‘Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Manchester – dirty, dangerous places,’ said Rose shuddering. ‘Alex, listen to me – in case you have forgotten, this girl’s not yet sixteen.’
‘I will be soon,’ said Daisy. ‘Dad?’
‘Maybe we should go and meet these people?’ Alex looked enquiringly at Rose.
‘Mum, I’ll be with lots of other people,’ continued Daisy. ‘Mr Curtis says he’d like to meet you. He can tell you what goes on. You can meet Mrs Curtis, too. Listen, Mum,’ said Daisy, desperately, ‘it’s what I really want to do.’
‘This is all ridiculous,’ said Rose. ‘You’re still a child. You need to go to school. I’m going to bed.’
Daisy met Ewan on the shingle beach the following day. ‘What did your parents say?’ he asked.
‘My mother’s definitely against it. She’s being absolutely horrible. She doesn’t want me to have any fun. She thinks I should do my General Certificate, then be a clerk, or something. But Dad might be persuaded.’
‘Shall I have a word with him?’
‘Yes, if you want him to put his foot down, and forbid it after all. You might not have noticed, but you’re not very popular with Dad. What about your mother, what did she have to say?’
‘Oh, nothing much, but she’d be spitting pins and throwing carving knives if she had any handy.’ Ewan grinned. ‘I’m leaving Easton Hall tomorrow morning.’
‘Where will you go – to Weymouth?’
‘Yes, I’ll find some digs.’
‘Ewan, will you do something for me?’ Daisy looked at him, into his eyes. ‘I’m not sure if I should ask you this – ’
‘What do you mean? Daisy, I’ll do anything for you.’
‘You’ll help me find my real mother?’
Chapter Seven
‘The next thing we know, she’ll say she’s going to America, to find her real mother,’ Rose told Alex, as she crashed and banged around the kitchen.
‘I think that’s very likely.’ Alex was sitting at the kitchen table reading Farmer’s Weekly, and now he calmly lit a cigarette. ‘She’s always been adventurous. I remember when we were in Simla that first summer – ’
‘What’s wrong with you?’ Rose slammed a saucepan down on to the table. ‘Alex, she’s a child! She knows nothing of the world. What if she meets lots of awful people?’
‘Rose, the world is full of awful people.’ Alex stood up. ‘She’ll have to meet them some day.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘What I just said.’ Alex sighed. ‘We can’t protect our children from everything for ever – can we, Rose?’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Ewan.
‘It’s obvious, isn’t it?’ Daisy looked down at her hands and wished she didn’t bite her finger nails. It didn’t look very grown up, and she must stop.
‘Well, it’s not obvious to me.’
‘I was adopted when I was a baby. My mother came from the East End of London. She wasn’t married. They only told me a few weeks ago.’
‘After the fire, you mean?’
‘No, just before we went to Scotland.’
‘Oh, I see – that’s why you were so keen to get away.’
‘Do you blame me? Ewan, everyone in Charton knew, but Mum kept it from me.’ Daisy looked up at Ewan, challenging him. ‘Go on, say you’re disgusted.’
‘Of course I’m not disgusted.’ Ewan put his arm round Daisy’s shoulders and pulled her close to him. ‘Your mother had a love affair in wartime. I think that’s very romantic. I’ll help you find your mother, of course I will.’
‘I don’t have much to go on.’ Daisy cosied up against the Harris tweed of Ewan’s jacket, inhaling the delicious smell of him, of shaving soap and boy. ‘All I know is that her name was Phoebe Gower, and now she might be Mrs Rosenheim. She could still be in England, or she might be in the USA.’
‘Well, that’s just two countries out of dozens, and she’s not called Anne Smith or Mary Brown. So don’t worry, we’ll soon find your mother.’ Ewan kissed Daisy’s nose. ‘Now, what about the other matter? Do you think your parents are going to be persuaded? Or shall you have to run away again?’
‘I can usually get my way with Dad. It sometimes takes a while, but if I keep on at him, he generally gives in. But Mum’s determined to spoil everything.’
‘Let me come and talk to her, perhaps?’
‘No, don’t you dare! She’d throw you out, and then she’d lock me up for ever.’
Daisy realised her best bet was Alex.
