Unfortunately now I would have to manage without Daisy’s company in the stables. One afternoon she came to tell me that she had decided to begin nursing again, and would be helping out with the patients instead of cleaning harness with me. ‘I’ll still come visiting every so often - if you’ll have me, that is. Will you, Grace?’
‘Will I what?’ I turned around from the window, having been listening with only half an ear. Philip was outside in the yard, chatting to my father, and the sight of him had distracted me for a moment.
Daisy smiled. ‘You like that boy, don’t you? I’ve seen the two of you talking together, so don’t try and deny it.’
‘Not particularly. Anyway, he’s one of the family.’
‘Why are you blushing, then?’ she retorted. ‘And does it really matter who his folks are?’
Naturally Daisy wouldn’t understand - things were probably organised quite differently in America. Besides, she was in an odd, halfway sort of position at Swallowcliffe: not exactly a friend of the Vyes, but not one of their staff either. I tried to explain. ‘It means we’ll never be equal. Philip is Lord Vye’s nephew. Even if I did like him, nothing could ever come of it.’
‘Hah!’ She gazed out of the window, narrowing her eyes. ‘That sounds like a whole heap of baloney to me. The things I could tell you about your precious Lord Vye …’
‘What could you tell me, Daisy?’ I asked, trying not to sound too eager but hoping that at long last she was about to confide in me. ‘Is it something to do with his death? There’s some kind of mystery around that and I’ve a feeling you know what it is. Would it help to talk?’
She didn’t speak for a moment, making me worry that I had pushed her too far. But then she said, ‘Yes, I think it might. Keeping secrets has always been hard for me and this one is the worst. The thing is, Grace, will you promise never, ever to repeat what I’m about to tell you? Not to another living soul? I need your word. It can’t become public knowledge - for Lady Vye’s sake, not his.’
I promised faithfully. And so, at last, the whole extraordinary story came out.
Thirteen
The Lusitania sank about eighteen minutes - certainly not more than twenty - after she was struck. As she went down I saw a number of people jump from the topmost deck into the sea. One of them, I think, was a woman. I heard no screaming at the last, but a long, wailing, mournful, despairing, beseeching cry.
Dr Moore, American passenger on the ship, as quoted in The Times, 10 May, 1915
‘I can’t begin to tell you what it was really like, once we realised the ship was going down.’ Daisy folded her arms and hunched forward over the table, looking past me to some faraway point in the distance. ‘Most of the sailors were trapped below decks so there was hardly anyone to supervise the lifeboats. A few officers were trying to count the women and children in, but no one paid them much attention in all the panic and the boats were overloaded. My friend Esther got a seat in one. She shouted at me to jump in beside her, but there was no room and I could see the lifeboat was too full already. After it was launched, the lowering ropes broke halfway down and everybody spilled out. It was awful. People were being crushed against the side of the ship, and the boat landed straight on top of another one in the water. We saw it all from the deck, but there was nothing we could do.’ Her voice trembled.
‘You don’t have to go on.’ I leant across to take her hand. We were sitting opposite each other in the harness-room, with some tack and saddle soap between us as an excuse for work should anyone come in.
‘No, I want to,’ she said. ‘You have to understand how it was.’ She took a deep breath. ‘There weren’t enough life-preservers either, and people were rushing around trying to get hold of one. Some of them had started jumping straight into the sea when they saw what was happening to the lifeboats. After Esther had gone, I decided that was the only thing to do, so I started searching for a lifebelt myself. And that’s when I saw him.’
‘Lord Vye?’
She nodded. ‘Although I had no idea then who he was. A man was trying to get his wife into a lifebelt next to me, and Lord Vye made his way over to them. That wasn’t easy, because the deck tilted so sharply that no one could keep their feet and besides, it was slicked over with blood. He said to this couple, “You’re putting that on upside down. Here, I’ll show you.”’
She paused again. ‘So they gave him the life-preserver. But as soon he got his hands on the thing, he took it for himself.’
And she stared at me, willing me to understand the dreadful thing she had just said.
