The Proprietor's Daughter

by Lewis Orde

  For five days, Barnhill devoted himself to Henry and Joanne, who were in the middle of their summer break. He took them cruising along the Thames and sightseeing in a helicopter. In turn, Joanne made him go riding with her, and Henry persuaded him to sit through a cricket match.

  The remaining five days were reserved for Katherine. Barnhill hired a car, and they drove west, staying at small hotels in picturesque areas of Devon and Cornwall. In Plymouth, while sitting where Sir Francis Drake had played bowls before setting sail to defeat the Spanish Armada, Katherine asked Barnhill about his plans.

  “Once your contract for ‘Glimpses of America’ is up, and you come back to England, will you devote yourself full-time to writing?”

  “No. That’s too much like solitary confinement. I’ll need a job, something to keep me in touch with sanity. I’ll ask Sally or Lawrie Stimkin if they can use another hand at the Eagle.”

  In Bath, on the return journey, Katherine made a confession. “The day after you took the children on the Thames, Joanne asked if I was going to marry you.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “That you hadn’t asked me.”

  Barnhill’s head moved up and down in understanding. “That explains the question Henry asked me the very next day, when I went to the cricket game with him. He wanted to know if I was going to ask you to marry me.”

  “What answer did you give him?”

  “I didn’t. I told him to watch the game and explain to me what was going on, because I couldn’t make head or tail of it.”

  Katherine was quite satisfied with that. She would consider marriage when she was ready to do so, not when her children pushed her into it.

  When Barnhill’s vacation was over, Katherine took Henry and Joanne to Heathrow to see him off. As they waited for the flight to be called, Katherine found herself wishing away the next few months. She yearned for it to be the end of the year already, when Barnhill would return to London.

  She wanted it to be Christmas, and she wanted to find Raymond Barnhill beneath her tree.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  RAYMOND BARNHILL wrote his final “Glimpses of America” in the third week of December. It was a bittersweet moment. “Glimpses” was his personal creation. Despite the time and effort he had invested in his fiction writing, he had never neglected the column during its more than two years of life. When he passed responsibility for it to his successor, he felt as though he were handing his own child into the care of a foster parent.

  Two evenings later, Barnhill was strapped into the seat of a London-bound British Airways 747. The briefcase by his feet contained his passport, travelers’ checks, and the galleys for The Squad. The two suitcases in the aircraft’s hold held the rest of his possessions. Thirty-seven years old, and all his worldly goods — his clothes, a camera, a new portable electric typewriter, a couple of copies of the two books he’d published, and some personal effects — fitted neatly into two cases. There was a lot of truth to the old proverb about rolling stones.

  After eating, he turned on the reading light and read through the galleys for The Squad. Immediately, he noticed a difference between these and the galleys for his earlier books. Reading those had been a chore. This story, as familiar as it was, carried him through for three and a half hours of solid reading. By then, the in-flight movie was finished, and most of the passengers were sleeping. Barnhill was wide awake. He looked out of the tiny window at the star-sprinkled sky, too excited to sleep. This was the second time he was leaving the United States to work in England. Five years earlier he had been running away from a bad marriage, and from his own problems. This time, he was running toward something.

  When Barnhill passed through customs, Katherine was waiting. Other people held small signs with the names of arriving passengers on them. Katherine held a two-foot-high placard, on which was printed, “Welcome Home, Barnhill!”

  “Put that down, or I’ll turn around and get on the first flight back.”

  “Give me a kiss in front of all these people, and I’ll put it down.”

  He did. Holding her tightly, he gave her a long, slow kiss that left them both breathless. She abandoned the placard in a trash can.

  Pushing the trolley that held his worldly goods, Barnhill followed Katherine to the parking lot. “One word about my father paying for this out of petty cash,” she said as they stopped by a gleaming white Lotus, “and you will be walking from here.”

  “When did you get this exotic piece of machinery?”

  “After you went back in August. I kept it as a surprise.”

