Daisy Belle

by Caitlin Davies

  ‘No,’ I told him, ‘although I’m very hungry now.’

  Again the crowd laughed.

  ‘Are you proud, Miss Belle?’ the reporter asked.

  Robert Winkle was by my side then, saying I should save my comments for later, but I shrugged him off. ‘Of course I am,’ I told the reporter and I was, not just for myself but because I had restored Father’s reputation. Whatever Captain Matthew Webb’s achievement in the English Channel, Professor Belle was in the limelight now, and all because of me. I had proved myself and now at last he would let me do whatever I wanted, for nothing succeeds like success.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The summer after my first Thames swim I was back in the river again, only this time I was to cover ten miles. I still regretted that I hadn’t raced Emily Parker, and when I heard a few days after my first swim that she had travelled further than me and been awarded a gold medal worth ten guineas I was jealous. Ten guineas! The medal Father had given me after my swim wasn’t nearly so valuable. But if Emily Parker could match my five-mile swim and go one better, then I would double it, and I did.

  I told Father I could do twenty miles next; I could swim the entire length of the Thames if only he would let me. I was well-known in London now; there was not a swimmer who didn’t know the name Daisy Belle. But he said no, I had proved my point in the river, it was time for something new. So I found myself back at the Lambeth Baths performing my dives, my hoop and ornamental swimming, waiting to see what would come next.

  We left Johanna Street and moved to a cheerful terrace behind Westminster Bridge Road where Mother had a piano in the parlour. Father took his friends out to watch a match or enjoy dinner and a show, while my two medals joined Billy’s above the fireplace, along with congratulatory telegrams from Auntie Jessie. Sometimes I grew bold and asked for something I wanted, like a bicycle. One Saturday I had seen two men tearing down our street on a brand new style, perched up high behind the wheel, and that was what I wanted, to speed along the road and be as fast on land as I was in water. But Father said it was too expensive, he would keep a nest egg for me for when I was older. In the meantime I had to content myself with a new costume, an amber suit trimmed with white lace and a jaunty little straw hat with blue ribbons. Mother didn’t like it when I asked for things; she said she’d never heard of a girl having money. She herself had none of her own, she came to Father for every sixpence and that, she said, was married life. And whatever would people say to see a lady sitting on a saddle? If I wanted to pedal, she said, I could make use of her new treadle sewing machine.

  But as for my little sister Minnie, she possessed everything a child could want. She had fancy tan boots before she even knew how to walk and a shiny grey rocking horse for when she was old enough to ride. Minnie was generally a happy child and to Mother’s delight she had no interest in water at all. She didn’t even like a wet flannel on her face and would howl and scream in protest when it was time for a wash. Minnie was Mother’s doll now and if my little sister sometimes hit me or bit me when I was looking after her, then the fault was said to be mine. I began to resent her: she was not required to work like the rest of us and her bond with Mother meant she barely left the house.

  *

  Shortly before my sixteenth birthday I arrived at the baths early one morning intending to swim a mile before the ladies’ lessons began. I was in a bad temper that day; I didn’t want to spend my time teaching Father’s ladies how to kick their legs, to reassure them that this was indeed the way to swim, and I was looking forward to having the pool to myself. When I walked into the first-class pool I expected to be alone but to my surprise, in the dim light of the bath, I saw someone in the water. I was about to cry out, ‘Billy!’ amazed that he would choose to be in the pool, when I realised it wasn’t my brother at all.

  I stepped back against the wall and kept my face in the shadows, watching the man in the bath. He was not fighting the water, he had no desire to conquer it; instead when his face came up his eyes were closed, immersed in a world of his own. You can tell a lot about a man by the way he swims: only watch a man in water and you will know his character on land. But as I stood there in the shadows I began to feel annoyed; I couldn’t swim if a man was here. Then I thought that perhaps I could, for who would see me and why should I not? It was my bath and he was the intruder, not I.

