Daisychain Summer

by Elizabeth Elgin

  ‘Reuben – don’t! I won’t have you talking like that!’

  ‘It comes to us all, lass. I’ve written out my Will. It’s done proper. Jinny Dobb and Percy have witnessed it. It’s in the box, with the other things. You’re to have all I’ve got, Alice; all that’s here and the money in my bank book. ’Cept my pocket watch, that is. Tom’s to have that, and my guns.’

  ‘Don’t! Please don’t, Reuben? Oh, I’m grateful to you, but it’s you I’d rather have, not what you leave behind you. But what has brought all this on? You’re feeling all right, aren’t you – no aches or twinges, or anything?’

  ‘I’m grand, only it’s right I put my affairs in order so the right people get what I leave behind me. I’d not want your Aunt Bella to get her hands on it. Us haven’t heard from her for years, but she’d be on that doorstep like a black crow, the minute she heard I’d gone.’

  ‘Well, you’re not going anywhere yet, Reuben Pickering,’ Alice scolded. ‘I want you to see Daisy grow up. I want you to live to be a hundred.’

  ‘Then I’ll do my best to oblige,’ he chuckled. ‘Nice to know I’m wanted.’

  ‘I want you to come and live at Windrush. Tom wants it, too. Remember that if things get too much for you, you’ve only to write me a letter.’ She reached for his hand across the table top, laying it to her cheek. ‘Promise?’

  ‘You’m a good girl, Alice.’ The old, pale eyes misted briefly. ‘But I’ll stay here, a while. Let’s face it – where would old Percy and Jin Dobb be without me? I’ll bear your offer in mind, though …’

  Her cheeks went white, then flushed bright red and he could see she was making an effort to cope with the shock of seeing him again.

  ‘Remember you? You know I do,’ she whispered. She let go her indrawn breath with a little huffing sigh, then raised her eyes to meet his. ‘Mr Elliot Sutton – after all these years!’

  ‘But what are you doing here, Maudie?’

  ‘Serving ale – trying to make an honest penny.’

  ‘You’re not married?’ He gazed pointedly at her left hand.

  ‘No. Never found a young man that suited me, and after the war there wasn’t a lot of choice, was there? Most of the men I’d known didn’t come back.’

  ‘You haven’t changed, you know.’ He dropped his voice to an intimate whisper. ‘You’re still the Maudie I remember. I recognized you at once.’ His eyes lingered on her breasts and her still-tiny waist; her eyes were provocative and inviting as ever. ‘Have you ever thought about me – about us?’

  ‘Often,’ she whispered. ‘I wasn’t likely to forget you, now was I?’

  He flushed with pleasure. Here was a real woman; one who could teach Anna a thing or two about pleasing a man.

  ‘And do you still live in Creesby, Maudie?’

  ‘Nah. Parents both gone; my brother’s taken over the shop. I live with my Auntie Madge, now, in Leeds.’

  ‘I missed you – you know that. We had some good times together, didn’t we?’

  ‘That we did, Mr Sutton.’ She smiled almost sadly.

  ‘Elliot – please? After all, we were once very – close.’

  ‘So we were,’ she whispered. ‘But there’s customers waiting to be served.’

  ‘Come back quickly?’ he murmured.

  He watched her, eyes narrowed, the tip of his tongue tracing the outline of his lips, and when she returned he pushed his glass over the counter, asking for another of the same. ‘And one for yourself,’ he smiled. ‘Do you still drink sherry?’

  ‘Not often. I’m more what you would call an ale lady, now.’ She gazed straight into his eyes. ‘You learn to cut your coat according to what cloth you’ve got, you see. But since you’re buying, Mr Sutton, I’ll take a sherry with you.’

  ‘I’ve got to see you again,’ he whispered throatily. ‘You can’t know what a delight it is to meet up with you after so long. Will you come out with me, for a meal?’

  ‘Can’t,’ she said flatly. ‘Got to work, haven’t I?’

  ‘But you get a night off, surely?’

  ‘Aye, on Wednesdays, when we aren’t so busy.’

  ‘Then next Wednesday – say you will? Where can I pick you up?’

  ‘We-e-ll – as a matter of fact,’ she dropped her eyes to the counter. ‘I’d thought to go to Creesby, see my brother at the shop, next week. How about if we were to meet at the Coach and Horses – outside, of course, so’s not to cause you embarrassment.’

