The Silversmith's Daughter

by Annie Murray

‘And what does that mean?’ Philip said, a little more sharply. ‘The lad’s had all this before. What’s happened to him this time?’

  ‘He’s had two operations,’ Daisy said. ‘He was . . . well, he said he couldn’t remember but he was in an explosion. And . . .’ She couldn’t go on. The factor on which her promise – promise! How had she promised like that? – rested was too much for her and she had such a lump of distress and panic in her throat that she could not speak.

  ‘Gas,’ Margaret said, quietly. She seemed reluctant to talk about it in front of Lily and John. ‘He’s been gassed. He’s all bandages – it blisters the skin. And . . .’

  Daisy looked up and their eyes met. She saw Margaret register the look of desperation in her eyes.

  ‘He’s . . . he can’t see,’ Margaret half-whispered it. ‘For the moment. They say it might get better, but they’re not sure.’

  ‘Blind? Oh, good Lord.’ Pa sounded horrified. ‘That’s terrible! How’s he ever going to work again if he can’t see? Course, the lad’s alive, but what sort of life will he have to look forward to?’

  ‘Not much,’ Margaret agreed.

  The words twisted down inside Daisy, deepening the wound she felt at all times. Was she the one thing Den had left to look forward to?

  Now, in the workshop at Hollymoor, she made her way very slowly round the room, spinning it out, advising, encouraging. She bent low over the table next to each of the lads, trying to pay close attention to them, though conscious of the closeness, of her femaleness among the male smells: Woodbine-scented breath, sweat mingled with rough hospital soap. But she could not put off talking to Stephen any longer.

  He was modelling a hare. As soon as she caught sight of it, she gasped, taken out of herself.

  ‘Oh – that’s marvellous!’

  Of course, everyone else looked.

  ‘Ha – teacher’s pet!’ one of the others teased. Stephen sat back, looking bashful. But there was an air of pain, of sulkiness about him now and he did not meet her eyes.

  ‘That is damn good, though,’ someone else conceded. ‘Look at them ears – and the shape . . .’

  The hare was sitting upright, alert, one ear cocked slightly back, as if about to take flight. You could almost sense its fear, its breathing. Stephen was marking its coat, hair by hair.

  ‘I wondered if the shoulders are really in proportion,’ he said modestly. ‘Not having a picture, it’s hard.’

  ‘But you seem to know exactly,’ Daisy said, unable to contain her admiration for the artistry of it.

  ‘There are a lot of them around the lanes where I come from,’ Stephen said. ‘You often see them tearing along up the road in front of you. Rarer to see one sitting still like this.’

  ‘It looks as if it’s about to run,’ she said. ‘Poised ready.’

  Realizing she was getting drawn in, just as she had vowed she would not do this week, she moved away, saying briskly, ‘All right, everyone – five more minutes and then we’ll have to clear up.’

  She made a great show of being very busy helping everyone place their work on the side table, clear up the tools and clean the tables. To her relief, the orderly who came to collect Stephen was on time today and she made bright conversation with him, seeing the dull, hopeless look Stephen wore as he was wheeled away. There had been no time to talk.

  Sidelong, she watched as he left the room, more unsteady in the chair than the men who still had their lower legs to balance the weight of their bodies. The set of his shoulders, his curling hair and the helpless wobble of his torso as the chair hit any bump, all moved her to such tenderness that she wanted to run after him and beg him to stay, for them to talk. But in seconds he was gone from the room.

  When she reached Handsworth that afternoon, to pick up Hester, she hardly knew how she had got there. As she walked to the tram stop, then in Birmingham to catch the second tram, her thoughts were in turmoil.

  It was as if she had two lives, two realities and she could not reconcile them. She felt paralysed. There was the life she lived and knew so well, that contained Ma and Pa and Hester, her beautiful little girl who she had fought for, would give her life for. And there was Den, who knew her, really knew her, for the fallen woman she was. He was prepared to accept her, to take all of it on – she, Daisy, Hester, the shame of it – everything.

