Daisychain Summer

  ‘And Julia – did she get what she deserved?’ He shook his head, sadly. ‘And what of me, Alice – a deserter?’

  ‘There’s none blames you for that – not knowing the circumstances. Let’s hope there’s a heaven and that poor young lad that was shot knows how you felt about it.’

  ‘Aye.’ The feeling of revulsion was back, yet not so long ago he’d been feeling pleased with himself and planning what he’d be eating for Christmas dinner.

  He dug deep into his waistcoat pocket, bringing out two florins. ‘Have a talk to her; let her know you understand, and lass – give her my love, remember? Tell her I’m thinking about her, an’ all …’

  Since the boy from the Post Office at Creesby delivered the cable from America, the matter of Elliot Sutton’s marriage had become even more urgent.

  ‘There’s nothing else for it,’ Clementina had mourned. ‘I shall have to buy that house if ever the boy is to be wed!’

  She had not wanted it to be Denniston House; had wanted her son and his wife to live at Pendenys. Denniston was a come-down; after Pendenys, any house was a comedown. Elliot was used only to the best and even refurbished to the highest of standards, that house could never take the place of the one in which he had been born.

  Already, she had set gardeners to work at Denniston, pruning shrubs, cutting back the undergrowth of years, weeding overgrown paths, opening up the kitchen garden. Servants swept and scrubbed there, now, from morning to night. Soon, painters and decorators would move in and maybe, just maybe, they might soon talk about the wedding again – if the newly refurbished house met with the approval of the countess, that was!

  Elliot had taken the full force of his mother’s annoyance, that day of the cablegram. She had rampaged through the house, nose twitching, for the stink of the cigarettes he smoked. She found him in his bedroom pomading his hair and his smile of greeting when she entered almost made her falter in her resolve. But she had seen that smile many times before and this time his charm wouldn’t work on her. There were things to be said and say them she would!

  ‘Take a look at that!’ she hissed. ‘Go on, lad – read it!’ The piece of paper she pressed into his hand was brief.

  Daughter born 1st November. Mother and baby well. Letter follows.

  ‘Brother Albert has indeed excelled himself.’

  ‘Yes, he has, and you’d do well to think on about it if you know what’s good for you! Your brother got himself a wife and has given me two grandchildren with no trouble at all yet you, who have been denied nothing and will inherit all this,’ she waved a wild, encompassing hand, ‘can’t even get himself down the aisle!’ She paused to gather breath, her heart thumping. ‘With no trouble at all, I say, and as things stand now, that boy Sebastian could inherit every stick and stone and penny-piece I possess! I want you married, Elliot – do you hear me?’

  ‘Mother dear, we will be married, I promise you. Anna and I have decided to go to London tomorrow and tell her mother of the progress that has been made. By the time she visits us at Christmas, Denniston House will be much improved. She will approve of it, I know she will. And Anna,’ he added softly, laying a soothing arm across his mother’s heaving shoulders, ‘wants to be married every bit as much as you – as I – want us to be. She will persuade her mother, be sure of it. I guarantee all will be well.’

  ‘London? Why London, all of a sudden, and where will you stay?’ The intuitive tingling at the back of her nose was back again. ‘There are no servants at Cheyne Walk, now; who’s to look after you?’ And keep an eye on him and see he didn’t take up with his womanizing and card-playing. ‘Just who, will you tell me?’

  ‘I can fend for myself with Molly’s help. I’m a grown man. I went through a war, remember …’

  ‘Molly?’ The basement woman; the caretaker. ‘She’ll not be a lot of use to you. You must take a footman at least.’

  One she knew could be relied upon to inform her at once if Elliot got tempted back into his old ways. Until the wedding, at least, her son must behave himself. Nothing must go wrong. She, Clementina, had not yet got the measure of the countess and as for that son of hers, that Igor …

  ‘If it will please you.’

  ‘If what will please me?’

  ‘That you feel it right and proper there should be someone in the house apart from myself and the caretaker. Send as many servants as you wish down there, though they’d be better employed working on Denniston House.’

  ‘Hmm.’ What Elliot said made sense, she frowned. And surely, with Anna – and Anna’s mother – next door, the boy would be hard put to it to find trouble, let alone land himself in it.

