Chapter 2 #2
“I met him last spring. One of Jack’s lecturers worked with him during the War and invites him to Cambridge every Lent term to speak to the mechanical-engineering undergrads about the aircraft industry.”
“Don’t tell me you attended a lecture on mechanical engineering!”
“Heavens no! Come and sit down near the fire. It’s a beastly cold night. I’ll fetch you a cup of tea and tell you how it happened.”
But as Gwen turned away, her father approached with a cup and saucer and a plate heaped with food, which he presented to Daisy.
“Need to keep your strength up, eh?” he said genially, sitting down beside her. “If you ask me, half my wife’s trouble was that she didn’t eat enough when she was expecting the girls. I kept hoping for a son, but she kept dropping females.”
A number of sharpish retorts raced through Daisy’s mind, but she reminded herself that Sir Harold was her host. “You got a son in the end,” she pointed out, and seeing a scathing comment about Jack on the tip of his tongue, she hurriedly added, “Not to mention two grandsons. Aren’t you going to have a cup of tea? ”
“Never touch the stuff. ‘Cat lap,’ my grandfather used to call it.” He raised his voice. “Dodie, where are the boys? Weren’t they up here today?”
Lady Tyndall looked helplessly at Gwen, who said, “Addie took them home, Father. I think she decided they needed an early night. They were getting a bit . . . overexcited about the fireworks tomorrow.”
Not to mention the fireworks today, Daisy thought. “You were going to tell me the history of your Bonfire Night celebration, Sir Harold,” she reminded him.
That kept him happily occupied while she devoured the plateful of delicacies and sipped distastefully at the tea, which was far too sweet. Lady Tyndall wouldn’t have sugared it without asking, so perhaps Sir Harold was trying to feed her up. Kindly meant, no doubt.
While listening to and taking mental notes on his lecture, she watched the others.
Jack and Babs had their heads together, both with disgruntled expressions but eating with unimpaired appetites.
Gwen and Miller sat on either side of Lady Tyndall.
All three looked unhappy and their conversation appeared to be desultory.
Gwen glanced over and happened to catch Daisy’s eye just as she took a sip of the syrupy tea. Perhaps Daisy’s nose wrinkled involuntarily. At any rate, Gwen said something to her mother, and a moment later Martin Miller came over.
“Beg pardon for interrupting,” he said, “but Miss Gwen wondered if you’d like a fresh cup of tea, Mrs. Fletcher? Yours must be getting cold.”
“Yes, please. A spot of milk, no sugar, thanks.”
He grinned at her, his sober face lightening. Daisy wondered if Gwen had tried to stop her father oversweetening the first cup. “Right you are. Can I fetch you anything, sir?”
“No, thank you,” Sir Harold said ungraciously. As Miller left, the baronet went on, quite loud enough for him to hear, “Running errands for Gwen! He needn’t think she’ll get a penny from me if she takes him. Dashed counter jumper!”
“Whatever Mr. Miller’s origins,” Daisy ventured, “engineering is an altogether respectable and necessary profession.”
“So is street sweeper. That doesn’t mean I’ll accept one as my son-in-law. Did Gwen invite you here to try to talk me round? Because, I warn you, you might as well try to drink the Severn dry.”
“Certainly not. She invited me because she thought, quite rightly, that I’d be interested in writing about your Guy Fawkes fête. I am a journalist, after all. A profession of doubtful respectability and questionable necessity.”
Sir Harold waved his hand dismissively. “An odd hobby for a young lady of your birth, to be sure, but there can hardly be any question of your respectability.”
Daisy fumed. Not that she wished her respectability to be questioned—though she did wonder what Sir Harold would think if he knew her husband was a policeman—but writing was her profession, not a hobby, and she had made a living at it before she married.
She fumed silently, however. Having come all this way, she was jolly well going to get her article.
She was too professional to spoil it by quarrelling with her infuriating host.
“You were telling me about when Prince Albert died,” she reminded him.
“Yes, that was in 1861, in December. The following November, the Queen was still in mourning, so my grandfather was of two minds about holding the fête.” He blathered on about his grandfather’s quandary.
Miller brought Daisy’s fresh cup of tea and deposited it on the table at her elbow. She thanked him with a smile. Sir Harold talked on, ignoring him as though he were a servant. The younger man’s answering smile died and his lips tightened.
If it was just a question of Miller’s courting Gwen, Daisy rather doubted Sir Harold cared enough to be so rude to a guest. Should his daughter dare defy him, he would just wash his hands of her and write her out of his will.
What really rankled with the baronet was what he saw as the engineer’s subversion of his son and heir’s duty to the land and the traditions of his ancestors.
Miller obviously supported Jack’s enthusiasm for aeronautics, but Daisy had so far seen no sign that it had originated with him or would fade should he vanish from the face of the earth. Perhaps the uncertainty was all that had prevented Sir Harold from kicking Miller out of his house.
Nor was Daisy convinced of any serious romantic tie between Miller and Gwen. A few hints, yes, but nothing Alec would consider to be evidence. With luck, Gwen would decide to confide in her.
Sir Harold had run down at last, Daisy realized.
She had missed the whole story between 1862 and the present, including the Great War, but she could always ask for a repeat later, with the excuse that she didn’t have her notebook to hand.
He hadn’t noticed her inattention. His large face smug, he was watching Jack and Babs, who were still talking earnestly together.
“Babs will change his mind for him,” he said with confidence, good humour restored.
“She knows the worth of the land. All young men with any spirit rebel against their parents for a while. I don’t say I didn’t myself!
Jack’ll soon see this tomfoolery of his in the proper perspective.
By George, I’m thirsty after rattling away for so long.
I hope I haven’t bored you, Mrs. Fletcher.
I believe I’ll drink a cup of tea after all. Shall I have Dodie refill your cup?”
“Yes, please. No sugar,” Daisy said firmly.
Two and a half cups of tea made Daisy head for the downstairs cloakroom as soon as the tea party broke up.
By the eighth month, she thought, she wasn’t going to dare to move more than a hundred yards from a lav.
When she came out into the hall, no one was about.
She decided to go up to her room and type up notes of what she could recall of Sir Harold’s discourse.
She was halfway up the stairs when Lady Tyndall and Jack came out of the drawing room. They didn’t notice her.
“Dearest,” Lady Tyndall was saying, “it’s not that I mind your being an engineer, if that will make you happy.” She turned and took his hands. “You know I only want you to be happy.”
“I know, Mother.”
“But I will hate your living so far away. I thought once you were finished with school and university, you’d come home for good.”
“Coventry’s not far. Not much more than thirty miles. I’ll be able to buzz over at weekends.”
“If your father will have you in the house. Oh Jack, I’ve never known him so angry!”
“I’m still his only son. But if he does disown me, I can earn my living doing what I love instead of dying of boredom.
You’ve no idea how I loathe the idea of spending my life worrying about pruning and late frosts and blossom rot and peach-leaf curl, if that’s what it’s called.
If the worst comes to the worst, you can always come and visit me in Coventry.
I say, doesn’t it strike you as rather funny?
” Jack said gaily. “Instead of being sent to Coventry as a punishment, I’m being threatened with disinheritance if I go there. ”
Lady Tyndall burst into tears. “Jack, you’re such a child still,” she sobbed. “How can you know how you want to spend the rest of your life?”
He hugged her. “Wait till I show you round the factory, Mother. You’ll see why I want to be part of it all. Maybe I’ll even be able to take you up in a ’plane!”
Daisy, though greatly tempted to linger and listen, had continued to tiptoe up the stairs and across the landing. She turned up the three steps into the passage and heard no more.