The Proprietor's Daughter

by Lewis Orde

  The front-page message of gratitude to the troops who had recovered the Falkland Islands and rescued the eighteen hundred residents from a government and culture under which they did not wish to live, was attributed to the proprietor, management, and staff of Eagle Newspapers Limited.

  Peg Parsons chose that moment to come in from the kitchen, carrying a plate of buttered toast. She saw Roland sitting rigidly in the chair, his mouth open, the paper torn, and she feared that he was suffering a stroke.

  “Mr. Eagles, what is it?”

  Roland recovered quickly. “Nothing, Mrs. Parsons. Nothing that a telephone call will not cure.” He left the table and dialed Sally’s number from the extension in the drawing room.

  Sally, voice thick with sleep, answered on the fourth ring. “Yes, Roland.”

  “How did you know it was me?”

  “Who else would ring so early to moan about the front page?”

  Anger surged over Roland. Sally was patronizing him. They all were, damn it! Gently poking fun at him while they went over his head. “Is this what you meant by the world being a better place this morning? How dare you make this gesture of apology on my behalf? I will be at the Eagle at ten o’clock. I want to see you when I arrive. I want to see Lawrie Stimkin as well.”

  Sally let Roland run out of steam before saying, “Lawrie won’t be in until midday, and after last night, neither will I. I am utterly exhausted.”

  “Yes, I can see where all this playing charades could be exhausting.”

  “Roland?”

  “Yes.”

  “Buzz off!” And the telephone went dead in his ear.

  Roland was in his office on the executive floor of the Eagle building by ten o’clock. There was no sign of Sally or Stimkin. He sat in the office for two hours, but he was not bored. The switchboard put through one telephone call after another. Readers, advertisers, half a dozen Members of Parliament, even military people. Each caller was full of praise for the dramatic front page, and the moving tribute to the men who had fought for freedom. Faced with the choice of accepting the praise, or denying any knowledge of the page, Roland took the easy route. He accepted the praise.

  At ten minutes after twelve, as Roland replaced the receiver on what he estimated was the fiftieth call, Sally walked into the office. With her were Lawrie Stimkin and Katherine. They looked as if they were going to a funeral. Katherine was dressed in a navy blue suit and white silk blouse. Sally wore a black dress, with a tiny emerald pin. Stimkin, his gloomy air complemented by a dark brown suit, could have been the undertaker.

  “You wanted to see us?” Sally asked in a voice that was icily sweet.

  “I wanted to see you and him. Why is Katherine here?”

  “Because it was her idea to switch the front page.”

  “I see. Would you mind telling me why you went to the trouble of staging this elaborate confidence trick?”

  Stimkin answered first. “As editor, that was the front page I wanted. I felt everyone else would have front pages depicting victory and surrender. I wanted ours to be more meaningful.”

  Roland looked at Sally. “And you?”

  “I’m editorial director. I obviously wanted what was best for the Eagle, and that page was it.”

  At last, Roland turned to his daughter. “I suppose you’re also going to claim this undying allegiance to the Eagle.”

  “No. I’m going to claim allegiance to my father. I was fed up with watching him make a fool of himself. You talked about Mrs. Thatcher and the Argentines painting themselves into corners. You did the same thing. And the only way to get you out was to offer you the route you couldn’t see for yourself.”

  “Arguing with you was impossible,” Sally broke in. “And if we hadn’t done anything, your own stubbornness would have caused a catastrophe. The way advertising was going, the paper would have had to close. We had hundreds of jobs to protect. Not to mention lives and property, with all the animosity your stand was causing. That was why we took matters into our own hands.”

  “The switchboard operator said that you’ve had dozens of complimentary calls on the front page,” Stimkin said.

  “A few,” Roland admitted.

  “I think,” Katherine said, “that you owe the three of us an apology, and a thank you.”

  “We’ll forgo the apology,” Sally added, “but we would like to hear a thank you.”

