Daisychain Summer

They took the motor bus to Newgate Street, walked up King Edward Street, then they were there, in Little Britain; in the street where Andrew’s lodgings stood beside a shop that sold stationery and newspapers, a few yards from the gates of St Bartholomew’s church.

53A, Little Britain. Julia looked at the windows, clean and shining, and the curtains; exactly the same curtains as when he had lived there.

‘It isn’t much of a street, is it?’ Alice had need to break the bleak, brooding silence.

‘No, but it was near the hospital and it was all he could afford. He was saving hard, you know, to buy his own practice. I told him I’d have money when I was twenty-one, but it made no difference, the stubborn man …’

‘I remember the day you first came here. Oh, but you had me worried, Julia. There was I, supposed to be looking after you, see you came to no harm, and there you were, insisting on going out alone – and to a man’s lodgings, an’ all!’

‘Things change, Alice. The war changed them,’ she smiled, sadly. ‘I remember how agitated you were when I told you I was going to call on Andrew. It wasn’t right, you said. And what if his wife answered the door …?’

‘Yet you came back safe and sound and in love. I could see it in your eyes.’

‘I told you it would be all right; said I wouldn’t do anything unladylike. Word of a Sutton, I said. I was shaking, though. It was such a relief when it was he who opened the door. And I remember exactly what he said.’

‘Tell me?’

‘He opened the door. I couldn’t speak, I was so ashamed at what I’d done. After all, I was running after him, wasn’t I? Then he smiled. He smiled and he said, “My dear – I hoped you would come.” And that was it, Alice. I knew there’d be no going back for either of us.’

‘And there wasn’t. Now unlock the door, love …’

The passage was dark and gloomy because all the doors leading off it had been closed. Julia stood still, listening, then tilting her chin she walked on, opening the kitchen door, standing again, waiting.

The room was clean, the table top scrubbed to whiteness. The cooking range was black and shining, a fire laid ready for a match.

‘When we were married – next morning – I couldn’t light that fire,’ Julia murmured. ‘I’d never cleaned out a grate nor laid a fire in my life. I was so angry, I wanted to weep. So we boiled a kettle on the gas ring and ate bread and jam for our breakfast.’

‘And I’ll bet he didn’t care.’

‘He didn’t. We just left everything and went to Aunt Sutton’s. She hadn’t come to our wedding, you’ll remember, so I wanted her to meet Andrew.

‘She gave us an oil painting of Rowangarth – a very old one – for a present, then announced, calm as you like, that she’d just made a new Will and I was to get everything.’

‘She liked Andrew, didn’t she?’ There was nothing for it, Alice knew, but to go along with Julia’s heartache – let her get it out of her the best way she knew how.

‘Mm. She said he had a look of Pa. Mother thought so, too. Mother adored him, right from the start.’

‘We all did. He was a fine man.’ Alice opened the parlour door and the same air of loneliness met them.

‘We never sat in this room. Not ever,’ Julia said, half to herself. ‘We were only here three days and when we weren’t out walking in London we were – well, we went to bed. Do you think that was awful?’

‘Of course I don’t, silly!’

‘His surgery.’ Julia turned her back on the parlour, gazing at the door opposite and the small brass plate bearing her husband’s name. Andrew MacMalcolm MD.

Alice opened the door wide, then stood aside.

The desk was highly polished, everything on it arranged by Sparrow with care and precision. Medical books and journals stood tidily on a shelf; a sheet was draped over a skeleton, covering it completely. Sparrow had not liked that skeleton.

‘I have all his instruments, at Rowangarth. I went to the field hospital after he was killed, took all his things away with me.’

‘Yes. You told me that day you came home to Rowangarth. I’d almost gone my full time, with Drew.’ Julia had come back from the war a sad, pale-faced wraith. There had been no comforting her, so desolate was she. It had taken the birth of a baby to wrench Julia MacMalcolm back to life. Drew had been her salvation.

‘I’m not going upstairs today, Alice – I couldn’t. Tomorrow, maybe. But I want to take the bed back to Rowangarth, and I want –’ She lifted her chin, her eyes daring Alice to defy her. ‘I want to take everything in his surgery back, too.’

‘No reason why you shouldn’t.’ What was going through that tormented mind, now?

‘No, Alice – you don’t understand. The room next to the sewing-room at Rowangarth. Do you remember it?’

‘Not particularly, ’cept it was full of old furniture and bits and pieces nobody wanted. No one used it.’

