The Daisy Club

by Charlotte Bingham

  Freddie pulled out a letter from her apron pocket, and passed it to Branscombe, who shook his head, arms covered in flour, up to his elbows trying to make wartime dumplings.

  ‘I’d rather not, Miss Freddie. You know how it is; bad enough trying to read this Marguerite Patten recipe, let alone Miss Jessica’s handwriting. Barbed-wire entanglements was how her brothers used to describe Miss Jessica’s handwriting, barbed-wire entanglements!’

  Freddie put aside the turnips she was trying to peel, and started to read the letter out aloud to Branscombe as he ploughed away at what looked like a really rather odd mix.

  Dearest Freddie,

  Well, Blossom and I were really sorry to hear about the village, but war is war, and I daresay there’ll be something to come back to, when it’s all over. The poor old Court will probably survive because the officers will be kind to it, and we’ll just have to piece it together after this is all over. Miss Maude sent Blossom a very nice letter from Algy and Bertie, and Blossom was glad to hear that they were getting on so well with the pugs, especially dear old Trump, who is not famous for liking newcomers!

  Freddie looked up at that, and she and Branscombe both smiled. ‘Dogs first, as usual with those two! Now where was I? Oh yes . . .’

  Freddie cleared her throat, and went on reading.

  The work is very hard on the hands so I have to remember to wear my gloves when not in the factory, for anyone seeing my hands as they are now would call out the Red Cross! I often think of everyone hugger-mugger at the Hall now, and how you must all be pulling together as we are here. Don’t forget to give darling old Boy his bran mash on Sunday nights, or he will not thrive and pull the pony trap up Kingstarte Hill as he should do. I daresay Jean will be able to spare him something, or Chittlethorpe?

  I have to say Blossom and I could do with a bran mash, too! Now, Freddie darling, take care, and remember not to look beyond each day as it comes, that is what we do here. Blossom sends everyone her love, as I do, Your loving Aunt Jessie

  There was a small silence as Branscombe frowned at his handwritten recipe, taken off the wireless the previous day. Then he said, in a considered voice, ‘Well, I daresay, with so many mouths to feed over Christmas, it is just as well that Miss Jessica and Miss Blossom are staying put, staying where they are, and I daresay, too, they’ll get the day off at Christmas, although knowing Miss Jessica she won’t take it . . .’

  Freddie nodded at the turnips, which somehow seemed further away, a little more blurred, since she had first started to read the letter aloud to Branscombe.

  Christmas would not be Christmas without Aunt Jessica and Blossom, but they were doing the right thing, saving petrol, saving themselves the long journey, working to save Britain, if not – as far as they all knew – the civilised world.

  ‘What are we going to do for the smaller boys’ presents, Branscombe?’ Freddie asked, anxious to change the subject.

  ‘Miss Maude asked me just the same thing, only an hour or two ago. I told her that you had queued for the Meccano for Alec and Dick, but that we were a bit flat for ideas for Tom. Johnnie, as you know, won’t be here for Christmas. I thought it might be a plan to go up to the attics, there’ll surely be something for Tom’s age group up there, I daresay. Although I don’t think Miss Maude has paid it a visit since before the Great War.’

  Freddie thought back to the rainy days spent in the attics at the Court, and how the Huggett boys, when they came to tea with her, used to love to play sardines, just so they could go up there, fighting their way past the three-legged chairs, and the old magic lanterns, stumbling over dusty trunks, and large wooden cases that held, well – who knew what?

  ‘Oh my goodness, what was that noise?’ Freddie started, and Branscombe looked up, an expression first of fear then of embarrassment on his face.

  ‘What a thing to be so scared of your own troops! Miss Freddie, you look as white as a freshly laundered sheet!’

  ‘I don’t trust that lot. Come on, Branscombe, under the kitchen table with us!’

  ‘That’s mortars, I expect, Miss Freddie. They’re doing an exercise through the village – there’s a visiting general, or some such, coming. I heard it on the grapevine.’

  Freddie straightened up, and her mouth tightened.

