Ewan yawned. Mungo’s constant flaunting of his working class credentials was sometimes very tiresome. Not everyone could be a stoker’s son. Or was it a boiler-maker’s nephew? Ewan couldn’t remember, actually. Maybe it was both.
He left them ranting and went off to the pub.
One evening, as he was writing to yet another theatre management, Sadie said she had to tell him something very important.
‘What’s that, then?’ he asked, putting down his pen and wondering what she’d cooked up in the public library where she sat and read the left wing press, and mentally ticking off the gruesome possibilities.
A short run of a play, which was in reality a tedious ideological diatribe, probably to be staged in some drill hall? The workers wouldn’t come. They all preferred the music hall or pub.
Rabble-rousing posing as street theatre in Glasgow city centre? They’d get themselves arrested.
A series of public lectures, featuring some dull, dogmatic drama on the side? They’d bore their audience into a stupor, or get pelted with rotten eggs and turnips.
He met her sharp-eyed stare. ‘Come on, then, tell me, don’t keep me in suspense. What absurd new scheme have you and Campbell thought up now?’
‘I’m pregnant,’ Sadie said.
He looked at her and thought how much he didn’t want to spend his life with this outspoken, bossy harridan. But now he’d have to.
‘When would you like us to get married?’ he asked Sadie, determined to bite the bullet and do the proper thing.
‘Marriage is an outdated bourgeois concept,’ she replied. ‘Anyway, why do you think it’s yours? It could just as easily be Mungo’s.’
‘You mean you’ve slept with Mungo?’
‘Yes, obviously,’ said Sadie.
‘But I thought you and I – ’
‘You thought I was your private property?’ Sadie shook her head. ‘You really need re-educating, don’t you?’
‘I need my head examined, certainly.’
Daisy thought, I must be mad, walking across the water meadows in these stupid shoes. When she finally limped into the kitchen of the bailiff’s cottage, she was wet through, too.
The clouds had gathered as she hobbled up from the stables, the rain had started falling, and now the sky was purple, like a bruise. There were ominous rumbles in the air. It seemed more than likely they were in for one of those terrific spring or summer storms that sometimes hit the Dorset coast, toppling trees and causing landslides.
Rose had come back from the village, where she had been visiting Mrs Hobson, who’d apparently been anxious that her dear Mrs Denham should meet her eighteenth grandchild.
But now Rose was delighted to see Daisy, and the prodigal daughter was petted and made much of, was made to take off her wet things and put on clean pyjamas, to sit with her blistered feet in a bowl of cool, soapy water, and drink a cup of cocoa. ‘You got back in the nick of time,’ smiled Rose. ‘But were you on the four o’clock? You must have come the long way from the station?’
Daisy realised Rose could not have noticed that her case was in the porch. ‘Well, you’re always telling me I mustn’t trespass on the Eastons’ land,’ she told her mother. The twins had just come in, and she shook her head at them and frowned, willing them to keep quiet about her recent expedition.
The storm raged on all night, the lightning crackled and the thunder rolled, keeping them all awake. The rain came down in torrents, and the gale force wind howled round the cottage, threatening to bring the chimneys down and take the roof off, too.
Finally they gave up trying to sleep, and all assembled in the kitchen, sitting round a paraffin lamp, sipping milky drinks and waiting blearily for the dawn.
‘I never thought I’d hear noise like this again,’ said Alex, shuddering as a peal of thunder deafened them, and the cottage quaked.
‘You mean it’s like the guns, Dad?’ Stephen asked, bright-eyed with interest.
‘It’s like the time we blew the Messines Ridge, in 1917.’
‘Gosh, Dad, were you there?’ demanded Robert.
‘Yes, and so were half a million other unlucky blighters. Most of them got killed,’ said Alex, scowling at his son.
The storm abated towards morning, growling off to the east and leaving clean, clear, blue-washed skies. Robert and Stephen went out after breakfast, saying they needed to check up on the pets before they went to school.
But as Daisy filled the usual buckets for the chickens, she saw them set off down the path which led to the shingle beach. They probably hoped to find all sorts of treasures had been washed up there, fossils newly exposed by falling rocks, and possibly a whale.
