Daisychain Summer

by Elizabeth Elgin

  ‘I’ve considered you both,’ Julia said gravely. ‘How do you feel about taking charge of Rowangarth bothy? There would be plenty to do, but you would answer to no one but Miss Clitherow, our housekeeper.’

  ‘I don’t rightly know what a bothy is.’

  ‘We’ve got one at Rowangarth. It’s a house where the apprentices live. At the moment, we have three garden lads in it. Tom once lived there, when he was our under-keeper; before he and Alice were married.’

  ‘And I’d have to look after the ’prentices?’

  ‘You would cook for them, keep their beds clean and wash their working shirts. All other washing they would pay you for doing, or take it home for their mothers to see to – which they usually do.

  ‘There are six bedrooms and a parlour and a large kitchen, where everyone eats. And there is a cellar and an attic and outside wash-house. The lads take their baths in there. They’re all decent young men. Polly.’

  ‘And would they pay for their own food, ma’am?’

  ‘No. Rowangarth sees to that. You would have a victualling allowance given to you each week, separately from your own wages. Coal and logs are provided and all the vegetables you need, from the gardens. Will you think about it? There’ll be a home for you and Keth at Rowangarth for as long as you want it. A roof, and heat and light, and the victualling money is good, and would allow for you and Keth.’

  ‘You mean it, ma’am? Word of honour?’

  ‘Word of a Sutton, Polly. Think about it, won’t you?’

  ‘There’s no need to think.’ Her eyes brimmed with tears and she brushed them impatiently away. ‘Had you thought, though? Young Drew who Keth thinks of as a friend is really Sir Andrew and it would be to him, really, that we’re beholden. It’s fine the three of them playing together when you come to Windrush, but at Rowangarth it wouldn’t be right, now would it?’

  ‘Once, Polly, some might have agreed with what you say, but we have had a dreadful war since then, and most of us have got our values right. It will be good for Drew to have Daisy and Keth near at hand. He has led a lonely life, with just two women to bring him up. Now that he goes to the vicarage for lessons he has the influence of Mr Sutton, of course, but he should mix more with children. I wouldn’t like you to think that anything had to change.

  ‘Alice will be living in the gamekeeper’s cottage, but she’ll still be Alice who was once my sister and is still my dearest friend. Please think about what I have said? I want you to come to Rowangarth.’

  ‘Then I’ll be glad to come and I’ll do my best for you, and those lads. And I thank you, Mrs MacMalcolm, for I didn’t know what was to become of us …’

  ‘Good,’ Julia said softly. ‘I’ll go and tell Alice. She’ll be so pleased, and Daisy, too. And no one,’ she smiled, ‘is more pleased than I.’

  She was still smiling when she walked into Alice’s kitchen.

  ‘Kettle’s on,’ Alice said. ‘And I take it that Polly is willing?’

  ‘She’s willing. She’s coming to look after the bothy. I’ve got what I wanted. I’m a selfish, spoiled woman to be so smug about it, but I don’t care!’

  ‘Spoiled? Selfish? Oh, no. Not you, Julia MacMalcolm. Never you …’

  When spring came to the New Forest and beech leaves unfolded like wisps of pale green silk and bluebells opened in Beck Lane, came the time to leave, to pack up and go. Now that Windrush was a home in which sick miners could regain their strength and breathe sweet, clear air into dust-damaged lungs, it was time for Alice to say goodbye to the church in which she and Tom had been married, and Daisy christened; to the post mistress, the school mistress and the lady in the knitting wool shop.

  Now the time had come, she wanted more than ever to leave; make the long, slow journey home. As the day grew nearer, she and Polly had packed boxes, made plans.

  ‘If we use one van between us,’ Alice had suggested, ‘then that’ll be money saved.’

  The driver of the pantechnicon had agreed to take Tom, Keth and Tom’s two dogs with him, provided the dogs were properly behaved – which they were. Tom and Keth would be company, he said, on the long drive north and help, too, with the unloading at the other end.

  Alice and Polly with Daisy, on the other hand, were to stay behind when the cottages had been emptied, have a general sweep round and check that nothing, absolutely nothing, had been left behind. Then they would take the train to London, there to stay the night at Montpelier Mews.

  ‘You’ll like Julia’s little white house,’ Alice assured Polly. ‘Sparrow looks after it. She’s a good sort; worshipped Doctor Andrew. Then we’ll catch the nine o’clock train from King’s Cross and Julia will meet us at York, in her motor.’

