Daisychain Summer

  ‘No, love,’ Alice soothed. ‘Best get things off your chest, whilst you’re here. You’ll feel a lot better for it. But tell me first – how is Reuben?’

  ‘He’s well – sends his love, and I’m to tell you he’s keeping warm indoors, this cold weather.’

  ‘And Jinny Dobb and Mrs Shaw, and the rest?’

  ‘All fine. Jin’s back in the bothy, looking after the apprentices, and Mary and Will Stubbs are walking out, but no sign of a ring, yet. Miss Clitherow is unchanging and I think Tilda’s affair with HRH is over, by the way.’

  ‘Poor Tilda; such a romantic.’ Alice was glad of the smile that briefly lifted the face of her friend. ‘And Nathan in the vicarage, now? I think Giles and me must’ve been his very first marrying.’

  ‘You were. So long ago, yet only three years. Another life …’

  ‘You said that Nathan is to give Drew his lessons,’ Alice prompted as the familiar, faraway look was back in Julia’s eyes.

  ‘Nathan thinks he’ll be ready for half-days when he’s four. Mother feels a man’s influence will be good for him – he’s in a household of women, after all. We don’t want him to go to boarding school. I think that if mother had known she would have Robert and Giles for so short a time, she wouldn’t have given away their young years.’

  ‘Julia! You mustn’t think like that – neither of you. Drew won’t ever go to war, be sure of that; nor Daisy. That was the war to end all wars, remember? No government in its right mind would let it happen again. And it won’t be all that long before all women get the vote and can see to it that it doesn’t! I’m sorry to mention that wedding, but won’t Nathan be marrying Anna and Elliot? Twice wed, didn’t you say?’

  ‘Twice. My dear cousin will be well and truly married. The first time, privately. The countess insists on it. According to the rites of their own church, then the real ceremony, as Aunt Clemmy calls it, will be at Holdenby, a couple of days later.

  ‘Countess Petrovska is giving them all a bad time but the other day, it seems, she announced that Anna is really a countess – or would be, if they were still living in Russia. I believe Aunt Clemmy was so delighted that she could hardly get a word out. The old countess is a terrible snob. When Amelia complimented her on her excellent English, she said that in Russia the aristocrats spoke English or French all the time. Said that only the peasants spoke Russian. She’s so damned stuck up you wouldn’t believe she was Anna’s mother. Anna is a dear girl …’

  Alice laid aside her knitting, dropping to her knees beside the fire, poking out the ashes, building it up with beech logs. The sight of Julia had shocked her. There was tension in her face that was never there before and now she made little nervous movements with her hands all the time. It would be a good thing when that wedding was over; when Easter had come and gone and spring brought everything alive again. Life always seemed better for sunshine.

  ‘How is mother-in-law?’

  ‘Alice – you called her mother-in-law! She’d like to have heard that.’

  ‘A slip. But she was the nearest I ever had to a mother for just a little while.’

  ‘Then I wish you would always call her mother-in-law. You are still Drew’s mother, remember; once, you were Lady Sutton. The war took so much away from mother; you were one of its few blessings.’

  ‘I still think of her as mother-in-law, especially since Tom’s Mam is dead. She died in that same ’flu epidemic that took Giles. Remember – Giles always called your mother Dearest? But I’m Alice Dwerryhouse now, not Lady Sutton. I’m a servant again – or the wife of one.’

  ‘You will always be my sister. I don’t know how I’d have borne things if it hadn’t been for you. As soon as mother suggested visiting,’ Julia smiled. ‘I couldn’t get here soon enough. And you don’t mind making Drew’s wedding suit, do you? He only agreed to wear it when I told him we were going to see Lady to get it made.’

  ‘You know I don’t mind. You can take care of Daisy whilst I’m sewing. Put the pair of them in the pram – one either end – and push them out. It’ll do you good, my girl! Now I’ll just set the kettle to boil. Tom’ll be back from his night rounds, soon, and he’ll want a sup of tea. And you haven’t told me about Mr Albert’s wife. Is she really as old as they say?’

