‘A flying-boat?’ Daphne’s eyes sparkled. ‘How brill! And you won’t have to account for my presence, if you have permission for it, and you can get that by telling Ambassador Lampson that your trip gives me the opportunity to have a last visit with my dying mother. Under his forbidding exterior, Sir Miles has a very soft heart – and he also has a soft spot for me. He’ll be happy to give permission.’
‘You don’t have a dying mother. She died years ago.’
‘Miles Lampson doesn’t know that.’
Sholto ran a hand distractedly over shiny-smooth hair. The trouble with Daphne was that when she got the bit between her teeth, there was simply no gainsaying her. ‘And if I don’t?’
Daphne stood on tiptoe and kissed him on his nose. ‘If you don’t, then at Saturday’s Red Cross Ball I shall tell Ambassador Lampson how ghastly it has been – you travelling to England and, in the circumstances of my mother’s failing health, my not being able to accompany you.’
Sholto gritted his teeth. Sometimes Daphne’s high-spirited quirkiness vastly amused him, and sometimes it didn’t. This was one of the occasions when it didn’t. Unless the subject was Farouk, Egypt’s twenty-year-old king, Sir Miles Lampson was known for being reasonable, and Sholto knew that if he asked permission for Daphne to accompany him on compassionate grounds, the answer would most probably be ‘yes’. He also knew that if he didn’t ask, and if Daphne did as she threatened – which she would – he would lose points with Lampson for being an unthoughtful husband.
Bad-temperedly he capitulated. ‘Okay, Daphs. You win. But don’t expect to have my company in London, because I won’t have any free time.’
‘And neither will I – not with all the plans I’ve already made.’
‘Plans?’ As he looked at her, he wasn’t sure which emotion was uppermost – despair or a familiar surge of amusement.
‘I shall spend a day in London seeing a couple of friends and going to the cinema. Then the next day I’m going to travel to Yorkshire by train and . . .’
‘Yorkshire?’ He couldn’t have been more bewildered if she’d said Tibet.
‘Yorkshire. Wilsden, to be precise. And then I might try and fit in a trip to Canterbury.’
‘Which is at the other end of the country. I’m getting the picture. Just make sure you’re back in London in time to meet up with me, for the car ride to Poole.’
‘Poole?’ It was Daphne’s turn to be bewildered, but it was interested bewilderment.
‘The flying-boat flies into – and out of – Poole harbour.’
‘This is going to be such fun!’ She slid her arms around his waist and gave him another kiss – this time on the mouth. ‘You’re such a sweetheart to have suggested it. I’ll be packed and ready to go in under an hour.’
The flying-boat wasn’t quite as Daphne had expected it to be. A year ago a London friend had written to her about her experience of travelling from Southampton to New York by flying-boat:
It was utterly luxe, Daphne. The passenger cabin had easy chairs and sofas and when we flew over the Atlantic at night, the sofas converted into beds. Being a Pan Am Clipper flight, it was all very American. Wonderful service, as you might expect. Champagne all the way. You simply must give it a try when Sholto’s Cairo posting comes to an end (and wouldn’t it be heaven if his next posting turned out to be Washington and I could visit you there?).
The RAF flying-boat left from Alexandria on the coast and possessed none of the luxuries of the Pan Am Clipper. It was very basic and very uncomfortable. Their fellow passengers – five of them – were all high-ranking British army personnel. All of them gave Daphne disapproving looks when she boarded what was an official flight and, as they made their disapproval felt by not engaging in conversation with her, Daphne resorted to reading the Agatha Christie book she had brought with her.
When it came to travelling by train to Yorkshire, she bought another book at King’s Cross station, this time Eric Ambler’s The Mask of Dimitrios, reflecting as she did so that the atmosphere in London wasn’t at all as she had expected it to be. She had expected a pervading feeling of, if not fear, then at least tension. There wasn’t. Only the compulsory gas masks everyone was carrying, the sandbags staked around the entrances of shops and public buildings and, when night fell, the strictly adhered to blackout regulations indicated that the country was at war.
Another thing that indicated the country was on a war footing was the number of troops on the train travelling north to Catterick Camp. It was standing room only, although not for Daphne, as the minute she stepped foot on the train, every man in the nearest carriage sprang from his seat.
