by Nancy Carson
She had to see if Sarah was all right. She opened the stairs door and screamed. A pale, thin body, naked from the waist down, slid down the bottom stairs, and slumped onto the cold quarries with a dull thud.
‘Oh, Sarah, Sarah! I knew I shouldn’t have left you.’
Sarah half opened her eyes and a brief, dreamy smile told of the peace she had found in some other paradise.
Chapter 28
Sarah was feeding her child as she sat propped up in bed one morning in early March. The incident with the laudanum was past though not forgotten. In some ways it had been a blessing, bringing Sarah’s dependency into the open. Daisy had had a long talk with her, explained what the opium had done to her and to Harry, and how she must avoid it at all costs in future, irrespective of how she felt without it meanwhile.
‘I love you dearly, Sarah,’ Daisy said, ‘and I’ll help you get over it. But you must promise me you’ll put all your willpower into avoiding it in the future.’
Sarah nodded earnestly, but was unconvinced of her own conviction.
‘Dr McCaskie says the craving will disappear in time—’
‘How much time, Daisy?’
‘He didn’t say – but eventually your body won’t require the stuff. For a time though, he says, you’ll feel ill for want of it, but you mustn’t give in.’
‘I do feel ill. My stomach feels all knotted, I get cramp in my legs, I’m having to do number twos all the time. I’ve got no strength, Daisy.’
‘You must never give in to it, our Sarah. If you do, when I’ve gone back to Italy, you’ll end up in the workhouse and that would break my heart. So I’ll help you all I can.’
‘But poor Harry seems to get no better,’ Sarah said, gently squeezing the fragile bundle to her breast.
‘Look after him, nurture him, let him feel your love and I’m sure he’ll pull through.’
‘If he feels as bad as I do, then God help him.’
It had been a month since Daisy left Italy and still she had not received a letter from John. If he had written, and she was certain that he would have done, he in turn would be concerned that she had not replied. That would set him fretting, wondering. It would almost certainly affect his work, for she was well aware of how sensitive he was. He would become preoccupied, depressed. He would be in no position to know what had really happened, unaware that she was in England and still yearning for his love and his first letter. Maybe she should write to Concetta asking why she had not forwarded his letters. As each day passed she became ever more concerned, ever more convinced that something was amiss. What if he was dead? No … Don’t even think about that … But what if he was ill? What if an accident had befallen him? What if he was lying in some strange bed injured, unable to move? How would this lack of correspondence from the woman he loved be affecting him? She should be with him. But how could she leave her father grieving so morbidly? How could she abandon Sarah and her baby?
‘So when are you going back to Italy, Daisy?’
‘When I can see that you’re better. When Harry shows some signs of getting stronger. When I’m sure that you can look after him … and Father as well.’
‘Couldn’t you take me to Italy with you?’
The baby finished sucking and Sarah wiped her nipple. She lifted the child to encourage him to bring up any wind.
‘But what about Father?’ Daisy said. ‘He couldn’t make the journey to Italy. And would you like to see him in the workhouse for want of care?’
Sarah shook her head.
‘It’s one of the reasons it’s so important you keep off that stuff and get better.’
‘I will get better, Daisy. I promise. But when I am, what will happen about money if you’re not around? How shall I be able to work with a baby to look after?’
‘Yes, I know,’ Daisy said quietly, sadly, for it looked as though she would be trapped in England for many months yet. Maybe for ever. Maybe they would have to give up their Paradiso and live permanently in England. John would have to return to live and work in Dudley. They would have to find a suitable house here and that would be that. The sad end of a most wonderful dream. How they would miss Italy. How they would miss Concetta and Pasquale, Pietro and Francesca. How they would miss the warm, sunny days, the balmy nights, the spectacular vista from their bedroom window, the suppers under the pergola on the patio …
‘Would you like me to put Harry back in his new crib?’
Sarah nodded. ‘He needs changing. He’s messed himself again.’ She offered Daisy the child. Daisy wiped his mouth and laid him on the bed. She unfastened the soiled napkin, peeled it from him and put it aside ready to be boiled.
‘Tell me about John,’ Sarah said.
