The Silversmith's Daughter

by Annie Murray

  They heard Miss Allen making fussety noises and then she appeared with Hester on her bony hip, wide-eyed and fresh from her nap. Miss Allen, who before Hester’s arrival had always seemed a dour character, was all smiles. She had not had much to do with Margaret’s own children. But it seemed as if, whatever they thought about Hester’s origins, the little girl was so endearing that she now belonged to everyone.

  ‘Here we are,’ Miss Allen cooed.

  ‘Now, now, ladies, back to work,’ Mr Henshaw said, looking up over his specs. But though he tried to look superior and disapproving at all this female baby talk, his eyes softened at the sight of the little girl.

  Hester was a captivating child, now more than seven months old. Looking at her you would scarcely have known Daisy was her mother. She had hair of a rich, liquorice brown, sallow skin and large brown eyes. She was a sturdy, forceful little character but cheerful, with a gurgling laugh that made all the staff melt and which John and Lily both tried to make her produce as often as possible.

  It was such a relief that this little girl seemed to have added to the family in a happy way – or that was how Margaret felt, anyway. Even Philip would chuckle hearing her.

  For weeks now the lists – such lists – of casualties from the Somme had come rolling inexorably in. They were pored over by all those who had sons and husbands, lovers and brothers at the Front. All they could be sure of was that their name was not in the paper – not today. It left a refuge of relief and hope for a few hours, then a building anxiety as the time approached to see the next day’s list.

  The lads who had come home on leave didn’t speak much. Once they had been out in France, it was as if they didn’t know what to say, or wanted to put it out of their minds. Not like when they were still here and training. Clara had said Georgie told her all about it, then, about the hard bits and the pranks. Aunt Hatt and the family had celebrated his leave days as if it were Christmas. Georgie looked different already, his hair cropped, his face thinner. He made jokes about it all, had his children scrambling over him, played football with Jimmy. And then he was gone, to France – after only three months. And all they knew at home were fragments they were given by the newspapers – battles and the names of foreign places in France, Turkey, the east . . . And trenches, shells, gas. Terrible words whose reality they could not take in.

  Yet here, in the midst of it, was this new life: this beautiful, lovable little girl, Hester Tallis. Despite the disgrace of Daisy’s situation, and Daisy being so quiet and subdued, Hester was a sweet flame of young life and loveliness amid such dark days.

  ‘All right, I’ll give her her drink – thank you, Miss Allen,’ Margaret said, getting up. She took the little girl and kissed her warm cheek as they walked along the hall. ‘There you are, you little poppet,’ she whispered, gooey as all the rest of them. Mrs Flett, who was sitting having a few minutes’ peace in the back room, looked up at her and smiled.

  ‘Ah, look at that little lamb,’ she said. ‘Shall I give her a drink, Mrs Tallis?’

  ‘Thanks, Mrs Flett – that would be a help today,’ Margaret said. ‘I’m running a little behind.’

  There was a commotion at the front of the house. Margaret heard the door burst open with no knock and then there were voices in the front office. She handed Hester over hastily and hurried back to find Bridget Sidwell from the office next door, looking as if her eyes were going to pop out of her head. Margaret didn’t need to ask whether it was bad news.

  ‘Oh, Miss Margaret –’ Bridget’s voice was barely more than a whisper now – ‘you’d better come, quick.’

  The front office at twenty-six Chain Street seemed full of people. Margaret stood in the doorway taking in the fact that as well as the normal office workers, most of her family were there. Uncle Eb was sitting sideways on to her at one of the desks while the others stood round: Aunt Hatt, Clara, all her children were there.

  There was a quietness which was almost unearthly. It was this which made Margaret stop as she was about to greet them, the words refusing to pass her lips. In those seconds they all seemed to have been frozen into a terrible tableau – even the children. A feeling went through her, as if she had swallowed something leaden and it was sinking deep into her innards.

  They took in that she was there. And she knew. She could see. But no, surely it couldn’t be. He only left at the end of May. It was not possible . . .

  ‘Georgie?’ she whispered.

