The Golden Chain

by Margaret James

  ‘But Mrs Denham, dear, you can’t live there! It’s miles from the big house, the stables, everything you need.’

  ‘It’s half a mile at most,’ said Rose. ‘As I said, we’ll manage. We’re going to have to build another cowshed anyway, so we could build it there, close to the cottage.’

  ‘I still don’t think it’s right that you should live in Albert Stokeley’s cottage,’ muttered Mrs Hobson.

  ‘It will have to do.’ Rose smiled wearily at the other villagers clustered round. ‘Thank you, everyone, for all your help.’

  ‘We’ll find you sheets and blankets,’ promised Mrs Hobson. ‘Me and Mrs Dale, we’ll get our brooms and soap and buckets. We’ll sort the cottage out.’

  ‘We’ll get you food, bring up some bread and milk,’ announced Miss Sefton.

  ‘There are some tins of cream distemper in the village hall,’ went on the parish clerk. ‘I’ll go up and fetch ’em.’

  ‘You’ll need some firewood,’ said the postman.

  ‘I don’t think so, Mr Tranter,’ Rose said wryly. She turned to look at Melbury House, at the fallen timbers that were smoking in the dawn. ‘We already have enough of that.’

  ‘I’ll kill him,’ muttered Alex, who was still standing with his arm round Daisy, staring into space. ‘I’ll finish him. I’ll deal with Chloe, too.’

  ‘What did Mr Denham say?’ asked Mrs Hobson, peering curiously at Rose.

  ‘Oh, nothing important – he’s upset.’ Rose put her arm round Alex. ‘Come along, my love, there’s work to do.’ Rose led him away, leaving Daisy standing there alone, still unable to believe the evidence of her eyes.

  ‘It must have been a cigarette,’ said Robert, as he and Stephen came out of the cowshed, carrying various trophies like blackened, twisted pieces of metal, and interesting bits of charcoaled wood.

  ‘Yeah, I ’spect you’re right,’ said Stephen, nodding. ‘It was one of Dad’s butt ends, I reckon. He chucks them everywhere. Or it was Mr Hobson’s stinking pipe.’

  ‘Listen, brats, don’t share your thoughts with Dad,’ said Daisy, rounding her little brothers up like lambs, then shepherding them towards their parents. ‘He won’t want to hear them.’

  ‘But why didn’t I know?’ demanded Ewan, when he eventually found out what had happened, and came running over to see what he could do to help.

  ‘The wind was coming off the sea, blowing the smoke away from Easton Hall.’ He found Daisy in the cottage kitchen, still in her pyjamas which were covered in black streaks, unpacking a box of plates. ‘There’s a hill between us, so you wouldn’t have seen the flames.’

  ‘But you could have all been killed.’ Ewan shuddered feverishly. ‘My God, if you’d been hurt – ’

  ‘I wasn’t, luckily – nobody was hurt.’ But now Daisy’s eyes filled up, and soon the tears were coursing down her cheeks. ‘Oh, Ewan, it was horrible!’ she sobbed. ‘The house went up like tinder, and my dad is so upset – ’

  ‘Daisy, love, come here.’ Ewan pulled her close to him and kissed her on the forehead, tasting smoke and ashes, feeling sick as he imagined what might so easily have happened.

  She laid her head upon his shoulder, he wrapped his arms around her and he would have kissed her more, but Rose walked in just then, and she was very cool with him.

  ‘Mr Fraser, is it?’ she said, tartly. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I came to see if I could help.’ He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised by Mrs Denham’s attitude. ‘Does Mr Denham need anyone to help him with the cows?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Rose said crisply. ‘They’re all traumatised enough already. If Mr Denham needs anybody’s help, he has the twins.’

  Rose had a posse of village women sorting out the cottage, scrubbing floors, and clucking like so many broody hens. ‘Daisy, dear,’ she added, ‘if you want to be useful, go and sort through the stuff the firemen managed to pull out. It’s piled up on tarpaulins in the stable yard. See if you can find us all some clothes.’

  ‘I’ll come and help you,’ Ewan said.

  ‘Be careful, though, and don’t go in the house,’ continued Rose, as if he hadn’t spoken.

  But then she turned to Ewan, grey eyes cold. ‘Mr Fraser, I’m sure your mother must be wondering what’s become of you. I don’t think she’d be pleased to know you’re here.’

