Chapter 3 #2
As they passed under the portcullis and emerged from the tunnel, three officers came towards them. They all wore khaki uniform. Catching sight of the Carradine girls, the youngest cried out, “Well met!” Then, seeing the others with them, the three men stood aside to let them pass.
“Mrs. Fletcher,” said Fay urgently, “these are particular friends of ours. May we introduce them?”
“Would you mind awfully, Mrs. Germond?” asked Brenda.
Daisy and Mel nodded and smiled.
Brenda first introduced Captain Macleod, a doctor in the Army Medical Corps and in charge of the Tower’s hospital.
In his midthirties, he was dark-haired, pale, too thin for his height, with a somewhat saturnine expression even when he smiled.
The white line of a scar on his cheek did nothing to mar his good looks.
Indeed, Daisy thought it might add a dangerous attraction in a young girl’s eyes.
In fact, Fay seemed to have difficulty tearing her gaze from the doctor to introduce Captain Devereux.
The captain was a few years younger than Macleod, but old enough to have fought in the War.
He had a devil-may-care air Daisy had seen before in soldiers who had gone through hell in the trenches, the reverse of shell shock but, in its way, equally abnormal.
Such men often found it difficult to take anything seriously.
Life and death had lost their importance.
With a grin, he presented the third officer to the ladies. “This stripling is Jardyne, a mere lieutenant, as you can see. Macleod and I are doing our best to whip him into shape.”
Jardyne, fair, tall, and robust, smiled as he said, “How do you do?” but Daisy noticed a flash of anger in his eyes.
She recalled that Brenda had said he was keen on Fay and did his best to hide his temper from her.
He had cause enough for annoyance at present, what with his beloved making sheep’s eyes at the doctor and Devereux making fun of his juniority.
Was there such a word? If not, there ought to be, Daisy decided.
“I say, Miss Fay,” he said, “we were walking on the wharf and Dev has had a dashed good notion. How about you and Miss Carradine taking a boat trip on the river with us this afternoon? It’s such a beautiful day.” He hesitated. “Mrs. Fletcher and Mrs. Germond are welcome to come, too, of course.”
“Kind of you,” said Melanie, frowning slightly, “but we’re just leaving.”
“Yes,” Daisy corroborated, “but why don’t you invite Miss Tebbit? I bet she hasn’t had such a treat in years, if ever.”
“Aunt Myrtle?” Fay blurted out. The girls, the lieutenant, and the captain stared at Daisy in shock.
Dr. Macleod’s smile became more saturnine than ever. “Yes, why don’t you?” he drawled. “Sick call will sound in a couple of minutes, so I can’t go along to play gooseberry. In fact, I should invite Mrs. Tebbit, too, if I were you.”
“The old lady?” Lieutenant Jardyne was aghast.
Brenda pulled herself together. “Yes, why don’t we?” she said brightly. “Thank you for the suggestion, Mrs. Fletcher.”
At that point, the Bentley arrived from the far end of Water Street, driven by the manservant dressed in a chauffeur’s peaked cap and motoring coat.
The doctor and Captain Devereux handed Daisy and Melanie in and the car set off at a stately pace towards the Byward Tower.
Daisy glanced back and saw the girls and the officers disappear under the Bloody Tower.
They crossed paths with Sir Patrick. His face set in a frown, quite unlike his joviality in the King’s House, he crossed the lane and unlocked a door in the wall on the other side.
Daisy’s thoughts flitted involuntarily to Jeremy Webster, and the possibility that he had designs on the Crown Jewels. Was it possible the Keeper of the Jewel House suspected him?
“Who on earth am I going to invite to play tennis with Fay and Brenda?” Melanie demanded.
“You’ll dig up someone. Did Mrs. Tebbit force you to invite them?”
“Shhh!” She made a slight gesture towards the chauffeur.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Did she?”
“Not as blatantly as you forced those young men to invite the Tebbits. But you were quite right, of course. Most unsuitable for the girls to go off alone with the officers.”
“You’ll be doing a good deed inviting them to meet other people. That struck me as an explosive situation back there.”
“Oh Daisy, you do have a tendency to dramatize!”
“Well, maybe. Perhaps it’s just that I find the Tower rather sinister. I dare say it’s only the influence of those childhood nightmares, but I almost wish I’d never thought of writing about it. And all those steps!”
