Mabel glanced to her list, now satisfyingly awash with small check marks. Only one detail—a person—remained unconfirmed, and the question mark next to the name bothered her more than it should have. She had yet to receive a reply to the letter she’d penned so carefully, then stamped and taken to the post office herself. She smiled. They would come, she thought; they’d simply not be able to stay away. And Mabel picked up her fountain pen, crossed out the question mark and placed a large check mark next to the name.
Chapter Five
Two days before Christmas, shortly before the dressing bell sounded, and as snow began to fall, Howard Forbes’s silver Rolls-Royce drew to a halt outside the oak front door. Minutes later, a black taxi pulled up behind it and his elder daughters, Iris and Lily, stepped out.
That evening, dinner as usual was served promptly, and almost exactly an hour and fifteen minutes later the family rose from the table and repaired to the drawing room. As the clock on the mantelpiece struck nine, Daisy and her father stood hand in hand at the oriel window watching snowflakes fall. Behind them, the murmured voices of Daisy’s mother and grandmother, her sisters and aunt, mingled with the sound of Debussy emanating from the wireless.
“Magical . . . ,” said Daisy.
“Like you,” her father whispered.
Once described as Olympian, Howard Forbes towered over his youngest daughter, for Daisy had taken after her mother in physical appearance, inheriting Mabel’s heart-shaped face, pale skin and gray-green eyes, and the very same five-foot-two-inch frame. Howard, on the other hand, had bequeathed his dark looks and height to his two elder daughters.
“We should make a wish,” said Daisy. “You used to tell me that if I made enough of them, one or two would undoubtedly come true. Wishes made gazing up at stars and over rainbows and birthday candles and lost teeth. Wishes made throwing your precious pennies into streams and fountains, and wishes made over my snow globe at Christmas. Do you remember?” she asked, glancing at the globe on the table beside them.
Inside the glass orb were tiny pine trees, a replica of Eden Hall in miniature and hand-painted gold stars—each one studded with a tiny diamond at its center. A present to Daisy from her father when she was no more than five years old, the snow globe was brought out each year and placed in the same spot, its limited appearance making it a veritable treasure of Christmas. And Daisy continued to be mesmerized by it. She imagined them all—herself and her family—inside the miniature house: tiny people with giant souls and infinite love in their hearts, safe and warm beneath the glass, beneath those diamonds and gold stars.
But tonight there were no diamonds in the sky. No silver moon, no gold or guiding star was visible. It was simply that the universe was black and the earth was white, Daisy thought, staring out through the window once more. Yet there was an unexpected alchemy to this, to the tiny white crystals dancing out of the darkness toward them and the light and the softly crackling “Clair de Lune.”
“Yes, a lot of wishes,” Howard conceded languidly. “And have any of them come true?”
“I can’t tell you that,” she said, smiling.
When the telephone rang, neither one of them turned.
“I’ll get it!” Iris called out. “Hello . . . Yes, it’s me . . . Hello, darling!”
“You used to tell me them all,” Howard continued. “You used to tell me as soon as you’d made a wish what it was you’d wished for. You could never keep a secret.”
“No, not from you.”
“And can you now?”
“Keep your secrets or my own?”
“Your own, of course. I wouldn’t dream of burdening you with mine.”
Daisy laughed.
“No, darling, absolutely not,” Iris’s voice went on. “I’m stuck down here for the whole time.”
“The great shame of it—which I suppose is a secret in itself—is that I have no secrets . . . and yet, I’m rather longing for some,” said Daisy.
Now her father laughed. “You shouldn’t. Secrets are invariably things one’s ashamed of, whether about oneself or another.”
In the dim light the contours of his face were sculptural and gray, and his smile fell away a little too quickly. His silver hair was swept back from his brow and the line of his mouth—thinner, slightly downturned at the corners now—lent him a more severe look than Daisy was used to or wished to see. It struck her then, and for the very first time, that there was something more than mild frustration locked in his features: the trace of some private unhappiness or perhaps loneliness. And as Daisy gripped the smooth flesh in his hand a little tighter, she heard Iris again: “Like being sedated, darling . . . Quite . . . Of course . . . You, too. Good-bye, darling.”
