‘I – because I kissed you.’
‘You bashed my nose, you mean.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I should think so, too.’
‘Come and sit on the beach a while?’ Ewan stopped walking and met Daisy’s gaze, his own beseeching.
‘I’ve things to do at home.’
‘You could surely spare an hour or two?’ Then Ewan smiled, but nervously, as if afraid she’d bite him.
‘Actually, I can’t.’
‘Please,’ said Ewan humbly, obviously trying to look serious and deserving, but she could see the corners of his mouth were twitching, as if he were trying not to grin.
‘Oh, all right.’ Daisy realised she was smiling, too. ‘Just half an hour, and then I must go home.’
‘I’m sorry I didn’t come that morning,’ Ewan said, as they scrambled down the cliff path, all the tension there had been between them magically gone. ‘But I had annoyed you. I thought you’d never speak to me again. Then Sir Michael asked me to go fishing.’
‘So of course you went, and I don’t blame you. It must have been more fun than kissing me.’
‘No, Daisy, it was deadly, casting lines, then sitting there for hours, sticking hooks through worms – ’
‘Och, those puir wurrums,’ teased Daisy.
‘Aye, the puir wee beasties.’ Ewan found he didn’t mind being teased – in fact, he liked it. ‘Come on, sit down a while. I promise I won’t lunge at you again.’
They sat down on the shingle, underneath an overhanging rock. Daisy picked up a pretty yellow pebble. Ewan had seen it too, and as he reached for it their hands collided, and didn’t seem to want to part.
Ewan walked the fingers of his other hand up Daisy’s arm. She closed her free hand over them. ‘You promised me,’ she whispered.
‘What did I promise? I’ve forgotten.’
‘You said you wouldn’t lunge at me, and now you’re doing just that.’
‘Daisy, I’ve really missed you.’ Ewan gazed into her eyes and saw himself reflected there in pools of blue. ‘I’ve missed you so much, you can’t imagine.’
‘I – I’ve missed you.’ Then, as if she had been magnetised, Daisy leaned towards him. So there didn’t seem anything to do but kiss her on the mouth, and hope she wouldn’t pull away.
She didn’t. In fact, she kissed him back, tilting her head as if by instinct, so their noses didn’t bump. Then, as if he’d willed it, Daisy put her arms around his neck. So now he kissed her harder, longer, thinking how beautiful she was, how warm, how soft, how sweet, until at last he couldn’t think at all.
‘What else have you been doing?’ Daisy asked him, when they had to take a break from kissing. ‘That’s apart from fishing and longing to see me?’
‘Nothing else,’ said Ewan, as he entwined his fingers in her hair. ‘It’s wonderful to be down here with you. But honestly, I’ve had enough of Dorset, and my mother’s driving me insane.’
‘Why, what’s she doing?’
‘She’s nagging all the time. I was supposed to be studying for Oxford while I’ve been in Dorset, but I haven’t opened any of my books. So now it’s all Sir Michael this, and Lady Easton that, and let Sir Michael show you how to shoot and how to fish. Let him get to know you, worm your way into his heart, then he might leave you all his money. Aye, I thought, fat chance – he’s a dozen brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces, cousins by the score. I don’t want his rotten, stinking money, anyway.’
‘Why is he so rich, do you know?’
‘About ten years ago, some old man called Courtenay who didn’t have any children left him everything – a vast estate, a pile of cash, and probably a sack of rubies, too. So now he’s one of the biggest, wealthiest landowners in Dorset. These days, stocks and shares are almost worthless. But if you have acres of good farming land, you’re very rich.’
‘Do you have land in Scotland?’
‘Yes, a little, but most of it’s no good for farming, so it’s not worth much. It’s mainly moor and bog and heather, very bonny, but unless you shoot for sport it’s useless. We have the house, of course, but in the summer it’s let out.’
Ewan shook his head. ‘I know fine how to shoot and how to fish. But I do both for food, not entertainment. I’m sick of Easton Hall. I miss the Highlands, Daisy, and I miss my home.’
‘I miss India,’ Daisy told him.
