In Ambrose’s study, sitting by the fire, as Daisy literally and metaphorically drew in breath to begin, he interrupted to offer her tea. She said she didn’t want any, but he rang the bell. Now she had to wait until his elderly parlormaid arrived. But while the kettle boiled on the old range, while the potato cakes were browning in the cast iron skillet, while Ambrose continued to be as witty and amusing as though he had a large and appreciative audience, while Kitty carried the heavy tray along the flagged corridor and across the hall, Daisy had time to think.
Kitty set down the tea tray on a low table in front of the fire. Daisy waited until Ambrose leaned down to put the silver hot water jug on the hearthstone before she spoke.
“Guess who I ran into in London? A friend of yours.”
***
AFTER DAISY’S FAILURE to find Heskith at the defeated and dying house near Farnham, she had gone home. Afterward she had no memory of the journey back to her parents’ house.
“Are you all right, dear? You look very pale,” her mother asked, her usually preoccupied expression now one of concern.
“I’m fine; I have a bit of a headache.”
“Too much sun. Why don’t you go upstairs and I’ll bring you an aspirin.”
Ever since Daisy could remember, her mother, seemingly oblivious to the dangers of tuberculosis, infantile paralysis, or diphtheria—the not common but always possible and often fatal illnesses of childhood—had protected her and Joan against sunstroke and from indigestion caused by eating cucumber and freshly baked bread.
Now, for the first time, Daisy agreed that she might have overdone the sun, and allowed herself to be sent upstairs to bed. The next morning she claimed a residual headache and, by the evening, was composed enough to rejoin the subdued tempo of rectory life.
Dinner was silent until Daisy’s father asked her about her plans. To cut off a renewed discussion of her ration book, Daisy, speaking without thought, said that she was looking forward to spending a week with her family and that then she must return to Ireland. It was only as she spoke that she realized that this was what she was going to do, should do, had no choice but to do. She felt guilty and deceitful returning to the house she had left—fortunately not announcing her departure as permanent—as though returning to a betrayed husband after she had been rejected by a lover. Being rejected by a lover, she thought, would be a couple of steps up from finding out that the identity of that lover was not substantial enough for her to consider herself rejected.
Daisy allowed herself to be lazy and indulged by her parents for the rest of the week. She lay on a sofa in the study pretending to read as her father wrote letters and dealt with parish business; she sat on a stool in the kitchen, doing small pleasant tasks—podding beans, chopping parsley—while her mother cooked; afternoons were spent in her grandmother’s sitting room, listening to the wireless and eating biscuits. She went to bed early and then woke in the night and tried to think of one moment in the future for which she felt any enthusiasm.
She left the rectory in the late morning of the following Tuesday to take a train to London in order to take the boat train from Paddington. On Monday morning she had gone to the post office and withdrawn the remains of her pre-war savings account—thirty-five shillings—just enough to make up the difference between what she had in her purse and the fare back to Ireland. Having so little money made her feel young, vulnerable, and frightened.
Paddington Station was crowded and noisy. Daisy bought her ticket and then, not quite sure which platform she should go to, stood still as the crowd surged around her. The faces of the passers-by were set and preoccupied. She wished there were someone she could ask for directions but the only person she could see wearing a Great Western uniform was behind a grilled counter with a long queue waiting for her attention.
Then she saw him. Quite close to where she was standing, he was looking up at the board that announced departure times of trains and the platform from which they were to leave. She watched him, not moving, as the rush of adrenaline coursed through her body, until he turned in a direction that would take him away from her, into the crowd of monotone uniforms. Without a thought for her suitcases, she pushed her way through the ungiving crowd until she could stretch out a hand to touch him on the arm. At her first touch he didn’t react, unable to differentiate her attempt to grab hold of him from the jostling of other passengers struggling through the station. Daisy reached out again, this time even less effectually. She felt as though she were in a particularly painful recurrent dream, one about loss, abandonment, and powerlessness. Then, for a moment, the crowd in front of her opened a little and she pushed her way forward, earning an elbow in her ribs from a red-faced middle-aged woman with two heavy shopping bags. She was at his side, then a little ahead of him when he saw her. He stopped, so did she; around them the crowd subtly adapted its course, now accommodating them in its flow.
