The Colonel and His Daughter (7 page)

“What do you think, Welly?” he said.

Wellington was lying on his back on the bed, legs splayed, pink spotty chops drooping backwards revealing his perfect white teeth. Fortescue was perched on the windowsill chattering at the birds in the oak tree nearest the house.

“Forty?”

The cat ignored him, his lower jaw juddering with indignation at the squabbling starlings clustering in the tree.

The phone had him leaping guiltily away from the mirror. Was it Diana? Did she somehow know what he was up to? He picked it up carefully, held it several inches from his face and said a timid, “Hello.”

“Potts? It’s Chumley!” Bernard’s voice came down the line. “You can call your daughter off. I’m leaving the village right now and I won’t be coming back.”

Before Potts could utter a word, Bernard had hung up. What on earth had Diana done? He began to laugh. She was a chip off the old block right enough. Bold, fearless . . .

Then all at once there were footsteps stomping up the gravel drive. Heavy, purposeful footsteps. Crunch, crunch, crunch.

Wellington opened one eye – his brown one, then in one fluid movement spun onto his front and off the bed taking the bedspread and two pillows with him. He skidded on the rug, slammed into the door then clattered down the stairs to give one hefty woof when he reached the front door.

“Oh, shut up, Welly,” Bill White’s voice drifted in through the letterbox. “It’s only me.”

The Colonel flew into a flap. Diana had told him to leave his new suit in its special case.

“Don’t keep fiddling with it, Father,” she’d warned. “Or you’ll make it grubby.”

And he knew when she called him Father that she meant business.

He ran to the bedroom door, then back to the closet, then back to the door again.

Thoughts whirled through his head.

Go down and let Bill in, then get changed. But what if Diana returned and caught him in his suit?

In the end, he flung open the bedroom window and peered down.

“Bill,” he called. “Let yourself in. I’ll be down in a minute.”

His hands shook as he tried to get the suit back on its hanger. Darn it, he never used to be so cack-handed. In his military days he could hang garments perfectly well on a hanger with not a crease to be seen.

But then, he didn’t have a bossy daughter breathing down his neck. Not that she was, but she might be any time now.

He was down to his white boxer shorts with the large red dots when Bill walked into his bedroom followed by Wellington.

“Uh, sorry,” Bill said, covering his eyes and turning swiftly away only to find himself looking at the Colonel’s half naked reflection in the mirror. “Sorry. I didn’t realise you were getting changed. I thought you said to come up.”

The Colonel grabbed his shirt from the bed and slid it over his shoulders.

“Just trying on my new suit, but not a word to Diana,” he said.

“That’s not very likely since she’ll hardly speak to me,” Bill said gloomily.

“Shame,” Potts said, hopping around on one leg as he tried to get back into his trousers. “You seemed to be getting along quite well at Julia’s wedding. Well in the church afterwards when we rescued Sister Sandra from the secret room at any rate.”

Bill turned round, saw the crumpled suit that looked as if it had been thrown at the hanger and busied himself tidying it up until it hung properly. By the time he’d finished, the Colonel was decent.

“I’ll come straight to the point,” Bill said. “I’ve come to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage.”

“Well, yes, of course you can have it,” Potts said, pleased. “But won’t it be difficult if she won’t speak to you?”

“I’ve tried going on a charm offensive, but it doesn’t work. Have you got any ideas, Colonel?”

Potts thought for a moment, then had a brainwave.

“Nothing brings people together better than a conspiracy,” he said. “Mrs Benson – Trudy, and I will call off our engagement and knowing Diana she will move heaven and earth to get us back together again. She may enlist your help. What do you say?”

“You’d do that?” Bill said. “For us? Call off your own engagement?”

“Of course,” Potts said, then wondered at his own madness.

Besides as Bernard was leaving there was no need to keep up the pretence a moment longer.

There was no doubt, Trudy would be delighted that he’d found the perfect escape for them, but that didn’t explain why his heart was so heavy.

CHAPTER FOUR

Diana arrived home just as Bill was leaving.

“Did you get Trudy’s outfit?” he asked.

“No, we . . . why?”

“You see if you can talk any sense into the stubborn old fool,” Bill said. “Because I can’t.”

He turned to go.

“Bill . . ?” she said.

He turned back to face her and for a moment she found herself struggling for breath. She knew why.

Since confirming her pregnancy – which she’d done at the earliest possible moment – Diana had read numerous books on pregnancy and childbirth.

She fully intended to have as healthy a pregnancy as possible and when the time came, as much pain relief as they could throw at her.

No birth partner, no one to hold her hand. It would be too much to ask of the poor old Colonel who had fainted when a neighbour’s cat gave birth to four kittens in his favourite armchair right under his nose.

The books said that her heart would have to work harder, pumping extra blood round her body. And that she would get breathless and occasionally emotional.

“It has nothing to do with you,” she said, referring to the sudden pounding of her heart.

“I’m saying nothing,” he said. “He’s your father.”

She watched him stride off down the drive, her heart giving a painful lurch. How long would it take for her to stop loving him?

