Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [606]
They had come across the chalk ridges from the Gunners’ camp at Larkhill, and now they were dropping down the long, tunnel-like avenue to Wilton. He smiled at the prospect ahead of him.
The officers’ club at Wilton was a very special place. No matter what the rationing might be, it was mysteriously always possible to get a whisky and a steak there. “And nobody but a bloody fool would ever ask how that fellow does it,” he thought fondly of the local man who ran this excellent establishment.
D-Day would be coming soon. He would miss it, of course, since he had been given a staff job. He was not sure if he were sorry or not. His career had been skilfully conducted: he had usually been able to see which way the wind was blowing. A spell in the Grenadiers, several shrewdly timed transfers including a year in military intelligence in the War Office. He had always been good with high ranking officers’ wives: too good some said. Too good, it was always understood, for his own well-born, rather fluffy little wife, married young, who had left him and then died. And now, would he make it to general? Probably not. Perhaps, if he stayed on after the war; but he was not sure he wanted to. He had several more interesting irons in the fire in the business world that he had been keeping warm when there was time; he might stand for Parliament as well. Why not? He could afford it. Good war record. He was sound, as they said.
Archibald Forest-Wilson was a very fortunate man, but dissatisfied. Tall, dark, with a long, saturnine face, a short moustache he confined to the centre portion of his upper lip, heavy-lidded black eyes under black eyebrows that turned upwards at the corners, his face was like a falcon’s. With men he was hard; with women, extraordinarily gentle – a combination which fascinated the latter in particular. He was an excellent shot. But his greatest love was fishing. He was skilful with the dry fly; it was a joy to watch him cast, but it was with the wet fly that he really knew happiness, trailing it, subtly, seductively under the surface, tempting the fish on to the hook, feeling their play and reading their mind from the tug and pressure beneath the surface of the water. There was something very deep, even primitive in Forest-Wilson that loved, above all, this manner of fishing.
Thoughtfully he watched the golden curls on the back of his pretty driver’s neck and noticed how she held her head.
Damn his father, though, he reflected. True, he had very sensibly married the second daughter, and co-heir, of the last Lord Forest. The Wilsons had had to give up the house near Christchurch in the last century, when their fortunes had dipped, but this marriage had made his father a rich man and he had bought an estate near Winchester. But then, when he had the chance to buy a title from Lloyd George, he had quibbled about the price. The fool, his son now thought, as he bumped into Wilton. He could probably have taken the old Forest title; as it was, there was just the estate, no more, and that was not enough. For Archibald Forest-Wilson was an ambitious man. The war would be over soon: it was time he married again, got an heir. Perhaps, even – why not? – that title.
Once again he found himself gazing at his driver: a nice girl – one of us. He had spoken to her several times. How old she was? Twenty-five maybe, twenty-six? He was forty-three. A bit old. But then, age gave him some advantages too.
The little car bumped past the gate of Wilton House and drew up by Kingsbury. He got out lazily.
“You’re going off for the day now I think, aren’t you, Patricia?”
“Yes, sir.”
He smiled pleasantly.
“I’m sorry I can’t offer you lunch, but the general’s expecting me. Perhaps you’d be free some other day – assuming nothing more dramatic intervenes.”
“That sounds very nice.”
Her smile was proper. So it should be to a brigadier. But he had easily taken in every detail of her: good legs, good figure, nice breasts, neither large nor small, stunning eyes. The short golden hair and the buttoned A.T.S. uniform certainly