The Daisy Club

by Charlotte Bingham

  Over her cottage-type door with its up-and-down black enamel latch was a notice that she had painted what now seemed to be aeons ago: ‘THE DAISY CLUB – MEMBERS ONLY!’

  Daisy stared up at it, remembering the excitement of those early days, kitting out the flat with rugs and lamps, and things brought from the Hall. Putting, tongue in cheek, a visitors’ book with ‘The Daisy Club – please sign in’, at the door, and how everyone, even Branscombe, had done as directed. She smiled and pushed open the door, somehow knowing that the innocence of those days had already gone, the magic-carpet moments that bridge childhood into adulthood, the excitement, most of all the freshness, they were there, locked in her memory, too dear to think about too much, but also, gone.

  The girls quickly changed into the cotton dresses and cardigans, and white peep-toed sandals that for some reason were the required uniform at Jessica’s country lunches, and having brushed out their hair and powdered their noses, they crossed to the main house, all of them filled with a pleasant feeling that they had done their patriotic duty by their country by filling so many sandbags.

  ‘Oh, Laura, sorry!’ Freddie stopped suddenly, and taking out a handkerchief from her sleeve she pushed it at her friend. ‘No lipstick to be worn in the country.’

  ‘For heaven’s sakes, I’m not still at school here!’ Laura protested, but she wiped her lips clean nevertheless.

  ‘Have you forgotten that Miss Valentyne thinks it looks tarty to wear lipstick in the country?’ Daisy asked, surprised. ‘The unwritten rule, my deah.’

  ‘Well now, there’s a thing!’ Laura laughed. ‘I do believe, my dear, that I had forgot.’

  ‘Even so, Aunt Jessica would have excused you, because you are one of her favourite old pupils,’ Freddie murmured.

  ‘Oh my, people who live in the country seem to have rules for everything. Is there a rule for breathing?’

  ‘As a matter of fact there is,’ Freddie told her old friend cheerfully. ‘It must be done quietly, or not at all.’

  The library at Twistleton Court had a low ceiling in keeping with its ancient origins, and had been built long before the Valentynes acquired the estate as part of some heiress’s dowry. Once upon a time the library’s ancient walls had been lined with books, now they were merely lined with shelves, some of which bore family photographs, others of which were dotted with silver cups of all shapes and sizes, perhaps won at local agricultural shows.

  ‘Ah there you are, girls, good, good, good. Glass of sherry before luncheon? How many sandbags did you fill this morning?’

  It was inevitable that Aunt Jessica should take a proprietary interest in the filling of the sandbags, for the very good reason that she was one of the founding members of the Air Raid Precautions committee, and as such, providing sandbags was one of the many items on her list of things to do, in the event of an all-too-inevitable aerial attack.

  Laura gladly accepted a glass of sherry, lit a cigarette, blew a smoke ring, and watched its progress across the room with lazily appreciative eyes. It was all so dear, being back in the library with its low ceilings and its ancient, faded Persian rugs, watching Aunt Jessie pouring a glass of lunchtime sherry, and everyone lighting up cigarettes with accomplished grace, because smoking prettily from holders was what Freddie called ‘one of Aunt Jessie’s things’.

  Twistleton Court had been the scene of some of Laura’s happiest days, a so-called finishing school for young ladies, started by Freddie’s aunt, purely for the purpose of trying to make the old place pay for itself. Laura’s father, Arthur Hambleton, was typical of so many parents. He had been in the diplomatic service, finally coming to live in England after his wife had died suddenly of a fever when they were in Singapore, and bringing with him his only daughter.

  Not deeming it suitable to share his life with a lively young girl, he had sent Laura to be ‘finished’ at Twistleton Court. Despite being still in mourning for her mother, the moment she had arrived outside its mellowed exterior, and started to climb its shallow stone steps, the old place had caught Laura up in its magic, and now, it was no surprise to find that hardly had she returned when it did so all over again. And now it seemed it needed her, but more than that, she knew she needed it. Twistleton could be her way out of the endlessly dreary social scene into which her father and godmother had insisted on plunging her for the last few months.

