‘Oh, aye, I can believe that. Charm itself when he wants to be.’ But Nellie’s voice was warm. The child was her favourite. ‘He’s a lad an’ a half an’ no mistake, but his da was the same. Come out of yer mam’s belly with his fists raised, did Tom. But he’s a bright little laddie, the bairn, an’ comical with it. Did Tilly tell you what he said the other night when the bairns were all in bed? Mind, it weren’t Tommy’s fault really. The older bairns had been teachin’ him an’ the other little ’uns that rhyme about Christmas an’ the workhouse, the one that goes:
It was Christmas Day in the workhouse
The happiest day of the year;
Men’s hearts were full of gladness
Their bellies full of beer,
When up spoke a bad, brave pauper
His face as bold as brass
We don’t want your Christmas pudding!
You can stick it up your arse!’
Daisy found herself grinning in spite of herself. ‘The little monkeys!’
‘Aye, still, that’s bairns. Anyway, Tilly was hurryin’ ’em along an’ she’d promised each of ’em a piece of vinegar toffee if they were good. Cuthbert had said he’d call round, you see.’
Daisy nodded. Cuthbert Hartley had been a pal of Peter’s and, his wife having died the year before after giving birth to their third child, had taken to calling in the evenings oft times lately, ostensibly to pass the time of day with Nellie. However, everyone knew he was sweet on Tilly and she on him.
‘Anyway, Tilly was halfway down the stairs when they started playin’ up some, so she tells ’em there’ll be no toffee if they don’t quieten down. An’ young Tommy pipes up, “We don’t want your vinegar toffee, you can stick it up your--”’ Nellie lowered her chin.
‘He never did?’ Daisy was actually quite shocked although she had to bite on her lip to stop herself from laughing. But she didn’t want Tommy speaking like that. Not her little man.
‘Aye, wee monkey. ’Course, he didn’t know what he was sayin’, lass, not really. He was just funnin’.’
Daisy wondered about that. Tommy was indeed as bright as a button as her granny had said, and he had all of his father’s cheekiness and then some, besides which Tilly was an easy-going and indulgent mother, indulgent to a fault. Her bairns all seemed to take after Peter who had always been the placid, gentle one in the family, whereas Tom had always been in hot water over something or other from the day he was born, according to her granny. Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that she and Tom had always fought like cat and dog, he had been the one Daisy had most in common with in a funny sort of way. But his son needed discipline as well as love and this was becoming increasingly apparent as Tommy left babyhood behind.
Of course the ideal solution would be for her to spend more time than just a half-day a week with the bairn, but Miss Wilhelmina couldn’t spare her, ill as she was, and Daisy couldn’t repay her mistress’s many kindnesses by leaving the old lady’s employ at a time when Miss Wilhelmina needed her the most. Besides which how could she provide for all those who were looking to her? The last three years she’d managed to pay the rent on the cottage, feed and clothe all its occupants and still supply little luxuries which made her granny’s life more enjoyable. There was no worry about being able to call the doctor now; he came once a month bringing a bagful of pills and potions for her granny, and his visits and the medication alone cost more than most women double Daisy’s age had a hope of earning.
She had seen the grey exhausted faces of some of those who worked fourteen to sixteen-hour days in the factories, mills and brickmaking works hereabouts when she drove into Sunderland with Harold for bits and pieces her mistress required. Ninety hours a week for three or four shillings in the shops too, and then some of them, especially those employed in dress shops, were expected to take work home to do in their ‘spare time’. Bairns in those homes had no chance. At least Tommy was plump, healthy and happy.
Daisy now turned to Nellie and said quietly, ‘I’ll talk to him about it. He has to understand what’s right and wrong, Gran, young as he is.’
‘Aye, I dare say, hinny, but there’s worse things than a bairn bein’ a mite lippy, an’ he’s a lovin’ little soul.’
Tommy definitely had his great-grandmother in the palm of his tiny hand!
The bonfire had long since been lit and was now a mass of glowing red embers, but the drinking and dancing were still in full swing when Tilly and Cuthbert walked through the door a couple of hours later.
‘We’ve come to sit with Gran for a while, lass.’ Tilly cast a glance at Nellie who was snoring softly. ‘You go and stretch your legs, Daisy, and join the others for the dancing. It’s not fair, you missin’ it all.’
She would have preferred to continue sitting at the table tackling some of Tilly’s mending; she had been thinking about William for the last half-an-hour while her grandmother had been asleep and didn’t feel like putting a merry face on. However, she’d rather fancied Cuthbert’s face had lit up when he’d seen Nellie was dead to the world. It couldn’t be often he had Tilly all to himself.