I couldn’t, at first. ‘Are you sure? It can’t have been easy to see exactly what was happening. Or maybe he was going to give the lifebelt to Lady Vye, or some other person?’ (Although that wasn’t much of an excuse, admittedly.)
‘No, it was for him. He started putting it on, just the same way as they had. The woman began screaming, and then her husband took a revolver out of his coat pocket. He shouted, “Give that back! I’m warning you, I’ll shoot,” but Lord Vye didn’t take any notice. He just said, “Every man for himself, old chap,” cool as a cucumber. But the man did shoot him, square in the head. He shot him dead, and took the lifebelt off his body and put it on his wife, exactly as it had been before, which must have been the right way up all along. I saw everything clearly.’
We sat there in silence for a while. I was quite lost for words. ‘I shouldn’t have told you,’ Daisy said eventually. ‘It was a mistake. I just can’t bear to hear everyone go on about His Marvellous Lordship, knowing all the time the kind of man he was.’
Something in her voice made me ask, ‘That’s not the whole story, is it?’ She hesitated, and I knew I was right. ‘You’re holding something back. What is it, Daisy? Please tell me.’
‘All right, then, I will,’ she said, looking at me with such anger in her eyes that I was frightened, though it couldn’t have been directed at me. ‘It wasn’t the first time I’d come across him, your precious Lord Vye. I’d been out the night before to look at the stars, and there he was, leaning against the railings of the third-class deck. I didn’t see him at first in the dark, but I could smell his cigar. Why should he have been there at all, when there was a much better view from first class? Because he was on the prowl, that’s why - looking for some simple girl whose head would be turned by a few sweet words in a cut-glass accent.’
She shuddered, rubbing her arms. ‘Well, he didn’t find one. I had to fight him off in the end, but I managed to get away. He had his hand over my mouth and I bit it, good and hard.’ She laughed bitterly. ‘He wasn’t half so charming then. And you know, when I saw him the next day, he didn’t recognise me. I wasn’t important enough for him even to remember my face. Maybe he never noticed it. I shall remember his, though, to my dying day.’
Now I wished I’d never asked; this final secret was more than I wanted to know. Daisy could have told me the moon was made of green cheese and it would have been easier to believe. You see, I had grown up in the knowledge that if Lord Vye did a particular thing, then it was the right thing to do. This wasn’t merely what we thought; it was one of the laws of our universe, an accepted fact. If Lord Vye cut my father’s wages because there weren’t so many horses to look after or carriages to drive, then that was only fair and must have been what all the gentry were doing. If he went off to America in the middle of the war, it wasn’t up to us to question why he was going or wonder whether perhaps he should have stayed at home. That might sound ridiculous, but it was the way we had been brought up. To think of him acting in such a despicable way! It shook me to the core.
‘How could that lovely woman have married him?’ Daisy muttered. ‘She deserves somebody ten times better.’
‘Do you think Lady Vye knew what he’d done?’ I asked, coming back to my senses. ‘Not to you, I mean, but that business with the lifebelt.’
‘She wasn’t anywhere near him at the time - I never saw them together. But, you know, I always thought her attitude was k
ind of strange. I didn’t even realise she was married at first. She only mentioned her husband when we were in the rescue boat on our way back to Queenstown, and then all she said was, “Oh, Edward’s very good at looking after himself.” Why wasn’t she frantic to find him? He must have abandoned her already, and she probably knew what he was capable of.’
Daisy sighed. ‘She’ll have found out the whole truth by now, of course. She was the one who identified the body, so she’d have seen her husband had been shot and must have suspected a scandal. I suppose that’s why Colonel Vye went along to the inquest, to hush everything up.’
‘What about the man who killed him? I mean, he might have had a good reason, but it’s still murder, isn’t it?’
‘I think he died too, later on.’ Daisy twisted her fingers together. ‘I saw his wife back in Ireland but she was on her own, and you could see from her face that she’d lost him. She’ll have told the police what happened, and they’ll have told the inquest, and then Colonel Vye will have told Her Ladyship. I’ll bet my bottom dollar it didn’t come as any great surprise.’