  It was not only the fact that Laura was just not suited to becoming a leading society figure, or that she didn’t enjoy endlessly repeating the same languid dialogue every night as she sat at dinner, turning first to her right and then to her left, or equally endlessly circling some dance floor – it was that a never-ending diet of socialising was beginning to make her feel as if she was losing her mind. Besides which, the sight of her father openly flirting with ladies of every age was, to say the least, nauseating.

  The fact was that Laura’s father had become a continuing embarrassment to his only child, which made it a positive pleasure to answer Freddie’s invitation to go to Twistleton Court, and help prepare for the war. The moment she had read her old friend’s letter Laura had known that doing whatever was needed would give her life a purpose, which just at that moment she was only too aware it sadly needed.

  The glasses of sherry drained, they all filed behind Aunt Jessica to the dining room, which at Twistleton Court was so far away from the kitchen that food had to be sent up on an internal lift, clanking and heaving its way up to the ground floor from the basement, where Blossom Valentyne, Aunt Jessie’s eccentric cousin, who acted as housekeeper in return for the use of a cottage on the small estate, would be standing ready to receive it.

  She turned when she saw the luncheon guests coming into the room with Jessica.

  ‘Miss Laura, how very nice to see you. Miss Freddie, the same,’ she bellowed, raising her voice above the sound of two dachshunds barking. ‘Algy and Bertie are pleased to see you, too,’ she added, moving towards the table, but since both Algy and Bertie were attached to either side of her waist on pieces of string, her progress, it seemed to Laura, was distinctly reminiscent of a barge moving along a canal.

  ‘Don’t you trouble yourself, Blossom, we can help ourselves, thank you,’ Jessica called down the room.

  Blossom hesitated, but seeing the logic of this, and since Algy and Bertie’s well-being always came before everything, she turned back to the sideboard.

  ‘I’ll just wait here, while you all help yourselves; as you said – better that way.’

  She settled herself comfortably to the side of the serving table, the dogs doing the same by her stoutly shod feet.

  Inwardly Laura sighed with delight. Nothing much had changed at Twistleton Court, in fact nothing at all had changed, and that was before she helped herself to the haddock-strewn rice from the old silver dish.

  After lunch they retreated back to their cottage, where Laura could not wait to light up her first cigarette after lunch, if only to suppress the memory of the food. After this she leant back against the cushions on the chintz-covered sofa.

  ‘Miss Valentyne’s not selling Twistleton, is she, Freddie?’

  ‘Aunt Jessica selling Twistleton? Good gracious, no. I mean, she should, of course. But you know how it is, the Valentynes have been here since fifteen hundred and eight – no, sorry, fifteen hundred and twenty-eight.’

  ‘So rather newly arrived as far as the village is concerned?’

  ‘And, as you know, Aunt Jessica will never, ever leave, and that is a fact. Two of her brothers were killed in the Great War, as well as her fiancé; and then both my father – her second youngest brother – and my mother were killed in a motoring accident in Egypt when I was only a baby, so she has been landed with Twistleton Court, and me, for far too long to be able or want to budge, poor soul. And then there’s Branscombe, and Blossom, not to mention Algy and Bertie, who because of the growing anti-German feeling are now permanently attached to Blossom’s belt, because for some reason best known to themselves there are people, wou
ld you believe, who think kicking dachshunds is patriotic, even though we are not yet at war, either with Hitler, or dachshunds.’

  ‘So what should be our plan to help Miss Valentyne, may I enquire, Freddie, dear?’ She looked round at Daisy. ‘Really and truly, that is why you asked us down here, is it not? To put our shoulders to the wheel?’

  ‘Partly,’ Freddie agreed. ‘And partly not. But,’ she paused, ‘I don’t know whether I should burden you with this. Perhaps I should let Aurelia tell you when she arrives. In fact, I am sure I should.’

  Laura gave Freddie her best ‘come on, tell us all’ look.

  Freddie pulled a face. It did not enhance her strangely ancestral, unfashionable looks, but nevertheless Laura remembered the expression with affection. Freddie usually made it when someone or other found them being somewhere, or doing something, they were not meant to, and, it had to be said, enjoying themselves all the more because it was against the rules.

