A Daughter’s a Daughter

Mrs Massingham, always alluded to by Sarah as ‘the Mem Sahib’ bore down upon them in a grand flashing of teeth. She was a lean stringy woman, her skin bleached and dried by years in India. Her husband was a short tubby man with a staccato style of conversation.

‘How nice to see you again,’ said Mrs Massingham, shaking Ann warmly by the hand. ‘And how delightful to be coming out to dinner properly dressed. Positively I never seem to wear an evening dress. Everyone always says, “Don’t change.” I do think life is drab nowadays, and the things one has to do oneself! I seem to be always at the sink! I really don’t think we can stay in this country. We’ve been considering Kenya.’

‘Lot of people clearing out,’ said her husband. ‘Fed up. Blinking government.’

‘Ah, here’s Jennifer,’ said Colonel Grant, ‘and Cauldfield.’

Jennifer Graham was a tall horse-faced woman of thirty-five who whinnied when she laughed. Richard Cauldfield was a middle-aged man with a sunburned face.

He sat down by Ann and she began to make conversation.

Had he been in England long? What did he think of things?

It took a bit of getting used to, he said. Everything was so different from what it was before the war. He’d been looking for a job—but jobs weren’t so easy to find, not for a man of his age.

‘No, I believe that’s true. It seems all wrong somehow.’

‘Yes, after all I’m still the right side of fifty.’ He smiled a rather child-like and disarming smile. ‘I’ve got a small amount of capital. I’m wondering about buying a small place in the country. Going in for market gardening. Or chickens.’

‘Not chickens!’ said Ann. ‘I’ve several friends who have tried chickens—and they always seem to get diseases.’

‘No, perhaps market gardening would be better. One wouldn’t make much of a profit, perhaps, but it would be a pleasant life.’

He sighed.

‘Things are so much in the melting-pot. Perhaps if we get a change of government—’

Ann acquiesced doubtfully. It was the usual panacea.

‘It must be difficult to know what exactly to go in for,’ she said. ‘Quite worrying.’

‘Oh, I don’t worry. I don’t believe in worry. If a man has faith in himself and proper determination, every difficulty will straighten itself out.’

It was a dogmatic assertion and Ann looked doubtful.

‘I wonder,’ she said.

‘I can assure you that it is so. I’ve no patience with people who go about always whining about their bad luck.’

‘Oh, there I do agree,’ exclaimed Ann with such fervour that he raised his eyebrows questioningly.

‘You sound as though you had experience of something of the kind.’

‘I have. One of my daughter’s boy friends is always coming and telling us of his latest misfortune. I used to be sympathetic, but now I’ve become callous and bored.’

Mrs Massingham said across the table:

‘Hard-luck stories are boring.’

Colonel Grant said:

‘Who are you talking of, young Gerald Lloyd? He’ll never amount to much.’

Richard Cauldfield said quietly to Ann:

‘So you have a daughter? And a daughter old enough to have a boy friend.’

‘Oh yes. Sarah is nineteen.’

‘And you’re very fond of her?’

‘Of course.’

She saw a momentary expression of pain cross his face and remembered the story Colonel Grant had told her.

Richard Cauldfield was, she thought, a lonely man.

He said in a low voice:

‘You look too young to have a grown-up daughter …’

‘That’s the regulation thing to say to a woman of my age,’ said Ann with a laugh.

‘Perhaps. But I meant it. Your husband is—’ he hesitated—‘dead?’

‘Yes, a long time ago.’

‘Why haven’t you remarried?’

It might have been an impertinent question, but the real interest in his voice saved it from any false imputation of that kind. Again Ann felt that Richard Cauldfield was a simple person. He really wanted to know.

‘Oh, because—’ She stopped. Then she spoke truthfully and with sincerity. ‘I loved my husband very much. After he died I never fell in love with anyone else. And there was Sarah, of course.’

‘Yes,’ said Cauldfield. ‘Yes—with you that is exactly what it would be.’

Grant got up and suggested that they move into the restaurant. At the round table Ann sat next to her host with Major Massingham on her other side. She had no further opportunity of a tête-à-tête with Cauldfield, who was talking rather ponderously with Miss Graham.

‘Think they might do for each other, eh?’ murmured the colonel in her ear. ‘He needs a wife, you know.’

For some reason the suggestion displeased Ann. Jennifer Graham, indeed, with her loud hearty voice and her neighing laugh! Not at all the sort of woman for a man like Cauldfield to marry.

Oysters were brought and the party settled down to food and talk.

‘Sarah gone off this morning?’

‘Yes, James. I do hope they’ll have some good snow.’

‘Yes, it’s a bit doubtful this time of year. Anyway, I expect she’ll enjoy herself all right. Handsome girl, Sarah. By the way, hope young Lloyd isn’t one of the party?’