‘Her mother is dead,’ said Charles.
‘Her father, then. Jack Pinner was no fool. I don’t understand how his son—where is he, by the way? I heard something about the Worcestershire estates having been sold after the war——’
Charles said he didn’t know where her father was, because, although Sally had told him the shop was at Woodles, he had never heard of Woodles, which indeed is not marked on any map, so that he felt he wasn’t lying in saying he didn’t know.
The Duke, however, appeared to be seized by a sudden fierce desire to track down his old friend’s reprehensible son and tell him what he thought of him, and Charles was dismayed, for no good, he was sure, could come of tracking down Mr. Pinner. Sally, he knew, was anxious her father shouldn’t find out her disobedience to his orders, and though of this disobedience Charles held Laura guilty, not Sally, yet he didn’t suppose Mr. Pinner would look at it like that, and it was, besides, important, Charles considered, that his father, who had always had a rooted objection to any woman who wasn’t well-bred, should go on thinking Sally was a Worcestershire Pinner.
It seemed, then, to Charles a good thing to keep his father and Mr. Pinner apart, and it was therefore with regret that he listened to the old man asking Sally the moment he next saw her, which wasn’t till dinner, for she stayed up in her room till fetched down by the scandalised housekeeper, to whom it was a new experience that His Grace should be kept waiting even a minute after the gong had sounded, where her father was.
‘’Im?’ said Sally, turning pale but forced by nature and her upbringing to an obedient truthfulness. ‘’E’s at Woodles, ’e is.’ And, ‘Oh my gracious,’ she added to herself, ‘they ain’t goin’ to tell ’im I’m ’ere?’
‘What does she say?’ the Duke asked Charles.
‘She says,’ shouted Charles, following his father, who was shuffling along leaning on Sally’s arm, to the dining-room, and shouting with outward composure but inward regret, ‘that he is at Woodles.’
‘Woodles? Woodles?’ repeated the Duke. ‘Never heard of it. Is it in Worcestershire?’
Sally shook her head. She didn’t know where Worcestershire was, but she felt pretty sure Woodles wasn’t in it.