Rose and Daisy stood at the kitchen table, mixing mash for Rose’s chickens, while the twins were seeing to the cows before they went to school. ‘Your father might look hale and hearty, but he’s not strong, you know,’ continued Rose. ‘He was badly wounded in the war, then he got shot in India, and he’s never quite got over that.’
She poured the mash into two buckets. ‘After the India business, they said they couldn’t keep him in the army. He wasn’t fit enough. He never complains to me, but it’s often obvious he’s in pain.’
‘When will you go to visit him?’ asked Daisy.
‘This afternoon,’ said Rose. ‘I’ll catch the bus to Dorchester.’
‘I’ll come as well.’
‘Good, he’ll want to see you.’ Rose glanced up at Daisy. ‘Darling, I’m rattling on about myself, but how are you, and what have you been doing with Phoebe?’
‘Oh, it’s like I told you in my letters, we met for lunch a couple of times. We had some little chats,’ said Daisy, blushing at the memory of the scene she’d made in Fortnum’s.
‘But you did get on?’
‘Well, we didn’t not get on.’ Daisy picked her bucket up, and shrugged. ‘But we didn’t have very much in common. I probably won’t be seeing her again.’
Rose and Daisy got the bus to Dorchester that afternoon. As she walked into the public ward, Daisy saw at once that Alex must be very ill. He was thin and haggard, and his skin looked yellow. There were long, grey streaks in his black hair, which she was sure had not been there the last time she’d been home.
But he was obviously delighted to see Daisy. He wanted to know about her show in London, he said how thrilled he’d been to see her brilliant notices from all around the country, said how proud he was to have a daughter who was such a star.
‘I’ll stay in Charton until you’re on your feet again,’ she promised, when – all too soon – the sister rang the bell and started shooing visitors out, as if they were so many wayward hens.
‘I’ll soon be better, there’s nothing seriously wrong with me,’ said Alex, as she bent to kiss him. ‘It’s such a tonic to see you, love,’ he added. ‘You can’t think how we’ve missed you.’
‘I’ve missed you too, Dad,’ Daisy told him. ‘Listen, you hurry and get well again.’
‘I’m just shirking.’ Alex grinned at Rose. ‘Your mother panicked. She called the doctor, and had them cart me off to this place – eh, my darling?’
‘We’ll see you tomorrow,’ Rose said softly, and she even managed a brave smile. But Daisy saw the fear in her eyes, and suddenly understood how it would feel to lose someone you loved.
The doctors took more of Alex’s blood, shone lights into his eyes, did lots of other tests, and finally agreed that there was nothing wrong with him. Or nothing they could fix, at any rate. He didn’t have tuberculosis, diabetes, jaundice, or anything like that.
But he was obviously exhausted, they told Rose. He needed lots of rest, and she must see he got it. He was discharged from hospital into his wife’s and daughter’s care, told to eat a lot of meat and fish and eggs, drink a daily pint or two of stout, and build up his strength again.
‘So that’s what you must do,’ said Daisy, watching him as he ate his dinner, feeling she was looking at someone she could help, could heal, could by sheer force of will make well and strong again.
She would pull her family through, she thought. She wouldn’t go traipsing off again. She knew that here in Charton was where she wanted and where she ought to be.
Daisy’s Wellingtons stood in the porch next to her father’s, hers all caked with mud and muck, while his stayed clean and dry. She worked so hard she fell into bed exhausted at nine o’clock each evening, and then got up at five the following morning for another gruelling day.
She also watched the calendar, fingers twisted and hoping for the best, aware it would serve her right if she’d been caught, if she was fated to join the wretched club of idiot women who believed the lies men always told.
She thought of still-warm parcels shoved in dustbins. No, she couldn’t do that, she didn’t know how, and it would be wicked, anyway. She thought of all the gossip there’d be in the village when it started showing. She could imagine Rose’s disappointment when she had to accept that Daisy was her mother’s daughter in every single way.
‘Listen, God,’ she said, ‘my mum and dad have got enough to cope with, so they don’t need this, as well.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me about Sir Michael?’ she asked Rose, as they trudged home from Charton, loaded down with shopping, one beautiful June day.
