After some light social chitchat about various personalities and wasn’t it a crush and wasn’t it hot, Freddie leaned forward. “’Fraid I’m a bit of an old-fashioned chap, Miss Chatterton. You know, believe in respecting one’s parents and all that. How d’you feel?”
“Oh, the same!” cried Daisy, thinking of her newfound, generous father.
“Thought that the minute I set eyes on you. Pretty gel but good. Not like some of these rackety types. Pater’s dead but I’m very fond of Mater. Lot of the chaps chaff me about it.”
“I think it’s a commendable feeling,” said Daisy stoutly. He looked so young and earnest.
“You know, I really like you awfully. Really, awfully terribly. You don’t mind my saying so?”
“Of course not. I think it’s very flattering.” Daisy felt her heart go out to this decent, amiable young man. Her mind raced on. It would be a comfortable marriage. Their love would grow in a sort of Darby and Joan way. No tremblings of passion, no tears, no hurt.
“Pater was in tea,” he said. “But tea’s not zactly trade, is it.”
Daisy shook her head. She had been long enough in her new world to hear people being damned as “being in trade” or “smelling of the shop.” But tea and beer were considered respectable.
“Mater, of course, says I shouldn’t mention tea because we’ve got simply pots of money and it’s not as if I need to work, or anything like that.”
Daisy experienced a slight qualm which she resolutely put down. All these young men seemed to drift from club to country house like the butterflies in summer. There always seemed to be a “mater” or aunt or uncle in the background to ensure that these lilies of the field should not have to earn an honest penny.
“We’ve got an awfully pretty place down at Henley. Love you to see it one day. I say, you don’t think I’m being bold or anything like that?”
Daisy smiled and shook her head. What a very correct and lovable young man!
He drew his chair closer to hers until their knees were almost touching. “Well… you see… gosh, this is difficult. Y’see, Miss Chatterton, I’m sort of bowled over in a sort of way. And… and… I’ve got this spanking new motor and thought perhaps we might take a toddle down to Henley on Saturday. The Mater would be frightfully bucked. Lonely, you know. Yes, yes. Lonely, that’s it Very solitary. Lonely, yes. Very lonely. All by herself. On her own, you know. Just herself… lonely…”
Whether from a desire to put an end to the “lonelys” or because she suddenly became aware that the Duke of Oxenden had just walked into the supper room, she was never to know, but Daisy gave an enthusiastic “yes.”
“I say,” gabbled the delighted Freddie. “Thanks most awfully.”
Daisy became aware of the Duke at her elbow and affected the introductions with pretty grace.
The Duke’s long fingers reached for her little dance card. “Dear me, Daisy, every single dance taken.”
“I’ve booked the next dance, the one right after supper, Duke. You can have mine if you like,” said Freddie generously. “Going to be seeing lots of Miss Chatterton, in any case.”
“You are indeed fortunate,” said the Duke, looking down at the young pair with an enigmatic stare. “Come, Daisy, the music is starting.”
Well aware of many jealous and speculative glances, Daisy moved onto the ballroom floor and into the Duke’s arms. He held her very closely and something seemed to happen to her breath, but Daisy decided it was because Amy had been overly zealous in tightening her stays.
“You are not already engaged to be married?” Daisy heard him ask.
She shook her head and stared at his waistcoat.
“Then what about that young man who is going to be seeing lots of you?”
Daisy raised her head. “Mr. Bryce-Cuddestone has asked me to go to Henley with him this Saturday to meet his mother,” she said proudly.
“What a fast mover for such a shy specimen of English manhood. Don’t tell me I am to lose my bet over Freddie Bryce-Cuddestone?”
“And why not?” flashed Daisy. “He is so—so comfortable and safe and—and—he doesn’t make any remarks to make me feel awkward.”
“Is that your recipe for true love?”
“I don’t know!” said Daisy, exasperated. “So I’m going to find out. So there!”
But the infuriating man only held her closer. His Grace, the Duke of Oxenden, was not what Daisy would call a comfortable man.