  ‘On exercise through the village is a very tactful way of saying that they are busy blowing the place up, Branscombe, and we both know it.’ She wiped her hands on her apron. ‘I went past The Spread Eagle yesterday evening. It was crammed, but crammed, with drunken soldiers. I wanted to fetch a new wheel for the trap, and I remembered that there was a spare in the tack room at the back of the place, but could I get through? What a fuss! I had to show my identity card, I had to ask to speak to old Mr Justin, if only so he could vouch for me, and then, at the end of it all, I had to sign for the wheel, which was mine, anyway! I mean, really. I cannot tell you how rude those men were, and that was before I was confronted by the sergeant who, well, never mind, just let’s say you wouldn’t want him to be eating Christmas luncheon with you. By the time they’d finished with me I felt like saying what the Duke of Wellington did about his troops—’

  ‘He didn’t know what they did to the French, but they scared him all right, didn’t they?’ Branscombe smiled in such an affectionate way it sounded to Freddie as if he was talking about an old friend. ‘The good old Iron Duke, we need him now, don’t we? If it wasn’t for Winston . . .’ He sighed, and started to roll his mixture into dumplings. How he had got his hands on so much suet from the butcher was nobody’s business, and nobody’s business was how it was going to stay. Just thank God that he had.

  Later, Maude was waiting for him. She had just got in from the hospital, where she was now helping out as often as she could, not minding what she did: cleaning floors, cleaning bathrooms, anything and everything that she could put her hands to. Reading to patients, checking on the young nurses who were so unprofessional that if there was an air-raid warning they were hard put to remember to wash their hands before they came back on the wards. Of course, since Dunkirk, everything was running short, all of what was necessary going, as was only proper, to mend the rescued soldiers.

  ‘I thought we ought to do a roll call.’ As Branscombe looked appalled, she went on. ‘No, no, not call everyone together here. No, they are all far too busy. No, just you and I do a list of who is here now, or expected for Christmas, or else we will lose count of who and what we are meant to be doing, and how they are, and so on. Now, I am at the hospital for most of the week. I don’t know about you, but I am losing count of who is here and who is not.’

  She picked up a list she had previously started to make, and which Branscombe could see announced at the top ‘Wychford Hospital Do Not Remove’, a command that obviously did not apply to Miss Maude of Twistleton Hall.

  ‘Very well,’ she said, sitting down at her antique desk, and taking up her old ink pen from its silver holder. ‘Very well, here we are. We’ll leave aside the villagers for the moment, and start at the top with ourselves, and so on. We have obviously, yourself, myself, and Miss Freddie. Miss Aurelia Smith-Jones and Miss Laura Hambleton, who are both expected, although not until Christmas Eve. Miss Valentyne and Miss Blossom are not expected on account of the length of the journey, and being needed for the work at the factory. Miss Jean, or rather Mrs Jean Huggett, and Mr and Mrs Roger Huggett—’

  ‘No, Mr and Mrs Roger Huggett went back, this morning, to her people in Yorkshire. Provided they can get through the snow, they will be there for the duration, if not longer, by the time the army has finished with Holly House. It has come to our notice that Brigadier MacNaughton has a woman who passes as his housekeeper in there with him, and if it is true that an army marches on its stomach, he won’t be marching very far – he definitely hasn’t chosen her for her cooking.’

  Maude looked up at that.

  ‘Huggett never said anything to me about going. They have left the Hall, and with a grandchild on the way?’ Maude thought
for a moment. ‘How did they get the petrol?’

  ‘No one knows, but there was talk downstairs in the kitchen of Mr Huggett having swapped all the foodstuffs from the larder at Holly House for enough petrol to get them up to Yorkshire. As to the grandchild, it appears that they are not going to recognise it, if and when it arrives, not now, not ever.’

  ‘If and when it arrives, Branscombe?’

  Branscombe looked matter-of-fact.

  ‘You can’t be too sure with babies, the little that I know about such things . . . At any rate, as I understand it, whatever happens they cannot accept Miss Jean as being one of them, most particularly since Mr Joe will not be coming back. She has never been, nor will she ever be, accepted, it seems . . .’