The early-morning post brought an invitation from Mrs. Duggan to lunch in the colonel’s quarters that very day. Daisy rang up Melanie. She had also been invited but had a prior engagement.
Daisy decided to accept anyway. Curiosity having overcome distaste, she wanted to observe the feud from the other side of the fence.
Approaching the Middle Tower at ten o’clock, when the Tower opened to the public, Daisy saw a tall, burly warder with a bushy beard chatting to the yeoman on guard.
Her heart sank. She had hoped she was mistaken, that the Yeoman Gaoler, whom Carradine had chosen for her guide, the Sergeant Major Rumford whom Fay accused of spying on her, was not the man she had taken in instant dislike.
Not that I have any real cause for mistrust, she scolded herself. The unfortunate manner that had put her off could well be responsible for Fay’s accusations also. She must try to be fair.
As she drew closer, the bearded warder glanced round towards her, and she wondered if he was, in fact, the same man.
She didn’t remember so much grey in the lush beard.
The eyes she recalled as sharp, even hard, now crinkled at the corners when he smiled at her.
His nose was different, too, she thought.
It was difficult to be sure; one tended to observe the costume, not the man.
She noted his insignia—crossed keys on three chevrons, rather than the White Tower.
“Mrs. Fletcher?” His voice confirmed that he was not the warder she had expected.
This was a native of London, not a Cockney, but perhaps from the Borough, south of the river.
“I’m Crabtree, Chief Yeoman Warder. Mr. Rumford had to take care of some unexpected business, so I hope you won’t mind starting your tour with me. ”
“I shall be delighted,” said Daisy, with somewhat more emphasis than she had intended.
Mr. Crabtree, for all his friendliness, was a very tedious companion, alas.
In his flat voice, he recited the history by rote, and told Daisy nothing that she hadn’t already read.
When they went through the arch under the Byward Tower, he pointed out the postern door leading to the Queen’s Stair, the only entrance to the Tower after the gates were locked at night, for the sole use of the monarch.
But he couldn’t tell when or why it was last used, or even which queen it was named after.
He even made the sinister Traitors’ Gate sound dull. As he talked, Daisy lent half an ear to another warder who was giving the same talk, word for word, to a small group of visitors. The tourists asked a few questions, then moved off along the lane just as Crabtree finished his lecture.
The other came over. “Message for you, Mr. Crabtree,” he said.
“What’s up, Mr. Pierce?”
“General Heald wants to show Mrs. Fletcher his gewgaws hisself.” Pierce touched his hat to Daisy as he uttered her name. “I’ll go tell him you’re heading that way, and he’ll meet you in the Wakefield Tower in ten minutes.”
Crabtree pulled out his watch. “Right you are. He’ll use his private entrance, I expect.”
They grinned at each other, sharing indulgence for the foibles of the brass-hats. Daisy had noticed that the Chief Warder was on excellent terms with all the Yeoman Warders they had come across.
Pierce went off towards St. Thomas’s Tower.
“No good waiting for the general here, ma’am,” said Crabtree. “He’ll go over by the bridge from his quarters. The Yeoman Gaoler’s going to come and find us in the Wakefield Tower soon as he can get away.”
They crossed the lane towards the Bloody Tower. Prompted by the sight of the motionless sentries on either side of the gate, Daisy asked, “You were a soldier, weren’t you, Mr. Crabtree. Tell me how the sentries know when it’s time to do their little march up and down.”
Crabtree laughed. “It’s up to them, madam.
It’s blinking hard work standing absolutely still, you wouldn’t believe, even two hours on, two hours off.
So when you feel a twitch coming on, or a cramp, or your legs going numb, you’re allowed to do a little stamping about in a regulation manner. We don’t want ’em dropping like flies.”
“How sensible.”
“Of course, in daylight, with people about, they’re always being watched.
But at night—well, you see those rings of spikes sticking out from the walls just behind those chaps?
Horrible things! Those were put there by the Iron Duke when he was Constable of the Tower.
‘Wellington’s Armchairs,’ they’re known as, or ‘Lazy Soldiers.’ ”
Delighted, Daisy scribbled in her notebook. That was the first morsel of interesting, unusual, and therefore useful information she’d received today.