His expression was one of mild puzzlement; it continued long enough for Daisy to consider the possibility that he didn’t recognize her. Then for a shorter moment his look was one of shock and fear before he smiled and expressed surprise and pleasure. Daisy found herself tongue-tied as she realized that if this was his reaction to an accidental meeting, how much greater would have been those emotions if she had succeeding in arriving on his actual doorstep rather than following a wild-goose chase to Farnham.
“Mrs. Nugent—Daisy, what are you doing here?”
Daisy, seeing how impossible the truth was, that she had crossed the Irish Sea to find him, said that she was taking the boat train on her way back to Ireland.
“Where is your luggage?” he asked, his question, though pedestrian, not unreasonable.
Daisy gestured vaguely behind her.
“Let me help you with it,” he said. His face was still pale but his voice was steady.
Daisy followed him back through the now slightly abated crowd to where she had abandoned her suitcases. She felt numb and shocked and very stupid, ashamed that she might have imagined he would have welcomed her arrival, planless, to cast herself on his mercies. She now knew three things with absolute certainty: that he was complicit in the murder of Sir Guy Wilcox; that whatever his name was, it wasn’t Andrew Heskith; and that she wasn’t going to confront him with either of these facts. Even less likely was she to tell him that she loved him to an extent that made the rest of her life essentially meaningless. He had called her Mrs. Nugent before he realized that after their night together it would have been kinder to seem to think of her by her Christian name. She followed him as he picked up both her suitcases and made off in the direction of the platform. He bought a platform ticket and they went onto the comparatively uncrowded area beside which the train waited.
“Thank you so much,” she said, giving him leave to go although she was silently crying out for him to stay, to make a sign, to say something, to touch her.
“Let me see you onto the train,” he said, and carried her suitcases up the steps and into the carriage. He lifted them onto the overhead rack and turned toward her. She stood between him and the door to the compartment. She knew it was the last possible moment to say anything but, although she drew in breath to speak, there was nothing to say. He looked at her inquiringly and, losing her last chance, she lowered her eyes.
“Good-bye,” he said, shaking her hand. Daisy looked at him imploringly and after a moment he took her head in both his hands, kissed her briefly on the forehead, and left the carriage.
“YOU’LL NEVER GUESS. Andrew Heskith.”
Having set the silver jug by the fire to keep warm, Ambrose slowly rose to an upright position. His face was a little darker than his usual high blood pressure, too much whiskey, weatherbeaten ruddiness. Kitty stood patiently by his side; Ambrose started to pour the tea.
“Really?—Milk? Sugar?—In London?”
“Milk, no sugar, please. Yes, I ran into him at Paddington Station.”
“By accident then?” Ambrose asked, his tone and expression car
efully casual.
“These potato cakes are wonderful. I wonder if your cook would give me the recipe? I really have to do something about the food at Dunmaine—when I get back. I wanted to talk to you about that.”
“Thank you, Kitty, that will be all,” Ambrose said.
“May I have a little more milk?” Daisy said, delaying Kitty as she turned to go.
There was a pause while Ambrose waited to hear more. Daisy said nothing, waiting until she could be sure there was enough tension for Kitty to register it. As the maid reached the door, Daisy spoke again.
“I need to ask your advice,” she said at last.
“Anything,” Ambrose said. Daisy thought his casual tone concealed a measure of relief.
“And help,” she added firmly. “It’s about Dunmaine.”
Daisy noticed with amusement Ambrose’s almost concealed relief changing to almost concealed irritation.
“Yes,” he said, “I’ll be happy, of course, to do anything within my power to help you.”