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ she wavered. ‘Perhaps just a footman …’ The ginger-haired one with eyes that missed nothing. ‘He could see to your clothes and your breakfasts, I suppose.’

  ‘And I could eat at the club – or next door, with the countess.’

  ‘Y-yes, I suppose you could. But Elliot –’ Her eyes narrowed and a forefinger jabbed. ‘Just mind what you’re about in London and no hanky panky, either, with that young lass. She’s real taken up with you – I don’t want her walking down the aisle three months gone. Just behave yourself, remember!’

  ‘Mother!’ was all Elliot could say, because in all truth she had read his intentions most uncannily.

  ‘I’ve told you – think on,’ she said softly. ‘Anna is a lady and you’ll treat her like one. We aren’t out of the woods, yet.’ And nor would they be until her eldest son was safely down the aisle. Only then could Clementina Sutton breathe freely again.

  Friday was the morning on which Alice did her weekly shopping in the village. Any other day she would have welcomed a chat with the butcher, the grocer and, sometimes, in the shop that sold knitting wool and sewing cottons. But this Friday was the fifth day of November. This day, two years gone, Andrew had been killed.

  She manoeuvred the pram through the Post Office doorway, then asked at the counter for the call to Rowangarth.

  ‘Holdenby 102? That’ll be long-distance,’ the Postmistress said. ‘I’ll have to get through to Trunks, first. Might take a minute – no hurry, is there?’

  There was no hurry. It was a call she was unwilling to make, yet make it she must.

  A picture of Rowangarth invaded her mind as she stood there; the black oak chest on which the telephone stood; the pad and pencil and flowers, always, beside it. This time of year those flowers would be chrysanthemums; big, mop-head blooms from the greenhouse, arranged in a pewter jug. And Mary would answer the ringing in her best voice, then hover, as much as she was able, so some small part of the conversation might be heard and carried below stairs. Dear, unchanging Rowangarth. Home. Calling her back …

  It was not Mary who answered the phone.

  ‘Rowangarth. Julia MacMalcolm,’ said the voice.

  ‘It’s me – Alice …’

  ‘Alice! Oh, thank God!’ There was a fleeting silence, then a whispered, ‘Bless you for ringing. I needed someone to understand. So far, no one has said anything and I want so much to talk about him.’

  ‘Then who better than me?’ Tears tingled in her eyes and she closed them tightly. ‘Bad, is it?’

  ‘It’s bad. Y’know, I awoke this morning – sharply, sort of – and I thought, “This is it. This is the day.” Then I lay there, in the dark – waiting. But nothing happened, Alice. I wanted to hear his voice, but I didn’t. I suppose, though, it could have been the time – early in the morning, I mean – when it happened. They never told me the time.’

  ‘No, pet, they wouldn’t.’

  ‘Do you know that once, oh, ages before we even thought there’d be a war – when we could talk about death because it wasn’t going to happen to us –’ Julia rushed on, ‘Andrew said that if ever we were parted, some part of him would go to the top of Holdenby Pike and he’d find me there, he knew it.’

  ‘Then maybe he’s up there now, waiting. Why don’t you go there?’ She would go anyway, Alice thought
despairingly. ‘You used to go there together a lot …’

  ‘Yes. We did. I love him so much, Alice. I need him so. It’s like an ache, always inside me. Is it ever going to get better, do you think?’

  ‘Do you want it to, lovey?’

  ‘No. I don’t want to let him go, just yet. I know where he’s buried, now. They wrote to tell me. I’ll go to him, one day – say goodbye – but not for a little while. Think I might go to the top of the Pike, though. Better than sitting in his surgery, all day. I’d planned to do that …’

  ‘The Pike, Julia.’ Alone up there, she could weep and rage and cry the grief out of her. ‘And why don’t you go to Brattocks?’

  ‘The rooks? Tell it to the rooks?’

  ‘It might help.’

  ‘It won’t. It can’t. Not even the rooks can bring Andrew back.’

  ‘No, but they do understand.’ Daisy had awakened and was waving her fists to command attention. ‘Daisy sends you her love – and Tom and me, too. I’m not good at saying things, but if it gets so you can’t bear it today, just remember I’ll be thinking about you.’ And oh, why couldn’t she be with Julia, today; hold her close, be there with a shoulder to cry on?

