Daisychain Summer

by Elizabeth Elgin

  ‘Tom – I do so love you.’ She went to kneel at his feet, her head on his knees. ‘And I promise you I’ll take what is sent to us, be it one child or many. But I often think back, and tell myself there won’t be any more children for us. Remember when you left to join the Army and Jinny Dobb told my fortune? Maybe it’ll be like she said. She told me there would be three men who would shape my life, and she was right. She told me a lot that came true; said I’d have two children, an’ all. Two, Tom. Drew, and Daisy.’

  ‘And Jin Dobb is a daft old biddy with her signs and prophecies and her tea leaves. Take no notice, love. It’s up to us to prove her wrong. So stop your worrying, till morning. Just be at the Post Office at ten, and you’ll find that Julia’s got it all worked out. They’ll be coming to Windrush, be sure of it, and you know you enjoy her being here.’

  ‘I do. I miss her something awful, at times. I miss Reuben, too. But it’s grand, down here. Mr Hillier is a good man to work for – even if he spoils Daisy something terrible. I’ll settle for what Fate sends, be it babies or a cottage in the New Forest. Julia would give all she’s got to be in my shoes.’

  ‘I reckon that lass’d give all she had just to see her man for a few minutes, and say goodbye to him, decent like. And Alice – I love you, too. Always remember that I loved you from the day we met, and I’ll never change …’

  Alice was at the Post Office far too early and she found herself with nothing better to do than watch the church clock moving slowly towards ten, all the time thinking and wondering and worrying. Because it was a worry. As Tom had said last night, Daisy was involved, too, and who was to know how she would accept it because, like Drew, she could not be told the whole of it. Daisy loved her Dada as he loved her. He walked tall in her life and Daisy might not like what she was soon to be told.

  Alice clucked at the slow-moving finger of the clock. She wanted Julia to telephone now: tell her everything would be all right – that they would work it out together as they had done since the day they set out on the great adventure to London.

  But that was almost thirteen years ago and so much had happened since then. Sufficient that she and Julia were still close, still sisters, and that somehow between them they would tell a small boy and girl that they were brother and sister. And please God, neither would feel deceived or betrayed.

  Two minutes more. Thankfully, she rose to her feet.

  ‘Alice? It’s me.’ The call came through two minutes after ten o’clock. ‘We’re coming to you on Monday, if that’s all right. Staying Saturday and Sunday night with Sparrow. We’ll be arriving about eleven. Can Tom meet us with the pony and trap?’

  ‘No need. We have a taxi here, now. I’ll book it to meet you at eleven. Can’t wait for Monday, except that –’

  ‘Except that it might not be easy telling Drew, you mean? But I think we should talk about it, first – best not to rush things.

  ‘I’m a bit worried about the strike, though. If it happens, you might be stuck with us for ages, eating you out of house and home!’

  ‘You’ll not find me complaining – nor Tom. And Daisy’s so pleased you’re both coming.’

  ‘I’m pleased, too. I’ve got to get away, Alice. It’s all sadness and upset, here. Anna had her baby two days ago. A son – stillborn. She’s rather poorly, still. Richard James won’t allow visitors and Aunt Clemmy is a pain, weeping and wailing and demanding to know what she’s ever done to deserve such punishment. She! Never a word of sympathy for Anna. I sent flowers and a letter, but I’m not allowed to visit. It’s all so awful. I can’t wait to get to Windrush.’

  ‘Even though things might be a bit awkward?’

  ‘Even though. We’ll have to make sure Drew isn’t hurt.’

  ‘Yes – and Daisy, too,’ Alice warned, mindful she could be heard by anyone coming in to buy stamps, considering every word she said.

  ‘Hell! I hadn’t thought about Daisy.’ Julia was at once contrite. ‘But we’ll be gentle with them both, won’t we?’

  ‘Aye – but it’s going to need the wisdom of Solomon – and then some.’

  ‘It’ll be all right. We just mustn’t blunder in – must play it by ear. We’ll manage.’

  ‘We usually do.’ All at once, Alice was grateful for Julia’s confidence. ‘See you Monday, and take care – both of you.’

