Free Daisy by MC Beaton

and tendrils like a kind of exotic dandruff.
    Her opening words were—as Daisy was soon to find out—typical.
    “Oh, my poor, deluded child,” she cried, moving majestically toward her son. “Another one?”
    “But Miss Chatterton’s
different
, Mater,” said Freddie earnestly. “She believes in the sanctity of the home and all that.”
    “Humph!” Mrs. Bryce-Cuddestone folded her large hands and swiveled her large pale eyes to survey Daisy.
    “I should hope so,” she boomed. “Ours has always been a happy home. When Reginald was alive,”—here she produced a lilac handkerchief with a black border and held it under her massive nose—“there was nothing but happiness from morning till night.”
    “I did not know you had been recently bereaved. I am so sorry,” said Daisy.
    “It was only fifteen years ago when Reginald was taken from me,” went on her hostess. “I have been mother and father to that boy. The designing hussies he has brought to this house have been enough to break a mother’s heart.”
    “Oh, I say, Mater!” bleated Freddie, but Daisy was already on her feet.
    “I do not like the implication that I am another designing hussy,” she said in a high, thin voice. “Mr. Bryce-Cuddestone, I wish to leave.”
    To her horror, Mrs. Bryce-Cuddestone burst into noisy tears. “I’ve gone to such trouble, Freddie. I’ve worked and slaved to have a very special luncheon for you, and now because I have been misunderstood, it will all go to waste.”
    “Here, I say, Mater. I say, Daisy. I say, look here. Stay for luncheon. Can’t have tears. Buck up, Mater. She’s stayin’. Ain’t you, Daisy?”
    Poor Daisy could only nod dumbly. Again she felt guilty and could not quite understand why.
    “Luncheon is served,” came the tomblike voice of the butler from the doorway. Freddie held out his arm to his mother and Daisy trailed after them.
    The dining room table was long and massive, an eternity of gleaming mahogany. At the halfway point there was a sort of crossroad made with two huge silver salt-and-pepper shakers and a fat silver epergne depicting a young Greek with his clothes being shredded by silver wolves.
    Mrs. Bryce-Cuddestone sat at one end, Freddie at the other, and Daisy at the crossroad in the middle. The dining chairs were heavy and squat. Daisy sank down into the cushion of her chair and found that her chin was almost on a level with the table. Freddie and her hostess had similar chairs and they looked as if their heads had been served up at either end.
    Conversation had to be carried on at the top of the voice, although, as Daisy reflected, it could hardly be called conversation. An interrogation was more like it. Did Miss Chatterton have a dowry? Was Miss Chatterton aware that the happiest married households had the mother-in-law in residence? Were the Earl and Countess of Nottenstone as rackety as she had been led to believe?
    Daisy began to get quietly furious. She felt like a pot on a slow burner, gradually rising to the simmering point, and about to boil over any minute.
    The meal was a perfect symphony of starch. A bowl of broth in which some animal had placed a paw, was piled high with potatoes and barley.
    Then came a sliver of fish in a whole winter’s coat of breadcrumbs. Then a minuscule mutton chop cowering under a mountain of mashed potatoes and butter beans and then a Cabinet pudding which should never have been appointed to any table. The “full-bodied” wine tasted to even Daisy’s uneducated palate like vintage yesterday.
    Mrs. Bryce-Cuddestone had obviously never heard the social law of not speaking with your mouth full. She talked steadily throughout the meal, posting away great quantities and lecturing Daisy on Freddie’s delicate constitution.
    Reginald asked me, when he was dying, to send the boy to Eton. Me! Send my son to be mauled by a lot of rough boys! He always had his own tutor here in his beloved home. Are you wearing your flannel underwear,