  ‘Not a bit of it,’ Julia murmured as Alice pulled out the dampers on the kitchen fire and laid a tray with cups and saucers and sliced and buttered a currant teacake, ready for when Tom’s whistle told her he was home. ‘Amelia is the nicest person, and she’s not so old she can’t produce two lovely children. Nathan is going to christen the baby. She’s to be called Kathryn Norma Clementina – the two last names for her grandmothers.’

  ‘And is Amelia pretty?’

  ‘Incredibly. Her eyes are the most beautiful shade of violet. Motherhood becomes her. She intends taking an English nanny back to Kentucky. At the moment, the children are in the old nursery at Pendenys, with one of Pendenys housemaids looking after them.

  ‘Bas is a dear little boy; very good-mannered and not a bit spoiled. Amelia is really taken with the Sutton family history. Rowangarth especially intrigues her. She remarked on how amazing it was that one family could live in a house for over three hundred years and Aunt Clemmy said there were Suttons in the North Riding when there was nothing in the United States but buffalo and Red Indians; that Suttons were old-established even before the English colonized America and most certainly long before that dreadful slavery was abolished.

  ‘It didn’t go down very well with Amelia, I can tell you. Kentucky, where they live, was a slave state, once. Aunt Clemmy can be so direct, at times. It’s most embarrassing.’

  ‘But it isn’t Mrs Clementina and the wedding that’s making you so edgy, is it?’ Alice took up her knitting again. ‘Something is upsetting you. Want to talk about it, lovey?’

  ‘No – oh, it’s nothing!’ Julia jumped to her feet. ‘Think I’ll have a peep at the children.’

  ‘They’re all right. I’ve just been, so sit yourself down,’ Alice ordered. ‘What is it, Julia? I haven’t seen you like this for a long time. Is Drew too much for you?’

  ‘No.’ The reply was swift and decisive. ‘Drew is the one thing that keeps me sane. But if you must know, it was whilst I was in London …’

  ‘Ah. How is Sparrow?’ Alice did not lift her eyes from the needles in her hands.

  ‘She’s well. The house is dry and warm; her rheumatism isn’t so painful, now. She was so glad to see us – took Drew over completely.’

  ‘And did you do any wedding shopping?’

  ‘I looked, but there was nothing I liked.’

  ‘Then why don’t I make up something for you?’ Alice smiled.

  ‘Thanks, but it’s all right. I’ve got a nearly-new costume at home and I can borrow one of mother’s hats. I went to lunch with Mark Townsend,’ she finished in a rush, her cheeks all at once red.

  ‘The solicitor?’

  ‘Yes. And last night we went to the theatre. Don’t know what came over me. Didn’t know how to say no, I suppose.’

  ‘Did you enjoy it?’ Alice demanded, matter-of-factly.

  ‘That’s the trouble – I did. But I shouldn’t have gone out with him.’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense, Julia! If a solicitor can’t take out a client once in a while, it’s a poor lookout. Surely you aren’t feeling guilty about it?’

  ‘But I am.’ Julia gazed, eyes troubled, into the fire. ‘I really wanted to see that show, but all the time I kept saying sorry, inside me, to Andrew. And supposing someone had seen us? What if he’s married, I mean …’

  ‘Do you think he might be?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’d never thought about it, one way or the other, till we were on our way to the theatre in a cab.’

  ‘Then that proves it – just how unimportant Mark Townsend is, I mean. But you mentioned that Elliot said you were mad. Why?’ Alice demanded, firmly dismissing the matter of Mark Townsend.

  ‘Oh – just the mood I was in, I
suppose. It was before we left for London – in Brattocks – I hit him.’

  ‘You did what?’

  ‘I clouted him. Hard. My hand was stinging for ages afterwards. He was so shocked he fell over!’

  ‘Then good for you, Julia MacMalcolm!’ Alice threw back her head and laughed out loud. ‘But what did he do to get you so upset?’

  ‘Just being his usual obnoxious self. He was boasting about what a good match he was making: implying that I hadn’t, I suppose.’

  She told it, mouth taut; pouring out her hatred yet remembering to leave unsaid things that might hurt Alice. Her words were harsh, touched with angry tears.

  ‘So you see,’ she finished, ‘it was he sent those white feathers to Giles. Only you and I and Giles knew about them, so it must have been Elliot. There was nothing else for it. I slammed my hand into that face as hard as I could.