‘Yes – but think! The window and the fireplace – the door, even …’

Alice shook her head, unspeaking.

‘Think. Almost the same black iron fireplace with a window on the wall to the left of it. And the door opposite it. Just like this room. I could hang Andrew’s curtains at the window. All his things, Alice – arranged just as they are here. I’d have his surgery at Rowangarth, don’t you see?’

‘No! Not his surgery! You’d be creating a shrine – hadn’t you thought?’

‘Yes, I’d thought. I thought about it even before we came here. It’s the only way I can do it, Alice – give up these lodgings, I mean. Don’t you see? I’m not being maudlin nor mawkish. I still love him every bit as much as the first day I came here. I’m going to do it, you know!’

‘Then if you’re set on it – what can I say?’ Alice took her friend’s hand, leading her to the door. ‘Let’s go, now? Before I go home, we’ll see to it, together.’ She closed the front door, locking it behind them. ‘And I know what today is. It’s his birthday, isn’t it – the last day of August. He’d have been thirty-three …’

‘Yes. That’s why I wanted to come here, today. And bless you for remembering, love.’

‘Did you think I’d forget those times – any of them?’ She linked her arm in Julia’s. ‘Now let’s get back. Between them, I’ll bet those two bairns are driving poor Sparrow mad.’

‘You’re a dear person, Alice. I couldn’t have gone there without you. You’re still my sister, aren’t you?’

‘Still your sister,’ Alice smiled. ‘Come on. Let’s get ourselves to the bus stop!’

‘Talking of buses,’ Julia murmured. ‘Or talking of the nuisance of having to wait for buses when you’ve got a car, I mean –’

‘No!’ Shocked, Alice stood stock still. ‘You don’t intend buying one? What would your mother say? You know you can’t keep a car at Rowangarth, so why think of getting one?’

‘But I already have one. Aunt Sutton’s. It’s in her garage at the end of the Mews. She drove it all the time in London, remember. I shall drive it up to Holdenby.’

‘Not with Drew beside you, you can’t! It wouldn’t be safe – not even if you tied him to the seat!’

‘Not yet. And certainly not with Drew to distract me. But that car is mine now, and I intend using it, Alice!’

‘There’ll be trouble, Julia.’

‘There will.’ Her chin tilted defiantly. ‘But Will Stubbs learned about motors in the army – he could look after it for me.’

‘You’ve been determined all along, haven’t you, to get your own motor?’

‘Yes. And if Andrew had gone into general practice, he’d have needed one, so what could mother have done about that, will you tell me?’

‘In your own home, it would have been different. But it isn’t right you should take Miss Sutton’s motor back to Rowangarth; not against her ladyship’s wishes. Don’t do it, Julia. It’ll be nothing but trouble, I know it. Your mother is set against motors and you should try to understand her feelings.’

‘And this is 1920, and I’ll be twenty-seven, soon. I endured almost three years in France. I saw things that will stay to haunt me for the rest of my life. So now that I have my own motor, I shall drive it and there is nothing either mother or you can do about it!’

So Alice, who knew Julia almost as well as she knew herself, said, ‘All right! Subject closed. But don’t say I didn’t warn you!’

‘Elliot and I,’ said Clementina Sutton firmly, ‘will be going to London, shortly.’

‘But you’ve just come back.’ Edward laid aside his newspaper. ‘Have you mentioned it to Elliot?’

‘I’ve told him. We’d have still been there, if it hadn’t been for Anne Lavinia.’

‘Yes. Sad her funeral had to interrupt your stay! But why go back there so soon? Is something happening that I don’t know about, Clemmy?’

‘Happening? But that’s just it – nothing is happening! And can I, just for once, have your attention, Edward, because this is important. It is time Elliot was wed!’ she announced dramatically.

‘I agree with you entirely. But who Would have him?’ The question slipped out without thought.

‘Have him? His own father asks who’d have him! Why, there’s half the aristocracy would have him, truth known! There’s those with no brass and daughters they want off their hands, for a start. Plenty of that sort about. And there’s young girls as’ll never get a husband, what with the shortage of young men, these days.’

‘Clemmy – please? So many families lost sons to the war. I beg you not to be so – so direct.’

‘But it’s a fact of life that it’s a buyer’s market when it comes to brides, so –’

‘So you intend to buy a wife for Elliot? And have you anyone in mind?’