  ‘I know, dearest friend. I don’t think I could have borne it if you hadn’t phoned. You understand better than anyone – better than mother, even. I miss you so much, Alice. I want you back here, at Rowangarth. We’ll meet soon, won’t we?’

  ‘Soon, Julia. Take care …’

  Gently, she hung up the receiver and, making no attempt to hide her grief, walked to the counter.

  ‘That’ll be three and sixpence exactly,’ the Postmistress said. ‘You all right, Mrs Dwerryhouse?’

  ‘I will be, in a minute. That was my friend. Her husband was killed – just two years ago. One more week, and it would have been all right – he’d have come home.’

  ‘Dratted old war. But you and me were lucky, weren’t we – having our men back safely, I mean.’

  ‘Yes,’ Alice whispered. So very lucky and oh, Julia, forgive me my happiness?

  For just a little while Julia stood, staring at the telephone, sending her love and gratitude to Alice. Then resolutely she lifted her chin, walking up the stairs, thinking, ‘What if …’

  What if she opened the sewing-room door and Alice were there, really there; opened it like once she used to because there had been a letter from Andrew, telling her he loved her.

  But Alice was miles and miles away and happy, with Tom, so it wasn’t any use telling the rooks about her loneliness nor pleading with them that Alice should come back to Rowangarth. Miracles didn’t happen – not for Julia MacMalcolm.

  Swallowing hard on the ache in her throat she walked resolutely past the sewing-room, then reached on tiptoe, searching with her fingers for the key she had hidden on the lintel. Carefully, she unlocked the door of Andrew’s surgery then, closing it quietly behind her, she leaned against it as if to keep out anyone who might try to intrude upon her grief. Hugging herself tightly, she closed her eyes.

  Darling, where are you? Why did you leave me? Why wasn’t my love strong enough to keep you from harm?

  Mouth clenched tightly, she crossed the room, trailing her fingertips across the desktop, pulling out his chair, sitting on it to lean chin on hand, gazing at the pencil he had used, his pen, his inkstand.

  I want you, my love. I need to hear your voice, softly, feel your mouth on mine. I need you to touch me – every part of me. I need you to make me want you. I’m a woman and I have a woman’s needs. We loved so fiercely, so well. Why didn’t we make a child?

  She slammed the palms of her hands hard down on the desktop, jumping to her feet to stare out of the window as if perhaps she might see him there. But she saw only the wraith of a wife distraught, walking trancelike across the frozen grass and Alice, clumsy with her unborn child, running arms wide to meet her.

  That had been the first day of the rest of her life. All else before it was only a dream. Andrew was dead.

  13

  1921

  Clementina Sutton was happy, for despite all the setbacks and in spite of Countess Petrovska’s downright cussedness, the calling of the banns had been arranged and a wedding date agreed. And as if that were not enough, her youngest son and his family were at that very moment making for Southampton on the liner Aquitania. Life, all at once, had taken a turn for the better.

  ‘Two pageboys to carry the train, Helen? Are they old enough, do you think?’ Clementina murmured, accepting a second cup of coffee. ‘Young Sebastian is almost three and able to behave himself, but I’m a little dubious about your boy, Julia. He’s not likely to wet himself in the middle of the service?’

  ‘No, Aunt, he is not,’ Julia pronounced firmly, ‘though whether he’ll agree to wear a fancy suit is quite another matter!’

  These days, Aunt Clemmy seemed never to be away from Rowangarth and her endless chatter about the wedding was becoming an annoyance.

  ‘Agree?’ Clementina sniffed. ‘Surely he’ll do as he is told!’ So like the boy to throw a tantrum and upset all her carefully considered plans. But what could one expect from a child with a servant for a mother?

  ‘I’m sure Drew can be persuaded, Aunt; it’s the outfit, though, he might not like wearing.’ Gainsborough’s Blue Boy, Clementina had decided, to be copied in the minutest detail.

