Daisy (8 page)

They were ushered into a chilly drawing room by a cadaverous butler who informed then that he would ascertain whether Mrs. Bryce-Cuddestone was “at home.” Daisy looked at Freddie in surprise. Surely his mother was expecting them!

The drawing room reminded her of the parlor at The Pines, only on a larger scale. The mahogany furniture was more massive, the stuffed birds more predatory, and the marble statuary, colder. Heavy red cloths swathed the tables, heavy red cloth draped the mantel, and acid-green velvet screened the offending sight of the legs of an upright piano. A floral Wilton carpet was covered with coconut runner paths at strategic points, and three sets of curtains hid the damp garden from view: heavy red velvet ones on top, lace under those, and muslin ones underneath to trap the last bit of daylight.

A prickly, angular cactus swore at them from the empty fireplace and multiple photographs of various Bryce-Cuddestones glared at them from all points of the room.

There was a smell of dust, potpourri, and Brown Windsor soup.

Daisy was starting to feel irrationally guilty and was just beginning to wonder what on earth she had to feel guilty about, when the door opened and Mrs. Bryce-Cuddestone stood on the threshold.

She was a vast, imposing woman, rather like a figurehead on a tea clipper; all bosom and chin. She was dressed in black silk, ornamented here and there with various cameos of Greek ladies who also had large bosoms and thrusting chins. Her masses of iron-gray hair were set in rigid curls. She had obviously resorted to a mixture of sugar and water to get the effect, for little sugar crystals clung to various iron curls and tendrils like a kind of exotic dandruff.

Her opening words were—as Daisy was soon to find out—typical.

“Oh, my poor, deluded child,” she cried, moving majestically toward her son. “Another one?”

“But Miss Chatterton’s
different
, Mater,” said Freddie earnestly. “She believes in the sanctity of the home and all that.”

“Humph!” Mrs. Bryce-Cuddestone folded her large hands and swiveled her large pale eyes to survey Daisy.

“I should hope so,” she boomed. “Ours has always been a happy home. When Reginald was alive,”—here she produced a lilac handkerchief with a black border and held it under her massive nose—“there was nothing but happiness from morning till night.”

“I did not know you had been recently bereaved. I am so sorry,” said Daisy.

“It was only fifteen years ago when Reginald was taken from me,” went on her hostess. “I have been mother and father to that boy. The designing hussies he has brought to this house have been enough to break a mother’s heart.”

“Oh, I say, Mater!” bleated Freddie, but Daisy was already on her feet.

“I do not like the implication that I am another designing hussy,” she said in a high, thin voice. “Mr. Bryce-Cuddestone, I wish to leave.”

To her horror, Mrs. Bryce-Cuddestone burst into noisy tears. “I’ve gone to such trouble, Freddie. I’ve worked and slaved to have a very special luncheon for you, and now because I have been misunderstood, it will all go to waste.”

“Here, I say, Mater. I say, Daisy. I say, look here. Stay for luncheon. Can’t have tears. Buck up, Mater. She’s stayin’. Ain’t you, Daisy?”

Poor Daisy could only nod dumbly. Again she felt guilty and could not quite understand why.

“Luncheon is served,” came the tomblike voice of the butler from the doorway. Freddie held out his arm to his mother and Daisy trailed after them.

The dining room table was long and massive, an eternity of gleaming mahogany. At the halfway point there was a sort of crossroad made with two huge silver salt-and-pepper shakers and a fat silver epergne depicting a young Greek with his clothes being shredded by silver wolves.

Mrs. Bryce-Cuddestone sat at one end, Freddie at the other, and Daisy at the crossroad in the middle. The dining chairs were heavy and squat. Daisy sank down into the cushion of her chair and found that her chin was almost on a level with the table. Freddie and her hostess had similar chairs and they looked as if their heads had been served up at either end.

Conversation had to be carried on at the top of the voice, although, as Daisy reflected, it could hardly be called conversation. An interrogation was more like it. Did Miss Chatterton have a dowry? Was Miss Chatterton aware that the happiest married households had the mother-in-law in residence? Were the Earl and Countess of Nottenstone as rackety as she had been led to believe?

Daisy began to get quietly furious. She felt like a pot on a slow burner, gradually rising to the simmering point, and about to boil over any minute.

The meal was a perfect symphony of starch. A bowl of broth in which some animal had placed a paw, was piled high with potatoes and barley.