Daisy looked over at the large mirror hanging above the fireplace, saw Iris sashay across the room and up to it, pucker her painted lips and blow a kiss back at her.
“You must think of something to wish for,” said Daisy, turning her attention back to her father. “And concentrate. That’s what you used to tell me.”
He’d been the one who had taught Daisy to dream, and it was one of the reasons she loved him, loved him above and beyond all others, and yet he had been absent for so much of her life. For a moment she saw her younger self waiting once more upon the wall by the gated entrance, waving furiously, then climbing down and running across the grass toward the car so the two of them could walk that last stretch together, hand in hand. Those moments when she had had to cram it all in, tell him everything before the others: . . . and Lily said . . . and Iris told me . . . and it’s simply not fair, is it?
Her father had always taken time to listen to her, nodding at the latest great travesty of justice, the catastrophic events of that day or week, and the inhumanity of the treatment meted out to her by her two elder siblings, from time to time gasping or shaking his head in disbelief. And yet he had not lied to her and did not pander to her tears, but sensitively, tenderly and seemingly with great thought and care he used the word we: We must be reasonable . . . we need to set an example . . . we must try to understand . . . we must not reduce ourselves to that level. It was, had always been, we. In his capacity as judge, jury or ombudsman, his words—my last words on this—were a true and lawful verdict, to be upheld and obeyed, and then, sometimes, repeated back: Well, Daddy says . . .
To Daisy, her father remained invincible, unsinkable, like a mighty ocean liner barely swayed by the unpredictable and truculent currents in which Daisy increasingly found herself—or imagined herself to be. His manners, morals and virtues were unquestionable. He seemed to know all that there was to know. She could, she often thought, tell him anything, because he understood and because she believed in him and believed him.
“Have you done it? Have you made your wish?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Well, don’t tell me.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good.”
“Have you made yours?”
“No. I’m about to now . . .”
Daisy closed her eyes tight and kept them closed for some minutes, concentrating on the word happy: happy home, happy family, happy father. Then, “Done!” she said, opening her eyes and turning to him. But he said nothing and continued staring out through the window, his expression impassive, his gaze fixed beyond the blackness, beyond the confines of that house and even its land.
“You don’t seem particularly cheerful tonight. Is anything the matter?” she asked.
Her father sighed and smiled and cast his eyes downward. “I’m a little tired, that’s all. And I rather need a drink, but there doesn’t appear to be any soda water—or any ice.”
“Mother gave Blundy the night off. He’s gone with Hilda to the concert at the village hall.” She paused for a moment, then, quieter, she said, “Not right now, not tonight, but at some stage I need to talk to you about Stephen.”
&
nbsp; “Stephen?” he said, turning to her.
“Yes, I need to talk to you about his life . . . his future. I think it’s important, and I’m concerned, very concerned.”
Howard smiled wearily. He raised his hand to her brow and pushed back a wisp of hair. “My angel . . . always so concerned about everyone,” he said. “We shall sit down first thing tomorrow and talk about Stephen.”
“In private?”
“In private.”
Daisy wrapped her arms around his waist. “I love you,” she whispered. She stood on the very tips of her toes to kiss his cheek. “I’ll fetch you some soda water and ice,” she said, then stepped away from him into the brightness of the room.
She lifted the silver ice bucket from the drinks trolley, placed it on her head and attempted to walk like Iris across the Turkey carpet toward the door, hands on hips. Inevitably it toppled. Luckily she caught it. Her grandmother gasped, shook her head. “Such high jinks . . . There’ll be an accident yet.”
She crossed over the hallway swinging the empty bucket like a child crossing sands to the sea, and took a short cut through the dining room, where candles still flickered among strewn linen napkins. She paused at the baize door, smiling at the hushed voices of Mrs. Jessop and Nancy on the other side. And then she pushed gently, very gently . . .