  But that look Den had given her when he found out about Hester would not leave her. The gleam of something in his eyes – triumph, almost glee – still disturbed and repelled her, despite his devotion and his claim that he adored her. On the other hand, Den had proved loyal. He was clever and strong. And now somehow, without even having willed it, she seemed promised to be his wife, a promise that honourable Margaret, her stepmother, would try to see to it that she kept.

  And Stephen . . . But she wrestled with herself, trying not to think about lovely, artistic Stephen. He had a quite unrealistic view of her, saw her as some sort of perfect angel and would feel very differently when he found out about her, about Hester.

  All the same, as she walked through the quiet suburb to Aunt Hatt’s house, she found herself whispering a terrible, wicked prayer . . . Please don’t let him get his sight back. He only said I had to marry him if he can see again. Please God – save me.

  Hester dawdled so slowly from the tram stop that Daisy had impatiently scooped her up into her arms and was carrying her when she walked into twenty-four Chain Street. She heard low voices from the back room and went to put her head round the door, saying that she would give Hester a bath.

  ‘Oh!’ she stopped, startled. ‘Hello, again, Auntie Annie!’

  They saw so little of Annie now that she was back at the hospital that her appearing twice in two days was a real rarity. She and Margaret were sitting with a tray of tea between them.

  ‘Hello, Daisy.’ Annie forced her lips up into a smile, which did nothing to dispel the wan look of her face. Daisy stood, not sure what to say.

  ‘Annie has been given some more time off from the hospital,’ Margaret said carefully.

  ‘Enforced time off,’ Annie said. But even her fury was muted. ‘Hello, Hessie.’ She smiled at the little girl.

  ‘They’re worried about you,’ Margaret said. ‘And quite rightly so. We all are.’

  ‘I’m all right,’ Annie said irritably. ‘And we’re so busy – the casualties coming from Belgium are . . . Well, we’re overrun.’

  ‘She only said take a week off,’ Margaret said. ‘And she would never have said it with things so busy if she hadn’t thought you were more use off the ward than on it.’

  Annie had the grace to look chastened by this brutal truth.

  ‘You can stay here, of course,’ Margaret said. ‘Any time you need.’

  ‘No,’ Annie said, sitting up straight. ‘I’m not going to do that – although thank you, of course. As I’ve a whole week, I’m going to go to Scotland. Tomorrow. To meet Fergus’s family. His mother wrote me such a nice letter and invited me.’

  ‘Oh!’ Margaret said. ‘But – are you sure that won’t—’ Her voice was full of doubt and worry for her little sister.

  ‘Won’t what?’ Annie interrupted. ‘Make it worse? How could it possibly be any worse? I want to meet them.’

  Daisy decided she would keep out of it and slid off round the door again. As she went to the stairs she heard Margaret say, ‘Do you have enough money to go all the way up there?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ Annie said wearily. ‘When do you think I ever get time to spend money?’

  Fifty

  For the first part of the long journey north, Annie was cold to the marrow. She had stowed her modest Gladstone bag on the rack above and sat huddled in her coat with its black band about the arm and a black woollen shawl over the top. Her body was so thin that she felt the cold terribly. Even though it was only September, her feet were so icy she could scarcely feel them.

  She was positioned between the window and a whiskery man who immediately fell asleep and snored rhythm
ically. And it felt to her like the first time she had sat still since going back to work at the hospital. She had not wanted to be still, did not want, ever, to have time to think.

  But now, as they rumbled between the dingy, soot-blackened factories and warehouses, broken by momentary glimpses of working boats on the cut’s inky water, her spirits reached rock bottom in a way she never normally allowed. All these years since she and Margaret had come to live in Birmingham, she had been happy here, had loved the place. Now, the very sight of it dragged her even further down, her own despairing spirits making an entire city appear draped in a pall of death.

  I must stop this, she thought. She closed her eyes, feeling the train gradually picking up speed. Rocking gently with the motion, light snores coming from the gentleman on her right, her thoughts whirled round, flaying her like a storm of biting, sharp-edged leaves.

  He is gone, gone for ever. Oh, Fergus, my love, my love . . . And the ache which had taken hold of her since she had heard of his death spread through her chill body, turning it into one complete united pain.