‘Going far, Miss?’ asked the soldier whose window seat she accepted.
‘Leeds.’ Daphne paused. Normally she was happy to chat with anyone and everyone, but a near three-hour train journey was a little long to be trapped in banter with an admiring squaddie, and so very firmly she took out her book.
At Leeds she changed trains for Bradford. As she travelled the short distance from one soot-blackened city to another, it occurred to her that she might have been a little precipitate in setting off for Wilsden when she hadn’t been able to warn the Tetleys that she was about to do so, but arriving unexpectedly couldn’t be helped. A letter had been out of the question, as it wouldn’t arrive until after she’d been and gone; the Tetleys – and probably everyone else who lived in Wilsden, apart from the local doctor – weren’t on the telephone; and the arrival of a telegram would have terrified them.
The only way out of Bradford was uphill, and the taxi she took from the station wheezed up succeeding inclines until, with the city behind them, the road curved down through open country and a magnificent view of moorland towards the Ling Bob pub and Wilsden village.
‘Are you sure this is where you want to be?’ the taxi driver asked as he pulled up outside the Tetleys’ little terraced cottage.
‘Absolutely.’ Daphne could understand the doubt in his voice. Having come straight from London, she was wearing a pearl-grey suit with a nipped-in waist and arrow-straight skirt, sheer stockings and peep-toed, high-heeled shoes. It wasn’t the kind of outfit often seen – if ever – on the streets of Wilsden.
As she paid the driver, curtains in the houses on either side of the Tetleys’ twitched. A woman a couple of doors down who had been on her knees, white-stoning her doorstep, heaved herself to her feet in order to get a better look.
Before Daphne could even knock on the door, it flew open and, wearing a sleeveless paisley-patterned overall Alice Tetley seized her by both hands, saying with a beaming smile, ‘As soon as I heard the taxi come to a stop, I knew it must be you! My, you’re a rare treat for the eyes. Alfred! Dad! Come here and see what the wind’s blown in.’
Alfred, who had been in the kitchen doing home-made repairs to a pair of work boots, strolled into the room that opened on to the street and was always referred to as the parlour, saying teasingly, ‘By ’eck, Alice luv. From the fuss you’re making, I thought King George was paying a visit.’
Alice began patting the cushions smooth on the well-worn moquette sofa and Daphne said, ‘Can we sit in the kitchen, Alice? It’s sunnier in there, isn’t it?’
‘Indeed it is, lass.’ Alfred led the way, past the foot of the stairs and into the sunlit back room. ‘Nah then, Alice. Put t’kettle on for a brew and I’ll give Dad another shout. He’s in t’shed,’ he said explanatively to Daphne, ‘and ’e’s deaf into t’bargain now.’
As Daphne sat down at the well-scrubbed kitchen table, Alfred opened the back door and hollered, ‘Dad! DAD! We ’ave a visitor! One you’ll want ter see!’
‘Now, you’ll know the news about Ella having a baby, won’t you?’ Alice said, filling the kettle. ‘September it’s due.’
‘I know. It’s brilliant news. I’m so happy for them.’
‘Them?’ Alice paused in what she was doing.
‘Ella and Christos.’
‘Oh, aye. Truth to tell, Daphne, I try to f
orget about him as much as I can. It wasn’t what we wanted for her, and now she’s not only near two thousand miles away from us for a season of work, she’s near two thousand miles away permanently.’
Daphne was spared the awkwardness of having to make a suitable reply by Jos stomping up the garden path and into the house. ‘We’d gi’en you up fer lost,’ he said, grinning toothlessly. ‘’as Cairo gone over to ’itler’s mob, then? Is that why you’re back in God’s own country?’
Daphne grinned back at her old sparring partner. ‘My husband is in London for a few days and I was able to cadge a lift on his flight. This is only a fleeting visit. We fly back to Egypt the day after tomorrow, and I want to fit in a visit to Kate’s parents in Canterbury, too.’
‘That’s very considerate of you, lass.’ Alfred Tetley sat down at the table opposite her. ‘So tell us all yer news. What’s life like in Cairo? Blooming ’ot, I should think.’