  So I made my way to a dressing box and put on my training costume, then I sat down on the poolside, the tiles cool under my thighs. I waited until the man reached my end of the bath and then, after he had pushed off with a strong kick, I slipped down into the water and fell into place behind him. I kept my face high, watching his broad back rising and falling, his chest plunging in and out. It was like travelling in the wake of an ocean liner, the way he made a churning passage for me in the water. Never had I swum with someone as strong before and when we reached the far end of the bath and turned together, I couldn’t help myself and with a rush of excitement I sped up. We were parallel now and without a doubt he knew I was there, how could he not? I saw a flash of brown eyes, an open mouth, and I so hoped he wouldn’t break the spell by speaking or looking at me. And he didn’t, instead he increased his speed as well. I began to overtake him and he switched from breaststroke to a strange sort of overarm, reaching forward with his right hand as if to catch something and then drawing himself up and over.

  He was faster than me now. I could feel the heat pulsing through my body; the pull of the muscles in my thighs, my very insides stretched tight, as I changed my stroke too. Then, at the exact same time, we touched the rail and turned again and made our way back. We were working together in a rhythm now, neither of us winning; faster and faster we went until blood pounded in my ears. I thought I heard him gasp, felt the slippery sensation of a limb against mine, when suddenly a light was lit and I heard a yelp.

  I stopped where I was, panting. Mrs Peach was there on the side of the pool; her trusty cane tucked under one arm. ‘Daisy Belle!’ she said and I glanced around, looking for the man who I had almost beaten. But he was at the other end of the bath now, hurrying up the steps. I watched the back of him, walking along the poolside. He wore a tight-fitting one-piece costume and he had such a fine figure, with wide shoulders and strong thick thighs. Turn around, I said under my breath, let me properly see your face. But he had gone.

  ‘Well now,’ said Mrs Peach as she strode around the bath and lit the other lamps until the room grew bright, ‘and what will the Professor make of that?’

  I pretended I didn’t know what she was talking about, turned on my back and floated for a while, studying the rafters up in the roof.

  Still Mrs Peach stood there, her cane under her arm.

  At last I could bear it no longer and I turned on my front and swam to the side. ‘Who is he?’ I asked.

  ‘Who is who?’ She gave a smile. ‘Why, him? I have no idea.’

  I didn’t believe her. I knew she was playing a game with me and something told me the man wasn’t from here; it was the way he swam. He wasn’t from London or even from England, he was a foreigner.

  Mrs Peach sighed. ‘All I know is…’

  ‘Yes?’ I said, still looking up at her.

  ‘His name is Johnnie Heaven.’

  I laughed in delight. What a wonderful name for a man who swam like that!

  ‘Mr Peach agreed he could use the bath because he wanted some place where he could train and wouldn’t be seen. I told him he could swim before you came and that any funny business and he wouldn’t be allowed back in here again. That was the agreement.’

  ‘He didn’t know I was here,’ I protested. ‘It was me who got into the water after him.’

  ‘Was it now?’ Mrs Peach asked. ‘Well I do know he’s from America —’

  ‘America?’ I was thrilled. I had heard many stories of America, a land over the ocean where people went to seek their fortune and never came back. ‘Does Father know him?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mrs Peach, ‘he’s come her
e to try the Channel.’

  ‘Like Matt?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes; only he wants to do it the other way round, from France to England. Handsome young man, isn’t he?’

  And I shrugged and went back to my swim, determined to finish a mile.

  *

  That night I dreamed we were racing together in the Thames, Johnnie Heaven and I. On and on we went, with no boats at all, just the two of us in the wide churning river, and I woke with such a feeling of pleasure that I lay there for a long while after, not wanting to open my eyes and lose the dream. I so wanted to grasp and hold it, to stay in it all day long. I might have performed in front of men from a very young age, but aside from my brothers I had never really come into contact with boys. I knew nothing of love or lust. I swam, that was what I did. But now for the first time I began to long to see more of life outside my father’s swimming kingdom. I wanted to know about the man in the bath, but who could I ask? Not Father or Robert Winkle, for then they might know I had swum in the water with a man. I had his name, I knew his ambition, and that was all. I wondered if I would see him again, for if he wanted to try the Channel then perhaps Father could train him.

