Daisy Belle

by Caitlin Davies

  Mother was on us at once, the moment we came in, slapping us and grabbing us by the shoulders. ‘What’s wrong with you both? Where have you been in a fog like this?’

  ‘We saw a body,’ I ventured.

  ‘Where?’ She stopped. ‘Where did you see a body?’

  I knew then I had made a terrible mistake.

  ‘Have you been to the river?’ She looked at my brother. ‘What have I told you? You are never to go there, it’s a filthy stinking deathtrap!’

  We heard a door bang then and Father walked into the room, his clothes damp and dishevelled.

  ‘Look at your children!’ cried Mother.

  But he didn’t say a word, he just gathered me up in his arms and I was happy because I knew that this was his way of telling me he was sorry for what he had done and the way he had hit me at the baths.

  *

  Later that night Father came to our bedroom and tiptoed over to the bed.

  ‘I want to do it,’ I murmured, quietly so as to not wake my brothers.

  ‘You want to do what, Daisy?’ He sounded weary.

  ‘I want to swim the Thames.’

  ‘Do you really?’ he asked and I sensed, in the darkness of the room, that he was smiling. But then, as he bent down and patted my head, I realised he didn’t believe me. Yet the draw of the Thames was as strong as the pull of the sea and I would never forget that afternoon standing on Westminster Bridge with my brother and thinking I could swim the river. The sight of the child was a terrible thing, but nothing could turn me away from the water. And after all, I was a swimmer.

  Old Father Thames, Father called it, as if the river were a friend of his. But the Thames, like the sea, has an unpredictable character, as I would come to know. There was nothing more destructive than the river at flood, when it left a trail of misery, breaking down walls and filling rooms with mud. But there was nothing as peaceful as the river at dawn when the sun rose into the sky and turned the water to quicksilver, when the cargoes in the barges were covered in cloth as if the boats were sleeping and the great river enjoyed a moment of silence as it flowed through the city and out to the sea.

  That night I dreamed a dream as vivid as one of Mother’s premonitions and I woke with the knowledge that if Billy didn’t want to race in the river, then it would be me. I would be the first girl to swim the Thames.

  CHAPTER SIX

  In the spring of 1869, the year that I turned seven, Father decided to turn his attention to the art of diving. It was to him almost a mystical pursuit and he spoke of those who dived in exotic seas for fish and coral and turtles. But neither Billy nor my other brothers were interested, and so Father started with me. Because if diving did prove attractive to the masses, then think how more daring it would be if the diver were a girl.

  ‘Sit on the side,’ said Father on the morning of my first lesson, ‘and watch me.’ Then he bent his knees, tucked his head between his arms and flipped forward into the bath. ‘Now you try,’ he called, after he’d come to the surface. ‘Stay sitting there, hold your nostrils with your hand, bend your head and go!’

  I wasn’t sure how to ‘go’, but I closed my eyes and tumbled head first into the water with an enormous splash.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Father, ‘what a fiasco.’ Then, without a word of explanation, he swam towards me, grabbed both my hands and opened them out until my palms were flat. ‘What are you laughing at?’

  ‘I can dive!’

  ‘Not yet you can’t.’ Then he lifted my hands and smacked them down on the water with such force that tears pricked the back of my eyes.

  ‘If you fall wrongly, it will hurt,’ he said, still holding my hands. ‘Do you understand? This is serious and you weren’t concentrating. Now get out and try again.’

  So out I got and stood on the side, clutching my hands together, my palms stinging. I could hear rain beginning to fall on the roof and I looked at the water and shivered a little at the thought of what I was going to do.

  ‘Are you afraid?’ asked Father.

  ‘No!’ I said, although I was. It had never occurred to me that I could hurt myself, but Father knew that it was the possibility of danger that sharpens a diver’s awareness and clears the mind of trivial things. So this time I focused properly; I bent my knees, tucked my head and tumbled forward more easily. Oh the joy of the thing! To fall into water head first, to feel my body thrust completely under by the force of the dive and then released back into the air.

