Daisychain Summer

  ‘But people don’t want facing with the truth.’

  ‘Then they are fools! Even Parliament is divided, now. A lot of MPs are beginning to think that Winston Churchill wasn’t scaremongering when he warned about Hitler – nor Mr Eden.’

  ‘I read, somewhere, that some members of Parliament are going to try and get it debated in the Commons.’

  ‘Debated? What that man wants is telling! No farther – or else!’ Julia gasped, red-cheeked.

  ‘And what if we did, and he called our bluff – because bluff it would be. We aren’t armed, like Germany is. But why did we get onto this subject, Julia, on a glorious night like this?’

  ‘Because everyone is worried, if they’ll admit it. I was at Denniston House yesterday, and Anna feels as I do. She was going to give Tatiana a year in Switzerland at a finishing school, but now she says she wouldn’t dream of letting her go to Europe. Poor little Tatty.’

  ‘Little Tatty, as you call her, is sixteen now, and quite the young lady. Soon she’ll be every bit as beautiful as Anna. Do you remember Elliot’s wedding, Julia? Anna was so in love.’

  ‘I remember it. I wanted to yell, “Run, Anna Petrovska! Don’t be such a fool. I know things about him that’d make your hair curl!” And Nathan – do you ever think about Tatty and Drew – getting fonder of each other, I mean.’

  ‘Often. But I think Tatiana will have half the young men in the Riding at her feet before so very much longer. I doubt she’ll fall in love on her own doorstep.’

  ‘What could we do to stop it, Nathan, if they did?’

  ‘I don’t know. It would hurt so many people if the truth had to come out. But this started out being such a promising evening and now we’ve had the lot – Hitler to Elliot. Anyway, the gnats will start biting, soon – I think we should go inside and have a drink.’

  Gnat bites. If that were all they need worry about, Julia fretted.

  ‘I’d like that,’ she sighed. ‘A large one!’

  ‘I see,’ said Tom, passing the evening paper to Alice, ‘that Mr Chamberlain’s been in touch with the French Prime Minister, trying to arrange talks with that Fascist lot. Appeasement, that’s what.’

  ‘And isn’t that better than war, or had you forgotten what it’s like – what it would be like for Daisy and Drew, for all the youngsters?’ Alice snapped. ‘Your memory is short, Tom, and it wouldn’t be just the young men they’d take, next time. It’d be the young women, an’ all.’

  ‘Conscript women? Oh, Alice! Who ever told you that? They couldn’t do such a thing! I’d be waiting with a shotgun if they came for our Daisy!’

  ‘No one told me. I read it, somewhere.’

  ‘Then forget it. They’ll print anything, these days. Frightening folk to death. The dratted newspapers have got everybody in a tizzy. And happen if France and us go and see Hitler – warn him he’s gone far enough – he’ll have another think about taking a piece of Czechoslovakia and turn his attention to Russia, like I’ve always thought. Those Bolshies’d give him what for! Soon put paid to his goose-stepping and sieg-heiling!’

  ‘So you don’t think, Tom, that –’

  ‘That he’d start a war in Europe? Not a chance, love.’

  ‘Honestly? I couldn’t bear it to happen again; not to see Daisy and Drew have to go. You’re not just saying it …?’

  ‘Listen to me, lass – there isn’t going to be a war! Adolf Hitler will get his bluff called afore so very much longer, and that’s my opinion for what it’s worth. Hitler doesn’t worry me!’

  And there were times, he thought, that if someone called him the best and biggest liar in the entire Riding, they wouldn’t be far wrong.

  ‘That’s it, then. No more school!’

  Examinations behind her, Daisy was restless for the results. Without a piece of paper to say you’d passed this or that, decent jobs were still not easy to find around Creesby.

  The trouble was, she frowned, that everybody was on edge and sick to death of war talk and reading about war talk. And there hadn’t been a letter from Keth for two weeks, now. Busy with his own exams, of course, but surely he could write two lines on the back of a postcard. I’m okay. I love you. It was all she needed to know.

  But he couldn’t, she supposed, write that he loved her on something as public as a postcard. Not around Holdenby.

