Chapter Four #2
Bel wrinkled her nose. “All right, Mummy, I’ll ask Bertha to show me how. I’ll even do it myself. Practice makes perfect! I do like helping to give them baths, though. It’s such fun watching them splash.”
When they reached the house, the parlour maid met them with a folded note. Daisy opened it.
“From next door. An invitation to drinks before dinner tomorrow, to meet the neighbours.”
Alec groaned. “Must we?”
“I’m afraid so, darling.” She checked that the parlour maid had returned downstairs. “Unless you want to hide behind closed curtains with all the lights off. But we’d never get away with it anyway. Remember, Elsie’s sister is parlour maid next door.”
“And a rotten idea that will probably prove to be! I bet that’s how the Jessups know I’m home for a few days. We could try for theatre or concert tickets?”
“We could, but we’ll have to take the plunge sooner or later.
After all, we’re not only neighbours, we’re their landlords.
We don’t want to behave as if we’re high-and-mighty, and turn them against us.
Besides, the Jessups are nice people. Mr. Jessup did offer to provide drink at cost for a housewarming party. ”
“Trying to worm his way into my good graces. We don’t have to have a party, do we?”
“I thought the best thing would be to wait till Christmas and hold an open house for everyone, your friends, my friends, relatives—”
“Mothers?” Alec asked with deep foreboding.
“We’ll have to sometime, darling. This way, they’ll be sort of diluted.”
“You have a point.” He sighed. “All right, drinks next door tomorrow. I suppose that nosy old man from the Heath will be there.”
“Diluted,” Daisy said hopefully.
“She was on the stage, you know,” said Miss Bennett in an insinuating tone. A pudgy woman with pepper-and-salt hair, confined in a net, and a round, pale, doughy face, she had cornered Daisy.
“Our hostess?” Chorus girl? Music hall turn?
Though dying to know, she wouldn’t have asked for the world.
To do so would only encourage the beastly woman’s tattling, and she didn’t need any encouragement.
Obviously, the Bennetts were going to be the flies in the ointment.
One ought to be able to interview one’s prospective neighbours before moving.
“We all know about actresses. And Irish, into the bargain!” said Miss Bennett darkly.
“Such charming people, I’ve always found.”
Miss Bennett looked at her as if she were mad. “Charming? Always blowing up policemen—”
“I don’t suppose Mrs. Jessup’s career left her any time for blowing up policemen. Mine certainly doesn’t.”
“Your career?” Her nose positively twitched. “You have a job?”
“I write. Oh, excuse me, Miss Bennett, I believe my husband wants to speak to me.”
“Write? Write what?” Her nose twitched eagerly, but Daisy was already moving away with an insincere smile. “Novels, no doubt,” came a mutter behind her, the inflexion leaving no doubt about the kind of novels Miss Bennett was imagining.
Aidan Jessup, bottle in hand, intercepted Daisy on her way across the room towards Alec. “Now what has that dreadful woman been saying to put you in such a pucker?” he asked with a wry look. “Let me fill up your glass. Dubonnet, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, thanks. No doubt you’ll soon be hearing that I write blue novels.”
“But you write magazine articles, don’t you? I’m afraid I don’t read much besides the trade journals, but Mother enjoys your work. Good Lord, you didn’t tell Miss Bennett—?”
“Not I. It’s what she prefers to assume.”
“Oh yes, Always Assume the Worst is their motto. I suppose they’ve told you Mother was a chorus girl.”
Daisy willed herself not to blush. “Just that she was on the stage.”
“As a matter of fact,” he said a trifle belligerently, “she started as a soubrette in the provinces and was playing decent roles in London—Celia and Nerissa and that sort of thing—when she met Father. She might have gone on to Rosalind and Portia if she hadn’t retired when they married.”
“Not the Lady Macbeth type, I take it.”
That made him laugh. “No, Mother’s not made for tragedy.
She doesn’t even take the Bennetts’ mischief making too seriously.
If you ask me, it’s a great pity my revered papa-in-law didn’t put a spoke in the Bennetts’ wheel when they decided to buy here.
” He nodded towards Mr. Irwin, who stood staring gloomily into his glass, his expression suggesting that the stout, prosperous-looking citizen holding forth at his side might be asking for free legal advice.
“Could a reputable lawyer do that?”