  “I came here this morning to . . . to . . .” Roland spread his hands helplessly. “I don’t know what I was going to do. But I was certainly not planning to thank you for anything.” He paused. “Thank you. Thank you for going over my head. Thank you for making a conciliatory statement on my behalf.”

  “Lunch would be a nice show of gratitude,” Sally said.

  Stimkin passed; he had work to do, but Katherine eagerly backed Sally’s proposal. They went to a restaurant overlooking Tower Bridge and the Thames. Roland traveled in Sally’s sports car, while Katherine rode alone in the Porsche. While the wine was being poured, Roland said, “I’m glad Lawrie didn’t come, because I could never have made this toast with him here.” He raised his glass. “To two of the three most important women in my life. I love you both very dearly.”

  Sally gave Katherine a querying look. “Should we tell him how we feel about him?”

  “I don’t know. Lunch is just the start. Let’s see what else we can take him for first.”

  “No. Put him out of his misery.”

  Katherine turned to her father. “You’re obstinate, obstreperous, cantankerous, and bloody-minded to the core. Notwithstanding all that, we still love you.”

  Roland beamed. The years Katherine had seen imprinted on his face fell away. His back straightened; sparkle returned to his eyes. He was her father again, middle-aged and vibrant.

  They left the restaurant just before three. Sally sped away, leaving Katherine caught at lights. When she cleared them, Sally’s car was nowhere in sight. Katherine took her time, thinking over what had happened that day. Her father angry at first over the way he had been duped, and then coming around to admit they’d done the right thing. She smiled . . . just because Roland owned the paper didn’t mean that they’d let him run it.

  A demonstration was taking place outside the Eagle building. Katherine saw flags and placards being waved as she turned onto the street. She read one slogan — “Saying Sorry Is Not Enough” — before her eyes picked up something else. Crossing the street from the parking lot to the building entrance were Roland and Sally. Their stride was purposeful; they had no intention of being deterred by the twenty young pickets.

  “It’s him!” yelled a youth in jeans and denim jacket. “It’s Eagles!”

  Other demonstrators took up the cry, turning it into a parody of a soccer-crowd chant. “Eagles for Argentina! Eagles for Argentina!”

  Katherine saw her father and Sally push through the mob. The uniformed doorman came out to lend assistance. Behind him were two maintenance men; one swung a length of pipe, the other carried an adjustable wrench. For a few steps, the crowd gave. Then Katherine watched it swallow Sally and Roland. She pressed down on the horn, floored the Porsche’s gas pedal, and aimed for the edge of the mob, where it had spilled into the road.

  The crowd disintegrated like bomb fragments. Placards were dropped as their owners ran from the car. Roland and Sally were pulled into the building by the doorman and the maintenance workers. Hurtling at forty miles an hour down the narrow street, Katherine saw two of the demonstrators right in front of her, arms and legs pumping as if they could outrun the Porsche. At the very last moment, when it seemed that nothing could prevent the car from smashing the two youths aside, Katherine jerked the steering wheel to the left. The car slewed across the road and smashed into a lamppost. The seat belt kept Katherine from being thrown through the windshield, but it did not save her from injury. Her knees cracked against the bottom of the dashboard; her head slammed into the steering wheel. She managed to unfasten the seat belt, open the door, and stagger o
ut of the car before collapsing, unconscious, onto the road.

  *

  Katherine came to in a hospital bed. She ached from head to foot. Her forehead was bandaged, her ribs strapped, her left leg immobilized. Every breath sent painful spasms rocketing through her chest.

  A nurse entered the private room and gave Katherine a smile. “You’re very lucky to be here. Your seat belt saved your life.”

  “What did I break?” Even whispered speech hurt.

  “A couple of ribs. Your left knee’s badly bruised and twisted, and you dented your skull. Other than that, you’re in great shape. Feel up to seeing visitors?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Roland and Sally entered the ward. Roland tried to hide his concern with a joke. “I’m not buying you any more cars if you’re going to drive them like that.”

  “I was worried about you and Sally.”

  “Of course. So, quite naturally, you drove straight into a lamppost.”

