Daisychain Summer

by Elizabeth Elgin

  ‘And Polly?’ Alice sat unmoving, as if she couldn’t cope with the enormity of it. It had been the same for him, Tom thought; had taken a bit of digesting.

  ‘Polly is to stay until the estate has been wound up and formally handed over. Same as you and me. One thing they’ll not want is to keep the shoot going and pay a keeper’s wages for doing it. But I reckon we’ll be all right until March, or April.’

  ‘That’ll be when we put our thinking caps on, Tom.’

  ‘And that’s when Willow End and Keeper’s Cottage part company.’

  ‘But Polly has nowhere to go. How can we leave her, Tom?’

  ‘I don’t know. You and her have become friends over the years and I know you’ll miss her. But Keth and Daisy are closer, even. They’re like brother and sister. It’s going to be sad, parting those two.’

  ‘And you wouldn’t,’ Alice hesitated, ‘consider asking for the woodman’s job? There’s the cottage in Brattocks Wood empty, don’t forget.’

  ‘Wouldn’t consider it? Lass, it hasn’t been offered. And you know I’d take it. Keeper’s jobs aren’t all that thick on the ground. I could be a long rime out of work.’

  ‘The job doesn’t have to be offered. You know we’d be welcome at Rowangarth, Tom. Julia wants us back.’

  ‘And Polly and Keth?’

  ‘I could ask Julia if she can find something,’ Alice frowned. ‘Polly will at least have a widow’s pension – just a bit of a job would do.’

  ‘We couldn’t go yet.’ Tom knocked out his pipe. ‘Happen not until Lady Day.’

  ‘I’m going to ring Julia – ask her.’ Alice jumped to her feet. ‘She said she wanted to come down. Why don’t I ask her to come tomorrow?’

  ‘Now steady on.’ Tom took her hand, pulling her into his arms. ‘You’re as shocked as I was. Take a deep breath – and anyway, the post office is closed till morning. You can’t knock ’em up.’

  ‘No.’ She sat down again, setting the chair rocking, just as Mrs Shaw had done in the old days when the war got too much for her. Mrs Shaw used to pull her long white apron over her face and weep into it just as she, Alice, longed to do now. ‘But first thing in the morning I’m telephoning Rowangarth, asking Julia to come. She wants to, and I want her here, to talk things out.

  ‘We’re lucky, having something to fall back on. You’d live in Brattocks, wouldn’t you, Tom? Daisy would like it. She loves staying at Rowangarth.’

  ‘But Daisy wouldn’t be staying at Rowangarth. She would be the gamekeeper’s daughter – or the woodman’s daughter – if we were to go back.’

  ‘Daisy is Drew’s sister,’ Alice said softly. ‘Or to put it plainer, she’s still half-sister to young Sir Andrew whether she lives here or there. And I am still Drew’s mother. There’s nothing will change that. It’s a complication that would have to be sorted, if we went home to Rowangarth. Could you live with it, Tom love?’

  ‘I could live with it, because you’ve just put it tidily into a nutshell, haven’t you? Home to Rowangarth, you said, and that’s how it would be. And just think how pleased Reuben’d be, to hear we were going back.’

  ‘So you’d consider it?’

  ‘If her ladyship offers, you know I will.’

  ‘And we’ll ask Julia about Polly? Even if there’s nothing for her at Rowangarth, I’m sure she could find a cottage, somewhere around Holdenby, for just a few shillings a week. Polly is a fighter. Surely there’d be something for her to do, up there?’

  Her heart was thumping. Always, deep inside her, had been a longing to return to her youth, to the happiness she had known before the war began. And she wanted to turn back the clock, shut out everything bad that had happened betweentimes and start again. ‘There’d be no more worrying about Elliot Sutton, either,’ she whispered.

  ‘No more worrying.’ He reached up, taking the ornate dog collar. ‘I think Polly should have this. I don’t want her to know, but the solicitor told me that Mr Hillier left Beth to Dickon in his Will, but he wasn’t to know, was he, that he’d –’

  ‘That they’d die together,’ Alice finished, gently. ‘Ah, well, there’s not a lot we can do, till tomorrow.’ Now, it all depended on Rowangarth, and Julia.

  ‘Not a lot, but lass – it’s not quite all …’

  ‘There’s more?’ Alice drew sharply on her breath.

