Father Unknown (40 page)

‘Maybe that’s just because she was the only survivor,’ Tom said, and patted Daisy’s hand. ‘People enjoy saying what they really thought about a person once they’re dead, good and bad. But it’s different when the person is still alive.’

‘She sounds a fine woman to me,’ John said. ‘I think that it was quite understandable that she severed all connections in Cornwall after the fire, too. I know I find it hard to talk to Lorna’s old friends and relations now. Of course I wouldn’t cut myself off from them, but then it’s different when you’ve got children.’

‘So you don’t think she went barmy then?’ Daisy asked. ‘I mean, if she did have suspicions her sister started the fire, that would prey on her mind, wouldn’t it?’

John shook his head. ‘She might have floundered for a while, after such a terrible thing anyone would. But she must have been strong and in control of herself otherwise she couldn’t have made dramatic changes in her life like moving away. Maybe she suddenly couldn’t face the school any more, didn’t want her old friends to try and keep her there. You said she came up here quite often to see Josie, and for all we know she might have always had a yearning to live in London.’

‘I wonder if she was ever jealous of Josie,’ Lucy said.

‘I wonder that too,’ Daisy replied. She had been touched by Lucy’s enthusiasm and interest – for once she’d dropped her guard, there wasn’t a trace of ridicule in her voice and her eyes were thoughtful, not hard. ‘I think I would have been. But then I’m not the kind to make a career with handicapped children.’

‘And I’m too plump and plain to be a model,’ Lucy added with a giggle.

‘You’ve got too good a brain for that,’ Daisy said quickly. ‘Josie was quite thick by all accounts. But it made me think about how it is between me and you Lucy, too. We might not be blood sisters, but we’re all we’ve got, so let’s try to be nicer to each other, eh?’

‘I really missed you while you were away,’ Lucy admitted, blushing a little. ‘I even got to feeling sorry for the horrible things I’ve said in the past.’

Daisy grinned. ‘Me too, so let’s just forget them and start again, shall we? I won’t bear a grudge if you won’t.’

They moved on to talk about things that had happened while she’d been away, including the new cleaner who came once and never returned.

‘I’ve tried all the agencies,’ Dad said dolefully. ‘It seems good cleaners are like gold dust. I thought I’d put an ad in the local paper. Is there anyone around here that doesn’t think they are above a bit of charring?’

‘There’s me.’ Daisy laughed. ‘I’ll get stuck into it tomorrow.’

Daisy was delighted that the evening had gone so well, and very relieved no one had mentioned Joel. But after the twins had gone up to their rooms, Dad suggested they went into the sitting-room and had a drink together. As he was pouring her a gin and tonic he asked what Joel had made of everything.

‘I didn’t really tell him much,’ she said, ‘we only spoke on the phone once.’ She paused.

‘What’s gone wrong?’ her father asked. ‘I know something has, there was a time when you brought his name up in every sentence but you haven’t mentioned it once tonight.’

Daisy had no choice but to tell the truth. ‘He was so full of himself,’ she ended up. ‘Didn’t really want to know, didn’t want to help. Anyway, I think it has burned itself out. I don’t think we have a future together any more.’

‘Only you know whether that’s true or not,’ her father said. ‘But don’t make the assumption he didn’t want to know just because he threw up a few objections. I’d say that he was just worried about you getting in over your head.’

‘Why should he think that?’

‘Well, you are rather well known for rushing into things,’ he said with a grin. ‘I suppose Joel was afraid that the quest to find Ellen might take over your life, excluding him and all of us too. He has a very logical mind. I daresay he thinks if you met up with Ellen and she wasn’t exactly what you wanted her to be, you might be badly hurt.’

‘I don’t
want
her to be anything,’ Daisy said indignantly. ‘I’m quite happy to accept her as she is.’

‘I think Joel might be thinking you want another Lorna,’ John said gently. ‘I know when I think of another woman I want one in the same mould. It’s natural when you’ve lost someone to hope for a replacement.’

‘I don’t want that,’ Daisy retorted, and began to cry.

