The Colonel and His Daughter (2 page)

Meanwhile, up at the big square red brick house on the edge of the village, Colonel Amadeus Potts paced the floor of his drawing room, pausing in his stride only occasionally to flick back the dusty curtain and peek out.

It wasn’t exactly dust. More like terminal disintegration. Mrs Benson had offered to vacuum them on a number of occasions, but so far he’d resisted, fearing they’d crumble to tatters.

“Where is she Fortescue?” he asked the big ginger cat who was sprawled in a square of sunlight on the rug. “She said she’d be here at three and it’s now five minutes past.”

Fortescue looked at him and blinked and because Potts had spoken and he liked the sound of his master’s voice, even if it was a tad strained, Fortescue began to purr loudly.

“Quiet Forty,” Potts muttered. “I can’t hear m’self think with you rumbling away like a bally generator. I’m waiting for Mrs Benson, don’t you know?”

There was a crash and Wellington, a white boxer, charged towards the front door. He put his head down and sniffed loudly at the crack under the door, his tail going round in circles.

“I didn’t say Mrs Benson was here you fool, Welly,” Potts called out. “I said she wasn’t here. Oh, what’s the use? You don’t listen to a thing I say anyway. No one does these days.”

Mrs Benson was supposed to be coming in disguise. If she’d been coming any other day, she would have come on her bike in her normal clothes as usual, but because it was a Sunday and everyone knew that Mrs Benson didn’t do on a Sunday, her arrival might arouse suspicion.

And you couldn’t afford to rouse suspicion, particularly in a place like Great Evensbury where everyone not only knew everyone else, but could probably tell you what they had for tea a week last Wednesday as well.

If they saw Mrs Benson coming here on a Sunday afternoon, they’d know something was afoot and word might get back to Diana and that would be an absolute disaster.

The success or failure of an operation like this depended solely on the discretion of all parties involved.

He paced up and down then went back to the window. The cat was purring, the dog was snuffling and there was a mad woman crouching at the end of his driveway holding a small branch over her head.

“What the Dickens . . ?”

He’d seen some manoeuvres in his time, but he’d never seen anyone walk like that. She was down on her haunches and still managing to walk as if her feet were attached directly to her behind.

Then a large black Labrador came into the driveway behind her and suddenly everything was crystal clear.

He flung the window wide open and the mad woman saw him about to shout, pressed her finger to her lips and promptly fell over onto her side with a muffled yelp.

“Oh, for goodness sake,” Potts groaned.

By the time he reached her, Mrs Benson was on her feet and brushing herself down.

She pulled the sunglasses down her nose and peered at him over the top.

“It’s me,” she whispered. “Trudy Benson.”

“I know who you are,” Potts said. “I could tell a mile off.”

She looked affronted. “How?”

“Well it’s obvious,” he said, pointing behind her. “If you will make your dog wear a bright red and white spotted bandanna round his neck,”

She spun round.

“Roger?” she cried. “How did you get here? I left you at home. I told you I was going shopping.”

He wagged his tail at her and smiled his Labrador smile.

“Cover blown, old girl,” Potts said.

There was a deep woof and Wellington came bounding down the path, hurling himself at Trudy in a frenzy of joy.

“Down Wellington,” Potts shouted. “Down I say.”

Wellington took absolutely no notice.

“Should have stuck to Labs and spaniels,” Potts muttered. “Well, you may as well come in. Did anyone see you?”

“I don’t think so,” she said, her cheeks flushing from yet another lie.

She waited until they were inside the house before whipping off her headscarf and running her fingers through her hair. Potts was mesmerised. He could have sworn he heard sweet music playing.

With those sunglasses and those tumbling curls, Mrs Benson looked – well, womanly. Suddenly she wasn’t just Mrs Benson who did for him six days a week, she was Ermintrude Benson, rather a fine widow with a strange little turned up nose that he’d never noticed before.

“Are you all right, Colonel?” she said and he was reminded of his manners and helped her off with the ugly grey tweedy coat, reluctantly noting the softness of her hair as it brushed his hands.

“You’re looking very flushed,” she went on, oblivious to the effect she was having on him. “Shall I get you some iced tea? We could sit in the conservatory and . . . discuss things.”

“What things?”

“Diana,” she said in a low voice.

“Oh, Diana,” he repeated.

Drat the woman for getting him all bothered. And roll on Monday when she’d turn up in her usual casual trousers and T-shirt top instead of this . . . this . . . frock.

Very fetching it was too, clinging to the curves he’d never noticed before with the skirt swirling about her knees making her legs, what he could see of them, look very slender. The only things that spoilt the look were the big clumpy brown shoes, but even those somehow made her seem sort of fragile and vulnerable.

“Actually,” he said. “You go through to the conservatory and I’ll fetch the tea. You’re here today as my guest, not as my . . .”

“Woman who does,” she said with a mischievous grin.

Trudy had never been one for sitting still and while she waited, she dead-headed a few plants, then spotted the mister spray.

She felt quite the lady of the manor as she misted the plants with the somewhat fragrant spray.

Not that the house was by any means a manor house, but it was big and substantial, rather like the Colonel himself. Tall and imposing, strong and sturdy and rather red in certain lights.

