Daisy (21 page)

Daisy smiled at them mistily, but shook her head. Bertie clanged a rusty bell beside the gate and then the three of them waited in silence. A cloud passed over the sun and the crickets sent out a great wave of buzzing and chirping as if disturbed by the loss of warmth.

“I—I don’t think anyone’s coming,” said Daisy. “Is the gate open, Bertie?” He gave it an exploratory push and with a creak it swung back on its rusty hinges. The drive wound upward, bordered on either side with dusty rhododendrons, pine, spruce, and brambles.

The driveway itself was uncared for and more like a dry riverbed than the entrance to a mansion. They turned around a bend and suddenly—there was Lord Chatterton’s house.

It was a large two-storied villa built from brown Provençal stone. There was a long terrace at the front with great arched windows opening onto a large cool room. A scarlet lace parasol lay abandoned on a cane table on the terrace, along with a sixpenny, torn, and tattered copy of Ouida’s
Held in Bondage.
Daisy hesitated and looked at her companions. She had not envisaged any female in her father’s household.

“Probably got house guests,” said Bertie breezily, answering Daisy’s unspoken question. “Come along. We can’t stand here all day.”

They moved slowly into the living room. A long table held the greasy remains of luncheon. Various items of female clothing which should never have been exposed to the public gaze lay in a trail from the terrace, through the room, and to a door at the far corner. The reader of Ouida had obviously undressed in stages as she had left the terrace, ending up by removing a frivolous pair of crepe de chine knickers, which now hung drunkenly from the corner of an overstuffed armchair.

“Anyone at home?” yelled Bertie.

The silence was absolute. Even the breeze outside had ceased to blow and the dusty pines and shrubbery shimmered beneath the scorching sun like a mirage.

“Why, there’s your ma!” cried Amy, making Daisy jump. She was pointing to a portrait over the fireplace. A sweet, serene face, very like Daisy’s, smiled at them pleasantly from a heavy gilt frame. “Cheer up, Daisy. You’re in the right place, anyway,” added Amy as Daisy’s eyes began to fill with tears.

Daisy felt the loss of her mother as she had never felt it before. If only that gentle figure in the portrait could come to life and step down from its frame and soothe her loneliness and homelessness away with long, cool, maternal hands.

“What d’ye want?” The voice was a harsh croak and the three spun around from their examination of the portrait.

Standing on the threshold to the room was a small girl wrapped in a man’s dressing gown. Her hair was dyed an impossible color of red and surmounted a small, sharp white face. Her pale-green eyes were snapping with a mixture of suspicion and jealousy as they roamed over the elegant, if dusty, dress of the visitors.

“I am Daisy Chatterton,” said Daisy, stepping forward. “I have come to see my father.”

The girl’s eyes flashed from the portrait to Daisy’s face. “Pleased ter meet you, I’m sure,” she said, stepping forward and extending a grubby hand. “Neddie didn’t say nuffink about having a daughter, but then he likes to pretend he’s sweet and twenty ’isself.”

Daisy found that she was trembling from nerves and disappointment. To judge from the clothes scattered about the room, the girl was obviously not a servant.

“And are you a friend of my father? Miss…”

“Miss Wellington-Jones-Smythe,” said the girl, without batting an eyelid. “I’m your Dad’s companion.”

“Where is he?” demanded Bertie after introducing himself and Amy.

“Oh, Neddie’s gone off to play the tables as usual. Got a big win, buys ’isself… himself… a motor and beetles off like a rat up a spout and don’t give me nuffink… anything… for the housekeeping.”

“Do you think we could have some tea?” asked Daisy. She was beginning to feel faint.

“Okay,” said Miss Wellington-Jones-Smythe cheerfully. “I’ll rouse the old bag.” She disappeared into the nether regions where she could be heard haranguing someone in execrable French.

“What on earth does ‘okay’ mean?” asked Amy.

“It’s an American expression,” explained Bertie, anxious to display his transatlantic knowledge. “It means ‘all right.’ It comes from Martin Van Buren’s birthplace, Old Kinderhook, New York State. The Democrats founded the O.K. Club in 1840 and o.k. became a catchword of the party. Hence okay.”

Miss Wellington-Jones-Smythe reappeared, followed by a sleepy village girl who placed a tray on the table and began to clean up the room, stopping every now and then to stare openmouthed at the guests. “Help yourselves,” said their hostess, “and I’ll go and slip into something tight.” She gave a sudden infectious giggle, winked at Bertie, and hurried off. Then she popped her head around the door and said, “It’s coffee. She can’t make tea,” and disappeared again.