  ‘Very well, I will tell you, to save Aurelia having to tell you herself. She is pregnant—’

  For the first time in years Laura could think of absolutely nothing to say.

  ‘That is just awful,’ she finally volunteered, after what seemed a very long silence, but was actually only a very small one.

  ‘You are quite right, too awful for words, really,’ Daisy nodded in agreement, following which she and Freddie both reached for Laura’s cigarettes, and lit one.

  ‘Who did she fall for?’

  ‘Some married man, not knowing, I mean she didn’t know the wretch was married, of course.’

  ‘Married, you say?’

  ‘Yes, married, and much older, and not wanting to become unmarried, either.’

  ‘But, I mean to say, what is she going to do?’

  ‘I think that what she was thinking of doing was coming down here to Aunt Jessica and me, and having the baby, at Twistleton Court, because we are so very out of the way. I mean, the Post Office have only just heard of Twisters.’

  ‘But, I mean to say, Freddie, that’s all very well, but does Aunt Jessica know any of this?’

  Freddie’s number one distraught expression came into play once more.

  ‘Er, no, at least not yet.’

  ‘So who is going, er, um, going to tell her?’

  ‘Er, um – we are, I think.’

  ‘Is that why you asked us all down here, Freddie?’

  ‘Sort of, yes, Daisy, and – and sort of not. Also, because of the war, I thought we should have a few days down here, before our world comes to an end, and we are wiped out.’

  ‘The world won’t come to an end, Freddie. We might, but not the world, you can be sure of that.’

  ‘She’s only seventeen and a half,’ Freddie went on, appearing not to hear Laura. ‘Blossom says that is a very dangerous age to have a baby.’

  ‘Miss Blossom knows?’

  ‘Of course. She reads all my letters, always has.’

  ‘Why don’t you stop her?’

  ‘Probably because if I did, she might leave. She enjoys them more than the wireless.’

  They were all silent, suddenly. There was nothing to say about Aurelia’s state. It was a disaster of such magnitude that it could only be fully appreciated in silence. A girl of any class getting herself into what Aunt Jessie always called ‘an interesting state’ was bad enough, but for someone like Aurelia it was the end.

  ‘Poor Relia, what a to-do, what a to-do.’

  It was teatime of a still tranquil autumn afternoon when Relia, as she was always known to the other three, finally stepped out of the evening train at Twistleton Meads Station, but despite the fact that Daisy, Freddie and Laura were all devastated about her news, they did their best to pretend everything was normal, and to prove this Freddie drove far too fast all the way home. And neither did it stop Laura from opening some champagne she had bought to celebrate their reunion, not to mention lighting up so many cigarettes in swift succession she actually started to feel vaguely sick. Finally, however, the consumption of drink and the forced laughter stopped.

  ‘What are you all staring at?’ Aurelia stubbed out her cigarette, before promptly pushing another one into her black holder and lighting it.

  ‘We are all staring at you, ducks.’ Freddie leant forward to pluck the cigarette from the holder in her friend’s hand. ‘Because you shouldn’t be smoking so much, not in your state.’

  Aurelia stared from one face to another.

  ‘My state?’ she asked, frowning.

  ‘Yes, your state. Remember you wrote to me?’

  ‘Yes, you wrote to Freddie, and told her you were in an interesting condition as a result of falling in love with a married man.’

  ‘Oh, him. Oh yes, of course. Yes, well, he was a so-and-so, of that there was no doubt, but—’ Aurelia stopped, and re-lit her cigarette. ‘But as it happens, I am not in an interesting state after all.’

  ‘What?’

  Freddie felt instantly indignant, as if she had been smoking and getting anxious for nothing, which led her to stub out her cigarette in the small silver ashtray.

  ‘Why did you write and say that you were, then? That you were in an interesting state?’

  ‘Because I thought I was, Freddie.’

  Laura also leaned forward, but it was to pour herself another glass of champagne.

  ‘We could all willingly strangle you, do you know that, Relia? We have been sitting here in the cottage worrying and worrying, and trying to think how to help you. Freddie here had already started to plan how to get the ancient wooden family crib down from the attics, and I had begun to plan how to save from my dress allowance to help with paying for the nursing home. You are a pest, and a pill, Aurelia, and please never tell me otherwise.’