  ‘You were never an embarrassment, and you know it. You’ll meet me inside, and we’ll have a meal. Shouldn’t wonder if I don’t stay the night there.’ He raised a quizzing eyebrow.

  ‘Will you, now? I heard it said the landlord there isn’t all that particular who he lets his rooms to, these days.’ She turned away, momentarily, so he couldn’t know if she were teasing or accusing. ‘If you know what I mean?’ She turned to meet his eyes and he knew she was neither teasing nor accusing.

  ‘You mean you’ll – you’ll …?’ His face flushed with triumph. He hadn’t thought she would be so easy.

  ‘Like I said, Mr Sutton – Elliot,’ she whispered, ‘I never forgot you. Hardly a day went past that I didn’t think of you.’

  ‘So next Wednesday …?’

  ‘Next Wednesday,’ she nodded. ‘Meet me in the snug, at the Coach, at seven. Now off you go. You’ve had enough. Any more an’ you’ll not be able to find your way home. By the way, what are you going to tell your wife?’

  ‘You know, then, that I’m married?’

  ‘Like I said – I’ve thought about you often, heard things, over the years.’

  ‘I shall tell my wife nothing. Besides, she’s in London,’ he admitted, sulkily, ‘with her damned old mother, so serve her right, eh?’

  ‘Serve her right,’ Maudie repeated gravely. ‘After all, we usually get what we deserve, don’t we – sooner or later? Now, off you go. Seven o’clock, on Wednesday …’

  Daisy, Drew, Kitty and Bas sat in the long grass in the wild garden, chewing reflectively on liquorice sticks.

  ‘I miss Tatty,’ Drew murmured. ‘Poor little thing – all alone in London. Bet she’ll miss us, too.’

  ‘And will you miss me,’ Daisy tilted a provocative eyebrow, ‘when Mam and me go home on Wednesday?’

  ‘You know we will. I wish you could stay for always, Daiz.’

  ‘Me, too.’ Bas, the eldest of the Sutton brood, echoed earnestly. He liked Daisy. She was good fun – better than most girls he knew. Daisy was pretty – very pretty; could take a dare, too. And unlike his sister, she wasn’t bossy – except sometimes, when her temper flashed. Daisy’s temper sure was something to see, he acknowledged – unless you were on the receiving end of it, of course.

  ‘I know something,’ Kitty announced. ‘I don’t think I should tell, though.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it’s – well – it’s grown-up talk. I heard it.’

  ‘Okay, then. If you feel you can’t …’ Bas knew how to treat his sister. Show her indifference and she wanted to be centre stage.

  ‘We-e-ll – since Tatty isn’t here, I suppose I just might, though really I shouldn’t.’

  ‘Oh, c’mon, Sis. You know you’re just bustin’ to.’

  ‘Do tell?’ Daisy coaxed, blue eyes wide.

  ‘All right, then. It’s about Aunt Anna and Uncle Elliot.’ She looked about her, furtively. Kitty was a performer, an actress. Hadn’t her mother always said she would end up on Broadway? ‘There’s trouble in the camp,’ she whispered. ‘Leastways, that’s what Nanny Eva said to Mrs Martin. Countess Anna was being made to go to London by her brother – the Russian, you know – and Himself in a right old state about it. Those were Mrs Martin’s exact words!’

  ‘So what’s new? We all know she’s gone to London,’ Bas sighed.

  ‘Yes, but there’s more to it than meets the eye – that’s what they said.’

  ‘Well, I know all about it.’ Drew too looked around him furtively. ‘I kno
w because my mother told me. Aunt Anna is going to London to get over being sad about the baby. Tatty didn’t know she’d had a little brother – they never told her they were having another baby. She thought her mother was in bed because her back hurt and Tatty thinks they have gone to London for a holiday and so Aunt Anna can see a doctor who knows about bad backs.’

  ‘Yes, but that isn’t the truth, is it?’ Kitty hissed. ‘Mrs Martin said Uncle Elliot was a right so-and-so; said she didn’t blame Aunt Anna for walking out on him, so there!’

  ‘Walking out on him means she’s leaving him, doesn’t it,’ Daisy frowned. ‘It means she’s run away from him. My Mam wouldn’t leave our Dada. They love each other,’ she sighed.

  ‘Mm. Guess Dad and Mom do, too,’ Bas murmured. ‘It sure must be awful if your folks don’t get on.’

  ‘Then isn’t she coming back?’ Drew demanded, wide-eyed. ‘I hope she does. I’d miss Tatty.’