It had to me. How could I have been so blind? The stag’s head above the fireplace looked down at me with a very knowing expression. ‘Surely you understood how the game was played?’ he seemed to be saying. Well, now my eyes were open. I walked out of that harness-room a very different girl from the one who went in.
It was hard to see Ma’s sad face whenever His Lordship’s name was mentioned and resist the impulse to tell her what I knew, but I had given my word and couldn’t go back on it. Daisy called by the stables pretty often over the next few weeks; I think she was worried about having confided in me and wanted to make sure I was all right. She had certainly upset me, there was no denying it. I was glad I’d never have to look Lord Vye in the face again - it’s hard to take orders from a master you don’t respect.
Daisy might just have been plain lonely, of course. She didn’t seem to have made many new friends, and told me that the other girls kept themselves to themselves. ‘Some of those volunteers seem to think they’re too good to make beds and empty bedpans,’ she complained, flopping down on the straw bale I was about to fork out. ‘They look down on the girls who nurse to earn a living, and those girls look down on them in return because they’re so useless. And I don’t fit in anywhere, so nobody even bothers speaking to me.’
‘Oh, take no notice of them,’ I said. ‘I know, why not come up on the roof tonight with Florrie and Dora and me? We’ll have a good old gossip and forget our troubles. I’ll come and find you, about half past ten.’
Ma had told me about this wonderful secret place. If you climb through the sash window in the corridor outside the housemaids’ bedroom, you can walk along to a private corner of the flat roof, closed in by chimneys and the balustrade around it like a courtyard up in the sky. We often go out there on warm summer evenings to talk under the stars, keeping our voices low so we don’t disturb anyone. (The housemaids don’t like heights and leave the roof to us.)
‘This is so cosy!’ Daisy whispered, looking around. It was a cloudy night without much of a moon, so we’d brought our old candle lamps to light the way. Electricity might be a wonderful invention, but you can’t carry it with you.
‘K-k-keep your eyes open for Zeppelins,’ Dora muttered. The Germans had started sending over these huge airships on bombing raids - like great silver sausages, they are - but they mainly head for London and only come when the skies are clear and there’s plenty of moonlight. I was worried about Ivy, but she’d told us there was a cellar in her lodgings where she could take shelter. That was something.
‘Isn’t it dreadful about poor Mr Vye?’ Florrie settled down with her back against a chimney stack. ‘I saw him out on the terrace today in his wheelchair.’
Mr John Vye had come back from France, but he was in a sorry state. He’d been blown off his feet by a shell and had to have both legs amputated. Hannah told us the Vyes’ house was a sad place now, and no wonder.
‘That’s the youngest brother, right?’ Daisy asked. ‘The one who’s just had a baby? Poor man. Still, I suppose at least he’s alive.’
‘Old Lady Vye’s taken it very hard,’ Florrie said. ‘We’ve been sending up food on a tray, but the plates come back untouched and she hasn’t left her room. It’s dreadful, and so soon after losing His Lordship, too.’
‘Do you know my mother once saved Mr Vye’s life, when he was a boy?’ I told them, watching the candle flames flicker in the dark. ‘It was a skating accident. He fell through the ice on the lake but she and Mrs Hathaway managed to pull him out in time.’ I’d forgotten all about that until Da had reminded me; perhaps it explained why Ma had been so very upset to hear what had happened to him.
‘Your ma sure is a part of this place,’ Daisy said. ‘Captain Chadwick says she could run it single-handed. He thinks she’d make a better job of the front line than most generals, too.’
‘Who’s C-C-Captain Ch-Chadwick?’ Dora asked.
‘Surely you’ve heard of him?’ I said innocently. ‘Everybody knows Captain Chadwick. He’s the bravest officer in the whole of the infantry, and the handsomest, too. He has curly, light brown hair and the bluest eyes - Daisy, stop!’
She had thrown her shawl over my head, and now she was tickling me to try and stop the teasing. I knew all about Captain Chadwick, despite never having set eyes on him, because Daisy had been talking about him constantly for the past week. He’d come to the Hall with a bullet wound in his leg and needed help using crutches; help which she was only too happy to give. ‘The way you’re looking after him, he’ll end up getting better too quickly if you’re not careful,’ I’d told her. Well, it was a treat to see somebody else blush for a change.