‘I have, and you know it, Edward Sutton. There’s a girl next door, at Cheyne Walk. A refugee, but well connected – well, in Russia that was …’

‘I see. And talking about Russia, there was a small piece in the paper – the Czar’s brother Michael has been officially declared dead, now. Seems he was shot about the same time as the Czar – at a place called Perm. There’s a son, it seems, who might still be alive.’

‘So there’s still a Romanov? The countess will be pleased.’

‘Don’t think the son will count, m’dear. Born out of wedlock.’

‘Hm!’ There’d be weeping and wailing again in the house next door in Cheyne Walk, Clementina thought grimly. Weeping in Russian, hadn’t Lady Anna said, and crossing themselves like Papists. A peculiar lot, really. It was a sad fact, Clemmy admitted, that she still might have to cast her net wider if those Petrovskys weren’t on the breadline as she’d thought they would be. But go to London again she would, if only to sort it out, one way or the other. ‘She’s a lovely-looking girl,’ she said absently, ‘and well-bred enough for Elliot.’

‘Then I’m pleased.’ Anyone, Edward reflected, was good enough for his eldest son. It was a sad and deplorable fact. There wasn’t a father worth his salt around these parts who would want his daughter married to Elliot – his past record had seen to that. ‘And when will you leave?’

‘Tomorrow. You’ll be all right on your own.’ It was more a statement than a question.

‘Of course, my dear. And there is Nathan to keep me company, don’t forget.’ He opened his newspaper again, regretting that Nathan had not been their firstborn. But even if he had, Clemmy would have ruined him, just as she had spoiled and ruined Elliot. ‘We’ll have plenty to talk about. Just enjoy yourself, in London …’

And stay as long as you like – the pair of you!

‘Well – home tomorrow, Alice; both of us. Have you had a good time?’

They were walking in Hyde Park; Julia pushing Daisy’s pram, Drew with his hand in Alice’s.

‘It’s been lovely.’

No. Not all of it had been lovely, Alice thought sadly. Some of it had been awful, especially after the removal van left 53A, Andrew’s furniture inside it and Julia standing there, her face ashen, unwilling to lock the front door for the last time. She had not spoken a word, all the way back to Aunt Sutton’s house. Her face had been harsh with grief, just as it was that morning she had arrived at Rowangarth, wet and cold and half out of her mind with misery, just three weeks after the end of the war.

‘What is he like, your aunt’s solicitor?’ It was all Alice could think of to say.

‘He’s nice. Far nicer than young Carver, and he doesn’t dislike women – or if he does, he’s careful not to let it show. We’ll soon get things settled. Aunt made a watertight Will, so he’s only waiting for something from France before it’s all wrapped up.’

‘And can you afford to keep the place going?’ Alice demanded, ever practical.

‘No trouble at all. Aunt left quite a bit of money. Carefully invested, there’ll be income enough to take care of expenses. Mind, if I were to put it on the market, that house would fetch a pretty penny, or so Mark Townsend says.’

‘That’s his name?’

‘Mm. He wants me to make a Will. I’ve never made one you know and I ought to if only for Drew’s sake. Once Carvers have settled Drew’s business, then I’ll go back to London and get one drawn up, and witnessed.’

‘Can’t Rowangarth’s solicitors do it? You said that the young Carver had his wits about him.’

‘I know. But I don’t like Carver-the-young. Oh, he’s scrupulously honest, but there’s something about him I don’t like. His eyes are shifty, Alice. He never looks me in the eyes when he’s talking to me. Andrew did. Always.’

‘Andrew was different, and very special.’

They had come to the place, now; to where it had started all those years ago, near the Marble Arch gate. Emily Davison selling suffragette news-sheets for a penny and young women appearing out of nowhere it had seemed, eager to buy from her. And the police appearing out of nowhere, too, and that awful fight. Alice Hawthorn giving the big policeman an almighty shove from behind and him falling on top of Julia, knocking her unconscious.

That was when it happened. Julia had opened her eyes and fallen immediately in love with the young doctor who bent over her.

‘Give me the pram. Drew and Daisy and me will walk back, slowly. You stay here, for a while?’

Call him back to you, Julia. Say goodbye then tell yourself he has gone. Remembering the good times will be easier if only you can accept that he isn’t ever coming back.

‘We’ll wait for you at the bandstand. Take your time, love …’

9

‘Tired, Alice love?’