They came dashing back ten minutes later in a state of great excitement. ‘Dad!’ cried Robert, running into the kitchen, his dirty, muddy Wellingtons dropping great gouts of orange mud across the clean, flagged floor.
‘Whatever’s the matter?’ Rose demanded, frowning.
‘At least take off your boots, you little grubs,’ said Daisy.
‘Where’s my dad?’ gasped Stephen.
‘He’s in the milking parlour, where you should be, helping him.’ Rose looked at her sons suspiciously. ‘Why, what have you done?’
‘Nothing, Mum!’ cried Robert, looking hurt. ‘But there’s been a cliff fall.’
‘Tons and tons of rock and half our road,’ continued Stephen. ‘It’s come down on to the beach.’
‘This fall – I hope it’s not on our land?’ Rose enquired.
‘Why’s that?’ asked Robert.
‘The road from Charton is a public highway until it’s on our land. Then it becomes a private road, and we’re liable for its repair.’
‘It’s on our land,’ said Stephen.
‘Oh, my God,’ said Rose. ‘Daisy, will you go and find your father? Please don’t tell him it’s bad news. I want him sitting down when he hears this.’
Chapter Twenty-One
As Daisy got up to go out, Alex walked back into the cottage kitchen.
He looked relieved. ‘The cows are fine,’ he said, as he poured himself a cup of tea, sugared it and sat down. ‘I was afraid they might have panicked.’ Then he noticed their long faces. ‘What’s the matter with you lot? Lost a pound and found a shilling?’
‘It’s the road from Melbury into Charton,’ whispered Rose.
‘The cliff has come away, and some of our road has fallen on the beach,’ continued Stephen.
‘So we’re marooned,’ said Robert. ‘We can’t get into Charton now, or to the railway station, not unless we go through Easton Woods.’
‘Or along the gated road that’s on Sir Michael’s land.’
‘But you’ve told us not to go that way.’
‘So we can’t go to school,’ concluded Stephen.
‘You two can walk across our fields,’ said Rose. ‘You often go that way in any case, especially in summer. But if we need to drive …’
‘How will you take the cows to market now, Dad?’ Daisy asked him anxiously. ‘How will you go to Charton, and how will we get all the stuff we need?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Alex, looking as if he’d just been rabbit-punched. ‘Where exactly has the cliff come down?’
Robert and Stephen told him.
‘So it’s on our land,’ said Rose, ‘and we’ll have to pay for the repairs.’
‘I don’t see how we’re going to do repairs. We don’t own the fields alongside that stretch of our road. They all belong to Easton.’ Alex raked his fingers through his hair. ‘I don’t know if he’d let me buy a piece of land so we could make a loop around the fall.’
‘I’m sure he wouldn’t,’ Rose said bitterly. ‘Or, if he did agree to sell, the price would be extortionate.’
‘It’s very narrow t
here.’ Alex shook his head. ‘I’ll have to go and have a look, and see if we could get round it. But it doesn’t sound too promising. As the twins have pointed out, the only other road’s on Easton’s land. So I suppose – ’
‘Oh, Alex, we’ll be ruined!’
‘No, we won’t, said Alex. ‘I’ll just have to go and grovel to Easton, ask him to let me use his road until I can afford to have a new one built across our land to link up with the one going into Charton.’
‘But that won’t be for years!’ cried Rose. ‘It’ll cost hundreds, to build a proper road!’
‘So I’ll be doing very heavy-duty grovelling.’ Alex looked severely at the twins. ‘It’s a pity you two have upset him. Daisy, you haven’t done anything to annoy him, so maybe you could come with me to see him?’
Daisy felt the blood rush to her face. ‘Actually, Dad,’ she said, ‘I saw him yesterday.’
‘Daisy, you said what?’ demanded Rose, when Daisy had explained where she had been, what she had done and what she’d said.
‘You actually accused the brute of burning down our house?’ asked Alex, who had gone white.
‘I’m really sorry, Dad.’ Daisy felt two inches tall, and it didn’t help that the twins were sitting staring at her, open-mouthed and goggling, half impressed and half dismayed.