“Don’t look at me like that. It’s the truth.”
Daisy leaned closer.
“I’m telling you, he is. He’s back with that fancy woman of his,” continued Nancy. “Mrs. What’s Her Name, the actress.”
“Mrs. Vincent,” offered Mrs. Jessop.
“That’s her. Margot Vincent. It’s where your Stephen drives him every Sunday night . . . Well, an actress; it’s only to be expected, I suppose. It’s poor Madam I feel sorry for, turning a blind eye all these years while he gallivants about up there, leading a double life.”
“Mr. Forbes may not be a saint, Nancy, but he’s not all bad . . . I know that much.”
“Well, I’m not so sure. Not anymore.”
“He’s done many good deeds,” Mrs. Jessop muttered.
“Oh, I know you said he was good to that poor bastard child, but—”
“Don’t use that word,” Mrs. Jessop interrupted. “I happen to know the child’s very loved.”
The sound of a chair scraping the kitchen’s stone floor made Daisy step back from the door. The universe rocked; the room slid sideways. And as random images spiraled toward her like the snowflakes she had a minute ago been watching, there was a strange juddering vibration—inside her chest, her throat, her head: like a motor over-revving and stuck in acceleration—because there had been no warning, no warnings of any bend ahead. Enlightenment had come with the same impact as a car traveling at great speed hitting a wall.
Dazed, she turned and walked back to the hallway and sat down on the bench by the tree. Somewhere in the distance she could hear music intermingled with laughter and shrill-sounding voices. Somewhere in the distance she could hear him: as smooth as velvet, innately charming and in control. And somewhere in the distance she heard herself whisper, Daddy.
When Daisy finally rose to her feet she was still trembling. And though her heart continued to pound, that initial downward dash had become an ever-slowing reeling sensation. But a new weight rooted her, making her feet reluctant, her limbs heavy. And so, slowly, very slowly, empty-handed, her arms hanging down by her sides, she moved toward the open doorway, the music, the voices, and crossed over the threshold. She cast her eyes about the room, over the silk brocades, tapestries and tasseled velvets, over the crowded mahogany and walnut surfaces glinting with silver and china and glass; and the snow globe, with its miniature house and pine trees and diamonds in the sky. All ornamentation, she thought: all of it a lie, shielding him—her father.
And there he was, Howard Forbes, a dinner-suited arm resting upon the black marble mantel, empty glass in one hand, cigar in the other.
“No ice?”
He didn’t deserve a response. She couldn’t offer him one. She stared back at that familiar smile: one craved a moment ago, craved every moment ago. She wanted to speak, wanted simply to say, Oh, Daddy, tell me it isn’t true . . . please tell me . . . Then her mother spoke: “Is everything all right, dear? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”
Daisy did not look at her mother, could not look at her mother. And she couldn’t offer up any words in case they were the wrong ones. Words were now muddled, and fancy woman and bastard had built a monster.
And then the monster spoke: “Dodo? Whatever’s the matter? It’s Christmas—remember? The season to be jolly . . . peace and goodwill and all that, hmm? Come here . . .”
He put down his glass and moved toward her—cigar in mouth, arms outstretched. What happened next would become blurred with the passage of time, for some. And certainly Lily wasn’t to know and had always teased Daisy in that way, calling her “Daddy’s girl.” But right at that moment those two words were obscene to Daisy, an insult every bit as revolting as the man who was about to put his arms around her.
When Daisy raised her arm, it was a swift, instinctive move. She gave no thought to the burning cigar, which caught and scorched the side of her hand before flying in an arc across the room and landing in her grandmother’s lap, causing the old woman to screech and jump from her chair—knocking over the heavily laden butler’s tray and colliding with Dosia, clutching a decanter of sherry. Daisy did not hear her own words, shouted—some might say screamed—at her father: “Don’t touch me!”