  ‘I see.’ Maude looked down the list. ‘So, where are we? Ah, yes. We have Mr and Mrs Budgeon, and their evacuees—’

  ‘They’ve gone from the stables, Miss Maude. Mrs Budgeon found being at the Hall too countrified for her tastes, she is just not used to the sound of birds and that, only really likes what she’s used to – the sound of trains. So she is making do with them and living in the ladies’ waiting room at the station, and using the station facilities, and the evacuees that she took in, well, they only wanted to be with their mother for Christmas, so off they went. Before the army came here, yes, off they went back to East Ham.’ He paused, starting to count on his fingers the rest of the people currently housed in the stables. ‘Then there is Mr Dan, and the two land girls, and Miss Jean. Miss Freddie and myself, and of course—’

  ‘I have already noted that, Branscombe.’

  Maude looked down the list.

  ‘Not as many as I thought there would be, considering, Branscombe, not nearly as many as we started with, at any rate.’ She frowned. ‘Oh, but then there are the four Lindsay brothers, of course.’

  Branscombe cleared his throat yet again.

  ‘Only three Lindsay brothers, I think you’ll find, as of the next few days, Miss Maude. Their mother wants young Johnny back with her. Doesn’t mind leaving the others, but young Johnny must go back to be with her, to be with his mum in Peckham.’

  Maude frowned.

  ‘Does little Johnny want to go back and be with his mother in Peckham?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, no, he doesn’t. As a matter of fact, I think it is the last thing that little Johnny wants.’

  There was an even longer pause, and then Maude said, ‘I’m going up to the attic in a minute, Branscombe, where I hope to find some suitable gifts for those children who are left to us. I am sure there must still be some toys, toys that belonged to my brothers, that will bring a little joy to those poor boys.’

  Branscombe had never heard Miss Maude mention her brothers before. Like Miss Jessica, the subject of those lost in the Great War was never touched upon, except on the appropriate day of the year when everyone lost was remembered by the whole nation.

  ‘I can come up—’

  ‘There’s no need—’

  ‘I can hold the torch for you while you look, if you would like?’

  ‘That is much appreciated, Branscombe.’

  They climbed up to the third floor, which had once housed as many as six or seven young maids, all working in the house for the Beresfords. They made their way through the dark, empty rooms, devoid of anything except floorboards and blackout blinds, to an end door, which opened on to the place where all Miss Maude’s family heirlooms and mementoes were housed.

  ‘I haven’t been up here since – since, well, for many years, you know, Branscombe,’ Maude murmured, making her way past the usual medley of lamps and trunks, to where there was an old cobweb-festooned rocking horse.

  Maude stared at her old friend. She and Roderick had loved Paintbox, as they had christened him. She went up to the horse, and by the light of Branscombe’s torch she took out a handkerchief from her uniform pocket and dusted his face with it. She wiped his nostrils and his mouth, not to mention the insides of his ears, so expertly, as if her handkerchief were a stable sponge, that for a few seconds Branscombe was quite sure that Paintbox was a real pony.

  ‘There, Paintbox, there you are.’ Maude stood back. ‘There now, I think we can get you down the stairs for the children to ride on you.’

  Branscombe looked at Paintbox. The only boy that he would suit, even vaguely, would be his Johnny, and Johnny was going back to Peckham.

  ‘I think they’re a little old for Paintbox, Miss Maude. I think maybe we should be looking for something to amuse older boys.’

  Maude nodded, her expression serious.

  ‘I daresay you are right, Branscombe. Besides, boys are never quite as keen on the horses and the ponies as girls, are they? Although Mr Roderick did love Paintbox so.’ She moved on to a line of old trunks, only stopping when she reached one with the initials R.B.B. – Roderick’s old school trunk. She remembered how she had helped her mother pack up all the boys’ trunks: each one with their initials stamped on the lid held their old school uniforms, their toys, their school reports, everything as neat as pie.

  ‘Ah, now here are some things that boys will like all right, wouldn’t you say, Branscombe?’

  ‘I would say,’ Branscombe agreed. ‘I would, indeed.’

  ‘There is much to do to get some of these ready and repainted, Branscombe, much to do indeed.’

  Daisy had been as bright as a button throughout luncheon with Freddie and the rest, but Aurelia had noticed that she looked suddenly, and uncharacteristically, sad as she kissed them all goodbye.

