Requiem for a Mezzo (2 page)

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Authors: Carola Dunn

BOOK: Requiem for a Mezzo
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That was the least of it, Daisy thought. Hoping to hear the rest of the story, she said, “Would you like a cup of tea? This pot is stewed, but I can easily make some more.”
“I'd love to,” Muriel said regretfully, “but I must get back. With Beryl out, there's no one else to answer the door. I'll see myself out. I don't want to tear you away from your baking. Mmm, your cake smells delicious.”
“Oh Lord, I'd forgotten the time!” Frantic, Daisy checked the clock. “Whew, still five minutes before I dare peek. If it turns out half-way decent, you must come over tomorrow and have a slice.”
“I'd love to. Four o'clock? Betsy will be out all afternoon.”
“We'll see you at four,” Daisy agreed, suppressing with difficulty the temptation to say she'd meant elevenses. It would only upset Muriel. If she chose to allow her sister to ride roughshod over her, it was none of Daisy's business.
T
he sponge cake came out looking quite edible, success enough to satisfy Daisy considering it was her first attempt. The black bit round the edge of the bottom could easily be scraped off and she would fill the dip in the top with jam. Leaving it to cool on a rack, she took the
Requiem
tickets and went out to Lucy's photographic studio in the back garden.
Practically overnight, the forsythia had burst into bloom, a fountain of gold against the mellow red brick of the converted mews. Daisy wished some clever inventor would hurry up and invent a simple and satisfactory colour photography process.
The small studio was as usual cluttered with cameras, tripods, backdrops, and props. The desk in the corner was piled high with photos and bills, paid and unpaid, beneath which the appointment book undoubtedly lurked. Lucy was talking about having a telephone put in; she'd probably use it to hang up the black cloth she draped over her head when she shot portraits. How anyone who invariably emerged from beneath the black cloth without a hair out of place could stand the mess had puzzled Daisy for years.
“Lucy?”
“I'm in the darkroom, darling. I'll be out in a jiffy.”
“Right-oh.” Daisy sat down at the desk and began in a desultory way to sort out the jumble. She helped out in Lucy's business when things were particularly busy so she knew pretty much what was what.
Among the heaps, she came across a photo of Bettina and her husband. Roger Abernathy, standing behind his seated wife, gazed down upon her with a smile so fatuously adoring it made Daisy snort with disgust. Too sickening! Some men simply couldn't see past a head of golden curls, or perhaps, in this case, a golden voice. She buried the photo at the bottom of a pile.
The papers were all neatly stacked by the time Lucy emerged. She had already taken off her white darkroom coat and combed her dark bob. No chemical stains had been permitted to yellow her fingers to match her amber eyes. Tall and sleek, she wouldn't have been caught dead in last year's calf-length hems, though her budget was as limited as Daisy's; she made her own clothes and spent on materials and trimmings the equivalent of what Daisy put into books and gramophone records. Daisy's best hat, from Selfridge's Bargain Basement, always made her shudder.
“Angel!” she said as she caught sight of her tidy desk. “You shouldn't have.”
“I jolly well couldn't bear looking at it while I waited.”
“Then you know how I feel looking at your hair. The best birthday present you can give me is to have it bobbed.”
“I'll think about it.”
“Come on, Daisy, you've been havering for months.”
Daisy sighed. “All right, I'll do it. Tomorrow morning. I've invited Muriel for tea—I hope you don't mind.”
“Muriel? Oh, that poor prune next door. Why on earth … ?”
“I had to borrow some flour for your cake, and then she offered
two concert tickets for your birthday.”
“A concert!” Lucy groaned. “You didn't go and tell her I'd be thrilled?”
“No, darling, I said I didn't know about you but I'd be thrilled, so she gave them to me. You needn't think I'll try to make you go with me.”
“You'd better invite Phillip.”
“Phillip! He'd accept because he thought I needed an escort, and like you he'd be bored to tears. There's nothing worse than going to a concert with someone who's bored. It's impossible to enjoy it. No, I'm going to ask Alec Fletcher.”