Then came a sliver of fish in a whole winter’s coat of breadcrumbs. Then a minuscule mutton chop cowering under a mountain of mashed potatoes and butter beans and then a Cabinet pudding which should never have been appointed to any table. The “full-bodied” wine tasted to even Daisy’s uneducated palate like vintage yesterday.

Mrs. Bryce-Cuddestone had obviously never heard the social law of not speaking with your mouth full. She talked steadily throughout the meal, posting away great quantities and lecturing Daisy on Freddie’s delicate constitution.

Reginald asked me, when he was dying, to send the boy to Eton. Me! Send my son to be mauled by a lot of rough boys! He always had his own tutor here in his beloved home. Are you wearing your flannel underwear, Freddie? We were so happy. Then Freddie ups and breaks my heart and says he is taking diggings in London and is going to find a wife. Did you ever hear of such ingratitude, Miss Chatterton? I could have chosen a nice local girl for him, but he needs to go chasing after flighty society girls.”

Mellowed by several glasses of the “full-bodied,” Mrs. Bryce-Cuddestone surveyed Daisy across the sea of mahogany. “I must say all the same, you seem like a nice, biddable little thing. Could be molded to the Bryce-Cuddestone manner. Yes. Yes. Could be
formed
as a sculptor forms a figure out of raw clay. I am very artistic.” She suddenly let out a cavernous yawn. “You have my permission to show her the garden, Freddie.”

Freddie looked like a child at Christmas. “Oh, I say, Mater. That’s simply ripping. Come along, Daisy. I may call you Daisy, mayn’t I? We’re going to see lots of each other.”

Daisy’s heart sank to her little kid boots. She followed Freddie out into the misty garden. He turned toward her, his face radiant.

“The mater
likes
you. Isn’t that marvelous? You must admit it’s the greatest compliment you’ve ever received.”

Now Daisy had been taught all her young life to respect her elders, so she bit back the angry reply on her lips. Freddie took her silence for acquiescence and maidenly modesty. “Let’s take the old bus out for a spin. I’ll drive you myself.”

Daisy agreed. The sound of the engine would at least prevent any lengthy conversation. They rattled out onto the road, Freddie in high spirits and Daisy in the depths of misery. What a horrid day it had turned out to be! And she had thought that she simply
had
to pick out a personable young man, marry him, and live happily ever after. She had not envisaged such unromantic obstacles as mothers-in-law.

They had gone a little way out of the town and were chugging along a country road through the thickening mist when Daisy spied three still figures lying beside the road. “Oh, do stop!” She put her hand on Freddie’s arm. “Someone’s had an accident.”

Freddie stopped and looked over his shoulder. “I wouldn’t worry about that,” he said. “Let’s go on.”

Daisy looked at him in amazement. “There are three people just lying beside the road.”

“Let them lie,” said Freddie, and then sighed heavily. Daisy was already out of the motor and running back along the road.

The three figures, a man, woman, and small child, lay in the thick grass beside the ditch. Beads of mist rimed their hair and their torn and shabby clothes. The woman clutched the tiny child to her emaciated bosom. All three were dead.

With a small whimper Daisy drew back. “What on earth happened?” she sobbed to Freddie, who had come up behind her. He shuffled his feet awkwardly. “Starved to death, I should say. Pretty common, you know. Parish’ll come along to pick ’em up. Let’s go. You can’t do anything for them now.”

Daisy walked slowly back to the motorcar. She found that her hands were shaking. “How on earth can people just starve to death in England?”

“They do it all the time,” said Freddie cheerfully. “Not around your part of London, of course. Fact is, they’re lazy. Simply won’t work, you know. Poverty’s like a disease. They can’t seem to shake it off.”

Daisy desperately wanted to believe him. But the picture of the little child’s emaciated, claw-like hand as it had died clutching its mother’s coat swam in front of her eyes. “But a little child,” she whispered.

“Nasty for you,” said Freddie sympathetically. “Put it out of your mind. Better get back soon. Mater’ll have had her nap.”

Daisy had been mild and meek all her young life, but she was suddenly flooded with such strong hatred for the mater that she thought she would faint. What on earth was happening in the world? She had seen enough food thrown away after a house party to have kept that poor family for a year!

As Freddie parked the motor in the gloomy driveway he whispered, “No need to trouble Mater with our little adventure. She’s very sensitive, you know.”