“I’m sure that will be more than enough,” Daisy said, her tone a little firmer than that she usually employed when speaking with Ambrose. “It’s important that we start the repairs and rebuilding as soon as possible. Before the weather gets bad and Edmund gets stuck with us—Mickey and Maud and me—for the winter—”
“These things take time—” Ambrose said cautiously. It was clear to Daisy that he had not even thought of work starting on Dunmaine until spring. She realized that if she weren’t determined it was more than possible that Dunmaine would never be repaired and would, in a year or two, become just another ruin. It was possible, this also a new consideration, that this was what Ambrose, as executor of the estate, with equal parts idleness and pragmatism, was planning. The insurance collected, the house knocked down—or more likely left to crumble on its own—and the land sold. The estate wound up, Ambrose relieved of his responsibilities, and the Nugents forced to make an evolutionary leap into the postwar realities of the twentieth century. It wasn’t necessarily a bad idea; but it was not what Daisy wanted.
“I know they do,” she said sweetly. “That’s why I need your help. Since you are the executor. I need to hurry along the insurance, pin down a builder, arrange for the bank to let us have enough of the insurance money in advance to pay him. Then I want to move back and start taking in PGs seriously.”
“Look here, Daisy, it mayn’t be quite as easy as that.”
“I think it is, once we put our minds to it.”
“But—”
“I wonder—could I have another cup of tea?”
And as Ambrose reached for the teapot, Daisy pushed her advantage.
“So if you get started on that, I’ll tell the maids they’ll be back at work before Christmas. I’ve taken the opportunity to dismiss Mrs. Mulcahy.”
“You’ve sacked Mrs. Mulcahy?” Ambrose’s eyes widened with admiration.
“Yes, it was obvious she wasn’t interested in learning how to cook well and, as you said, there’s no use in having PGs unless you’re prepared to feed them properly.”
“But where’re you going to get all these PGs?”
“I thought I’d ask you to help with that, too.” Daisy paused, and smiled as she said with no particular emphasis, “You were so good at it last time.”
THREE DAYS AFTER Daisy’s visit to Dysart Hall, Ambrose arrived at Shannig with a Labrador puppy and the news that the bank had agreed to a loan against the insurance payment so that repairs could be started right away on Dunmaine. He had already spoken to a builder who would come, the following day, to see Daisy and make arrangements to begin work. It wouldn’t, of course, be quite as easy as that, but Daisy was ready to meet each problem and battle of wills as it came up.
“He’s almost house-trained,” he said, handing her the puppy. “I brought him just in case the builders aren’t inconvenience enough. Last time I had them in, I had no staff and couldn’t be doing with making them pots of tea so I gave them gin. They stayed for three months.”
Ambrose stayed for tea and then a little gin. Corisande sat beside him, talking of people and places that Daisy didn’t know and, it seemed, pointedly excluding her from the conversation. She sounded overbright and amusing in a high-strung way; it seemed to Daisy that an unhappy anger lay just below the surface of her charm. When Edmund came in a little late for tea, two pink patches began to appear on Corisande’s cheekbones, and she snapped irritably at him when he made a fuss of the puppy at Daisy’s feet. He smiled at her without quite paying attention, poured himself a cup of tea, and sat heavily on a chair at Ambrose’s end of the sofa. They started to talk about the price of bullocks and whether Edmund should introduce sheep into the higher fields bordering the moorland. Corisande remained silent, her knuckles white where she held her cup. After a little while Edmund stood up.
“Time to introduce this little fellow to my dogs and find him somewhere to sleep.”
Ambrose stood up also and followed him out toward the stables. Daisy rose when they did and went upstairs; she had no wish to be left alone with her jealous sister-in-law.
Daisy sat beside the window writing to Patrick and her grandmother. The window was open to the summer evening and she listened for the crunch of gravel that would announce the return of the two men. But Edmund came back to the house alone through the side door and went straight upstairs to change for dinner.
The evenings were becoming shorter and the light was pale and faded when they sat down to dinner. Corisande was coldfaced and silent; a sulk was in progress.
