La Bohème, I felt, had been a great success, even if Guy couldn’t stop leering at Becky throughout the second act—not that she seemed to show the slightes
t interest in him.
However, to my surprise, as soon as we got back to the flat Becky couldn’t stop talking about the man—his looks, his sophistication, his charm—although I couldn’t help noting that she didn’t once refer to his character. Eventually I managed to get to bed, but not before I had assured Becky to her satisfaction that her feelings were undoubtedly reciprocated.
In fact, I became, unwittingly, Cupid’s messenger for the budding romance. The following day I was asked by Guy to invite Miss Salmon to accompany him to a West End play. Becky accepted, of course, but then I had already assured Guy she would.
After their outing to the Haymarket, I seemed to bump into the two of them all the time, and began to fear that if the relationship became any more serious it could only, as my nanny used to say, end in tears. I began to regret having ever introduced them in the first place, although there was no doubt, to quote the modern expression: she was head over heels in love.
Despite this, a few weeks’ equilibrium returned to the residents of 97—and then Charlie was demobbed.
I wasn’t formally introduced to the man for some time after his return, and when I was I had to admit they didn’t make them like that in Berkshire. The occasion was a dinner we all shared at that awful little Italian restaurant just up the road from my flat.
To be fair, the evening was not what one might describe as a wow, partly because Guy made no effort to be sociable, but mainly because Becky didn’t bother to bring Charlie into the conversation at all. I found myself asking and then answering most of the questions, and, as for Charlie, he appeared on first sighting to be somewhat gauche.
When we were all walking back to the flat after dinner, I suggested to him that we should leave Becky and Guy to be themselves. When Charlie escorted me into his shop he couldn’t resist stopping to explain how he had changed everything around since he had taken over. His enthusiasm would have convinced the most cynical investor, but what impressed me most was his knowledge of a business which until that moment I hadn’t given a second thought to. It was then that I made the decision to assist Charlie with both his causes.
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.”