"If I have to be fair to Cedric," Mrs Prendergast said, "I'll have to admit that he did ask me to stay on at Bottomleigh House. He even offered to overhaul part of the first floor so that I could have my own private quarters... But I couldn't bear to think of it... No. That I couldn't."
She took a sip of her tea from a very delicate china cup.
"Well, Aunty Stella," Beatrice said between two sips of her own, "we understand entirely how you must have felt!"
"Yes," Daisy added, "we were all very much shocked when we heard the news of Father's death..."
"Well, once again thank you all for coming to the funeral, and thank you two for your visit here today..."
"We hardly had a chance to talk properly at the funeral. These are such... events: very impersonal! So we're glad of the opportunity to visit you in your new home."
"Do you like it here, aunty? It seems cosy enough... I mean... cosy."
Beatrice looked around her as they were sitting in the front parlour of the little cottage. Daisy registered how very quiet the room was: a wall clock somewhere above her was slowly ticking.
"Yes, I guess it's nice, and I do like it here, but of course I would never have imagined my life like this: first my son gone, now my husband, and then the added distress, particular to our circles, of seeing your husband's title and properties go over into the hands of a very young man... I never liked that boy much; he never was my favourite... He didn't respect our values, you know, social justice and all that, what Gerald and I stood for in all those years."
"Oh, Aunty Stella, Cedric is all right, really. You have to take him as he is..."
"What strikes me," Daisy said, "is that he seems rather lonely. Maybe he would really have liked you to stay at the House, mother. Just to keep him company."
"Well, I would constantly have had the feeling that he was gloating over his good fortune. Knowing him the way I do, that's what I would expect..."
"Maybe Cedric should ask his own parents, I mean Uncle and Aunty Clifton, to come and live with him?"
"Undoubtedly they were also asked... But they have lives of their own, you know."
"Mother, do you mind if I inquire, but how old was Father when he passed away?"
"Well, darling, Gerald died too young, and I blame Ralph's death for that: he never recovered from our loss. But your father-in-law was no longer a young man either. He was seventy-two. You see, he took his sweet time to find me, then Maud came, who is now almost forty, then we had to wait a very long time for Ralph, and four years more for Margery. Why do you ask?"
"Oh, it just strikes me that, as you said, Cedric inherited the title and the deeds at a very young age... But anyway, how are my sisters? I haven't seen them since the funeral..."
"Well, for Maud nothing has changed, still married but childless, living with her surgeon husband in Southampton. As for Margery, my little girl, she's twenty-two now and studying chemistry at King's College in London. You must get in touch with her one of these days, Daisy, she's a great admirer of yours..."
"Really? And why's that?"
"Well, when she was twelve years old, of course, you were the wonderful sixteen-year-old blind girl who went bicycling! But nowadays it's because you are living on your own, darling, and because you're a working girl. Margery admires you enormously."
"All right, I'll keep that in mind. You must give me her address or a telephone number..."
When Daisy and Beatrice walked back from the cottage to Bottomleigh House, hand in hand, Daisy said, "I really feel sorry for Stella, you know."
YOU ARE READING
D for Daisy (The Blind Sleuth Mysteries 1)
Mystery / ThrillerWorld War II. A Lancaster lands at its base in England after bombing Berlin, and a member of the crew is found dead. However, his young wife Daisy finds out that he has been murdered. But she is only a woman, blonde and pretty, and blind since birth...