Daisy couldn’t really understand why they didn’t have their groceries delivered, like everybody else. But Rose wouldn’t have it because, she said, if you sent in an order, the tradesmen sent you anything. She wasn’t paying out good money for flour with weevils in it, sugar that was damp, or rusty tins of pilchards that had been in Mr Gorton’s shop since Adam was a boy. She preferred to choose, get her stuff fresh. She wouldn’t have an account or buy on credit. She said she preferred to pay her way.
‘Mum?’ persisted Daisy.
‘What would have been the point?’ Rose put one of her oilcloth shopping bags down for a moment, and flexed her aching fingers. ‘He’s never admitted he’s your father. Darling, I’m not being unkind to Phoebe, don’t think that – but we have no proof. It’s just her word against his, and he denies it.’
‘Perhaps I ought to meet him.’
‘Well, of course that’s up to you,’ said Rose.
‘What’s he like?’ persisted Daisy. ‘I mean, perhaps he wasn’t very nice when he was young. But people change.’
‘I haven’t seen Mike to speak to for fifteen years or more,’ said Rose, picking up her shopping bag again. ‘So really, darling, I honestly couldn’t say what sort of person he is now.’
Chapter Seventeen
As she walked down the gangplank, scanning the crowds for one beloved face, Phoebe reflected sadly that she hadn’t intended it to be like this at all. The wires and letters she had sent from England must have given everyone she knew in New York City quite the wrong impression.
She hadn’t had the time or the emotional energy to send the last instalment of the story. So perhaps there’d be a feast prepared. They might have killed a fatted calf, or at any rate bought up the contents of the local delicatessen. They’d be ready to welcome Phoebe and her long lost daughter to the Lower East Side.
It was going to be awful.
She wiped away a tear or two, and scanned the crowds again.
But then, as she was almost beginning to think he hadn’t come, and her cup of bitterness was full to overflowing, she saw Nathan stumbling through the throng, pushing through the hawkers, brass band players, general gawpers and all the other people who’d turned up to greet the ocean-going liner. Then she was in his arms, and she was sobbing with happiness, despair and half a dozen other mixed emotions.
‘You on your own?’ she asked him, when they’d kissed and she had hugged him back, and had a look at him, when she was satisfied that he’d been eating properly in her absence, and was well.
‘Yes, my dear,’ said Nathan. ‘I thought it would be better than having a great gaggle of people standing on the quay, all jostling and pushing and staring at this girl. The boys all sizing Daisy up, the women deciding whom she ought to marry, and all that sort of thing.’
Phoebe silently thanked God for tender mercies.
‘But Vinnie and her cousins have been in with brooms and dusters,’ went on Nathan. ‘The whole apartment is immaculate. Daisy’s bedroom’s ready. There’s a new dressing table and a new quilt on the bed. The room’s been painted pale cream with touches of sunshine yellow, like you told me. Vinnie’s made the whole place look a treat.’
Getting out a clean, white handkerch
ief, Nathan wiped Phoebe’s tears away and smiled encouragingly. ‘So, this daughter of yours, where is she, then?’
‘She – she ain’t coming, Nathan.’ Phoebe began to cry again. ‘It all went wrong. My Daisy, she don’t want to be my daughter, cos she ’ates me.’
‘Oh, Phoebe!’ Nathan pulled her close to him, let her bury her face against his shoulder while she sobbed. ‘Oh, my darling, after all you said! I thought it was all going so well. Phoebe, I’m so sorry.’
‘Yeah, well, it can’t be ’elped,’ choked Phoebe.
‘Come on, love,’ said Nathan, and started pushing through the crowd. ‘Let’s get you home again.’
They went home in a cab, Phoebe’s head on Nathan’s comfortingly familiar shoulder, his arm around her waist.
‘It wasn’t such a great success, then?’ Nathan asked her sympathetically, when they were on their own in their apartment.
‘Yeah, you could say that.’ Phoebe sat on the sofa, kicked off her high-heeled shoes and put her feet up. She closed her eyes and started massaging her aching forehead.