John put his arm around her and drew her close to his chest. ‘I might not be your biological father, Dizzie, but I loved you from the moment I first held you in my arms. I know you pretty well. You are big on ideas, but less good at carrying them out. You are afraid of commitment. I think that’s why you want to sweep Joel out of your life.’

‘That’s stupid,’ she said heatedly. ‘It would be really harebrained to drift on with Joel under the pretence of
commitment.
He isn’t right for me, he’s too bossy, too opinionated.’

‘Is that so?’ John gave her a quizzical look. ‘Funny you never brought up those two objections until you wanted to do something he was trying to deter you from!’

‘I’ve felt for some time that things weren’t right. Going away gave me time to mull it over in my mind,’ she said. ‘He’s a control freak.’

‘I never saw him in that way.’ John stood up and moved away to the door. He paused for a second, looking back at her. ‘His objections sound rather more like caring to me. Think about it carefully before you do something irrevocable, that’s all I want to say. Finding Ellen will be like winning a prize in a tombola. You might be lucky and get the star prize. On the other hand, you might be left with the booby prize.’

Chapter Twenty

Straight after the Easter weekend, Daisy went to Shaw-cross and Hendle in Marylebone Road, the solicitors from whom Mr Briggs had received a request for a reference for Ellen.

On the Tube ride there Daisy thought over the advice her father had given her, and decided he was right. If she said she was trying to find her mother, they were likely to be wary of giving her any information. So she planned to pretend she was Mr Briggs’s secretary, and that he needed to contact Ellen with regard to the family estate. Fortunately she had one of Mr Briggs’s office cards, and she hoped that and the letter would be enough to convince them.

The offices were on the first floor of one of the more imposing old houses in Marylebone Road, close to Baker Street. Before going up the stairs she checked in the mirror in the hall and decided she did look like a secretary in her black suit, with her hair tied back, carrying Lucy’s leather briefcase.

The reception area for the solicitors was very plush, with deep blue couches and oil paintings on the cream walls. It was manned by a plump, grey-haired lady in a navy blue suit, who smiled brightly as Daisy walked in. ‘How can I help you?’ she said.

Daisy had always prided herself on being able to act out a part. She had used it to advantage in the past to get work, and to interest men. As she launched into her rehearsed story she felt she sounded perfectly plausible, and taking the letter to Mr Briggs out of her briefcase, she showed it to the woman.

‘After the estate was wound up, Miss Pengelly moved to London and we had no further contact with her. But now something has cropped up again, and we need to find her. Could you look in your files and see if you have her current address? It is a matter of some urgency.’

Fortunately the woman didn’t seem the least bit suspicious, and asked Daisy to take a seat while she took a look. She went into an adjoining room which appeared to be a typing pool, and Daisy could hear her talking to someone else.

Several minutes passed before she came back with a slim brown file in her hand.

‘I’m afraid we don’t have a home address for Miss Pengelly,’ she said. ‘We only represented her once in preparing a commercial lease, and all I have is that address.’

Daisy stared blankly at the woman. She didn’t understand what she meant. ‘Commercial?’ she repeated.

‘Yes, a shop,’ the woman said. ‘Miss Pengelly took out a fifteen-year lease on it.’

‘Where is it?’ Daisy tried to sound casual, but having steeled herself for coming away with nothing she felt like grinning like a Cheshire Cat.

‘14 Heath Street, Hampstead,’ the woman said. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t have a telephone number.’

‘That’s fine,’ Daisy said, forcing herself to keep calm, and jotted down the address. ‘Mr Briggs will write to her there. Thank you so much for your help.’

Once back outside in Marylebone Road, Daisy was forced to light up a cigarette to calm herself down. She couldn’t believe it had been so easy. She had always been under the impression solicitors never gave out any verbal information about their clients.

Her father had asked her to ring him if she had any news, but knowing if she told him this he’d tell her to go home and write a letter to Ellen, she decided against phoning him. She would go to Hampstead now, and just look in to see if Ellen was still there and what the shop was like. Then she’d speak to him.

Daisy knew Hampstead fairly well. In her late teens she’d often gone to pubs there with her friends. There was a time when she’d day-dreamed of getting a flat there, she loved the quaint, arty feeling about the place, but sadly it was far too expensive for her.