  It would be all right, Alice insisted as she walked home to Windrush, asking herself why she was worrying so when there were many with burdens far heavier to bear. Anna Sutton for one, who had just lost a child – as if being married to that man wasn’t tribulation enough.

  ‘We’ll think of something,’ she said out loud, and in that instant the sun came out from behind a cloud to give her comfort. Manage they would. They had been through worse together, and survived it.

  ‘You’ll be all right?’ Sister Brown paused in the doorway of Anna’s room. ‘I won’t be gone long. If you want anything at all, get out of bed and press the bell-push.’

  It was a fine kettle of fish, she fretted silently, that her patient was apprehensive about being left alone, due entirely, of course, to her arrogant bully of a husband. How could so gentle a lady have married such a man?

  ‘And you’ll go to the public telephone and ring my brother-in-law; ask him to come as soon as possible?’

  ‘I shall do that, never fear, and when I get back I’ll come up at once.’

  ‘I’m grateful, nurse. And will you do one thing more for me? I would like to see my little girl. Why is she being kept from me?’

  ‘I’m not at all sure. I understand that when your labour started she and her nanny were sent to Pendenys Place.’

  ‘Sent away? On whose orders?’ Anna’s cheeks flushed crimson.

  ‘I believe the order came from Mr Sutton’s mother.’

  ‘Then I want Tatiana back with me! I am not so ill that I can’t see my own daughter. Will you please ask Mrs Martin to have a car sent to Pendenys at once, to collect her?’

  ‘There now,’ the nurse soothed. ‘I’ll see to it. You mustn’t get yourself upset.’

  ‘Believe me, I shall be all right – as long as you are not away too long.’

  ‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’

  The door closed with a finality that brought back Anna Sutton’s fear of being alone with her husband – especially now.

  Why had it happened? She should, she knew, have been angry with Natasha, ordered her from the room. But she had not, because in all truth, her anger should be directed at her husband.

  Since it happened, Anna had felt afraid and alone, not knowing where to turn for advice. Not to her mother – not yet, at least – and certainly not to her mother-in-law. She had thought, briefly, of asking Julia to visit, but Julia had sent flowers and a letter, saying she was going away.

  There remained but one person, Anna pondered, to whom she could pour out her unhappiness; who would treat what she had to say with confidence. Nathan Sutton was the only soul she could trust with her devastating news.

  She bit hard on her lip to stop an escaping sob. She was finished with tears! Since this morning, she knew she must fight back, or be lost.

  She had not expected Natasha to come to her room. She must have been waiting until Sister Brown left for the housekeeper’s room in which she took her meals. Scarcely had the nurse left when the door opened quietly to admit the black-gowned servant.

  ‘Little countess, I beg you to forgive me – and to hear what I have to tell you. I am ashamed and I don’t know what is to become of me,’ she gasped, falling to her knees at the bedside, speaking softly, urgently, in her mother tongue. ‘I beg your understanding. I did not betray your goodness to me. I am a stranger in a strange country. Please to listen? It was not my wish to hurt you so.’

  ‘Hush, Natasha. You should not be here. You must go!’ Anna gasped.

  ‘No! You will hear me; you must. He gave me no choice. He forced himself on me. Help me, little countess? I am sick with shame.’

  It had be
en her instinct, Anna brooded, to dismiss her from the room, but she had not. The desperation in the servant’s eyes had said more than her anguished pleading, so she had taken the agitated hands in her own and said softly that she forgave her.

  ‘Now, Natasha, will you go before the nurse comes back? My mother is coming to see me this afternoon. I shall tell her that you are not happy working here for me – ask that when she returns to London she will take you with her. Believe me, it is best you should leave Denniston House.’

  But Natasha had remained on her knees for there had been more to tell and of such enormity that all Anna could do was to send for the priest who was her husband’s brother – lay bare her soul to him.

  She closed her eyes, pretending sleep. She was so miserable she wanted to die.

  16

  ‘Can I come in?’ Nathan Sutton tapped gently on the door of Anna’s bedroom, smiling as he entered; a smile not only of greeting but to hide the shock he felt on seeing her so small, so fragile in the huge bed. Her eyes, deeply brown and beautiful, only served to accentuate the harsh, blue-black rings beneath them, the paleness of her face.