But Nathan soon took over, soothing away her headache, just as he always managed to soothe away a little of any pain that racked her heart.
‘At first, I thought it was all goin’ so well,’ said Phoebe, wretchedly. ‘Rose was ’appy enough for me to see my little girl, an’ when we finally met up, Daisy was sweet to me. But when I told her all about when she’d been born – I thought I was doin’ right to be honest, Nathan, but it seems I should’ve kept me trap shut – Daisy got all upset, an’ said I’d ruined Rose’s life.’
‘Poor Phoebe.’ Nathan’s gentle fingers stroked her temples, and she lay back against him, wondering what she’d ever do without him. ‘About you, though, my dear – any news?’
‘No,’ said Phoebe. ‘I’m not going to ’ave another kid. I feel it in me bones.’ She sighed and shook her sleek, dark head. ‘Nathan, I was a fool to think she’d like me, an’ want me to be ’er mother. It’s not who actually ’ad you, it’s who brings you up that really counts. I should have known that, shouldn’t I? Bein’ brought up by a foster mother meself.’
‘So why don’t we adopt?’ Nathan stopped his massaging, and gently turned his wife around to face him. ‘These days, things are very bad in Europe, and they’re going to get worse. Children as young as eight are coming here from Poland and from Russia all alone. The agencies and charities can’t cope with all the orphans in New York. Phoebe, maybe we could do some good.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ Phoebe said.
‘I’m so glad you’re back.’
‘So am I, my darlin’, so am I.’ Phoebe managed a little smile. ‘I shouldn’t be so flippin’ greedy, should I? It’s not every girl that’s got a husband who’s as good as you, her own little business, an’ a lovely home.’
‘What’s Daisy like?’ asked Nathan.
‘She’s lively, smart, she’s got a gob on her, an’ she’s very pretty,’ Phoebe said. ‘I’ve got a photo somewhere in my luggage, I’ll show you when I find it. But anyway, she’s got a lovely figure, she’s a blonde, she’s got them sort of sparkling blue eyes. In colourin’, she’s the dead spit of ’er dad. But she don’t even know ’im, an’ I don’t think she’d want to know ’im, either.
‘Course, she thinks of Alex as ’er father, an’ Rose is always gonna be ’er mum. So, although I’ll always be the woman who gave birth to ’er, Daisy’s never gonna be my child.’
Daisy had decided she didn’t really want to meet Sir Michael. She wasn’t disposed to like him, not after what he’d done. She had the world’s best father, anyway.
She gave a cow a shove and edged it through the doorway into the milking parlour. Robert had the churns all ready, sterilised and shining. The twins had found a wind-up gramophone in the ruins of Melbury House, and now Stephen put a record on.
‘What’s all this in aid of, eh?’ asked Daisy, as old-fashioned pre-war music filled the parlour with its decorous strains.
‘The cows like music,’ Stephen said.
‘They know we have to milk them, but they don’t really like it, that’s why they kick and fidget,’ added Robert.
‘But they calm down if you play them music, and they give more milk,’ continued Stephen.
‘Yes, they do,’ said Robert, and he grinned at Daisy’s frown. ‘Dad didn’t believe us when we told him first. But now he says there must be something in it. Ruby’s and Clover’s yields have nearly doubled since they discovered ragtime.’
‘They’re not pets, you know,’ said Daisy, sternly. ‘You shouldn’t get so fond of them. Sooner or later they’ll be off to market, or to the slaughterhouse.’
‘Yes, and that’s another thing,’ said Robert. ‘We think that when they’re for the chop, we should have a man come over here to do the job, not send them somewhere else to die, it isn’t fair on them. Dad says he’ll think about it.’
‘Daze, have you seen the rabbit farm since you came back from London?’ Stephen asked.
‘No, I haven’t had time.’
‘It’s going great guns now, you’ll be impressed.’
After they’d finished milking, the twins took Daisy to visit their own enterprise. She saw that it was more than rabbits now. Guinea pigs and piebald mice and fancy rats lived in the stable block, in cages which the twins had made.
‘Still selling livestock to your friends at school?’ she asked, amused.
