Daughter of the House: The moving romance from the Queen of Storytellers, page 1
Daughter of the House
Catherine Gaskin
Copyright © The Estate of Catherine Gaskin 2022
This edition published 2023 by Wyndham Books
(Wyndham Media Ltd)
27, Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX
First published 1952
www.wyndhambooks.com/catherine-gaskin
The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, organisations and events are a product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, organisations and events is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Cover image © md-pictures / Helen Hotson (Shutterstock)
Cover design © Wyndham Media Ltd
Titles by Catherine Gaskin
from Wyndham Books
The Property of a Gentleman
Sara Dane
The Lynmara Legacy
The Summer of the Spanish Woman
A Falcon for a Queen
Promises
Edge of Glass
Blake’s Reach
Fiona
Corporation Wife
Family Affairs
I Know My Love
The Ambassador’s Women
The Tilsit Inheritance
All Else is Folly
The Charmed Circle
Daughter of the House
The File on Devlin
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Contents
PART ONE
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
PART TWO
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
PART THREE
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
PART FOUR
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
PART FIVE
One
Two
Three
Preview: The Property of A Gentleman
Preview: Edge of Glass
Preview: Sara Dane
Preview: The Lynmara Legacy
Preview: The Summer of the Spanish Woman
Preview: A Falcon for a Queen
Preview: The Wine Widow by Tessa Barclay
Preview: Lily’s Daughter by Diana Raymond
Preview: Wonder Cruise by Ursula Bloom
PART ONE
One
Maura couldn’t tell, when she lifted herself on to a stool at the bar in The Stag on that night of late summer in 1949, that she was going to fall in love with the man who sat two stools away from her. She had always thought there would be a warning of some sort, but there wasn’t, so she merely smiled at Jeremy behind the bar, and asked for a gin.
He looked along sideways at her. ‘We’ve been expecting you since six,’ he said.
‘Couldn’t get away from the office.’
‘Traffic bad?’
‘It’s as congested as hell on the Southend road. Everyone’s making for the coast to catch the last week-end of the season.’
He shook his head. ‘The summer isn’t over yet.’
She shrugged and sipped the gin, deciding that whatever Jeremy said about the summer not being over, at the end of her ten days here she would put Rainbird up on the slips and close the cottage for the winter. She sat quite still, facing the rows of bottles and glasses, and letting the fatigue of the drive down from London fall away from her. Without turning her head she pictured the scene within the room; the deep, comfortable chairs occupied by the nightly regulars ‒ to whom she would presently nod with a pleasing sense of familiarity ‒ the polished brass upon the walls and the few pieces of old china gleaming chastely from the mantel, and below, the big hearth which in summer Jeremy’s wife, Willa, filled with flowers ‒ perhaps now already blazing with early chrysanthemums.
This call at The Stag before the last short drive up the lane to the cottage, had long ago become custom. It established the fact of her arrival in the village; it was in that way much more than just a courtesy to Willa and Jeremy, who were her friends. In the morning she would go down to the boat-shed, and old Able would greet her there with inquiries about the cause of her lateness at The Stag this evening. This attitude of theirs, sometimes irritating, was at least solid. It gave to her the blessed sense of belonging.
Jeremy came back to her. ‘Weather all right in London?’ he said.
‘Bit thundery, I thought, Jeremy. You know how it’s been all this summer ‒ we live expecting the weather to break. I was glad to get out of it.’
‘Your father’s well?’
‘Yes, he’s well. He loathes the heat, of course, but he never lets it force him to alter his habits.’
‘And Chris and Tom?’
She nodded and smiled. ‘Father passed a rather important brief on to Chris this week, and then suggested that he stay behind in the evenings and work on it. Chris didn’t like it much ‒ but I must say he settles to work more easily these days.’
‘And what news of Tom?’
‘Nothing new ‒ still at the Ministry. He’s going to leave it in the spring and go back to Ireland.’
‘He doesn’t come here very much, Maura?’ He questioned her with the statement.
‘You know what it’s like, Jeremy … they all think I’m impossibly independent and smug about the cottage, so they leave me to get on with it. Though, I think Tom’s secretly rather approving of anything that’s independent. He’s the last person in the world to try to push around.’
Jeremy let the remark pass without comment, though certainly he had long wondered about the exact relationship between these cousins, and whether they would ever marry. They could not be said to be in love ‒ at least not in the way Jeremy remembered he had been in love with Willa ‒ but there was a comfortable friendship, which, lasting through the four years since the war, seemed likely to drift into marriage.
Looking at her, and becoming aware that the man separated from her by the two empty stools was also looking at her, he remembered that he had neglected to make them known to each other.
