Daisys secret, p.28
Daisy's Secret, page 28
‘Never mind the baby being a poor little love, what about us? We’re homeless. Bombed out. Or haven’t you noticed?’
Florrie looked with pity on her sister. And you’re a widow, but didn’t have the courage to say as much in so many words. Between first finding the ruins of their home, not to mention all of the other houses in Marigold Court, to them arriving back here and seating themselves upon its smoking remains, the two women had trailed from one air raid shelter to another in search of Joe, not missing a single opportunity to ask if anyone had seen him, or check out a place where he might have taken cover.
‘He’s a goner,’ Rita had finally admitted. ‘I bet he stayed put, peeling that flippin’ potato, stupid man. Never did know what was best for him, the silly old fool. Now what am I supposed to do? No home, no husband, no job, no money. What now?’ She rooted in her pocket for a bit of grubby rag that passed for a hanky and blew her nose upon it, loud and hard.
‘And we’ve the bairn to think about, don’t forget.’
Rita shot a venomous glare at Florrie. ‘Aren’t you listening to a single word I’ve said? We’ve bigger problems to consider than a lost child. Anyroad, there’s some nappies on that line over there. I reckon they’ll be dry by now,’ Rita’s black humour seemed stronger than ever as she gazed upon the ruins of her world.
Florrie stared in dismay at the washing line with its row of terry napkins. Who had washed them, and where was the child? Had it, or the mother, survived? Even if they had, she could surely spare one nappy in the circumstances. Propping the baby on her hip, Florrie picked her way over the heap of loose chunks of plaster and burning debris to unpeg the cleanest one from the line, deciding to take a second as well, just to be safe. Milk for the baby was another matter.
Back beside her sister, Florrie pointed out this problem as she cleaned the baby up as best she could and pinned on the clean nappy. ‘He must be weaned by now, mustn’t he, but a bairn still needs milk.’
‘Never mind milk for the babby, what are we going to eat? Dirt, I suppose.’
A woman who happened to be passing by as Rita asked the question, answered it for her. ‘We’re to go down to t’Council school. There’s soup on offer from the WVS, and summat fer t’child an’ all, I reckon.’
Rita didn’t thank her but simply nodded by way of a greeting when she saw whom she addressed. ‘That’s what I face now, is it? A blanket and a bit of hard floor in an old schoolroom, and handouts from a soup kitchen. It’ll be the flamin’ workhouse next.’
‘It’s a boy, a fine one at that,’ Florrie said, quite inconsequentially, paying no attention to Rita’s complaints as she buried the dirty nappy amongst the rubbish around her.
The woman stared at the baby with bleak eyes. ‘At least you can be thankful he’s too young to fight. Unlike my lad. Got near shot to pieces, he did. You’d think he’d be safe on a big ship, wouldn’t you?’
‘What about your Annie and the nippers?’ Rita asked, but the woman only jerked her head in the direction of the destruction behind them, and even the hard hearted Rita seemed moved by the gesture. ‘Joe an’ all,’ she said, acknowledging their mutual loss. Both women looked away, embarrassed by their own vulnerability and not yet able to cope with pity.
‘I’d best be going.’ Without pausing to linger, she went on her way, dragging her feet as if the effort even of walking were too much for her, her face pinched and drawn with suffering.
Reality was beginning to penetrate. An entire area, all the entries and yards and courts with their fanciful names and long history of gloom and poverty had been destroyed this day. No great loss, some might say, save for the number of mothers and children, old folk and loved ones who’d been lost along with them. Every one an innocent victim of war. Rita expelled her anger by blaming not only the German planes who’d dropped the bombs but the local authorities for their inadequate means of protection, the government, and even the ARP Warden who, in her opinion, had very nearly been the death of them all.
Florrie was still preoccupied with the baby. ‘Who does he belong to? Did you see anyone who might have been his mam? We should take him back to the ARP Warden, get him checked out by a doctor. There, there, don’t cry little chap. Hush now, hush.’ She sat him on her lap and began to rock him to and fro, crooning gently as she gave him a finger to suck to ease his hunger. Rita was saying nothing, only sat staring at her in an odd sort of way.