‘Yes, and to the boys at lots of other schools as well,’ said Robert, proudly.
‘Rats are very popular,’ said Stephen, ‘particularly the white ones with pink eyes. They’re the most intelligent, you know.’
‘So I understand,’ said Daisy, and she thought of Ewan, who had also had a white rat as a pet.
What was Ewan doing, she wondered, was he still in Glasgow? Did he ever think of her, and – if he did – was his opinion of her even lower than hers was of herself?
Ewan was wondering if he believed in witchcraft. If Daisy hadn’t bewitched him, why was he still in love? Why did he think of her, day in, day out – almost all the time?
It was ridiculous, he thought, still to be hankering after Daisy Denham when he had another woman now. A clever, pretty woman who was strong and independent, and who was clearly much attached to him.
Sadie was right, of course. Romantic love was an illusion, something poets wrote about, but real people never felt, said Sadie, unless they were retarded or weren’t committed to the struggle.
So was he retarded? Or was he not committed to the struggle?
‘You’re such a dreamer, Ewan, aren’t you?’ Sadie asked him, when they were lying on a patch of grubby city grass one morning, in a public park. ‘Of course, it’s no’ a crime to be dreamer. But when the revolution comes, action will be what it’s all about.’
‘Then we had better have some action, hadn’t we? Or at least away and do our matinee,’ said Ewan. ‘Come on, get up. We mustn’t keep our audience waiting.’
He put the box in which he kept the images of Daisy in the deepest dungeon of his mind. As he and Sadie walked back to the theatre hand in hand, he realised Daisy had forgotten about him, anyway.
She hadn’t answered any recent letters. She hadn’t even sent a postcard. She was too busy having fun with Trent.
Daisy worked very hard, so hard that she had little time to think, remember or regret.
But, deep in her heart, she knew that she was playing at being a farmer. It wasn’t the life she needed. That life was on the stage, when she could be herself, but lots of other people, too. She realised she was someone for whom just one reality would never be enough. She almost understood why Jesse needed to reinvent himself so often, to pretend to be so many people, to tell so many lies.
‘You mustn’t work too hard, my dear,’ said Rose, when Daisy
came in from the milking parlour one evening in July and promptly started making mash for the hens.
‘But there’s so much to do, and anyway I like being busy,’ Daisy said, wondering if gin and exercise – jumping off kitchen tables, wasn’t it, and riding hard to hounds – might do the trick. Then she felt very wicked for wanting to destroy a little life. If indeed there was a little life.
When she finally went to bed, she didn’t want to dream. But she found she often dreamed of Ewan, of the smile that lit his face whenever he had looked at her, and which she’d meanly thought was stupid at the time.
But she was the stupid one. She understood that now. She’d been so cruel to Ewan, had belittled his affection, gone chasing after Jesse and followed him to London, and look where that had got her – up the duff, as Julia and Amy would have put it. She was getting fatter every day.
What was she going to do?
When should she tell Rose?
What would Alex say?
Alex was getting better. He wasn’t fit enough for any physical work, not yet. But he was walking round the farm and criticising, which was very good. When he’d been so ill, he hadn’t cared what anybody did, if the cows had not been milked, or if the hens stopped laying.
Mr Hobson and one of his sons came to do the heavy work that the twins and Daisy couldn’t manage, bossing her and the boys around, but in a genial, tolerant kind of way.
But the revived, revitalised Alex was a martinet. He dressed them down when something wasn’t perfect, and told them off for cutting any corners, until Rose reminded him he wasn’t in the army any more. Daisy watched them with affection, thinking how good it was to have the master of the house fit again.
Daisy wondered if she’d ever have the courage to own up. She knew Alex wouldn’t turn her out, he wouldn’t lecture her, or anything like that. But he’d be so upset on her behalf, and then he would be angry. She feared for Jesse’s life.
Daisy and Rose took turns to get the bus to Dorchester, to buy the things they couldn’t get in Charton. Daisy enjoyed the ride, which was a rare chance to put her feet up and relax. In Dorchester, she could look round the shops, and buy The Stage.
The Golden Chain Page 21