While he was always strict with the two boys, he was lenience itself with Daisy. Or he had been up to the time he’d yelled at her and ordered her to come back home to Dorset.
In India, she and Celia Norton had enjoyed a degree of freedom girls who lived in England could only dream about. She knew this freedom had a lot to do with being the daughters of British army officers. In colonial India, if anybody hurt, attacked, molested or annoyed the daughter of a burra sahib, the repercussions would be dire. But, having tasted freedom, it was very hard to accept she might not always have it …
Alex became her project. While Rose was still adamant the whole scheme was ridiculous, and wouldn’t talk about it, Alex was persuaded to go with Daisy into Weymouth to meet the manager and his wife.
Daisy now imagined what her father must be seeing – a pair of oddly-dressed, Micawberish small-time actors. Mr Curtis’s white spats were silly, his loud check suit was grubby, and he had a pointless little monocle round his neck.
Mrs Curtis wore a calf-length dress of faded purple velvet, with some oddly puckered-looking segments in the skirt, making Daisy wonder if it had been a curtain. She also wore a horrid orange wig, a huge amount of rouge, and lots of rings with diamonds which were obviously fakes. She had the stubble of a grey moustache.
They were both well into middle age. Their dreams of thespian glory must have faded long ago. Nowadays, they eked out an existence in the sticks, putting on shows for easy-to-please provincials, and hoping to save enough for their retirement.
She shook her head, and looked at them again. Now she saw two people who could help her realise a dream. Or Ewan’s dream, at least, and Daisy knew how much it meant to him.
Yes, said Mrs Curtis, she would see Miss Denham wrote home once a week, at least. She would make sure Miss Denham had good lodgings – ladies only, definitely. She and Mr Curtis had a daughter of their own. Mr and Mrs Denham needn’t worry about a thing.
Please, Dad, don’t say anything, thought Daisy, as Mrs Curtis gushed on like a geyser, now and then reaching out to pat his hand, which made him flinch.
‘Thank you, Mrs Curtis,’ Alex said politely, as she finished her monologue and stuck a hairpin back into her wig.
‘So we’ll look forward to Miss Denham joining us,’ said Mr Curtis, baring yellow dentures that would have looked more natural inside a tiger’s mouth.
‘Well, Dad?’ said Daisy, as they walked along the street towards the railway station.
‘Well, Daisy – is it what you really want?’
‘I’d like to try it, Dad.’
‘If it doesn’t work out, if you get stuck, if you’re in any kind of trouble, you tell me straight away.’ Alex stopped walking, looked at Daisy, took her by the shoulders and made her meet his gaze. ‘I’ll come and fetch you. Whatever you’ve done, wherever you are, it makes no difference, I’ll be there.’
‘I know you will.’
‘I’m getting a telephone put in the cottage. The men are coming to do the wires next week. So promise me you’ll phone, and you may go.’
‘I promise, Dad,’ said Daisy.
‘I didn’t know Mum knew words like that,’ hissed Robert.
The twins and Daisy were sitting on the staircase while their pare
nts argued in the kitchen. ‘Daisy,’ whispered Stephen, ‘she sounds really angry. Do you think Dad will be all right?’
‘Of course he’ll be all right.’ Daisy scowled at him. ‘Shut up, I want to listen to what they’re saying.’
‘Look out, here they come!’
The three of them ducked back as Alex walked out of the kitchen and left the house, slamming the door behind him.
‘What are you children doing there?’ Rose had followed Alex, and now she glared upstairs, hands on her hips, dark hair a wild halo, grey eyes flashing fire. ‘I dare say you were listening?’
‘You were shouting at Dad so loud we couldn’t help but hear,’ retorted Daisy. ‘Mum, I know it wasn’t like this in your day. I know girls stayed at home and did embroidery, then married the first man who came along and had a dozen babies.’
‘Don’t you dare talk to me like that,’ snapped Rose. ‘You’re still a child, you know!’
‘You can’t afford to keep me. Since we came back from India, we’ve been paupers. We’re camping in a hut, Mum. We never have new clothes. We live on turnips. So let me help, why don’t you?’
‘I can’t think what’s come over you,’ said Rose. ‘You used to be so sweet. You were a charming little girl.’
