Daisy (22 page)

There was a small, beautiful escritoire over by the far wall. She sat down and began to write a letter to Curzon, demanding to know the name of her benefactor. After she had finished, she sat looking at the letter for a few moments and then quickly, taking a small pair of scissors from her reticule, cut off a lock of her hair. She added a P.S.:
Please give this to the Duke of Oxenden
, and then sealed the letter before she could change her mind.

A few days later, the Duke’s high-sprung brougham clattered up the long driveway to Marsden Castle. The Duke’s gloved hands held the reins lightly and he looked almost wistfully around the surrounding woods as if expecting a demure schoolgirl with her hair in braids to emerge.

He should never have let her go off to France. Never. God knows what she was experiencing now. Daisy Chatterton had no more guards against the sophisticated cruelties of society than… dammit, than a kitten. Every time he thought of her, he experienced a small aching pang of loss. Why, for all he knew, she could be safely in the arms of some handsome Comte!

Curzon opened the door. He took the Duke’s hat and gloves and looked as if he were about to speak, but Angela came floating into the hallway and bore the Duke off to the garden.

The Earl was reading the morning paper. He put it down at the Duke’s approach and gave him an unwelcoming glare.

“What brings you here, Oxenden?”

The Duke sat down at the other side of the table and helped himself to toast. “I came to find out if you have had any news of Miss Chatterton.”

“Not a word,” said Angela with a giggle, “but you’ll never guess what!”

“What?” asked the Duke coldly.

“Well… Anne Samson was visiting Cannes with some friends and she thought she would drop in on Neddie on the road. You’ll never believe it, but he is living in the most awful squalor with some cockney child who
smells. And
he hasn’t changed a bit. He insisted on making up a four at bridge before they left and he took an awful lot of money from them and Anne swears the deck was
marked.
”

“Why didn’t you try to stop Daisy from going?”

“She didn’t ask us, did she, Davy?” said Angela simply. “It was after that awful storm in Brinton. The servants say she came in dripping with water and looking like a ghost. Davy says she didn’t even wait for him after the theater.”

The Duke looked at the Earl and the Earl unmistakably blushed. The Duke felt he should have stopped her himself, but he had been so jealous of her infatuation for that posturing actor. That was it, he realized. He had at last admitted it. He had been jealous!

The Earl was saying something, Angela was exclaiming, but the Duke sat as if turned to stone. He loved the girl. He actually was in love with Daisy Chatterton. His host and hostess were beginning to throw the breakfast things at each other, but the Duke sat on bemused, until a plate of kippers narrowly missed his head. He decided to go in search of Curzon.

The butler drew him into the comparative privacy of the pantry. “I have something for you, Your Grace,” said Curzon. He mutely held out a lock of soft brown hair. The Duke’s heart gave a painful lurch.

“And that’s not all,” went on the butler. “Her father did tell her that it was not he who was paying the allowance and suggested that I might be in the pay of some masher to… er… set Miss Chatterton up.”

“How cruel we all are,” murmured the Duke. “How thoughtlessly cruel. Poor child.”

With a weary grimace he said, “You’d better write and tell her the truth… about the money.”

Curzon hesitated. “Your Grace, I do not wish to be considered impertinent, but I am very fond of Miss Chatterton, very fond indeed. I always considered myself to be a sort of father to her and now that her own father has proved so useless, I feel it my duty to ask Your Grace your intentions.”

“Entirely honorable—I mean marriage.” And seeing the look on Curzon’s face, he added, “I have only just realized that myself, Curzon, or I would never have let her go.”

Curzon stood with his head bowed, fingering the edge of the table.

“Now what’s the matter?” asked the Duke.

“Well, Your Grace, I have heard it rumored that your butler is considering retiring and…”

“The job is yours, Curzon, any time you like. In fact old Hennessey would probably like you to start right away. He was butler to my father before me, you know—of course, I forgot, you used to work for him—anyway, he’d be very glad of a helping hand.”

“Quite, Your Grace.”

“Now what?” asked the Duke as Curzon started to stare at the table again.

“If I was to leave this employ promptly, Your Grace, I would then be free to accompany Your Grace to the South of France.”