‘Will you point him out to us tomorrow?’ Florrie asked Daisy. ‘He’ll be at the sports, won’t he?’
The next day, Mrs Hathaway and Colonel Vye were organising all kinds of races and a cricket match to encourage the men up on their feet - or their crutches, as the case might be. I had the afternoon off from the stables to help, and we were all looking forward to a change in our routine.
‘I suppose so,’ Daisy said casually. ‘I’m not really sure.’
Florrie winked at me, and the three of us burst out laughing again.
‘Heard from Alf recently?’ I asked her once we’d calmed down. ‘How’s he getting on?’
‘Not too bad, I think. He talked about gas but they’ve got respirators now so they should be all right. Oh, I tell you what - the other day some of the lads went for a swim in this lake near their camp when suddenly the Huns started shelling them. They had to nip out of the water pretty quick and run back with only time to put their boots on! Alf said it was a regular beauty parade. You couldn’t help but laugh.’ Then she asked me, ‘What about Tom? Any news?’
‘He’s too busy to write much.’ I tried to keep my voice light.
‘Don’t worry. You’ll get a lovely long letter some day soon.’ Florrie squeezed my hand. There was no pulling the wool over her eyes.
The next day was a warm one. I took a back path to the south side of the house, not too unhappy for once to have swapped my heavy breeches for a cotton frock. Knots of people were scattered over the terrace and the lawn. At first glance, it might have been any other garden party at the Hall, until you looked more closely and saw the nurses’ uniforms, the number of men on crutches or sitting in wheelchairs, the quantity of bandaged heads and limbs. Everyone was trying hard to enjoy themselves, but the laughter sounded forced to my ears. It all seemed a pale imitation of last summer, when the women had looked so beautiful in their frothy chiffon frocks and huge rose-trimmed hats, and none of us knew what real worry and suffering were. Then I saw Mr Vye in his wheelchair and pulled myself together. If he could manage a smile, so could I.
I made my way over to the long table at one edge of the terrace to join Florrie and Dora, noticing my mother talking to Lady Vye on the steps by the French windows. Why had I been so surp
rised to hear she’d been made housekeeper? Already it felt as though she’d had the position for years, and she was a darn sight better at it than Mrs Maroney.
Bess had told us why Mrs Maroney had really left. Apparently she had asked to see Lady Vye straight after Her Ladyship had come back from Ireland (‘poor thing, in the state she was!’) and declared that we couldn’t be expected to cope with all these patients in the current circumstances (His Lordship being no longer head of the household, she meant), and that either the men went or she did.
‘So Lady Vye thanked her very much and said she quite understood, and Mrs Maroney could have three months’ wages and a decent character reference for her next position!’
Bess thought Her Ladyship had been wanting to get rid of Mrs M for ages, but Lord Vye had insisted on keeping her because she was so good at making economies. Well, now Lady Vye was taking up the reins at Swallowcliffe. It was strange: all the steel that had gone out of the Dragon Lady seemed to have been passed on to her. She even walked differently these days, very upright and purposeful in her sombre black frock, and she wasn’t nearly so diffident about asking for things to be done. If there was something that would make the men’s lives easier, she wouldn’t take no for an answer.
I reported for duty at the tea table and was given a tray of glasses and drink to take out to the cricket pitch. Daisy fell in beside me as I walked across the grass, concentrating on trying not to spill the heavy jug which was full to the brim with lemonade and clinking ice cubes. ‘Here, let me take that,’ she said, lifting it off the tray.
‘So where is he, then?’ I asked. ‘Where’s your wonderful Captain Chadwick?’
‘I’m not going to tell you if you’ll only poke fun.’ But she showed me all the same. He was third from the end in a row of men on crutches, lining up to start a race - and he certainly was handsome, she was right about that. As soon as he caught sight of Daisy, he waved, and her face lit up. I suddenly realised she was looking happy for the first time since I’d met her.
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