  “That makes us even. I’ve got one for you.” When she looked inquisitively at him, he laughed and shook his head. “It’ll hold until Christmas. Just make sure you keep this car away from British Patriotic League demonstrations.”

  “There haven’t been any. At least, not against my father. They’ve just had routine protests, to stir up trouble for colored immigrants.”

  They joined the heavy morning traffic. “I hope you like the place I rented for you,” Katherine said.

  “The apartment?”

  “Not apartment. Flat. You’re back in England now.”

  Katherine pulled into the forecourt of an apartment block in Swiss Cottage, less than a mile from Kate’s Haven. On the second floor, they walked along the hallway to a door at the very end. Katherine handed Barnhill a key.

  Barnhill inspected the furnished apartment. Two bedrooms, one fitted out as a den with an old-fashioned desk. The refrigerator in the kitchen was fully stocked. “I’ll take it.”

  “How about my finder’s fee?”

  “How much?”

  Katherine shrugged herself out of her three-quarter-length cashmere coat. Holding her arms toward Barnhill, she said, “I’ll give you three guesses.”

  *

  For the second straight year, Barnhill was invited to spend Christmas at Roland Eagles’s home. After lunch, and before the traditional walk over the common, Barnhill asked if he could propose a toast. No one made any comment when he filled his own glass with apple juice instead of wine.

  “Technically, I’m unemployed. I finished working for the Eagle in New York last week, and I don’t start working for the Eagle in London until the beginning of January. Because of that, I could be forgiven for feeling out of place here. The truth is, I have a greater sense of belonging right now than I’ve ever had in my entire life, and I want to thank all of you for that.”

  “That’s not a toast,” Roland grumbled lightly. “It’s a vote of thanks.”

  “And you’re very welcome,” Sally said with a warm smile.

  When they went walking over the common, Katherine, bundled up in a sheepskin coat, clung to Barnhill’s arm. “Was the toast the big Christmas Day surprise?” she asked.

  “No. That’ll come later.” He pulled her closer, dragging her bare hand into the pocket of his coat.

  “I love you,” Katherine said.

  “I love you, too.”

  “Is that the surprise?”

  “Not to me it isn’t.”

  Katherine looked ahead. She was surrounded by love. Her father and Sally were walking arm-in-arm, heads together as though engaged in some intimate conversation. Leading the procession were Henry and Joanne, chasing each other in a wild game of tag. Even that was a sign of love, Katherine reflected, as she watched Joanne slap her brother across the back of the head before running away.

  Her mind went back six years. Christmas 1976, taking this walk with Franz. She could even remember what she’d been thinking at the time. About the end of a marvelous year, and how the following one would be even better. She felt the same way now. With the exception of the Falklands, 1982 had been a super year. And 1983 would eclipse even that. But she’d be damned if she’d dwell on how much better it would be. That would be tempting fate again, and one shattered life was more than enough for anyone to bear.

  When they returned to the house, Katherine waited to learn of Barnhill’s surprise
. Instead, the bombshell came from another quarter completely. Roland invited Katherine and Barnhill to join him and Sally in the drawing room, then closed the door.

  “Sally has an important announcement to make.” He glanced at Barnhill. “You’re here, Raymond, because this concerns you as well — as both a former and future member of the Eagle Newspapers staff. Sally . . .?”

  “This past year has made me realize I’m no longer a spring chicken. I’m sixty-one, and that entitles me not to have to battle my way through hostile mobs, or help to formulate an editorial policy that has most of the country wanting to burn me in effigy. So I’m hereby giving six months’ notice of my decision to retire.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Katherine burst out. “Doing nothing will drive you mad!”

  Roland shook his head sadly. “Kathy, please don’t speak in that tone of voice to your future stepmother.”

  “Stepmother!” Sally was genuinely offended. “Don’t call me that. It makes me sound like some wicked old witch in one of the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales.”