  *

  ‘Right,’ said Father at breakfast the very next day. ‘I have a plan and you’ll need to start practising. Everyone still wants to see Captain Webb, he gets crowds of thousands wherever he goes, so what we’ll do is,’ he took a sip of his tea, ‘an exhibition of how he was fed in the Channel.’

  That was all? I was crestfallen; I didn’t care how Matt had been fed in the Channel.

  ‘We’ll dim the lights to persuade the spectators it’s night time,’ explained Father, ‘and fix a small bottle of brandy at the end of a pole. Charlie can be the sailor. And then we will hold an endurance race at the baths. And you, Daisy, will swim with Matt.’

  I thought they were no longer friends, that Father wasn’t speaking to the Channel hero any more. ‘I’ll swim with him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll race against him?’

  ‘No!’ Father laughed. ‘You can’t race a man.’

  Yes I can, I thought, and I already have.

  Father put down his tea and picked up a sausage from his plate. ‘You’ll keep Matt going if he flags towards the end. I’ll see you at the baths after breakfast.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Johnnie Heaven didn’t return to the Lambeth Baths, although I kept my eyes out for him. He must have gone to Dover to train, I thought, but if he did try the Channel then I never heard of it, although I scoured the newspapers for his name. So I tried to forget the man from America and our fleeting, clandestine swim and focus instead on Father’s next plan.

  In the spring of 1878, he announced a new competition at the Lambeth Baths. If men could walk for six days straight, or cycle the same length of time, then why not have them swim? Placards were put up everywhere offering a hundred pounds’ worth of prizes for the man who could cover the longest distance. Father persuaded Billy to enter; I wasn’t sure how, but since my Thames swims he seemed to have recovered some of his old enthusiasm and said he felt stronger now. He’d had a long break from swimming and had grown bored with watching from the sidelines. My brother hadn’t competed for so long that he barely had a penny to his name and, after all, in his heart he was still a swimmer. And so he returned to the water to train and the tension between my father and Billy appeared to have been put to one side.

  Three other professional swimmers entered the race as well, but it was Captain Matthew Webb, of course, who would be the star turn. On every street corner and down every passageway the news was discussed and I could barely make my way home each day without hearing, ‘What’s the odds on Webb? What’s the odds on Billy Belle?’ At each stop on the road and outside all the public houses the coming show was the one topic of conversation, and betting on the result was already fast and furious. The competition would start on Monday at nine in the morning, and would continue until the Saturday night. Its aim was straightforward: the men must cover as many miles as possible during fourteen hours of swimming a day. Father assured me it wouldn’t be long before one, then two, then three dropped out and once they had then I could take part; his daughter Daisy Belle would swim alongside the great Captain Matthew Webb.

  But I was shocked when I saw Matt arrive at the Lambeth Baths. I knew, from hearing Father talk, that since his Channel swim three years earlier, Matt had entered a number of other long races for one reason only: he had frittered away his fortune. Gone were the magnificent trophies and champagne dinners; now he was forced to turn to bath racing and that was why he and Father were friends again.

  Of course I was older now and less impressionable – I had swum in the Thames myself – but still I was unprepared for the sight of Matt as he walked into the first-class bath. No longer was he the fine tough sailor I had seen on that rainy September day when Father had laughed at the very idea of anyone crossing the Channel. Instead he had a broken appearance; his eyes were duller, his once stocky body seemed to have shrunk. There might have been great cheers when he began, but few would bet now on Captain Webb to win and it was a cruel race from start to finish.

