A Daughter’s a Daughter

‘Oh no, he’s just gone into his uncle’s firm. He can’t go away.’

‘Good thing. You must nip all that in the bud, Ann.’

‘One can’t do much nipping in these days, James.’

‘Hm, suppose not. Still, you’ve got her away for a while.’

‘Yes. I thought it would be a good plan.’

‘Oh, you did? You’re no fool, Ann. Let’s hope she takes up with some other young fellow out there.’

‘Sarah’s very young still, James. I don’t think the Gerry Lloyd business was serious at all.’

‘Perhaps not. But she seemed very concerned about him when last I saw her.’

‘Being concerned is rather a thing of Sarah’s. She knows exactly what everyone ought to do and makes them do it. She’s very loyal to her friends.’

‘She’s a dear child. And a very attractive one. But she’ll never be as attractive as you, Ann, she’s a harder type—what do they call it nowadays—hard-boiled.’

Ann smiled.

‘I don’t think Sarah’s very hard-boiled. It’s just the manner of her generation.’

‘Perhaps so … But some of these girls could take a lesson in charm from their mothers.’

He was looking at her affectionately and Ann thought to herself with a sudden unusual warmth: ‘Dear James. How sweet he is to me. He really does think me perfect. Am I a fool not to accept what he offers? To be loved and cherished—’

Unfortunately at that moment Colonel Grant started telling her the story of one of his subalterns and a major’s wife in India. It was a long story and she had heard it three times before.

The affectionate warmth died down. Across the table she watched Richard Cauldfield, appraising him. A little too confident of himself, too dogmatic—no, she corrected herself, not really … That was only a defensive armour he put up against a strange and possibly hostile world.

It was a sad face, really. A lonely face …

He had a lot of good qualities, she thought. He would be kind and honest and strictly fair. Obstinate, probably, and occasionally prejudiced. A man unused to laughing at things or being laughed at. The kind of man who would blossom out if he felt himself truly loved—

‘—and would you believe it?’ the colonel came to a triumphant end to his story ‘—the Sayce had known about it all the time!’

With a shock Ann came back to her immediate duties and laughed with all the proper appreciation.

CHAPTER 3 (#ulink_c4c2dba4-fd48-5073-8f80-241117d12f16)

I

Ann woke on the following morning and for a moment wondered where she was. Surely, that dim outline of the window should have been on the right, not the left … The door, the wardrobe …

Then she realized. She had been dreaming; dreaming that she was back, a girl, in her old home at Applestream. She had come there full of excitement, to be welcomed by her mother, by a younger Edith. She had run round the garden, exclaiming at this and that and had finally entered the house. All was as it had been, the rather dark hall, the chintz-covered drawing-room opening off it. And then, surprisingly, her mother had said: ‘We’re having tea in here today,’ and had led her through a further door into a new and unfamiliar room. An attractive room, with gay chintz covers and flowers, and sunlight; and someone was saying to her: ‘You never knew that these rooms were here, did you? We found them last year!’ There had been more new rooms and a small staircase and more rooms upstairs. It had all been very exciting and thrilling.

Now that she was awake she was still partly in the dream. She was Ann the girl, a creature standing at the beginning of life. Those undiscovered rooms! Fancy never knowing about them all these years! When had they been found? Lately? Or years ago?

Reality seeped slowly through the confused pleasurable dream state. All a dream, a very happy dream. Shot through now with a slight ache, the ache of nostalgia. Because one couldn’t go back. And how odd that a dream of discovering additional ordinary rooms in a house should engender such a queer ecstatic pleasure. She felt quite sad to think that these rooms had never actually existed.

Ann lay in bed watching the outline of the window grow clearer. It must be quite late, nine o’clock at least. The mornings were so dark now. Sarah would be waking to sunshine and snow in Switzerland.

But somehow Sarah hardly seemed real at this moment. Sarah was far away, remote, indistinct …

What was real was the house in Cumberland, the chintzes, the sunlight, the flowers—her mother. And Edith, standing respectfully to attention, looking, in spite of her young smooth unlined face, definitely disapproving as usual.

Ann smiled and called: ‘Edith!’

Edith entered and pulled the curtains back.

‘Well,’ she said approvingly. ‘You’ve had a nice lay in. I wasn’t going to wake you. It’s not much of a day. Fog coming on, I’d say.’

The outlook from the window was a heavy yellow. It was not an attractive prospect, but Ann’s sense of well-being was not shaken. She lay there smiling to herself.

‘Your breakfast’s all ready. I’ll fetch it in.’

Edith paused as she left the room, looking curiously at her mistress.

‘Looking pleased with yourself this morning, I must say. You must have enjoyed yourself last night.’

‘Last night?’ Ann was vague for a moment. ‘Oh, yes, yes. I enjoyed myself very much. Edith, when I woke up I’d been dreaming I was at home again. You were there and it was summer and there were new rooms in the house that we’d never known about.’

‘Good job we didn’t, I’d say,’ said Edith. ‘Quite enough rooms as it was. Great rambling old place. And that kitchen! When I think of what that range must have ate in coal! Lucky it was cheap then.’

‘You were quite young again, Edith, and so was I.’

‘Ah, we can’t put the clock back, can we? Not for all we may want to. Those times are dead and gone for ever.’

‘Dead and gone for ever,’ repeated Ann softly.

‘Not as I’m not quite satisfied as I am. I’ve got my health and strength, though they do say it’s at middle life you’re most liable to get one of these internal growths. I’ve thought of that once or twice lately.’

‘I’m sure you haven’t got anything of the kind, Edith.’

‘Ah, but you don’t know yourself. Not until the moment when they cart you off to hospital and cuts you up and by then it’s usually too late.’ And Edith left the room with gloomy relish.

She returned a few minutes later with Ann’s breakfast tray of coffee and toast.

‘There you are, ma’am. Sit up and I’ll tuck the pillow behind your back.’

Ann looked up at her and said impulsively:

‘How good you are to me, Edith.’

Edith flushed a fiery red with embarrassment.

‘I know the way things should be done, that’s all. And anyway, someone’s got to look after you. You’re not one of these strong-minded ladies. That Dame Laura now—the Pope of Rome himself couldn’t stand up to her.’