  ‘Mrs Martin said she’d beg from door to door before she’d have any more truck with that swine. I think she meant Uncle Elliot.’

  ‘What does having truck mean?’ Another peculiar English phrase, Bas frowned.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Kitty breathed, ‘but it sounds rude, doesn’t it?’

  ‘My mother hates Tatty’s father,’ Daisy offered. ‘I heard her tell Keth’s Mam that he never got his boots dirty in the war. And Mam knows what she’s talking about, because she was in that war.’

  ‘Why does she hate him, Daiz?’

  ‘I think it’s because Dada hates him.’

  ‘Seems like everyone hates Uncle Elliot,’ Bas grinned, ‘except Grandmother Sutton. But I think you’re making it all up, Sis. How come you heard all those things Nanny Eva and Mrs Martin said? And how come they let you?’

  ‘I was in the toy cupboard in the nursery. I heard Nanny ask Mrs Martin over to take tea with her, so I hid in there so I could listen to what grown-ups talk about when there are no little ears about. And don’t you dare tell on me, Bas, or I’ll be in trouble with Mom!’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of repeating such rubbish, because it just isn’t true.’

  ‘It is, so! You believe me, don’t you, Drew? You believe that Uncle Elliot is a right so-and-so?’

  ‘Yes, I do, Kitty.’ He really did, because he knew his mother hated Uncle Elliot, too. Not that he’d hidden in a toy cupboard, or anything. It was just something he knew without ever being told. ‘But don’t let’s talk about him?’

  ‘Okay by me,’ Kitty shrugged airily. Then, as if reluctant to relinquish the limelight, she added, ‘Anyway, he’ll soon be dead.’

  ‘Dead!’

  ‘Sure. The way he hits the bottle, Mrs Martin said, he’ll never see forty.’

  ‘But forty’s old, anyway!’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ Daisy nodded, comforted. ‘Come on – let’s all go and see Uncle Reuben. He’s got a stick of Scarborough rock he said we could have, next time we called.’

  ‘What are we waiting for?’ Minty pink rock, Bas reasoned, was to be preferred to Uncle Elliot, any day. And Mrs Martin spoke nothing but the truth. Uncle Elliot was a right so-and-so …

  Elliot Sutton looked at his wristwatch as Maudie pushed open the door of the snug at the Coach and Horses a little before time. He rose to his feet, smiling, indicating a chair, pulling it out.

  ‘Sherry?’

  ‘Please.’ She smiled up into his eyes.

  ‘For you my dear – anything. And by the way, the landlord suggested we eat upstairs, save any – er – embarrassment. To yourself, of course,’ he added, smiling. ‘I’ve booked a room.’

  ‘Good.’ Her smile was provocative, just like the Maudie of old. He pulled his tongue round his lips in anticipation of what was to come. A meal, wine, then bed. He’d never actually slept with Maudie; their couplings had been furtive, snatched whenever the opportunity arose. Now there would be time to indulge his fantasies. The lights turned low, a slow undressing, the bed soft and suggestive – and Maudie’s eager thighs. He remembered them well. And she had been cheap, if he remembered rightly. There had never been payment – before, or after.

  ‘Tell me what you’ve been doing, Elliot, since –’

  ‘Since last we made love?’ he murmured. ‘Well, there was the war, of course, but we won’t talk about that.’

  ‘Saw service, did you?’

  ‘Mm.’ Eyes down, he gazed modestly into his glass. ‘London – hush-hush stuff – then Paris, then the Somme.’ Celverte, surely, allowed him to talk about the Somme – the area, if not the battles. ‘But tell me about you?’ His eyes sought hers, earnestly.

  ‘Well, after we – we parted, I stayed at home for a while, then I went to Leeds to that big munitions factory. Made good money, there.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then Mam and Dad died in the ’flu epidemic. Awful, it was – both of them, within a week. So my brother took over the shop and I went back to Leeds, to Auntie Madge. Been working in one bar or another ever since.’

  ‘Then you are wasting your talents, Maudie. You deserve better.’

  ‘You, for instance?’ She stared at him brazenly.

  ‘Me for sure,’ he smiled. ‘Oh my dear, you can’t know how it’s been for me. I wanted a son so desperately and I had one, stillborn. It broke my heart, almost. And now my wife has taken herself off to London – left me, she says, till she feels like returning. You wouldn’t have left me, would you, Maudie? If you’d been my wife you’d have given me a son, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I would, an’ all. A fine, strapping lad and tall and dark, just like you.’