It was true, for every day she wished she was in India, the place where she’d been happy, where there had been certainty, where she’d never doubted Rose and Alex were her parents. Where they’d had enough to live on, had a host of servants, and eaten the most delicious food, not scrambled eggs and tinned sardines and Mrs Hobson’s stews.
‘What do you miss most?’ asked Ewan.
‘Our bungalow, our friends, the colours, smells and hugeness of it all, the heat, the snow.’
‘You had snow in India?’
‘Yes, of course we did.’
‘I thought it was always hot in India.’
‘It’s always hot in Delhi, where we lived in winter. But in summer we went to Simla. It’s a town up in the hills. We could see the Himalayas from our bedroom windows.’
‘What, you’ve seen Mount Everest?’
‘No, Everest’s in Nepal, and that’s a long way from Simla! But I’ve been trekking in the Himalayan foothills.’ She laughed at Ewan’s goggle-eyed astonishment. ‘Some years, we stayed in Simla just for summer, but other years we stayed until the autumn. When it got cold, it snowed. Then we all went tobogganing.’
Daisy sighed. ‘I don’t suppose there’s ever any decent snow in Dorset. Last winter, there was some in January, but it melted. It turned to slush and mud.’
‘I know what you mean about the snow,’ said Ewan, nodding. ‘A winter landscape of freshly-fallen snow – it lifts your spirits. It makes you feel alive. I wish I could see some now. If I were at home, of course, I could.’
‘But surely there won’t be any snow in August, even up in Scotland?’
‘There’ll still be a little on the highest peaks, and in the northern corries.’ Ewan took Daisy’s hands and held them, looked into her eyes. ‘Daisy, why don’t we go and find some snow?’
Chapter Five
‘Where can she have gone?’ asked Rose. She’d poured out glasses of mid-morning milk for Daisy and the twins, and now she watched the boys gulping it down. ‘I wanted her to help me with the bedrooms.’
‘She’s probably with that man from Easton Hall,’ said Robert, reaching for a biscuit.
‘What man from Easton Hall?’
‘You know, the tall one, with red hair.’ Stephen took one of Mrs Hobson’s scones. ‘We saw them on the beach this morning.’
‘They were kissing,’ added Robert.
‘Yuck.’
‘They were what?’ said Rose, and frowned. ‘I think I’ll need to have a word.’
‘You mean you didn’t know?’ Robert sighed and shook his head.
‘Daze has been messing around with him all summer, Mum,’ said Stephen. ‘May I have her milk?’
‘We can’t just disappear,’ said Daisy.
‘I don’t see why not.’
‘Ewan, don’t be ridiculous. Our parents will wonder where we’ve gone. They’ll worry.’
‘If we tell them what we’re doing, they’re bound to say we can’t,’ objected Ewan. ‘In my experience, parents always do. You could leave a note.’
‘What would I say?’
‘You’re going away for a couple of days, that’s all. Come on, Daisy. Let’s do something, shall we, before we die of boredom? Let’s go to Scotland. Let’s go and get the train.’
Daisy was very tempted. Since Rose’s revelations, she’d been dying to leave Charton. ‘What shall
we do for money?’ she asked. ‘I’ve got about ten shillings, and that won’t get us far.’
‘If we go third class, I have enough to get us to the rail head. After that we’ll walk, or find a wagon going up the glen.’
‘All right, we’ll do it.’ Daisy made her mind up. ‘I’ll meet you at Charton station in an hour. But don’t buy tickets for the express. We’ll tell them in the ticket office we’re going into Dorchester.’
‘Why should we do that?’
‘So Mr Larkin doesn’t get suspicious and telephone our parents. When we get to Dorchester, we can buy our tickets for the train to Scotland.’
‘My, what a canny plotter!’ Ewan grinned. ‘I see I’ve underestimated you.’
‘You meant it, didn’t you?’ Daisy asked him, suddenly feeling anxious. ‘You want to go to Scotland?’
‘Aye, I want to go to Scotland.’ He pulled her to her feet. ‘So come on, get up. I can’t show you anything to touch the Himalayas,’ he added, as they climbed the cliff path. ‘But we’ll find some snow. Away and pack your bag now, and don’t let anybody see you leave.’