The dance seemed to finish very quickly, however, and Daisy was put into the arms of her next partner, who whirled her around and around with such energy that she felt positively dizzy. When she finally came to a breathless halt and looked around the crowded ballroom, she could see no sign of the Duke’s tall figure.
Freddie dutifully called on the Nottenstones the next morning to ask the Countess’s permission to take Daisy to Henley on Saturday. He then left, slightly dazzled with the warmth of his reception from the Countess, but, as she confided to the Earl later, the Countess was pleased to see that Daisy had netted an eligible suitor so quickly.
“Old Neddie is not exactly the most respectable of parents,” she said. “And then, of course, the girl appears to have no dowry. I must say I am surprised Neddie Chatterton even has enough to give her an allowance. The French casinos must be luckier for him than the English ones.”
“Probably still cheating,” said her husband dryly.
To Daisy’s disappointment Saturday turned out to be a damp, misty day. Beads of moisture gleamed on the shining paint work of the motorcar as she gingerly climbed in and waited for the chauffeur to crank up the engine. She was wearing a new light tweed motoring dress with a motoring hat which the Countess had assured her was the latest thing. It was like a magnified version of a man’s tweed cap and swathed in suffocating layers of veiling. After they had putt-putted decorously down the road for a few minutes, Daisy pushed back her veil. The damp air was making it stick uncomfortably to her face.
Henley itself was shrouded in heavy mist as if the town had taken to wearing the latest in motoring veils as well.
It had been a singularly quiet journey and all Daisy’s attempts at light conversation had been met with monosyllables. She decided he was nervous.
“Well… here we are,” burst out her companion finally. “You’ll soon meet the mater.” He turned and gave Daisy a singularly sweet smile and her spirits rose.
She felt mature and confident. Mrs. Bryce-Cuddestone was sure to like her. Her wedding dress would be of white satin with seed pearls. The bells of London Town would proclaim her married happiness. And the Duke of Oxenden would lose his bet.
Chapter Six
The motorcar swung into the driveway of an imposing Victorian mansion, hidden in a thick grove of trees to screen it from the vulgar gaze. It looked gray, cheerless, and forbidding. Daisy put it down to a trick of the weather.
They were ushered into a chilly drawing room by a cadaverous butler who informed then that he would ascertain whether Mrs. Bryce-Cuddestone was “at home.” Daisy looked at Freddie in surprise. Surely his mother was expecting them!
The drawing room reminded her of the parlor at The Pines, only on a larger scale. The mahogany furniture was more massive, the stuffed birds more predatory, and the marble statuary, colder. Heavy red cloths swathed the tables, heavy red cloth draped the mantel, and acid-green velvet screened the offending sight of the legs of an upright piano. A floral Wilton carpet was covered with coconut runner paths at strategic points, and three sets of curtains hid the damp garden from view: heavy red velvet ones on top, lace under those, and muslin ones underneath to trap the last bit of daylight.
A prickly, angular cactus swore at them from the empty fireplace and multiple photographs of various Bryce-Cuddestones glared at them from all points of the room.
There was a smell of dust, potpourri, and Brown Windsor soup.
Daisy was starting to feel irrationally guilty and was just beginning to wonder what on earth she had to f
eel guilty about, when the door opened and Mrs. Bryce-Cuddestone stood on the threshold.
She was a vast, imposing woman, rather like a figurehead on a tea clipper; all bosom and chin. She was dressed in black silk, ornamented here and there with various cameos of Greek ladies who also had large bosoms and thrusting chins. Her masses of iron-gray hair were set in rigid curls. She had obviously resorted to a mixture of sugar and water to get the effect, for little sugar crystals clung to various iron curls and tendrils like a kind of exotic dandruff.
Her opening words were—as Daisy was soon to find out—typical.
“Oh, my poor, deluded child,” she cried, moving majestically toward her son. “Another one?”
“But Miss Chatterton’s different, Mater,” said Freddie earnestly. “She believes in the sanctity of the home and all that.”
“Humph!” Mrs. Bryce-Cuddestone folded her large hands and swiveled her large pale eyes to survey Daisy.
“I should hope so,” she boomed. “Ours has always been a happy home. When Reginald was alive,”—here she produced a lilac handkerchief with a black border and held it under her massive nose—“there was nothing but happiness from morning till night.”