  It was Clara who moved first. She snatched up the telegram lying on the desk in front of Uncle Eb. The expression in her eyes was so terrible that Margaret could hardly bear to look at her.

  ‘I was just boiling the kettle and I was about to give them all their breakfast and he was at the door and I . . .’ She was babbling strangely, then stopped like the last tick of a clock.

  Aunt Hatt’s hands went to her face and Margaret heard a sound of distress come from her which she would never have thought to hear from her aunt. For a second her eyes met her uncle’s and his were full of silent pain. He lumbered to his feet and went to his wife, clumsily wrapping his arms about her.

  ‘Oh, Clara,’ Margaret said. She was about to embrace her cousin’s wife, when she saw the faces of Jimmy, Ella and Georgina all looking mutely up at her.

  ‘My dears, come next door with me – we’ll see what Mrs Flett can find for you, shall we? And you can say hello to little Hester.’

  ‘Pa’s dead, isn’t he?’ Jimmy said as they went along the hall.

  Even then Margaret could hardly take it in herself.

  ‘I’m afraid that seems to be . . .’ She trailed off. ‘Look, dears – just give your mother and everyone a few minutes and we’ll come and get you.’

  Gently she settled the children with their kindly old housekeeper, giving her a look which said, Bad news. Then she rushed out the back to the workshop.

  ‘Philip!’ Everyone looked round at her unprecedented shriek along the workshop. The crashing of the drop stamp stopped abruptly. Philip took one look at her and came running.

  ‘It’s Georgie,’ she said. Her face told him the rest.

  ‘Oh, no,’ Philip said. ‘Oh, dear God, no.’

  She felt her own tears begin. Her gentle, humorous cousin Georgie, father to Jimmy, Ella and little Georgina, husband to Clara. Life began to feel as if it was cracking apart, the way it was in households all across the country.

  They went back to number twenty-six to find Aunt Hatt sobbing in Eb’s embrace and Clara leaning her head against them. Margaret went and took Clara in her arms and felt her fleshy body break at last into its heart-rending grief.

  It was only an hour later, but felt as if they had lived through days; after Eb and Hatt, Clara and the children left for home, to be together and try to take in that their husband, their only son, their father, had reached France only to lose his life almost immediately.

  Margaret and Philip tried to go back to work, impossible as that seemed.

  ‘My condolences, Mrs Tallis,’ Mr Henshaw said, very formally. ‘Mr Watts was your cousin, was he not?’

  ‘Yes,’ Margaret said, still feeling stunned, and then thinking, He was my cousin and yet I seem to have seen so little of him. She had grown very fond of Georgie in the past ten years, but he had always been someone who had a quiet, smiling presence, always in the background behind his talkative wife and mother. Did I ever have any proper conversation with him, when you come down to it? she asked herself. Now she never would, and all that seemed to emphasize was the waste of life when you fail to take into account that it all might end. And now it had mown them down like a silent, deathly train.

  She accepted Muriel Allen’s and Edith Taylor’s condolences, still self-controlled. She did not want to give way to her grief in front of them and there were things to do. She was trying to return to her pile of tasks just as Daisy came home from the Jewellery School. When she heard the front door open she expected Daisy to hurry through the house to find Hester, as she usually did. But she ca
me straight into the office.

  ‘Margaret.’ There was a pale tightness to her face. ‘May I please talk to you for a moment?’

  With a feeling of fate, Margaret got up and followed her. Daisy walked a short way along the passage. The doors to all the rooms were shut and she turned with desperate urgency.

  ‘Whatever is it?’ Margaret said, keeping her voice low.

  ‘He’s dead. He’s been killed, in action.’

  ‘Oh, my dear, I know,’ Margaret said. ‘Aunt Harriet and Clara have been – they only left a short time ago and Uncle’s gone as well . . .’

  Daisy was staring at her in incomprehension. The tense urgency in her face only increased.

  ‘What do you mean? Who . . . ?’

  ‘Well . . . Georgie,’ Margaret said. The distress she had been keeping at bay began to spill out. ‘He’d only just got there . . . They had the telegram today . . .’