Amy carried the tray out onto the terrace and pushed the trembling Daisy into a chair. “Now just look at that pretty view, Daisy, and try to relax. If you ask me, it’s a good thing we left our bags at that nice hotel in Toulon and the sooner we get back there the better.”

“Now, now, Amy,” admonished Bertie. “Daisy’s come all this way to see her father and she may as well wait until she does.”

The coffee was excellent, accompanied as it was by a large imported Dundee cake. The view was peaceful, showing glimpses of the blue Mediterranean through the pines. Everyone but themselves seemed to have gone to sleep on this hot, somnolent afternoon.

Exuding an aroma of sweat, powder, and cheap cologne, their hostess joined them. She had changed into a tightly fitting gown of green and white striped silk, which plunged in a low décolletage showing the pointed, birdlike bones of her thin chest.

“You can call me Rose,” she said, sitting down at the table. “You can all stay if you like. We’ve got plenty of rooms.”

“How did you meet my father?” asked Daisy nervously.

“Oh, that was a lark,” said Rose, waving a motheaten ostrich-feather fan. “It was on the Channel crossing. I felt so sick, I was puking all over the place. Then your Dad comes up with ’is—his—flask of brandy and that puts me right in no time. Well, he says like he’s going to live down here and why don’t I come along. ’Course I didn’t know then that he’d been kicked out the country for cheating at cards,” she chattered on, blissfully unaware of Daisy’s face which had become set and white. “Don’t know that it’d have made all that much difference. Quite a way your Dad had with him then.”

A cruel shaft of sunlight suddenly shone full on her face, highlighting wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and at the side of her mouth. Amy realized that Rose was probably in her late thirties.

“And when do you expect Lord Chatterton to return?” asked Bertie.

“I dunno,” said Rose with blithe unconcern. “If he gets a winning streak, he often stays all night.”

There was a sound of voices in the driveway but, as Daisy jumped to her feet, a couple came into view and neither of them could possibly be Lord Chatterton.

Both men wore hard high collars, black suits, and black bowler hats, and seemed impervious to the heat.

“Duns,” said Rose bitterly. “Wot’s he done now?”

They watched in silence as the two men mounted the terrace, their quick eyes taking in every detail. Ignoring the party on the terrace, they moved past into the living room where they began turning the chairs upside down and studying them intently. They had just started knocking on the walls when Daisy cried to Rose, “Aren’t you going to do something?”

Rose shrugged a thin shoulder. “Why should I? Neddie’s gone and sold the house again. He’s always managed to save it at the last minute, but we ain’t got anything left to sell.”

“B-but,” stammered Daisy. “My father sends me a very generous allowance each month…”

“I don’t know who’s paying you money, but it ain’t your; dad,” said Rose. “I know every penny that man hasn’t got. If he’d anything to spare, he’d put it on the tables. Cheer up. Maybe you’ve got a rich admirer.”

“I think you’re making all this up,” said Daisy, her voice trembling. “How dare you speak of my father in such terms…”

But Rose had turned an indifferent shoulder and her averted face spoke volumes to Bertie and Amy. Rose had heard it all before. She then got to her feet and berated the two men in her cockney French, finally driving them off with a torrent of abuse that no English primer could possibly translate.

“Let’s get out of here,” Bertie was beginning to plead when they all heard the faint sound of a motorcar in the distance.

“The traveler returns,” said Rose. “I’d better get the decanter.”

Amy, Bertie, and Daisy sat as if turned to stone, as the sound of the motorcar came nearer. The sky turned a milky gray through which the sun still blazed, diffusing a yellow light over the landscape. The motor rolled to a stop outside the terrace. Lord Chatterton gave a hunted look at the three figures on the terrace and bolted around the side of the house and disappeared.

Then sounds of an angry altercation assailed the ears of the three. For a time the words were mercifully indistinct until Lord Chatterton’s voice resounded through the house with painful clarity. “Tell her I’ve left. Tell her anything. I don’t want any daughter sponging off me.”

White-faced, Daisy got to her feet as the door opened. Lord Chatterton stood on the threshold. He looked Daisy up and down and then sat in an armchair with his back to the terrace.

