George Washington's Ghost

Maud had understood that her friend’s crankiness was solely on account of her own hero’s absence, probably, knowing Alex, single-handedly fighting the whole Army, Navy and Air Force of the Triple Alliance with one hand tied behind his back… just to make it a fair fight!

The great silvery hull of the CEREBUS, one of the older of Imperial Airlines fleet of ‘C’ class trans-oceanic flying boats, drifted closer, its flank almost imperceptibly bumping up against the padded bulwarks protecting her plates and the ribs of the old pier. All four of the aircraft’s three-bladed propellers were stilled, each stopped at a different angle, although her engines creaked and hissed as they cooled down.

A steward opened the cabin door and dogged it back.

And then he stepped out and stood, for a moment, blinking myopically into the bright light of the morning. It would have been dark when he boarded the aircraft at Southampton, and for most of the flight across the Atlantic.

Maud was running before she realised it.

Somebody was screeching with delight and for several steps she did not realise it was her.

Albert Stanton saw her coming towards him – at what seemed like a hundred miles an hour – and braced himself to catch her as best he could. A lean, spare man still not really physically recovered from the hard knocks and the privations of his time on the run in Spain, he was a little afraid he was about to be bowled over or worse, tackled directly into the cold waters lapping beneath the pier.

He need not have panicked.

Maud decelerated at the last moment and then the lovers were locked in a blissful embrace, perfectly oblivious to the frantic clicking and clattering of camera shutters. It was a clinch broken, very reluctantly, only when the participants began to turn blue from lack of oxygen.

“I missed you,” the man gasped.

“I missed you even more!” Maud claimed breathlessly.

Albert Stanton slowly become aware of the huge welcoming committee for the first time, and the deafening storm of… applause. Although sorely tempted to kiss Maud anew he determined to be strong, mostly on the grounds that a pleasure delayed was likely to be a pleasure multiplied later, and tried to stand tall for the cameras.

He clutched Maud’s left hand in his larger, right mit.

She was quivering with excitement.

“This is what it must be like to be movie stars,” he whispered, looking to her.

Maud giggled.

The Manhattan Globe man had been introduced to Maud’s parents last year, when he was covering Maud and Leonora’s running battle with the Colonial authorities over the wrongful imprisonment of members of the Fielding-Lincoln family. However, this was a little different, very much an encounter with the mother and father of the bride to be.

Dazedly, he shook Maud’s father’s hand.

Maud claimed that despite the impression the old man made on strangers that her father was a ‘good sport’ underneath; Albert Stanton asked himself how far down one had to drill to get to the ‘good stuff’. Her mother was a rotund, cheerful lady with her daughter’s mischievous, twinkling eyes. She kissed her daughter’s beau on the cheek with no little enthusiasm.

Albert Stanton ignored the clamour all around.

“Sir,” he said in an approximation of what he hoped was his most serious, decisive tone, “forgive my temerity but I won’t beat about the bush; I would like to ask you for your daughter’s hand in marriage.” He weakened. “if that’s all right with you, sir?”

Had the man not retained a firm grip on Maud’s hand she would have been jumping up and down and clapping her hands together in a jig of joy.

Leonora Fielding rolled her eyes.

Men!

If that’s all right with you…

Leonora had no idea what exactly her own husband had said to her father, who, by any standards was a much scarier and harder case than Maud’s sweet, somewhat fuddy-duddy old man.

Alex had probably said something along the lines of: ‘Look, I’ve already knocked up the girl; so, you had jolly well better let me take her off your hands before people start to notice the bump, what, old man!’

“I’ve already volunteered to be maid of honour!” She announced loudly.

“Well,” the father of the would-be bride decided, ruefully, “that settles it. Don’t you think, Mother?” This latter, he inquired looking to his wife who was already moving to hug her daughter.

Albert Stanton had tried to sleep on the flight from England.

Failed, dismally.

In the event, leaving Melody and Henrietta, and little Pedro, had been a much bigger wrench than he had expected. This was hardly surprising, thinking about it, they had gone through a lot together. Both women had hugged him very nearly to death.