  ‘Oh . . .’ Daisy gasped. ‘Oh, no!’ Her eyes filled with tears as well. ‘Oh, poor, poor Clara.’

  ‘How did you know?’ Margaret said.

  Daisy shook her head. She clasped her arms about her suddenly, as if to hold something in. ‘I didn’t. I meant . . . He’s dead. They told us at the school today.’

  ‘He?’ Margaret stared stupidly at her.

  ‘James Carson.’ Daisy’s face twisted. ‘Hester’s father.’

  Twenty-Seven

  Daisy pushed Hester, in her pram, along towards the iron gates of the park. Walking along quiet and solemn at each side were Lily and Clara’s youngest girl, Georgina, both of them eight years old.

  ‘That’s it, girls, just hold on to the pram until we get inside the gates.’

  There was no need for her to say anything as they were holding on anyway. But she felt she needed to speak to break into the leaden sadness of their silence, to find a way of sounding even a little bit cheerful for them.

  Lily turned to her in her usual, earnest way, and said, ‘Is Hester asleep? Can she get out and play with us?’

  The two girls were besotted with Hester.

  Daisy forced a smile to her lips. ‘She is asleep – but you know our Hester. The moment anything’s going on, she’ll be up and doing.’

  ‘I want to hold her hand,’ Gina said.

  Daisy felt as if a hand had squeezed her own heart, looking at the child. She was thin faced like her father, with dark hair and shining brown eyes. And so sad. She could not really understand where her pa had gone. None of them – adults or children – could take in that Georgie was never coming back.

  The rest of the family were at the Wattses’ house. The warm brickwork of the front was adorned with black crêpe, as was the entrance to twenty-six Chain Street. Aunt Hatt had gone into deep mourning, without even a touch of the jewellery which usually gave off gold flashes of light somewhere about her ears and neck. Margaret was also in black from head to foot to mark the death of her cousin. She had said it was not necessary for Daisy to wear full mourning, but all the same she was wearing the drabbest clothes she possessed for summer – a pale grey cotton frock and black cardigan. She wanted to be in mourning, with all of them – and for him, even for James, though she kept this thought private.

  The park was crowded with people from Handsworth and around the area. They sprawled, Sunday relaxed, about the wide expanses of grass. It was the first fine day after much grey, mizzling August weather and everyone was lolling, picnicking and chatting, letting the children run free and making the most of the sun on their faces after days spent holed up in factories and offices.

  It was a lovely park, sloping down to a stream and a small lake, with the blackened red stone of St Mary’s church in the distance. It was still moist underfoot and as Daisy pushed the pram off the path and on to the grass, she could feel the humid heat coming off it as if the land was sweating. In the far distance she could see people working the new allotments at the edge of the park. The wartime shortages meant making the most of every inch of land to grow food.

  ‘Just leave Hester for the moment,’ she said to Lily and Gina as she parked the pram. ‘We’ll spread out the rug. Now don’t go sitting on the grass – it’s still wet.’

  But a sit-down was not what the girls had in mind at all. They ran and danced about together as Daisy sank down on the rug. She felt more relaxed being in Handsworth. No one knew her, or anything about her. But within a few moments Daisy heard Hester squeaking in the pram. Sure enough, two lively eyes were peering up at her when she looked under the hood.

  ‘You’re the end, you are,’ she scolded affectionately. Hester would sleep soundly so long as nothing else was going on, but if there was the prospect of any entertainment – especially from another child – she seemed to be able to sense it even in her sleep and wanted to know if she was missing anything.

  Daisy picked Hester up and sat her on the rug beside her. But in seconds, Hester was on her hands and knees, wobbling as she desperately tried to crawl to get to her playmates. She made cross noises, not getting anywhere, and put her head on the ground in an attitude of melodramatic despair.

  ‘Hessie!’ Gina cried, running over. The sight of her lit-up little face twisted Daisy’s heart.

  ‘Don’t go too far,’ Daisy said. But the water, the only real danger, was a good way away. She watched, shading her eyes as the two girls got down and sat with Hester, both giggling, trying to teach her to crawl. She could hear Hester’s delighted gurgles. Daisy wasn’t going to stop them. So what if they got grass stains on their frocks?