  ‘I have chosen the material for the suits,’ she rushed on, ‘and the shop is to have paper patterns especially made to match the boy in the painting. When Albert arrives, Sebastian and Drew must be measured at once.’ Lilies in the church; small boys in satin and the sun shining through the stained glass of the east window, she daydreamed. An eye-opener for the nobility of the North Riding who looked down aristocratic noses at new money! ‘But I must leave you, my dears. There’s the nursery to be opened up for Albert’s two, though whether Amelia is bringing a nanny with her she didn’t think to tell me. So inconsiderate.’ So much to do; so little time! ‘I’ll telephone you tomorrow when I’ve been in touch with Cunard about times – docking, you know. They’re on the Aquitania, did I tell you?’ She took her leave in a flurry of delight.

  ‘If Aunt Clemmy were a dog, she’d be wondering which of her tails to wag,’ Julia observed. ‘I’ll be glad when that wedding is over! Seven weeks, still, to Easter. How are we to survive it?’

  ‘With fortitude,’ Helen smiled, ‘and when we feel like exploding we must try to remember how relieved Clemmy must be feeling, seeing Elliot settled at last. And I shall enjoy meeting Albert again. How long is it since we saw him – eight years, almost? Amelia seems a dear person. Do try to be pleased about it, Julia, if only for Anna’s sake. You like Anna, don’t you …?’

  ‘Very much, though what she sees in him, heaven only knows!’ And she would try to be less bitter about it, even though she could never forgive Elliot for avoiding the fighting, nor for that March evening in Celverte.

  ‘I am glad,’ Helen sighed, ‘that Anna is to wear a traditional gown.’

  So many brides, now, insisted on the new, short style and it wasn’t right, really it wasn’t. A bride should wear a long, romantic dress; Anna’s was to have a train flowing out from the waist, with masses of tulle veiling, frothed into her tiara; the Petrovsky tiara, Clemmy was at pains to stress. The one Igor smuggled out of Russia, she constantly reminded. She hoped they wouldn’t have to sell it, meantime, though what they did with it after the wedding Clementina couldn’t care less. But she wanted it on show, truth known, for the ceremony; let people see that the bride came from a tiara-owning family!

  ‘Hope the weather is fine and bright for them,’ Helen murmured, dreamily. She did so enjoy a wedding. ‘Clemmy is to have marquees on the lawns, though if it rains on the day, there’ll be room enough inside Pendenys.’

  ‘Mother, it won’t rain; the heavens wouldn’t dare do anything to upset Aunt’s day of triumph.’

  ‘Julia, it is Anna’s day, remember, and my dear – don’t be too upset?’

>   ‘I won’t be – leastways, I won’t let it show. And I’m trying, dearest, to accept things. It’s only that ours was such a lovely wedding – just family, and me in the blue dress Andrew liked so much …’

  Her voice faltered to a halt. It was useless trying to delude herself. She missed Andrew, still; needed him as desperately as ever.

  ‘And orchids in your hair – you wore them for Pa,’ Helen said softly. ‘So nice to think that Nathan will be marrying Elliot and Anna. By Easter, he’ll be properly inducted into the parish – and living in the vicarage, too.’

  ‘So he will. It’ll seem strange, him not being at Pendenys, I mean.’

  Once, he had always been there in Julia’s life; he and Giles inseparable. And Robert safe in India, too, with everyone wondering about the mysterious woman who was keeping him from Rowangarth. Cecilia, now a nun in a teaching order near Shillong, and loveless, like herself.

  ‘Darling – don’t look so sad,’ Helen whispered. ‘It does become bearable, I promise you.’

  ‘Maybe so, but Aunt Clemmy acting so damn smug doesn’t help. And I’m trying to come to terms with Andrew being gone – it’s just that I don’t want to be reminded all the time how happy we were.’

  ‘I know, I do know. And February is the dreariest month. Why not get away for a few days, you and Drew – might buck you up no end.’

  ‘Go to London – to Montpelier Mews?’

  ‘There, or to Hampshire. Why not go to Alice?’

  ‘Could we, do you think?’ Her daughter’s sudden eagerness told Helen that a holiday could do nothing but good.

  ‘It would make a change. Drew loves Daisy and didn’t Dwerryhouse say you’d be welcome any time at all? When Clemmy gets the pattern and material for the pageboy suits, Alice could make Drew’s outfit and you could look after Daisy whilst she is sewing. And it’s so much warmer down there, didn’t you say? Drew could perhaps get outdoors to play.’

  ‘And there’s a little boy living down the lane, too. Drew could have a playmate his own age. Mother – could we?’