“I did not know you had been recently bereaved. I am so sorry,” said Daisy.
“It was only fifteen years ago when Reginald was taken from me,” went on her hostess. “I have been mother and father to that boy. The designing hussies he has brought to this house have been enough to break a mother’s heart.”
“Oh, I say, Mater!” bleated Freddie, but Daisy was already on her feet.
“I do not like the implication that I am another designing hussy,” she said in a high, thin voice. “Mr. Bryce-Cuddestone, I wish to leave.”
To her horror, Mrs. Bryce-Cuddestone burst into noisy tears. “I’ve gone to such trouble, Freddie. I’ve worked and slaved to have a very special luncheon for you, and now because I have been misunderstood, it will all go to waste.”
“Here, I say, Mater. I say, Daisy. I say, look here. Stay for luncheon. Can’t have tears. Buck up, Mater. She’s stayin’. Ain’t you, Daisy?”
Poor Daisy could only nod dumbly. Again she felt guilty and could not quite understand why.
“Luncheon is served,” came the tomblike voice of the butler from the doorway. Freddie held out his arm to his mother and Daisy trailed after them.
The dining room table was long and massive, an eternity of gleaming mahogany. At the halfway point there was a sort of crossroad made with two huge silver salt-and-pepper shakers and a fat silver epergne depicting a young Greek with his clothes being shredded by silver wolves.
Mrs. Bryce-Cuddestone sat at one end, Freddie at the other, and Daisy at the crossroad in the middle. The dining chairs were heavy and squat. Daisy sank down into the cushion of her chair and found that her chin was almost on a level with the table. Freddie and her hostess had similar chairs and they looked as if their heads had been served up at either end.
Conversation had to be carried on at the top of the voice, although, as Daisy reflected, it could hardly be called conversation. An interrogation was more like it. Did Miss Chatterton have a dowry? Was Miss Chatterton aware that the happiest married households had the mother-in-law in residence? Were the Earl and Countess of Nottenstone as rackety as she had been led to believe?
Daisy began to get quietly furious. She felt like a pot on a slow burner, gradually rising to the simmering point, and about to boil over any minute.
The meal was a perfect symphony of starch. A bowl of broth in which some animal had placed a paw, was piled high with potatoes and barley.
Then came a sliver of fish in a whole winter’s coat of breadcrumbs. Then a minuscule mutton chop cowering under a mountain of mashed potatoes and butter beans and then a Cabinet pudding which should never have been appointed to any table. The “full-bodied” wine tasted to even Daisy’s uneducated palate like vintage yesterday.
Mrs. Bryce-Cuddestone had obviously never heard the social law of not speaking with your mouth full. She talked steadily throughout the meal, posting away great quantities and lecturing Daisy on Freddie’s delicate constitution.
Reginald asked me, when he was dying, to send the boy to Eton. Me! Send my son to be mauled by a lot of rough boys! He always had his own tutor here in his beloved home. Are you wearing your flannel underwear, Freddie? We were so happy. Then Freddie ups and breaks my heart and says he is taking diggings in London and is going to find a wife. Did you ever hear of such ingratitude, Miss Chatterton? I could have chosen a nice local girl for him, but he needs to go chasing after flighty society girls.”
Mellowed by several glasses of the “full-bodied,” Mrs. Bryce-Cuddestone surveyed Daisy across the sea of mahogany. “I must say all the same, you seem like a nice, biddable little thing. Could be molded to the Bryce-Cuddestone manner. Yes. Yes. Could be formed as a sculptor forms a figure out of raw clay. I am very artistic.” She suddenly let out a cavernous yawn. “You have my permission to show her the garden, Freddie.”
Freddie looked like a child at Christmas. “Oh, I say, Mater. That’s simply ripping. Come along, Daisy. I may call you Daisy, mayn’t I? We’re going to see lots of each other.”
Daisy’s heart sank to her little kid boots. She followed Freddie out into the misty garden. He turned toward her, his face radiant.
“The mater likes you. Isn’t that marvelous? You must admit it’s the greatest compliment you’ve ever received.”