  She missed Keth. It hurt inside her just to think that he had only been away ten months. Ten years. And it hurt to think that she was rich, really, yet Keeper’s didn’t have a telephone. Not that many people did, mind.

  But these days, you could ring up all the way to America, yet imagine what the men who looked after her trust fund would say if she asked them for money to have a phone put in so she could make expensive calls to America.

  ‘Mam – I do miss Keth. If I could see him for just a minute, talk to him …’

  ‘I know, lovey. Your Mam does know what it’s like. There were times I’d have given all I had, just to hold your Dada, touch him.’

  ‘I’d forgotten – sorry. Selfish of me when you didn’t even know if Dada was coming back.’

  ‘For a time I was sure he wasn’t, truth known. So cheer up, lass. It’ll soon be a year. One down – only two to go!’

  ‘But Mam – what if there’s a war? Not just two years to wait, then. Goodness only knows when he’d get back. You said that in your war, civilians weren’t allowed berths on ships.’

  ‘We-e-ll, don’t know how it would be for men, but Cecilia – she was Sir Robert’s young lady, back in Shillong – couldn’t get a sailing to England. Men were allowed a passage home from India if they intended to enlist, like Sir Robert did. But wives and children had to stay behind, sit out the war in India. Government said it was too risky for womenfolk on ships. Look what happened to the Lusitania.’

  ‘Mam?’ Daisy gazed at her with eyes so blue it made her marvel. Her child was so good to look at, Alice brooded, that sometimes her beauty made her wonder how folk as ordinary as she and Tom had done it!

  ‘Aye, lass?’

  ‘There won’t be a war, will there?’

  ‘No, please God.’

  ‘That’s good, then. But if there is, I shall go.’

  ‘Be a nurse? That you will not!’

  ‘But you did. And you did it sneaky, too. You told them you were a year older so you could go to France, so what’s so special about me that I can’t?’

  ‘I wanted to get nearer your Dada and your Aunt Julia was missing the doctor, too, so we went together. Life could be uncertain, when I was your age. We lived from day to day and letter to letter.’

  ‘And I would want to get to Keth.’

  ‘Now don’t talk such nonsense! Keth would be in America, wouldn’t he – safe out of it. And America wouldn’t come in on our side – not another time. There’s too many pacifists there, and I don’t blame them. If I had the Atlantic Ocean between me and Hitler, I’d thank the good Lord for it, I can tell you, and let Europe get on with it.

  ‘So let’s have no more war talk. We’ve got to keep hoping that it won’t happen. And Daisy love, I do understand about you and Keth.’

  Oh, drat that Hitler! Alice fumed. If he walked up Keeper’s path this very minute, she’d take down Tom’s shotgun and let him have both barrels, right in his backside!

  ‘Put the kettle on, lass?’ All at once she felt tired and drained and helpless. ‘Let’s have a sup of tea, shall us?’

  Had Daisy known something so wonderful, so completely unbelievable, so madly, marvelously magic would happen, she would have been very afraid because she would have been insane, loopy, daft as a brush. Or delirious with fever, perhaps, and a temperature of 104°.

  But what, with hindsight, she would remember about this day was that it had started out to be a very ordinary one; that she had nearly missed the eight o’clock bus from the lane end, that she had worn her blue dress with the white collar and cuffs and her black court shoes – very sensible and correct for the office, of course. And at half-pas
t five, just as she was putting the cover over her typewriter, the counting house manager had given her her first pay packet.

  Fifteen shillings a week, she earned now, less five pence deductions, and Mam said she might keep it all for herself – this week, at least. After that, though, so she might know that money didn’t grow on trees and to learn the value of it, she must contribute five shillings each week to the housekeeping, pay the Yorkshire Road Car Company another five for her weekly bus ticket, and have the remainder to fritter as she pleased.

  And on this madly marvellous day she had learned that four shillings and sevenpence would not take a lot of frittering because she laddered a silk stocking getting off the bus and there, at a ping, went one shilling and elevenpence!

  She was actually brooding about stockings when she heard the whistle that made her blood tingle cold. She stopped at the laneside, drawing in her breath because all at once her breathing was loud and harsh and there was a noise in her ears.

  Then she heard the whistle again and she shouted, ‘Keth!’ and began to run, even though she knew Keth was in America and she was probably sickening for that fever.

