Chapter 15

The colonel walked towards Shirley with a sort of dazed expression on his face and said,

"I am so pleased to see you again Shirley, and though I have no right to say it, you are even more beautiful than I remember."

Shirley took his outstretched hand and shook it. She then gave a little curtsey and said,

"Why thank you Colonel, spoken like a true southern gentleman. I was sorry to see that you had been so badly wounded. I hope you are making a good recovery."

"I am happy to say that I am making good progress and learning to adapt to my new tin leg." The colonel told her. "But if we are going to be conversing all evening over dinner if you dropped my military title and just reverted to calling me Bill I think it would be easier for all concerned."

Shirley disengaged her hand from his for the colonel had continued to hold hers as he spoke. She stepped back a bit and said rather formally,

"Then it will be as you wish, Bill."

She turned to the girls and said,

"You two pretty young Ladies must be Bill's daughters."

Before the girls could answer, Bill stepped forward and said,

"I apologise Shirley, I should have introduced my daughters, this is Eloise, my eldest daughter, and this is Hannah the younger member of my family."

Shirley took the Eloise's hand and said, what a lovely name for a lovely young woman, but if I remember rightly the Eloise you are called after had a very sad love affair. Did you know that?"

Eloise shook her head and said, "No."

"Then I may tell you her story if we get some time together while you are here."

She said. "Then turning Hannah she took her hand and smiled at her and said, "Your name means Beauty and Passion, and I bet when you are a bit older you will display both of these qualities for I can see mischief looking out those blue eyes."

Hannah giggled and said

"I think daddy might agree with you for he says I am always up to some mischief." She told her

Shirley laughed at this remark and said, "Then you and I should get together and see what mischief we can get up to while you are here."

The colonel had looked a bit stunned when Shirley remarked on Eloise's sad love affair and I thought "my my!' she is not wasting any time having a go at him. But both of us relaxed a bit when she talked about Hannah being mischievous.

The colonel then said to her,

"Don't encourage her," Shirley, "she does not need any encouragement."

"Ah!" Said, Shirley, "but there is nothing like a bit of mischief to liven things up"

I thought it was time to break up this bit of by play so I said,

"I have hired a vehicle for this evening with a driver so that we can all go in one car and those of age can have a drink without worrying about driving back. Of course that refers only to old people like the colonel and Shirley, Ginny and I are too young anyway."

Shirley gave me a steely look and said

"Me thinks you speak with a forked tongue young man, for the last two months you have been encouraging me to do things because I am still a young woman and not old at all. I am not sure I like my daughter going out with such a duplicitous young man."

"Sometimes," I said, "Like mischief, there is nothing like a bit of duplicity to get some people to act as you would like them to."

Ginny now butted in and said,

"Don't you two start your verbal sparring just as we are going out to dinner."

She looked at her father and told him,

"If you are around these two for any length of time father, you will get used to them sparring. They do like one another really."

The colonel smiled at her, I think the use of the word father in the presence of others pleased him.

"I think that maybe you should have left them to it, daughter," he said, "just in case your mother decides to start on me. I would much rather she aimed her salvos at Gibby"

"Ah," said Shirley, "It is nice to know that someone might be worried by my verbal sallies. They do not seem to have much effect on the young man who is courting our daughter, Colonel."

I laughed and said, "That sir, is only because I am able to return fire."

Just at that the car arrived and we all trooped out. I sat with the driver and the two youngsters wanted the fold down seats that face backwards, which meant that the colonel and the two ladies had to get into the back seat facing forward. Somehow Ginny and Shirley contrived to put the colonel in the middle so that he was sandwiched between them on the pretence they did not want their dresses crushed.

When we arrived at the hotel Ginny immediately took my arm and she called for Eloise to take her hand and Hanna took mine, leaving the colonel to escort Shirley into the building. He hesitantly offered her his arm, but without hesitation Shirley took it and said,

"Thank you kind sir" and then led him through the doors.

We were immediately shown to our table and once again when things had been arranged Shirley and the colonel were facing each other on either side of the table I was on the other side of Shirley and Ginny was opposite me and the two girls sat at each end. The waiter came and I asked the colonel to choose the wine. He asked Shirley if she had a preference for red or white. Shirley smiled at him and said,

"I will leave that up to you colonel. Due to our circumstances, until I took up residence with Gibby, wine was not high on our list of beverages, so my knowledge of them is scant."

The Colonel looked a bit embarrassed at this and then ordered a nice red.

I asked the girls what they would like and they looked at their father and he nodded to them. They then ordered cokes, it was obvious from that little bit of byplay, they were rationed on sugary drinks. Ginny and I settled for sparkling water. The waiter came and took our orders and once everyone was served their first course, I spoke to the colonel and asked him,

"Now that you have seen our set up here, and realise that we are committed to staying here for the next year what are your thoughts on how we can build a relationship with you and allow you to get to know your daughter?"