  ‘There is. It’s the reason, really, I was late getting home. It’s Daisy, you see. No!’ He held up a hand as alarm widened Alice’s eyes. ‘Nothing wrong – just that she’s in Mr Hillier’s Will, an’ all.’

  ‘But that’s wonderful!’ Alice beamed. ‘It just shows how fond of her he always was. And she’s to have a hundred pounds, too?’

  ‘No. I wasn’t told till everyone had gone and I’m right glad I wasn’t – knocked me sideways, I can tell you.’

  ‘She’s to have more?’

  ‘Much, much more. And there’s no other way to tell you, so best I say it straight out, as it was told to me – like the solicitor read it from the Will.

  ‘To Daisy Julia Dwerryhouse of Keeper’s Cottage, Beck Lane, West Welby in the county of Hampshire – the sum of ten thousand pounds …’

  ‘What?’ Alice jumped to her feet as if she’d been slapped. ‘Ten thousand, you said – Ten – thousand – pounds!’

  ‘That’s right. Our Daisy’s rich.’

  The postman usually knocked – once, and gently – when he slipped a letter through the door, but this morning he brought the knocker down loudly and firmly, three times.

  ‘Drat!’ Alice fretted. They were late, this morning; had sat long into the night, talking about Daisy and Daisy’s money and why Mr Hillier had done it. And of how Daisy must never know until she was older, and more able to live with the enormity of it.

  ‘Mornin’,’ the postman said, offering the telegram. ‘Came over the phone, just before I left, so I said I’d drop it in. No need to worry,’ he added, seeing the question in Alice’s eyes. Women still disliked those little yellow envelopes. A throwback from the war. ‘Any reply?’ he asked as Alice ripped open the envelope.

  ‘No, thanks,’ she beamed. ‘Too late to reply. She’ll be on her way, now. My friend is coming to stay,’ she told him as if he didn’t already know, him being married to the postmistress.

  ‘There’s a letter for Willow End,’ he said, glad that Mrs Dwerryhouse was pleased with her news. It was worth a mention because he didn’t often deliver letters to Willow End and this one was in a larger-than-average envelope, with the address done in typewriting.

  ‘It’ll be from Winchester,’ Alice nodded. ‘That one will be good news, too.’ She rewarded him with a smile, then called, ‘Daisy! It’s your Aunt Julia – she’ll be here by suppertime! And stop dawdling with your breakfast, do. There’ll be Keth here and you not ready. And don’t forget – you’re not to go boasting at school about what Mr Hillier left you.’

  They had told her, this morning, that it was a hundred pounds, on account, Tom said, that they couldn’t keep the bequest entirely secret from Daisy. A hundred pounds, he insisted, would be sufficient to justify the visits to the solicitor’s office and the signing she would have to do, even as a minor. There would be jealousy enough as it was amongst the estate children, none of whom had been mentioned in the Will. A hundred pounds, like everyone else had been left, didn’t sound so sinfully enormous.

  Alice drew her tongue round her lips. Just to think of all that money set the little pulses behind her nose beating dully. To say it made her want to bite on her tongue. She had not, when Tom told her, been able to visualize the vastness of Daisy’s wealth until he’d said, ‘Remember when we were in town not so long ago – those new houses?’

  Someone was building a close of twenty and Alice had peered through the downstairs windows of the house almost completed. Two houses stuck together; semidetached, the foreman builder said.

  ‘Beautiful houses, madam.’ He had raised his bowler hat, thinking Alice and Tom to be prospective buyers. ‘Two ro
oms and a good-sized scullery downstairs and two bedrooms up, with a bathroom’ – he had emphasized the bathroom – ‘and a flush closet. Five hundred pounds, sir, and it’s yours.’

  And Daisy could have bought all twenty, Tom said last night. That was how rich she was.

  There was a knock on the back door, a lifting of the sneck and Keth stood there.

  ‘Come you in, lad. We’re a little bit late, this morning. You’ll just have to run, part of the way. Eat that, while you’re waiting.’ Alice placed drippinged toast on a plate and motioned to him to sit down.

  ‘There was a letter.’ Keth gave one of his rare smiles. ‘It was about the money you told us about, last night. It’s true. When she gets it, Mam’s going to open a bank account at the post office; then she can draw some out, when we need it.’