  ‘My mother wants me to go home to Scotland,’ Ewan told Daisy, three days later.

  ‘Well, that was what you wanted, wasn’t it?’ she asked, as they walked or rather skulked along the shingle beach, close to the overhanging cliffs, unwilling to attract the attention of the twins, of Stokeley, or of anyone from Easton Hall.

  ‘I want to be with you.’ Ewan took Daisy’s hand. ‘I’ve written to lots of touring companies, I’ve made a list of theatres in the district, and I’m going to see their managers. I’m sure I’ll find a rep to take me.’

  ‘You’re going to walk into a theatre and say you’re going to act?’

  ‘No, I’ll be an ASM, paint scenery – do whatever it takes to get me started.’ Ewan made her meet his gaze. ‘Listen, you don’t have to go to school. Your parents need your help. Why don’t you – ’

  ‘Run away again? My dad would kill me.’

  ‘I was going to say, why don’t you join a rep with me? Daisy, I know I’m going to be a star. I’m going to be Hamlet, Romeo, Mark Antony, I’m going to play them all. I want you to come with me. I want you to be my leading lady. I want you to be my Juliet.’

  Daisy looked at him and saw he meant it. She felt a great surge of affection, realised that she wanted most of all to be with him.

  Although her life was such a mess, although she’d lost her home and almost everything she owned, being with Ewan made her feel alive, made her believe she could do anything – with him, she could be happy.

  ‘I’d love to be your Juliet,’ she said. ‘I’ll talk to Mum and Dad tonight.’

  She found her parents sitting in the kitchen of the bailiff’s cottage, poring over catalogues of farm machinery. ‘So if I leave school, and earn some money, that will help,’ she said, looking from her mother to her father, hoping they would see the sense of it.

  ‘What about your General Certificate?’ said Rose. ‘Darling, you don’t need to find a job. We’ll get the insurance money soon, then we’ll be on our feet again, you’ll see.’

  ‘You’ll need that money for rebuilding Melbury House.’ Daisy looked at Rose, her blue eyes bright. ‘Mum, Dad, I don’t need to pass exams, not for the kind of work I want to do.’

  ‘What do you want to do?’ asked Alex, looking up from drawings of trailers, photographs of tractors.

  ‘I was wondering if I could join a rep?’

  ‘You mean you want to be an actress?’ Rose’s look of horror was almost funny. ‘No, I’m sorry, Daisy. That won’t do at all.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Daisy frowned at Rose. ‘When we were in India, I was always in productions. You encouraged me to sing and dance. You even sent me to have drama lessons with Mrs Abercrombie.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but that was amateur stuff,’ said Rose, and looked down at the table. ‘You were just performing for our friends. You didn’t do it for anyone who had a spare half crown.’

  ‘So if I do it for nothing, it’s all right, but if people pay me, it won’t do at all? Mum, you’re a snob.’ Daisy looked at Alex. ‘Dad, do you agree with Mum?’

  ‘If you’re serious, Daisy, maybe you could go to drama school,’ said Alex carefully, but it was obvious he was hedging.

  ‘You don’t have any money for drama school!’ Daisy glared at him. ‘Listen, I want to help! I want to work!’

  ‘You’d meet some very peculiar people in the theatre,’ said Rose.

  ‘You mean they would be common.’


  ‘Let’s think about it, shall we?’ Alex looked at Rose and then at Daisy. ‘Your mother’s right, you know. You’d meet all kinds of people in the theatre, not all of them agreeable.’

  ‘Talking of agreeable, I’m not very happy about you seeing so much of that Fraser boy,’ said Rose.

  ‘I’m going to see a manager in Weymouth,’ Ewan told Daisy. ‘I wrote to the man who’s running the company in rep there for the summer season, and he said he would talk to me.’

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ said Daisy, and he could see she meant it. ‘What did your mother say?’

  ‘She and Chloe and Sir Michael, they got the heavy guns out, didn’t they? The Eastons made a speech about ingratitude and about how I had to do my duty. “If you don’t go to Oxford, I’ll disinherit you,” my mother told me, and wept into her wee lace handkerchief. Mum missed her vocation. She should be on the stage herself.’

  ‘But could she do it?’

