Sheer Folly (5 page)

“The invitation didn't drop into our laps; Mother had to prise it out of him. In any case, I don't intend to marry either of them, even if it means living on sardines for the rest of my life.”

“Well, that settles that, but I'd stick with the mousetrap cheese, if I were you.”

“Which leaves the question of Mrs. Howell's quandary,” Lucy pointed out.

“She can't make up her mind—. Oh, here's Willett with your dress, Lucy.”

“I hope it's satisfactory, madam.” The middle-aged maid held up the frock by its exiguous straps for inspection.

Lucy approved the result and tipped her.

“Thank you, madam. Miss Beaufort, her ladyship said to remind you it's time you were changing for dinner.”

“All right, Willett, I'll be along in a minute. Daisy, we'd better go and find out where they've put you.”

“I can show madam, miss. It's just along the passage.”

Julia went with them. “Do you need a frock ironed?” she asked Daisy.

“Probably, but I haven't anything half as elaborate as Lucy's. A chambermaid should be able to cope.”

“Certainly, madam. They keep a very good class of servants here, no matter what some people may say. Here you are, madam, this is yours. There's a bathroom next door, with a connecting door, and another down the passage a bit on the other side. Mr. Pritchard's put modern gas geysers in every bathroom, so there's always plenty of hot water, and no fear of them blowing up like the old kind, and that's a blessing I can tell you. I'll tell her ladyship you'll be along in a minute, miss,” the maid said to Julia and as she bustled off.

“No matter what ‘some people' say?” Daisy asked as Julia followed her into the room.

“Rhino.”

“Of course. He told me all servants are lazy good-for-nothings within three minutes of our meeting this afternoon. Whereas you have yet to reveal whatever is bothering Mrs. Howell.”

“She's afraid that if Owen marries she'll lose her position as chatelaine of Appsworth Hall to her daughter-in-law. On the other hand, she'd love to be able to talk about her son's mother-in-law,
Lady
Beaufort. But against that, she strongly disapproves of Mother, as a widow, not wearing black. She simply can't decide whether to encourage Owen's suit or scotch it. Such is my impression, at least. Naturally she hasn't confided in me.”

“Wouldn't it be simplest just to tell her—or him—that you're not interested?”

“Certainly, if he were in hot pursuit!”

“But as he hasn't actually displayed any serious interest . . . Hmm, yes, I see the difficulty. One can only hope she'll decide lording it over Appsworth Hall is more important to her than your mother's title.”

“Isn't it lucky Mother's merely the widow of a knight, not the wife of a marquis?”

“Except that marchionesses never—hardly ever—have to survive and provide for their daughters on a widow's army pension, so you wouldn't be in this fix to start with.”

Julia sighed. “You know, Daisy, I haven't really got anything against Owen Howell except his mother. He is a managing director after all. It's Mother who thinks I have to marry into society. You didn't.”

“And I'm very happy with my policeman,” Daisy said firmly. “But I'd appreciate your not mentioning his profession unnecessarily. You wouldn't believe how presumably law-abiding people suddenly start twitching when they find out my husband's a detective.”

Julia laughed. “Not really!”

“Really. And now we'd better think about getting changed or we'll be in hot water with your mother, Mr. Howell's mother, your maid, and the butler when we're late to dinner.”

“Not to mention the cook. I'm on my way.”

It was all very well, Daisy thought, to compare a managing director of a plumbing factory with a detective chief inspector of Scotland Yard, but she had married Alec because she was madly in love with him. Without that, she could never have coped with the hostility of his mother and her own, let alone the move from the upper class, however impoverished, to the middle class, however comfortably off.

Because, however modern and egalitarian one was, there
were
differences. Different expectations, different ways of doing things, a different group of people around one, not necessarily better or worse but indubitably different. Alec's love had pulled her through the complex adjustment.

Unless Julia unexpectedly fell in love with Owen Howell, she ought not to marry him. Daisy looked forward with interest to meeting him.

