Daisychain Summer

  ‘Too late, I’m afraid.’ He nodded in the direction of the desk and the No Vacancies notice newly placed there.

  ‘I’ll get that number now, Mrs Townsend,’ the girl called. ‘Won’t be a tick.’

  ‘Now!’ Julia flung when at last she could shut the bedroom door behind them. ‘I want to know why you have done this! Did you really think you could get away with it? Mrs Townsend, indeed! What do you think I am, then – a tart?’

  ‘Julia love, I’m sorry. If you only knew how much –’

  ‘Don’t love me! You surprise me, Mark. If it’s a woman you want there are plenty available and better at it than I am, I shouldn’t wonder! And I’m not in the habit of having cheap little affairs in back street hotels, though full marks for trying! A widow, desperate for a man – is that how you see me?’

  ‘Julia! I’ve said I’m sorry! But I’ve loved you for a long time, you see. Tonight seemed the opportunity I’ve been hoping for. I thought you cared for me, too.’

  ‘I do care for you, Mark, but caring is as far as it goes. I do not love you. I haven’t even wondered what it would be like to share a bed with you, and if you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick, then I’m sorry. I’ve never encouraged you – now have I?’

  ‘You’ve been happy enough in my company. We’ve had good times together. Am I so repulsive, Julia?’

  ‘No. You are not repulsive and I have enjoyed your company. But I – I – well, to put it simply you are not Andrew, so now I suggest you find yourself somewhere else to sleep.’

  ‘But where? Everywhere will be full.’ Her anger had shaken him. He had not thought it could be so cuttingly fierce. And he had not realized, he thought sadly and too late, that she loved Andrew MacMalcolm so; that any woman was capable of loving so deeply, so enduringly.

  ‘I don’t care. Just go!’

  ‘Very well.’ He picked up his coat. It was wet, she noticed, as were his shoes and the bottoms of his trousers. ‘But please believe me, Julia, I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?’ She was wavering, she knew it. Not about letting him share the bed, but about flinging him out into the night. She felt sorry for him, even, for all her seething anger. And perhaps she was half to blame for not making it plain enough there was no chance of anything other than friendship between them.

  ‘Mark!’ Sighing deeply, she pulled back the bedcover, giving him a pillow and the eiderdown. ‘You can stay. Over there!’ She pointed to the farthest corner of the room. ‘But first I’d like you to give me time to get undressed and into bed. Wait outside, please. I’d like ten minutes, if you don’t mind!’

  ‘Thank you, Julia. I should have known better than –’

  ‘Oh, do shut up!’ She walked to the door, holding it open. ‘Ten minutes!’

  Then she closed the door, covering her face with her hands, wanting to weep until there were no more tears in her. But instead she whispered, ‘Andrew, I’m sorry. So very sorry …’

  35

  Cook had no stomach for Christmas. True, mincemeat and puddings and peaches in brandy had long since been made and labelled and stored in the keeping pantry and the Christmas cake, baked five months ago, sealed in a tin with Bramley apples to keep it moist. Soon, she supposed, she would have to take it out and cover it with almond paste, but not yet. Tomorrow, maybe. Or the next day …

  But the Christmas of 1936 would not be a good one, Cook felt it in her ageing bones. She had said as much to Miss Clitherow only that afternoon in the housekeeper’s sitting room when invited to take tea there.

  The importance of the occasion, and the seriousness, had been marked by the use of Miss Clitherow’s best rosebud china and silver teapot, for important and serious it was when any day now Britain, the Empire and the Common-wealth, could be called upon to face the most shaming scandal ever.

  And scandal it was, Miss Clitherow agreed and shaming without doubt when a man born to be king, a man who’d had years enough to get used to the idea that duty came before all else, was prevaricating with all and sundry and trying his level best to make That Woman queen whilst keeping the crown and all the trappings that went with it. Having his cake and eating it, except that the cake wasn’t to everybody’s liking. Stale, secondhand cake never was.