‘John?… Oh, he’s the most down-to-earth person imaginable. He’s the sort of man you would pass by in the street and never bother to give a second glance to. He worries a lot. He imagines he’s going to lose me all the time, he’s so unsure of himself, so lacking in confidence.’ She gave a little chuckle. ‘And yet he’s the kindest, gentlest, most considerate person I’ve ever met in my whole life.’
‘He’s an artist, isn’t he?’
‘The best.’ Daisy smiled, delighted that Sarah was at last taking an interest. ‘His paintings are a sort of reflection of him. Precise, soothing, inoffensive. Just beautiful.’
‘Is he handsome?’
‘He’s certainly not ugly, but I wouldn’t call him handsome particularly.’
‘Not like Lawson?’
Daisy reached over for a clean napkin that was lying on top of the tallboy. ‘He’s as far removed from Lawson as it’s possible to be. Which suits me fine.’
‘You love him dearly, don’t you, our Daisy?’
‘With all my heart and soul. I’d die for him.’
‘Tell me about Italy. Would I like it?’
‘I imagine you’d love it. It’s different to England. The weather, for a start. The summer is months and months of warm sunshine and soft breezes. The evenings are warm and everybody eats their meals outside. We grow our own grapes, olives, lemons, tomatoes – everything. We make our own wine …’ For a second, Daisy sidetracked herself, recalling the night she and John trod grapes after their vendemmia, and how their playful washing had led to a particularly passionate lovemaking afterwards. She halted her reverie and fastened the clean napkin on Harry, pulled down his nightgown and laid him back in his crib. ‘There aren’t the factories in Italy, either. Not like here. People work on the land. Most of them are very poor. And yet they’re all so kind and hospitable.’
‘I think I would like it, Daisy. Are there some nice young chaps there?’
‘Not too many, as it happens. A lot of the young men left to make their fortunes in America and Argentina. The girls are always going on about the lack of men … But there’s Serafino …’
‘Serafino? That’s a funny name. So who’s Serafino?’
‘He’s the brother of my friend Concetta. A handsome lad – about nineteen, maybe twenty by now.’ There was a flicker of interest in Sarah’s eyes that died when she realised she had nothing to offer any young man. ‘Concetta reckons he’s carrying a torch for me.’ Daisy laughed as though the idea were preposterous.
‘For you? I think you have all the luck, Daisy … Tell me, what sort of clothes do they wear in Italy? Are they like ours?’
‘The styles are a bit different. Skirts are a bit shorter, showing your ankles. Nobody wears stockings, especially in the summer – it’s just too warm. The girls sometimes wear light linen blouses with a separate lace-up bodice … I’m sure I told you.’
‘Can’t you show me something?’
‘Yes … I have a dress I can show you. I wore it when I left Italy.’
‘Oh, put it on, Daisy. Let me see what it’s like.’
Daisy smiled. It was so encouraging to see Sarah take an interest, instead of the moping, sleepless suffering, the miserable cold sweats and the shivering. Perhaps she was making some progress, though doubtless,
there would be relapses.
The metallic clunk of the letterbox downstairs distracted her. Maybe it was a letter from John at last. She ran downstairs, almost knocking the washing basket that protected Titus’s accursed foot, and through to the front room. A letter was lying on the linoleum by the front door. She picked it up, but saw that the stamp bore a profile of Queen Victoria. Her heart sank. It was not from Italy. Disappointed, she ran her thumb under the flap and opened it.
What she read took her breath away. She had seen a letter like this before, almost identical. It was from Bowdler, Dickens & Moy, Solicitors and Commissioners for Oaths. Lawson’s solicitor. By noon on Friday 13th March 1891 they must be out of the house in Paradise.
Seven days’ notice to quit.
How could he be so callous?
Of course, he didn’t mean it. How could he? How could anybody be so cruel to their fellow beings, especially ailing ones? He knew how ill they were. It was just a ploy, a threat, merely a device by which he could get her to return to him. Well, she would give it the treatment it deserved and ignore it.
She went back upstairs.
‘We’ve just had notice to quit this house,’ she told Sarah. ‘By a week on Friday.’
‘From Lawson?’