  Katherine ran up to Sally and hugged her. “I always dreamed of calling you ‘Mum’ in front of poor old Gerry Waller, just to see the look on his face.” Still holding onto Sally, Katherine turned to her father. “What took you so long?”

  Before Roland could answer, Sally said, “Your father’s very old-fashioned. He did not want to marry a career woman, so he waited until I decided to retire.”

  “And you let him wait? The pair of you are crazy. You’ve wasted years and years.”

  “Not at all,” Roland said. “We couldn’t have been any happier with each other than we have been. In fact, if we’d lived together and worked together, we probably would have fallen out long ago.”

  Sally winked at Katherine and Barnhill. “He’d never put up with me telling him what to do at home as well as at board meetings of Eagle Newspapers.”

  Barnhill shook Roland’s hand. “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you, but we aren’t finished with the announcements.”

  Sally took the floor again. “Your father agreed to accept my resignation only on the condition that I recommended my own replacement. And” — she looked directly at Katherine — “I recommended you.”

  “I’m only thirty-two.”

  “So? Do you feel that’s too young to be sitting comfortably on the top floor instead of being out there writing? I’m confident you can fill the position.” Sally turned to Barnhill. “How do you feel about it, Raymond? You’re on the Eagle’s editorial staff, even if you are between jobs.”

  “I’ve seen Katherine handle herself like a champion on both sides of the Atlantic.”

  Katherine started to laugh. “I’m being coerced here. Unless I say yes, you two won’t get married. All right, if that’s what it takes. Yes. I will accept the appointment. And now” — she swung around to face Barnhill — “what’s the big surprise you’ve been holding back?”

  She expected Barnhill’s revelation to be along the same lines. Was he carrying an engagement ring he’d bought for her in New York? She hoped it wasn’t too big, too flashy. Even diamonds could be overdone.

  Barnhill reached into his jacket pocket, but he did not bring out a jewelry box. He withdrew an envelope containing several sheets of paper stapled together. “I want you to be a witness, Katherine.”

  “To what?”

  “To my signature on this contract.”

  “What contract?”

  He looked in amazement at Sally and Roland. “Can you believe she’s asking what contract? The one for the movie that’s going to be made out of The Squad, of course.”

  Sally’s retirement, the talk of marriage, and her own impending appointment to the board of Eagle Newspapers flashed out of Katherine’s mind. Her voice jumped several octaves. “How could you keep such wonderful news to yourself all this time?” She snatched the three copies of the contract from Barnhill, and plucked the gold pen from the inside pocket of her father’s jacket. “Where do I sign?”

  “As witness, Kathy, you’re supposed to let Raymond sign first.” Roland smiled at Barnhill. “I think it’s my turn to offer congratulations to you.”

  “Thank you. I feel that I owe you all a piece of this good fortune. Katherine was the one who spotted where I was going wrong with my writing. You and Sally, if you hadn’t created that job for me in New York —”

  “Created?” Sally queried. “We created nothing. You went out there and did some very valuable work.”

  Barnhill raised a hand. “Please let me finish. If you hadn’t offered me that job in New York after I’d been canned by IPA, I don’t know how I would have managed. That was the turning point in my life.”

  Katherine handed the contracts and her father’s pen to Barnhill. “I’ve witnessed your signature. Now sign.”

  He glanced at the contracts. “I hope this is no indication of how you’ll fill that slot on the board of Eagle Newspapers.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Darling, you’ve witnessed my signature in the very space where I’m supposed to sign.”

  Katherine thrust a hand to her mouth. “At least I’m consistent. I made the same mistake on all three copies.” Then she joined in the laughter which surrounded her. . . .

  They returned to Kate’s Haven in the evening. After the children were in bed, and Edna and Phillips had retired to their apartment on the third floor of the house, Katherine and Barnhill sat in the breakfast room, drinking hot chocolate. Soon she would take Barnhill home — he had not shopped for a car yet — but before she did so, she wanted to talk about Christmas Day.

