Chapter 8
EIGHT
“A jeweller, an innkeeper, and a seaman.” The Dowager Lady Dalrymple’s lip curled. “Each worse than the one before. And descended from a black sheep! Wasn’t it bad enough when a mad schoolmaster set himself up in your father’s place?”
“Cousin Edgar is not mad, Mother.” Daisy’s protest came automatically, having been repeated many times over the past nine years. She didn’t know why she bothered. “Nor did he ‘set himself up.’”
“At least he wasn’t in trade, I’ll allow him that much. But he could have chosen an acceptable heir. Tradesmen!”
“A millionaire, the owner of a luxury hotel, and an officer of the Merchant Navy. They’re our relatives as much as they’re his.”
“Had your father lived, he would never have permitted such a disgraceful state of affairs.”
Daisy thought it wiser, as well as kinder, not to point out that her father had left a mess of a different kind.
Shattered by the death of Gervaise, he had failed to alter his will to provide for Daisy, having earlier assumed that her brother would take care of her.
Though, when the flu pandemic bore him off in his turn, Edgar had been willing to correct his omission, Daisy had not been willing to sponge on her then newly discovered relative.
Choosing to work for her living had led to her meeting Alec, so all had turned out for the best—in her eyes, if not the dowager’s.
Avoiding her mother’s outraged look, Daisy took a sip of sherry, which she didn’t really care for, and glanced round the sitting room.
It was somewhat larger than Geraldine’s, but the Dower House didn’t have a separate drawing room, another source of continual complaint.
The furnishings were equally elegant, however, since the dowager had bagged the best of the smaller pieces when forced to move—“forced” by her own refusal to reside with the usurper, as he had proposed.
Having done likewise, Daisy didn’t blame her for refusing. It was about time she stopped complaining, though.
A bowl of glorious pink and yellow roses caught Daisy’s eye. Eager to change the subject, she got up and went to smell their fragrance. “Gorgeous!”
“That little Welsh gardener you recommended to me is still with me, surprisingly. Of course, my little plot is nothing like the Fairacres gardens. It’s so tiny, Morgan doesn’t have a great deal to do. He has no excuse for anything short of perfection.”
“Mother, no garden can ever be perfect, what with insects and diseases and weeds and the vagaries of the weather.” Not to mention that the Dower House boasted a sizable vegetable plot and orchard, not just a lawn surrounded by flowering shrubs and borders.
“Don’t change the subject. It’s a bad habit I have had to reprimand you for since you were a child. You say this jewellery pedlar is calling tomorrow afternoon? I’m free until six, I believe. It’s time I paid that woman a visit.”
“I didn’t know you and Cousin Geraldine were on visiting terms.”
“I know my duty.” Drawing herself up, the dowager spoke frostily.
“I’m aware that my accommodations are vastly inferior to Fairacres, but when my daughter prefers to stay with Edgar and Geraldine—” Her tone suggested that though it pained her to use their christian names, she simply could not bring herself to refer to them as Lord and Lady Dalrymple. “However, it’s not for me to complain.”
“They invited me.”
“Only because Edgar is unfit to evaluate the claimants and Geraldine is unwilling. That lawyer friend of yours should have requested my assistance. I can’t think how you came to take it upon yourself—”
“I didn’t, Mother. Geraldine asked me because I’m a Dalrymple by birth, which neither she nor you are.”
“Well, I must say…!”
For once Daisy had left her mother speechless. She took her leave with all possible celerity.
Walking back across the park to the big house, she looked forward with dismay to the morrow. Bad enough that Cousin Raymond had not so far shown himself a sympathetic person; the prospect of the dowager viscountess and the present viscountess crossing swords over the teacups made Daisy cringe.
* * *
Saturday morning promised another sunny day and Daisy’s spirits rose. After breakfast, she went for a walk along the riverside path. Edgar’s spaniel, Pepper, went with her, as Wharton, the bailiff, had cornered his lordship and driven him into his study to accomplish several overdue tasks.
The Severn slid by, reflecting the blue of the sky and the green of the willows leaning over it. A dark red butterfly with white edges to its wings flitted past. Swallows darted and swooped over the water. Daisy hoped they would confine their diet to midges and not go for the butterfly.
The water level was about eight feet below the path, but Pepper, undeterred, scrambled down to go for a dip.
Presuming he knew what he was doing, Daisy didn’t call him back until he started to paddle determinedly after a pair of crested grebes.