‘From Lawson’s solicitor. Lawson obviously told him to send the letter.’
‘He said he’d never do that. He promised me.’
‘Oh? He promised you? When?’
‘Oh … I don’t know.’ Sarah lowered her eyes guiltily. ‘Ages ago.’
Daisy looked at her sister suspiciously. ‘You know, Sarah, you’ve never been able to lie or hide your guilt. You’re hiding something from me. What is it?’
‘Nothing,’ she protested. ‘Why should I be hiding anything?’
‘Because I can tell.’
‘I’m not hiding anything, Daisy. I’ve got nothing to hide any more. Look at me, my life is an open book now.’
‘Yes, except that you won’t admit who Harry’s father is …’ At once Daisy connected the two issues and the awful possibility struck her. ‘It’s not him, is it? Oh, tell me it’s not Lawson. Tell me you haven’t been so stupid …’ She looked at Sarah aghast while she awaited her answer.
‘I told you … I’ll never tell you who it was.’
For more than a week Daisy harboured her doubts. She knew Lawson well enough to realise that he considered no woman out of bounds. His vindictive streak would hardly inhibit him from seducing his errant wife’s younger sister. Lawson and Sarah … It had an irresponsibly vengeful twist to it that was typical of him. But it was too puerile to even contemplate, even for Lawson. What grown man could ever stoop to such perverted immaturity? No, this was more in Lawson’s line; this letter giving notice to quit that she could see standing on the mantelpiece where she had mockingly given it pride of place. This was how he punished people who didn’t fulfil his wishes. Notice to quit indeed. Well, she could hardly wait to see what he was going to do about it. For her part, she was defiantly doing nothing.
‘Tell me, Father?’ she said on the Thursday afternoon as she sat with Titus in front of the fire. ‘Do you have any idea who the father of Sarah’s baby might be?’
Titus shook his head. ‘I wished I knowed, my wench,’ he croaked weakly. ‘I’d go and beat seven bells of shit out of the bleeder.’
‘But she must have gone out regularly. Didn’t anybody call for her?’
He shook his head ruefully. ‘I never sid nobody. ’Er was off out all the while. Every night ’er’d be out till pig squayling. Then it started as ’er never come ’um. Up to no good I always reckoned, but ’er never took no notice o’ me, nor your mother. ’Er was beyond reach after a bit.’
‘When she got addicted to opium, you mean?’
He nodded almost imperceptibly and looked around him. ‘To think as her’s come to that. To think as a daughter o’ mine has come to that … I would never have believed it possible.’
Daisy put her hand over his. ‘But we had some good times, Father. Think about those and thank God for them.’
‘If on’y your mother was still here …’ Titus’s thin face screwed up, his chin trembled and tears began to fall from his rheumy eyes. ‘Oh, I do miss your mother, our Daisy …’
‘I know you do,’ she breathed. ‘We all do … We all do …’
She let go of his hand. She could not grieve for him and it was futile to try. Her own grief, her own heightened, tortured emotions were enough to contend with. So she left him to grieve alone as she went upstairs to tend to the baby.
‘Has he taken any feed?’ she asked Sarah. ‘He doesn’t seem as well today.’
‘You’ve seen him at the nipple, Daisy, but he ain’t had hardly anythink. I’m just as full. They’m startin’ to hurt a bit.’
‘Look at the poor little devil’s face. He wants to cry but he hasn’t got the strength. God alone knows what he’s feeling …’
‘Pain, I suppose. Oh, I do wish he’d perk up a bit. It’s as if we’m fighting a losing battle with him.’
‘How do you feel, Sarah? Tell me what you feel?’
‘You know how I feel. Weak as a kitten. I only have to get up to sit on the jerry an’ I feel as if I’m gunna faint. I’m no good for nothin’, our Daisy, and I’m fed up with it.’
‘You’re better than you were. I can see an improvement. That diet sheet Dr McCaskie gave us has helped. You’re not as thin as you were.’
‘I don’t know what I’d have done without you, Daisy,’ Sarah said tearfully. ‘I’m so glad you came home. I missed you so much while you was away. I had nobody to turn to.’
‘I missed you as well.’
