Daisychain Summer

  ‘Of course not! I like him.’ The Bishop grew orchids almost as well as the Catchpoles grew them at Rowangarth. Their conversation over dinner would be pleasant.

  ‘Then that’s all seen to, though I shall leave it all to Amelia, when they arrive. Don’t know how I shall endure five weeks of them. Flying over gives them extra days, sadly.’

  An impudent granddaughter and a tongue-tied grandson, both of whom annoyed her, she frowned; always made her want to demand of the Almighty why her youngest son had a wife and two children yet Nathan wasn’t even wed! And Elliot – poor, poor Elliot, had never given an heir to Pendenys.

  ‘Sadly?’ Helen demanded. ‘You know you like having them – now be honest!’

  ‘No, I don’t.’ This morning Clementina was in a confiding mood. ‘Oh, you will understand, Helen – will know how I feel when I see Albert’s son. It always reminds me that Elliot’s boy was stillborn. It hurts dreadfully.’

  ‘I’m sure it does, my dear. But Bas cannot be held responsible for that. He’s growing up into a fine young Sutton, Clemmy – show him a little kindness?’ Helen urged.

  ‘Ah, well.’ Clementina sighed dramatically and drained her cup. She longed for a brandy but the doctor had not only been extremely rude, but had demanded that she stop her drinking. Her drinking! As if she were a raddled old tart swilling cheap gin! No more than three small brandies a day with plenty of soda, he’d said. It hurt, sometimes, just to think of a big, fat brandy balloon and the comfort that sipping from it had always given.

  And to make matters worse, Edward watched her like a wayward child. Edward thought he’d got the upper hand, but she could wait until the dinner party. Let him try counting her drinks, then!

  It wasn’t as if she particularly liked brandy, but she had come to need the feeling of release it gave her, the freedom from sleepless nights. Elliot had liked his brandy, and now she understood why.

  ‘Why so sad? A penny for your thoughts,’ Helen said gently.

  I was thinking about Elliot,’ came the trembling retort. ‘A penny wouldn’t buy them.’

  A genuine tear ran down her cheek, though whether it was for her son or for herself, she did not know. Delicately, dramatically, she dabbed it away.

  From his bedroom window Keth saw the postman pushing his cycle along the lane that led to the bothy and a sudden churning inside told him that this was the day for the letter. He was at the back door long before the postman lifted the knocker.

  There were two letters; one for his mother and –

  He recognized the headmaster’s writing on the envelope; big and bold and black, and a shiver sliced through him.

  ‘Was that the post?’ Polly called from the kitchen.

  ‘Yes.’ He stuffed the letter into his pocket. The apprentices were seated at the table; he couldn’t open it, read it out, whilst they were there. Just in case. ‘One for you, Mum, that’s all.’

  ‘And nothing from?’ She had no need to say more.

  ‘No. Maybe it’ll come by the second post. Or tomorrow.’

  ‘Aye. Well – no news is good news.’ She passed him a plate of porridge. ‘And don’t say you aren’t hungry,’ she warned.

  He picked up his spoon, even though he wasn’t hungry. He really wasn’t. Not now the letter had come. And he didn’t know why his hand was shaking.

  ‘Are you doing anything special this morning?’

  ‘Course not.’ Not now he was finished with school. ‘Anything you want doing?’

  ‘There is. Alice wrote out her shortbread recipe and I left it behind. Be a good lad, and pick it up for me.’

  He said he would, then asked who was writing to her, from Creesby. He didn’t really care who it was, but at least Mum’s letter was the safer bet. His own, now … He swallowed loudly, and it hurt his throat.

  ‘Only the butcher. I forgot to pick up the meat bills – got to give them to Miss Clitherow at the month end. One boiled egg or two, lads?’

  ‘No eggs for me; just bread and jam, thanks.’ He would open the letter on the way to Keeper’s Cottage. Daisy would be the first to know, which wasn’t fair, really, when it ought to be Mum.

  ‘No jam this morning. Only marmalade. And wipe that look of gloom off your face, son. The letter’ll be here by second post, I know it will!’

  ‘Any news, Keth?’ Daisy had seen him, through the kitchen window, and ran to meet him. He didn’t usually come this early, so there had to be a reason. ‘The letter …?’