  ‘And Tom and Keth will have emptied the van and put up the beds,’ Polly nodded. ‘All planned like it was a military operation, isn’t it?’

  ‘But of course.’ Alice hugged herself tightly. She was going home to start afresh where once she had been so happy. She was so lucky that sometimes she was afraid. ‘I’m glad to be going, Polly.’

  ‘Me, an’ all. There’s only one sadness. I’ll be leaving Dickon behind and only the Lord knows when I’ll see his grave again. It isn’t as if he’s among his own. I’d have taken him back to Derbyshire, where he rightly belongs, if I could’ve afforded it. But I couldn’t even bury him decent; had to get the Parish to do it.

  ‘Well, I’ve made up my mind, Alice. Happen Dickon was buried a pauper, but I shall mark his grave, so folk will know who is there. That money Mr Hillier left us – I reckon half of it rightly belongs to Keth, and he shall have it. But with my share, I arranged for the stonemason to leave Dickon tidy and respectable, like.’

  ‘A gravestone, Polly?’

  ‘Only a simple one, but with his name on it and Rest in Peace. It’ll be there, in place, before we leave. Do you think I’m a foolish, sentimental woman?’

  Polly was weeping, now, and Alice gathered her close, laying a cheek on her hair, hushing her softly.

  ‘Of course I don’t. Sentimental, perhaps, but where’s the woman who isn’t? But foolish – no. I’d have done the same for Tom with my last penny. And before we leave, we’ll all say goodbye to Dickon and we’ll have a word with the Mothers Union. They won’t let him go short of a flower or two.

  ‘So dry your eyes, love. I’m glad you’re coming home with us to Rowangarth. You and Keth will be happy there. And will I tell you what that soft old Tom has done? Only went to that same stonemason. It’s a secret, because Daisy is so cut up about leaving Morgan behind.

  ‘Would you believe it, those two dogs are to have their own gravestone – well, more like a marker. You won’t say anything about it, will you, till Tom gets it set in place?’

  ‘Not a word.’ Polly smiled and mopped her eyes. ‘And I’m thankful Dickon chanced through Windrush woods when he was tramping the roads, looking for work. I’m glad Tom caught him, snaring a rabbit. Where would we have been, but for that?’

  ‘You might have all still been together,’ Alice said soberly.

  ‘And well we mightn’t. Dickon wouldn’t have lasted out another winter, sleeping rough. We had some little happiness, in the end, and for that I’m thankful …’

  ‘Keep those bairns out of the way this afternoon, can you?’ Tom asked of Alice. ‘The stone is in the shed, and there’s only this afternoon for it. Next couple of days we’ll all be too busy, packing and flitting. Want to have a look at it?’

  Carefully, Tom unwrapped the sacking in which the little stone lay. It was in granite, the face sanded and polished and bearing the initials B. and M. And beneath them, the date of the year, 1926.

  ‘It’s a lovely thought,’ Alice smiled.

  ‘And you think Daisy will like it?’

  ‘She’ll like it, you old softie. They both will.’

  They liked the stone, they both said, very much. Indeed, it was the most beautiful gravestone, Daisy said tremulously, she had ever seen. She and Keth had stood there, in Beck Lane, half
-way between Keeper’s Cottage and Willow End, to say a proper goodbye to Morgan and Beth. Daisy squeezed her eyelids very hard, but it did nothing to stop the tears, and Keth reached for her hand and held it unashamedly.

  ‘There now,’ Tom said. ‘That stone will let folks that pass here know there are two creatures resting there. And they’ll stop, and wonder about them.’

  ‘And they’ll never disturb them, will they, Dada? I couldn’t bear that,’ Daisy sobbed dramatically.

  ‘Of course they won’t. That little stone makes the spot holy, sort of.’

  ‘But we’re leaving them. Do you think they’ll know we’ve left them, Dada?’

  ‘Of course they’ll know. Those two were intelligent creatures but they aren’t going to bother about it, over much.’

  ‘They’re in heaven, you see,’ Keth reminded.

  ‘Of course they are! Didn’t I tell you, little lass, that dogs alus get into heaven? Not all humans do, but dogs – yes. Now us grown-ups have a lot to do. The man with the van will be here tomorrow and me with all my traps and things to pack up and see to. You and Keth stay here a while. My, but it looks real bonny, that stone. Real bonny.’

