Chapter Fourteen #2
“Pooh, pooh! I’ve got a nice little nest-egg tucked away for when I retire, but present need, you know! What comfort is there for a man if his family’s unhappy?”
“The trouble being,” said Miles, “as you’ll realize of course, Daisy, that if Flick’s to meet the right sort of people, she’ll need someone to introduce her about a bit.
Mother has no friends in town, even if she could be persuaded to leave Father, which I doubt.
And he’ll never agree to leave Brockdene for weeks on end. ”
“Damn fool!” the captain exploded.
“Sir, I can’t let…”
“Keep your hair on, lad. If a man can’t damn his own brother, who can he…? Beg your pardon, Mrs. Fletcher! But if God had just bestirred himself to get about a bit, kept up with fellows from school and got to know people other than his stuffy historians, we wouldn’t be stymied now.”
“I’m in touch with friends from school and the army,” Miles said ruefully, “but they’re not much use to Flick if she has no one to chaperone her.
I hope you don’t think I’m hinting that you should take her on, Daisy.
You have your career, and Belinda, to cope with.
We just hoped you might have some idea of how to go about this. ”
“I haven’t the foggiest,” said Daisy, rising, “but I’ll put my mind to it and maybe I’ll come up with something.”
Crossing the Hall, she wondered whether her mother might enjoy sponsoring a girl for a few months in London.
She had made a huge fuss when Daisy refused to take advantage of what travesty of the social season survived during the War.
However, the sort of society the Dowager Viscountess frequented was probably higher than Felicity could hope to fly.
In any case, in the unlikely—considering the circumstances—event that Lady Dalrymple let herself be persuaded, Daisy wasn’t sure she wanted to subject anyone to weeks of her mother’s company.
What had sprung to her mind, as soon as she realized what the captain proposed, was that he should instead support Felicity while she worked her way into the fashion business. Daisy couldn’t suggest that, though, without consulting Felicity.
The problem would not arise if Cedric was innocent and still wanted to marry Felicity, and she decided to marry him.
It worried Daisy that all the Brockdene Norvilles complacently assumed his guilt.
If he proved an alibi, suspicion would come squarely back here to rest, and it would come as a nasty shock.
Still, in all probability they were right; Cedric had killed Calloway.
Alec would arrest him and that would be the end of that, so there was no point in Daisy bothering her head about it. Where were the children?
She glanced into the Drawing Room. No sign of Bel and Derek investigating the Italian cabinet, but Godfrey was there, sitting at the Queen Anne desk.
He appeared to be having trouble answering a letter which lay before him, for the one he was writing hadn’t progressed beyond the salutation.
Or else he was understandably lost in unhappy reflection on the events of the past few days.
He didn’t raise his bowed head when Daisy looked in, so she didn’t disturb him.
Remembering that the desk in the South Room was supposed to have hidden drawers, she crossed through the Red Room to check whether Bel and Derek were investigating it.
No sign of them, but she was reminded that she had never seen the squint to the Hall, because of meeting Jemima there.
She pulled back the tapestry in the corner, stepped into the alcove behind, and looked down on the Hall.
The sun coming in through the south-facing windows shone on the gleaming rows of weapons hanging on the walls.
From here they were even more impressive than from below, where most were hung above Daisy’s eye-level, so that she had to crane her neck to study them.
They were a vicious-looking lot. Really, given the availability of instruments of death, it was quite surprising that murders weren’t a regular occurrence at Brockdene.
She was about to turn back, when Tremayne and Miles came through the door at the far end of the Hall.
Miles was saying vehemently, “No, I don’t believe for a moment that she would have helped the blackguard, except inadvertently, by telling him about Calloway.”
“You don’t think she might have taken the knife to show him?” Tremayne was obviously worried. “Because if so, she’s in serious trouble, whatever her intent.”
“Why should she? It isn’t—wasn’t of any particular interest. I shouldn’t have thought it was at all the sort of thing a girl would take to a rendezvous with her lover, though admittedly I haven’t much experience in that line.”
With one arm missing, he probably assumed no woman would look at him twice, Daisy thought.
She doubted he was correct. He was intelligent, charming, quite good-looking, gentlemanly.
He would have a respectable and generally well-remunerated profession.
Equally to the point, the slaughter in Flanders had left England with a huge imbalance between young men and women, so that bachelors were in high demand. Miles had no need to despair.
While these thoughts crossed Daisy’s mind, Tremayne was saying, “I expect you’re right, my boy, if canoodling is anything like it was in my day. Felicity wouldn’t have taken the knife with her unless she wanted to use it on him … or wanted him to use it.”
“Which, I repeat, I do not credit for a moment.” Miles stopped as they separated to walk on either side of the central table.
He turned to face his grandfather, his back to Daisy.
“What really troubles me, sir, is that if no obvious murderer had turned up, it would not have surprised me in the least to discover that Jemima killed Calloway.”
“Jemima!” The elderly man leaned heavily with both hands on the table. His expression was deeply distressed but not startled. “She’s a child still! But one need not specialize in criminal law to know that such things happen. Do you think she’s … unbalanced?”
“I confess I’ve sometimes wondered. Mother seems to consider her merely normally awkward for that age, and she must be a better judge than I … mustn’t she?”
“Yes, yes, of course. Dora knows best.” Tremayne straightened, relieved.
“All the same, sir,” Miles went on, “I don’t think it’s healthy for Jemima to go on living here as if nothing has happened …
after what has happened. After all, she wished Calloway dead, and he is dead, nastily.
We can’t brush that under the carpet. It seems to me she ought to go away to school, to learn how other girls behave.
If you can see your way to coming up with school fees, I shall of, course, reimburse you as soon as I’m able. ”
“Bosh, as Felicity would say. Jemima’s my granddaughter as well as your sister.
I don’t say I approve of education for women, but I dare say there are schools which concentrate on teaching conduct and manners, and Jemima could certainly profit from lessons in both.
” Tremayne started walking again. “To tell the truth, I wish now I’d sent Felicity to school for a year or two.
She’d have made friends, been invited about no doubt.
She wouldn’t have taken up with that unspeakable bounder and…
” He and Miles passed through the doorway to the stairs, beyond Daisy’s sight and hearing.
For an alarmed moment she wondered whether they had spotted her and were coming to ask just what she thought she was doing.
No, they must have come into the old house for a purpose, which was surely to speak to Godfrey.
Daisy wished she could hear what they said, but deliberately creeping up to eavesdrop was rather different from happening to overhear—and happening to stay put and overhear more than she need.
Oh dear, perhaps she too needed a few lessons in manners and conduct!
But if she hadn’t profited sufficiently already, for her school had definitely concentrated on both, then it was probably too late, she decided.
Jemima, on the other hand, really needed most the company of normal girls her age, as Miles suggested.
So Miles had suspected Jemima of murder, and Mr. Tremayne had suspected Felicity of complicity in murder. The worst of murder, Daisy thought, was less the death itself than the shadows it cast on the living.