“Oh Daisy, not your tame policeman! He'll be as bored as Phillip and not gentleman enough to hide it.”
“A fat lot you know. You haven't even met him yet. Alec is a perfect gentleman, and what's more, he likes good music. He invited me to a concert at the Queen's Hall, but it was last week while I was in Suffolk doing the research for the third
Town and Country
article.”
“But really, darling, a bobby! Too, too
déclassé,
even if he is a Detective Chief Inspector. A policeman simply cannot be quite … well, quite. And when Phillip's dying to marry you!”
“He's not dying to marry me, he simply feels duty-bound to take care of me because of Gervaise,” Daisy said crossly. Her brother, Phillip Petrie's closest chum, had been killed in the Great War and she didn't appreciate the reminder every time she had this argument with Lucy. “Just because you think Binkie's blood-lines are reason enough to encourage him although he's a complete fathead …”
“Phillip's not the brightest star in the firmament,” Lucy retorted.
“So why are you pushing me at him?”
Lucy sighed. “It's not so much pushing you at Phillip as trying to wean you from your 'tec. Lady Dalrymple would have
forty fits if she knew you were seeing a common copper.”
“Mother has forty fits whatever I do. She needs something to carp at. It's what keeps her going.”
“True,” Lucy said ruefully. “Well, I won't carp at you any longer just now. I've got someone coming for a sitting—if you've unearthed my appointments book, you might look it up and tell me if they're due at quarter past or half past.”
“Quarter past. I'll get out of your way. Don't despair, darling. Remember Alec's a widower who lives with his mother and daughter, both of whom may hate me on sight.”
“No one ever hates you on sight, darling. They're more likely to pour their troubles into your ears as you step over the threshold.”
Laughing, Daisy returned to the house. It was true people tended to confide in her, though she wasn't sure why. Alec, who had twice revealed to her more details of a current case than his superiors or he himself thought quite proper, muttered accusing reproaches about guileless blue eyes. She protested that her eyes were no more guileless—less guileful? —than anyone else's, and besides it made her sound like a halfwit.
Be that as it might, people told her things, and whatever Alec said, she had helped him solve both cases.
She was dying to ring him up about the concert, but she didn't want to disturb him at Scotland Yard. Didn't quite dare, actually. Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher could be quite formidable when annoyed.
It was a pity she and Lucy really couldn't afford to have a 'phone installed in the house. That evening, after an early supper of toasted cheese, Daisy nipped out to the telephone kiosk on the corner and asked the operator to put her through to Alec's home number.
A young girl's voice answered with a conscientious repetition of the number.
“This is Daisy Dalrymple. May I speak to Mr. Fletcher, please, if he's at home?”
“Gran, it's Miss Dalrymple!” The voice was muffled, as if the speaker had turned away from the mouthpiece. “You know, Daddy's friend. I can't remember, should I call her ‘Honourable' or what?”
So Alec had talked about her at home. At least Belinda hadn't slammed the receiver into its hook on hearing her name.
“Miss Dalrymple.” The girl sounded breathless now. “This is Belinda Fletcher speaking. Daddy … my father's just come home and gone upstairs. If you don't mind waiting just a minute, I'll run and fetch him.”
Daisy contemplated the six minutes' worth of pennies lined up on the little shelf by the apparatus. “Could you ask him to ring me back right away, please? I'm in a public booth. If you have a pencil, here's the number.”
“We always have a pencil and pad by the telephone in case there's an urgent message from Scotland Yard,” Belinda said proudly. “Daddy says I'm very good at taking messages.”
“I'm glad to hear it.” Daisy read off the number. “Thank you, Miss Fletcher. I'm delighted to make your acquaintance, even if at a distance.”
“Me too. I mean, I want awfully to meet you properly. I'll go and tell Daddy right away.”
She rang off, leaving Daisy to wonder whether such enthusiasm wasn't worse than outright hostility. How on earth was she to live up to whatever exaggerated idea of her charms Belinda had got into her head?
Fortunately no one came to use the telephone booth before the bell shrilled. In fact, Alec rang back very quickly.