  ‘It does,’ Keth said when they were alone and he’d let go of Daisy’s hand, she having dried her tears, for the moment. ‘And they are together, Morgan and Beth. They won’t be lonely.’

  ‘Not if they’re in heaven, they won’t. Do you believe in heaven, Keth?’

  ‘For dogs – yes.’

  ‘Dada is right. It looks pretty, with the beech trees and the bluebells all round it. I’m glad they’ve got the bluebells, Keth. When we live at Rowangarth and the bluebells are flowering there, we’ll remember Beck Lane, won’t we?’

  ‘Mm. And that the bluebells will be chiming for Morgan and Beth.’

  ‘Bluebells don’t chime! Who ever heard of bluebells ringing, Keth Purvis!’

  ‘Dogs. They can hear them. Does your dad have a dog whistle – a proper dog whistle?’

  ‘Of course he does!’

  ‘Well, my dad had one and Mam has given it to me, in case I want to go into keeping. But I don’t. I want to sit the scholarship exam when I get to Yorkshire.’

  All at once, he wanted to go to Grammar School because there was the money now, Mam said, for the uniform; fifty pounds put by in the bank for it.

  ‘All right – so you want to go to Grammar School and be a clerk?’

  ‘No. Something better than that. But about my dad’s whistle. It’s one you blow and you don’t hear it – not if you’ve got human ears. But it makes a sound a dog can hear. Dogs have better hearing than humans. They hear things that we can’t.’

  ‘So?’ said Daisy huffily, because that was something she hadn’t been told; something she would have to check with Dada.

  ‘So bluebells do chime, but so softly that only a dog can hear the sound.’

  ‘You’re sure, Keth?’ It would be awful if he was saying it and didn’t mean it.

  ‘I’m sure, and tomorrow afternoon before we go, we’ll come and say another goodbye; then we won’t worry about them, will we? We’ll just remember them, without being sad.’

  ‘Yes, Keth.’ All at once, because she had never loved him so much, she wanted to hug him tightly and kiss his cheek. But she couldn’t, because Keth was a boy and wouldn’t like it. ‘We’ll come again, tomorrow.’

  They would say goodbye to Keeper’s Cottage and Willow End and Beck Lane. But mostly they would say goodbye to Morgan and Beth, then leave them together with the beech trees to shelter them and the bluebells to chime for them.

  And tomorrow, she would not weep.

  25

  1927

  ‘Dada! We came from York by Rolls-Royce!’ An ecstatic Daisy threw herself into Tom’s arms. ‘You should have seen us!’

  ‘I borrowed it, from Pendenys. Uncle Edward actually trusted me to drive it. We’d have been a bit cramped in my little car, you see,’ Julia supplied. ‘We dropped Polly off, at the bothy. I see you and Keth have been busy, Tom.’

  ‘Keth’s been a grand help. Willow End stuff didn’t take long to see to – there won’t be a lot left for Polly to do. We haven’t long finished, here; the van has only just left. I’ve set things down where I think you’ll want them, love,’ Tom smiled, ‘though you’ll want to arrange it to your own liking, once you’ve got your breath.’ He held out his arms and Alice went into them. ‘Welcome home, lass.’

  They stood, holding each other, not kissing nor speaking. Then Alice said. ‘It’s all very nice, love. Fire lit, kettle on the boil …’

  ‘And cups and mugs unpacked,’ Julia smiled. ‘Tom, you are a jewel. Let’s have a quick cup and wish good luck to Keeper’s, then I’ll pop off and bring Reuben over. He’s been counting the days, and he might as well have a ride in the Rolls before I take it back.’

  ‘I’m surprised Mrs Clementina allowed it.’ Alice hung her coat on the door peg, unpinning her hat.

  ‘Aunt Clemmy won’t even know it’s been out of the garage. She hardly sees anyone, these days. I think she’s going a bit loopy. Poor Uncle Edward. She led him a dog’s life before the accident and now he’s more worried than ever by her carryings-on. Three staff have left already. I’m afraid she’s come to rely on the bottle. She just sits in that room of hers in the tower – it’s getting more like Jane Eyre every day!’

  ‘Then I’m sorry for her.’ Elliot Sutton was making trouble, Alice frowned, even from the grave. ‘And where has Daisy got to?’

  ‘Last time I looked out of the window, Tom grinned, ‘she was climbing the stile and making across the wild garden. She’ll be off to find Drew.’