‘What shall we do?’ asked Rose.
‘Let me think,’ said Alex.
‘I’m glad you didn’t marry him, Mum,’ said Daisy.
‘So am I,’ said Rose. ‘But that won’t get us out of this mess, will it?’
‘Mum, I was only trying to help,’ cried Daisy.
‘Well, don’t try any more,’ said Alex, curtly.
‘You children, what’s got into you?’ sighed Rose. ‘Well, I suppose it’s no use sitting here. I ought to go and feed the hens, though how we’re going to get the wretched eggs to market now …’
‘I’ll go and feed the hens,’ said Daisy, wishing she’d never gone to Easton Hall, hating the very name of Michael Easton, but cursing herself as well, and trying to think what she could do to make amends.
Rose told the twins they needn’t go to school, the day would be half over by the time they’d walked the long way round, across a common and through miles of woods. So they went and did their daily chores around the farm, helped Alex with the cows, then went to seek some comfort from their pets.
At ten o’clock a courier came, bringing an official-looking letter for which Alex had to sign.
‘I suppose I was expecting this,’ he said, and handed it to Rose.
Daisy looked over Rose’s shoulder, frowning as she read. Sir Michael’s lawyer Mr Reade of Reade and Makepeace wrote that Mr and Mrs Denham and their children should be aware the Easton estate was private property. Any trespassing on land or thoroughfares would therefore be answered with the full force of the law.
‘Do you think we ought to go and see him?’ Rose asked Alex, doubtfully.
‘If we so much as set foot on his land, he’ll have us up in court.’ Alex shook his head. ‘Even if I phone him, he’ll probably refuse to speak to me. He means to ruin us, and he knows there’s nothing we can do.’
‘But there must be something, Dad,’ said Daisy. ‘What if we go and – ’
‘Daisy, don’t do anything,’ interrupted Alex, testily. ‘Listen, I’m not saying it’s your fault. I realise you were trying to help the twins. But you don’t know the half of what that man is capable, or how much he hates me.’
Daisy did some things for Rose, collected all the eggs, then put them in the big, square wicker baskets lined with straw, even though she knew the egg man wouldn’t be able to come round in his van to pick them up.
But, she decided, they could get at least some eggs to market. After lunch, she and the twins could carry one basket several miles across the fields to Charton, then they could meet the egg man in the village. Also, they could bring back a sack of feed.
That however, wasn’t going to be a permanent solution.
She went to see the twins. She found them happily occupied in their infirmary, making pets of all the animals which they’d sprung from Michael Easton’s traps, and which had indirectly caused this mess. She sat with a lop-eared rabbit on her lap, trying in vain to think of something she could do to help. But she couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t make matters even worse.
Rose was being so decent about it all, and Alex had gone so quiet and pale that Daisy felt really wicked. It would be so much easier if they’d raged and shouted, if they’d told her what a fool she’d been. That the wind and tempest were to blame as much as she was didn’t make it any better.
At the end of a sleepless night, during which she’d heard her father pacing up and down out in the yard, and her mother begging him to come back in and rest, she suddenly had a brain-wave.
She knew she had the number somewhere. One day, when Phoebe had been showing off about her hat shop, she had produced a business card. Daisy was almost certain it must still be in her handbag.
‘Mum, may I use the telephone?’ she asked, after they’d done their morning chores and after the twins had gone, moaning and groaning about the rank injustice of it all, to make their way across the fields to school. ‘I need to ring New York.’
‘Do you?’ Rose looked doubtful. ‘You know, it’s very expensive to make transatlantic calls. I suppose you want to talk to Phoebe?’
‘Yes, I do – and Mum, don’t worry, I’ll pay for the call.’
‘Oh, that’s all right, my love. A few more debts won’t matter.’ Rose raked her hair back from her brow and then smiled bravely. ‘Go on, go ahead.’
It took an hour to get the call through. The operator rang just as Alex walked into the kitchen for his morning coffee.
‘Who’s that?’ demanded Phoebe, sounding groggy.