She sat in a wicker chair, crossed her legs and idly swung her foot. Fortescue ambled in and leapt on her lap, purring as she tickled his ears.

The dogs were in the kitchen with the Colonel, ever hopeful that a chocolate digestive or two might come their way and after a few minutes they sped into the conservatory backwards in front of him.

“Want me to move the cat?” Potts asked.

“No, he’s fine,” she said, rather languorously. “Oh, Colonel, it’s so peaceful and still in here.”

He set the tray down on a small table, then spotted the misting spray she’d put back on the floor.

“Careless of me to leave that there,” he said, scooping it up and popping it in a cupboard.

“Careless?”

“It’s one of those weedkillers,” he explained. “Got it for the weeds that come up through the flags. Strong stuff. Kills practically on impact.”

Trudy looked away, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t see the guilty flush in her cheeks. He did, but mistook it for something else.

“I’ve never sat in here before,” she mused.

“Never? In all the years you’ve done for me?”

“Never,” she said. “I’ve mopped the floor and dusted the plants, but I’ve never, you know, sat.”

“Shame,” he said. “Perhaps we should make a thing of it, you know, sitting down for a cuppa. On a regular basis so to speak.”

“We should get down to business,” she said. “The Diana business.”

“Ah,” he said and cleared his throat noisily.

The dogs took it as an invitation and edged closer to him. There was a face on each of his knees, one black, the other white with a brindle patch over one eye.

“Suppose you chaps want a biscuit,” he said and they both lifted their heads and sat up straight with bright eager expressions like schoolboys in a classroom stretching up their hands when they know the answer to a question.

“Well how about remembering your manners?” he said. “Shake hands, please.”

Trudy watched. The Colonel could be a gruff man and he didn’t suffer fools, but he had a rapport with the dogs. With Fortescue too. She couldn’t help but admire that in a man.

The dogs accepted a half a chocolate digestive biscuit each, gobbled it fast, then put their heads back on his knees.

“Cheek!” Potts said. “On your beds, now.”

They ignored him and he ignored the fact that they were ignoring them.

“Is it just a cake you’re after, or do you want the whole works?” Trudy asked.

Potts’ bushy eyebrows shot up, wrinkling his forehead.

“A cake? Aren’t we being a trifle premature?”

“Well it’s usual,” Trudy said. “Unless I’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick.”

“Well I’m not sure,” he said. “Fact is, Mrs Benson, you’re known in the village as a fixer-upper and I want you to fix up my daughter Diana with a suitable chap.”

Trudy grasped her jaw to stop it dropping. When he’d broached the subject of Diana she’d had quite different ideas. A surprise party for her thirtieth birthday perhaps, but hardly marriage.

He’d whispered something about Diana being about to turn thirty and she’d leapt to the wrong conclusion. She’d been thinking themed parties and cakes and whether to hire a band or a disco.

“Colonel, I don’t fix people up,” she said. “I organise weddings, funerals and birthday parties. I arrange flowers and provide buffets. I make and ice celebration cakes and I have been known to make the occasional wedding dress, but I’m not a one woman dating agency.”

“Point is,” he went on, without seeming to hear a word she’d said. “Coming up to thirty, not getting any younger and being the only child has me worried about the future. Her future. Have to face it that I won’t be around forever to take care of her.”

Trudy pictured Diana for a moment. Tall like her father, pencil slim unlike her father, very attractive and a successful lawyer. Hardly the sort of woman who needed taking care of by any stretch of the imagination.

“You think she needs a husband?”

“I know, it’s very non Pee Cee,” he said confidentially. “But at the end of the day, she’s just a gal and I don’t want her turning round when she’s forty five and wishing she’d stopped to have children.”

“Perhaps she doesn’t want children,” Trudy said. “Not everyone does.”

“And inheriting this house,” he rolled his eyes upwards. “Nice as it is, it’s a big place and gets lonely. I don’t want my Diana fetching up as a lonely sad old woman with only an old Labrador for company.”

Trudy gasped.

“Oh, I didn’t mean you,” Potts said quickly. “I mean you’re neither old nor lonely and you’re anything but sad.”

“And are you lonely?”

“Me? With Fortescue and Wellington for company?”

She shook her head. If he was happy to live on his own, why couldn’t he see that Diana probably was too?

“Well who did you have in mind for this match?” she asked. “Anyone you fancy as a prospective son in law?”

“Well, as a matter of fact . . . no. Her colleagues are all as dry and outdated as the laws they uphold, her clients are all criminals and she doesn’t have a social life as far as I can gather.”

“But if we could find someone suitable,” Trudy said, drifting off into the realms of fantasy. “Wouldn’t it be a wonderful wedding?”

“A marquee on the lawn,” Potts joined in. “A carpet of rose petals scattered beneath her feet . . .”

Diana Potts drove slowly through the village past the picture postcard cottages nestling in their fragrant gardens.

Such a peaceful scene, but she knew very well that behind the windows all hell would be breaking loose.

Since the bypass was built thirty years ago, few cars came through the village and the local ears were attuned to the peculiar sounds of all the local vehicles.

They’d hear the purr of Diana’s BMW, recognise it as an outsider and would be hurtling across their front rooms to press their noses against the glass. She wondered if they left smears on the windows like nosy cats.