Room) — Madden had offered no comment. He intended to get this matter, and others, sorted out when he sat down with her later. Instead he had enquired after Aunt Maud, only to be told that she seldom came downstairs before one o’clock.
‘She and Miss Lucy usually have breakfast together in her room, and that can be any time,’ Alice had informed him. Well into her sixties now, she had acquired a benign motherly look that reminded Madden of the pictures of Mrs Tiggywinkle he had shown Lucy when she was little. ‘It depends …’
‘Depends on what?’
‘On what time Miss Lucy wakes up. We don’t like to disturb her.’
Forced to bide his time, Madden had set about carrying out the instructions he’d received from Helen before departing.
‘Look over the house, would you, darling. Aunt Maud’s far too old to keep an eye on things and Lucy’s a scatterbrain. Make sure all the doors and windows are secure and see that everything’s in working order, not just the boiler.’
A quick tour of inspection had proved reassuring. He had found nothing that required immediate attention apart from the boiler, which Alice confirmed had been ‘playing up’, adding that arrangements were already in hand for its repair.
‘Since when?’ This was news to Madden.
‘We had a man come in yesterday,’ Alice had told him.
‘He said it needed some part which he’d have to get hold of. He’ll be back tomorrow.’
‘What man? Who is he?’
‘Ah, well, you’ll have to ask Sid that. He’s the one who sent him round.’
‘Miss Lucy’s friend. Have you met him, sir?’
Madden had not. Nor had he ever heard of him. But the omission was soon repaired. At eleven o’clock — just as the first faint stirrings could be heard on the floor above — the doorbell had rung and Alice had admitted a young man wearing a sharp-looking suit and sporting a pearl-grey fedora which he’d doffed on being introduced.
‘Morning, squire,’ he’d greeted Madden.
Sid’s black hair, plastered flat on his head, had shone with brilliantine. His wide smile revealed a gold tooth.
‘Luce up?’ he’d enquired of Alice, and on being told she had not yet appeared had placed a parcel wrapped in brown paper on the kitchen table.
‘Nice bit of fillet, that,’ he’d confided to Madden in a low voice. ‘Trouble is there’s no one here to eat it. Luce is never in and as for Miss C …’ He had raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Well, she don’t seem to consume. Isn’t that right, love?’
His last remark, directed at Alice, had brought a giggle from her lips.
‘I’ve told you before, Sid, Miss Collingwood eats like a bird. It’s no use bringing all this food. It’s just going to waste.’
‘Well, you never know …’ Sid had sounded philosophical. ‘Squire …’
Saluting Madden with a further flourish of his hat, he’d departed.
Not averse to gossip, Alice had told him that Sid had knocked on their door one day to enquire if they needed any coal and that from that moment on his relationship with the household had blossomed.
‘Do anything for Miss Lucy, he would.’
Shortly afterwards the subject of their discussion had appeared, still in her pyjamas and dressing gown, and with her long hair uncombed. Catching sight of her father as she burst into the kitchen, her face still flushed with sleep, she had flung herself into his arms.
‘Daddy, why didn’t you tell me you were here? Why didn’t you wake me?’
She had hugged and kissed him, and paused only long enough to inform Alice that Aunt Maud would like toast and tea but that she herself would do without breakfast that morning.
‘I’m in a rush,’ she confided to them. ‘I’ve been late on duty twice this week.’
The transformation between the rumpled child he had held in his arms for a brief moment, so familiar, so deeply loved, and the poised young woman who appeared not ten minutes afterwards, elegant in her navy blue coat and with her golden hair coiled neatly under a Wren’s hat, had robbed him of all words.
It’s so lovely you’re here, Daddy. I’ll try not to be late this evening.’
She had kissed him warmly and departed.
Later he’d discovered, when he ascended the stairs to pay his respects to Aunt Maud, that the old lady had been only too happy to hand over the running of her household to her great-niece.
‘She’s such a dear girl. So full of surprises. Do you know what she found for me to eat the other day? A jar of caviar. And now she’s having the boiler repaired. Such a treasure.’
Aunt Maud had received him propped up by pillows in her bedroom. Shrunken by age, she retained a bright eye, but although she took a lively interest in all matters relating to the family, she’d been unable to enlighten him on the subject of Lucy’s activities outside the house.
‘The poor child works till all hours,’ she had said, repeating the theme Madden had already heard voiced by Alice. But she comes in to see me whenever she can and we have such lovely talks. She’s so like her mother. Sometimes I forget it’s not Helen sitting there on the end of my bed.’
With the repair of the boiler now out of his hands — at least for the time being — Madden had been reduced to pottering about the house, and though he’d had no intention of prying further, nevertheless found another shock awaiting him. Conscious of the relative good fortune all country dwellers shared when it came to the matter of food rationing, he’d arrived laden with produce from the farm, and having deposited the butter, eggs and cheese he had brought with him in the conspicuously crowded fridge, had looked for a place to put the pork pie May Burrows had made at his request, eventually settling on one of the cupboards in the pantry.
‘Good God!’
Its contents revealed, he had stood aghast.
‘What on earth …?’
Stacked up before his eyes was an assortment of delicacies now little more than a memory to most. Tinned pheasant, pate de foie gras, preserved truffles; yet another jar of caviar. Three tins of olive oil marked ‘extra vergine’ and bearing the name of a Genoese manufacturer. Two bottles of champagne; two of cognac. On the shelf below were bars of chocolate laid one on top of the other beside expensive prewar condiments — chutneys and sauces with exotic names — and beside them a noble Stilton, its cloth wrapping as yet untouched.
And what were these?
‘Oranges!’ Madden had exclaimed out loud.
‘Ooh, yes.’ Alice had been standing behind him, watching. ‘They were a surprise. I did squeeze one for Miss Collingwood yesterday morning to have with her breakfast but she said it was too acid for her stomach.’
Though resolved to get some explanation from his daughter, Madden had been thwarted when Lucy had rung during the afternoon to say she would not be home until very late — an emergency had arisen at the Admiralty — and he was not to wait dinner for her. When midnight had come and gone with no sign of her he had gone to bed, but the following morning when she appeared downstairs already dressed in her uniform and in the same hurry to be off he had moved to intercept her.
‘Daddy, I can’t stop now,’ she’d implored him.
He had never found it easy to resist her appeals, and the uncanny resemblance she bore to her mother, not only in looks, but even in her gestures and the tone of her voice, only added to his difficulty. But on this occasion he had steeled himself.
‘No, wait, Lucy. I must have a word with you.’ He had stood in the doorway of the kitchen barring her exit. ‘This man …’
‘What man?’ For a moment panic had flared in her eyes.
‘This Sid!’
‘Oh, Sid?’ Her smile pierced his heart. ‘Have you met him? Isn’t he an angel?’
‘No, he’s not an angel. He’s a spiv. All that food in the cupboard — where on earth do you think it comes from?’ And when she’d failed to reply. ‘You can’t imagine he got hold of it legally?’
Two tears had appeared in her sapphire eyes.