  You have had love and it is gone, gone for ever. You are thirty years old, too old – your chance is gone. Now you will never stand in anyone’s arms ever again, never feel how it would be to lie with him, to lose your virginity. You will never bear his children, never bear any – not now . . . Never live the life of love and adventure which you might have done with him . . .

  And Fergus was so far away. His body, the body of her beloved, was buried in French soil somewhere near Étaples . . . And that Fergus who she had loved so much, those strong shoulders, the long body which she had never seen naked but had so many times imagined, came so clear in her mind, his smiling face, moustache, those eyes, so alive and full of love and mischief . . . But then she saw them covered with shovelfuls of soil. Would it be black, brown, red? She did not even know how the soil looked where they had buried him, covering his lovely face . . .

  A physical sensation swelled in her, so powerful that her eyes snapped open and she sat up, gasping. The howl that was rising in her, trapped in her, seemed to close her lungs so that she was fighting to breathe.

  ‘Are you all right?’ the woman opposite her asked fearfully. She was elderly, bespectacled and swathed in black with a fur cape. ‘You’re not going to be sick, are you?’

  ‘No,’ Annie managed to say. She fought for a breath. ‘It’s nothing – I’m all right. Thank you.’

  Closing her eyes to shut out the woman’s wary expression, she thought, I must look like a madwoman. Perhaps I am. Perhaps this is what it feels like.

  Everything was dark and distorted, overwhelming, as if layers of flesh had been removed and replaced with a thin tissue that could scarcely protect her. And what on earth was she thinking, going all the way to Scotland to his parents for five days? She had to go via Carlisle, then to Edinburgh, where she would change for Kinross Junction and, finally, to Auchtermuchty. What a journey! Fear and dread added themselves to the bitter sorrow. What on earth was it going to be like after all those miles – how would they talk to one another?

  Yet, go she must. And Mrs Reid’s letter had been kind and welcoming. She knew she could do no other.

  She got to her feet suddenly and struggled along the train in search of a cup of tea. Back in the compartment, warmed by the hot drink, she slept and slept for a long time, finding comfort in the rocking of the train.

  Many hours and two trains later, after putting up for the night in Edinburgh, and having rumbled across the Forth Bridge, after which she had changed at Kinross Junction, they were chugging east across the lowlands of Fife. It was a bright, blustery morning and Annie looked out, fascinated and moved. This was Fergus’s place. She had already seen the grey majesty of Edinburgh and now, as they pulled into the little station at Auchtermuchty, fields stretching flat away towards the pale sky, she felt she was entering a different world. It was both a new adventure and one that brought her even closer to the man she had loved. Strange as it was, it filled her with a sense of purpose.

  Stiff after the long journey, she stepped down on to the platform of the little station. Glancing about her, all she could see was the humble station building, a green flatness and the grey beginnings of the town. The wind was fresh and tinged with salt, chasing clouds across the sun and drawing the smoke from the train off to one side. It was ten-fifteen in the morning, and the few passengers apart from herself getting down here, soon moved away.

  Along the now almost deserted platform she saw a woman waiting. Annie’s heart picked up speed. She was a short, almost dumpy figure in a tweed coat, a mourning band around the arm. She wore black, workmanlike boots and a wide-brimmed black hat with a diaphanous black scarf tied over it and under her chin so that the brim had a slightly eccentric look to it. This figure seemed to fit Fergus’s description of his mother, Elspeth Reid, as a person with ‘a mind of her own – rather like you, my dear’. So that, before she had even reached her, Annie already felt a sense of recognition and of liking for her.

  ‘Annie?’ She stepped forward with a start of uncertainty which warmed Annie’s heart even more. ‘Ah, yes – I can see it’s you, my dear. I have the lovely photograph Fergus sent of the two of you.’

  Elspeth Reid came close. She was not much taller than Annie, and under the hat a mop of rather wild-looking grey hair seemed desperate to escape. Her cheeks were wind-chaffed pink, the eyes pale grey and kindly sincere.

  ‘I’m Elspeth – Fergus’s mother.’ She gazed at Annie, who saw a look of concerned pity enter her eyes. ‘You do look very peaky, dear – or peely-wally as we say up here.’

  To Annie’s surprise, she found herself being taken into Elspeth Reid’s arms and pressed against her comfortable, tweedy form.