‘It’s nearly always hot, and at the moment there’s a windstorm blowing from the Sahara. I’ve been glad to get away from it for a few days. Before I tell you my news – and I haven’t really a lot – tell me all yours.’
Swirling hot water around in a teapot, Alice said, ‘Mine is that I have a ration book. I don’t know how people who don’t keep hens manage, as the egg allowance is only one egg a week. How can anyone do a week’s baking on only one egg a week? We’re all right because we have hens, but people living in Bradford back-to-backs can’t keep hens, can they?’
She tipped the water down the sink and spooned tea into the warmed pot. ‘And Sam Jowett has wed. She’s a nice lass – he brought her to Wilsden to meet us – but if Ella had behaved differently, it would have been Ella he’d married.’
For a dreadful moment Daphne thought Ella’s mother was about to burst into tears.
‘Nah then, luv,’ Alfred said gruffly. ‘The lass is ’appy. You can tell by her letters that she’s ’appy, and that’s what counts.’ To Daphne he said, ‘Sam’s joined up. He’s in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Lots of young men in Wilsden ’ave joined up as well. Most of ’em in West Yorkshire regiments. If I’d bin a bit younger, I’d ’ave joined up meself.’
‘And then ’itler would ’ave ’ad summat to worry abaht, wouldn’t ’e?’ Jos cackled with laughter. ‘Accordin’ to t’Telegraph & Argus, there’s goin’ ter be local Defence Volunteer units formed all over t’country. I’ll join the Wilsden one, Alfred. I want ter do me bit, just as much as you do.’
With the tea now mashed, Alice put the teapot on the table and sat down, saying, ‘Tell me what it’s like living in Cairo, Daphne. Are you near the Pyramids? Are there camels in the streets?’
‘We are near the Pyramids and from certain parts of Cairo there are spectacular views of them, and there are camels in the streets, though not as many as there are donkeys.’
‘And what do you do with your time? Do you go to lots of parties?’
‘A fair few.’ Daphne thought of the near-continual round of parties that made Cairo such a lively and scandalously racy diplomatic posting. ‘But I do other things as well. Donkeys and mules have a grim time of it in Cairo, as the Egyptians don’t have the same attitude to animals that we have. A British general’s wife has founded a hospital to care for the city’s ill-fed and exhausted animals and, along with other volunteers, I help out there a couple of afternoons a week. I also do voluntary work at an Anglican orphanage. Orphaned children in Cairo have as hard a time of it as the animals do.’
‘Aye, we’re lucky to have been born British,’ Alfred said fiercely. ‘And we’re not going to let ’itler overrun us, like he’s overrun the Poles. We’ve not been invaded since 1066 and we’re sure as ’eck not goin’ to be invaded again!’
‘And especially not by a little bloke with a funny moustache!’ Jos added, bringing his fist down hard on the table.
The crockery jumped and, anxious for its safety, Alice changed the subject. ‘You’ll stay for tea, Daphne? It won’t be anything fancy. Tinned salmon with some of Dad’s homegrown cucumber, and a mint-and-currant pasty made this morning.’
‘Sounds heaven.’ Having previously enjoyed slices of Alice’s mint-and-currant pasty, Daphne spoke with sincerity. ‘But I’ll have to leave in time to catch the seven o’clock London train.’
‘And until then you can tell us all about your little lad,’ Alfred said. ‘Our Ella said in one of her letters that ’is name is Caspian. Now ’ow in the name o’ glory did you come up wi’ a name like that?’
The next afternoon Daphne was two hundred and fifty-six miles away, in Canterbury. She had only ever met Kate’s parents a few times, and always only when they had travelled to Oxford and St Hilda’s to visit Kate. Unlike the Tetleys, they were, though, expecting her as Daphne had telephoned them from London.
Hilda Shelton hadn’t been interested in the Pyramids or camels. What she had been interested in was British diplomatic social life in Cairo, and whether Daphne and her husband had met the Egyptian royal family.
Truthfully, Daphne had been able to tell her that they had. ‘Although where King Farouk is concerned, only at official diplomatic gatherings. Unfortunately, Farouk and Sir Miles Lampson – Sir Miles is Britain’s Ambassador – don’t see eye-to-eye. Farouk is too pleasure-loving for Sir Miles’s taste, and meanwhile Farouk resents Britain’s presence in Egypt.’