  ‘It came.’

  ‘Oh, my Lor’! And?’

  ‘And I’m too scared to open it. Mum doesn’t know I’ve got it.’

  ‘Idiot! Give it to me – I’ll open it for you. Tell you what – let’s walk to the end of the wood, Keth? Let’s tell it to the rooks.’

  ‘If you like.’ He didn’t know why he should feel like this. Since ever he could remember it had been when he went to University, not if. He’d done his best, he really had, though it had all been a bit of a nightmare. Everybody in that room had said so, afterwards.

  ‘I hope you get Leeds.’ Daisy had set her heart on Leeds, which was only twenty-five miles away.

  ‘Sweetheart, I don’t care where it is. I just want to get there.’

  They leaned against the fence below the elm trees because the grass was still too wet to sit on and Daisy opened the envelope. Smiling, she drew out the folded sheet of paper and passed it to him.

  The paper crackled as he unfolded it, the black words seemed to squirm on the paper and were difficult to read. He had to blink them into focus.

  ‘Daisy!’

  He made himself read on; something about getting in touch with the school – with luck, another chance next year.

  ‘Let me see!’ She snatched the letter from his hand, reading it with ever widening eyes. ‘I don’t believe it. You’ve got someone else’s letter! No University places for Creesby this year? But they always get one; some years it’s two. Keth, you’ve got to get on to the school this minute. The Head is bound to be there, this morning. Let’s go and ring him up?’

  ‘No. I’ve failed.’ His stomach hurt as if someone had aimed a terrible blow at it. He wanted to be sick. He wanted to be dead. ‘Stay on at school another year and have Mum taking on more work because I’ve grown out of my shoes again? Oh, no! And I couldn’t do any better, even if they let me sit it again. I’m just not good enough!’

  ‘Keth – listen! You don’t have to sit it again. There’s my money. You can have that!’

  ‘The hell I can! Oh, I didn’t mean it like that, you know I didn’t. I’m sorry. But they wouldn’t let you have any of your money for me – even if I was willing to take it, and I’m not. I’ve lived off Mum for long enough – I’ll not sponge off you, as well!’

  ‘Then what are we to do? I just can’t take it in. We were so sure. What will you do, Keth?’

  ‘Try to get a job, I suppose. Line up at the Labour Exchange, cap in hand with the rest of them. And there won’t be any dole for me, you realize that, don’t you? Oh … God!’

  He began an anxious pacing, staring at the ground, kicking at the grass. Above them the rooks cawed and the sun rose higher in the sky, making dapples through the leaves. Across the cow pasture a dog barked.

  People were living their lives as if nothing had happened, he thought. The world hadn’t stopped spinning, just because Keth Purvis had made a mess of everything. And why should it? He wasn’t all that important; the son of a lame dog boy and a mother who had to work and take in washing, as well. People like him didn’t get favours from life. He should have known it.

  A bomber flew over them and the noise of it beat inside his head.

  ‘I suppose I could join the Air Force. Surely I’m not all that dim?’

  ‘No, Keth. No, no, no! You’re not joining anything. And will you stand still, and look at me! It’s a shock, I’ll grant you that, but we’ll get used to it. Something will turn up.’

  ‘It’s worse than a shock, Daisy.’ He was shaking
so much he had to force the words out because now the shock had turned to anger; anger against himself and his stupidity in thinking that he, Keth Purvis, could get a place at University. ‘It’s the end of everything, because nothing will turn up!’

  ‘Don’t say that?’ The tears she had been fighting ran unchecked, now, down her cheeks. ‘I’m still your girl, aren’t I?’

  ‘Are you? You’re sure you still want to be? Take a good look! A failure, that’s me! Don’t you see – it’s over, for us. I didn’t care about your money too much because I thought that one day I’d end up good.

  ‘But things have changed. Oh, it’s all right now, because people don’t know about that ten thousand pounds, but wait ’til they do! They’re going to think I married you for your money!’

  ‘I don’t care what they think! It’s none of their business!’ Angrily she dashed away her tears because all at once she was angry. Keth was acting like a fool, hurling her love in her face and all because of his stupid pride. ‘And if it hurts you so much, then I’ll give the money back to Windrush and the miners. I’ll give it to a dogs’ home if it’ll make you feel better about it!