  ‘Dearest girl – we won’t lose each other again, will we? We’ll be lovers like we used to be, only better. It will be better, won’t it?’ he pleaded, eyes moist with self-pity.

  ‘Whatever you say.’ She dropped her eyes to fidget with her fingers. ‘I only want you to have what you deserve.’

  ‘And a man like me deserves love, doesn’t he? I’m a passionate man, Maudie.’

  ‘Oh, I know that. Who better than I?’

  ‘Then let’s go upstairs, now?’ He grasped her hand, holding it to his cheek. ‘I’ll tell them not to serve the meal for half an hour. I slipped the landlord a couple of quid,’ he said softly, placing the room key on the table top. ‘He understands. A small gratuity helps him to forget faces.’

  ‘No. Not just yet,’ she smiled. ‘Let a girl get her breath – and finish her drink. We haven’t seen each other in years; what’s a few minutes more?’

  ‘Don’t tease, Maudie?’ He fixed her with begging eyes then leaned closer, lowering his voice. ‘If it’s – er – a question of money …?’

  ‘No!’ Her reply was sharp. ‘Money would put me in the whore class, Elliot, and I’ve never been that!’

  ‘Sorry, my dear. I just thought –’

  ‘Then don’t think! Besides, I don’t like being rushed. Think I’d like another sherry – help me decide.’

  ‘Decide what?’

  ‘Like whether or not I’m going upstairs with you; decide if I want to eat your food, even …’

  ‘But we agreed, didn’t we, that we’d –’

  ‘We agreed nothing! You presumed. You thought Maudie was waiting there like a plum for the picking, ready to jump into your bed when you snapped your fingers! Well I’m sorry, Mr Elliot Sutton. Not tonight. Not any night, as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘What the hell …?’ He gazed at her, stupefied. ‘Now see here, old girl, enough is enough. Stop playing games!’

  ‘But I’m not playing games. I’m very, very serious. I suppose you could even say that this is the day of reckoning!’

  ‘Maudie! What have I ever done to you to deserve this?’ His eyes were round with pleading, his voice softly persuasive. ‘We were lovers, remember?’

  ‘Oh, I remember, all right! We were fine together, till your mother walked into dad’s shop.’

  ‘My mother? She wouldn’t!’

  ‘She would. She did. Fifty quid – that was all
I got. She told me to leave you alone, called me a trollop – even when I begged her to believe the baby was yours.’

  ‘Baby?’ He could hardly say the word. All at once he was living a bad dream. But soon, surely, Maudie would burst out laughing, tell him she’d been pulling his leg? He grasped her wrist across the table. ‘What baby? Tell me!’

  ‘Ours. Yours and mine. I was three months gone and I never told you. I wrote to your mother instead, asking her to help me. Oh, I knew the likes of you would never marry the likes of me, but I expected you to behave like a gentleman and support your own child. But your mother didn’t want anything to do with it, so I went to Auntie Madge and it was born there.

  ‘She was a brick, my aunt; looked after the little thing so I could go to work. Then when the war came, I earned good money – took care of the three of us. We managed without Sutton charity.’

  ‘So where is it, now?’ His face had paled, taken on a haggard look.

  ‘In Creesby, with my brother – the one who took over dad’s shop. His wife and him can’t have children and they wanted someone of their own to leave the shop to – a boy to help run the business, see? So they adopted him, legal. It was best they should. A lad needs a father.’

  ‘A boy? No, Maudie – you’re making it up! I told you I was desperate for a son, but that’s cruel!’

  ‘Cruel, Elliot? More like rough justice, I’d say.’ Her voice was soft, too soft, then she smiled sadly. ‘But you do have a son. One day his name will be over the shop door, so you’ll have a son in trade. I called him Edward – your dad would’ve liked that, I thought. He’s twelve, now; a boy to be proud of.’

  ‘I don’t believe you!’ Now his cheeks had flushed an angry red, his hands gripped the table as if he were fighting for control of his emotions. ‘Your brat could’ve been anybody’s. You weren’t particular who you went with!’

  ‘No, I suppose I wasn’t because I went with you – but only with you. Here.’ She dipped into the pocket of her coat, pulling out a photograph. ‘That’s him. He fathers himself. Tall and dark, like you, and twice as handsome. Oh, he’s yours, all right!’