He was a thin, dapper man dressed in a checkered suit and spats. He had a surprisingly youthful face and a thick head of soft brown hair, very like Daisy’s own.

“I’m leaving, Father,” said Daisy, addressing the back of the armchair.

“It ain’t that I’m not glad to see you,” remarked Lord Chatterton. “But I just haven’t got any money to support you and that’s a fact.”

He suddenly twisted around and surveyed his daughter. “You’re as pretty as your mother. Thought Angela and David would have married you off by now.”

“I do not wish to marry for money,” said Daisy coldly. It all seemed like a nightmare. She couldn’t possibly be carrying on this sort of conversation with her own father.

He got to his feet and surveyed her with a sort of leisurely insolence. “Well, now, that’s a pretty penny you’ve got on your back. I must say the Nottenstones have been surprisingly generous.”

Daisy faltered, “B—but you have been sending me a very handsome allowance.”

He looked at her and began to laugh, “Not me, my dear. I haven’t a penny. Your fairy godmother ain’t me.”

“But Mr. Curzon—the Nottenstones’ butler—told me that you…”

“Curzon, eh. Used to work for me. Crafty fellow. Some masher’s probably got his eye on you and Curzon’s setting you up.”

For the first time Daisy passionately wished the grim figure of Sara Jenkins back from the grave. Bullying and stern though she may have been, she had been respectability personified.

In one moment Daisy Chatterton finally grew up. Her childish face seemed to harden and mature as she faced her father in the darkening room. Bertie and Amy, who had expected her to break down, stared at her in surprise.

“Mr. Curzon,” began Daisy in a cold icy voice, “has been like a father to me. So much so that I had always dreamed you would be something the same. But now,” her eyes raked him up and down, “I find
you
. I did not look for perfection, believe me, but it is rather a shock to find myself confronted by a—an
elderly roué.
”

Lord Chatterton gave a short bark of laughter.

“There ain’t nothing you can say that ain’t been said to me before.”

“I am going to leave. Please convey my apologies to Miss Wellington-Jones-Smythe.”

“Who the hell’s she? Oh,
Rose
. What a name. She’s plain Rose Smith of Stepney.”

“You couldn’t leave poor Rose her little bit of social pretense, could you,” Daisy spat at him.

“Arrrch! Just like your mother,” sneered his lordship. “Always nagging and preaching and…”

That was as far as he got, however, because Bertie Burke punched him in the mouth and then stood looking at his own fist as if he couldn’t believe it.

Lord Chatterton stood laughing at them, the blood running in two rivulets down his chin. He looked like a middle-aged and very English Count Dracula.

“Look at your faces,” he crowed. “What did you expect me to do, gather my daughter to my bosom? Bah! Get back to the Haymarket Theater where you all belong.”

Rose had appeared in time to hear the last sentence. “Nobody’s going anywhere, Neddie,” she snapped. “There’s a storm coming up. Me bunion says so and it’s never wrong. I’ve got you ever such a nice room ready, Daisy. Don’t mind ’is nibs. Like a bleedin’ child, ain’t you, Neddie. Now come along o’ me, Daisy.”

Daisy and Amy followed her from the room, glad of any escape from Lord Chatterton’s presence. Rose led them upstairs and into a large whitewashed room. She flung open the shutters and they could hear the faraway rumble of thunder and the sudden hiss of rain. A cool piney breeze wafted into the room like a blessing.

Rose turned with her back to the window. “Don’t take it too hard, Daisy. He feels guilty about you so that’s why he wants you to leave.” When Daisy did not reply, she left, taking Amy with her to show her her room.

Daisy sat for a long time listening to the storm outside. Somehow she found she was beginning to have a feeling of relief. The dreaded meeting with her father was over. There! She had admitted it. Dreaded.

There had been too many odd looks, too many whispers in London society about him for Daisy not to have realized that her father was not exactly popular. Disappointed in love, she had clung to another love only to find it as empty as all the others. But she had to admit that deep within her, she had been expecting it all along.

The rain had stopped beating down and far away in the distance, the thunder rolled its retreat. She rested her head on the windowsill and gazed out over the moonlit Mediterranean. The dingy, sooty London streets seemed very far away.

She began to wonder if she would ever see the Duke of Oxenden again.

True love, she had found, did exist. Because she loved the Duke. But she knew now that she would never find a love like hers that was returned. In her newfound maturity she realized—sadly and undramatically—that she would probably love the handsome Duke until the day she died.