Daisy ran home to Melbury House. She grabbed an oilskin shopping bag from a hook behind the kitchen door, then ran upstairs, hoping she wouldn’t meet Rose.
What should she take to Scotland? She’d never packed for herself before and didn’t know how to do it. In India, her ayah had looked after her clothes. Since they’d lived in Dorset, she hadn’t been away.
A change of things, she told herself, shoving a clean cardigan, a dress and various bits of underwear into the oilskin bag. Soap and a flannel, hairbrush, toothbrush, money …
She scribbled a hasty note to say that she was going to Scotland for a week or two. But Rose and Alex mustn’t worry. She’d soon be home again.
Then she sneaked down the service stairs, went out the back way past the stables, and she was on her way.
They caught the train at Charton, changed at Dorchester, and two hours later they were on a fast express to Glasgow.
In all her haste to get away, Daisy hadn’t had time to think or worry. But, as she sat and watched the scenery speed by, she suddenly felt sick.
Whatever was she doing? What would her parents think, and would they be furious when she got home again? Whenever Celia Norton misbehaved, she got a beating from her father. She didn’t think Alex would ever beat her, but …
‘What is it, Daisy?’ Ewan leaned towards her, his green eyes solicitous.
‘Nothing, I was just looking at those cows.’ Daisy forced a smile. ‘They’re Jerseys, aren’t they?’
‘Yes, I think so, but why are you interested in cows?’
‘Dad’s borrowing some money from the bank to buy a herd of Jerseys. Mum says she’s going to manage it. She’ll run the dairy, and sell the cream and butter. She’s going to get some laying hens and sell the eggs, as well. How long is it going to take to get to Scotland?’
‘All day and half the night,’ said Ewan. ‘Talking of eggs, I’m starving, so let’s go to the buffet and have some lunch.’
‘Buffets are expensive, aren’t they?’
‘We’ll have something cheap.’
But Daisy’s stomach was in knots, and she couldn’t force down anything. So Ewan ate her glutinous brown soup and ham and eggs, and polished off her pudding.
Their journey went on for ever, with everlasting changes after Glasgow as they zig-zagged up into the Highlands. When they reached the halt that served Glen Grant, it was pitch dark and raining hard. Luckily Ewan had thought to bring a torch.
‘You can have my jacket.’ He took it off and draped it round her shoulders, turning up the collar against the downpour.
‘But you’ll get soaked,’ said Daisy.
‘Oh, it’s just a shower.’ Ewan grinned. ‘We Scots are no’ afraid of a wee drop of rain.’
‘This is a monsoon.’
Ewan was delighted to be home, and certainly wasn’t bothered by the rain. As he and Daisy squelched along the rutted gravel track, he took her hand, shaking his wet hair out of his eyes, and talking about what they were going to do.
At last, they reached the Morrisons’ little cottage, which as he’d expected was in darkness. This was not surprising, since it was well past midnight.
‘We’ll have to wake them up,’ he said.
‘I do h-hope they won’t be angry,’ stammered Daisy, who he could see was shivering and shuddering with cold.
‘Oh, they’re used to me.’
‘You mean you often turn up in the middle of the night?’
‘It has been known,’ said Ewan, and started hammering on the door.
Mrs Morrison didn’t seem annoyed or even very surprised when she saw him and Daisy standing outside her cottage in the rain in the small hours of a Wednesday morning.
A comfortable, pleasant-looking woman in her fifties, she wore her usual flannel nightdress and woollen dressing gown, and her hair was hanging down her back in a long plait.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said, and shook her head reprovingly. ‘I said to Donald only yesterday, we haven’t heard from Ewan for a while, so perhaps he’s on his way back home.’
‘You were right, and here I am,’ said Ewan.
Ewan always thought of Flora Morrison as a second and much more motherly mother. Now, as a proper mother should, she clucked a bit, but then she hustled them inside.
‘I expect you’re hungry?’ she said calmly, as she stirred the fire into a blaze.
‘Yes, we’re starving,’ Ewan admitted. ‘Daisy, come and get warm,’ he added, sitting her down next to the fire, and feeling guilty now because she couldn’t stop her teeth from chattering.
