As the Crow Flies Read online

  I wasn’t in the least surprised to discover how he felt about Becky, but she was so infatuated with Guy that she wasn’t even aware of Charlie’s existence. It was during one of his interminable monologues on the virtues of the girl that I began to form a plan for Charlie’s future. I was determined that he must have a different type of education, perhaps not as formal as Becky’s, but no less valuable for the future he had decided on.

  I assured Charlie that Guy would soon become bored with Becky—as that had proved to be the invariable pattern with girls who had crossed his path in the past. I added that he must be patient and the apple would eventually fall into his lap. I also explained who Newton was.

  I assumed that those tears to which Nanny had so often referred might indeed begin to flow soon after Becky was invited to spend the weekend with Guy’s parents at Ashurst. I made sure that I was asked to join the Trenthams for afternoon tea on the Sunday, to give whatever moral support Becky might feel in need of.

  I arrived a little after three-forty, which I have always considered a proper hour for taking tea, only to find Mrs. Trentham surrounded by silverware and crockery but sitting quite alone.

  “Where are the starstruck lovers?” I inquired, as I entered the drawing room.

  “If you’re referring, in that coarse way of yours, Daphne, to my son and Miss Salmon, they have already departed for London.”

  “Together, I presume?” I asked.

  “Yes, although for the life of me I can’t imagine what the dear boy sees in her.” Mrs. Trentham poured me a cup of tea. “As for myself, I found her exceedingly common.”

  “Perhaps it could be her brains and looks,” I volunteered as the major entered the room. I smiled at a man I had known since I was a child and had come to treat as an uncle. The one mystery about him as far as I was concerned was how he could possibly have fallen for someone like Ethel Hardcastle.

  “Guy left too?” he asked.

  “Yes, he’s returned to London with Miss Salmon,” said Mrs. Trentham for a second time.

  “Oh, pity really. She seemed such a grand girl.”

  “In a parochial type of way,” said Mrs. Trentham.

  “I get the impression Guy rather dotes on her,” I said, hoping for a reaction.

  “Heaven forbid,” said Mrs. Trentham.

  “I doubt if heaven will have a lot to do with it,” I told her, as I warmed to the challenge.

  “Then I shall,” said Mrs. Trentham. “I have no intention of letting my son marry the daughter of an East End street trader.”

  “I can’t see why not,” interjected the major. “After all, isn’t that what your grandfather was?”

  “Gerald, really. My grandfather founded and built up a highly successful business in Yorkshire, not the East End.”

  “Then I think that it’s only the location we are discussing,” said the major. “I well recall your father tellin’ me, with some pride I might add, that his old dad had started Hardcastle’s in the back of a shed somewhere near Huddersfield.”

  “Gerald—I feel sure he was exaggerating.”

  “Never struck me as the type of man who was prone to exaggerate,” retorted the major. “On the contrary, rather blunt sort of fellow. Shrewd with it, I always considered.”

  “Then that must have been a considerable time ago,” said Mrs. Trentham.

  “What’s more, I suspect that we shall live to see the children of Rebecca Salmon doing a bloody sight better than the likes of us,” added the major.

  “Gerald, I do wish you wouldn’t use the word ‘bloody’ so frequently. We’re all being influenced by that socialist playwright Mr. Shaw and his frightful Pygmalion, which seems to be nothing more than a play about Miss Salmon.”

  “Hardly,” I told her. “After all, Becky will leave London University with a bachelor of arts degree, which is more than my whole family has managed between them in eleven centuries.”

  “That may well be the case,” Mrs. Trentham concurred, “but they are hardly the qualifications that I feel appropriate for advancing Guy’s military career, especially now his regiment will be completing a tour of duty in India.”

  This piece of information came as a bolt out of the blue. I also felt pretty certain Becky knew nothing of it.

  “And when he returns to these shores,” continued Mrs. Trentham, “I shall be looking for someone of good breeding, sufficient money and perhaps even a little intelligence to be his matrimonial partner. Gerald may have failed, by petty prejudice, to become Colonel of the Regiment, but I will not allow the same thing to happen to Guy, of that I can assure you.”

  “I simply wasn’t good enough,” said the major gruffly. “Sir Danvers was far better qualified for the job, and in any case it was only you who ever wanted me to be colonel in the first place.”

  “Nevertheless, I feel after Guy’s results at Sandhurst—”

  “He managed to pass out in the top half,” the major reminded her. “That can hardly be described as carrying off the sword of honor, my dear.”

  “But he was awarded the Military Cross on the field of battle and his citation—”

  The major grunted in a manner that suggested that he had been trotted round this particular course several times before.

  “And so you see,” Mrs. Trentham continued, “I have every confidence that Guy will in time become Colonel of the Regiment and I don’t mind telling you that I already have someone in mind who will assist him in that quest. After all, wives can make or break a career, don’t you know, Daphne.”

  “At least on that I am able to concur fully, my dear,” murmured her husband.

  I traveled back to London somewhat relieved that, after such an encounter, Becky’s relationship with Guy must surely come to an end. Certainly the more I had seen of the damned man the more I distrusted him.

  When I returned to the flat later that evening, I found Becky sitting on the sofa, red-eyed and trembling.

  “She hates me,” were her first words.

  “She doesn’t yet appreciate you,” was how I remembered phrasing my reply. “But I can tell you that the major thinks you’re a grand girl.”

  “How kind of him,” said Becky. “He showed me round the estate, you know.”

  “My dear, one does not describe seven hundred acres as an estate. A freeholding, perhaps, but certainly not an estate.”

  “Do you think Guy will stop seeing me after what took place at Ashurst?”

  I wanted to say I hope so but managed to curb my tongue. “Not if the man has any character,” I replied diplomatically.

  And indeed Guy did see her the following week, and as far as I could determine never raised the subject of his mother or that unfortunate weekend again.

  However, I still considered my long-term plan for Charlie and Becky was proceeding rather well, until I returned home after a long weekend to find one of my favorite dresses strewn across the drawing room floor. I followed a trail of clothes until I reached Becky’s door, which I opened tentatively to find, to my horror, even more of my garments lying by the side of her bed, along with Guy’s. I had rather hoped Becky would have seen him for the bounder he was long before she had allowed it to reach the terminal stage.

  Guy started out on his journey to India the following day, and as soon as he had taken his leave Becky began telling everyone who cared to listen that she was engaged to the creature, although there was no ring on her finger and no announcement in any paper to confirm her version of the story. “Guy’s word is good enough for me,” she asserted, which left one simply speechless.

  I arrived home that night to find her asleep in my bed. Becky explained over breakfast that Charlie had put her there, without further explanation.

  The following Sunday afternoon I invited myself back to tea with the Trenthams, only to learn from Guy’s mother that she had been assured by her son that he had not been in contact with Miss Salmon since her premature departure from Ashurst more than six months before.

  “But t