‘Mm. But happy.’ It had been a long day and that last mile seemed so long in her eagerness to see Keeper’s Cottage again. ‘Being with Julia was grand. She’s got herself sorted out – as much as she ever will, that is. She’s had all the furniture from Andrew’s surgery packed up and sent to Rowangarth, would you believe? Intends setting it out in one of the spare rooms – just as he had it. I didn’t agree, but who am I to deny her a bit of comfort – me, who’s so lucky. Oh, Tom, this little house is good to come to home to. So quiet, after London. No one here, but you and me.’

‘And Daisy. And there’s Willow End now, don’t forget. Seems that Purvis is going to suit. Mr Hillier said I was to tell him to send for his wife, so we’ll have a neighbour before so very much longer.’

‘How soon?’ It would be good to have someone near. ‘I’ll do a bake for her so she’ll have something in the house to tide her over. And I’ll put down extra bread and –’

‘Stop your fussing, lass! When her and the lad arrive is going to depend on when her cousin is coming this way with an empty lorry. Seems he makes a trip twice a month to Southampton docks. Purvis says they haven’t got much in the way of furniture, but it’ll be a help, them getting moved here for nowt.’

‘Poor things. Ten shillings isn’t much of a wage.’

‘Happen not, but it’s riches to that man down the lane. And a house and firewood, remember. He’s been living frugal since he moved in; sends most of his wage to his Polly. But for all that, he’s come on a pace since I came across him in the woods.

‘Having to beg strips a man of his dignity, Alice. To have a roof and a job makes a lot of difference to a man’s pride – and a man that hasn’t had a fair crack of the whip for a long time. His little lad is called Keth, by the way.’

‘Keth?’

‘Said his wife wanted something a bit different.’

‘Then I hope Mrs Purvis isn’t going to be different in her ways; not hoity-toity.’

‘Don’t think so. By what I’ve gleaned, she’s a decent woman who’ll be glad to be with her man again. Now give that little lass to me and I’ll get her to sleep. I’ve missed her.’ Missed them both more than he’d ever have thought. Each day had seemed endless. He’d been glad, truth known, just to see the lampglow from Willow End windows at night. ‘Think Mr Hillier has missed our Daisy, an’ all. Bet he’ll be at the garden gate tomorrow, trying to get a smile out of her.’

‘She smiled a lot while we were away, especially at Drew. He hardly left her side. Said he wanted to take her back with him.’

‘I’m glad you’ve come to accept him, Alice. Nothing of what happened was the lad’s fault. And you’ll be going to Rowangarth before long, to get that legal business seen to. He’ll see her again, then.’

‘No sooner back home than I’m talking about going away again. I’m sorry, Tom. It has to be done, though it won’t be yet, a while. Before the bad weather sets in, I’d like it to be – and I do want to see Reuben again.’

‘And you shall, sweetheart.’ Tom settled his daughter on his shoulder, setting the chair rocking. ‘I don’t begrudge you going. Rowangarth was good to us both and I’m not likely to forget it. And lass – have you anything more to tell me?’

‘Aye,’ she said softly, gentling his cheek with her finger-tips. ‘I love you, Tom Dwerryhouse.’

And tonight she would sleep in his arms again …

‘Well!’ said Clementina Sutton, brandishing the letter. ‘He’s obviously read it, yet not so much as a word about this did your father utter, last night when I rang him. I asked him if there was any news and he said no, there wasn’t. Ooooh!’

‘What’s happened now?’ Elliot disliked dramatics at breakfast.

‘You may well ask!’ She handed over the letter. ‘Read it! From Kentucky – from Amelia! Go on. Read it out loud!’

‘All of it?’

‘The second page. Half-way down. I don’t believe it!’

Obediently, reluctantly, Elliot did as she commanded. Then his eyebrows flew upwards.

‘Another baby? That’s twice in – how long is it? How old is that boy of theirs?’

‘Sebastian is about two and a half. And you’re missing the point. My youngest son a father twice over in three years yet you, heir to all I’ve got, can’t even get yourself down the aisle. Now do as you’re bid, and read that letter! Out loud!

‘Er …

and you’ll all be glad to know that Albert and I expect a brother or sister for Bas in six weeks. We didn’t announce it before this – things just might have gone wrong – but now I am safely seven months pregnant I feel I can uncross my fingers and give out our news. We are both delighted. We had intended visiting Pendenys Place as soon as it was safe to travel again, but decided against it for obvious reasons. However, when the babe is old enough we shall book passages and let you see your grandchildren at long last. It might be nice, Albert thinks, to have the new babe baptized in Yorkshire England by his Uncle Nathan, but it is early days, yet …

‘Congratulations, Mama. You don’t look old enough to be a grandmother twice over,’ he smiled, knowing what was to come. ‘I’d never have thought Amelia and Albert would have had children. Why did Albert imply she was too old?’