He took no notice, giving up only when the birds submerged and swam off underwater.
Then he turned downstream on a diagonal towards the bank.
By the time Daisy caught up with him, he had climbed out onto a dilapidated floating landing stage. After shaking vigorously, he scampered up the equally dilapidated wooden steps and greeted her with more enthusiasm than she quite cared for.
“Down, boy! I’d better ask your master if he wouldn’t mind having the steps and dock repaired. I bet Derek and Belinda are getting too old to be satisfied with puttering about the backwater. The boat probably could do with an overhaul, too.”
A little farther on, they crossed a wooden footbridge over the backwater.
Surrounded by willows and alders, it was overgrown with reeds and scummed with pondweed.
Watching scarlet dragonflies dart and hover, Daisy realised Pepper’s intention too late.
She grabbed for his collar but she missed.
He took a flying leap from the bridge into the stagnant water, so he was both soggy and mucky when she left him—with apologies—with Bill Truscott in the stables.
By that time, the day was growing hot and humid.
The sky was hazy, with the feel of thunder in the air.
After lunch, Geraldine told Lowecroft they would take coffee on the terrace.
Ernest moved the wicker chairs and table into the wedge of shade provided by the house.
Daisy, Geraldine, and Edgar settled there, looking out over the crazy paving and the low parapet to the lawn, with its huge chestnut, and the gardens, gently sloping down towards the river, marked by the willows on the bank.
Daisy broached the subject of refurbishing boat, steps, and dock before the children came to stay in August.
“Of course, my dear. I’ll write it down immediately.” He took out his fountain pen and his lepidopteran notebook.
“And it might be a good idea to have the backwater cleaned up a bit, dredged perhaps. Though the dragonflies seem to like it as it is. Which reminds me, I saw a very pretty butterfly by the river. Dark reddish brown, with white edges. I think there were spots, too.”
“Blue spots? Among the willows? Camberwell Beauty!” He jumped up and glanced about him. “Where’s Pepper?”
“He got wet and dirty this morning. I left him in the stables for Truscott to deal with. Sorry.”
“No matter, no matter. I’ll have Ernest fetch him.
” He dashed off towards the conservatory, a Victorian excrescence that disfigured the south facade of the original Tudor house.
There he kept his collections. Lord Dalrymple was not among those lepidopterists who slaughter their prey and pin it to a board.
He liked to collect eggs and caterpillars and observe their transformation into moths or butterflies, then free them to fly off and produce another generation.
A few minutes later, he came round the corner of the house, binoculars round his neck and his collecting satchel slung over his shoulder.
He’d had no need to change his clothes as he was wearing a faded blazer, a barely discernable school crest on the breast pocket, over ancient cricket whites.
They watched his broad-brimmed straw hat recede between two marble fauns, beneath the dangling seedpods of the pleached wisteria alley. Pepper trotted after him.
Enervated by the heat, Daisy and Geraldine stayed on the terrace, chatting in a desultory way about Edgar’s birthday house party and wondering how best to entertain such a disparate group as it seemed destined to be.
“But will all of them be coming if the heir has been identified by then?” Daisy asked.
“I’m afraid so. Edgar says they’re all family and must all be invited, however many ‘all’ turns out to be. He doesn’t often put his foot down, but when he does, he can be extremely obstinate.”
“And is everyone invited for the whole week—ten days, really, with both weekends—as we are?”
“He wants the family to have a chance to get to know one another. Of course, some of them may not be able to come, for the entire time or at all. I shan’t send invitations until Mr. Pearson is able to tell me who are the actual relatives.”
“Everything seems a bit vague so far. I hope he finds out in time for Cousin Edgar’s birthday celebration, at least.”
“It might be better not to know who the heir is until afterwards. Otherwise the majority are going to be resentful the entire time. Yes, Lowecroft? What is it?”
“The dowager viscountess has called, my lady.”
“Oh dear!” Geraldine ineffectually patted her hair, which was as always perfectly neat. “You’d better show her into the drawing room. I’ll be with her in a minute.” She waited as the butler bowed and left. “Daisy…?”
“I won’t desert you. Don’t worry, Mother just wants to meet Cousin Raymond. Like the rest of us, she’s dying of curiosity.”
“Oh dear! This interview is going to be difficult enough without—Sorry, dear, I don’t mean to imply … But it is awkward! I wonder whether Edgar will put in an appearance?”