‘It’s Daisy. Phoebe, don’t hang up on me!’ Daisy saw Rose and Alex exchanging curious glances, but she ploughed on gamely. ‘I wanted to apologise. I was very nasty to you the last time we met. I’m sorry I ran away that afternoon.’
‘Oh, that’s all right, my darlin’.’ Phoebe coughed, and cleared her throat. ‘I reckon I shocked you, yeah? I should’ve been more tactful. But do you know it’s five o’clock in the morning over ’ere?’
‘Oh, God, I was forgetting.’
‘I’ll forgive you, sweet’eart,’ Phoebe said. ‘So, is that it? We’re friends again, an’ now can I go back to bed?’
‘No, not just yet, there’s something else.’ Daisy crossed her fingers. ‘Phoebe, would you sign an affidavit – ’
‘Sign an affy what?’
‘An affidavit, it’s a declaration under oath, to say you had relations with Sir Michael Easton round about the time I was conceived and, that to the best of your knowledge, he’s my natural father?’
There was total silence on the line.
Daisy crossed her fingers, praying hard.
‘Well, I suppose so,’ Phoebe replied, at last. She sounded quite surprised, but not reluctant. ‘After all this time, though – Daisy, you’re settled with Rose and Alex, ain’t you? They been very good to you, you told me so yourself. Surely you ain’t thinkin’ of tryin’ to get yourself another dad?’
‘No, but – Phoebe, this call is costing us a fortune, can I assume you’ll sign an affidavit if need be?’
‘Yeah, sure, I’ll sign it. I’ll get my Nathan on the job, an’ he’ll sort something out.’ Then Phoebe chuckled. ‘You left all them bags behind, you know.’
‘Yes, I know. I’m sorry.’
‘I brought them back with me. We got some lovely stuff in Selfridges, an’ in them posh shops in Piccadilly. Look, I’ll post ’em on to you, okay?’
‘Okay’ said Daisy. ‘Phoebe, thanks for everything.’
‘You’re welcome
.’ Phoebe cleared her throat again. ‘Daisy, darlin’, write to me some time?’
‘I’ll do that,’ promised Daisy. ‘I’ll send you lots of photographs, as well. Phoebe, you must come over here again. Come and stay in Dorset, and bring your husband, too.’
‘Well, what was all that about?’ asked Rose, as Daisy hung the receiver in its cradle.
‘You’ll see, Mum, soon enough.’ Daisy buttoned up her cardigan, brushed a few wisps of straw off her skirt. ‘I’m going to see Sir Michael again – and Mum, you’re coming with me.’
‘Oh, I don’t know if that’s wise,’ said Rose.
‘Phoebe’s going to help us, Mum,’ said Daisy. ‘So come on, we need to get things moving. Dad, persuade her, will you?’
‘Well, I suppose it can’t do any harm. Or any more harm, anyway.’ Alex suddenly looked more hopeful. ‘Daisy’s right,’ he said. ‘We can’t appeal to Easton’s better nature, he doesn’t have one. This is the only way.’
‘But I don’t understand!’ cried Rose.
‘Daisy, explain it to your mother as you go along.’ Alex plonked Rose’s hat upon her head, then kissed her on the cheek. ‘Good luck, girls,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Denham, but Sir Michael’s orders are to say he’s not at home to you,’ began the elderly servant who’d opened the front door at Easton Hall.
‘Oh, don’t be so silly, Hannah Ward!’ Rose looked the woman up and down. ‘You’ve been here – how long, is it? Fifty years? You were in the kitchens once. You used to help the cook. You gave me macaroons and shortbread biscuits, when I was a child.’
‘Mrs Denham, please don’t make things hard for me!’ The servant flushed a deep shade of brick red. ‘Sir Michael was quite adamant that you and any members of your family were not to be admitted. Anyway, he’s gone to see his steward.’
‘When did he leave?’
‘Two or three minutes ago, that’s all, but – ’
‘Did he go on foot?’
‘Yes, I believe he did.’
‘Then we shall catch him up. Come along, Daisy, we’ll go through the shrubbery, that’s the quickest way.’ Rose clutched her hat and hurried off, closely followed by Daisy.
The Golden Chain Page 25