‘Maybe I’ve grown up. Mum, I need to start to live my life, do what I want, and you need to accept it.’
‘I’ve spoiled you, haven’t I? I’ve let you have too much of your own way, and this is the result. You’ve turned into a selfish, rude, ungovernable young woman. I’ve nothing more to say to you.’
Rose stalked into the kitchen, and started banging pots around as if she meant to break them into tiny little pieces.
Robert and Stephen glanced at one another, melted into the shadows and went to bed.
‘So may I go, or not?’ Daisy asked Rose, at breakfast the next morning.
‘If I say no, you’ll only run away again, or do something else absurd.’ Rose wouldn’t look at Daisy. ‘Apparently, your father says you may. So I’ve been overruled in any case.’
‘I’m not a baby, Mum.’ Daisy wanted desperately to make her mother smile and say that everything would be all right. ‘Most girls in England start going out to work when they’re fourteen. I know that actors are often out of work, but so are lots of other people these days. Mum, I need a job. You know I love to act, and now I’m grown up I want to make a career on the stage.’
Rose didn’t comment, so Daisy looked at Alex. ‘Dad, say something, please!’
‘You’d better go and pack your things,’ said Alex. ‘I’ll run you into Weymouth. Does that Fraser fellow want a lift?’
‘No, he’s already there, he’s living in a boarding house,’ said Daisy. ‘Lady Easton made him leave the Hall.’
‘Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Miss Denham and Mr Fraser?’
Alfred Curtis had summoned the whole company to meet the new arrivals. ‘Mr Fraser’s kindly taken over Mr Atterbury’s roles, and he’ll be understudying Mr Morgan, Mr Reed and Mr Kenton,’ the manager continued, gazing round portentously. ‘Miss Denham’s going to take some smaller parts and female walk-ons. She’ll also understudy Miss Hart and Mrs Nightingale.’
Mr Curtis pointed to a pile of scripts lying on the piano in the wings. ‘The new stuff came this morning, so we’ll have a read through in ten minutes.’
Daisy looked nervously at Miss Hart and Mrs Nightingale, who were lounging against some flats and eyeing Ewan Fraser. They were clearly pleased with what they saw.
Two divinely dressed and made-up creatures in their twenties, their scarlet lips curved into smiles when Ewan glanced their way. One of the actors was grinning at him matily, while another offered him a light.
Daisy felt a pang of loneliness. She wished she was in the kitchen of the bailiff’s cottage, shoving books into her satchel, ready to go to school.
In spite of what Mrs Curtis had told Alex, her digs in Weymouth weren’t exactly homely. The whole house smelled of mice and onions. The mattress on her bed was stuffed with straw. Last night it had been freezing in her attic, and she hadn’t slept a wink, but a tiny attic was all she could afford.
‘Miss Denham?’ Alfred Curtis tossed a script her way. ‘Do wake up, my darling. You’re the office girl, and later you’ll be the woman at the bus stop. My loves – Act 1, Scene 1!’
‘Miss Denham?’ said Miss Hart, catching Daisy as she left the stage. ‘You’re the girl who’s got the attic room in Westbury Drive, and didn’t come down to breakfast. But you don’t need to be afraid of us.’
‘I’m not afraid,’ lied Daisy, who couldn’t have eaten anything that morning, even to save her life.
‘You’re terrified. But you don’t need to worry, we won’t bite.’ Miss Hart lit up a Craven A, then offered the pack of cigarettes to Daisy, who quickly shook her head. She had never smoked a cigarette. She would ask Ewan for one of his, she thought, and practise it in private before risking a coughing fit in public.
‘I’m Julia,’ said Miss Hart, ‘and Lady Muck is Amy Nightingale. She has the room right under yours, so don’t go thinking it’s me who snores all night. We’re going to the pub. Do you want to come?’
‘I can’t, I’m under age.’ Rose was right, thought Daisy. She was still a child. She ought to be at school.
‘We’ll sneak you in,’ said Julia, grinning. ‘Stand tall, stick your chest out, put on a bit of lipstick, and you’ll pass.’
‘I left my make-up at my digs,’ said Daisy. ‘I didn’t think I’d need it in the daytime.’