Chapter Twenty-One
Daisy was enjoying herself hugely and finding them all to be excellent guests. They paid their rent on time, were perfectly amenable and pleasant to live with. And if she made mistakes with her cooking, they were most forgiving, this being a new enterprise for her and she so young. They didn’t mind in the least the blackened toast, the soggy vegetables, the somewhat leathery Yorkshire puddings because they were so enchanted by her cheerful smile, her lovely face, and by her willingness to be helpful. And Daisy was learning and improving all the time.
She made a point of listening to their problems. It soon became clear why Miss Geraldine Copthorne had been barred from the parlour at her previous lodgings. Nothing at all to do with the price of coal. The woman was a bore. Well meaning, stoic, hard working, but nonetheless a crashing bore. She barely stopped talking long enough to take a breath, and certainly never seemed to expect a reply.
As April gave way to May and the blossom on the cherry trees supplied a stark contrast to the dark horror that continued to fall from above, lighting the skies over the coast where Harry was stationed to a dull red, Daisy kept her mind occupied by taking great care of her guests. She worried so much about him that she was glad of the distraction. She worried too about Megan and Trish, having had no reply to her last two letters.
In addition to her regulars, there would often be a young soldier with his sweetheart sneaking off for a weekend. She would make sure they were comfortable but allow them plenty of privacy, not appearing to even notice if they didn’t come down to breakfast. She might envy their joy in each other a little, but didn’t begrudge them their need to escape from hostilities. One of these was a pilot by the name of Charlie Potter. Charlie and his girl became regulars during those first months, often popping in just for one of Daisy’s high teas, even if they didn’t stay overnight.
‘There’s no one like you, Daisy, he’d say. Most landladies are dragons. Not our Daisy.’
Another was a Mr Enderby who came to visit his elderly mother but swore he couldn’t live in the same house as her or there’d be blue murder done. He would put his shoes outside of the bedroom door to be cleaned, just as if he were staying at the Savoy. Daisy would always clean them, and place them neatly back there the following morning.
‘You’re too soft for your own good, girl,’ Clem would warn, but Daisy only grinned.
Daisy found herself sitting for hours with the spinster teacher in the parlour, hearing about her work, and her intention to take night-school classes in French once the war was over, which might gain her a much improved teaching post, perhaps in a girls’ private school. She would offer to hold the wool if Miss Copthorne wanted to wind it. Knitting and sewing were, next to talking, the teacher’s favourite forms of relaxation. And while she knitted socks, wound wool or hemmed handkerchiefs she would drone on and on, going over the same conversation night after night. Daisy felt duty bound to listen since there was little chance of escape once she got going. Daisy learned more about education than she really felt the need to know; the woman’s one topic of conversation being her precious charges and how difficult it was to keep up the necessary standards.
‘We must still do our arithmetic, our algebra and prepare for our school certificate,’ she would sternly declare, followed by the oft-heard cry, ‘war or no war.’
Miss Copthorne would discuss the relative merits of chain stitch as opposed to feather, and why it was essential for each girl to learn plain sewing while the boys concentrate their efforts on running the school allotment. ‘Even the children must play their part, dear Daisy, and dig for victory. However, education cannot be neglected. Oh, dear me no! War or no war.’
She was so thrifty that she would cut exercise books in half or carefully sharpen pencils with a penknife.
Daisy laughed, and said that she was just as bad with soap. ‘I always think it will go twice as far if I give people half as much.’
‘Ah, but is it thrift or the terrible sin of hoarding, dear Daisy, if a frugal housewife saves bars of soap, for instance, against a possible future shortage. Is it patriotic to be thrifty or are you a liability to your compatriots? A moot point don’t you think?’
‘I wouldn’t know the answer to that one,’ Daisy admitted, ‘but I do know that anything we need to do here on the farm seems to require six sheets of foolscap to deal with it.’
‘Oh indeed, I know all about wasting paper on forms, believe me. Yet you can be fined for throwing away your bus ticket in the street.’