  His eyes were bright and this morning, for the first time since it happened, Keth was not sucking his thumb. It was as if having money in the bank was a prop, a bulwark; something that would save them from the Workhouse.

  ‘Then I’m very pleased, Keth. It’ll be a relief to your Mam, knowing it’s there.’

  At the door, Alice kissed Daisy goodbye. ‘And listen,’ she whispered when Keth, eager to be on his way, had gone on ahead. ‘Don’t dare say one word about your own money, Daisy. Don’t spoil it for Keth? That money his Mam’s going to get means a lot to him, remember.’

  ‘As if I would,’ Daisy said scornfully, fixing her mother with a bright blue gaze.

  ‘We-e-ll – happen you wouldn’t.’ Chastened, she hugged her daughter. ‘Now off with you – don’t dawdle.’

  ‘Will Aunt Julia be here when we get back?’

  ‘No. About five, it’ll be – oh, be off with you!’

  Sighing deeply, she began to clear the breakfast table. Soon, Polly would arrive, Alice knew it, eager to show her the letter from Winchester. Poor Polly. Not only must she learn to accept Dickon’s death, but she had the worry, now, of finding work. A widow’s pension would hardly provide a roof over their heads and a hundred pounds wasn’t going to last for ever. A job for a widow with a child in tow would be hard to find. There were more jobless, now, than those in work, and if Julia didn’t bring hope with her, Alice knew that she and Tom would join the unemployed, too. Only Julia – and Rowangarth – could help them now. Dear, safe, enduring Rowangarth; the little house on the edge of Brattocks Wood, the rooks in the far elms, Reuben in his tiny almshouse; all beckoning like a light in the darkness.

  ‘It was Carver-the-young who came up with the solution, in the end,’ Julia said when a protesting Daisy had been tucked up in bed and they were seated beside the hearth.

  ‘I thought you didn’t like young Carver.’ Alice piled logs on the fire.

  ‘Couldn’t stand the man, but he’s better for knowing,’ Julia admitted. ‘What he said made good sense. But I don’t want either of you to think I’m rushing down here, organizing things, trying to get you back to Rowangarth, though I am, really, because that’s what I always wanted.

  ‘But I’m aware that two men have died and I’m very sad. I’d rather you never left here, and those men were still alive. But it has happened, and I want you to forgive me if I sound as if all I care about is what I want.’

  ‘We don’t think you’re being selfish, Julia, and certainly not unfeeling. The truth of it is that Tom will soon be looking for work – Polly, too,’ Alice sighed. ‘I suppose there isn’t hope for her? She’s a good worker and it’s going to break Daisy’s heart if she and Keth are separated. Is there any hope?’

  ‘There might well be. But first tell me, Tom, what do you know about leasing shooting rights?’

  ‘Not a lot. Why – are you going to let a syndicate shoot over Rowangarth land?’

  ‘Something like that. You’ve heard about the syndicates, then?’

  ‘I have. They’re starting up all over the place. During the war, a lot of men did well for themselves. There’s money about, now – new money – and those men fancy themselves as Shots, only they haven’t got shooting of their own. Some landowners are glad to accommodate them, I believe.’

  ‘And so might Rowangarth be. We’d have to remain very firmly in charge, though, and there’s no game at all, now, for anyone to aim at. But how long did it take you to get the shooting going here, Tom?’

  ‘Two years – from scratch.’

  ‘And could you do the same, at Rowangarth?’

  ‘Reckon I could – if I was asked,’ he said, cautiously.

  ‘Then would you like to give it a try? Mother is in favour of it; Keeper’s Cottage is empty – and it’s like Carver said; you could pay your wages twice over, once you could organize the shoots. Each Shot would only be given a couple of brace of birds; the rest would belong to Rowangarth.’

  ‘Pheasants and partridge always fetch a good price, in the towns.’ Tom rubbed the back of his neck. ‘And you’d expect any syndicate to pay well for a day’s shooting?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. And they’d pay. Like you said, Tom – new money.’

  ‘It’d take a bit of thinking out.’ Tom reached for his pipe. ‘But I’d like to give it a try. And I’m grateful, Julia, you know that. Can it wait, though, for a while? There’s things to be seen to here, first. I owe Mr Hillier that much.’

  ‘Whenever you can make it – only don’t waste any time. I want you both at Rowangarth so much. I’m not happy about the way it happened, though. Never think I am.’