She turned right out of the Tube station and began walking up Heath Street, her heart thumping like a sledgehammer as she checked the numbers. She passed an art gallery, a baby clothes shop and two antique dealers. Then she saw a green swinging sign ahead marked Number 14 and ‘Chic Boutique’.

Somehow she’d expected it to be a toy or craft shop, not a boutique. Perhaps it had changed hands and was no longer
her
shop?

She stopped dead just before the bow windows, afraid to look in. But she could already see part of the display because of the curved windows, and the sheer femininity of it urged her to move closer.

A pale yellow suit was displayed artfully and beneath it the floor of the window was strewn with yellow and white artificial daisies. There was a cream leather bag, the very expensive kind, with a green and white silk scarf draped over it.

She stood there for some time, unable to move. If she went right up to the window and looked in, would she come face to face with her mother?

Eventually she made herself saunter past. The part of the window she couldn’t see before held a green dress – although the style was too old for her, it was her favourite colour.

There was a step down into the shop, but she could see little beyond the first rail of clothes. Yet just the closed door and the ivory and pale pink decor were enough to let her know it was an extremely expensive designer shop. There didn’t appear to be anyone in there, neither assistant nor customers.

She turned and walked back past it again. Mavis had said Ellen had no interest in clothes, so how could it be hers? Yet she felt sure it was. Even though Daisy could only afford clothes from chain-stores or charity shops, and
never
went into designer boutiques, she knew she would have been drawn into this one whatever the circumstances. That had to mean something.

She went down past the Tube again, and found a coffee shop. Common sense told her to go home and write a letter to Ellen. Yet when she’d finished her coffee she went up to the shop again.

This time there was someone inside. A slender woman in a black dress was tidying clothes on a rail, her back to the window. Her hair was red and curly, just touching her shoulders.

Daisy was rooted to the spot, her eyes glued to the woman, wanting her to turn and face her, yet terrified that she would see her looking in. She drank in everything about her, the gold chain-belt around her small waist, her narrow hips, slim but shapely legs, and black court shoes with just a strip of gold above the three-inch heels.

She hadn’t for one moment anticipated such glamour and elegance. She had pictured Ellen in flowing ethnictype clothes, but it couldn’t be anyone but her, not with hair that colour. Daisy knew that if she was dressed the same and made to stand next to this woman, the only difference would be that her hair was longer, wilder and badly needing a trim.

She suddenly felt faint. Her heart seemed to be beating too fast, the palms of her hands were sticky with perspiration. She knew she ought to walk away and prepare herself properly before making any contact, but her need to look at Ellen’s face, to hear her voice, was too strong for caution.

A bell tinkled as she opened the door, and the woman looked round and smiled, not a smile of recognition, just an ordinary smile of welcome to a potential customer.

‘May I just look?’ Daisy managed to say, for she was overwhelmed by how lovely the woman was with her soft brown eyes, with only a few tiny lines around them, peachy skin and still plump, girlish lips. While there was no doubt that this was the woman who had been photographed in Mavis’s garden thirteen years earlier, the shyness of the smile had gone, she had the poise of a woman who knew her worth.

‘By all means,’ she said, a trace of laughter in her voice. ‘Don’t mind me, I’m just tidying up after the weekend. I had so many people in here on Saturday that everything is in a muddle.’

There was just a faint hint of a Cornish accent, but if Daisy hadn’t been in Cornwall so recently she wouldn’t have been aware of it. She put her briefcase down on the floor and moved over to a display of sweaters, feeling even fainter now she was in an enclosed space.

The shop was one of the prettiest she’d ever seen, cream and palest pink with touches of gold on the counter and around the frames of the many mirrors. It smelled of expensive perfume, the cream carpet was thick and luxurious. Even the curtains around the changing cubicles at the back of the shop were perfection, pale pink brocade, each one held back with a heavy gold tasselled cord.

She picked up a pale green lacy sweater. It was an exquisite, dainty Italian one, something she would give her right arm for.

‘You’d look fabulous in that,’ the woman said from behind her.

Daisy knew then she couldn’t contain herself any longer, for the woman was looking at her hair, as if appraising it as being so similar in colour to her own.