  He was standing where Rowangarth lane branched off into Brattocks Wood and the footpath that ran through the trees to Keeper’s Cottage; standing there in grey flannel trousers and a white shirt and looking exactly like Keth Purvis who was really in America and she knew that if she spoke the figure would vanish.

  So she said nothing. She just stood there, looking at him – at it – because this was an hallucination, a vision, the first symptom of fever even though he was so dearly, heartbreakingly like Keth that she wanted to weep. Then he moved, tossing something flimsy and white into the air, and ran laughing, arms wide, to where she stood.

  ‘Daisy! Darling! Where have you been? I’ve been waiting hours!’

  That was when she began to weep; great tearing sobs that started in the pit of her stomach and hurt, really hurt as they jerked from her throat.

  ‘Ssssh, it’s all right. It’s me – it is …’

  So she buried her face deeper into his chest, not caring about his clean shirt, and let her fingertips touch his arms, his neck, his mouth. And when they touched his lips he kissed them and whispered, ‘I love you, darling. Don’t cry? I can’t kiss you, if you’re crying …’

  She knew, then, that it really was him and she stepped back, blowing her nose loudly, inelegantly.

  ‘Keth – why …?’ she choked.

  He kissed her then, hard and long, and her head began to spin and the delicious tingles she always felt when they were close were back again. And she felt so dizzy and weak that she had to cling even more tightly to him so that for a little while it didn’t matter why he had come home.

  “Tell me?’ he whispered, urgently.

  ‘I love you, love you, love you.’

  ‘And I love you, my darling, and you’re even more beautiful than ever I remembered.’

  ‘I’m not! I’ve been crying. My eyes are red!’

  ‘They aren’t, and your eyelashes are all long and wet and spiky. Beautiful …’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d be home? It’s a wonder I didn’t faint!’

  ‘Not you,’ he laughed, entwining his fingers in hers.

  ‘Have you seen Mam?’

  ‘I have. She told me you were usually on the twenty-past six bus.’

  ‘I was, but I went to Reuben’s, first. I’m working now, at Morris and Page, and I bought him some tobacco out of my first pay packet. Mam says I can keep all my wages, this week. Nearly fifteen shillings! All mine!’

  ‘Oh, Daisy Dwerryhouse! You’re rich – rich beyond most men’s dreams, yet –’ He shook his head, smiling, looking at her with that special look. Loving her with his eyes she supposed it was. ‘Don’t ever change, darling girl.’

  ‘Have you had your supper?’ She didn’t want him to start talking about Mr Hillier’s money. Not tonight.

  ‘I have. At the bothy. And your Mam is keeping yours hot between two plates.’

  ‘I couldn’t eat it. I’d be sick. Are Kitty and Bas here – the family?’

  ‘Nope. Just me.’

  ‘Then why? Keth – you haven’t flopped your exams?’

  ‘No. Did rather well, as a matter of fact.’

  That was when she looked up and saw them, caught on a thorn of bramble; daisies, made into a chain, swinging there fragile and helpless.

  ‘Oh, Keth, you remembered. You made me a daisychain.’ The tears came again. ‘Why did you throw it away?’

  ‘Oh – suppose I was just standing there, getting bored – so I made it. I was going to hang it round your neck and smile and kiss you – romantic, sort of, like they do it in the movies, but then I saw you and –’

  ‘Then give them to me now?’ She picked them carefully from the thorn, handing them to him. ‘It isn’t broken. Hang it round my neck and kiss me – please?’

  So he did as she asked and they walked without speaking to Keeper’s Cottage because all at once it didn’t matter why he was home; only that he was there, beside her, walking close, thighs touching.

  She had never loved him or wanted him so much.

  It wasn’t until Daisy had eaten almost all the supper Alice had kept warm on the bottom shelf of the fire oven and they were half-way up Holdenby Pike that Daisy said, ‘When are you going to tell me, Keth, how you managed to get home? And why didn’t you tell me you were coming?’

  ‘Because I didn’t know, love, until a couple of weeks ago.’

  ‘So that’s why your letters stopped. Keth – who paid your passage over? Have you won a bursary?’