When she got in, her father was just putting the phone down. He looked up guiltily.

“I’ve called the engagement off,” he said.

“Oh,” Diana said, reaching down to pat Wellington’s head. He was so good with her, it was almost as if he knew she was pregnant and that he had to be extra gentle.

“Is that all you can say, oh?”

“What do you want me to say, Dad? I’m disappointed and poor Trudy will be heartbroken. You’ll never have a chance like this again. But it’s your life. Now I’m going upstairs for a nap. I feel so very tired.”

Her father looked shocked. She knew exactly what he was thinking. Naps. At her age. What ailed the girl?

Upstairs, Diana paced her bedroom floor. She was tired, that was true, but she couldn’t sleep for worrying. Why on earth had her father decided to start playing silly beggars?

She looked at the phone. Maybe Bill would know.

Call him? Should she?

He sounded out of breath. He must have rushed all the way back to the pub and only just have walked in the door.

“I must see you, Bill,” she said.

“If only you knew how I longed to hear you say that,” Bill said. Then his tone darkened and he added, “But I think I know why. And it isn’t to do with us, is it? Come out for dinner tonight? They can manage in the pub without me. What do you say?”

What could she say?

She said yes, then went back downstairs.

“I have to talk to you, Dad,” she said.

He crossed his arms and stuck his nose in the air.

“Me mind is made up,” he said. “The engagement’s orf.”

“That’s what you think,” she murmured. “But that’s not what I want to talk to you about. The fact is . . . the fact is . . .”

Come on, girl, spit it out, she told herself. Just say it. Out with it. The Colonel will appreciate frankness and honesty.

“The fact is . . .”

“Yes?” The Colonel wiped the stubborn, haughty look off his face and suddenly concern took its place.

“I’m going out for dinner with Bill,” she said lamely and the sly old fox gave her a sideways grin.

 “Frog and Dumpling Bill?”

“So will you stop being silly and call Trudy?”

“No can do,” he said sadly. Then he perked up again. “Off out for dinner with Bill, eh?”

Trudy cried into her tea. She wasn’t supposed to feel this way. It wasn’t as if it was a real engagement that Potts had called off, but she felt as if her heart was broken.

As he said, now Bernard had gone there was no further need to continue with the deception and it was their ideal out. A way of escaping from the situation they’d found themselves in. And hopefully in their attempts to get them back together, Diana and Bill would get together themselves and then everyone could go back to normal.

She’d tried to persuade him to wait a little longer, but he reckoned they should seize the opportunity offered them.

Potts had rung again a little while ago to tell her the news that Diana had gone out for dinner with Bill. He was so happy, so over the moon that she felt duty bound to sound delighted and not in the least little bit upset.

Which she wasn’t of course. These tears were just, well silly.

And she was very glad that Diana had taken the news so well. Perhaps she’d been deceiving herself into thinking that they had to keep the pretence going for Diana’s sake.

She was sitting on her small sofa with Roger curled up beside her, his heavy head resting in her lap, his beautiful big eyes gazing up at her.

“What’s wrong with me, Roger?” she asked as she clattered her cup back in its saucer. “Did I get too caught up in the moment do you think?”

Roger sighed.

“When did I forget to think of it as pretend?” she said sadly.

Well, she’d have to face the public sooner or later. Everyone was going to know that the romance that had captivated the entire village was off. Best if she broke the news to the vicar first and as it was Monday, he’d be holding choir practice in the church.

And as there was no time like the present . . .

She donned her Elizabeth Taylor sunglasses to hide the bags under her red eyes and crossed the road to the church with Roger on her heels.

Reverend Blinking spotted her standing silhouetted by the evening sun at the entrance to the church and left his choristers to serenade him up the aisle.

“Travelling incognito again, Trudy?” he asked jovially. “Off on another secret mission.”

She lowered her glasses and he took one look at her red eyes and ushered her behind the panel where the hymn books were stacked on a small rickety table.

“The wedding is off,” she said. “Perhaps you would be kind enough to spread the word. And please tell people that I don’t wish to discuss it and I’d be grateful if people didn’t sympathise or offer condolences or anything like that.”

As she left the church, not walking with her usual purpose, she spotted Bill White’s car going by. Diana was in the passenger seat and they both looked grim.

So intent was she on watching them that she failed to see the figure prancing through the gravestones in flowing white garments.

“The hills are alive . . .” the figure warbled.

“Sandra?” Trudy said. “Is that you?”

“Indeed it is, Trudy,” Sandra said and although her sudden conversion had been only recent, she had a glow about her. A healthy glow at that.

She handed Trudy a rose.

“What about your allergies?”

“Miraculously cured,” Sandra said gaily. “Since finding God, my life has changed. I’ve changed my mind about being a nun though. I’m joining Reggie’s choir instead. I’ll sing at your wedding if you like.”

Trudy slumped down on Albert Charles Benjamin Wilton, Died 9th November 1887 aged 92. Or at least on his headstone. She didn’t think he’d mind under the circumstances.

“There isn’t going to be a wedding,” she said. “We’ve called the engagement off.”