‘And why are we there, Daphne? I don’t understand.’
Daphne was saved from giving Kate’s mother a mini-history lesson by her husband saying gently, ‘Egypt used to be one of our country’s many colonies, Hilda. After the last war we granted it independence, but because the Suez Canal is so vital to British interests, we’ve continued to keep a military presence there, isn’t that so, Daphne?’
Daphne said that it was so. In order to avoid being roped into explaining just why the Suez Canal was so vital to Britain’s interests, she turned the subject back to royalty. ‘The greatest royal party-giver in Cairo is Princess Shevakier. She was King Farouk’s father’s first wife and is very pro-British.’
‘Then I don’t suppose,’ Kate’s father interjected, ‘that she appreciates Egypt remaining neutral in the war we’re now engaged in. I find doing so very shabby, Daphne. Very shabby indeed.’
Daphne found it very shabby as well, and rather than give Mr Shelton more cause for concern, she didn’t mention that it was the general opinion in Cairo that if Egypt was to abandon its neutral stance, it wouldn’t be to come out on the side of Britain and France. It would be to come out on the side of Germany.
The train journey to London from Kent was much shorter than the train journey back from Yorkshire had been. With her self-appointed visits over, and feeling sure that both Kate and Ella would be glad she had made them, Daphne began thinking about Sholto and his intriguing summons to Whitehall.
Sholto was thirty-four; too young yet for an ambassadorship. Or was he? Someone would have to be the youngest UK ambassador ever, and why shouldn’t it be Sholto? As the Kent countryside flashed past the train windows, reality kicked in. There were other ranks still to achieve, before Sholto could hope for an ambassadorship. Presumably, though, after the meeting he had been asked to attend, he was now another rung closer to achieving his long-term aim. The question now was: with Europe in such disarray, where would his new posting be?
‘Well?’ she said as they met in the Dorchester hotel’s cocktail bar. ‘Is it promotion within the embassy at Cairo? Or are we on our travels again?’
‘We’re on our travels again,’ he said, an odd note in his voice.
It took quite a lot to discompose Sholto and she felt the first faint flickers of anxiety.
‘Am I going to need a stiff gin before you give me the news?’
‘Very probably.’
‘Dear God! It isn’t Berlin?’
‘Don’t be an ass, sweetheart. The Berlin Embassy hasn’t been operative since the outbreak of war. Let me get a couple of drinks in and then I’ll tell you.’
With risin
g impatience she waited until their drinks had been served and then said again, ‘Well?’
‘For a start off, I’m not being posted to an embassy. I’m being posted to a consulate.’
‘A consulate?’ Daphne stared at him in disbelief. ‘But isn’t that some kind of demotion? And what as? A consul?’
‘A vice-consul.’
She stared at him. There was concern on his face, but she could tell his concern wasn’t for himself, but for her, and how she was going to feel about being a consulate wife and not an embassy wife.
For several moments she fought an inner struggle. Privately she was appalled, but how could she let Sholto know that? For his sake, she had to be philosophical about it and make the best of a bad job.
Slipping her hand into his and feeling that she was behaving exceptionally well, she said, ‘Where is this consulate that’s so lucky to be having you?’
At the loyal way she had taken his news, the tension he’d been feeling eased. All he had to do now was give her the second part of his news. And he had no qualms at all about how she was going to receive it.
He savoured the moment for a few seconds longer, and then said: ‘Heraklion.’
Her jaw dropped. ‘Heraklion? Heraklion, Crete?’
He nodded.
She gave a whoop of such delight that heads turned and the buzz of conversation and laughter around them came to a temporary, startled halt.
‘Oh, but that’s brilliant, Sholto. Absolutely stupendous! I’ll be able to see Kate and Ella all the time.’
‘Not all the time. As a vice-consul’s wife, you will have duties.’
‘And whatever they are, I’ll perform them superbly.’
Knowing the reason for his posting to Crete, he felt a flash of guilt. It was one he quickly suppressed. However strategic the island, the likelihood of an attack on it by Germany was, surely, remote – and he was going there with the promise that, in the event of a threatened invasion, Daphne and Caspian would, along with all other British women and children, be speedily and safely evacuated to Cairo.
Beneath the Cypress Tree Page 28