  ‘Better,’ said Father. ‘Now do it again. Practice equals perfection.’

  Then he placed a small stool by the side of the bath and told me to climb on top. It wobbled a little as I got on, and as I tried to adjust my balance he became impatient. ‘Don’t waver! Indecision is the enemy of a diver! Breathe long and hard, empty your lungs of air. Then go!’

  So I did, and the feel of the dive was even more powerful from the height of the stool. I could sense myself accelerating as I fell towards the bath and then slowing when I hit the water and it thrust me out.

  *

  The next day Father asked again if I was afraid to dive and I said no, I loved to dive, the higher the better. ‘Is that so?’ he laughed. ‘Then let’s see you try.’ It was a Sunday morning and we had more time than usual before the men and boys arrived. Father called two of the bath attendants and told them to rig up a board at the deep end of the pool. I watched as they set up a ladder and attached a plank of wood. It didn’t look too sturdy to me and by the time they had finished I wasn’t so sure of myself.

  ‘Up you get,’ said Father, holding the ladder as I stepped up one foot at a time. ‘Move onto the plank!’ But I began to feel giddy; I was four feet above the pool yet it felt like twenty to me. ‘Move further forward,’ he said. ‘Get to the edge, you can’t dive from there.’

  ‘I can’t!’ I cried, my legs starting to tremble. ‘I want to come down.’

  ‘Then you will never, ever be a diver.’

  ‘I will!’ I cried, ‘I will!’ and as I pushed myself off from the plank and flew down towards the bath I felt a freedom so brief and intoxicating it was as if I had left my heart behind on the poolside. I hit the water as straight as an arrow and knew I had found the way to dive.

  Father laughed as I rushed back to the ladder to try again; the bathing attendants clapped and blew their whistles, and he began to sing, ‘Oh she floats thro’ the air with the greatest of ease, you’d think her a man on the flying trapeze.’

  Now that I could dive from a height, I was to see how long I could stay under without coming up to breathe. If a foreigner could do it for two minutes, said Father, then so could I. I got in the bath and obediently ducked my head halfway into the water so it just covered my mouth.

  ‘Don’t shirk it!’ he cried. ‘Go right under!’

  So I did: I held my nose and submerged myself fully in the pool, closed my mouth and eyes and held my breath. I would stay under two minutes or more, I was sure. But soon I felt a pressure building in my nose, spreading to my ears and around my head. I counted up to twenty but it was no good, I would burst if I couldn’t get air, and so I kicked my legs against the bottom of the bath to surface. It was then that I felt something pressing down on me and I thought I had come up under the bath rail. Again I kicked away with my legs, but it was no use; I was being held under, trapped like a jack that couldn’t get out of the box. I put up my arms to work my way free and instead of touching cold metal I felt something warm and alive. It was my father’s hands. My body began to thrash around in panic: I couldn’t stay under any longer. Why wouldn’t he let me go? And then, just as I could bear it no more, he released me. I came to the surface choking and gasping and there was Father standing next to me looking at his watch.

  ‘Only seventy seconds,’ he said. ‘Take a breath and try again. If you give up the first time you’ll never improve.’

  I didn’t want to try again; I was sick from lack of air, but his hands came down once more and pushed me under. I held my breath, count
ed in my head: I had to show him I could do it or he wouldn’t let me up. This time I managed eighty seconds and when I was done I shot right out of the water like a rocket on Bonfire Night.

  It was then that I saw a lady at the poolside: Mrs Peach, the wife of the baths’ superintendent. She had recently joined her husband at the Lambeth Baths and was rather a fearsome woman who always carried a cane under one arm. ‘Oh my word!’ she said. ‘That girl’s as white as a sheet.’

  ‘Daisy is doing fine,’ replied Father. But Mrs Peach was an obstinate lady and she didn’t turn to go but stood there, watching.

  ‘All right, that’s enough of that,’ Father told me. ‘Get on my back’. He bent himself forward and, still breathless, I climbed on top. Then I laughed as we sped along, all my fears forgotten now. My father was a porpoise romping in the sea and I was his baby, and I knew that this would be excellent entertainment for a show. So I waved to Mrs Peach and blew kisses too, to show her I was fine and she had no need to worry about me.