  ‘I was wild with rage, yet I walked away so calmly you wouldn’t have believed it. But I could have killed him, Alice. I wanted to. I’ve thought a lot about it, since. I think, sometimes, that maybe I’m unbalanced – going out of my mind.’

  She covered her face with hands that shook and then the tears came, hot and salt-tasting on her lips; tears held back too long.

  ‘There now, lovey.’ Alice reached out, cradling her dose, making little hushing sounds, patting her gently. ‘Mad, indeed! That man would make a plaster saint doubt its sanity. You did right to hit him. I’m only sorry I wasn’t there to see it. Just imagine – you giving him a fourpenny one and me, hanging from a tree branch, whooping and cheering like mad!’ She dipped into her pocket, offering a handkerchief. ‘Now dry your eyes, there’s a love. That’s Morgan barking. Tom’s back, and locking up the dogs. We’ll have that drink, then it’s straight up to bed for you. You’re worn out.

  ‘And tomorrow, young Keth will be down to say hullo to Drew, and they can play music on Daisy’s gramophone. Did I tell you, Mr Hillier bought her one, for Christmas? He spoils her something awful.’

  ‘Sorry about that.’ Julia drew in a shuddering breath. ‘I needed that weep, though, and to tell someone what was bothering me. You don’t think I’m mad?’

  ‘Not you,’ Alice smiled gently. ‘You’re a Sutton, and madness doesn’t run in the Rowangarth line. So let’s have a smile from you? And as for Elliot Sutton – well, that one’s going to get his come-uppance afore so very much longer, and when it happens, I hope I’m there to see it,’ she added, defiantly.

  ‘Swinging from a branch, cheering?’ Julia forced a small smile.

  ‘Cheering like the very devil. What are sisters for? And it’ll all be the same, as they say, a hundred years from now. This old world’ll still be turning and you and me, our troubles long forgotten – so what are we worrying about?’

  ‘A hundred years?’ Julia gave back the handkerchief, calm and composed, now; head high. ‘D’you know, at this very moment I’d give a lot just to know what will be happening to my world five years from now!’

  ‘Then isn’t it a good thing we’ll neither of us know till it happens, unless,’ Alice frowned, ‘we could catch Jin Dobb when the ’fluence is on her. Happen she could tell us?’

  ‘Jin? Oh, no. I think,’ said Julia gravely, ‘that all things considered, we’d best just wait and see …’

  14

  1926

  Cook rocked gently in her chair, nodding to the rhythm of a waltz, played on a piano. What it was called she had no idea, but they would tell her, when it came to an end. They had such beautiful voices, those gentlemen who made announcements over the wireless. Who could have thought, she marvelled, that music played in London could fill Rowangarth’s faraway northern kitchen.

  Miss Julia had explained it – or tried to – but it was still as much a mystery to Mrs Shaw as the opening of leaf buds in their season, the arrival of swallows from who knew where and the waxing and waning of moons. Sufficient to the elderly cook that Lady Helen had given that wireless set to below-stairs staff two Christmases gone, and life at once had taken on a special magic. Now, the habit of a lifetime had been broken. Since the arrival of the wireless, Cook had ceased to read the daily papers so religiously. Not that she had ever believed all they gave out. Bad news had seemed worse in stark black and white with headlines screaming to be read, yet now good news – what little there had been these last five years – sounded far better for being read in a charming, cultured voice.

  Mind, there had been some good news to remember. Ireland – or the better part of it – had been given back to the Irish; the Free State, they called it, now. And Lady Astor, arguing in Parliament for votes for all women. A woman in Parliament at last; who would have thought it possible in the days before the war? But for all that, Mrs Shaw was not altogether sure that younger women deserved to be entrusted with the vote they clamoured for. Flappers, most of them – well named, an’ all – with their feminine parts squeezed tightly into bust bodices so they looked flat-chested as a lad – and hair cut short to match it. The young men no better, either, with their gaudy pullovers and trousers so baggy they flapped in the wind like long, full skirts. But Lady Helen said it was the war years coming out in them; the relief it was all over – a tilting at a faceless authority who could no longer send them to die in stinking trenches. They would outgrow it, her ladyship said, and please the Lord they would, Cook sighed, for nothing would do now but that the young should enjoy themselves, going hiking and biking and spending every free night in picture houses or dance-halls – them as could afford it, that was! Dance, dance, dance! Even Tilda was at it; her who wouldn’t have said boo to a goose was away to Creesby on her nights off, eyebrows plucked, skirts too short by half and lips coloured an alarming red though Miss Clitherow forbade lip rouge on duty.