‘Jesus and Mary, child – never go anywhere without your war paint, didn’t your mother ever tell you that? Here, borrow mine.’ She handed Daisy a pretty little compact and a lipstick. ‘Come along, my love. We’re wasting drinking time.’
The men were nice, thought Daisy.
George Reed and Francis Kenton were middle-aged, immaculately dressed in well cut barathea suits, silk shirts and multi-coloured ties. They were inclined to treat her like a child, but not in a condescending, patronising way.
‘If you want advice or need a little private coaching, you pop along and see your Uncle George,’ said Mr Reed.
‘Or your Uncle Frank,’ said Mr Kenton. ‘We’ll soon sort you out. Do you like liquorice allsorts?’ he added, offering her one.
Mr Morgan was a little younger, much flashier in looks and manner, and Daisy wouldn’t have trusted him with sixpence. But with his thin moustache, his snap-brim trilbies and his two-tone shoes, he was a somewhat comically obvious seducer, an end-of-the-pier romancer. The kind of man who’d always be a joke, thought Daisy, and nothing like her handsome Ewan.
Julia Hart was usually friendly, but she often drank too much, and then she could be waspish. Amy Nightingale was rather frosty, curling her lip disdainfully when Daisy fluffed her lines, and making loud remarks about certain people who should be in kindergarten, not on the stage.
‘She’s jealous,’ whispered Julia. ‘She’s always wanted to be a natural blonde. She spends a fortune on peroxide. She likes your gorgeous boyfriend, and she thinks you want her roles. She’s getting on a bit, and wishes she was young again.’
‘I wish I was older.’ Daisy looked at Amy wistfully, wishing she could afford to buy silk stockings, lovely velvet hats and jackets trimmed with astrakhan.
‘You mustn’t wish your life away,’ said Julia. ‘I couldn’t wait to be grown up, and now I wish I was sixteen again.’
Julia told Daisy she’d been born in Manchester. She was the eldest in a family of nineteen. ‘I never had a mother,’ she added, sadly. ‘Well, I did, but she was always pregnant, and she never had any time for me. I hate the sight of babies. I don’t want any of my own.’
So Daisy didn’t say that at the moment one of her favourite fantasies was of being married to Ewan, and of having half a
dozen pretty children – blonde-haired girls, of course, and copper-headed, handsome boys like him.
She wrote to Rose and Alex to tell them she was well and happy, that everyone in the company was lovely, and she was having fun. She added that she hoped they’d come and see her in a show before the company left Weymouth.
Rose didn’t come, but Alex came and brought the brats, and to Daisy’s huge relief the twins were well-behaved, and didn’t make any remarks about the smallness of her roles.
‘Mum said to give you all her love,’ said Robert, reddening as he always did when he was telling lies.
‘Send us some postcards, Daze?’ said Stephen. ‘We’re collecting picture postcards of the British Isles. It’s our form’s project for the term.’
‘I’ll send you lots,’ said Daisy.
‘Look after yourself,’ said Alex, kissing her on the cheek, and making her want to go back home, to tell Rose she was sorry, and she’d made a big mistake.
‘I’ll look after Daisy, Mr Denham.’ Ewan came up and put his arm round Daisy. She saw Alex wince, but he seemed to hear her silent pleading, and was polite to Ewan, shook his hand and wished him well.
The following day, the company packed up, got out, and caught the train to Walsall.
‘You’ll be playing the daughter of the vicar in the new three-acter,’ Julia told Daisy, lighting up although it was no smoking. She told the others this compartment was girls only, and made the middle-aged couple who were already sitting in it glare. ‘I heard old Alfred telling Mrs C last night.’
‘But don’t go getting a swollen head,’ said Amy Nightingale, who’d set out all the equipment for a manicure, and now began to file her long, sharp nails.
‘It’s really stuffy in here,’ she added. ‘There’s a bit of a pong as well, like last night’s fish and chips or unwashed socks. I wonder if we should have a window open?’
The couple got up and left.
‘Good riddance to them,’ said Julia, putting her feet up on the seat. Opening her case, she took out several paper bags. ‘Daisy, have a cheese and pickle sandwich, then tell me all your secrets. Where did you find your lovely boyfriend?’
The Golden Chain Page 8