Blood Stones by Evelyn Anthony

time he decided he was going to become a prefect at his prep school and went on to be Guardian at Radley. He saw what he wanted and he went for it. Go for it , his wife had said. ‘By God,’ he murmured it aloud, ‘she doesn’t realize what it could lead to, but I’m going to win this one if I get the chance.’
    Elizabeth was meeting her mother for lunch. Jill Fairfax seldom came to London; she found the city noisy, dirty and full of bad-mannered people. It was all pushing and shoving, and dreadful traffic jams. Nowhere to park. She and Liz’s father made two or three trips a year when he watched cricket at Lord’s and she had her hair permed and bought some clothes. In the summer they stayed with their daughter in Thurloe Square. The next visit was before Christmas to buy presents, and they stayed at Brown’s Hotel.
    This trip up from Somerset was exceptional. She was worried about Elizabeth, and had made an excuse to come to London to see her. By train, and not staying overnight as Liz suggested. She didn’t really like staying in James’s house when he was there. He was always welcoming, but she felt an intruder, as if he didn’t like her imposing herself on them. She had taken Elizabeth to Claridges Causerie, a great treat she felt, and settled down to probe. She was a large, gaunt woman, weather-beaten from a life spent in the open air; she hunted, showed working spaniels, and lived a busy life serving the village community. Her husband was a magistrate, Chairman of the Parish Council and active on local committees. Their only son had been killed with the Scots Guards in the Falklands campaign. That had made Elizabeth even more precious to them.
    â€˜Now,’ Jill Fairfax said. ‘What shall we have?’ She thought her daughter was too thin; undeniably beautiful with a polish acquired since her marriage – everyone stared at her when they came in, and Jill was proud of that, but surely she’d lost weight since they last met.
    She didn’t mince her words. Another trait she sensed her son-in-law disliked. ‘You look far too skinny, darling. Not been dieting, have you?’
    Elizabeth smiled. ‘No, Mum,’ she said firmly, ‘I haven’t. I’m the same weight I was in June, give a pound or two. If I ate a lunch like this every day, I’d be bursting out of my clothes!’
    â€˜Working too hard then,’ Jill Fairfax insisted. ‘You told me about the new office block in Richmond, for Everlife Insurance, that must have been exhausting.’
    â€˜It was a challenge and it was fun,’ Elizabeth protested. ‘I’m still hoping against hope I might get the Lord Chancellor’s commission. I went to see him last week, and he was such a nice man.’
    â€˜He was at school with Pop, wasn’t he?’
    â€˜Very likely,’ Elizabeth said. ‘But I didn’t mention that. If I get this, it’ll be on my own merits. All he knows about me is that I’m Elizabeth Hastings Designs.’
    Jill shrugged. Her daughter had always been touchy about making use of social contacts. Jill Fairfax’s generation saw no harm in it, but Elizabeth had been determined to succeed as a person, rather than as her father’s daughter.
    Her mother laughed. ‘Trouble with you, Liz, is you’re a bloody inverted snob.’ Jill was very much an open book and she didn’t much care whether people liked what was on the page. She had always spoken her mind. ‘All right, you’re not dieting and you’re not overworking. But Pop and I didn’t think you looked too happy last time. That’s why I came up specially: to see you and to find out if everything’s all right.’
    Telephones, she insisted, were bloody useless. You had to talk to people face to face.
    â€˜Everything’s fine,’ Liz insisted. ‘Except the one thing. I’d just been disappointed, yet again in