Now Daisy had been taught all her young life to respect her elders, so she bit back the angry reply on her lips. Freddie took her silence for acquiescence and maidenly modesty. “Let’s take the old bus out for a spin. I’ll drive you myself.”
Daisy agreed. The sound of the engine would at least prevent any lengthy conversation. They rattled out onto the road, Freddie in high spirits and Daisy in the depths of misery. What a horrid day it had turned out to be! And she had thought that she simply had to pick out a personable young man, marry him, and live happily ever after. She had not envisaged such unromantic obstacles as mothers-in-law.
They had gone a little way out of the town and were chugging along a country road through the thickening mist when Daisy spied three still figures lying beside the road. “Oh, do stop!” She put her hand on Freddie’s arm. “Someone’s had an accident.”
Freddie stopped and looked over his shoulder. “I wouldn’t worry about that,” he said. “Let’s go on.”
Daisy looked at him in amazement. “There are three people just lying beside the road.”
“Let them lie,” said Freddie, and then sighed heavily. Daisy was already out of the motor and running back along the road.
The three figures, a man, woman, and small child, lay in the thick grass beside the ditch. Beads of mist rimed their hair and their torn and shabby clothes. The woman clutched the tiny child to her emaciated bosom. All three were dead.
With a small whimper Daisy drew back. “What on earth happened?” she sobbed to Freddie, who had come up behind her. He shuffled his feet awkwardly. “Starved to death, I should say. Pretty common, you know. Parish’ll come along to pick ’em up. Let’s go. You can’t do anything for them now.”
Daisy walked slowly back to the motorcar. She found that her hands were shaking. “How on earth can people just starve to death in England?”
“They do it all the time,” said Freddie cheerfully. “Not around your part of London, of course. Fact is, they’re lazy. Simply won’t work, you know. Poverty’s like a disease. They can’t seem to shake it off.”
Daisy desperately wanted to believe him. But the picture of the little child’s emaciated, claw-like hand as it had died clutching its mother’s coat swam in front of her eyes. “But a little child,” she whispered.
“Nasty for you,” said Freddie sympathetically. “Put it out of your mind. Better get back soon. Mater’ll have had her nap.”
Daisy had been mild and meek all her young life, but she was suddenly flooded with such strong h
atred for the mater that she thought she would faint. What on earth was happening in the world? She had seen enough food thrown away after a house party to have kept that poor family for a year!
As Freddie parked the motor in the gloomy driveway he whispered, “No need to trouble Mater with our little adventure. She’s very sensitive, you know.”
Daisy thought privately that Mrs. Bryce-Cuddestone showed all the sensitivity of an overfed water buffalo and bit her lip.
This time mater was waiting for them in the drawing room, fortifying herself from the sherry decanter. She twinkled at them with a roguishness hideous to behold. “Ah, now what have my two young things been up to?” She wagged a playful finger at them. “Have a glass of sherry, Daisy. I have told the housekeeper to bring the books and we’ll go over them together.”
“Why?” asked Daisy, made bold by a sudden spasm of fear.
“Why! So that you will learn how to run a mansion such as this, my dear. I am sure you will prove an apt pupil.”
Daisy felt the prison walls closing about her.
“I do not think it necessary to go to such trouble since the running of—of your household is no concern of mine,” she faltered.
Mrs. Bryce-Cuddestone put down her glass so forcefully that she nearly broke the stem. “My dear girl,” she snapped, “I gathered that you had accepted my son’s proposal of marriage and since you seemed such a pleasant girl, I decided to overlook your unfortunate family background. Father, you know.”
Daisy’s eyes filled with tears as she thought of her generous father who faithfully sent her allowance to Curzon every month. She got to her feet. “Your son did not propose and had he done so, I would not have accepted.”
“Oh, I say!” bleated Freddie.
“Furthermore,” went on Daisy, quite pink with anger, “it is very rude of you to insult my father. I wish to leave. Immediately!”
Mrs. Bryce-Cuddestone’s face turned puce then purple. She emitted a few strangled noises and then began to scream and drum her heels on the floor.
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