  ‘You’ll take a little brandy in your tea?’ Miss Clitherow reached for a bottle marked Linctus. Adult use only, and trickled a capful into each dainty cup. ‘I fear we may need fortifying, before this matter comes to a head. I cannot for the life of me see why the King should act so strangely. Why doesn’t he get the crown safely on his head, first?’ He’d have been in a far better bargaining position if only he’d thought on and played it careful-like, instead of rushing in, chancing all for love. ‘Kings right through history have always had their – their lady friends.’ The housekeeper baulked at ‘mistresses’. ‘Why couldn’t the King keep her as his friend? You’d think she’d be content with that.’

  ‘Nay, not her! It’s queen or nothing for That One. She’s got delusions of grandeur and she isn’t acceptable, Miss Clitherow, oh, dearie me, no! For one thing, her’s not Church of England, for another her’s far too old to give the King a son – and sons are what it’s all about, let’s face it – and for another, her’s …’ She left the word hanging on the air, her lips forming it silently.

  ‘Divorced.’ Emboldened by the brandy, the housekeeper forced the word from her button-round mouth, though she, too, disliked it every bit as much as Cook did. Divorce was for actresses and film stars and chorus girls and not for decent, law-abiding, God-fearing folk and certainly not for the King of England! ‘And you know and I know, Cook, that such persons are not acceptable in society. Lady Helen – and I can say this without fear of contradiction – has never received a divorced person, nor called upon one, nor sat one at her table. Not even an innocent party, and That One is not innocent!’

  ‘It’s so degrading.’ Cook shook her head, closing her eyes, because for two pins she’d have burst into tears, so mortifying was it.

  ‘Degrading.’ Agnes Clitherow took another almond biscuit from the Silver Jubilee tin. ‘And supposing he gives up duty for desire? What then? Abdication, that’s all that’s left to him!’ As though he were some Eastern-European head of state few of whom, in the housekeeper’s opinion, could be commended for their stability. ‘To see our king slinking out of the country, for he couldn’t for shame stay, Cook, would be the worst thing that has happened to this country since – since …’

  ‘Oliver Cromwell?’ Mrs Shaw sighed. ‘Mind, there’s no shortage of younger brothers.’

  ‘To take the throne, you mean? True, there’s the Duke of Kent and Princess Marina – such a beautiful queen she would make, and there’s the Duke of Gloucester and that bonny wife of his, I suppose, but when all is said and done, I think that the sooner we get Prince Albert onto the throne, the better!’

  ‘But he’s a happily married man, a family man. Wouldn’t be fair to wish the crown on the Duke of York. Folks say he don’t want it, you know.’

  ‘It isn’t always what a man wants, especially when he’s born royal. And he’s got two pretty princesses and the little duchess. The little duchess, now, would make a lovely queen. Always smiling …’

  ‘Ah, yes – our own little duchess. Do you know, the more I think about it, the more I’m sure the little duchess would suit us very nicely.’

  ‘Very nicely indeed.’ Miss Clitherow reached for the linctus bottle, dividing the contents equally between the two empty cups. Then, little finger extended genteelly, she murmured, To the Duke of York and his lovely Elizabeth, God bless them.’

  ‘Amen to that,’ Cook had murmured, cup held high in salute. She had, she supposed, felt somewhat comforted having discussed the King’s great problem in the privacy of the housekeeper’s sitting room, but now, the effects of the fortifying brandy fast wearing off and her head thumping most uncomfortably, Cook thought about Christmas, which was almost upon them and very little done
, and felt that this year she had no stomach for festivities. None at all …

  Events, now that the King’s private business was private no longer, came to a head with alarming speed. No more was it will he, won’t he? but when?

  Already, the newly-divorced Mrs Simpson had fled England for the greater safety of France and now a lonely, careworn king had received the Prime Minister and informed him of his intention to relinquish the throne, yet all the while refusing to see the bewildered brother on whom the throne would be thrust.

  On the afternoon of the next day, King Edward’s act of abdication was accepted by Parliament and George VI was, within a minute, the new King of England. Prince Albert had assumed his father’s name and his smiling little duchess was now Queen Elizabeth.

  His Royal Highness the Duke of Windsor, said the announcer, who had interrupted a programme to break the momentous news in a measured, funereal voice, would broadcast to the nation this evening.