‘Albert didn’t say she was old, now that I think back on it. A little older, he said, which could be two or three years at the most. You should know. You stayed with them in Kentucky. You’re the only one who has met Albert’s wife. But it was you who put it around he’d wed a woman old enough to be his mother. Well, your trouble-making has come back to make a fool of you, my lad, because I’m not best pleased, I can tell you!’

‘But Aunt Helen was delighted when she became a grandmother.’

‘Your Aunt Helen –’ She stopped, button-mouthed. Looks years younger than me, she had been going to say. ‘Helen needed a boy for Rowangarth – and so the title shouldn’t pass to us, at Pendenys,’ she added, vinegar-voiced. ‘And she got one, just in the nick of time. I’d bet it was more relief than delight! So relieved, she overlooked the fact that it had taken a servant to get that child for her!’

‘Mama, dear – I know how much you want me married and now that the war is over, I agree entirely with you.’ She was getting red spots high on her cheeks – a sure sign that a tirade of abuse was imminent. ‘Find me a suitable wife and I’ll go down on bended knee to her – I promise you.’

‘You couldn’t find one for yourself, I suppose? Too much trouble, is it? Albert got himself wed without help from anyone and so did your cousin Giles, so what’s so special about you, my lad? Lose interest in a woman, do you, once you’ve had her in your bed?’

‘Mother, I beg you!’ Elliot dropped his knife with a clatter. ‘You can be so – so direct!’ And so common, when she was crossed. He’d been with prostitutes more refined than she. But it was all because of Mary Anne Pendennis. A woman who’d followed the herring boats from port to port, gutting fish, his great-grandmother had been. A fishwife. And when the season was over, she’d taken in washing which made her a washerwoman, too! And beneath his mother’s ladylike exterior lurked a Cornish washerwoman who could curse like a fishwife when angered and not all her riches would ever breed it out of her. It was all a question of pedigree and there was no avoiding the fact that somewhere in his ancestry, a mongrel bitch had got over the wall!

‘You’ll get more’n direct if you don’t shape yourself and get me a grandson; and get me one in wedlock, an’ all! I want no more hedge children – do I make myself plain? I’m taking tea with the countess at the Ritz, tomorrow; intend getting to the bottom of it even if I have to ask her outright if her daughter is in the market for a husband. And if I get the answer I hope I’ll get, then you’ll start paying attention to Anna Petrovska – or else!’

‘Or else what, Mama?’ It was the nearest to defiance he was capable of.

‘Or else you’ll see how nasty I can be, son! On the other hand,’ she lowered her voice to a soft coo, ‘only give me a couple of grandsons and I’ll turn my back on your goings-on, I swear I will. Now do you get the message – because if you aren’t for me then you’re against me – it’s as simple as that. Think on, Elliot …’

Only two days after her return from London and before she could do the baking she had intended, Alice watched a large, green-painted lorry drive up Beck Lane and come to a stop outside Willow End Cottage. They had come, and Tom not even thinking to tell her!

Clucking with annoyance, she set the kettle to boil. At least she could make them a pot of tea though it would have been more neighbourly to have been able to offer something more substantial. She was slicing the currant loaf when the knock came at the back door.

‘Hullo! Anyone at home?’

The woman who stood there was young, her thick, dark brown hair pulled into a severe knot in her neck. Her face was pale but her smile was wide and open.

‘You’ll pardon the intrusion.’ She stepped into the kitchen, ‘but in case you think we’re tinkers and breaking in – well – I’m Polly Purvis. Come to live at Willow End, only my Dickon don’t know we’re arriving. Only knew myself, late last night when Sidney told me if I wanted a lift to Hampshire I’d better shift myself! Sidney’s my cousin. He had an extra trip on if I was interested, he said, which was better’n waiting a fortnight to get here.’

‘Goodness – what a rush …’ So overwhelmed was she it was all Alice could think of to say.

‘No rush at all, m’dear. Took no more’n half an hour to get our bits and pieces loaded. Most of what I started out with all sold, see? Had to be. But things’ll be better, now. I shall like this place, I know it. You’ll be Mrs Dwerryhouse?’ She held out her hand, still smiling. ‘And it’s your husband I have to thank for all this – and thank him I will, when I’ve got things seen to! But best be off. Sidney can’t wait. Got to be at the docks in less’n an hour …’