  ‘Nathan, my dear.’ She held out a hand. ‘It is kind of you to come. I have need to talk to someone and there is only you. Is the door closed?’

  ‘Firmly.’ He took her hand in his own. ‘Your baby – I am so very sorry.’ It had to be said, and anyway, she would want to know.

  ‘Is he – did they …?’

  ‘I said your goodbye to him.’ Gravely, Nathan interpreted her question.

  ‘I am glad. They took him away and told me nothing. I couldn’t bring myself to ask.’

  Her voice trailed away, her eyes filled with tears and he longed to gather her frailness to him. Instead, he took a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it, angry she had been treated so.

  ‘Do you want me to tell you?’ His voice was gentle.

  ‘Yes, please.’ She wiped her eyes, taking a deep, calming breath. ‘Perhaps they are still angry with me; it is part of my punishment – not being told, I mean. They wanted a boy for Pendenys and I could only give them a stillborn child.’

  ‘Anna – your little one is in heaven; that is all that must concern you, now.’

  ‘You are sure? With Our Lady?’ Eagerly, she grasped his words to her.

  ‘I am sure. I prayed for him. There was just myself and the Verger there. He was laid with all the other Suttons; he isn’t alone. I said the baptism service over him, too. Every baby has the right to be baptized.’

  ‘Then he is with Our Lady!’ The pale cheeks flushed briefly pink. ‘Thank you with all my heart for your compassion, Nathan. Now I shall try not to grieve so, for him. Is it too much to ask that perhaps you –?’

  ‘Gave him a name? I called him Nicholas. I was sure you would approve. I’d have called him for your father, but I didn’t know his name.’

  ‘He was Peter, but Nicholas is a good name – our Czar’s name, God rest him.’ She crossed herself reverently and for the first time Nathan perceived the depth of her faith.

  ‘So you are a little happier, now? And when you are well enough and feel you would like to see his grave and perhaps take him flowers, will you first tell me, and I will be there with you – and Elliot, of course …’

  ‘Elliot will not be there. He was not there when you – you –’ She stopped, distressed.

  ‘When I gave the little one back to God, to care for?’

  ‘Yes. He should have been there, shown compassion for his son, but all he did that day was to blame me – threaten divorce.’

  ‘Anna!’ He had thought she worried for her baby; wanted to be told he had been decently laid to rest – yet divorce? ‘What are you trying to say? And should you be saying it to me, your husband’s brother?’

  ‘Perhaps not.’ She stirred restlessly, her hand making a vague, dismissive gesture. ‘The doctor has refused me visitors and for that I am grateful. I don’t want to see the accusation in their eyes, be reminded that three times I have failed them.’

  ‘Failed? But you have done your best – more than your best. No blame attaches to you, Anna.’

  ‘But it does. You say I should not be talking to you, but today you are not my brother-in-law. You are a priest, and as such I sent for you so urgently. Can you hear my confession? In your church, is it possible?’

  ‘It is perfectly possible, Anna, if you wish it. As a priest I am bound by a vow of secrecy, though I cannot give you a penance nor grant absolution.’

  ‘But you can listen, and perhaps understand?’

  ‘I can – and what you tell me will be sacrosanct, even though it clearly concerns a serious family matter. You spoke about divorce?’ he prompted.

  ‘I didn’t speak about it. Elliot did,’ she whispered, lying back against the heavily embroidered pillows. She looked, Nathan thought, like a doll in a lace-edged box; a pale, pretty doll with its long dark hair tied back with a ribbon, dressed in a pretty pink, lace-edged bed jacket. Poor, lonely doll.

  ‘Tell me, Anna?’

  ‘It is all such a muddle. Where am I to begin?’ she hesitated.

  ‘At the beginning,’ he smiled. ‘I am a good listener. Divorce, you mentioned?’

  ‘No. Elliot mentioned – threatened – it, when he came to see me, afterwards. I had hoped for a little kindness. Not his understanding, of course, because every man wants a son and clearly I had failed him again. But there were no words of sympathy, no kiss of comfort, and when I told him that Doctor James said I must not fall pregnant for at least a year, Elliot said it was none of his business. When my lying-in is over – in less than two weeks – he says he will – will …’ She stopped, fighting tears.