‘Did you? Honest?’
Daisy nodded. It was obvious to her now that the letter Sarah sent asking her to come home was a desperate plea for herself, just as much as it was a plea to visit her dying mother.
Every morning Daisy slipped into the same routine. Her first job was to rake out the ashes in the grate and make a fire. When that was roaring, she would hang a kettle over it and brew a pot of tea then take a cup each to Sarah and her father. Back downstairs, she would cook bacon and eggs and make a fresh pot of tea then serve the invalids breakfast in bed. While Sarah fed Harry, Daisy would then get her father out of bed, help him to the jerry and dress him. She would struggle to get him downstairs and settle him in his chair, then pass him his razor, his soap, his shaving brush, his tot of hot water and a towel so that he could shave. Back upstairs, she would gather the foul slops from three jerries, empty them then wash them out. There was crockery and cutlery to wash up, laundry, cleaning, preparing food, cooking, coal to fetch from the cellar, fires to make up again, rugs had to be beaten, floors swept, condensation cleaned from windows. A bowl of warm water to take upstairs so that Sarah and the baby could be cleaned.
Thus it promised to be that Friday morning. Daisy got up at seven and peered out of the window at the dismal world outside. It had been officially announced that the land abutting the south of Paradise, which had been acquired by the council, was going to be turned into a park next year. At last. Well, that would certainly be an improvement on the pit spoil that looked greyer than ever in the insistent rain that was lashing it. She washed, dressed and went downstairs. She lit her fire and brewed her tea as usual and returned upstairs with two mugs. He father rustled in his bed and snorted as she placed a mug on his bedside table.
‘What’s the weather up to?’ he muttered.
‘Raining. Just for a change.’
She opened the door to Sarah’s room and went in. As she peeped into the crib she could see that the baby was peacefully sleeping. Sarah stirred, her colour white and sickly. She levered herself to a sitting position and Daisy puffed up her pillow and placed it at her back.
‘Drink this while it’s hot.’
‘Ta, our Daisy. Is Harry awake?’
‘Not yet.’
Daisy went downstairs. The fire was burning bright. She hooked the dutch oven over the
cast iron bars of the fire basket and hung some strips of bacon on the hooks to cook and drip their fat into the collection tray at the bottom. The bacon started to spit but the smell was wonderful. It was one of the smells of home that she truly missed when she was in Italy – until she managed to get some unsmoked bacon in Sorrento once and Nunzio the postino, who was delivering mail at the time, alerted the neighbourhood to the wonderful aromas of her English cooking. She broke three eggs into the fat that was bubbling in the base of the dutch oven. When all was ready she kept it warm while she dipped slices of bread in the liquor from the bacon and toasted it. Plated, it was ready to serve.
She helped her father sit up in bed to eat his, then delivered Sarah’s, handing her a knife and fork. While Sarah ate, Daisy sat on the bed and peered into Harry’s crib. The child had still not stirred. She put the backs of her fingers to his little face and felt it with the intention of gently waking him. His face felt cold and rubbery. She pulled back the wraps and felt his body … Stone cold … Oh, dear God … Yet another crisis. The icy chill of even more anguish ran up and down her spine.
‘Sarah …’ she whispered, dreading telling her what she must tell her.
Sarah looked up.
‘The baby’s dead.’
Dr McCaskie came at once. Apart from issuing a death certificate there was nothing else he could do. He offered his condolences to Sarah, but in private to Daisy afterwards he declared he was surprised the child had lived this long.
‘I can see how you are situated,’ he said kindly. ‘Would you like me to arrange for the body to be collected? I know an undertaker who will do it providing you use him for the funeral. I assume there will be a formal funeral?’
‘Oh yes, of course. Thank you, Doctor. That will be a big help.’
While she awaited the undertaker she consoled Sarah before getting on with her household chores. She wept for the child. You can’t help but wish to protect any newborn baby and see it thrive, Daisy told herself. But the child had suffered so much through no fault of its own and she felt so sorry for it. Little Harry did not have the experience or the words to tell them how he felt, how he was suffering. She dearly wished they could have nurtured him, but what sort of life would he have endured? Perhaps it was a blessing after all.