doesn’t quite—”
“Mother!”
“I’m very fond of Belinda,” Geraldine put in hastily. “A nice child, and bright. And having seen many decidedly unintelligent boys going on to fritter away everyone’s time at Oxford and Cambridge, I don’t believe it can be right to waste a good brain just because it’s female.”
“If Bel wants to continue her studies when she’s seventeen or eighteen, she shall. Miranda, too. She loves picture books and she knows most of her ABCs. Oliver is more interested in trains at present. Not content with his wooden train, he builds his own with his blocks.”