  ‘But don’t say it’s over; don’t shut me out of your life? I couldn’t bear it. You and me have been together since I can remember – it just isn’t possible to send me away. And what’s more, I won’t let you!’ She stood there, eyes blazing blue, her fingers clenched into fists as if any moment she would pummel him with them. ‘Did you hear what I said, Keth Purvis! Did you?’

  ‘Oh, Daisy love.’ For the first time that morning he felt a relaxing of the tension inside him and his body went limp because he could no longer fight. ‘I’m sorry. Forgive me?’

  ‘What am I to forgive you for, will you tell me?’ Gently she took his hand, lingering her lips over it, leaving a kiss in the upturned palm.

  ‘For failing the exam. For letting you down and letting Mum down and being so big-headed as to think I was just that bit better than the others, that bit brainier.’

  ‘But you are better and brainier, and please, Keth don’t stop loving me? It’ll be all right, I promise you. And you are not a failure. You’ll get to University, I know it.’

  ‘I won’t, but what the heck?’ He pushed the letter into his pocket, then reached for her hand, tucking her arm in his, standing close because he needed the comfort of her nearness. ‘Come with me to tell Mum? Be with me when I thank her for all she’s done for me. I don’t know what I’ll do if she breaks down. Help me?’

  ‘I’ll come,’ she said softly. ‘And Keth – promise you’ll never ever again say it’s over between us, because I couldn’t bear to lose you.’

  ‘I won’t, because I couldn’t let you go. Just give me time, will you, to think things out – get used to it.’

  ‘All the time you want, Keth.’

  For the rest of her life, if that was how long it took.

  ‘Now tell me,’ Helen asked, ‘how was the flight over? That’s twice you’ve done it – weren’t you the least bit afraid, Amelia?’

  ‘A few butterflies, taking off and landing, but between you and me there is nothing to beat a sea voyage. We have passages home booked on the Queen Mary. I’m determined to be pampered all the way across. I’m told that the Queen is the absolute end in luxury. Oh, but this is so nice,’ she beamed, her smile taking in her mother-in-law and Julia. ‘I’m coming to think of the North Riding as my second home. Such peace, here …’

  ‘Peace?’ Clementina winced as a plane hurtled low over Pendenys. ‘One day, those irresponsible fools will take the tower with them!’

  ‘What on earth was it?’ Amelia gasped.

  ‘They do come in a bit low,’ Julia grinned, ‘the lads from the aerodrome, I mean. It’s got its bombers since last you were here, Amelia, and is officially known as RAF Holdenby Moor. Drew is fascinated by it all. That noisy monster, according to him, was a Hampden bomber, I believe that another RAF station is being built about ten miles away, quite near York.’

  ‘But why do they want all these aerodromes?’ Helen fretted. ‘And what do those bombers intend to drop their bombs on?’

  ‘I suppose that if Germany can build bombers,’ Amelia said, ‘then so can we – I mean you. Better safe, than sorry.’

  ‘Perhaps if we’d had a little more to throw at the Kaiser in 1914, he’d have thought twice about starting that war,’ Julia said soberly.

  ‘Oh, but I remember the old Flying Corps,’ Clemmy gushed. ‘Such glamorous young men, they were. So brave and dashing. And that Red Baron – did you ever see anyone so handsome?’

  ‘He, Aunt, was a German who shot down our planes!’ Julia glared. He could well have been responsible for the death of Ruth Love’s husband!

  ‘Really? I often wondered why Elliot didn’t go in for flying, in the war,’ Clemmy mused.

  ‘You can’t fly a desk, Aunt Clemmy!’

  ‘What was that? What did you say?’

  ‘I said that the Flying Corps lads got killed. A lot of them. I know!’

  ‘Clementina – is it possible for me to have another of these little biscuits?’ Helen hastily interrupted, flinging a warning glance in her daughter’s direction. ‘And Amelia – do tell us all the news from America? What have your newspapers been printing that we don’t know about?’