  “Raymond, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry in the middle of all those surprises. I was happy and sad all at the same time. It was the strangest feeling.”

  “What was there to be sad about?”

  “Sally. When she leaves Eagle Newspapers, an era will be over. It’ll be the end of a chapter in her life, and in mine.”

  “So a new one will start.”

  “I suppose you’re right. It’s just that changes of this magnitude take a long time to get used to. And, somehow, you never feel that they’re happening for the best.”

  “If you’re taking Sally’s place, they can’t be happening for any reason but the best.” He took a sip from the hot chocolate, then pushed the mug away. “I’ve got a confession to make. When I told your father and Sally about ‘Glimpses of America’ being a turning point in my life . . . that wasn’t really true. The turning point was that day in court when I met you.”

  “When I stole the money from you to pay Brian’s fine? Poor devil, it didn’t help him very much.” A look of sadness passed across her face, immediately replaced by a smile. “And I asked you out for a drink, remember? That was a turning point in my life as well, because I’d never asked a strange man out for a drink before. Or since.”

  “Why did you?”

  “I thought you were attractive, different. And my life was so messed up at the time, I decided I’d confuse it a bit more. But you weren’t playing along, and you turned me down.”

  “So that’s why you never shared that story with me, about the British Patriotic League recruiting young thugs at football games. Hell hath no fury like a woman reporter scorned, eh?”

  “Just wait until you’ve seen a woman editorial director scorned.” She put the two mugs in the dishwasher, and wiped the table. “I’ll take you home. If you don’t scorn me too much, I’ll even tuck you in.”

  *

  Nine days later, Raymond Barnhill resumed his Fleet Street career. News of his success with fiction had preceded him, and he took great delight in coming face-to-face with those people who had turned him down more than two years earlier, when he had needed both a job and emotional support.

  At the beginning of April, The Squad was released in the States. Copies were mailed to Barnhill in London. Over dinner at Kate’s Haven, he gave one to Katherine. Looking at the dedication, she said: “So you decided against usi
ng Shakespeare after all.”

  “I thought I should be more original.”

  She read the dedication aloud. “‘For Katherine, who adds luster to an already regal name.’ It’s original and very lovely. Thank you.”

  Reviews of The Squad soon followed. Without exception, the book was panned. Critics called it insensitive, graceless, heavy-handed. “And those are the kinder adjectives,” Barnhill told Katherine, after showing her some of the reviews.

  “Then why on earth are you smiling?” Her own face wore shock and dismay.

  “Because the other two books got great reviews, and look what happened to them. They dropped right off the end of the shelf.” He crushed the reviews into a ball and tossed them into the wastebasket. “Those reviewers must be afflicted with the same apologist mentality, the same Vietnam angst that I was suffering from. That’s why they can’t accept this book. You wait and see, it’ll hit really big.”

  The wait was short. By the middle of May, The Squad was creeping into best-seller lists across North America. In London, half a dozen publishing houses were after British rights, and in California, the complicated process of transferring a story from paper to film was slowly getting under way. But by then, Barnhill’s interest in the book was of secondary importance. First and foremost, he was a news reporter, and the year’s big story was beginning to break. Buoyed by successes in local elections and a marked reduction in inflation, interest rates, and taxes, the ruling Conservative Party had called a general election for June 9.

  Within twenty-four hours of the election announcement, the British Patriotic League held a press conference at Patriot House in Whitechapel. The Eagle was represented by Derek Simon, Katherine’s former research assistant. Twenty minutes after he wrote up his story, he was called to the editor’s office.

  Lawrie Stimkin was sitting at his desk, the story in front of him. “Are you certain about these figures?”

  “Absolutely certain.”

  “Thank you.” When the reporter left, Stimkin picked up the telephone and called Sally Roberts. “The British Patriotic League has just announced that it will be contesting one hundred and eighty-two seats in the coming election.”