  ‘Oh, my dear,’ Annie heard her say, distressed. ‘My poor child.’

  The ache spread and ruptured and Annie found herself sobbing and sobbing, soon aware that the woman who was to have been her mother-in-law was also weeping as they held each other. At last, at last, the one person she needed to be with, who had loved Fergus since the day he was born.

  ‘I loved him . . . I loved him so much,’ Annie sobbed. Never in her life before had she expressed her emotions like this, not to anyone. Her grief and loss and love all came pouring out.

  ‘I know, I know – we all did,’ Mrs Reid said and Annie could feel the woman’s body shaken by the grief that they both shared, her voice cracked with heartbreak . . . ‘Oh, my poor wee girl . . .’

  Gradually they both surfaced. Annie stood back, wiping her eyes, feeling the wind cool her cheeks. Dazed, she looked up at Mrs Reid, who was mopping her face with a handkerchief. There seemed no need to apologize. Their eyes met in fond understanding.

  ‘Let’s go home,’ Mrs Reid said. ‘Are you all right with your wee bag? You’re obviously a light traveller.’

  ‘Yes,’ Annie said. ‘Thank you, Mrs Reid.’

  ‘Oh, call me Elspeth, for goodness’ sake,’ she said. ‘We’ve never been ones for formality. Now – Fergus’s sister, Isobel, is coming tomorrow. She’s longing to meet you. We’ll go home and have a bite to eat. Dugald, my husband, will just be finishing off his surgery . . .’

  She linked her arm through Annie’s. ‘Come on, dear. It’s not far.’

  They walked through the austere little town to a large house close to what Annie learned was called ‘the Cross’. Its grey stone walls were picked out in paler stone at the corners and round the windows. The front door was draped in black, the ends of the crêpe shifting in the wind. And to the right was a plaque advertising the presence of ‘Dr. D. J. Reid’ with his letters in a string after his name.

  Annie looked up at the house, impressed. She could already see many of the kindly, solid aspects of Fergus’s life and upbringing that had made him into the confident, clever, humane man he had been.

  ‘Which was his bedroom?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, when he was a wee boy we were living in Edinburgh,’ Elspeth Reid said. She
seemed touched by the question. ‘We moved here when Fergus was ten and Isobel getting on for eight, if I recall rightly. So we’ve been here a good while. Fergus’s room faces over the back, though.’ She hesitated by the door and looked back at Annie. ‘I wasn’t going to put you to sleep in there – but if you’d like to . . . ?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Annie said hastily. She felt almost afraid – of her own emotion, but also of transgressing. Surely his mother would prefer his room left as it was? ‘Thank you, but no.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind,’ Elspeth said. ‘But perhaps wisest not. Isobel might not be pleased.’

  They stepped into the stone-flagged hall, where there was a homely scattering of gum boots, walking sticks, a boot scraper, coats and dog leads. Immediately an enormously long-legged dog of indeterminate brown-grey colour, with a shaggy face, mooched along the hall to greet them.

  ‘This is Seamus,’ Mrs Reid said, untying the scarf under her chin as the dog sniffed gently at Annie’s shoes. ‘He’s an Irish wolfhound – don’t mind him. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. Of course, he was Fergus’s originally, but he’s long been left to us.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve heard about this old chap,’ Annie said, delighted. This dog had been such a part of Fergus’s life! She was just about to squat down and pet him when another door opened nearby and Annie saw a tall man, lean and moustachioed, but with such a look of Fergus that she started for a second.

  ‘Ah,’ Dr Reid said. ‘Excellent timing. The last of my victims has just left.’ For a moment she thought she saw, on the man’s long face, the ravages left by Fergus’s death. Like his wife, he wore a black armband. But he came to her, took her hand with a little bow and twinkled at her, his lined, saggy face suddenly lit up. Annie realized immediately that with Fergus’s parents she was in the presence of two remarkable people.

  ‘Miss Hanson.’ His hand was large and warm. ‘We are more than delighted to meet you. Leave her alone, Seamus.’ He pulled the dog away. Seamus sat, looking mildly resigned. ‘I hope your journey was a good one? And you are a nurse, I gather?’