  By Wednesday he’d covered 40 miles with Billy close behind, and by the following day, as Father had anticipated, the other three men had withdrawn. On Friday morning the bath attendants rigged a rope along the pool to form a lane for each swimmer as if they were greyhounds racing along a designated track. Only they were no greyhounds, especially Matt. He was exhausted, everyone could see, and those who had wagered he would fail were rubbing their hands in glee. As it neared lunchtime Father instructed the band to make as much noise as possible with ‘See the Conquering Hero Comes’ and ‘Auld Lang Syne’. When that failed to rouse the weary sailor, Father dipped into his own pocket and told a group of youths to roar themselves hoarse every time Matt completed a length.

  My brother was still jolly; I think he enjoyed the fact that only he and Matt remained, but his competitor was fading fast. So Father instructed me to change. New life needed to be brought to the proceedings and so, with a roll of the drums and accompanied by loud cheers, I came out of the dressing box.

  ‘Take it slowly,’ said Father.

  I nodded; this was his usual advice.

  ‘Daisy,’ he said, ‘the man is acting half-dead, talk to him, wake him up.’

  I looked at him in alarm; if Matt was half-dead then shouldn’t he be stopped, why was Father letting this continue? But the audience was waiting for me, clapping and calling my name, and I had no choice. So in I dived and came up by Matt’s side, saying a cheerful, ‘Afternoon!’ I couldn’t think what else to say; he was moving so slowly that I was treading water rather than swimming, while Billy flew ahead. Matt ignored me. I don’t think he even knew who I was, the girl who had once trailed after him to Westminster Bridge and watched him swim six miles in the Thames.

  ‘Come on, Captain!’ I cried. ‘Let’s show them how!’

  This seemed to work for a quarter mile or so, but then he slowed again.

  ‘Do you want to be beaten by a girl?’ I teased, although it was quite obvious by now that I could have beaten him with my eyes closed and my legs tied together.

  Again this spurred him on, but only for a couple of lengths, and as we plodded pointlessly down the bath I thought of the young American I had seen in the pool. I wondered what had happened to him. He must have given up on his attempt to swim the Channel, I thought, and gone back across the ocean home. How exciting it had been to swim with Johnnie Heaven. This was tragic in comparison and I didn’t want to be a part of it. But what could I do but swim on?

  At six in the evening Father announced that Billy would hand in the towel, although he looked fresh enough to me. I couldn’t understand why he was getting out when he could easily have won, and it was only when I saw Father wink at my brother that I guessed the truth: he had paid him to give up. How embarrassed I was for Billy, that he’d allowed himself to race when there wa
s nothing sporting about the event at all. Did he want money so badly that he would forget his old defiance and agree to anything Father said, even if it meant he had to lose? Father had used both of us, but most of all he had used Matt. Captain Webb might have won the endurance race, but now he was a wreck.

  After Billy left the pool the sailor only managed a further quarter mile and as we kicked off together to try another length I turned to see he was no longer with me. Instead the once great Captain Matthew Webb was clutching the diving board and hanging on to it like grim death.

  At once Father was by the poolside, the pistol was fired and Matt declared the winner. He had swum seventy-four miles and won seventy pounds but the cheers, such as they were, sounded half-hearted. Mr Peach and Father fairly carried him to the changing room and I stood outside as they discussed what to do.

  Then I heard Father exclaim ‘Good God!’ and I pushed open the door. There was Captain Webb, collapsed on the bench, coughing fit to burst with a pool of crimson blood on the floor.

  There was a dreadful scene then, not just in the changing room but outside on the street. One of the bath attendants ran in to say a group of men had rushed the main door and now they were trying to force it open. They wanted to see Webb; the word had gone out that he was dead, and all along Westminster Bridge Road shopkeepers were hurriedly closing their shutters expecting a riot. Inside the changing room Matt was restless. He said repeatedly that his wife was waiting for him at home and he did not want to worry her.

  ‘How long have we known each other?’ asked Father, crouching down by his side and offering a tonic to drink. ‘Remember your first time in the Thames? Remember the fried fish dinners we used to have, you, me and Robert, before your Channel swim?’

  Matt gave a weak smile.