  ‘Will expect to come to your bed again,’ Nathan supplied, lips tight with distaste.

  ‘Yes. And I can’t face another pregnancy just yet; I simply cannot. It could prove dangerous. The doctor was insistent, but if I refuse Elliot, he will divorce me. It is grounds enough, he says. What am I to do? I’m so afraid.’

  ‘But Anna, you wouldn’t be refusing – merely postponing, and on medical advice, too. No lawyer would touch such a petition, and my mother would not want the scandal of a divorce in the family. I think you have nothing to fear, in that direction. My brother will see sense.’

  ‘He will have to. My religion does not allow divorce. It would cut me off from my church, and that I will not allow. Besides, I don’t want a divorce.’

  ‘You still care for Elliot? Then that is the soundest of foundations,’ Nathan urged, ‘on which to rebuild your marriage.’

  ‘No, I do not care for him. Oh, I was besotted by him. I wanted to marry him. He was handsome and exciting. Every time we met and touched I was – how do the English say it? – in a dither. But our honeymoon was nothing more than a prolonged mating.’ She dropped her eyes to her hands. ‘I am sorry, that is the only way I can describe it. I had thought – hoped – we would make a child of love, but I was wrong.

  ‘I would wish with all my heart to be free of our marriage, but we made our vows in two churches and there can be no changing it. I am well able to conceive. Tatiana was a healthy baby born and is a delight. That I slipped two babies was a sorrow to me, but our son came so near to his full time. He was whole, Nathan? Did you see him?’ she whispered.

  ‘I saw him. He was beautiful. Doctor James said he could think of no reason –’

  ‘No reason he should be born dead, and before his time? Then I must tell you!’

  She fidgeted with her sheets, straightening them, smoothing them to give herself time to realize the enormity of what she was about to say.

  ‘There is more, Anna?’

  ‘Much more. First, I want to tell you why I went into early labour. I wasn’t due for two or three more weeks – and it was my fault. I killed my son before he was born.’

  ‘Anna! How could you have done? Be careful what you say. You mustn’t even allow such thoughts.’

  ‘But I did! I flew into a rage. Such a tem
per I was in. I screamed and lost all control. I beat Elliot with my fists until I collapsed, exhausted. I was out of my mind. I wept all night and next day my pains began.’

  ‘But what upset you so?’

  ‘It was Natasha – you know her? She came with us to England when we left Russia. When Elliot and I were married she came to Denniston House to work, though she is not of the peasant class. Her mother was Mama’s dress-maker and Natasha was sent to our summer house to deliver a box of sewing.

  ‘St Petersburg was too hot, so we always moved to the country, in summer – quite near the Czar’s summer palace at Tsarskoye Selo, but the year of the uprising we had not returned to the town house, even though the snows threatened – the trouble in St Petersburg, you see …

  ‘When Natasha came with the sewing, she told us of the unrest there, and the looting and rioting, and Papa said that Igor must escort her back to her parents. It was the least we could do. She was a gentle young woman, and very beautiful. Something – awful – could have happened to her.

  ‘But Igor brought her back to the summer house. Her home was deserted when they got there – her parents and sister gone. We could do nothing but keep her with us and when we knew we must leave, she begged to come to England with us.

  ‘Along the way, Karl offered us his protection. Karl was a Cossack, and loyal to the Romanovs. My mother felt duty bound to give them both shelter and employment.’ She turned her face from him and he knew she was weeping.

  ‘Anna,’ he whispered. ‘If it upsets you –’

  ‘No. I asked you to come, and I must tell you. There’ll be no peace for me, until I do.’ She mopped her eyes with the corner of the sheet then smiled briefly, bravely. ‘Natasha is so lovely. She has the grace of a ballet dancer. She walks proudly, and men are attracted to her. Even so, I didn’t think that Elliot would notice her. He would joke about her, call her the servant in black; but never did I think –’ she faltered.

  ‘Go on,’ Nathan prompted, though he already knew what she would say. ‘Tell me?’

  ‘When I got pregnant again, Doctor James said Elliot must not come to my room – you know what he meant? He was afraid I would miscarry again. To lose two babies before their time is not good; this time, he said, every possible care must be taken – and that included Elliot leaving me alone.’