  ‘No, she isn’t versatile enough, she couldn’t play anything but weeping widows.’

  ‘I meant could she disinherit you?’

  ‘I suppose she could.’ Ewan shrugged, at that moment feeling he didn’t particularly care. ‘I don’t know. I’d have to ask the lawyers. When my father died, he left the whole estate to her, assuming she would pass it on to me. But maybe she could leave it to the local orphanage, if she chose.’

  ‘But Ewan, you love Scotland.’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ said Ewan. ‘But I want to be an actor far more than I want to be a laird.’

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘Sir Michael and his ghastly other half stood up for Mum, of course. Lady Easton told me that if I went to see this chap in Weymouth, I would not be welcome at the Hall.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I told her I had money to pay for digs in Weymouth for a month, and if I didn’t get into a rep, I’d find a job. Then Sir Michael said that maybe I was not aware there were about two million unemployed.’

  ‘What will you do now?’

  ‘I’m still going to see this chap on Wednesday, so will you come with me?’

  ‘Yes, of course I will.’

  ‘I want to do the balcony scene for him. So you’ll have to be my Juliet.’

  ‘Oh, that’s fine,’ said Daisy. ‘I’ll be very happy to feed your lines to you.’

  ‘Thank you, you’re an angel.’ Ewan hugged her, relieved that Daisy at least was always on his side.

  But Daisy found that Ewan didn’t want mere feeding.

  He wanted passion and commitment, too. He found some copies of the play in the library at Easton Hall and then he set about directing Daisy, making her repeat her lines until she spoke them naturally, breaking her of the histrionics Mrs Abercrombie had fostered in her pupils, and making Daisy feel she was Juliet.

  They spent the rest of the week on a deserted beach holidaymakers never used because it was miles from any road, and totally submerged by the high tide. An overhanging rock made a balcony for Juliet. They played to an audience of seals and gulls.

  Ewan was finally satisfied with Daisy and, as she watched Ewan, she could see he was born to be an actor. When he spoke Romeo’s lines, he wasn’t Ewan any more. He was Romeo.

  ‘At what o’clock tomorrow shall I send to thee?’ asked Daisy, as they reached the stile where they parted every evening.

  ‘At the hour of nine,’ said Ewan, kissing her goodnight.

  ‘I will not fail,’ said Daisy.

  ‘See?’ said Ewan. ‘You can do it now. You speak the verse as naturally as breathing. But maybe we’d better make it eight o’clock, at Charton station. I don’t want to keep this fellow waiting.’

  Wednesday dawned cold and dull, with a sea mist hanging over everything. After a lovely summer, autumn was on its way.

  ‘You’re up bright and early. Where are you going?’ asked Rose.

  ‘To Weymouth,’ Daisy said. ‘I need to buy some things for school. A new geometry set, some pencils, stuff like that.’

  ‘You could get those in Dorchester,’ said Rose. ‘Your father’s going there this morning, he needs to see the bank. He’ll give you a lift.’

  ‘I know, Mum, but I fancy going to Weymouth. I’ve saved my pocket money, so I’ve got the fare.’ Daisy put on her jacket. ‘I should be back by lunch time.’

  ‘I’ll need you to help me with the ironing, don’t forget!’ called Rose, as Daisy left the house.

  She and Ewan caught the train to Weymouth. ‘My mother isn’t speaking to me now,’ said Ewan, as they settled down in a third class compartment. ‘She’s been having breakfast in her room for the past week. She has the vapours every evening. She told Lady Easton she can’t believe how I’ve turned out, and that my father must be spinning in his grave.’

  ‘Mine knows I’m up to something,’ Daisy said.

  The theatre was in a side street near the sea front. It was a tiny little playhouse whose faded plush, unpolished brass and threadbare, dirty carpets had all seen better days.

  It had an end-of-season, tawdry air. Its posters were all faded, and its piles of programmes sat yellowing and curling in the dusty foyer.

  Ewan walked in confidently. Daisy was close behind him, breathing in the familiar scents of dust and sweat and greasepaint she remembered from the garrison theatres in India, where she had played fairies, elves and maidens. ‘Ewan, are you nervous?’ she whispered.

  ‘Terrified,’ he replied, but she could see his eyes were bright.