‘Maura, could I introduce Johnnie Sedley, who’s staying here. Maura de Courcey.’
She turned towards him.
‘How do you do?’ he said. The introduction was acknowledged with the formality of an Englishman, with the difference that he spoke with an American accent. He was blond and wearing a loose white T-shirt in the fashion that seems to belong solely to Americans.
‘Willa told me you were coming,’ he said. ‘She’s been in here several times this evening looking for you.’
‘Have you been here long?’ she said. It was conventional, and she felt a little foolish, but there was nothing else to say.
‘About ten days,‘ he replied. ‘I suppose I’ll stay until the weather changes.’
‘I thought most Americans didn’t let weather interfere.’
‘I’m not “most Americans”.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Abruptly he slipped across the empty stools to the one beside her. ‘Oh, hell, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bark like that. I just get so used to the line the rest of the world takes about Americans being the eternal tourist, that I begin seeing it where it doesn’t exist. This happens to be my particular part of the country, and I like to imagine everyone else can spot the difference a mile off.’
‘Oh … were you here during the war?’
‘No. I did a post-graduate course at Cambridge before the war ‒ and my great-grandfather’s family lived near King’s Lynn.’
‘Then I’m doubly sorry,’ she said, and laughed a little.
He thought she looked nice when she laughed, though he had decided in those first minutes when she had lifted herself on to the stool and asked for a drink, that she wasn’t in the least beautiful or even handsome.
Jeremy said, before he moved away from them, ‘You should tell her about your third cousin, once removed, in King’s Lynn. Maura would like that story.’
‘Oh … my cousin,’ he repeated. He looked down at his glass, twisting it, and moving it backwards and forwards across the bar, examining the wet smear it left behind.
‘Yes, my cousin’s a nice little woman who lives in King’s Lynn, as Jeremy told you. When I was at Cambridge I went to find out wh at had become of the Sedleys ‒ there’d been no contact after my great-grandfather went to America. I found the place where they used to live, a rather nice farm with one of those very small, half-timbered manor houses. It had been sold about twenty years before, and the people sent me to a Miss Janet Sedley who ran a library in King’s Lynn. She didn’t know what to make of me, at first ‒ I was American and she hadn’t spoken to many Americans before. And besides I was at Cambridge, and that was suspect, too. But we got on quite well, and the Sunday after that I took her over to Cambridge for the day. I think she enjoyed it ‒ at least I didn’t drive a little red sports car as she expected. She told me primly that her father had died “without male issue”, and she couldn’t cope with the farm. She was rather gentle and Victorian. She’s still alive, and very old now ‒ I went to see her last week. It was rather funny ‒ touching, I suppose ‒ to see how proud she was of all the American servicemen she’d given tea to during the war. She told me far more than I ever knew before about Kansas and Little Rock and Atlanta. As I said … she’s a nice little woman.’
Then he raised his head and looked at her.
‘I suppose you think I’m naive and slightly ridiculous ‒ like all Americans are about their connections in this country?’
‘Why do you have to spoil it?’ she said. ‘I think Miss Janet Sedley is a nice little woman, too. And I don’t think it’s ridiculous to be pleased about discovering where you belong. You’ve lived here ‒ you ought to know the English better.’
‘Yes … yes, I should understand the English much better than I do. But somehow I manage to put my foot into it, and follow immediately afterwards with the other foot. Like now.’
‘You haven’t done anything very dreadful,’ she said, a little flatly.
And the American, watching her, knew why her mouth drooped from its firm, too-straight line. He knew his last remark should have been gentler, and wondered how it was that anyone so pleasantly restrained and normal as she appeared, could be so easily startled and made afraid. He regretted the uncompromising bluntness of what he had said, regretted his lack of manners, regretted most of all that he had caused her to withdraw from him. He tried to think of something to say to her.
‘Yours is one of the yachts down at Able’s boat-shed?’ he asked. ‘Rainbow … do you call it?’
‘Yes, that’s Rainbow,’ she said, pleased with the trifling matter of his having remembered the yacht’s name. ‘It belonged to my father’s cousin, who lives in Ireland. Every summer before the war I used to sail with him.’
‘And now?’
‘He gave Rainbow to me,’ she said simply. ‘During the war he had no one to come sailing with him ‒ both his sons were away. And then, afterwards, he didn’t seem to care so much for it. The last time he sailed her was on the trip over here. We brought her over together.’
‘He’s still alive?’
‘Oh, yes. He’s not old ‒ really. I often wonder if perhaps he doesn’t regret parting with her.’
‘Not to you,’ he said briefly, with little intention to flatter or please. ‘Any fisherman in the village will tell you she’s in good hands.’ He stopped, and then said, ‘If you need a crew any time you can count on me. I’m always around.’
