Daisy found it hard to believe she had only been living in these wonderful surroundings for three months. She looked forward to her half-day every Sunday at the fishing village, of course, and still missed her granny more than a little, but she had to admit that there barely seemed enough hours in the day in which to enjoy all the new experiences flooding into her life.
And there was William . . . Daisy paused just a moment before continuing to button the bodice of the afternoon dress she was changing into. This was one of the formalities her mistress insisted on; morning attire was strictly that. Once luncheon had been served and eaten a fresh outfit was the order of the day, and should they have a visitor or Miss Wilhelmina feel up to eating in the dining room in the evening then one of Daisy’s three evening dresses must be worn.
The last button secured, Daisy inspected her reflection in the mirror on the door of the wardrobe. A sparkling-eyed face stared back at her, cheeks flushed and lips slightly parted in happy anticipation. William had told her the night before that he would accompany his father on Sir Augustus’s weekly visit to Evenley House, and she knew he usually arrived at two o’clock and left two hours later. It was now ten to two.
Daisy lifted her hands to her hair which was arranged on top of her head in a thick shining coil, patting it even though there wasn’t a strand out of place. William said he had never seen hair with such a sheen to it, like raw silk he’d described it. But then he said so many nice things, and yesterday evening had been no exception. He had taken to calling several times a week lately, and at least one or two of these visits were in the late evening, often when Miss Wilhelmina had already retired for the night, or else when her mistress was having a bad day and had taken a rest in the afternoon. On those occasions it would be just the two of them in the drawing room, and once the weather had become so hot she had consented to take a walk with him in the garden a few times.
Daisy now pressed her hands to her cheeks which burnt at the memory. They were heavenly, those times, and yesterday had been the best of all. She was always very careful to make appropriate conversation, but at one point William had stopped in the middle of what he was saying and taken her hand, telling her she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. She quivered now, much the way she had done the previous evening. She had seemed to drown in the blue of his eyes before she had come to herself and had the presence of mind to remove her hand from his, but even as she had thanked him most properly for the compliment she had known her face was alight with joy. That was the trouble when she was with William, it was difficult to contain her feelings as any nice young woman should. But he more than made up for all the spite and hostility which came her way from Gladys and Harold Murray, and the slights Josiah Kirby always managed to inflict when he accompanied his master on his visits.
As though her thoughts had conjured up the occupants of Greyfriar Hall Daisy heard the carriage scrunching to a halt outside her open window, and with one final glance in the mirror she turned and left the room.
‘You ought to be a fly on the wall here, Mr Kirby.’ Gladys was talking, her chins wobbling with indignation as she passed a plate of freshly made bilberry tarts and another of hot girdle scones to the valet. ‘Brass-faced she is. Aye, brass-faced the way she makes up to Mr William. An’ the airs and graces she puts on! By, you’d think she was a lady born an’ bred, you would straight, and butter don’t melt in her mouth where the parson’s concerned. She’s pulled the wool over the mistress’s eyes from the first day she walked in here.’
‘That doesn’t surprise me, Mrs Murray.’ Josiah bit into a bilberry tart, smacking his lips before he said, ‘Your pastry melts in the mouth as always.’
‘Oh, Mr Kirby.’ Gladys simpered her appreciation. He was such a gentleman.
‘But as I was saying, it doesn’t surprise me the girl has wheedled her way in, Mrs Murray. Didn’t I warn you she would do just that very thing before she started? I told you to be on your guard because I’d got her measure all right. She’s a strumpet. No decent man is safe around her, not the young master or the parson. She’d have them both and think nothing of it.’
‘She’s turned our Kitty’s head an’ all.’ This was from Harold who had been quietly munching his way through a plateful of hot girdle scones dripping with butter.
‘Aye, she has.’ Gladys nodded her agreement vigorously. ‘Kitty won’t hear a word against the girl’ - the three of them rarely referred to their common enemy by name - ‘and my lass has taken to going to the fishing village of a Sunday afternoon alongside her. Thinks the sun shines out of her backside, my Kitty does, and no mistake.’
‘You want to stop her going to that village.’ Josiah’s face was grim now. ‘It’s no place for a girl like your daughter, Mrs Murray, an innocent. There’s some there who’d get her working the Sunderland waterfront for a bob a time as soon as look at her.’
‘Oh! Oh, I told you, Harold, didn’t I? I said to him we had to stop Kitty going, but the lass was determined and the mistress had given her blessing so . . .’ Gladys shrugged beefy shoulders. ‘The mistress has even ordered I get a basket of this an’ that for the girl to take to her granny each week, and’ - here the cook’s red face grew redder still with indignation - ‘she inspects it afore the girl goes.’
Gladys didn’t add here that she had been chary about including all the items her mistress had listed for her to pack, a fact which had come to light when Wilhelmina had enquired of Daisy if her grandmother had enjoyed the roast chicken in cranberries - the same roast chicken in fact that Gladys and Harold had had for their supper.
