The Londoners (46 page)

‘If Mr Matthew is settled for the night, Mr Harvey would appreciate you coming downstairs to have a few words with him,’ the maid who had earlier scurried past her
in the hall without speaking said, standing in the nursery doorway to deliver the message.

Kate’s stomach muscles tightened. She had begun to optimistically think her visit was going to pass without such a summons being issued.

‘Thank you,’ she said politely, wondering where on earth in the large house Joss Harvey would be waiting for her. The sitting-room? The dining-room? A study? She didn’t ask the
maid. Such a show of ignorance would only have emphasized how out of her depth she felt. Why on earth did Joss Harvey insist on his household staff being uniformed? And how could anyone seriously
preface a three-month-old baby’s name with the prefix ‘Mr’?

‘I have to go downstairs for a little while to speak with Matthew’s great-grandad,’ she said to Daisy as she tucked her into the camp bed that had been put in the pleasantly
furnished bedroom adjoining the nursery. ‘I don’t think I’ll be very long.’

Daisy had nodded sleepily, trusting her completely. She didn’t like the countryside but she liked the pretty bedroom and Matthew’s nursery. There was a rose-pink nightlight and
pictures of Humpty Dumpty and Little Bo Peep and Tom, the piper’s son, on the walls. She had had an egg for her tea and chocolate blancmange. Her eyes closed. It had been a real egg, not a
make-pretend egg made out of powder. Maybe she would be able to have another one in the morning, for her breakfast. Maybe she would even be able to take one home with her for Rose.

Kate coiled her heavy braid of hair into a discreet roll in the nape of her neck. She had worn a neat olive-green two-piece to travel to Somerset in. The colour wasn’t
one she would normally have chosen but clothing coupons and shortages meant there was only ‘utility’ material available. When she had bought the olive-green serge she had suspected it
had originally been woven for some type of uniform. She lifted the collar of her white blouse out over the collar of the nip-waisted jacket in an attempt to make it look a little more chic. It
still looked suspiciously like a uniform. Reflecting wryly that she looked almost like a member of Joss Harvey’s staff, she made her way down the wide staircase, wondering what the ‘few
words’ were he wished to have with her.

‘Mr Harvey’s in the drawing-room, Miss . . . Mrs . . .’ indicating the room Kate had seen her coming out of earlier in the day, the maid tailed off in embarrassment.

Kate felt sympathy for her. It couldn’t be easy knowing how to address the mother of your employer’s illegitimate great-grandchild.

‘Thank you,’ she said and then, remembering her only previous formal interview with Joss Harvey, she raised her head high and set her chin, determined not to be bullied.

The moment she stepped into the room shock vibrated through her. It was a large room, high-ceilinged with a deep bay of heavily curtained windows. Two deep sofas flanked a marble fireplace;
other chairs, some winged, some button-backed, proliferated. There was a low, large, glass-topped, Chinese-lion-legged table between the two sofas and other occasional tables dotted the room. One
had a chess-set on it. Another was thick with silver-framed photographs.

In that moment, as the atmosphere of the room impinged on her senses, Kate knew that Tumblers was no casually rented house. It hadn’t been appropriated after she had made her decision to
allow Matthew to be given a home far from bomb-torn London. The room she was now in was a family room that had taken on its character over a long period of time. It was a room she knew with utter
certainty Toby had been familiar with. It was Joss Harvey’s country home and there had never been any question of his taking Matthew to ‘somewhere in the country, perhaps Somerset or
Dorset’. Joss Harvey had known all along where he was going to bring Matthew and that was to the house his father and grandfather had lived in before him.

She wanted to be able to think out the reasons why Joss Harvey should have thought such deviousness necessary, but the realization that Tumblers was no casually rented property was not the only
cause of the shock-waves vibrating through her. Joss Harvey was standing full-square in front of the fireplace and standing nearby him, a glass of whisky in one hand, was Lance Merton.