  ‘You must be Mr Fraser?’ A middle-aged man with mutton-chop whiskers, a huge belly and tiny feet in spats suddenly materialised out of nowhere, like the ghost in Hamlet. ‘I’m Alfred Curtis, pleased to meet you. Your letter was most timely. One of my juveniles has just walked out on me. His understudy broke his arm last week, so we’ve been doubling up the parts. But that’s not very satisfactory, as you will understand.’

  He hadn’t seemed to notice Daisy, but as he led Ewan into the dark and silent theatre, she tiptoed after them.

  ‘Let’s get some lights on. Tom!’ the manager shouted, to some invisible being. ‘May we have a spot or two down here? Thank you, that’s much better. Now, Mr Fraser, what have you prepared?’

  ‘A scene from Romeo and Juliet.’ Ewan turned to Daisy. ‘This is Miss Denham, she’ll be Juliet.’

  ‘We could have got a lady from the company to be your Juliet,’ said Mr Curtis, plumping himself down like a cigar-scented, hound’s-tooth-suited walrus in the front row of the stalls. ‘But since your friend is here – oh, very well, then. Off you go.’

  Daisy’s first few lines came creaking out, and sounded false and artificial. But Ewan spoke so naturally, so earnestly, that soon she started to relax, and speak only to him.

  She forgot about fat Mr Curtis, forgot she was in a musty English theatre on a damp September morning, balanced on some rickety wooden steps which had to be her balcony. Instead, she was in Verona, on a warm, velvet night, and she’d just fallen desperately in love …

  ‘Mr Curtis?’ Ewan snapped out of being Romeo, and walked downstage.

  ‘Yes, Mr Fraser, that was very good.’ Mr Curtis grinned. ‘I have a bit of trouble seeing Romeo as a Scot, but – yes, you’re hired, my boy.’

  He rubbed his several chins and looked at Ewan sideways, as if measuring him. ‘Actually, we won’t be doing Shakespeare,’ he continued. ‘The bard is wasted on the Midlands and the North of England, which is where we’ll be this winter.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Ewan, frowning. ‘But – ’

  ‘But you’ll be fine for general modern drama. You’ve got that look about you. All the lady patrons will fall in love with you. Do you have a suit of evening dress, some casual flannels, cricket whites, a Fair Isle pullover?’

  ‘Yes, I can find them,’ Ewan told him, wonderi
ng where the hell he’d look. He’d outgrown his cricket whites, and although he was a Scot he’d never owned a Fair Isle pullover.

  ‘You’ll need to supply your make-up too, of course. You must work on your accents.’ Mr Curtis grinned again. ‘On the English stage, you see, you need to sound as if you come from Surrey, not from Aberdeen.’

  ‘I can do English accents,’ Ewan said, and rattled off some lines from one of Noël Coward’s plays. ‘Mr Curtis – er – what would you pay me?’

  ‘Three pounds ten a week until next March, and then we’ll see.’ The manager glanced at Daisy. ‘What about your lady friend? Where is she working now?’

  ‘I’m not working,’ Daisy told him. ‘I still go to school.’

  ‘Two pounds a week?’ suggested Mr Curtis, doing his measuring-up look once again.

  ‘Doing what?’ asked Daisy.

  ‘Mostly walking on. Maids and cooks and nurses or whatever, but a bit of understudying, too.’

  ‘I’m not sure if my mother – ’

  ‘Mrs Curtis chaperones the ladies, so you can tell your mother she doesn’t need to worry about you getting into trouble. All our digs are proper boarding houses, they only take theatricals. I’m happy to meet your mother, if you wish.’

  Ewan took Daisy’s hand and squeezed it, pleading with her, willing her to hear him.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Curtis.’ Daisy met the manager’s gaze. ‘I accept your offer.’

  Daisy walked into the bailiff’s cottage feeling very nervous – far more nervous than when she’d been on stage, which in a curious way had felt like home.

  ‘You can’t,’ said Rose, at once. ‘You’re far too young.’

  ‘Rose, let’s talk about it,’ Alex said. ‘You know you weren’t much older when you went to nurse in France.’

  ‘There’s no comparison,’ snapped Rose. ‘You may recall that it was wartime. I was needed.’

  ‘Where are these people based?’ asked Alex.

  ‘They travel round the country. They’ve been in Weymouth for the summer, but this winter they’ll be in the Midlands and the North of England.’