It had to suffice. Eventually they all agreed that the situation had been dealt with as well as it could be, under the circumstances.
Only Daisy remained silent. As she said to Sunday later that night, it was all very well for everyone to sort out her future for her – and she was grateful to them for caring enough to do it. But at the end of the day it would be she herself who would be forced to nurture Pinnegar’s child . . . and the very thought of it filled her with dread.
Lavinia Huntley was physically and mentally exhausted when she finally arrived home and Zillah insisted that she must put her feet up.
‘His lordship’s on the rampage,’ she warned her mistress. ‘He’s got his tail up now that the baby’s been confirmed an’ he’s invited Mr Wilde, his late uncle’s lawyer, to dinner this evenin’ to tell him the good news, so you need to rest, pet.’
‘Oh no!’ Lavinia groaned. ‘Couldn’t he have waited a while longer? What if something should go wrong, or if it’s another girl?’
‘Don’t start lookin’ fer problems that ain’t there,’ Zillah scolded, but Lavinia couldn’t seem to help it. She had been through so much heartache already and still wasn’t at all sure how she felt about the coming child. She then went on to tell Zillah all about the meeting she had just attended and about the predicament Daisy was in.
‘Poor little mite,’ Zillah said compassionately, ‘but at least she wasn’t at the workhouse long enough to get sent to the asylum like Cissie. Strange, isn’t it? Both your babies should be due round about the same time.’
Lavinia nodded in agreement. ‘Yes, and the funny thing is, I think both of us have mixed feelings about them.’
Zillah wagged a finger at her. ‘That’s enough now, my girl, talkin’ like that indeed! At least you have a ring on your finger, and isn’t a baby what you’ve always wanted most in the world?’
‘Yes, it is,’ Lavinia admitted and burst into tears. ‘But I’m so afraid that something will go wrong again. Oh, Zillah, I just daren’t allow myself to look forward to it.’
Back at Mrs Spooner’s, as Sunday helped Daisy peg some washing on the line that was strung across the yard, Daisy was feeling much the same.
‘So he got away scot free,’ she said bitterly as the sheet she had just fixed to the line began to dance in the wind. The leaves were falling from the trees like confetti now and as fast as Tommy swept them up, more fluttered down to take their place.
‘I’d hardly say that,’ Sunday disagreed. ‘He’s lost his job and a very comfortable living. And at least Lady Huntley ensured that you don’t have to worry financially now for some time.’
Still Daisy looked miserable and then suddenly she confided: ‘I hate this creature that’s growing inside me. I know I will never be able to love it and sometimes I wish I could just go to sleep and never wake up, rather than have to have it.’
Like Zillah, Sunday scolded her gently. ‘Everyone is doing the very best they can for you, and as Mrs Lockett says, you’ll likely feel different when you actually see your baby and hold it for the first time.’
‘I won’t,’ Daisy said with utmost certainty. ‘And I don’t want to sound ungrateful, really I don’t. Everyone has been so kind, especially Lady Huntley, and Annie for offering me a place to live.’
She looked so dejected that Sunday gave her a hug. ‘Well, let’s just wait and see how you feel in a while.’ It sounded such an inadequate thing to say but she couldn’t think of anything else.
Daisy nodded and sighed, then went about her work as if she had the weight of the whole world on her shoulders.
That evening at dinner, when Ashley Huntley told his uncle’s attorney of the coming event, the elderly man peered across the table at his hostess.
‘Expecting? Again? Why, I would have thought you’d have given up by now.’ Jeremiah Wilde had never been the most tactful of men and tonight was clearly going to be no exception. ‘Aren’t you a little old to be having a child now, my lady?’
Stifling the urge to say something rude, Lavinia dabbed at her lips with a crisp white damask napkin, remarking, ‘I’m only in my thirties. Women in their forties frequently give birth.’
‘Only the ones who’ve already turned out a rook of ’em,’ he said unfeelingly. ‘You haven’t yet produced a single live infant, have you?’