 

Daisy and
Lucy went down together. Lucy looked spectacular in the crimson frock, rather too spectacular for an evening in the country, in Daisy's opinion. It was designed to be shown off in a West End nightclub, or at least for dining and dancing at the Ritz. Lucy was usually frightfully particular about the right clothes for the right occasion. Perhaps her intent was to show off to the plumber. Perhaps, Daisy thought more charitably, she simply wanted to keep her end up vis à vis Julia, who would probably look lovely in rags. Or, most charitably, perhaps she hoped to distract Rhino from his persecution of poor Julia.

Three men in dinner jackets stood by the drinks dresser, Mr. Pritchard, Lord Rydal, and an unknown man, somewhere between the other two in age, with slicked-down black hair. Taller by a head, Rhino outweighed his companions combined. He was talking in his abrasive voice, punctuating his words with stabs of his cigarette holder.

As Daisy and Lucy entered the drawing room, Mr. Pritchard stepped forwards in what Daisy was coming to regard as his usual welcoming way.

“Lady Gerald! Mrs. Fletcher! What a pleasure to entertain so
many lovely ladies here at Appsworth, eh, Owen?” He frowned at Rhino's disparaging snort. “This is my nephew, Owen Howell, ladies.”

“My pleasure,” said Howell, politely but without any great interest. “You've come to see my uncle's grotto, I hear? What can I get you to drink?”

Lucy stuck to gin and It. Daisy opted for Cinzano and soda. As Howell picked up the syphon, Daisy said, just for something to say, “It's an ingenious device, isn't it, the soda syphon.”

“The invention of the soda syphon to add carbonation to drinks is not more than a century old,” he told her with unexpected enthusiasm, “but the principle of syphoning has been understood since ancient times. It's of great importance in modern plumbing.”

“Really?” she murmured.

He continued to expound upon the subject. Daisy listened with half an ear, the rest of her attention on Lucy, Pritchard, and Rhino. She was relieved to hear that Lucy, far from being rude to the plumber, was sparring with the earl. He was disparaging what he called her mania for her “hobby” of photography and she was mounting a spirited defence. Mr. Pritchard appeared to be enjoying the battle. He even put in few words supporting the right of women to have careers. After that, Lucy looked on him with a much kindlier eye.

In the meantime, Mr. Howell had moved on to the latest safety improvements in gas geyser water heaters. True to Lucy's joking remark about writers being interested in everything, Daisy found herself pondering an article on new inventions and their effect on modern life.

“I can't really follow the technical stuff without seeing it,” she told him. “Would you mind demonstrating for me sometime?”

“Not a bit!” He pulled out a gold pocket-watch and consulted it. “We've just time enough before—. Oh, here are the Beauforts. I'd better get them drinks. But I'll give you a proper demonstration before you leave, that's a promise!”

“What are you going to demonstrate, Mr. Howell?” Julia
asked gaily, coming up to them. “I hope you don't mean to exclude the rest of us from the show.”

“I hardly think you'd be interested, Miss Beaufort,” he said candidly.

“How can I tell until I know what it's all about?”

“Plumbing, no doubt,” put in Rhino with a sneer.

“Can you imagine what life was like before plumbing?” Julia demanded.

Lucy gave a delicate shudder. “It doesn't bear thinking about.”

Daisy stared at her. Rhino must have really offended her to make her take up the cudgels in defence of plumbing.

“In the course of my life with the Army,” said Lady Beaufort, “I lived in a number of places without plumbing of any sort. I can assure you, it was extremely disagreeable. Yes, thank you, sherry if you please,” she added to Mr. Pritchard who was waving a decanter at her.

“Leave it to me, Uncle,” Howell offered. “What can I get you, Miss Beaufort?”

“Sherry, thanks.” Julia waited until her mother had moved away, following Owen Howell, then she said in a low voice to Daisy and Lucy, “Mother thinks drinking cocktails is fast. That's the trouble with being out of the country for so long. She doesn't realise how times have changed.”

“Fast!” Lucy said indignantly. “I don't know anyone who doesn't—”

“Calm down, darling, Mother's not saying
you're
fast. Or rather, she believes a certain degree of rapidity is acceptable in daughters of the aristocracy, particularly married ones, but not in the spinster daughter of a mere knight, even if he was a general.”

Lucy blinked. “Rapidity?”

“Well, fastness doesn't seem quite the word I want.”