Daisy enjoyed these lively discussions but soon they’d be back on the same old treadmill of education and examinations, upon which she could make less of a contribution. Daisy did become familiar with the words of The Young Lochinvar, and The Forsaken Merman which Miss Copthorne was fond of reciting by heart.
Miss Copthorne was also concerned about the evacuee children who had returned to Newcastle, on whether her old school would open again to admit them despite the seemingly endless bombing, and how they would cope without her if they did.
‘I certainly dare not leave these precious mites here all on their own.’
‘Of course not,’ and Daisy would helplessly wonder if the poor woman bored the children at their lessons in exactly the same way, by endlessly dull repetition, drumming facts into their tiny heads until they were heartily sick of them. Or perhaps her little charges brought out the best in her.
In the secret depths of her heart Daisy too worried about the evacuee children, two in particular. She still held onto her dream to have Megan and Trish come to live with her at Lane End Farm. Again she’d written and got no response. But if Miss Copthorne’s enquiries revealed that they were in any sort of difficulties, or the slightest bit miserable, she would take her courage in both hands and beg Clem to take them in. There was plenty of room, after all, and at least she would know they were safe.
And then one morning there came a knock at the door. Daisy hurried to answer it, curious as to who it might be since they didn’t get many visitors, living so high up on the mountain side.
It was Harry, brown hair cut shorter than ever, polished boots caked in mud from the long walk up the lane, and an ear to ear grin wreathing his face. Daisy leapt into his arms on a shriek of delight. ‘Oh, Harry, have you got some leave?’
‘Two days.’
‘Bliss!’ She hadn’t seen him for weeks, not since he was posted, and this was the first time that he’d come to the farm. It felt wonderful to have his arms around her again, to breathe in the scent of him and lose herself in the glorious power of his kisses. But he wasn’t alone.
‘Look what I’ve got here,’ he said, when they stopped hugging and kissing long enough to stand apart a little, smiling shyly into each other’s eyes. And from behind his back he drew out two small figures.
‘Megan! Trish! I don’t believe it.’ Tears of joy sprang to her eyes as Daisy gathered her two small friends into her in a fierce hug. They were positively jumping with exuberance, like a pair of puppies wriggling and yelping with glee so that they knocked Daisy over in their excitement and all three were soon rolling about on the grass while Harry stood by, laughing in delight.
Wouldn’t he do anything for his Daisy? Bringing the children to her had seemed to him the perfect way to prove that. He couldn’t quite get over his good fortune at attracting her attention in the first place, him being such a homely sort of bloke and she a real looker.
‘I decided it was time you three musketeers got together again,’ he explained as they sat in the kitchen and Daisy fussed about heating soup and buttering bread, saying how she wished she’d known they were coming then she would have baked something special for the children. ‘When you said in your last letter that you hadn’t heard from them in ages, I took it into my head to call and see how they were.’ He was frowning slightly as he said this, and something in his face told Daisy not to ask any more questions just then, so instead she went to him and kissed him.
‘I’m so very glad that you did.’
Megan said. ‘He just walked up the garden path bold as you please.’
‘Right into the shed, picked us up out of our camp beds and carried us away in his arms. Mrs Carter said she’d never seen such cheek in her life,’ Trish added, slapping her hand over her mouth to hold back her giggles.
Daisy listened to this in astonishment. She longed to ask what on earth the children were doing sleeping in camp beds in a garden shed, but mindful of the warning in Harry’s eyes and of Megan’s small mouth pursed into mutinous angry silence, she managed to hold her tongue.
Trish, realising she’d revealed more than she should, cast her sister an anxious, sidelong glance before adding in hushed and horrified tones, ‘She were going to send me away. To an ‘ospital. On me own.’
‘Hostel, for problem children,’ Megan quietly corrected her in a tight little voice.
Later, as Daisy sat cuddled beside Harry while the children played ball, he told her the full story and she was appalled to hear how they’d been treated. How could anyone put two such lovely children in a garden shed, just because they might have scabies, or some other problem which was not of their making?
