As the Crow Flies Read online

  “If you felt able to help, I would be eternally grateful,” said Daphne nervously. “But first I think I ought to tell you everything I know.”

  The colonel nodded.

  “As I’m sure you’re only too aware it is I who am to blame for the two of them meeting in the first place…”

  By the time Daphne had come to the end of her story the colonel’s plate was empty.

  “I knew most of that already,” he admitted as he touched his lips with a napkin. “But you still managed to fill in one or two important gaps for me. I confess I had no idea Trentham was that much of a bounder. Looking back on it, I should have insisted on further collaboration before I agreed to allow his name being put forward for an MC.” He rose. “Now, if you’ll be good enough to amuse yourself for a few minutes by reading a magazine in the coffee room, I’ll see what I can come up with as a first draft.”

  “I’m sorry to be such a nuisance,” said Daphne.

  “Don’t be silly. I’m flattered that you consider me worthy of your confidence.” The colonel stood up and strode off into the writing room.

  He didn’t reappear for nearly an hour, by which time Daphne was rereading advertisements for nannies in the Lady.

  She hastily dropped the magazine back on the table and sat bolt upright in her chair. The colonel handed over the results of his labors, which Daphne studied for several minutes before speaking.

  “God knows what Guy would do if I were to write such a letter,” she said at last.

  “He’ll resign his commission, my dear, it’s as simple as that. And none too soon, in my opinion.” The colonel frowned. “It’s high time Trentham was made aware of the consequences of his misdeeds, not least because of the responsibilities he still has to Becky and the child.”

  “But now that she’s happily married that’s hardly fair to Charlie,” Daphne pleaded.

  “Have you seen Daniel lately?” asked the colonel, lowering his voice.

  “A few months ago, why?”

  “Then you’d better take another look, because there aren’t many Trumpers, or Salmons for that matter, who have blond hair, a Roman nose and deep blue eyes. I fear the more obvious replicas are to be found in Ashurst, Berkshire. In any case, Becky and Charlie will eventually have to tell the child the truth or they’ll only store up more trouble for themselves at some later date. Send the letter,” he said, tapping his fingers on the side table, “that’s my advice.”

  Once Daphne had returned home to Lowndes Square she went straight up to her room. She sat down at her writing desk and, pausing only for a moment, began to copy out the colonel’s words.

  When she had completed her task Daphne reread the one paragraph of the colonel’s deliberations that she had left out and prayed that his gloomy prognosis would not prove to be accurate.

  Once she had completed her own version she tore up the colonel’s transcript and rang for Wentworth.

  “Just one letter to be posted” was all she said.

  The preparations for the wedding became so frantic that once Daphne had passed over the letter to Wentworth she quite forgot about the problems of Guy Trentham. What with selecting the bridesmaids without offending half her family, enduring endless dress fittings that never ran to time, studying seating arrangements so as to be certain that those members of the family who hadn’t spoken to each other in years were not placed at the same table—or for that matter in the same pew as each other—and finally having to cope with a future mother-in-law, the dowager marchioness, who, having married off three of her own daughters, always had three opinions to offer on every subject, she felt quite exhausted.

  With only a week to go Daphne suggested to Percy that they should pop along to the nearest register office and get the whole thing over with as quickly as possible—and preferably without bothering to tell anyone else.

  “Anything you say, old gel,” said Percy, who had long ago stopped listening to anyone on the subject of marriage.

  On 16 July 1921 Daphne woke at five forty-three feeling drained, but by the time she stepped out into the sunshine in Lowndes Square at one forty-five she was exhilarated and actually looking forward to the occasion.

  Her father helped her up the steps into an open carriage that her grandmother and mother had traveled in on the day they were married. A little crowd of servants and well-wishers cheered the bride as she began her journey to Westminster, while others waved from the pavement. Officers saluted, toffs blew her a kiss and would-be brides sighed as she passed by.

  Daphne, on her father’s arm, entered the church by the north door a few minutes after Big Ben had struck two, then proceeded slowly down the aisle to the accompaniment of Mendelssohn’s Wedding March. She paused only for a moment before joining Percy, curtsying to the King and Queen, who sat alone in their private pews beside the altar. After all those months of waiting the service seemed over in moments. As the organ struck up “Rejoice, rejoice” and the married couple were bidden to an anteroom to sign the register, Daphne’s only reaction was to want to go through the entire ceremony again.

  Although she had secretly practiced the signature several times on her writing paper back at Lowndes Square, she still hesitated before she wrote the words, “Daphne Wiltshire.”

  Husband and wife left the church to a thunderous peal of bells and strolled on through the streets of Westminster in the bright afternoon sun. Once they had arrived at the large marquee that had been set up on the lawn in Vincent Square, they began to welcome their guests.

  Trying to have a word with every one of them resulted in Daphne’s almost failing to sample a piece of her own wedding cake, and no sooner had she taken a bite than the dowager marchioness swept up to announce that if they didn’t get on with the speeches they might as well dispense with any hope of sailing on the last tide.

  Algernon Fitzpatrick praised the bridesmaids and toasted the bride and groom. Percy made a surprisingly witty and well-received reply. Daphne was then ushered off to 45 Vincent Square, the home of a distant uncle, so that she could change into her going-away outfit.

  Once again the crowds flocked out onto the pavement to throw rice and rose petals, while Hoskins waited to dispatch the newlyweds off to Southampton.

  Thirty minutes later Hoskins was motoring peacefully down the A30 past Kew Gardens, leaving the wedding guests behind them to continue their celebrations without the bride and groom.

  “Well, now you’re stuck with me for life, Percy Wiltshire,” Daphne told her husband.

  “That, I suspect, was ordained by our mothers before we even met,” said Percy. “Silly, really.”

  “Silly?”

  “Yes. I could have stopped all their plotting years ago, by simply telling them that I never wanted to marry anyone else in the first place.”

  Daphne was giving the honeymoon serious thought for the first time when Hoskins brought the Rolls to a halt on the dockside a good two hours before the Mauretania was due even to turn her pistons. With the help of several porters Hoskins unloaded two trunks from the boot of the car—fourteen having been sent down the previous day—while Daphne and Percy headed towards the gangplank where the ship’s purser was awaiting them.

  Just as the purser stepped forward to greet the marquess and his bride someone from the crowd shouted: “Good luck, your lordship! And I’d like to say on behalf of the missus and myself that the marchioness looks a bit of all right.”

  They both turned and burst out laughing when they saw Charlie and Becky, still in their wedding outfits, standing among the crowd.

  The purser guided the four of them up the gangplank and into the Nelson stateroom, where they found yet another bottle of champagne waiting to be opened.

  “How did you manage to get here ahead of us?” asked Daphne.

  “Well,” said Charlie in a broad cockney accent, “we may not ’ave a Rolls-Royce, my lady, but we still managed to overtake ’Oskins in our little two-seater just the other side of Winchester, didn’t we?”