  ‘The Prince of Wales, you mean? Well, it seems your prince – sorry! I mean your king …’ How could she have forgotten the death of old King George? With his wife and children at his bedside, it had been, on the very day they left Southampton for New York, in January. So beautiful, so regal, the way Queen Mary had at once kissed the hand of her eldest son in a gesture of homage. It had brought quite a lump to her throat, just to hear of it. ‘… seems your king is all set to marry our Bessie Wallis – leastways, that’s what the New York Mirror thinks. King to marry Wally, the headlines said. And, would you believe –’ dramatically she lowered her voice ‘it said that Ernest Simpson – you know, her husband – has spent the night in a hotel at Bray with a Mrs Simpson who was not his wife. Must be true. They even got the room number. Four, it was. A put-up job that divorce is going to be! Simpson is giving her grounds, I believe, but why does she want free of him if it isn’t to marry your king? Our papers seem to think the wedding will be next June.’

  ‘Oh, dear.’ Helen had heard rumours of the so-called divorce, but had loyally ignored them. ‘So it’s true, then?’

  ‘Seems it is. That woman’s got her claws in. She wants to be queen!’

  ‘Marry the King in June?’ Julia frowned. ‘That’s a month after the Coronation.’ Their new king was being crowned in May.

  ‘I don’t believe a word of it.’ Clementina, though eager to hear the views of the American Press, resented her son’s wife telling her what clearly everyone in England ought to know – and didn’t. ‘Now, I think I shall ring for a fresh pot of tea, and then we will discuss the dinner party.

  ‘Amelia has kindly agreed to organize it for me, haven’t you dear, and I have come up with the idea that it should have a typically American flavour to it, in honour of my American daughter and her American children.’

  ‘Your grandchildren from America are half English, mother-in-law,’ Amelia corrected. ‘And where are they, by the way, and where on earth has Bertie got to? He promised faithfully to have tea with us!’

  ‘Your husband was last seen,’ Julia gleefully supplied, ‘heading in the direction of Rowangarth with Bas, Kitty and Tatiana. There’ll be a meeting of the Clan, I shouldn’t wonder. I saw Albert just as we arrived. He was dropping the children off then going to the village to see Nathan, he told me.’

  Solemnly she winked in the direction of her cousin’s wife, and Amelia, lips twitching, winked solemnly back.

  ‘The Clan?’ Clementina frowned. ‘Tell me, pray – have I met them …?’

  31

  He had hated telling Drew and Bas. For the first few days after the letter came, Keth lived through a nightmare, believing he would find it was all a t
errible mistake and he was waiting for the second letter that would put it right. But no letter came, so he told them, forcing the words out as if each one were stuck in his throat and hurt, just to say it.

  ‘So that’s it. I made a mess of things,’ he finished, tight-lipped. ‘My own fault. Can’t put the blame on anything but my own stupidity.’

  No use saying the exam was getting harder; no use pretending, now it was over, that the invigilator who sat unblinking behind pebble-thick spectacles had put the fear of the devil into him nor that the fly that buzzed incessantly nor the wall clock’s too-loud ticking had distracted him.

  The fault was his alone. He had given too much attention to the English paper. He should have left it until the end instead of attacking it head on. Precious time wasted on it and the other papers – the important ones – suffered.

  ‘It’s rotten luck,’ Drew sympathized. ‘I’m not going to University. My father wanted to, but didn’t; I can go if I want, grandmother says, but I’d rather look after Rowangarth. I don’t think a degree is all that important – well, not for me.’

  ‘Maybe not, but for Keth it is,’ Bas defended. ‘It’s all right for you and me, Drew. If we aren’t all that bright – and I guess neither of us is – we can be paid for through college. Keth can’t, which is pretty rotten, because he’s got more brains than you and me both!’

  ‘They talk about putting back the clock,’ Keth said bitterly. ‘I’d give a lot to be able to do differently. Getting a degree was all I ever wanted; now I’ll be lucky even to get a job. Everyone who sat it said it was harder than they thought, but I should still have passed. Mum did without a lot to keep me in school and look at the way I repaid her.’

  ‘Was your Mom mad at you?’ Bas shifted uneasily.

  ‘No. It was as if – well, if she’d been a candle it’d have been as if I’d blown her out. At first she didn’t say anything – stunned, sort of – then she smiled and said it wasn’t the end of the world.’