Lucy Gordon - Daniel and Daughter

'So you're going to live off your wife,' Daniel demanded of Mark in a voice full of contempt.

'I won't need to,' Mark told him. 'I've got money of my own. It'll support us until I'm earning.'

'Sure it will. All of fourpence a week.'

'A bit more than that actually,' Mark said. 'Why don't you ask Lee the exact amount? She's my trustee.'

Under Daniel's hard gaze Lee coloured and said, 'Dad left Mark thirty thousand pounds two years ago. With interest, it's grown.'

He stared at her. 'But you wouldn't let him have it now? It's unthinkable.'

'Of course not.'

'Once I'm married she'll have no choice,' Mark said.

'So there's nothing to stop us,' Phoebe said.

'Now there you're wrong, young woman,' Daniel told her. 'I will stop you, and make no mistake. I mean every word. Give him that ring back.'

'No,' she whispered.

'Give it back.'

'Daniel, don't!' Lee said desperately. 'It doesn't make any difference whether she returns the ring or not. It isn't a ring that makes an engagement.'

Daniel flung her a black look. It held the same condemnation she'd seen that first time, when Phoebe had defied him about modelling, only now it was far worse.

'All right,' he said quietly. 'I'll deal with that later.' He turned on Mark. 'Get out of my house. And stay out. Don't come near my daughter again if you know what's good for you.'

'Go home, Mark,' Lee said.

'Not while Phoebe wants me,' he said firmly.

'Please go, Mark,' Phoebe said through her tears. 'I'll see you tomorrow.'

Lee saw Daniel's face tighten, but before he could speak she silenced him with a warning shake of the head. Phoebe fled the room, and after a moment Lee followed her upstairs. She found her lying full length across her bed, sobbing bitterly.

'I hate Daddy,' she choked. 'Why can't he understand?'

'But he does,' Lee told her, sitting down and patting her shoulder. 'He understands all sorts of things that you don't know about. He doesn't want you to get hurt.'

'Your dad's only trying to do what's best for you, love,' was what her mother had said.

'But I love Mark. I want to marry him and be with him for ever,' Phoebe cried.

'I love Jimmy…I'll always love him…' How the wheel turned full circle, and words spoken in passion came back to haunt her!

'Phoebe, you're sixteen and Mark's nineteen. In a few years you'll be different people. You don't know what you'll feel then.'

'You're just saying that to stop me. But you said I was entitled to make my own decisions.'

'In your career, not about marriage.'

'Oh, Lee, I thought you'd understand. You married at my age-'

'That's why I don't want to see you make a mess of your life as I did. It was a terrible mistake. The biggest mistake I ever made.'

'But you had the courage to follow your heart,' Phoebe cried. 'I've always admired you for that.'

Lee sighed and buried her head in her hands. After a moment she looked up and said quietly, 'It wasn't courage. It was stupidity. The only good thing to come out of my marriage was Sonya. The rest was a nightmare.'

'But Mark and I are different,' Phoebe said, using the age-old words.

'Maybe you are, but it won't hurt to wait a bit. It wasn't very kind to hurl it at your father like a bombshell. Cool it for a while, for his sake.'

'He had no right to tell me to give my ring back.'

Lee looked at the ring sparkling on the girl's finger. It was a beautiful creation of rubies and diamonds.

Dismayed, Lee put its price at around a thousand pounds. So that was where Mark's extra credit had gone.

'If you love Mark, you won't want to hurt him,' she suggested. 'He got into serious debt to buy this, and it's going to be a struggle for him to pay it off.'

Phoebe looked stricken. 'I didn't think.'

'Give it back, Phoebe. Not because your father says so, but for Mark's sake.'

'But we're still engaged.'

'Well, as I told your father, a ring doesn't make an engagement. It's what's in the heart that does that. If you love Mark, you can wait until he's finished his degree. You don't want to blight his career just when yours is taking off.'

'Of course not. I didn't mean we were going to get married tomorrow, and I'd have said so if Daddy hadn't started acting like a dictator.'

'Just be nice to him. Remember, time's on your side.'

When she went downstairs a few minutes later she found Daniel alone. He scowled at her.

'Phoebe's going to return the ring the next time she sees Mark,' she said.

'She's never seeing him again,' Daniel said at once. You can take it back to him yourself, and tell him this so-called engagement is off".'

Lee took a deep breath. 'Phoebe isn't calling the engagement off. She's returning the ring for Mark's sake, because she knows he can't afford it. She's also ready to wait until he finishes his degree. Nothing has really changed, Daniel.'

'Nothing-?'

'If you'd let Phoebe get a word in edgeways she'd have told you that they're not planning an immediate marriage. When things have calmed down they'll get the chance to see each other clearly, and the whole thing will die a natural death.' She saw that he was still looking at her with a black, frozen look on his face, and something painful happened to her heart

'That's your advice, is it?' he asked coldly.

'For what it's worth, yes.'

'I just stand back and watch my daughter sleepwalk to disaster-?'

'Give them time and the marriage will never happen. There doesn't have to be a disaster-unless you drive her to it by bullying her.'

'Is it bullying to want to save her from herself?'

'That depends on how you do it,' she said slowly.

'Thank you,' he snapped. 'I know how to take that, I suppose.'

'Let's not talk about this any more today,' Lee said quietly. 'It's too dangerous.'

'Lee, just how long do you think we can go on not talking about the things that matter?'

'I don't know. I hoped it would all come right, but it seems to get worse and worse.'

Daniel didn't answer this directly. He was silent for a moment, then he said, 'I heard what she said to you just now.'

'What?'

'I came up to see her. I heard her say that you'd had the courage to follow your heart, and that was why she'd always admired you.'

'I told her it wasn't courage but stupidity,' Lee said quickly. 'Didn't you hear that?'

'No, you spoke so quietly that I couldn't hear, and after that I went away.'

'I told her my marriage was the biggest mistake I ever made!' Lee cried.

'Yes, I dare say you did. But just the same-'

'Daniel, what is it?'

'What kind of influence are you having on my daughter? Why couldn't you have helped me control her properly in the first place, instead of going against me?'

'I never went against you, Daniel,' Lee said, very pale. 'I only tried to show you that the kind of control you wanted wasn't possible any more. I tried to stop you losing her.'

'But I am losing her.'

'And you blame me?'

'No,' he said, too quickly. 'Of course not. It's just that I-I can't help thinking how things could have been different.'

'Different but for me, you mean? Different if you'd never met me at all? That's what you're thinking, isn't it? If only I'd never met her.'

'Stop it!' he said harshly. 'You're right. We mustn't say any more.'

'But you said it was time we had it out.'

'I didn't say exactly that-'

'' 'How long do you think we can go on not talking about the things that matter?''' she quoted back at him. 'And why don't we talk about them? Because it would finish us. What kind of relationship exists only because we hide from the truth? And the truth is that you blame me for everything that's happened. Why don't you admit it?'

He didn't speak, but it was there in his eyes.