“Your puppy is a nice little lad, comes from a good line,” Edmund said cheerfully, seemingly oblivious to the tension in the room. “What are you going to call him?”
“I hadn’t even thought of that yet; I’ve been describing him for Patrick.”
It seemed possible that Edmund and Daisy might be condemned to spending the rest of the meal thinking of possible names for the dog and occasionally, and rhetorically, tossing a “What do you think?” at the silent Corisande.
“I’ve been writing to Patrick, too,” Corisande said, the breaking of her silence ensuring the complete attention of the other two. “I wasn’t quite sure whether I should mention your trip to England, Daisy. I didn’t know what you’d told him.”
Daisy looked at Corisande, startled. She wasn’t sure how to reply. It would be easy to tell the truth, that she had spent the ten days at her parents’ house, but she was less concerned about her ability to answer Corisande’s implied question than the accusation that lay behind it. She was afraid that a disingenuous reply would enrage Corisande’s jealousy to further and possibly more accurate accusations. And she was well aware that any words spoken, even in anger, could never be unsaid and would make her position in the Nugent family uncomfortable and her continuing stay at Shannig impossible. Nevertheless, it was the first time Corisande had made her the specific target of her spite and Daisy thought it might be as well to make sure it was the last.
“Whyever not?” she asked pleasantly and not at all as though she were calling a bluff.
“Shut up, Corisande,” Edmund said before Corisande managed to say a word. His tone was firm, reasonable, and seemed totally lacking in anger. “Shut up and, for a change, think before you speak.”
“I only—” Although the malice in Corisande’s voice was still there, it had become defensive.
“Don’t be vulgar. How would you like it if Daisy started asking you impertinent questions? You and I, or even Mickey here”—for a moment they all looked at the startled Mickey—“have things we don’t necessarily want dragged out and discussed in public.”
Corisande flushed. Daisy braced herself for a show of temper before she realized that her sister-in-law was instead holding back tears. Daisy thought of the unpaid dressmaker’s bills, the bits and pieces sold off from around the house, and was reasonably sure that these were not the secrets that Corisande was thinking about. It seemed more likely that she and Edmund were thinking
of a secret of his that Corisande would prefer not to know, a secret that might have grave consequences for him and would ruin her dreams of prosperity and security. Edmund certainly knew that Daisy had seen the gun that he—or had it been Corisande?—had concealed it in the dressing case and had chosen not to speak of it. Ambrose must have told him about Daisy’s visit to Dysart Hall and her certainty that he would comply with her wishes. Edmund had plenty of nerve, although perhaps not as much as Ambrose.
Daisy was reasonably sure that all three of them—and perhaps even Mickey (who knew how much he knew?)—were, in quite different ways, thinking of Ambrose.
Chapter 22
THE SHORTEST DAY of the year. Daisy looked down at the frozen field that sloped away from the end of the lawn. The ground was hard, frozen solid. In the morning there had been a crisp white frost that made the remaining blades of grass appear to retain some promise of life; now they lay, yellow and brown, lower to the ground and offering no possibility of sustenance to cattle or horses. The day had been cold, bright, and sunny, but now, well before the end of the afternoon, the shrubbery Daisy was leaving was already dark.
Daisy’s arms were full of holly, the branches hard and cold, the leaves green, dark, and alive, and with fewer berries than Daisy had hoped for. Tomorrow, perhaps, she could add some mistletoe to the Christmas decorations she was arranging at Dunmaine. But since the mistletoe grew on the high inaccessible branches of an ash, she would need help with it. A ladder or, more likely, a well-thrown rope. Patrick had written about mistletoe in his first letter to her at Dunmaine, a letter written not a week after their marriage.
Daisy sighed. There were often now days that seemed overloaded with symbols of the past, or a little too heavy with irony to be quite fair. Then, a moment later, she smiled as Conrad, the black Labrador—no longer quite a puppy—came out of the bushes to meet her.
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