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

away, for his sharp eye caught the droop of the lip. She said, with a shrug, “Then perhaps it is not business this time. Perhaps it is that woman!” He was so taken aback at her frankness that he gasped.
    “George keeps a woman?”
    “I do not think that he keeps her. I believe she has a rich husband.”
    “God bless my soul! He’s told you about her?”
    She turned and studied him with an expression that could have been mistaken for one of patronage. She was flushed, certainly, but he would have said that was due to irritation rather than embarrassment. Irritation not with him but with the entire British race, whose approach to this kind of thing continued to baffle her after years this side of the Channel. “George has told me nothing. How could he, being English, and brought up as an English gentleman?”
    “Then how… I mean… are you telling me he doesn’t love you any more? You and the children?”
    The pink flush deepened. “I cannot say as to that, Grandfather. He is very fond of the children and spoils them as I said. But there are two kinds of mistresses, are there not? One is a… how would you put it?—a toy, he will soon discard. The other is a substitute for a wife put aside, yet without losing her rights.” She paused, concentrating hard. “Perhaps ‘rights’ is not the word. Would ‘status’ be more exact?”
    “Who gives a damn about that?” he burst out. “I heard he had taken to gadding about. The rumour had reached as far as his grandfather, up in Manchester, so it follows I’m probably the last to hear he’s off the rails! How does that come about? Why the devil didn’t you come to me or the boy’s mother? We could have straightened him out. We always have before.”
    She said, considerately, “Please sit down, Grandfather. It is not good that you should become so excited over something that is perhaps of small importance.”
    He sat down, hypnotised by her placidity. It’s too long since I crossed the Channel , he thought. Here I am, looking at everything through English eyes . But he said, with a lift of his hand, “I don’t understand how any woman in your position can take that view, Gisela. George has no right to treat you in this way. His mother would be outraged.”
    “Then do not tell her, Grandfather.”
    “I’m not sure I will. I should have to think about it. But I’ll tell you this. Whoever she is, that woman is making nonsense of his responsibilities at the yard and that’s important. To me, at all events. It’s what brought me here in the first place!” He was rewarded by a frown on the girl’s pleasant features, as though he had found a chink in her complacency.
    “Ach, that is not good,” she said. “You are sure of it?”
    “I’m sure of it. Who is this woman? Do you know her? Have you met her?”
    “Wait,” and she got up, crossing to a huge bureau bookcase that occupied most of the south wall, an item of furniture that he would have thrown out as a baroque monstrosity, better left in Central Europe where it originated. She opened a drawer, rummaged there, and returned carrying a copy of The Illustrated London News , open at a page of social gossip. There was an illustration of a meet of the Quorn, featuring half-a-dozen celebrities and hangers-on, guzzling their stirrup cup. There was only one woman in the group, a handsome wench with what he recognised as a first-class seat. The caption below told him she was Lady Barbara Lockerbie, wife of the well-known Scottish industrialist, Sir James Lockerbie, “An exceptionally able horsewoman, whom readers will recall excels not only in the hunting field but in the pursuit of winter sports.”
    “If he hasn’t told you about her, how can you be so sure?” he demanded, returning the magazine and this time she smiled. “George is not a good liar, Grandfather. And I am not a fool.”
    He decided not to press the point and take her word for it, racking his brains for anything specific he might