  ‘Then let’s have that cup of tea.’ Alice hugged herself, eyes closed. ‘I can’t believe this, I really can’t. We’ll be all right, won’t we, Julia? The Fates won’t be jealous?’

  ‘No, love, they won’t. I guarantee it. And I’m truly glad you’re back home – at last!’

  ‘I’ll be off, then,’ said Jinny Dobb.

  ‘It was kindly of you to stay behind and explain things,’ Polly said gravely, holding out her hand. ‘You make it all seem simple.’

  ‘It is. Just treat them garden boys like you’d treat your own son. Be firm, though they’re good lads and won’t give back answers. And remember that the doors are locked at ten sharp, ’cept Saturday nights. And I’d be obliged, when you see Miss Clitherow, if you tell her you found all in good order.’

  ‘I shall do that, and I hope you’ll call – any time. You’ll be welcome.’

  ‘I’ll call, missis. Happen one day you’ll let me take a look at your hand?’ Jin picked up her bag and the brown paper carrier containing her last-minute things, then walked to the door. Hand on knob, she turned. ‘There’s trouble in your face, etched deep, but it’s trouble past. You’ll find there’ll be more to smile about, here. Good day to you both.’

  ‘She’s right. It’s going to be all right, here,’ Keth urged. ‘Let’s have another look round? This place is so big. When we put the beds up, Mr Dwerryhouse said I was getting the bedroom that he once slept in. It’s the warmest in the house, he said, in winter. And there’s a wireless, in the parlour. I’ll be able to listen in.’

  ‘Then make the most of it; it’ll be school for you and Daisy, on Monday.’

  ‘And I can sit the exam for the Grammar School?’

  ‘Seems it means a lot to you, son – how come you changed your mind? Not so long ago, you weren’t all that keen.’

  ‘There wasn’t the money, then, for all the things I’d need. Now, there is. The money was dad’s, really, but he always wanted me to have a try. I’ll pass it, for him.’

  ‘Then do your best, for your dad.’

  Polly gazed around her at the big, comfortable kitchen, thankful beyond belief. When they had told her that Dickon was dead it had been like the ending of her world, the ending of hope, yet things had turned out better than she dare imagine.

  Dickon, my lovely. She sent her thoughts to a far
away churchyard. We’re going to be all right, Keth and me, so don’t you worry none.

  Something to smile about, Miss Dobb had said. Perhaps, now, there would be …

  ‘Thank you, Mary.’ Helen Sutton smiled to the parlourmaid who set down the coffee tray.

  ‘So, Julia MacMalcolm,’ she said softly, when they were alone, ‘are you pleased with this day?’

  ‘Pleased to have Alice home – you know I am.’

  ‘And so you should be, for you’ve schemed and fretted for long enough to get her back. And I’m happy for you, I truly am, though sad about the way it happened. Black, dear?’ She always asked the question. ‘And it is going to be so good for Drew, having young friends near. Tatiana is a nice child, but a little young for him.’

  ‘And her nanny a little old! How that child is pampered, mother. Why isn’t she allowed to run free, sometimes?’

  ‘I’m sure it isn’t for us to comment on how Anna rears her daughter. Perhaps that is the way Russian mothers do it. And Anna is a dear person – we mustn’t criticize.’

  ‘I suppose not, though one day that child will rebel, just see if she doesn’t. She’s half Elliot’s, remember. One day, something is going to surface; it’s bound to.’

  ‘Don’t speak unkindly of the dead,’ Helen murmured, passing the cup. ‘Would you like a little snifter?’ A small brandy, really, but they always called it a snifter, as Aunt Sutton had done.

  ‘No, thanks.’ Julia rose to her feet. ‘Shall I pour one for you?’

  ‘A sherry for me, I think – I do find it helps me to sleep and besides, I want to raise a glass to Alice and Dwerryhouse, wish them well, at Keeper’s.’

  ‘We all do. And success to the shooting, once Tom gets it going again. That idea of young Carver’s was splendid, and the syndicates will take care of his wages. It all turned out well, didn’t it – the Williamses winning on the Irish Sweepstake, and Jin Dobb taking retirement.’

  ‘It did, though I’m sure you’d have found a way, somehow,’ Helen remarked wryly. When her daughter set her heart and mind on anything, even the Fates took notice. She had been just as single-minded over Andrew. ‘So you have all you want, now?’