He could not tell whether she was serious. Besides, she had a smear of dust on her nose that looked so sweet that he longed to kiss it. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’ve made a fool of myself more than once, but—’
‘Listen to me. Your mother was a maid in this house. Suddenly in 1914 she went to London and married a man called Teddy whom no one knows anything about except that his surname was Williams, the same as hers, so she did not have to change her name. The mysterious Mr Williams died before anyone met him and his life insurance bought her the house she still lives in.’
‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘What are you getting at?’
‘Then, after Mr Williams died, she gave birth to a son who happens to look remarkably like the late Earl Fitzherbert.’
He began to get a glimmer of what she might be saying. ‘Go on.’
‘Has it never occurred to you that there might be a completely different explanation for this whole story?’
‘Not until now . . .’
‘What does an aristocratic family do when one of their daughters gets pregnant? It happens all the time, you know.’
‘I suppose it does, but I don’t know how they handle it. You never hear about it.’
‘Exactly. The girl disappears for a few months – to Scotland, or Brittany, or Geneva – with her maid. When the two of them reappear, the maid has a little baby which, she says, she gave birth to during the holiday. The family treat her surprisingly kindly, even though she has admitted fornication, and send her to live a safe distance away, with a small pension.’
It seemed like a fairy story, nothing to do with real life; but all the same Lloyd was intrigued and troubled. ‘And you think I was the baby in some such pretence?’
‘I think Lady Maud Fitzherbert had a love affair with a gardener, or a coal miner, or perhaps a charming rogue in London; and she got pregnant. She went away somewhere to give birth in secret. Your mother agreed to pretend the baby was hers, and in exchange she was given a house.’
Lloyd was struck by a corroborating thought. ‘She’s always been evasive whenever I’ve asked about my real father.’ That now seemed suspicious.
‘There you are! There never was a Teddy Williams. To maintain her respectability, your mother said she was a widow. She called her fictional late husband Williams to avoid the problem of changing her name.’
Lloyd shook his head in disbelief. ‘It seems too fantastic.’
‘She and Maud continued friends, and Maud helped raise you. In 1933 your mother took you to Berlin because your real mother wanted to see you again.’
Lloyd felt as if he were either dreaming or just waking up. ‘You think I’m Maud’s child?’ he said incredulously.
Daisy tapped the frame of the picture she was still holding. ‘And you look just like your grandfather!’
Lloyd was bewildered. It could not be true – yet it made sense. ‘I’m used to Bernie not being my real father,’ he said. ‘Is Ethel not my real mother?’
Daisy must have seen a look of helplessness on his face, for she leaned forward and touched him – something she did not generally do – and said: ‘I’m sorry, have I been brutal? I just want you to see what’s in front of your eyes. If Peel suspects the truth, don’t you think others may too? It’s the kind of news you want to hear from someone who . . . from a friend.’
A gong sounded distantly. Lloyd said mechanically: ‘I’d better go to the mess for lunch.’ He took the photograph out of its frame and slipped it into a pocket of his uniform jacket.
‘You’re upset,’ Daisy said anxiously.
‘No, no. Just . . . astonished.’
‘Men always deny that they’re upset. Please come and see me later.’
‘All right.’
‘Don’t go to bed without talking to me again.’
‘I won’t.’
He left the junk room and made his way upstairs to the grand dining room, now the mess. He ate his canned beef mince automatically, his mind in turmoil. He took no part in the discussion at table about the battle raging in Norway.
‘Having a daydream, Williams?’ said Major Lowther.
‘Sorry, sir,’ Lloyd said mechanically. He improvised an excuse. ‘I was trying to remember which was the higher German rank,
Lowther said: ‘
Lloyd felt himself blush. So his friendship with Daisy was not as discreet as he had imagined. It had even come to Lowther’s notice. He felt indignant: he and Daisy had done nothing improper. Yet he did not protest. He felt guilty, even though he was not. He could not put his hand on his heart and swear that his intentions were pure. He knew what Granda would say: ‘Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.’ That was the no-bullshit teaching of Jesus and there was a lot of truth in