  ‘Well, I am very sorry, but so would you be, if you were me, because—’ Aurelia said, assuming a half-apologetic and half-sulky expression. ‘Well, because you would, I promise you, you would.’

  ‘What happened? Why did you think you were—’ Freddie asked, trying to ignore the fact that she found she was feeling a sudden and quite keen disappointment that she and Aunt Jessica were not going to be asked to bring Aurelia’s baby up at Twistleton Court.

  ‘Well, it was like this.’ Aurelia looked around at the three faces all keenly watching her, and felt the sudden enjoyable power of the storyteller. ‘It was like this,’ she repeated. ‘I made the mistake of saying I would go for a drink with this chap, and after we’d had a few, which I admit was a mistake, he took me home to my parents’ house, but they were away. Well, they’re always away at the moment, and he pushed his way into the house the moment I turned the key in the lock. Of course, there were no maids anywhere in sight, which is just so typical – anyway, he started to kiss me, very roughly, and it was all so horrible I fainted, and, well, when I woke up I was quite sure I must be pregnant, because I know that kissing like that can make you pregnant. But anyway, as it turned out, I wasn’t, so that was that.’

  ‘Oh God, how awful, you must have had a horrible few days.’

  ‘More than a few days. So that was why I wrote to Freddie here, because by then I was quite sure I must be, really I was. I mean girls are meant to know, aren’t they? And I was sure that I knew, but obviously I was just lucky. Still, serve me right, don’t you think? I mean I should have known he was married all along.’

  ‘Why? Why should you have known?’ Daisy leaned forward, looking and feeling more riveted than indignant, despite the fact that it was so typical of Aurelia to get herself in a muddle after drinking too much and being kissed; but still, they all knew that kissing could lead to anything.

  ‘Because he was so polite, you know, all that opening doors, and being terribly, terribly, terribly nice about listening to you, and being frightfully, frightfully interested. Well, only men who are pretending not to be married, or men who are wild flowers and so on, are like that, aren’t they? They are the only men who are really polite to you about door-opening, and flowers and chocolates and so
on, Mummy says.’

  Laura nodded slowly and sadly in agreement.

  ‘Your mother is right. I know she’s right, because my father’s like that.’

  ‘Not quite fair on your father, Laura. I mean, he’s not married any more. I mean, he is a widower.’

  ‘He’s a disgrace,’ Laura burst out suddenly. ‘Really, he is a disgrace. Honestly, if there wasn’t a war coming, I think he would be the talk of London, instead of just what Miss Valentyne calls a social nuisance. Not that any of the other older men are any better, from what I hear, but this is not getting us any further with the matter under discussion.’ She went to the desk, and taking up a pen and pad, she sat down again. ‘I started to make a list of things to do in the run-up to the war, starting with helping with Relia’s baby, but now we can cross off her interesting condition and get down to the business of helping Aunt Jessica and Freddie stay at Twistleton Court.’

  Freddie held up her hand.

  ‘Correction, Laura, I don’t want to stay at Twistleton—’

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘No, I want to join up. I am a romantic, I want to fight for everything we hold dear, for everything here, I am as—’

  ‘Mad as that—’ Laura put in.

  ‘You don’t need to join up, Freddie, really you don’t, none of us need to join up.’

  ‘You may not need to join up, Relia, but I do.’

  ‘Mummy believes Mr Chamberlain and Lord Halifax. She thinks that we won’t need to join up or anything like that, that everyone is just panicking needlessly, and people like Churchill are trying to get attention by making dramas where there shouldn’t be any,’ Aurelia told her, assuming a superior expression because her father was a Tory MP.

  ‘Oh really, well, send one of these to Mummy dear, Relia, and tell her to make sure to wear it at all times.’

  Freddie threw her one of the boxes that Branscombe had given out to them after lunch. Aurelia opened it, perhaps expecting some sort of nice present, something pretty for her mother, only to find it was a gas mask. She covered her face and started to cry.

  ‘People like you are just warmongers,’ she moaned.