“I wish we had a well-fortified fastness to retreat to,” said Daisy. “Here comes Rhino, and he's already on his second cocktail.”

“Your sherry, Miss Beaufort.” Handing Julia the glass, he ignored
Daisy and Lucy. “This place is too boring for words. Can't you persuade Lady Beaufort to go back to town before Monday?”

“I'm sorry you find us boring,” Julia said sweetly. “You really mustn't feel obliged to stay. Mr. Pritchard or Mr. Howell will certainly drive us into Swindon to the mainline station when we leave.”

“You're not boring, it's all these others.” He made a sweeping gesture that encompassed everyone in the room, and nearly sent Daisy's glass flying.

She didn't bother to protest.

“How has he survived all these years with no one throttling him?” Lucy marvelled. She made no attempt to lower her voice, but Lord Rydal gave no sign of hearing her.

“If it was summer,” he continued to Julia, “we could go for a stroll, but at this time of year there's no chance to be alone together.”

“Thank heaven,” she murmured.

“Your mother won't let you go out in the car with me. Doesn't she realise you're much too old to need a chaperone?”

“Rhino, how crass!” Lucy said in disgust, and stalked off to speak to Lady Beaufort.

Daisy exchanged a glance with Julia, who appeared to share her feelings. They combined a pressing desire to giggle, alarm at what Lucy might say to her ladyship, and amazement at Rhino's apparent belief that he could win his beloved by insulting her.

“ ‘A mad-brain rudesby,' ” said Julia.

“ ‘Full of spleen,' ” Daisy finished off the quotation. “
Taming of the Shrew
?”

“Yes. Kate, speaking of Petruchio, of course.”

“If you ask me, you need to be a bit of shrew to cope with a rhinoceros.”

For once Lord Rydal seemed to realise he had offended. At least he made a feeble attempt to explain himself: “I don't care for schoolgirls.” Or perhaps he was simply objecting to their display of erudition. With a sulky look, he tapped out his cigarette
butt in the nearest ashtray and his lighter flashed as he lit another.

In a way it was just as well that he was so obviously appalling. Surely after a week at close quarters, Lady Beaufort would be forced to abandon her plans to see her daughter a countess.

Daisy had just reached this comforting conclusion when Mrs. Howell burst into the drawing room.

“Brin,” she cried, her face tragic, “Cook says the soles have gone bad!”

“Good job you invited the vicar,” Pritchard quipped.

“Really, Brin, you mustn't joke about such things.”

“Sorry, I thought you were talking about fish, not religion,” he said. He sounded penitent, but he looked pleased with himself, and Daisy had seen his eyes slide sideways towards Lady Beaufort, who hadn't quite been able to hide a discreet little snort of laughter.

“I
was
talking about fish,” Mrs. Howell snapped. “In any case, the vicar couldn't come, so I invited Dr. Tenby instead. But the fish has gone off and there's none for dinner.”

“Where's it gone off to?” Having got into a facetious vein, he continued to mine it.

“Don't be ridiculous. You know perfectly well what I mean. It's high.”

“Flying fish? I don't believe I've ever seen them at the fishmonger.”

“Brin!”

“Well, what do you want me to do about your flipping fish? Take a rod out to the grotto pool? No, a net would be best, I don't think there's anything bigger than minnows in it.”

His sister-in-law shot him a glance of pure loathing.

“With such splendid dinners as you give us, Mrs. Howell,” said Lady Beaufort, “I'm sure we shan't feel the want of fish.”

Owen Howell brought his mother a glass of sherry, and he and Lady Beaufort set themselves to smooth her ruffled feathers.

Daisy looked at Rhino to see how he was taking the prospect of no fish course. He was staring after Julia, who had drifted quietly
away to speak to a young man who must have entered the room in the wake of Mrs. Howell. The stranger was nothing out of the ordinary—sandy-haired, slightly snub-nosed, no more than a couple of inches taller than Julia—his evening clothes respectable, but clearly not from Savile Row. He was puffing at a pipe. His chief attraction appeared to be that he was not Rhino.

The earl might have been glowering at them, but his usual expression was so like a scowl that Daisy wouldn't have sworn to it.