  When the session had finished, Father sent me off with the instruction to sing all the way home as loud as I could to exercise my lungs. I only stopped singing when I reached Mr Hallway’s chemist shop. Mother was ill and I wasn’t to make a noise and disturb her, so I lit the fire and made the tea and tried to stay as quiet as a mouse. Billy had told me she had lost a baby and I didn’t understand how, for I had not seen a baby, but my brother wouldn’t explain.

  ‘Where is he?’ Mother always asked when I came home. ‘Where is your father?’ Although she knew where he was.

  I so hated coming back to face her questions. Why couldn’t she ever come and see what I could do? She hadn’t seen my debut or any of the other galas; she had no idea of my skill. As a child in Margate I had been her doll, we had been as close as mother and daughter could be. But now that I had chosen the life of a swimmer there was a distance between us that grew wider every day. I was a success at the baths; I had proved myself to Father and everyone else; why couldn’t she ever be proud of me?

  ‘Is he at the baths?’ asked Mother.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Alone?’

  I didn’t know what she meant; of course he wasn’t alone, the baths were full of people. ‘I can hold my breath for eighty seconds,’ I told her.

  ‘Why would you want to do that? You’ll faint.’

  ‘No I won’t. I’m going to be a pearl diver.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Think what it will do to your insides.’

  My insides? But I loved the feeling in my insides when I dived.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mother, ‘that and making a spectacle of yourself. You’re growing up fast, it’s about time you learned some proper skills.’

  I sat down dejectedly on the floor. Mother had said this several times in recent weeks and she had begun setting me domestic tasks that I was unable to do. I wasn’t handy with a knife or a pot or a needle, I only wanted to be in the pool.

  ‘Your brothers’ handkerchiefs need hemming,’ she said. ‘Sit there until these are done.’ Then she licked a piece of thread, worked it through the needle and handed it to me. ‘Diving! Whoever heard of such a thing?’

  I pushed the needle clumsily into the handkerchief and attempted to pull it out the other side.

  ‘Why do you always want to be at the baths?’ asked Mother.

  I didn’t answer. I had pricked myself and was sucking the blood from my thumb.

  ‘Why do you want to parade yourself like a savage?’

  I looked up. Her face was flushed and she was shaking her finger in a menacing fashion. ‘You will never have children if you carry on like this, Daisy. Do you hear me? You will never have children!’ She stood up then, her voice so shrill that I cowered a little on the floor. ‘What sort of man will want to marry you? You with your big muscles. Have you thought about that? While you paint your face and parade yourself.’

  I had no idea what she was talking about. I didn’t paint my face, I was a child. I couldn’t understand it: why was she forcing me to do something I clearly could not do?

  *

  When Father came home there I was, still on the floor, attempting to hem my brothers’ handkerchiefs. ‘What’s going on here?’ he asked, aware of the ominous silence in the room.

  ‘Daisy is sewing,’ said Mother, mildly.

  I sucked at my bleeding fingers, looked up at Father to await his reply.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I need her at the baths tomorrow. I’m planning a new show. People love to see the girl and they will pay good money, remember that.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Our father had by now established himself as a swimming professor of some repute. He had formed a club at the baths, and when he set his pupils to race against other clubs they nearly always came first. He invited champions from outside London to perform as well, and one day he introduced a new friend, Robert Winkle, the renowned sporting journalist. He was a well-educated, well-dressed man who Billy and I privately called Mr Kettle, for he had a large stomach and a nose as long and shiny as a spout. He had recently formed his own swimming press, which was how Father had met him, and as a man of letters he always had a stub of pencil and a notebook in his hands.

  I was instructed to show him my diving routine and Mr Winkle was impressed, giving a slow clap as I got out of the bath. ‘Jeff, my man, how long can she stay under?’

  ‘One minute thirty-six seconds,’ said Father. ‘Longer than any other girl.’