Josiah shook his head sorrowfully as he finished the tart and reached for one of the warm scones which were filling the kitchen with their fragrance. He had his own opinion of his master’s sister but wouldn’t have dreamt of expressing it to Gladys and Harold. He deemed it in his own best interest to keep the relationship between the Murrays and himself cordial - they were a useful source of information as to the goings-on within this household, and the master liked to be kept informed about his sister’s callers. Personally, however, Josiah had little time for Miss Wilhelmina’s staff. As for the lady herself, there were occasions - as in the matter of the fishergirl, for instance - when Miss Wilhelmina behaved in a manner distinctly unbecoming to the Fraser name. When he thought of the licence his master’s sister had given that chit!
Josiah had been privy to some of the old lady’s outrageous views in the past while attending his master, views on matters no real lady should concern herself with, and to his mind his master’s sister had gone a little funny in the head in her old age.
‘. . . don’t you think, Mr Kirby?’
He came back to his surroundings to realise the cook had been speaking and he hadn’t heard a word. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Murray? I was enjoying your delicious cooking too much.’
Gladys wriggled with pleasure. ‘I was just saying she needs taking down a peg or two, the fishergirl.’
‘Indeed. Yes, indeed. But be patient and it will happen. All her fine clothes’ - and Sir Augustus had been apoplectic when he had received the bills for those - ‘won’t make a scrap of difference in the long run, you mark my words.’
Josiah took another scone and basked in the almost reverent admiration of the others round the table. Yes, he would see his day with Daisy Appleby sure enough. However long it took, he would see his day with the little baggage. Sitting there in the drawing room right now as though butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, who did she think she was fooling? She was aiming high, no doubt about it, but that was all right. The higher she went, the harder the fall, and he would make sure she fell right back into the gutter where she belonged. Her days were numbered. No one cocked a snook at Josiah Kirby and got away with it, least of all a little chit from the bottom rung of the ladder.
He could sit and look at her all day long. She had been lovely before, her beauty his only clear remembrance in those first foggy, nightmarish days and nights after the shipwreck, but now, dr
essed and coiffured like a lady . . .
William settled himself further into the chair he had chosen on first entering the room an hour earlier with his father. He always made sure this was placed just behind Sir Augustus but at an angle where Daisy was clearly visible to him. It seemed almost impossible on such occasions that this slender, finely boned young woman had risked her own life to manhandle him out of the sea, but he had been sinking for the last time when he had registered that grip on his hair, his lungs bursting and the rancid taste of salt on his tongue.
Daisy had told him on one of his visits without his father that she would be sixteen years old in September, but looking at her now she appeared a woman full-grown. She carried her height well although she couldn’t be more than five foot three or four, and the shining black of her hair had the effect of turning that wonderful skin to warm honey. He liked the fact that she wasn’t concerned about letting the sun touch her; too many of the women he knew were like pale dolls with no warmth or life in them. Her eyes, though, were her main attraction. He couldn’t ever remember seeing another human being with such distinctly grey eyes, and their thick lashes set under eyebrows which were fine and almost straight, and which did not follow the curve of the eye sockets, only served to make them more distinctive.
He watched now as Daisy served his father another cup of tea from the trolley at the side of her. When she turned to William she flushed slightly as she met his watchful gaze, but her voice was perfectly composed as she asked him if he would like another cup, and his was soft as he declined.
What was he going to do? It was a question William had asked himself more and more often over the last three months, especially after the times he had managed to see Daisy alone. They were enchanting, those visits, whether they had walked in the gardens or sat in the drawing room with Daisy presiding over refreshments he hadn’t wanted but had accepted eagerly if it meant an extra few minutes with her.
He had found, much to his surprise, that he couldn’t stay away from Evenley House for more than a day or two, especially after he had realised Parson Lyndon had his eye on Daisy. Useless to tell himself that the girl was too young for the parson or anyone else, that it would take years under his aunt’s patronage for Daisy to grow into all the social graces and bloom as a woman. He was jealous, damn it, he admitted it, and the new emotion was not one William relished.
He knew his aunt had plans for Daisy - plans which his father seemed to be going along with, much to William’s surprise. Already a tutor had been commissioned three mornings a week to further her limited education, and the man had reported that she was above average intelligence for her class.
For her class! William shifted in his seat, the irritation he had first felt when his father had repeated the comment coming to the fore again. That was the root of the problem that had him tossing and turning at night, this preoccupation of all and sundry with the matter of class. His Aunt Wilhelmina was taken with the girl and had already worked wonders in teaching Daisy the correct etiquette for various formal occasions, but her beginnings were such that she would never be accepted in good society in her own right. But then, who made up good society? Trace any of the better families back far enough and you eventually came up with murderers, cut-throats and rogues in the line, and half of them were mongrels with umpteen nationalities in their history.
William rose abruptly, annoyed with himself and the world in general, and then became aware of three pairs of eyes looking at him. ‘It’s too warm in here.’ He smiled at his aunt as he spoke but it was forced.