“So you would,” said His Grace, with a sudden boyish grin. Then a shadow crossed his face, “What if she has left?”

“We will just need to try,” said Curzon. “And now if you will forgive me, Your Grace, I will attend to my immediate packing and endeavor to give notice.

“Oh, a further moment of your time, Your Grace. I should not tell Miss Chatterton that it is you who have been paying her allowance. I could… er… manufacture a late rich aunt on her mother’s side who had pledged me to secrecy before she died, and inform her that the allowance is to cease on the day of Miss Chatterton’s marriage.”

“She’d never fall for all that Gothic nonsense!”

Curzon gave a discreet cough. “If things work out as happily as I anticipate between yourself and Miss Chatterton, then… I believe… she will listen to anything.”

Tendering his resignation proved harder for Curzon than he had anticipated. The battle between the Earl and Countess showed no signs of abating as they screamed from one end of the castle to the other. By the time Angela had thrown the Earl’s prize collection of electroplated statuary—his father’s mementos of the Great Exhibition—into the lake, the Earl was baying for divorce.

When Curzon finally managed to speak his piece during a silence between the angry pair, they immediately fell to again, blaming each other’s bad temper for “causing the whole staff to walk out” as Angela put it.

It was with a great feeling of relief that the butler finally found himself in the Duke’s carriage and leaving Marsden Castle forever.

They were to travel to Cowes to board the Duke’s yacht, the
Seabird
, and set sail for France.

Curzon began to have second thoughts about the whole expedition. Surely Daisy would not stay long with her father. Even now, she could be traveling back through France.

Daisy had not left after all. By the morning, her father was in a milder mood and apologized with professional and much-used charm for his behavior. It had been the shock of seeing her, he explained. If she and her friends would care to stay a few days, she could have an opportunity to go through some of her mother’s old letters and belongings.

Daisy decided to stay. There was not much to go back for in any case. Bertie and Amy loyally elected to stay as well and Bertie hired more servants for the villa for, as he put it, “I may be an easygoing chap, but I do like my comfort… so long as I can afford it, that is.” He and Amy were not sure how Mr. Burke senior would take the news of their marriage, but Bertie pointed out that as he had agreed to a marriage with Daisy, he would probably be delighted it was someone like Amy with respectable parents.

Amy had not informed her parents either of her marriage. Mr. and Mrs. Pomfret held very strong views about “marrying outside one’s class.”

After a week of trying to lure his guests into a card game and failing, Lord Chatterton left for the local casino in disgust. It was situated a few miles along the coast at the small unfashionable resort of Anribes. But the fashionable casinos at places like Cannes had long since ceased to welcome the English milord.

He arrived back very late in the evening on foot. He had been having such a splendid run of luck, he had drunkenly explained, but then fortune had turned against him and he had to wager his car and had lost that as well. Now he could get it all back if only someone would just lend him a trifling sum. Rose yawned and his guests refused to part with so much as a guinea, so he retired to bed cursing them all fluently.

The next day he was quiet and courteous. He had shown Daisy to a room at the top of the house where a battered trunk held all the memories of Daisy’s mother and Daisy spent the day reading old letters and staring at old photographs that drew a picture of a once happy marriage.

Lord Chatterton then exerted himself to amuse Bertie and Amy, taking them on a tour of the little village and buying them a bottle of the local wine and plates of little fresh clams. They were as charmed as Lord Chatterton meant them to be and began to think that Daisy’s papa was not such a bad fellow after all.

They went back to the villa where several bottles of champagne were produced, ice cold from the deep cellar. Daisy was routed out of her dreams and pressed to join them.

Then dinner was a lavish many-coursed affair with different wines for each remove. Daisy only drank a little of each. Her father’s almost wild gaiety was making her feel nervous and both Bertie and Amy were quite drunk.

Rose had not put in an appearance and every time Daisy asked Lord Chatterton where she was, he changed the subject. They were dining on the terrace, watching a red sun sink into the Mediterranean. Daisy had a sudden overwhelming feeling that the Duke of Oxenden was quite near. She was aware of his presence with such a burst of intense feeling that she half turned in her chair, expecting his tall figure to be standing there. There was nothing but the short expanse of unkempt lawn and the long evening shadows of the pines.