  Mr Winkle licked the end of his pencil and made a note.

  ‘And how far can she swim?’

  ‘As far as necessary.’

  Eagerly I waited to see what Mr Winkle would say next, sensing he might have a plan for me, but instead they went on to discuss other matters. ‘Do you know the fellow Bedford?’ he asked Father. ‘He says his son will swim twenty miles in open water or in the bath for any sum anyone is willing to wager. His trials so far have been terrible. Who do you have that could match him?’

  ‘Billy,’ said Father at once, although he knew full well my brother would not be keen and that he rarely if ever put any energy into his training. But Father was so delighted with his new friend that he invited him back to our home that very afternoon. Such was the success of his swimming enterprises at the Lambeth Baths that we had recently moved lodgings, to a house in Johanna Street where we had both the first and second floors. We had, said my father, gone up in the world, and what did my mother make of that?

  ‘Robert’s going to join us as a handicapper at the next gala,’ he explained, striding into the room with his new friend.

  ‘They call me the executioner!’ said Mr Winkle with a laugh.

  Mother frowned, although I didn’t know why: I thought him very funny and dandy.

  ‘You must be very proud of your daughter, Mrs Belle. I’ve been watching her this morning.’

  ‘Have you really?’ she asked. Normally by now she would have called the maid and offered a visitor a cup of tea or some other refreshment, but in this case she had not.

  ‘Yes indeed I have, she’s quite a performer!’

  My mother sniffed.

  ‘And all the lucky ladies your clever husband has been teaching!’ Mr Winkle beamed. ‘You must be looking forward to seeing Miss Mane.’

  Mother picked up her needle. ‘Miss who?’

  ‘Miss Mane, from Brighton. I told Jeff to put her in a show, wait ’til you see what she can do…’

  Billy came home then, which was just as well, for Mother’s face was growing flushed and I feared what she might say next.

  ‘Ah,’ said Robert Winkle, ‘the champion swimmer! I might have a proposition for you young man.’

  Later, after Mr Winkle had left, I heard my father saying what a gentleman he was and my mother replied, ‘A gentleman is he? I know his sort.’

  *

  On the day of the special gala there was a considerable crowd at the Lambeth Baths, all eager to see a lady swim. Father had learned several lessons since the show i
n which I’d first performed; he’d switched venue to the first-class pool and removed the fountain so it could properly be used for races. He’d introduced a scoring board at the shallow end, instead of a brass band he had a piano and a pianist, and this time he’d printed hundreds of programmes, with a special one for members of the press.

  I took my usual place on the bench by the shallow end to watch the younger boys race, and so desperate were they to break a record that three had to be lifted out nearly unconscious. Then it was time for the older boys’ cup and the first race Billy had agreed to enter for a long time. He’d had little choice; Father had put his name on the posters and wagered fifteen pounds on him. As I watched my brother take his place at the side of the pool I saw how worried he looked: he had none of the focus needed for the start of a race, instead he was glancing around the crowds with a distracted air. Then the gun fired and in the boys leaped. But while Billy kept abreast with the fastest two the whole way, in the final yard he suddenly stopped and clutched his leg.

  ‘What is it?’ yelled Father from the poolside. ‘Is it cramp? Turn on your back! Kick the bad leg in the air!’

  But Billy did no such thing.

  ‘Ignore the pain!’ shouted Father. ‘Just paddle with the hands!’

  But my brother had given up and swum to the side.

  Father was furious. There was no cramp, aside from cramp of the stomach, that could possibly be so bad that a boy could lose a race. ‘If one limb seizes up,’ he hissed as my brother got out of the bath, ‘you just use the other three!’

  Billy ignored him, looking away with a sullen expression.

  ‘What did you eat?’ Father demanded. ‘Did you eat or drink before the race? Don’t tell me you ate sweets?’

  But my brother had not eaten a single sweet since that day he’d been poisoned, and I thought his loss was deliberate. He didn’t want to compete any more and failure was the only way he knew of standing up to Father. To defy Professor Belle he had to lose, and he had to do it in public.