There would be all hell let loose if he did what he really wanted to do at this minute and asked Daisy to take a turn with him round the garden. For months now his mother and father had all but thrust one woman after another into his arms in a manner he found positively blatant. Morning coffee, afternoon tea, dances, balls - there seemed to be no end to the occasions when friends of his parents would turn up with an unmarried daughter or daughters in tow, and archly suggest he might like to entertain the lady in question. And he used the term ‘lady’ lightly with regard to some of them.
‘Maybe so, but I haven’t got your red blood, m’boy. Mine is as thin as water,’ Wilhelmina said briskly. ‘Have a look at the garden if you like, Daisy will look after us in here.’
William kept the smile on his face with some effort as he declined the offer, something Wilhelmina noted. She liked her nephew as much as she disliked her nieces, and was glad she had consented to be his godmother and have the boy named after her when he was born, even though she had seen little of him until recent months. She was under no illusion as to what was bringing William to the house so frequently now, or should she say who? She glanced at Daisy as William walked over to the full-length windows, opening one and standing in the slight breeze it afforded. But although the boy came primarily to see Daisy, his visits at least meant the three of them sat and conversed together, and she was glad of the growing friendship between herself and her nephew who, up to this point in time, had taken his cue from his father and mother and treated her as a somewhat troublesome old woman. And maybe she was. Yes, maybe she was at that, but she rather fancied the boy was finding out they had more in common than he had supposed. Of course there had been the odd strained moment when Parson Lyndon had been here when he’d arrived . . .
Wilhelmina pursed her mouth thoughtfully. William had an independent spirit and an enquiring mind, and these attributes had been strengthened over the last weeks, prompted in the main by the discussions the three of them so enjoyed. Daisy was not reticent about saying what she thought on most matters, and although it was true she was woefully unschooled, the child had a remarkably quick mind and instinctive insight. William found himself challenged by her on all sorts of concepts he had clearly accepted at face value before this.
Although perhaps that was a little unfair? Augustus was selective in what he told her about the boy, but she had gleaned enough to understand that William’s last trip to Paris had been precipitated by his father’s reaction to the young man’s outspokenness regarding the ill treatment of some miners. Not a subject for the dinner table, Augustus had blustered when she’d told her brother that her sympathies were all with his son.
‘We must be going. Gwendoline has arranged a rather elaborate dinner for tonight,’ Augustus was saying now.
‘Oh, yes?’ Wilhelmina answered automatically. She wasn’t in the least interested in another of her sister-in-law’s endless dinner parties.
‘The Chapmans and the Thornhills are coming, I think, and the Wynfords. Bringing their daughters. You remember Geraldine and Verity, Wilhelmina? Fine little fillies, the pair of them.’
A smothered groan came from the direction of the window.
So Gwendoline was still parading all the young local women of suitable age and pedigree in front of her son, was she? Wilhelmina could have groaned herself in sympathy for her nephew. She pictured in her mind’s eye her sister-in-law’s pretty face and delicate air which gave no indication of the fierce matchmaking urge beneath that insouciant demeanour. Augustus and his wife had decided it was time for William to make his choice and so start the business of producing more heirs for the Fraser name. Everyone knew what was going on: the other families, the girls themselves, even the servants no doubt. Wilhelmina had once likened similar spectacles to cattle markets and saw no reason to change her view. Now she said quietly but with an edge to her voice, ‘Do they receive rosettes, Augustus? Blue for a winner, red for runner up, and so on?’
‘Really, Wilhelmina, you go too far at times.’ His countenance had darkened and his thin lips were drawn tight against his teeth, but Wilhelmina saw that her nephew was grinning and struggled not to smile herself when she said placatingly, ‘I’m sure that’s true, Augustus.’ It was such a pity her brother had no sense of humour, it really did cover a multitude of sins.
‘And have I mentioned that Francis will be with us in a week or two?’ Augustus asked as he rose to his feet, his face cold.
‘Oh, joy.’
‘Quite.’ For once Augustus didn’t disagree with the sarcasm evident in his sister’s tone. As difficult as they found each other at times, Augustus and Wilhelmina were united in disapproval of their younger brother who lived abroad for nine-tenths of the year where he spent his time in dissolute pursuit of all the vices known to man. A determined bachelor of promiscuous and inconstant taste in women, Francis Fraser was utterly selfish and incapable of either giving or receiving love. ‘But at least he has had the grace to forewarn us of his arrival this time. Normally he appears on the doorstep without so much as a hail, well met, and the last time we were entertaining Lord Breedon.’
‘How long does he plan to stay?’
‘Who knows? No doubt his liver is playing up again and he imagines a few weeks away from his whisky- and wine-loving companions will set him to rights.’
‘Or perhaps his gambling debts need to be paid?’
‘Perhaps.’ The two siblings studied each other for a moment before Augustus said, ‘Whatever, he is a Fraser, Wilhelmina.’
Candles in the Storm Page 16