Daisy thought privately that Mrs. Bryce-Cuddestone showed all the sensitivity of an overfed water buffalo and bit her lip.

This time mater was waiting for them in the drawing room, fortifying herself from the sherry decanter. She twinkled at them with a roguishness hideous to behold. “Ah, now what have my two young things been up to?” She wagged a playful finger at them. “Have a glass of sherry, Daisy. I have told the housekeeper to bring the books and we’ll go over them together.”

“Why?” asked Daisy, made bold by a sudden spasm of fear.

“Why! So that you will learn how to run a mansion such as this, my dear. I am sure you will prove an apt pupil.”

Daisy felt the prison walls closing about her.

“I do not think it necessary to go to such trouble since the running of—of your household is no concern of mine,” she faltered.

Mrs. Bryce-Cuddestone put down her glass so forcefully that she nearly broke the stem. “My dear girl,” she snapped, “I gathered that you had accepted my son’s proposal of marriage and since you seemed such a pleasant girl, I decided to overlook your unfortunate family background. Father, you know.”

Daisy’s eyes filled with tears as she thought of her generous father who faithfully sent her allowance to Curzon every month. She got to her feet. “Your son did not propose and had he done so, I would not have accepted.”

“Oh, I say!” bleated Freddie.

“Furthermore,” went on Daisy, quite pink with anger, “it is very rude of you to insult my father. I wish to leave. Immediately!”

Mrs. Bryce-Cuddestone’s face turned puce then purple. She emitted a few strangled noises and then began to scream and drum her heels on the floor.

“Now look what you’ve done!” shouted Freddie, ringing the bell like a fire alarm. “Poor Mater.”

His boyish features suddenly seemed old and mean. “If you’ve killed her, then it’s your fault.”

Mrs. Bryce-Cuddestone had begun to moan. Two burly footmen and a lady’s maid rushed into the room and bore the anguished lady out. Freddie and Daisy faced each other in silence as the moans progressed up the stairs and slowly died away.

“I must go,” Daisy said in a small voice. Freddie glared at her. “I think you should at least have the decency to stay until Mater recovers. I’ll go and tell the housekeeper to prepare your room. And”—as Daisy made a horrified movement to protest—“if you want to leave, you’ll need to go by yourself. ’Cause I ain’t taking you.”

He went out of the room and slammed the door.

Daisy stood stricken, listening to the sounds of his retreating footsteps. A statue of Niobe, all tears, gazed at her sympathetically across the room. She began to search feverishly in her reticule. No money. And even if she had money, she no longer had the courage to venture outside into the ever-thickening mist. She felt like a small animal, trapped in a cage of heavy furniture and stuffed birds.

The Duke of Oxenden strolled up St. James’s toward his club, reflecting that the weather was so foul, it might as well be the middle of winter. Yellow acrid fog prowled the gloomy streets, bringing an early night to London. The gas lamps had already been lit and their faint bluish flames were only slightly discernible. He leaned against a lamppost to light a cigar. The mantle of the gas lamp above him had been broken and the light sputtered and hissed and sang its dreary winter melody over his head. A fine rain of soot was beginning to fall and his white cuffs were becoming slowly speckled. He walked on toward his club and pushed open the double glass doors to escape the dismal evening.

But the fog was no respecter of class or persons. It hung over the club room in great yellow bands and dim figures could just be made out, sitting in their armchairs, like survivors from a shipwreck adrift on a yellow sea.

He found an empty armchair and a copy of the
Times
, its pages still crisp and warm from its ironing—one dreadful day the club steward had forgotten to have the members’ newspapers ironed and pressed and had nearly lost his job—and settled back.

A familiar face came looming up out of the fog. “Hullo, hullo, hullo,” said Lord Harry Trenton cheerfully. “What y’doin’—samplin’ the wicked delights of the Season?”

The Duke put down his newspaper and looked affectionately at his friend. Lord Harry Trenton was often pointed out as being a prime example to explode the myth that there is such a thing as aristocratic features. His line dated back to the Norman Conquest and he looked like a coal heaver. He was burly with a red hairy face, a thickset body, and massive hands with broken fingernails.

“Why shouldn’t I be here, Harry? Time I was getting married and this is the best market. I may be getting too old, all the same. I’ve never seen such a dreary bunch of debutantes.”