Lord Chatterton was circulating the brandy for the second time and pressing Daisy to have some more, when he suddenly cocked his head. An owl hooted softly from the woods. “An owl,” he said with a burst of laughter. “Nothing but a sweet little owl. You must excuse me ladies. I shall take this foul-smelling cigar into the garden and commune with the owl.” He dropped nimbly over the terrace and was soon lost to view in the deepening shadows of the trees.

Lost to the conventions, Bertie and Amy sat with their arms around each other and Daisy felt as awkward as any gooseberry usually feels in the same situation. She decided to go and look for Rose. As she moved along the upstairs corridor, she was glad that Rose had a room to herself instead of sharing one with her father, although she obviously shared his bed from time to time.

She knocked on the door of Rose’s room and waited. There was no reply. Rose must be asleep. But something in the quality of the silence made her gently open the door. Fumbling for a lucifer, she lit a candle on a small table by the door and held it above her head. The room reeked of patchouli and as she moved forward her foot struck an overturned scent bottle. The bed was empty, the closets open with their silent, empty hangers bearing witness to a hurried flight She moved quickly back and along the corridor to her father’s room. It had the same marks of hurried packing and a strong smell of patchouli indicated that Rose had done it for him.

A sudden thought stabbed at Daisy’s heart. Her father wouldn’t…couldn’t…She ran to her own room.

Her jewel box lay empty, her small store of rings and necklaces gone. Her trunks, recently brought from Toulon, had been opened and rifled. Several elaborate evening dresses were missing.

Her reticule lay upside down on the floor. She knelt in the corner of the room and pried up a loose floorboard. Her small stock of money was safe. She thought to herself how she had laughed when she had hidden it, thinking she was turning into a typical Sarah Jenkins with an inbred distrust of foreigners.

Daisy went slowly down the stairs. As she had expected, there was no sign of her father. His “owl” in the woods must have been Rose giving him the signal that the theft had been completed. Then she looked at Bertie and Amy with a sudden misgiving.

Both got slowly to their feet as they noticed her tense white face.

“Father and Rose have robbed me,” said Daisy baldly. “You had both better check your room. I”—here her voice broke—“I just haven’t the heart to…”

Suddenly sobered, Bertie pushed Amy gently into her chair and then went out quickly. Both women waited in silence. There was a sound of loud swearing from above and then rapid footsteps.

“He’s taken every blessed thing we have, Amy,” howled Bertie. “All my money, all your jewelry. Of all the thieving conniving—sorry, Daisy, but after all, don’t you know your old man’s a downright thief?”

“We will report this to the police,” said Daisy in a thin, cold voice.

“Oh, you can’t,” exclaimed Amy. “Your own father…”

“I know where to catch him,” said Bertie. “He’ll have gone straight to the casino. Dammit, we haven’t any money to get there.”

“I have some. I hid it under the floorboards,” said Daisy.

“Well,” retorted Bertie, “it’s a wise child that knows its own father.” Daisy winced.

“We’ll go down to the village,” Bertie went on, “and see if we can hire some sort of vehicle.”

The only vehicle left was an ancient horse and cart belonging to the Bar Publique. Undeterred by its ramshackle appearance, they paid in advance for its hire from Daisy’s money and ambled slowly off along the winding coast road to the casino at Anribes.

Peasants heading homeward from a hard day in the stony fields stopped to look with amazement at the elegant trio in the old cart. Bertie had insisted that they all change into evening dress in case even the small casino had strict rules.

They passed through a village and a peasant girl stopped to look enviously at the beautiful mesdames in their splendid gowns. For a moment her envy was briefly reflected in Daisy’s eyes. What must it be like, she mused, to wear nothing but loose cotton in this heat instead of being confined in a hot, fashionable hell of heavy stays and horsehair padding?

Daisy was in no doubt about what she meant to do. If her father was indeed at the casino, she would have him arrested on the spot. She burned with revenge for the wrong done to her faithful friends.