‘Good. I’m glad you felt able to join us,’ Joss Harvey said with a show of such unexpected civility that she had to restrain herself from turning around to see if someone had
entered the room behind her. ‘I believe you know Group Captain Merton. He used to come here with Toby in the old days and has visited regularly since Toby’s death What would you like to
drink? A sherry? I have a
Sercial.
I bought it in Madeira in the spring of ’39. If I’d known how soon we were going to be at war I’d have bought an extra
crate.’

‘I’ll have a whisky, please,’ Kate said, certain that he would disapprove, and uncaring.

With great difficulty Joss Harvey restrained himself from saying she would have no such thing and instead crossed the room to a generously laden drinks table.

‘I didn’t know you would be here,’ Lance said as she moved towards the welcoming glow of the fire. ‘When Mr Harvey told me you were visiting I don’t know who was
the most surprised, me at realizing your son had been evacuated here or Mr Harvey at realizing the two of us knew each other.’

‘And so the two of you enjoyed a jaunt to Brighton the other week, did you?’ Joss Harvey asked her rhetorically, crossing the room towards her and handing her a cut-glass tumbler
containing a surprisingly generous measure of whisky. ‘When he was small, Toby used to enjoy trips to Brighton. Of course, most holidays he spent down here, in Somerset, and then we went for
seaside day trips to places such as Minehead and Burnham-on-Sea.’

As the conversation moved from the attractions of various English seaside resorts to the attractions of the more exotic holiday destinations Joss Harvey had been to, Kate felt quite unpleasantly
disorientated. Joss Harvey being openly hostile to her she could cope with. His apparent friendliness she found decidedly sinister. What was he trying to do? Had he decided that, as threats had
failed to persuade her to allow him to adopt Matthew, a friendlier approach might succeed? Or was his change in attitude due to the fact that he had discovered she was on friendly terms with Lance
Merton? And if it was, why did the fact matter to him?

It wasn’t until the next afternoon, as she was about to step into the chauffeured Bentley with Daisy, that the answer came.

‘Britain can be proud of young men like Group Captain Merton,’ Joss Harvey said, standing on the gravelled drive. ‘It’s thanks to them that Britain is still free and not
enslaved under the Nazi jackboot. He went to the same public school as Toby, did you know that?’

Kate, too anguished at having had to part from Matthew again to give much thought to Lance Merton, shook her head.

‘His father owns a large amount of land in West Somerset,’ Joss Harvey continued as Daisy scrambled onto the Bentley’s rear seat. ‘They’re a very old, very
well-respected family.’

Kate stepped into the car. Nothing he was telling her remotely surprised her. The hint of arrogance in Lance Merton’s tense personality was the kind of arrogance that stemmed from the
power of having money and of having had the kind of education that money buys.

Joss Harvey stood at the open car door, looking down at her. ‘I don’t know what it is about you, young woman, but you appear to have a profound effect on young men. It’s my
belief Lance Merton is as bewitched by you as my grandson apparently was.’

The chauffeur approached, about to close the car door, and Joss Harvey frowned him away. Taking hold of the car door’s handle himself he said, ‘If I’m right, our little dilemma
will be very neatly solved.’

He closed the door and through the open window Kate’s eyes held his, tension shooting through her. She had been right in thinking that her acquaintanceship with Lance Merton was somehow
responsible for Joss Harvey’s change of attitude towards her. And now she was about to find out why.

‘Lance Merton would make an ideal stepfather for Matthew,’ Joss Harvey said as if it was the most reasonable remark in the world.

Kate sucked in her breath. The chauffeur fired the engine into life and Joss Harvey’s eyes flicked across to Daisy. ‘You’d have to make alternative arrangements for her, of
course,’ he said, raising his voice and stepping back from the car as it began to move away from him. ‘You can’t expect an eligible bachelor to saddle himself with a bombed-out
slum child as well as with a young-stepson!’

Kate grasped hold of the handle, about to hurl herself out of the car and give vent to her red-hot rage. It was too late. The chauffeur’s foot was pressed hard on the accelerator and she
knew that he would refuse any demand that he bring the car to a halt. Defeated, knowing that asking the chauffeur to stop would be futile, she sank back against the leather upholstery, her fists
clenched, the knuckles white.