  ‘Stupid old woman, Miss Beresford,’ Aurelia muttered to Laura a few days later, as they met up briefly for an evening drink. ‘I mean to say, locking poor Daisy out of her own home, and at Christmas, and all that. I mean to say, with a war on you would think there would be some sort of reconciliation. Honestly, families can be such a pill.’ She stopped grumbling as she realised that this time it was Laura’s face that was crumpling. ‘Oh, sorry, Laura, I forgot your lot are still on the away list, still AWOL. I am sorry, it quite slipped my mind.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t it? Besides, it is of no matter. Knowing my father, he’s probably holed up in some swanky hotel, eating and drinking and leading the life of Riley.’ Laura tried to smile, and failed. ‘Thank heavens, there has been too much to think about to worry about them. Either they’ve both got through to neutral Portugal, or they haven’t. I know Dora has relatives all over the Continent, so they should be all right. It just might be nice to hear from someone. Except I have quite given up worrying, because with all this happening—’ The wail of the sirens started and they began to pelt down the area steps of the Hambletons’ flat in Grosvenor Square. ‘What possible good does it do?’

  ‘I’m quite sure I should be fire-watching tonight, not sitting under a table with you having a brandy,’ Aurelia confessed, some time later, as the all-clear sounded. ‘Only trouble is the place I was meant to be watching from is, as of yesterday night, only a ton of rubble. Cheers.’

  They clinked glasses, and drank.

  ‘So we’ll meet again at the Hall for Christmas, my dear?’

  ‘If we’re allowed in. Apparently it’s all cordoned off.’

  ‘I can get us in.’ Aurelia nodded importantly. ‘With my new pass I can get us in anywhere you want. That’s one of the good things about the new job that Guy has shoehorned me into accepting: you get a pass that makes even the military police wave you through!’

  Guy himself, while still working secretly for the Bros at Operation Z, had, with what he called ‘my other hat on’, grown fed up with trying to infiltrate society and send on information of which no one ever seemed to make any good use, so he had taken himself off to entertain workers of every kind, factory workers in particular, everyone, all round the country, singing and playing sketches to the entertainment-starved population.

  ‘They far prefer to listen to the wireless, but I try to pretend I am not noticing,’ he had written to Aurelia, after making sure that she was posted on, with a r
ecommendation from him, to take up a position at Special Operations Europe in Baker Street.

  Since Aurelia had lived abroad, on and off, all her young life, travelling through Europe in the company of a young nanny, who then became her governess en titre, as it were, she was pretty nearly bilingual in both French and Spanish. No surprise, then, that she was placed in the French section in SOE.

  It was a bit of a change, to say the least, to go from working for a theatrical personality such as Guy Athlone, to sitting with a drawer full of cyanide tablets, one of which was always handed out to all agents before they were dropped into France. But of course she could say nothing of this to Laura, who was still whizzing around London in the FANY tradition, doing everything and anything that was needed.

  ‘Listen, let’s go to the Hall together, that way we can share my car, you can get us through with your pass – don’t forget to wangle one for me, too, if you can – and everything will be tickety-boo.’

  They parted, kissing each other fondly, then Laura made her way to her car, Aurelia back to Baker Street, both of them passing such depressing sights of devastation on the way that Laura found herself staring at the pavement, at her feet making their way through rubble and glass, passing everyone else doing the same as firemen played hoses on burning buildings. They all pretended that they didn’t know that there were dead people inside crushed houses, or living ones still trapped, and that they were useless to help, that they just had to get on, because not to get on would be no help to the war effort.

  ‘So, Johnny,’ Maude said gravely. ‘You are to go back to be with your mum for Christmas?’

  Johnny looked up at what seemed to him to be a very old lady – despite the fact that Maude was hardly past her fiftieth birthday.

  ‘Yes, miss.’

  ‘And your mum is to meet you at the station?’

  ‘Yes, miss.’

  ‘You like trains, don’t you, Johnny?’

  ‘Yes, miss.’

  ‘I thought so.’ Maude turned back to the Christmas tree that had been placed, as always, by tradition, in the hall. ‘Father Christmas, knowing that you were going back to Peckham to be with your dear mum, left you an early present. Would you like it, Johnny?’