Tea is So Intoxicating (British Library Women Writers Book 6) by Mary Essex

Author:Mary Essex [Essex, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Kent, divorce, London, love affair, hiking, cycling, teenager
Publisher: British Library Publishing
Published: 2020-10-21T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

Everything stops for tea

Germayne was feeling most unhappy about everything which seemed to be conspiring against her. She did not like Mimi. The irritating part was that David was thoroughly angry with his wife for taking against the cake cook, as he put it; he said that she made a habit of adopting an unreasonable attitude towards the people whom he found most useful, and that really he could not think why everybody was so set against the poor child.

In her anxiety Germayne wrote to Digby, and Digby suggested that she should slip up to London and see him; so, on the cheap-day, she went.

Germayne got herself into the tired blue suit that had worn white at the seams, and the crushed little muslin blouse. She settled a faded straw hat on her head, and told David that she was going up shopping. After all, that excuse was as good as any other.

She was never quite sure how she really felt about Digby. He had behaved extraordinarily well towards her, giving her the allowance which had been a godsend. Lately, when David spoke of him as being a bore, she knew that she became irritated. David had never thought of Digby as a possible rival, and chose to push him on one side as being of no consequence, but, to Germayne, Digby was becoming more important. She knew now that she relied upon him. In an emergency she was not thinking what-will-David-think, but what-will-Digby-think? and she was not at all sure if this was right.

Arrived in London, Germayne went straight to the place of assignation, which was the Dorchester Hotel. Recently Digby had made a great deal of money, and liked to show people what he could do, and this included Germayne. Digby believed in investing his money in the entourage, knowing that it gave suitable impressions and the right ideas. That was why he had been so choosey about the Streatham house in the old days. He was waiting for Germayne in a new suit. He was probably a little stouter, and certainly more prosperous-looking. He did himself very well, his figure advertising the fact that he delighted in gratifying the demands of the inner man. Digby’s inner man wined and dined well, and liked life.

He had not brought Ducks with him.

Ducks was now sixteen and practically a grown-up young woman, and she had been attending a mixed school, making the most loathsome friends, and getting some very strong opinions which she passed on to all and sundry, quite regardless of the fact that they might not be wanted. She was highly political, being habitually anti-Government, and this seemed to apply to any government that happened to be in power. Altogether she was turning into a bit of a handful, as she had always promised to be, but her father maintained that he liked a girl to have personality.

Digby walked down the hall of the Dorchester to meet Germayne, and saw at a glance how shabby she was.

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