  Katherine started to laugh, then stopped as pain tore through her chest. “I was trying to run down a couple of those louts. At the very last moment, sanity prevailed, and I took evasive action. Who were they, the League?”

  “Who else?” Roland retorted.

  “How long will I be here?”

  “A couple of days for observation. The doctors are having difficulty in believing that anyone got out of that car alive.”

  “It’s not a complete write-off,” Sally said cheerfully. “They can probably save the rear bumper.”

  Roland nodded. “Even I don’t drive like that on purpose.”

  Katherine screwed her eyes shut, the first movement that did not cause pain. She was going to take a lot of teasing about this accident, but she didn’t care. She had wrecked the Porsche because it was the only way to save Roland and Sally from the mob. On any balance sheet, that was a worthwhile trade.

  The following afternoon, Jimmy Phillips and Edna came to see her, bringing with them enough fruit and candy to open a store. She gave them the good news that she would be discharged the next day. Erica Bentley and a crowd of people from the Eagle also visited, eating most of the fruit and candy while they sat around the bed and gossiped about the newspaper. In the late afternoon, Roland and Sally returned. When they left at seven-thirty, Katherine, expecting no more visitors, closed her eyes and wished for sleep. Two minutes later, she opened them with a start. Raymond Barnhill stood in the doorway. He was breathing heavily, and appeared disoriented. In his hand was a small suitcase, and pasted across his face was a big grin.

  “Made it, by damn!” he burst out, and practically fell into the room.

  Katherine stared at him in amazement. “Have you just come from New York?”

  “You bet. Concorde.”

  “Concorde? That’s expensive.”

  Barnhill waved off Katherine’s protest. “I’ll worry about it when American Express bills me next month. You should have seen it — we landed at ten after six, I got through immigration and customs, and the guy who taught Jackie Stewart to drive was behind the wheel of the cab that brought me here.” Dropping the suitcase onto the floor, he leaned over the bed and kissed Katherine. “How the hell are you?”

  The concern in his drawn face brought tears to Katherine’s eyes. “God, I’ve missed you,” she whispered into his chest. “But how did you know I was here?”

  “Edna, when I called last night. She said you’d been injured in an accident. I was first in line at Kennedy Airport this morning. What happened?”

  “I tried to run down a couple of young Nazis from the British Patriotic League. They were assaulting my father and Sally outside the Eagle building, all to do with this business over the Falklands war. I missed them both, but I did score a bull’s eye on a lamppost.”

  “You wear out cars like other people go through socks. Are you going to ask your father for another one out of petty cash?”

  “You are lucky that I’m flat on my back.”

  “I wouldn’t have said it if you were on your feet. How long are you going to be stuck here?”

  “Until tomorrow. Are you moving in with me?”

  Barnhill tapped the suitcase with his foot. “Think they’d let me?”

  “No. You’d better telephone Edna and let her know you’re in town. She’ll prepare a room for you.”

  “She already knows. I told her last night that I’d fly over to see you.”

  “She never mentioned a word to me.”

  “I asked her not to say anything. I wanted to surprise you.” He hopped from one foot to the other. “I got through the airport so fast, I didn’t have time to —”

  “Turn left and straight down the hall.”

  “Thanks,” Barnhill said as he bolted from the room.

  Little more than a minute later, the door opened. “That was quick,” Katherine started to say, and then she stopped. It was not Barnhill who stood there.

  “That was a wild piece of driving,” John Saxon said as he walked into the room and sat down next to Katherine’s bed. “Were you trying to kill yourself?”

  Saxon was the last person Katherine expected to see, and the very last person she wanted to see. But short of asking him to leave, there was little she could do but be polite. “On the contrary, John, I was trying to save a couple of people from being killed.”

  “According to newspaper reports, that was a very nasty demonstration.”

  “It was the grand finale of ten weeks of very nasty demonstrations, ranging from abusive letters to libel, arson, and assault and battery.”

