Free Give Us This Day by R.F. Delderfield Page A

far he had honoured that pledge, occupying himself with landscaping and collecting down there in the fresh air. It had kept him out of mischief for years now, and doubtless prolonged his active life, but he began to understand, for the first time since his retirement, that it was really no more than a substitute, and a poor one at that. His real ego, all that he was as a man and creator, had gone into the network, and the merest hint that it was threatened roused him like a man menaced in his sleep. George had made one bloomer over the introduction of those petrol-driven waggons and a dog was allowed one bite, so they said. But not two and not at the vitals of Adam Swann’s lifework. Not if he could help it, by God!

    4

    He had always been a man of action, compelled to put theories to the test at once and after no more than cursory contemplation, so that anyone who knew him would not have been surprised at his decision to leave the train when it stopped at Petts Wood, on the way to Bromley. George had set Gisela up in a fine house here, where the southeastern spread of the metropolis had petered out and the countryside was still unspoiled. It was a more convenient base than his own, deep in the Weald, and miles from the nearest station. The train service was excellent and George could be in the yard within thirty minutes of quitting his doorstep.
    He took a four-wheeler to the cul-de-sac where George’s windows looked out over a spread of arable fields and birch coppices, enjoying the prospect of surprising Gisela, for, although a foreigner, she had always ranked as his favourite in-law. She represented nearly all that Adam expected of a wife, concerning herself exclusively with home and children, and making no attempt to fashion her husband into the Galahad brides-in-waiting dreamed about before they had their corners rubbed off. He had never had the least doubt but that she loved his boy dearly, and both he and Henrietta had taken to her the moment she stepped ashore from the Dover packet all those years ago, soon after George confounded them with the news that he was married.
    They had four children now, the eldest, Max, aged eleven, the youngest a rosy little bundle born last year and christened Henrietta, just as the third child, Adam, had been named for him. The stamp of the Continent lay heavily on this branch of the family. All the boys favoured their mother, with hardly a trace of their Anglo-Saxon father. Their manners were impeccable and their approach to him reverential. Like their mother, they used the word “Grandfather” as though it were a title. He had no doubt but that one or more of them would prove a useful addition to the firm in the new century, for they already showed signs of that Teutonic application that had made the Germans Britain’s nearest rivals in trade and industry.
    The house, taken over from a failed speculator (George had a nose for failures and the bargains that went along with them), stood in its own grounds and was comfortably furnished, although its decor was too Germanic for his taste. Gisela was delighted to see him and pouted when he told her he was only stopping off on his way home, that Henrietta expected him at dusk, and that he was keeping the cab. “I only looked in to find out where I could locate George,” he said. “I tried the yard but he’s away off somewhere. When do you expect him back, my dear?”
    She said, dutifully, that she could never predict George’s comings and goings. Sometimes days passed before he turned up, his arms full of gifts for the children. “He spoils them,” she added. “It is not good, and I tell him so often. He is very busy just now, yes?”
    “It seems so,” he said, “but no matter how busy a gaffer he is he shouldn’t cut himself off from his base. Tybalt senior always knew where to find me, even if Henrietta didn’t. I was told he had been in the Midlands.”
    She turned away suddenly, so abruptly indeed that she gave herself