“There must be a way, don’t you think? As it is, unfortunately, one can’t easily exclude them from a gathering of Constable Circle residents. It doesn’t do to be at odds with one’s neighbours.”
“No, of course not. Their tales would only grow the wilder. Otherwise, everyone seems to be very pleasant.”
“Not a bad lot. Is there anyone you haven’t met yet?”
“I’ve talked to all the neighbours, I think. Your brother and sister aren’t here? Your sister’s married, I understand, but I didn’t gather where she lives. I had the impression that your brother lives here, though.”
Aidan looked disconcerted. “Deirdre lives in Birmingham,” he said.
“My brother often goes on buying trips with our father, to learn that side of the business. I’ve never been much of a one for travel.
I prefer to stay home, and one of the family has to be here to mind things at this end.
There’s Audrey and the children to be considered, too.
Have you travelled much on the Continent? ”
“Just one flying visit, a few days last summer. If it hadn’t been for the War, I’d undoubtedly have been shipped off to finishing school, like my sister Violet.
I’m glad to have avoided that—I don’t think it would have suited me at all—but I’d like to see some of the rest of the world. Besides America, that is.”
“Ah, yes, I’d forgotten you were in America.” He turned with obvious relief to Alec, who came up just then. “May I get you another drink, Mr. Fletcher?”
“Thank you, no. We ought to be making our adieus, ought we not, Daisy?”
People were beginning to drift away, and the Fletchers had to run the gauntlet of new acquaintances saying “So glad to have met you.” A few last good nights were exchanged on the pavement before they attained their own front steps.
Daisy tucked her hand into Alec’s arm as they went up.
“Did you talk to the Bennetts?” he asked, delving into his pocket for the door key.
“He asked me if it’s true I’m a peeler—a peeler!
I thought the word went out of use decades ago.
And then he had the nerve to say he hoped not, because many respectable people don’t care to associate with the police. ”
“Don’t worry, at least Miss Bennett seems to disapprove of blowing up policemen.
She told me in the most horridly insinuating way that Moira Jessup is Irish and pointed out that the Irish have a habit of blowing up policemen.
They’re in luck, as I have no intention of associating with them any more than absolutely unavoidable. ”
Small wonder if Daisy forgot Aidan’s odd reactions and patent attempt to change the subject of his brother’s whereabouts. She did remember next morning but decided against telling Alec. He’d only say she was imagining things.
FOURTH SEA INTERLUDE
They wheeled him round and round the field
Till they came unto a barn,
And there they made a solemn mow
Of poor John Barleycorn.
They hired men with the crab-tree sticks
To cut him skin from bones,
And the miller he served him worse than that,
For he ground him between two stones.
The moment the Coast Guard destroyer was sighted, Barleycorn’s skipper had changed course. Now, though he knew they were on his tail, he held steady.
“Can we outrun them?” Patrick asked.
“Not with this load. But they’re slow to turn. Just watch. Go out on deck if you want.”
Two considerations weighed against Patrick’s reluctance to leave whatever cover the wheelhouse offered: He didn’t want to appear a coward, and surely the skipper wouldn’t let him go out if they were in range of the destroyer’s guns. Would he?
He climbed the short ladder to the low door. Two deckhands had opened several of the lockers lining the port and starboard rails and were spreading fish from a large crate over the illegal contents.
Glancing around, Patrick saw the lookout standing on the railed roof of the wheelhouse, gazing astern with his spyglass to his eye.
Now and then he would swing round to scan the horizon.
Near him, smoke poured from the smokestack as the Barleycorn’s engines put forth their utmost effort.
Though the smoke quickly dissipated in the wind created by their speed, it must appear as a banner to the pursuing destroyer.
Staring sternward into the glare of sea and sky, Patrick could just make out the distant banner of smoke from the Coast Guard ship’s four funnels.
He was about to ask the lookout man for a turn with the spyglass when one of the others called to him. “Bear a hand here,” he requested, holding out a bucket.
“What are you doing?”
“Can’t hurt to tell ’em we’re innocent fishermen,” the other drawled. “Not that they’ll believe it, ‘less they’re looking for an excuse to let us go.”
Patrick took the bucket and scooped up a mess of fish.
They were very dead, with dull eyes, and beginning to smell.
Fresh fish might have better helped the deception, he thought, crossing to an open locker to slosh the contents of his bucket across the bulging sacks within.
Perhaps the bootleggers hoped the smell would deter the Coast Guard from further investigation.