Lavinia cringed with a mixture of shame and anger, but held her tongue. She knew that Ashley wouldn’t want her upsetting the man; he himself was almost fawning over him.
‘Well, you’re quite right, Wilde,’ he said with forced joviality. ‘But let’s hope that this time becomes an exception to the rule and that my wife will present me with a fine healthy male.’
‘Indeed.’ The man then fell on his food with all the manners of a peasant as Lavinia quietly excused herself. Even for Ashley she couldn’t endure to be in the man’s presence a second longer.
‘Yes, you go up and rest, my love,’ Ashley told her as she rose from the table. ‘We don’t want our little mother-to-be to overtire herself, do we? Wilde and I have almost finished anyway so we’ll go through to the drawing room for a glass of port and a brandy. Good night.’ He hurried ahead of her to open the door and as she passed through it she glared at him. ‘My love’ indeed! Ashley was as false as a cartload of monkeys.
In his tiny, draughty cottage in Coton, Albert Pinnegar was also drowning his sorrows in a bottle of brandy. There wasn’t a stick of furniture in there as yet, not even a bed, so he would have to sleep on the floor tonight. And all because of that chit Sunday Small.
Pah – women! he thought with disgust. They were being granted far too much power lately. Earlier that very year, he had read in the newspaper that women had been allowed to compete in the Lawn Tennis Championships at Wimbledon for the first time, and back in April a statute had been passed allowing women to sit exams at Oxford University. Who would have believed it! As far as he was concerned women had been put on the earth to serve men. All they were good for was cooking and cleaning and pleasuring the opposite sex. He couldn’t be doing with new-fangled ideas about them being men’s equals – especially sluts like Sunday Small who had deliberately flaunted herself at him. He took another long swig from the bottle as he gazed sorrowfully around his new home. He supposed he’d have to go out and buy some second-hand furniture tomorrow and that would eat into his savings even more.
He shuddered. The nights had turned cold now and a wind was rattling the windowpanes and finding its way through the gaps around the doors. Had he been at the workhouse he would have been sitting in front of a cosy fire with his feet up reading a newspaper while Miss Frost scurried around fetching him hot cocoa and waiting on him hand and foot. He sniggered as he thought of the proposal she had put to him. Come and live with him indeed! Was she completely mad? As if he would ever look the side that dried-up old stick was on – and he’d have to pay her keep! It was Sunday he wanted even now, but she had betrayed him and he would know no rest until he had made her pay.
Albert Pinnegar took another swallow from the bottle and then another . . . and soon he had drunk himself into an uneasy doze.
In no time at all they were racing towards Christmas and Sunday was looking forward to it enormously. It would be the first one she had ever spent outside of the workhouse. Tommy was looking forward to it too, but Daisy was still very subdued despite everyone’s best efforts to cheer her. The mound of her stomach was quite pronounced now but she still had not bought or made a single thing in readiness for the baby’s arrival. Both she and Tommy had had a birthday and Annie had baked them both a cake to celebrate although Daisy hadn’t shown much interest in it. She didn’t show much interest in anything any more.
On a cold and frosty morning early in December, Annie made Sunday a shopping list to go to the market and suggested to Daisy, ‘Why don’t you go with ’er, lass? A little outing will do you the power o’ good. Sayin’ that, it’s a bit nippy out so why don’t you both go into town on the carrier cart? It’ll be passin’ any ti
me now.’
Daisy nodded listlessly. Her stomach was expanding but the rest of her seemed to be shrinking by the day and she was all skin and bone. There were dark circles still beneath her eyes and she was hardly eating enough to keep a bird alive despite all Annie’s attempts to tempt her with tasty treats.
‘Oh, please say you’ll come,’ Sunday pleaded. She loved the market now it was getting closer to Christmas and enjoyed looking at all the pretty window displays in the shops.
Daisy shrugged. ‘All right, but let’s walk it. I don’t fancy being jostled about on the cart. I’ll just go and get my shawl.’