How dare he make such an outrageous suggestion to her? And how dare he refer to Daisy as a slum child? She didn’t know which of his disgraceful remarks she was maddest about. Slum child,
indeed! No wonder he’d waited until his chauffeur had had the Bentley in gear before he’d expressed his opinions. And his idea that Lance Merton would make an ideal stepfather for
Matthew was preposterous. Lance Merton wasn’t remotely interested in Matthew. When he had visited her, he hadn’t even troubled to ask where Matthew was.

She was still simmering with anger when their train, crowded with soldiers, eased out of Taunton station. Joss Harvey was trouble. She had known it the moment she had met him and she had
certainly been right to be suspicious of his sudden show of civility towards her. It wasn’t genuine civility. If Lance hadn’t visited and betrayed how interested in her he was, Joss
Harvey wouldn’t have conceived his crackbrained idea and she wouldn’t have been invited down to the drawing-room for a ‘few words’.

The mere thought of Joss Harvey’s rudeness and deviousness made her feel mad enough to spit and she made an exasperated clicking noise with her tongue.

One of the soldiers crammed into the carriage looked across at her with interest. She was a beauty all right. He’d never seen a girl with hair such a rich shade of barley-gold. Not
naturally, at any rate. Though it was wound in a heavy coil in the nape of her neck he could tell that it was uncommonly long. There was a prim neatness about her olive-green two-piece and white
blouse that was at odds with the flash of fire in her eyes. He grinned to himself. She was certainly mad as hell at something or someone. He wondered if the kiddie with her was hers. His eyes
flicked to the fourth finger of her left hand. There was no wedding-ring there. Maybe if he played his cards right he’d be in with a chance!

Kate was too immersed in her own thoughts to be aware of the young soldier’s interest in her. She didn’t like Matthew remaining in Joss Harvey’s care. The longer he was with
Joss, the more reluctant Joss would be to return Matthew to her.

The train had pulled into a station and as even more soldiers, cumbered by kit-bags, squeezed onto the train she saw the headline ‘500-
POUND BOMB HITS LONDON SUBURBAN
DANCE HALL
!’ emblazoned across a newsstand. Her thoughts of perhaps bringing Matthew back to London vanished. London was too dangerous. However much she distrusted Joss Harvey, at
least she knew that Matthew was safe and well cared for with him. And when the time came to bring Matthew home, she would do so. Joss Harvey wouldn’t be able to stop her. An entire army
wouldn’t be able to stop her!

By the time she and Daisy arrived home she’d also given a lot of thought to her relationship with Lance Merton. Cross as she was with him for having betrayed to Joss
Harvey that he was romantically interested in her, she didn’t want to cease being on friendly terms with him. He had been Toby’s friend and for that reason, if for no other, she wanted
to remain in contact with him. And there was no reason why she shouldn’t. Joss Harvey could think what he liked.

Some of her anger began to ebb. If, in thinking that she might marry Lance Merton, Joss Harvey continued treating her with civility, then her visits to Tumblers would be a lot less stressful and
she would have the added satisfaction of knowing she was making a monkey out of him. She felt a surge of wicked pleasure. She would enjoy making a monkey out of Joss Harvey. She would enjoy it
enormously.

‘The East Enders copped a packet while you were away,’ Carrie said when she brought Rose to the house to play with Daisy. ‘There were so many enemy aircraft
overhead the house walls were shaking. I took Rose to Miss Helliwell’s and sat it out with her and Esther and Faust in the Morrison. Or should that be under the Morrison? It’s just like
a glorified table with protective wire around the sides but Miss Helliwell has deep faith in it.’

‘Well, as she can presumably read her own future as well as other people’s, she should know whether it’s safe or not,’ Kate said wryly. ‘Harriet tells me the
elderly couple who lived next to Daniel and Hettie have moved out and gone to live with their daughter in Berkshire.’