Mrs Morrison made hot drinks and sandwiches, towelled Daisy’s hair, and then she sent them both to bed.
‘You must phone your parents in the morning,’ Ewan heard her telling Daisy, as she lit a candle to take her up the stairs. ‘Mrs Gordon at the post office will let you use her phone. She’ll put the cost on Mrs Fraser’s bill, I have no doubt.’
Daisy more or less fell into bed, and went to sleep immediately, waking to the smell of frying bacon, and to see sunshine streaming through the window of her attic room. She found a dressing gown on her bed, and so she put it on and went downstairs, where everybody else was up and dressed.
‘It’s a lovely day,’ said Mrs Morrison, as she filled their breakfast plates with bacon, eggs and slices of peculiar brown sausage. ‘Daisy, your clothes are here beside the fire, and they’re dry again.’
‘You say you’re going climbing on Ben Grimond, Ewan?’ Mr Morrison, who was sitting at the kitchen table and shovelling down his breakfast, mopped his military moustache with a big yellow handkerchief. ‘I don’t know if that’s wise.’
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ Ewan told him. ‘We’ll be fine.’
‘There’ve been a couple of landslips recently, so go up the south side, keeping to the paths and tracks.’
‘We’ll do that,’ promised Ewan.
‘The wireless says we’ll have more rain,’ added Mrs Morrison. ‘So, if you’re going out, we must find your friend some proper waterproofs. We’ll have a coat and boots to fit, I’m sure. But is this young lady used to climbing mountains?’
‘Daisy’s been trekking in the Himalayas,’ Ewan told Mrs Morrison. ‘So she won’t be impressed by our wee Scottish hills.’
Daisy wasn’t so sure.
‘You mustn’t forget to go and phone your people,’ Mrs Morrison reminded Daisy, once she was satisfied that her borrowed mackintosh and boots would keep her warm and dry.
So she and Ewan walked up to the post office, where – like Mrs Morrison – Mrs Gordon didn’t seem at all surprised to see them.
‘So you’re home again,’ she said, and smiled. ‘I was in Dorset once myself. It’s
pretty, but it doesn’t compare with Scotland. You’ll have to wait an hour or so before you get a call to England.’
Daisy knew that she would be told off. But when Mrs Gordon finally managed to put a call through to her parents, she was almost deafened as Alex told her what a thoughtless, selfish beast she’d been, how her mother had been beside herself, and how she was to come home straight away.
Then he hung up.
Daisy shook her head to clear the ringing in her ears. ‘I’ve never heard my father shout like that,’ she said, as Ewan took the phone and hung the mouthpiece up again.
She had forgotten about the snow. Now, she was desperate to go home, see Rose, give her a hug, and to apologise.
‘My turn now,’ said Ewan.
‘Sorry?’
‘I need to put a call through to my mother, and let her shout at me.’
‘I bet she couldn’t shout as loud as Dad.’
‘Aye, well, we’ll see.’
‘I tell you what we’ll do,’ said Ewan, when he’d finished being shouted at or rather whimpered at by Agnes Fraser. ‘Now we’re here, we’ll go and climb Ben Grimond. We’ll see the snow, and then go back to Dorset.’
‘You don’t have to come with me,’ said Daisy. ‘You wanted to come home again, so stay. I’ll get the train back by myself.’
‘I think I need to come to Dorset. I need get between you and your father.’
‘I can deal with Dad.’
‘You’re sure?’ said Ewan, frowning. ‘I don’t know about that. Chloe says Mr Denham’s very aggressive.’
‘Chloe’s wrong.’
‘Perhaps,’ admitted Ewan, doubtfully.
‘So is this all yours?’ she asked, as they set off across the expanse of moor which lay in front of Mr and Mrs Morrison’s little cottage, and headed for the mountain.
‘It would have been,’ said Ewan, gazing round. ‘But when my father died, my mother had to sell a lot of land to pay our debts. What’s left is land she couldn’t sell for various reasons – entails, covenants and stuff. I don’t pretend to understand it.
‘See the house,’ he added, pointing. ‘The big Victorian house, I mean, with all the gables and the barley-sugar chimneys, not the little cottage where we’re staying?’
The Golden Chain Page 5