Tommy entered the kitchen then with a broad smile on his face. He was now the delighted keeper of two fine healthy Tamworth pigs, which a farmer had kindly delivered to the Lodge in his cart from the market some weeks before. Mrs Spooner had bought a male and a female and hoped that soon they would be the proud parents of a litter. The pigs were a rich red colour and Tommy doted on them, so much so that Annie sometimes worried how he would cope when they did have piglets and they started to breed them for food. Mabel was like his shadow now, and unlike his sister the boy appeared to be as happy as Larry. They now also had half a dozen chickens and a cockerel that crowed and woke them at the crack of dawn each day. Annie quite liked having fresh-laid eggs again and often teased Tommy that they were the best tended chickens in the Midlands. He had also proved to be very capable at doing odd jobs about the house, which was just as well, for another two lodgers had joined them now. They were a young newly married couple who were saving up enough to rent a house of their own and they had fitted into the household very well. Annie had decided that she would continue to come in to cook the evening meal until after Daisy had given birth and was fit to return to work as there would have been too much for Sunday to do on her own. All in all, everyone at Whittleford Lodge, apart from Daisy, was happy.
Tommy took two fresh-laid eggs from each of his jacket pockets and sidling up to Annie, he said, ‘You could perhaps use those to make one of your delicious sponge cakes?’
‘Yer cheeky young devil, you!’ She swiped him gently round the ear. Tommy had filled out considerably since coming to live there and he was always hungry – not that Annie minded. She liked to see the youngsters enjoying their food.
‘While yer in the town yer could perhaps pick me some wool up from the wool shop?’ she suggested to Daisy hopefully. Annie had already knitted two tiny matinée coats for the baby but Daisy had shown no interest in them at all.
‘All right,’ the girl agreed wearily. She couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. The baby wasn’t due for months yet.
‘I’ll come in again with you next week,’ Tommy told the girls then. ‘I’ll have another look for a suitable pony to pull Mrs Spooner’s cart. I haven’t seen one that’s caught me eye yet.’
The girls set off with their shawls wrapped about their heads and shoulders and they had gone some way when Daisy suddenly stopped dead in her tracks and a look of horror crossed her face.
‘What’s wrong?’ Sunday was instantly in a panic.
‘It . . . it just moved!’
‘Phew!’ Sunday let out a sigh of relief. ‘You scared me then. I thought something was wrong. Of course it will start to move about now. Here, let me see if I can feel it.’ She reached out her hand to lay it on Daisy’s stomach but the girl slapped it away.
‘No – no, don’t touch it! It’s evil.’
Sunday scowled. ‘How can it be evil? It’s just an innocent baby that can’t help who its father is.’
‘I don’t care.’ Daisy’s face set. ‘It’s still going to have a part of him in it so I don’t want anythin’ to do with it.’ Tears started to pour down her pale cheeks then as she wept, ‘Oh, Sunday, what am I gonna do? Surely we could give it away? Someone must want it!’
It was Sunday’s turn to be upset now. ‘An’ do you have any idea how that child will feel when it’s old enough to understand that its own mam didn’t want it?’ she asked. ‘It’s all right for you. I know it’s sad that they died but at least you had a mam and dad that loved you – I never did. Whoever mine was just left me on the steps of the workhouse. I used to pretend to myself that there must have been some good reason and that one day my mam would come for me and we’d go off and live happily ever after – but though I’m content with Mrs Spooner I’m too old to believe in happy endings now, so I’ve had to accept that either my mother is dead or I was just unwanted. I spent the whole first part of my young life in that workhouse with no one but Mrs Lockett to show me an ounce of kindness. Is that really what you want for this baby?’
Deeply ashamed, Daisy hung her head. She hated herself for how she felt, but nothing anyone said could change that. This was her burden, no one else could carry it, and there was no way out. Dashing a tear from her eye, she trudged on, all hope gone.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Christmas was only a week away now, and there was a festive mood inside Whittleford Lodge. The week before, Mrs Spooner and Tommy had gone to the market with a handcart so that they could bring back a Christmas tree and they’d had so much fun choosing it. It was even better when they eventually got it home and Mrs Spooner presented the young ones with a box full of beautiful hand-blown glass globes, gold cardboard figurines and tiny candles to decorate it with.