  ‘And that brings us to the end of a selection of piano music,’ came the smooth voice of the announcer. ‘In a few moments it will be time for the news bulletin, after which music for dancing will be played until closedown.’

  Cook reached out to switch off the set. She was tired, would give the News a miss, tonight. And best she should leave the kitchen to Tilda and Mary who would push back the chairs and two-step or waltz to the music until eleven o’clock, when the wireless closed down for the night.

  She measured milk into a saucepan, remembering still; smiling indulgently at Tilda’s latest heart-throb. Rudolph Valentino, indeed! His arrival on the picture house screens had set female hearts bumping with his dark, brooding eyes and a haughtiness to match them. There were women who were known to see his latest film five times over, and swooned at every watching, or so it was said. And no wonder, when he carried a young woman into his tent in the desert, and her bewitched by the black, blazing eyes. Heaven only knew what had gone on behind that closed flap. Giving young lasses ideas, he was; lasses who would remain unwed the whole of their lives. Stood to sense, didn’t it, there being not enough men to go round, now.

  Yet on the good side, there had been the Empire Exhibition in London to prove that, in spite of that war, Britain was still great, and the wedding of Prince Albert to the bonny Elizabeth of Glamis had made the entire Empire happy. Twice she had refused him, or so talk had it, and quite right, an’ all! A man, even a prince, was required to propose three times before being accepted. There had been pictures of that wedding on the newsreels at Creesby picture house, with people going especially to watch it. Such a loving couple. They were the Duke and Duchess of York, now. York, she thought with pride. The little duchess carried Yorkshire’s name and was greatly loved in the Ridings.

  Cook measured an exact teaspoonful of cocoa into her cup, blending it thoughtfully into a paste. There had, she was forced to admit, been more sadness these last few years, than joy. Unemployment had reached terrible levels with men who had survived the war being denied the homes fit for heroes they’d been promised. From the degradation of the trenches to the degradation of begging – or selling bootlaces on street corners to make that begging legal.

  The death of Que
en Alexandra had been a great sorrow, too. A dear, gentle lady; beautiful and charming – a pity about her being deaf. Sister to the Empress Feodorovna of Russia. Born a princess, Alexandra had never once lost her dignity, even though she’d known all about her husband’s carryings-on. She had even allowed that Mrs Keppel to the King’s bedside as he lay dying though she, Cook decided, would have given her the length of her tongue and ordered her out of the palace! An era had died with Queen Alexandra, Cook sighed. With her passing, the gracious times they had known at the turning of the century were finally gone; times when all had known their proper station in life, be it high or low. Now, flappers showed shameless knees, smoked cigarettes from long, fancy holders and were not unknown to allow young men privileges that should, by rights, have been saved for the wedding night.

  ‘There’s milk in the pan,’ she said to Tilda and Mary who had arrived in meticulous time for the dance music. ‘See that Miss Clitherow gets her hot drink, will you, and don’t forget to leave the fire safe when you go to bed.’

  End of an era, that’s what, and the mood of the miners getting uglier by the day. She must remember when she said her prayers tonight to especially thank God that Lady Helen was the kindest, fairest lady to work for and who gave her servants good food and respect. And a wireless set.

  She grasped the banister as she climbed the back stairs to her room, pausing on the first-floor landing to draw breath. Either the staircase was getting steeper, or Mabel Shaw was getting older. The latter, she supposed, for there was nothing so certain in this uncertain world as growing old. Unless it was death, of course.

  She shook such morbidity from her mind and defiantly climbed the remaining stairs to her bedroom in the eaves. Growing old, indeed!

  Already the sycamores had broken leaf and the buds on the hawthorn hedges were showing bright green. The sky was April blue, the sun shone brightly with a warmth that promised the arrival of spring.