  She watched them, feeling old. She was now the adult in their lives. It was up to her to be strong for them. But she allowed the heaviness of grief to sink into her again now that, for a few moments, she did not have to find a cheerful word for anyone. The Wattses’ house was a terrible place. She had offered to take the girls out partly to give them a break from the dark pall hanging over the adults, but also to give herself time to think. The two boys were happy enough together in the garden. Ella, who was nearly ten, would not leave Clara’s side. Daisy knew that Margaret and her father were doing the best they could to comfort Eb and Harriet Watts, but for her the place had become unbearable.

  She had been very fond of Georgie. They were related only by marriage – Georgie was Margaret’s cousin – but as they grew up, living in Chain Street, and especially after Margaret married Pa, he had become like an elder brother to her. He had always been someone who was just there, with a smile, a teasing word. Only now did she realize how much. And the fact that he was Clara’s husband, Eb and Hatt’s only child . . . It was all almost too heartbreaking to think about.

  But that other grief weighed on her. Though he had used her, had really thought only of himself, she knew that James Carson had not been all bad. He was a selfish man but also a talented one, and she knew that he had been truly besotted with her. Now he had paid the ultimate price for his country. The thought ate at her conscience. Had it not been for her, would he ever have joined up? He would have been called up eventually, she thought, but he would not have gone then, would not have been in that place at that time . . .

  Was it all a punishment – of both of them for what they had done? Was this the price of sin? She never usually thought about this sort of thing. But all of it felt like punishment. She had been denied her youth, her freedom. And, despite it all, he was Hester’s father. One day he might have seen Hester, loved her, even – for who could not? Might he have been, at least in some way, a father to her? Now, that was never going to happen. And no one in the family, except her, was mourning for James Carson.

  These deaths, of Georgie and James, brought back the feelings she tried never to visit of the day her mother died. She had been taken out of the house while her mother laboured to deliver a second daughter, losing both the child and her own life. That morning came back to her now, tearing at her. Her father’s wrenching sobs, his cries that it was his fault, that they should never have let this happen . . .

  Only when Lily came running up to
say that Hester was eating grass and was that all right, did she manage to break away from these agonizing thoughts and get to her feet. She took Lily’s hand.

  ‘Anyone would think I never fed her,’ she said, forcing herself to smile at the little girl.

  That week, her conscience pricked by everything that had happened, she had visited Den Poole in hospital another time. He begged her to come more often, but what with Hester and work – and because of her own feelings – it was as many times as she could bear.

  He was recovering slowly. The shrapnel buried close to his heart had given them reason for concern for a long time but seemed to be stabilizing and he already looked stronger.

  ‘He’s a tough lad,’ Annie told her. ‘He didn’t have much of a start in life as you know, but it’s made him tough. And he’s been lucky compared to some. He just needs the time to heal and hope that bit of rubbish inside him stays where it is.’

  The next time she walked back into the ward it was with a sense of dread. She found it hard to face the smells, the suffering faces of some of the boys, the feeling of them all staring at her. She found Den sitting on his bed in his pyjamas, but with his arms now out of bandages. His face lit up when she appeared.

  ‘You’ve come!’ he said.

  ‘You’ve got your sisters,’ she said teasingly, sitting down beside him, though as far away as she could manage. ‘It’s not as if you’re short of visitors.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. His hair had grown and he looked a bit softer, less like a soldier. ‘Our Lizzie and our Ivy come in. But our Lizzie’s run ragged with that new job –’er’s on the gun cartridges like. Money’s better.’ His face looked granite hard for a moment. ‘Soon as I get out of ’ere I’ll try and ’elp ’er.’ A second later he brightened again. ‘But I like seeing you!’

  It seemed very simple. He just liked her company. To her enormous relief, he was not making any more declarations of love. ‘The sight of you perks me up, Daisy. You’ve always been so . . . I dunno.’ He looked down at his hands, clasped on his thighs. They were strong hands, the veins standing out on the backs of them, a few cuts, now healing. ‘You always look nice and you’re, I dunno, better’n us somehow.’