  Saxon gave a disarming shrug of the shoulders, a tight little smile. “Katherine, you can’t say that no one warned you and your father what might happen.”

  “Why did you come here, John? To visit me, or to gloat?” Over Saxon’s shoulder, she saw Barnhill take one step into the small room, then freeze when he recognized the visitor.

  “It was your father’s obstinacy that stirred up all this trouble.”

  “My father’s courage in sticking to his beliefs was only partly responsible.”

  “Oh? What was primarily responsible?”

  “Your right-wing friends in Parliament. People like Daniel Cooper and Edwin Johnson give a mantle of respectability to hate groups like the League.”

  Saxon, still unaware of Barnhill’s presence, smiled patronizingly. “Do you really believe that?”

  “Of course I do. When politicians start wrapping themselves in the flag, they give bigots the green light to do the same thing. You can hide an awful lot of hate behind a waving flag.”

  “Katherine, that is a ridiculous claim to make.”

  Barnhill came right into the room. “Like hell it is. I’ve seen it happen in the States often enough. Whenever the right’s in power, Klan activity increases. So does acceptance of them.”

  “I was wondering who owned this suitcase,” Saxon said. He stood up to face Barnhill, running his eyes over the rumpled sportcoat and trousers, the scuffed loafers.

  Saxon’s steady, appraising gaze made Barnhill uncomfortable. “Are you looking for anything in particular?”

  “Not really. I’m just trying to understand what attracted Katherine to an unkempt clown like you.”

  “John!” A stab of pain seared Katherine’s chest as she fairly shouted his name. “You have no call to speak to Raymond like that.”

  Saxon, keeping his eyes on Barnhill, ignored Katherine’s objections. “What’s that word they use in your part of the world? A wonderfully descriptive word. Oh, yes. Redneck.”

  Again Katherine protested. “John! Apologize to Raymond at once!” Her voice changed to a shriek. “No . . .!”

  She was too late. Barnhill bunched his right hand into a fist, drew it back with methodical slowness, then launched it in the general direction of Saxon’s face. Saxon tried to duck. The punch caught him a glancing blow on the cheek, and sent him stumbling back to the wall. Before he could recover, Barnhill grabbed him by the collar of his jacket, held open the door, and s
hoved him through it.

  “Get out, and don’t bother coming back.”

  Saxon regained his balance in the hallway. He stared at Katherine through watery eyes, undecided whether to speak. Barnhill denied him the chance by closing the door in his face.

  Breathing heavily, Barnhill sat down in the chair Saxon had been using. He opened and closed his right hand tentatively, as though checking for broken bones. “I’m sorry, Katherine, but I’ve wanted to do that from the moment I met him. Your husband’s funeral wasn’t the right place; neither was that party at your house. Or that time at the hotel. So I figured, what better place to give that arrogant jerk a fat lip than a hospital?”

  She offered him a hand to hold. “That doesn’t answer why.”

  “I like being called a redneck about as much as you like being accused of having been born with a silver spoon in your mouth. I put up with enough of it when I was with IPA, all those northern hotshots who thought there was nothing but tobacco farms and white-lightning stills below the Mason-Dixon line.”

  “If I hadn’t been stuck in this bed, I’d have hit him for what he said to you.”

  Although he shrugged off Katherine’s confession, Barnhill felt relieved. Saxon had always made him unsure of himself. Saxon’s wealth, position, but most of all what he had meant to Katherine, all combined to make Barnhill feel at a disadvantage. He had never been able to shed the anxiety that Katherine might still feel something for the property developer.

  Until now.

  *

  Katherine returned home the following day with nothing to do but wait for bones to knit and cuts and bruises to heal. Barnhill stayed the weekend before flying back to New York on the Monday.

  Two months later, when Katherine had recovered fully from the accident, Barnhill returned for a surprise ten-day visit. When Katherine asked the reason, he gave her three.

  “The Eagle owed me vacation time. Secondly, I’m done with The Squad, and that entitles me to a vacation with all the trimmings. And I wanted to see how well you were mending.”