  It would be listened to with sadness by many; with disbelief and shame by others and by a militant minority with delight that the selfish man was getting his come-uppance and his foolish, jewel-grabbing woman with him. Only publicans who had had the foresight to place a wireless set in their bar parlours would sell any ale tonight. Most people would hug their firesides this bleak December night and listen, unspeaking, to the making of history.

  That evening, Julia and Drew went down to the kitchen, pulling up chairs to the table around which Miss Clitherow, Cook, Tilda and Mary already sat.

  Tilda wept silently for her long-ago love, remembering him as he had been in the war years, so young, so handsome in his soldier’s uniform, his smile so boyish and beguiling.

  She had loved him devotedly and given him up without thought of self. His framed photograph lay now in the top, left-hand drawer in which she kept her bloomers and woolly vests. Something more intimate than that, Tilda could not imagine.

  Miss Clitherow sat straight-backed and black-clad; Cook, apron at the ready in case it all got too much for her, fidgeted with the plum-coloured chenille table cover.

  Mary’s needle stabbed into a tray cloth she was embroidering to match the tablecloth newly folded into her bottom drawer. Mary Strong had no sympathy for a king who couldn’t find himself a decent, unwed woman when the country was full of decent, unwed women like herself.

  And when the sad, selfish broadcast was over, Cook sighed deeply, switched on the new-fangled electric kettle and enquired of Julia and Drew if they would care to stay for a sup of tea.

  ‘Thanks, Cook, but no. I’ve a call booked to America to mother. She’ll want to know all about it, I shouldn’t wonder. About ten o’clock, they said. Better be within earshot …’

  ‘A call to America,’ Cook breathed when they had left. ‘Whatever next?’

  ‘It runs under the Atlantic, I believe, along a cable – a submarine cable I think they call it,’ Mary supplied.

  ‘Wonders will never cease.’ Cook opened the cupboard door, reaching up for the bottle of brandy with a hand that still shook from the effort of holding back her tears.

  ‘A little drop in our tea to steady our nerves, wouldn’t you say, Miss Clitherow?’ Cook sought the housekeeper’s approval for the misappropriation of the cooking brandy and received a sanctioning nod of approval.

  Julia propped open the door of the little winter parlour the better to hear the telephone in the hall.

  ‘Can I speak to grandmother, too?’

  ‘All right – but just a quick hullo. Calls to America cost a lot of money, don’t forget.’ It was the first one she had ever made, truth known.

  ‘Will we be able to hear her properly?’

  ‘I should hope so!’ She had discussed the call with the operator at the tiny telephone exchange in Holdenby.

  ‘You’ll want to wait until after the broadcast, Mrs MacMalcolm?’ The operator hoped that not one of the subscribers connected to her switchboard would want to make a call when the King was speaking on the wireless.

  Afterwards, of course, there would be a rash of little lights flashing and dials dropping with a click and everyone ringing everyone else with a ‘Well, and what do you think to that, then!’ when all the time they’d known the King – the Duke of Windsor, beg pardon – would take the easy way out because people had known all along he’d never really wanted to be king.

  Julia’s call to Kentucky came through at ten minutes past ten which, Julia had been assured, would be late afternoon over there.

  ‘Your call to Kentucky is on the line, Mrs MacMalcolm. Go ahead, caller,’ the operator said in her best GPO voice. ‘You’re thrrrrrrrough, now.’

  ‘Amelia?’ Julia didn’t know why she was shouting and dropped her voice to a more normal tone. ‘Can you hear me?’

  ‘Clear as a bell, honey. Everything okay? What goes on, in England? Oh, and your mother’s in the bath, by the way. Will I send for her?’

  ‘No! Best you shouldn’t!’ Julia had a fearful mental vision of a clock ticking away the seconds – and the pounds.

  ‘Okay. I’ll get her to call you from here tomorrow night, then? How’s your king?’ It could be the only reason for the call, Amelia reasoned.

  ‘Which one are you talking about? We’ve got a new one, now!’

  ‘So he did it! She finally got him! When was it?’

  ‘He was on the wireless, not so long ago. Said he was giving up the throne for the woman he loved. Said his brother – the new king, you know – had a blessing denied to him – a happy home life with a wife and children …’

  ‘Ha! Whingeing right till the end! My heart bleeds for him.’ Amelia’s sarcasm came over clearly. ‘So now what? A new start with a new king?’