  ‘No such luck. Mrs Sutton wanted to buy me a sailing ticket, but I said no. I talked to her first, and to Mr Sutton, and they agreed with what I intended doing. And it’s all right. My place is there for me at college, if I go back. But I might not. It’s why, really, Bas and Kitty aren’t here, this year. I don’t think they’ll come over again until things settle down. Kitty wanted to come with me, but Mr Sutton wouldn’t hear of it.’

  ‘So why, Keth?’

  ‘I’ve come home to look after Mum. The way things are, it wouldn’t have been right, her being alone; not after what she’s been through, all her life. And I wanted to be with you, too.’

  ‘But I don’t understand, I really don’t.’ They had stopped walking now, and stood opposite, cheeks flushed, eyes not meeting.

  ‘I’m home, Daisy, because there’s going to be a war. I wanted to stay at college but there’s no one but me to look after Mum. I worked my passage over. It’s easy to pick up a ship. As long as you have a passport, there’s no bother.

  ‘I was lucky. Got a tanker sailing into the Mersey. I worked in the galley – peeled and scrubbed the whole way across. I never want to clean another pan or peel another carrot, ever.’

  ‘But why are you so sure, Keth? Who said there’d be a war? Oh, I know people here keep thinking there could be, but there’s going to be talks, we think. They’re trying to get a meeting with Hitler to talk sense into him. You didn’t have to do it, Keth. You went there to read physics and maths and all the time it seems you’ve been debating the political situation in Europe, is that it?’ Her eyes flashed anger; Tom’s temper surfaced in her, then burst out in a torrent of abuse. ‘You fool! You idiot! If there is going to be a war, then that’s where I want you – in America, well away from it all! If war comes, they’ll have you in the Army soon as look at you and it’ll be goodbye to all we’ve ever hoped for and dreamed about! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!’

  Her fists pummelled his chest. She closed her eyes, hitting out blindly, weeping in sharp, angry sobs.

  ‘Daisy! Stop it!’ He grasped her wrists, holding them tightly, and she struggled against his grip, even though he was hurting her.

  ‘Let me go, Keth Purvis. Don’t dare to – to assault me!’

  ‘I’ll slap you.’ His voice was low and slow as if he were fighting for control of his temper. ‘I will, Daisy. I mean it!’ />
  ‘Oh, Keth …’ She let go a shuddering sigh and he felt her body grow limp. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s all been such a shock. And I’m as afraid as you are that there’ll be a war and I know it was good of you to think about your Mum – but please go back to Kentucky? Don’t throw everything away – your life, even.’

  ‘I’ll go back when – if – they get things sorted out here. Everybody in America thinks it’ll come to war. Mr Sutton does, and so do I. But if a small miracle happens, then I’ll go back. I want to, Daisy. I want that degree more than anything.’

  ‘More than me?’

  ‘More than you, right now, because without it I can’t have you, don’t you see?’

  ‘Of course you can. I’d marry you tomorrow!’

  ‘Listen! When we get married, it’ll be me who provides for you. I mean it.’

  He loosened his grip on her wrists, then, and gathered her to him, kissing her, caressing her, holding her so close that she felt his need of her. And she pressed closer, glorying in her power over him and his over her.

  ‘My money. What are we to do with it, then,’ she murmured.

  ‘Oh, I reckon our kids should have it. They’ll want bikes and toys –’

  ‘And ponies, perhaps.’

  ‘And a fancy school, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  ‘How many shall we have, Keth?’

  ‘Lord knows. Dozens …’

  ‘We’ll need a big house.’

  ‘I’ll give you a big house. Daisy Dwerryhouse.’

  ‘When you get your degree, uh?’

  ‘If I get my degree. Or maybe I’ll have to do it the hard way. Mr Hillier started with a market stall and a coal round, don’t forget.’

  ‘So he did!’

  They began to laugh, and all the tension left them and the accusations. They even forgot, for a little while, about Austria and Czechoslovakia and Germany.

  ‘Keth?’ She stirred in his arms. ‘When you go back, how are you to get there?’

  ‘I’ll manage. I can work my passage again.’

  ‘Peel your way back?’

  ‘There are worse ways, but not many. I might get taken on as a stoker on a coal-burning ship. Lord! Imagine shovelling my way across!’