‘My husband bought ’em one year for me when we went on a shopping spree to London, God rest his soul,’ she had told them sadly. ‘So don’t you get breaking them now! There are some things as can’t be replaced.’
‘I’ll be really careful,’ Sunday had promised as she saw how much they meant to her. Tommy was already outside filling a sturdy bucket with earth to stand the tree in and Sunday had no intentions of letting him near the precious baubles. He had hands like hams already and seemed to be shooting up daily.
She and Daisy spent a pleasant afternoon decorating the tree which now stood in pride of place in the drawing room, and when the lodgers returned from work that evening they all complimented the girls on their efforts.
And now it was time for Sunday’s final trip to the market before Christmas. Daisy had offered to go with her, which was nice, and as she got ready for the journey that morning she hummed happily to herself. Even Daisy seemed in slightly better spirits and they set off early, guessing that the marketplace would be crowded. As they walked, the two girls commented on how pretty everywhere looked beneath its crisp white overcoat of frost.
‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we didn’t have snow in time for Christmas. It’s certainly cold enough,’ Daisy said as they approached Queens Road, the main street that ran through the centre of the town. She was huffing and puffing by then, and just as soon as they reached the marketplace, she sighed with relief.
‘As much as I enjoy coming with you I reckon this will be my last time now until after . . . Well, for a while.’
Sunday glanced at her from the corner of her eye. The girl still couldn’t even bring herself to think of or speak about the birth. It was as if she thought that by ignoring it, it wouldn’t happen. It was very sad but Sunday didn’t comment, just nodded in agreement.
When they reached the pie stall, Sunday treated them to a tray of faggots and peas each then they began to walk amongst the stalls, getting the things Annie had asked for. In the background the Salvation Army were playing Christmas carols on brass instruments that boomed out over the town. The shop windows were full of Christmas decorations and Sunday noticed that Daisy seemed to be enjoying herself now and was glad that her friend had wanted to come. Once they’d bought everything on the list, Sunday then began to scout about for a few small presents. It was the first time she had ever been in a position to afford to do this, and she felt quite light-hearted.
The two girls were standing at a stall admiring some pretty little muffs and mittens when Sunday heard Daisy gasp; she glanced around and she too, started when she saw Mr Pinnegar leaning heavily on a large broom glaring at them from across th
e road. So he’s been reduced to sweeping the streets, Sunday thought, and she was glad. He deserved no better!
‘Ignore him,’ she hissed to Daisy but Pinnegar seemed to have other ideas and was already heading towards them.
Sunday hastily paid for the fingerless gloves she had just bought but by the time the stall-holder had handed her her three farthings change, Pinnegar was at the side of them.
‘So!’ He leered at Daisy’s swollen stomach and it was all that Sunday could do to stop herself from lashing out at him. Daisy had shrunk into her side and she could feel her shaking. She, however, refused to be intimidated.
‘Why don’t you go back to sweeping the streets and leave us alone?’ she demanded fearlessly although she was trembling inside. The man had lost weight and looked in need of a wash and shave. He was wearing heavy boots and a string belt about his heavy overcoat. A far cry from the fancy clothes he had worn in the workhouse.
‘You have brought me to this and I’m going to make you pay!’ he spat.
‘No, it was you,’ Sunday answered steadily. ‘And you’ve finally been exposed for the despicable person you are. You were in a position of trust and you abused it.’ Her voice rang out and the stall-holder glanced round to see what the fuss was about.
Pinnegar looked as if he were about to burst with rage as he gripped the handle of his broom until his knuckles turned white.
‘Well, don’t think you’ve seen the last of me. I won’t rest till I’ve had my vengeance on all of you!’ he said hoarsely.
‘I think you’ll find you are in no position to hurt us any more,’ Sunday replied, to which he laughed – a harsh sound that grated on her nerves.
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