  ‘Looks like it …’

  ‘And everywhere is calm? There’s been no trouble?’

  ‘There’s no fighting in the streets, if that’s what you mean. I think everybody’s glad it’s over and done with.’

  ‘Sure. They would be. Thanks for calling, Julia. I’ll tell your Mom everything is fine at Rowangarth and I’ll get her to call you tomorrow night – okay?

  ‘She’s fine, by the way. Having a great time. ’Bye, honey. See you in ten days, God willing …’

  ‘You heard?’ said Julia, laying down the phone. ‘That was Aunt Amelia. Grandmother was in the bath – it would’ve cost the earth to have got her out of it. Sorry, Drew, but she’s ringing tomorrow night – Amelia said she would – and you can take the call – all right?’

  ‘Fine. So what do we do now, mother? Bit of an anticlimax, isn’t it?’

  ‘Do? We get on with our lives, I suppose.’

  ‘We could drink the new king’s health. Grandmother would want to, if she were here.’

  ‘But of course! Be a dear, and ask Miss Clitherow to bring up a bottle – champagne, of course. She’s got the wine cellar key. Tell her we’ll be down to the kitchen for a toast.’

  ‘Me, too?’

  ‘We-e-ll, maybe just half a glass …’

  ‘Mother! In two weeks and two days I shall be eighteen – remember? And next week, I’m leaving school – for good! And I think that tonight I shall pull rank and be Sir Andrew. I shall not only propose the loyal toast – I shall pop the cork, too! So what have you to say to that,’ he grinned.

  ‘I’d say,’ she said with mock severity, ‘that you’ll be getting sent to bed without supper for your cheek – big as you are! Now off you go and see to that champagne. And tell Mary the best glasses,’ she called after him.

  Then a sudden trembling took her and tears filled her eyes and ran down her cheeks. Her son – Giles’s and Alice’s son – was almost a man. Eighteen at Christmas and Andrew killed just eighteen years ago; all the years slipping past like eighteen minutes.

  So what did they do now, Drew had asked.

  ‘Do?’ she whispered to the empty room. ‘Like I just said, I get on with my life, I suppose.’

  More lonely, bleak, unloved and unloving years; more years of trying to bring back
the sound of Andrew’s voice and the love in it. And lying wide-eyed in the darkness, wanting him until her body ached from it.

  Dear, sweet Jesus in heaven – how was she to live through the emptiness ahead?

  The next day – and the date would always stay in Julia’s memory, had she but known it – HRH the Duke of Windsor was driven to Portsmouth huddled in the back of a limousine, trilby hat pulled low over his eyes. There, he was to board HMS Fury and be borne away to France. Not to his love, because the laws of divorce insisted they must not meet for six months, until a divorce absolute was granted to Mrs Bessie Wallis Simpson.

  Six months apart, with only letters and phone calls to hold them together. Julia glared at the telephone on the oak table in the hall, willing it to ring and for Andrew to be there, on the other end of it.

  So a king had given up his throne for love? She, Julia, would give up life itself to be with Andrew, but she could not because there were times when she did not believe in heaven nor in God, either.

  Saturday, the twelfth day of December. Tomorrow, on the thirteenth, Nathan and the congregation of All Souls would offer prayers for King George and his smiling queen.

  Those dates she would always remember, because on the fourteenth, the letter had come. In an expensively thick envelope it had been and the postmark a London one.

  Dear Madam, it began, and when she had read it, then read it through again, the breath left her body in a gasp.

  ‘God, no!’ she choked. ‘Alice!’ She must tell Alice! Now! Alice would know what to do – oh, please she would know what to do?

  Blindly, panic-stricken, choking on her sobs, she made for the door.

  36

  ‘Thank God you’re in!’ Julia thrust the envelope into Alice’s hand. ‘Look at that! Go on – read it!’

  ‘For goodness sake …’

  ‘Read it! You’ll never believe it! I can’t!’ Hugging herself tightly, Julia paced the floor. ‘Where is Daisy – Tom?’

  ‘Daisy’s at school – you know she is – and Tom’s out all day. Tomorrow is the first shoot of the season …’