“Daisy! Don't tell me you've fallen over another dead body?”
“Certainly not. When I do, I'll 'phone up the Yard.”
“I trust that won't be necessary. What's up?”
Daisy had sudden qualms. Among close friends in her set, it was perfectly acceptable for a girl to ask a man to escort her to an event if she was given free tickets, but perhaps middle-class mores were different. Could Lucy be right that it was a mistake for her to have made friends with Alec?
No, though he might laugh at her, he wouldn't think her forward or pert or any of those ghastly Victorian notions. At least, not more forward or pert than he already considered her, and he seemed to like her anyway.
“I've got free tickets to the Albert Hall,” she said tentatively. “On Sunday afternoon, three o'clock. Would you like to go with me?”
“What's on? A boxing match?” His grin came down the wire as clearly as if she could see it.
“Don't be a chump, it's a concert. Verdi's
Requiem.
My neighbour's singing the mezzo solo.”
“I'd love to go, Daisy, and I'll do my utmost to keep the afternoon free, but though things are quietish at present you know I can't give you an absolute promise.”
“I know, you might be called out to a murder in Northumberland. I'll keep the ticket for you. If you can't make it, I can always rope in Phillip at the last minute.”
“I'll make it,” Alec said grimly. He still wasn't convinced Phillip was no more to her than a childhood friend. “By hook or by crook.”
“What an unsuitable phrase for a policeman!” Daisy teased. “Phillip'll be very relieved if you do. He'd hate it.”
“I wouldn't want to be responsible for his agonies. May I take you out to dinner afterwards?”
“I'd like that, if you swear you won't leave for Northumberland between the soup and the fish.”
“I swear. Even if it's John o' Groats I'm called to, I shan't desert you till after dessert. I'll pick you up at two.”
“Spiffing.” Daisy would have liked to go on chatting but if he had just come in from work he must be tired and hungry. Complimenting him on his daughter's telephone manners, she said cheerio.
 
On Sunday, Alec's small yellow Austin Seven, its hood raised against a wintry downpour, pulled up outside the house promptly at two. Daisy saw it from the window of the front parlour, where she was pretending to read
The Observer.
She dashed into the hall and jammed her emerald green cloche hat onto her head, tugging it down as far over her ears as she could, practically down to her nose. Then, in more leisurely fashion, she put on her green tweed coat.
The doorbell rang. She opened the door and Alec smiled at her from beneath a huge black, dripping umbrella.
“You're all ready to go?” he said, raising dark, impressive eyebrows. “No hurry, we've plenty of time.”
“Yes. No.” Flustered, she hoped he didn't think she wanted to avoid introducing him to Lucy, who was out anyway. “Come in a minute while I find my gloves. Shall I take an umbrella?”
“Mine is plenty big enough for two. And there's no wind, you don't need to pull your hat so low. I can scarcely see your face. Or is that the latest style?”
“No.” In fact, now that he was close she couldn't see his face at all, nothing above the Royal Flying Corps tie in the open neck of his overcoat. She pushed the cloche up a bit. “Oh Alec, I had almost all my hair cut off—I promised Lucy—and it feels so peculiar and draughty. My ears feel positively
naked.
I don't know what you'll think … .”
“Nor do I, since I can't see a single lock. The hairdresser did leave you
some
hair, I trust?”
Bravely Daisy took off her hat and present her shingled head for his examination.
“Hmm.” Chin in hand he studied her, a twinkle in his eyes. “Just like Lady Caroline Lamb in the portrait by Phillips.” Alec had studied history at university, specialising in the Georgian era.
“The one who chased Lord Byron? Didn't she go mad?” Daisy asked suspiciously.
“Yes, but she wrote a very successful book on the way, a scandalous
roman-à-clef.
On second thoughts, the chief similarity is the hair. Caro Lamb had short, honey brown curls like yours, but she had brown eyes, not blue, if I'm not mistaken. As for her expression of haughty wilfulness, only the wilful part applies to you.”
“Mother would agree, but I'm not wilful, I'm independent.”

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