‘Thanks, I’ll remember.’
He said quickly, ‘I didn’t mean to butt in.’
‘You’re not butting in. I’m always glad of crew. Not everyone has the time to go with me.’
‘Just as long as you didn’t think …’
‘No, I didn’t.’
It was at this moment a girl in the private bar began to sing. Maura turned towards the open door, as Johnnie did, to get a view of her. She seemed very young, and she was sitting at the piano, playing softly. She sang softly, too, but her voice was rich and low, and it reached them through the mingling sound of that crowded room. The song ‒ Smoke Gets in Your Eyes ‒ was thick with sweetness … as sweet and hushed as if she sang to a child. Maura felt she didn’t care that most of the people in the room had dropped into silence; she was singing because she enjoyed it, and she didn’t give a damn about anyone there.
And when she finished her song and began fingering around on the piano for the start of another, Maura saw suddenly how lovely she was. She wore a white cotton dress, and sandals on her bare feet, and Maura felt that the skin of her arms would be wonderfully smooth to touch.
‘She has a beautiful voice,’ she said. Then louder to Johnnie, ‘Do you know her? Is she staying here?’
‘She’s my wife.’
She flushed, because it seemed blundering to have taken it for granted that he was here alone. But he had always said ‘I’, and never ‘we’.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, with some confusion. ‘I didn’t connect …’
‘No, of course not. Why should you?’
Gradually the talk in the bar had recommenced, but the girl’s voice was still quite clear above it. She was singing Always.
‘She’s very beautiful ‒ your wife.’
‘Yes.’
At the same time he slid off the stool and faced her. ‘I’ll be seeing you around,’ he said. ‘Don’t forget I’m ready to be crew whenever you say so.’
‘I won’t forget. Good-night.’
The suddenness of his going was unexpected. She knew an unaccustomed sense of loneliness as she saw him bend over his wife. The girl rose, smiling slightly, and Johnnie caught her hand in his own. They walked towards the staircase that way. With the narrowness of the stairs she was forced to move ahead of him, but his hand still rested on hers as it gripped the banister.
Maura waited impatiently for Willa, and at the end of ten minutes she saw her come through the private bar. Her face was radiant with her smile; she had a crisp, brown, little face.
‘We thought you’d never make it this evening. Mrs Burnett expected you before six.’
Maura smiled back ‒ the very sight of Willa, the catch of eagerness in the other’s voice, could make her feel less tired. ‘I know. I’ve been badly held up.’
‘Glad you got here,’ Willa said gently. Then added, ‘How long are you down for this time?’
‘Until next week-end ‒ at least I’ll stay if the weather holds as long as that.’
A trace of emotion, of regret, crossed Willa’s face. ‘How quickly the summer passes. It seems such a little while since you got Rainbow out for the first time in the spring.’
Then she put the thought away from her. ‘What are you drinking?’
‘I won’t have another, Willa, thanks. I think I ought to get on to the cottage.’
Willa looked at her carefully. She saw that her clear white skin was stretched with fatigue, and her eyes and hair seemed even darker than before because there was no animation in her face. The fine lines, usually creases of laughter, were tight under her eyes.
‘You’re tired,’ she said.
Maura nodded. ‘It’s more than just the journey. Father and Chris have both been working hard, and that means I work hard too. But Father got fed up with my languishing about; he said if sailing my cranky little boat would make me less irritable, then I’d better get to hell and do it for a week.’
‘You‘re not irritable ‒ that would be a change.’
‘Fractious, then. There’s no difference, really. But we’ll all three of us, you and Jeremy and I, get out in Rainbird, and then nothing matters.’
Willa’s mouth twisted. ‘The last sail in Rainbird always means the end of the summer for me now. I hate it when you go.’
And Maura, gazing at her small, neat face, wondered for which of all the dear things she did and said, one loved Willa most. Her gaze rested upon the other with affection and contentment.
‘I’ve been talking to your Johnnie Sedley,’ she told Willa.
‘Yes … I wondered if he was still here when you came. What do you think of him?’
‘He’s nice ‒ but he’s awfully touchy.’
‘About some things, yes. But Jeremy and I like him a lot.’
‘Yes, so did I. He wants to come sailing.’
‘If you’ve got room you should take them both. They’d love it ‒ things must get rather dull for them round here. His wife is sweet. Did you meet her?’
‘I saw her.’
‘Lovely creature, isn’t she?’
‘Yes ‒ quite lovely.’
She slid off the stool. ‘I must go ‒ I’m nearly dropping. I’ll be sailing to-morrow afternoon if you want to come.’
