Sons and Daughters by Mary Jane Staples Page B

‘I’m still trying to come to terms with Grandpa’s promised knighthood.’
    ‘That,’ said Matthew, ‘would be way over the top in my book if it weren’t for the fact that mywife’s the natural daughter of a baronet.’
    ‘I’m happy you’re able to live with it,’ smiled Rosie, and went a little pensive. Sir Charles Armitage, her natural father, had been killed at Tobruk during the Middle East campaign. Rosie had come to find him a completely likeable man, but had never been able to give him the kind of love she gave Boots.
    Sometimes that love had had its dangerous moments. If no-one in the family had noticed, Polly had, and she experienced clear-cut relief when Rosie fell in love with her Dorset man, Matthew Chapman. Even then, Polly felt Matthew’s initial attraction for Rosie was due to the fact that he was not unlike Boots in his dry humour, his tolerance and his naturalness.
    ‘Penny for them, Rosie,’ said Matthew, interrupting her musings.
    ‘Oh, I’m thinking we must keep our promise to call on my grandparents one evening next week,’ said Rosie.
    ‘To congratulate them?’ said Matthew.
    ‘Well, we should, shouldn’t we?’ said Rosie.
    ‘Personally, I’d like to,’ said Matthew.
    ‘Personally, so would I,’ said Rosie, and Matthew put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her.
    ‘You’re a sweet woman, Rosie,’ he said.
    ‘Thank ’ee, m’dear,’ said Rosie in West Country lingo.

Chapter Seven
    Monday morning
.
    Sammy and Jimmy were motoring north to Edmonton, and Paul was at the desk of his poky office in the Labour Party’s Walworth headquarters. His brow furrowed. It was no joke, it seriously wasn’t, being related to a title. Here he was, coming up to a man’s age of nineteen, secretary of the Young Socialists and a dynamic political career in front of him. But he could imagine some know-all heckler getting at him with a lot of heavy sarcasm about the titled toffs in his family, his grandparents. As it was, he already had problems on account of his Uncle Sammy being a bloated capitalist and his dad being a well-off one. Curses, there was something else too. Suppose someone who wanted his job as secretary found out that on top of his granddad getting a title, the father-in-law of Uncle Boots was General Sir Henry Simms? Working-class voters could sound off in shocking fashion about generals who were also titled toffs.
    Paul, usually a brisk and bright young bloke, gloomed.
    John Saunders, the local Member of Parliament, came in. There was a young lady with him.
    ‘Morning, Paul, enjoy your weekend? That’s something the Party never let up on, campaigning for the workers’ right to a five-and-a-half-day week. Now we’ve got a five-day week in mind, to give ’em a full weekend of freedom from their labours. And freedom from their sweatshops and their bosses, eh? Come to that, who needs the general run of bosses? I hear certain Cabinet ministers are prepared to back nationalization of private business and getting the workers to run their own factories, but of course we can’t do that sort of thing overnight, eh? We’ve done welfare, the health service and the mines, but the PM’s treading water on other matters until after the recess. Bevan’s rumbling and growling, of course. But you’d expect that of a man who embraced the compassion of the Labour Party from the day he was born. All that’s given you something for some new leaflets, eh? Well now.’ The MP, having automatically delivered a speech, made way for the young lady. ‘Here’s my daughter Lulu, your new assistant.’
    ‘Pardon?’ said Paul.
    ‘As arranged,’ said the MP, burly figure attired in a smart suit. He wore his cap and scarf only when meeting the workers during electioneering. ‘Wake up, brother.’
    ‘Oh, yes, right,’ said Paul, remembering that his previous assistant had been upgraded to the post of secretary to the local constituency’s agent. He looked up at the MP’s daughter,