Harry too had been more shocked than he could say when he’d found them like that, all huddled up together like a pair of frightened mice. He knew from his own experience, coming from a large, close-knit family, the value of a happy childhood. Didn’t he go back to Halifax to visit them whenever he could? His own mother had taken in two evacuees, despite having a house full already, and treated them as one of the family.
‘I know I’ve created a problem, broken some rules maybe, but I couldn’t just walk away and leave them like that.’
‘Course you couldn’t. The very idea.’
‘Unthinkable. I like children too much.’
‘Do you?’ Daisy gazed up at him starry-eyed. Perhaps she should tell him now, about her own baby? But then Trish fell down and started yelling and the opportunity was missed.
Once she’d been put back on her feet, bruised knees wiped and kissed better, Daisy looked on with concern as they played. Trish seemed even more jumpy and excitable, constantly crying out for attention while Megan was quieter, more withdrawn. The smiles and joy at having found each other again had quickly vanished and she’d withdrawn into some sort of shell, which Daisy didn’t wonder at. These two had spent the entire war being shifted about from pillar to post with no one prepared to take responsibility for them. It was utterly inhuman, and settled the matter once and for all so far as she was concerned. ‘They’re staying here with me now, come what may.’
‘I guessed you might say that,’ Harry grinned. ‘That’s why I brought their stuff.’
‘Oh Harry, did you really?’ Her eyes were round with surprise and delight.
‘I left their bags round the back, in the barn.’
‘Harry Driscoll, you old softy.’ Daisy leaned into his strong shoulder, curling an arm about his neck as she smiled up into his green-grey eyes and knew a moment of such all encompassing love, she felt choked with emotion.
‘I am, where you are concerned, Daisy.
‘So that’s how she found you again?’ Laura said.
‘Yes, through Harry. He was the kindest man I know. And the most patient. He adored Daisy, would do anything for her. And that was the most wonderful summer I can ever remember.’ Megan Crabtree got up from the table. ‘But I’m an old woman now and must away to my bed. That was a lovely meal, thank you. Perhaps tomorrow, I can tell you a little more.’
Laura said goodnight, had a slight tussle of wills with Chrissy but finally got her off to bed too. Which left her alone with David since she hadn’t been able to resist inviting him along to hear more of the tale, and he couldn’t resist coming. Now she turned to him with smiling eyes.
‘I’m so glad Daisy was happy with her Harry. Happiness is so important, don’t you think?’
‘You have gorgeous eyes, do you know that? So alive.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
David’s mouth twisted into that irrepressible grin. ‘Your eyes. Did anyone ever tell you how lovely they were? All dark and mysterious. A soft, velvet brown. Most inviting.’
‘David, for goodness’ sake. We’re discussing important issues here, important to me anyway.’
‘Your eyes are pretty important to me too, as a matter of fact. Hey, don’t scowl at me, it spoils the effect. OK, I find Daisy fascinating too, but . . .
‘You’re bored.’
He pulled her very gently into his arms. ‘I was only thinking that perhaps we’ve discussed family history long enough, and maybe it was time to move on to more personal concerns.’
‘So what subject would you like to discuss?’ She found she was having difficulty holding on to her scowl as it kept slipping into a smile. Could that be because of the nearness of him, the solid strength of his arms, or the mesmerising motion of his hand smoothing up and down her back?
He was kissing her nose, her throat, moving round to her ear. ‘I didn’t actually have talking in mind.’
Laura could feel herself starting to melt, rapidly losing control as a pleasurable sensation began to grow deep in the hollow pit inside her, a place more accustomed to despair and misery in recent months. His arms had tightened about her, his breathing shortened and there was an increasing intensity to his kisses. Laura slid her arms about his neck and gave herself up to them. Sensation rocked her, throwing her completely off balance. How long had it been since she’d properly loved a man? She and Felix had become distant strangers. Felix, oh heavens! What was she thinking of? She pushed David away, knowing her eyes were glazed with wanting, her face as flushed as a newly awakened girl.