In the commotion that followed, amidst the cacophony of three yapping dogs and Debussy, still, and louder and more dramatic than ever, Lily burst into tears: because scenes did not happen at Eden Hall, and because it was Christmas, and because—Daisy supposed—Lily didn’t and couldn’t understand. Then, after the mess of broken glass and spilled drinks had been cleared, after Mabel had asked someone to please turn off the wireless, after Noonie had been pacified with “just a small sherry, please,” after Lily had called Daisy a “stupid little fool” and after Iris had told Lily, “Oh, do shut up; you know nothing anyway,” Howard quietly excused himself and went to his study, leaving the six women to ponder their hysteria.
Chapter Six
At first, no one spoke. Iris sighed and fluttered her made-up eyes heavenward. Lily stretched out the fingers on her left hand, pouting sulkily at her diamond engagement and wedding rings. Noonie sniffed, took a sip of her sherry and turned to the empty chair next to her as though about to speak, but then stopped. And Dosia sat with her eyes closed, quietly humming “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.”
“Leave it,” said Mabel—unusually curt, unusually loud—when the telephone rang and Iris leaped to her feet. “Please, leave it, dear,” she said again, quieter.
Iris sat down.
Mabel’s mouth twitched. It was Christmas, she reminded herself. Christmas. These things happened. There was no point in screaming, becoming hysterical—too many of her sex had succumbed to that, and where had it got them? She quickly glanced at Dosia. It had—in a way—got them the vote, given them a voice. But the term hysterical—so derogatory, and so often used by men, so often used by her own father—had made Mabel confused about that other word, passion.
Mabel looked over at Daisy, gazing once more into the snow globe on the table next to her, daydreaming again. But what on earth had made her attack her father like that? So out of character . . . She glanced again at Dosia, whose eyes remained tightly closed; then she turned to her mother, who stared back at her and shook her head: No.
No. Noonie was right. It must be left alone. Despite her forgetfulness, her mother still had moments of clarity.
Mabel cleared her throat. “Mrs. Jessop tells me there might be as much as five inches of snowfall tonight.” It was a start. She had to keep going. “Yes, she says we’re in for a very cold spell . . . and even worse to come in
the New Year.” She smiled up at the ceiling: “But a white Christmas will certainly be very pretty . . .”
“It always used to be so,” said Noonie, eager to take the baton and run with the conversation. “Do you remember when you were young, Mabel? There was always snow at Christmas.”
Mabel tried out a little sound of amusement. It was not the time to disagree with her mother. “Oh yes, always.” She ran her hands simultaneously over the upholstered arms on either side of her chair. It was a struggle, but they had to get back to where they had been, somehow. She looked to her mother for reinforcement.
“Of course, in my day,” Noonie began, a little croaky but nonetheless committed; and Mabel smiled, the warmth of relief flooding her tense body, grateful to her mother for another well-worn anecdote, removing them further from what would in years to come be referred to as the Cigar Incident.
Daisy’s outburst, her irrational behavior, had been a momentary lapse, Mabel concluded, smoothing out a crease in her crepe jersey dress. Sometimes we’d all like to scream, she thought. Even she. Oh yes, even she. Though she had long ago learned how to scream in silence, or how to stuff a handkerchief into her mouth. And if she had not, where would she be now?
But flightiness and sudden rages were, Mabel had read, common traits among modern young women who were given to thinking too much. And Daisy was quite modern . . . Not as modern as Iris, perhaps, but modern enough. And Daisy appeared to think a little too much. She was without doubt the most enigmatic of Mabel’s three daughters, and she would need a certain type of man to cope with such a passion for pondering. Was Ben Gifford the one? Mabel doubted it, and it would be over Howard’s dead body—or so Howard had said at the end of Ben’s unfortunate and overly long stay with them last summer. But there was plenty enough time for Daisy. It was Iris Mabel was concerned about. Iris: There was a conundrum. But before Mabel could contemplate this further, the telephone rang out once more. Iris immediately looked to her mother, who nodded. And they all remained silent as Iris took another call.
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