The Colonel thought about this for a moment or two and then he said,

"Under normal circumstances that would not be too difficult but I have to factor Shirley into the relationship too, because when you got to college then it is understandable that she will want to see you during break times. For this year it is quite simple. Shirley will be with you for most of the year and during the Christmas break you could come out to me.

He looked at Shirley and then said, "If I were to invite them for Christmas I would invite you as well Shirley, but you may not wish to come. If that was the case, it could be some time after Christmas, because feel whatever arrangement we come to, you should have Christmas with them. The same would apply for part of the Easter break and the summer break, but I would really need to speak to you Shirley before we settled on any of these plans. When it comes to you both being away from both of us for long periods then the situation really becomes more complex. I would like to hear Shirley's opinion on these matters too."

Shirley seemed startled by this turn of events and after giving it some thought

She replied.

"When it became apparent that Ginny wanted to meet you, Bill, I had not really thought about the implications for afterwards. I did not think about future relationships or the way they would develop. I know that was rather silly of me, but it was only after Gibby came home from meeting you and mentioned things like us sharing significant events like graduations from school and college and weddings and Christenings, that I came to see that this thing had legs and would run into the future. Even then though, the penny had not dropped about holiday times and the fact that I might have to share Ginny and Gibby with you for some period during those times."

I didn't know whether I was reading into this statement something that was not there. However I felt it might be significant that when discussing us with him, it was the first time that she had not addressed him formally using his military title, but I thought this could be a sign of a thaw in her previous hostility to him.

Bill spoke up this time addressing his remarks to Shirley,

"I don't think that is silly or surprising Shirley. When the detective first contacted me, I had felt for some time that somewhere out there I had a daughter I knew nothing about. When he spoke to me about her, I knew there was no doubt that Ginny was mine and I knew I wanted to meet her."

He gathered his thoughts for a moment and then continued

"Although I was assured that she did not need any help from me. I wanted to be certain this was the case and even if it was I hoped I that there would be some way I could make up for my past neglect by helping her in some way. But like you, until this amazing young man here, started talking about future relationships, I had not given them any great thought. It was only tonight as he spoke about this again, I realised there were complications that had to be considered and these centred on how you and I were going to share things."

He paused for a moment as if in thought then he went on,

"I am a bit anxious about making any demands that may cause you distress, for the last thing I want to do is bring more hurt into your life than I already have."

"I don't think this will bring more hurt Bill, but I don't want it to monopolise our conversation over dinner. It may be a bit forward of me, but I have college tomorrow morning and I am free by lunch time. Perhaps you could meet me for lunch and we could talk these things over and come to some arrangement for the near future anyway. I am sure Gibby or Ginny would give you a run into town and we could meet outside the college."

You could have knocked me over with a feather when Shirley said this, and I could see the surprise mirrored on Ginny's face. The colonel seemed to be both surprised and delighted by this turn of events.

"Shirley I am so grateful for your suggestion that we should meet and discuss this. I will of course take you to lunch if you will permit that." Then he smiled and said, "I cannot expect an unemployed lady who is also currently a college student to buy me lunch so the lunch will be on me."

Shirley laughed at this and said,

"I am glad you recognise my dire circumstances despite my designer wardrobe and accessories sir, and I will be very pleased to let you pick up the tab."

We all joined in the laughter at that sally.

When the laughter died down, the colonel looked at Shirley and said,

"It will be my pleasure, and I look forward to discussing the future with you."

After this Shirley brought the children into the conversation asking them about their school and the kinds of things they were interested in. The colonel spoke about his experiences as a marine officer and I think each of us shared a bit more of ourselves in the relaxed atmosphere of the dinner. The only person who did not share much of her past was Shirley herself. I understood why she would be reticent. I felt however, that when she had the opportunity she would let him know something about the mess his callous dismissal of her had brought to her life and the life of her daughter and reveal something of the pain she had to endure.

In some ways I hoped this would be the case and that it might perhaps settle the direction of the truce that would be needed if things were going to go smoothly in the future. I had given our driver a time when we wished to be picked and asked him to inform us when he had arrived. About two hours later he arrived and duly let us know of his presence. Our evening wound up and we made our way out to the car. Shirley and Bill fixed a time for their meeting the next day while we made the drive home then we dropped her off at her flat and made our way back to the main house.

The next day we took the colonel into town for his lunch with Shirley. Once they had met up, Ginny and I took the girls to the zoo and had a wonderful time. They were interested in everything and we had long chats about the nature and habits of various animals. They kept our minds occupied and we did not have much time to wonder or worry about how Shirley and the colonel were getting along with their lunch date. We eventually got a pretty full account at different times from both the colonel and Shirley.

Bill and Shirley had ordered lunch and Bill had asked if she wanted wine but Shirley had turned it down and told him that she would refrain as she would be driving him back to the house. She never drank and drove she had said, not even on my worst days. I knew I had a child to look after. The colonel had asked what she meant when she said she never drank and drove even on her worst days. Shirley had looked at him. Then she had asked him what he saw when he looked at her now.