  ‘We won’t, love.’ Alice reached for her friend’s hand, squeezing it tightly, blinking away tears of relief. ‘And did you say there might be hope of something for Polly?’

  ‘There might – there is. But will Polly approve?’

  ‘Of what? She’s pretty desperate.’

  ‘Of taking over the bothy.’

  ‘But the bothy job belongs to Jinny Dobb. Is Jin badly?’

  ‘Jin is fine – and I’ve got to admit that it was I who brought the matter up,’ Julia shrugged. ‘But Jin and me – well, we understand each other.’

  ‘Dear old Jin,’ Alice smiled. ‘What did you say to her?’

  ‘I offered her retirement. It’s hard work for an elderly lady, looking after the bothy and three apprentices. She said it couldn’t have come at a better time. You remember her sister?’

  ‘The one who had three lads and lost –’

  ‘That’s it. Lost them all in France. She never really got over it. Her husband died not long ago and Jin doesn’t like her being alone, so she didn’t mind at all being asked if she would like to go.

  ‘I’ll make it all right for her, and she’ll qualify for an old-age pension in January – if she isn’t working, that is. She’ll be comfortable with her sister and, like she said, she can make quite a bit, telling fortunes and reading teacups. So if Polly is willing it might well be that things will turn out better than we had hoped.’

  ‘She’ll be willing, Julia. She can stay on at Willow End until the miners take over Windrush, but after that she didn’t know where she was to go. All she has is a widow’s pension between her and the Workhouse. Mind, she’s to be given the hundred pounds that should have come to Dickon under Mr Hillier’s Will, but that isn’t going to last long.’

  ‘So will you put it to her,’ Julia asked, ‘or will I?’

  ‘You do it – in the morning. And I’m as sure as I can be that she’ll accept, and gladly. And when she has, you can tell Daisy the good news because she’d have been broken-hearted having to be parted from Keth. You’ll be the most favouritest aunt in the whole world.

  ‘And now I’m going to make us all a hot drink and while I’m doing it, Tom will tell you something else – about our Daisy. And you’d best be sitting down when he tells you!’

  She closed the parlour door quickly behind her, because not for anything could she talk about that money – not even to Julia – without feeling bothered.

  Hot milky cocoa, that’s what they would have, and Julia would need a drop or two of the medicinal brandy in it to help
her over the shock. Because shock it would be – even to someone as rich as she was.

  ‘I was right, then?’ Alice remarked when she returned with the tray. ‘Shocked, are you?’

  ‘Goodness, yes! All that money! And Tom is right. Daisy mustn’t be told – not how much – until she’s older.’

  ‘She won’t be. I still can’t visualize so much money. Tom says I’m to think of it as twenty newly-built houses. Daisy could live comfortable on the rents from twenty houses for the rest of her days.’

  ‘Daisy could buy Rowangarth,’ Julia said soberly. ‘Not the farms, of course, but she could buy the house and the stable block and the parkland, and Brattocks Wood – and still have money left in the bank.’

  ‘I’ll never know why Mr Hillier did it,’ Alice mused. ‘Oh, I knew he was fond of Daisy – but not to the tune of ten thousand pounds. And imagine him leaving all of Windrush to the miners?’

  ‘It was his to leave as he wanted,’ Julia defended. ‘I approve of what he did. Andrew’s father was a miner, don’t forget. You don’t watch someone cough his lungs away with silicosis and not be upset by it. I’m glad about Windrush being a convalescent home.’

  ‘Me too,’ Tom said. ‘And all Mr Hillier’s money is to be invested to pay for the upkeep. It was a grand gesture. He was a fine gentleman, and I hope they put it on his gravestone!’

  ‘Can I come in, Polly?’ Julia knocked on the back door of Willow End Cottage, then lifted the sneck.

  ‘Why, Mrs MacMalcolm, ma’am – come in do, and sit you down.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Julia gazed around the kitchen. What little there was in it had been lovingly cared for. ‘I want to say first, Polly, how sad I am for you. I know how you are suffering. I lost my husband, too, so I do know the awful pain of it. But I’m here to tell you that Tom and Alice have agreed to come to Rowangarth to work, and I want you to come, too.’

  ‘Me, Mrs MacMalcolm? But I’m a widow, with a boy to care for. I was once in gentleman’s service, mind, but there’d be Keth to consider, you see.’