She put down one of the children’s torn shirts and got to her feet, thanking them. Once outside she raised her face to the starlit sky. The scent of the sea and woodsmoke, and the distant crashing of the waves under a sky drenched with light from the full moon, made the night enchanting. It was rare to get such an evening at the end of October.
Where are you, William? She lowered her eyes to the folk on the beach as the fiddlers struck up a merry jig. Everywhere she looked there seemed to be couples although she was too far away to make out who they were. She found she couldn’t face joining them. She turned and began to wander towards the sand dunes, intending to find a smooth rock on which to sit and look out over the moonlit sea.
She almost walked straight into them.
Afterwards Daisy blessed the fact that Alf and Kitty were so wrapped up in each other they were blind and deaf to anything around them. Of course in the first moment she didn’t realise it was them, it could have been any young courting couple frolicking beneath the pearly sky. She blinked in surprise before quickly dropping to her knees above the deep dip where the two partially clothed figures were, hoping to edge silently away and avoid embarrassing them. The man had been lying half over the woman, his mouth to one of her breasts and her hands entwined in his hair, and the woman’s legs had been naked.
Daisy was almost out of earshot when she heard Kitty’s unmistakable gurgling laughter which caused her to freeze for a moment before hurrying on.
Kitty and Alf
. When she reached the first of the cottages Daisy paused to catch her breath, the two names continuing to reverberate in her mind. Did this mean that everything was all right now? She did hope so. She could see her two friends being happy and raising bonny babies, and Alf would undo all the damage Gladys had done her daughter. Kitty was well overdue a taste of real happiness.
Daisy began to walk on slowly. She could also see her own situation changing very shortly with the state of Miss Wilhelmina’s heart. She would not remain at Evenley House after her mistress’s demise, not even if she got the chance to do so which was doubtful, but neither would she be content living in the fishing village again. Her shorthand had come on nicely but she hadn’t had the chance to so much as put a finger on a typewriter, and if she was to earn enough to look after her granny and Tilly and her bairns . . . She had a small amount saved but it wasn’t much; Molly’s sister’s situation had depleted it somewhat before Miss Wilhelmina had taken over the responsibility. Nevertheless, it was enough to give her a breathing space. She might have to take a post as a governess perhaps, while continuing with her shorthand and buying herself a secondhand typewriter when one cropped up in a pawn shop. She had been looking for one for ages but nothing had been forthcoming, and they were too expensive to buy new.
Daisy breathed deeply of the smoke- and salt-scented air. The one thing she wanted was to have her boy with her; if that could be accomplished she’d be the happiest woman on earth.
‘Everything’s all right now. Between me an’ Alf, I mean.’
The two girls were walking home after the festivities and as Daisy said warmly, ‘Oh I’m so glad, Kitty. I told you he was serious about you,’ her friend turned a shining face to her.
‘We didn’t want to announce it tonight, what with everyone tied up with putting the bairns to bed and Alf’s mam having already turned in, but he’s asked me to marry him, Daisy.’
‘Kitty!’>
After the two girls had finished hugging and were walking on again, Kitty said quietly, ‘He said some lovely things tonight, almost as though he knew I was feelin’ funny, an’ then one thing led to another an’ he asked me. I . . . I love him so much, Daisy.’
‘I know you do, lass.’
‘An’ I know he loves me now.’ And she was sure. At last she was sure. Beautiful, he’d called her, through and through, and everything a man could wish for. She hadn’t expected to be his first lass and it had made what had happened all the more special when he’d told her he’d only had the odd bit of slap and tickle with other lasses, that he’d been keeping himself for the one he married. But that was the sort of man Alf was. She was lucky, she was so, so lucky, and right at this minute she wouldn’t swap places with any other lass in the world. Not even Daisy, beautiful as she was.
Chapter Eighteen
‘Are you quite insane, woman?’ Augustus raked back a lock of hair from his forehead, high colour darkening his cheekbones. ‘I have told you over and over again, he did not board the ship which was to bring him to England. He and his luggage disappeared some time after the coach arrived at Calais. That being the case, how on earth could the girl have anything to do with it? Damn it, the chit barely leaves my sister’s side.’
‘I did not mean that she had spirited William away, and you know that.’ Gwendoline Fraser’s voice was clear and unswerving, her frothy hair and delicate appearance at odds with the burning hatred in eyes fixed squarely on her husband’s angry face. ‘You also know that the fishergirl was the real reason William left for France in the first place, and I do not believe you when you say you think he had a woman in Paris. Your
criminal
foolishness in placing that girl in a position which meant she had access to our son is unforgivable.’
‘Give me strength!’ Augustus glared at Gwendoline a moment longer before swinging away from his wife, demanding of his daughters sitting side by side on the chaise-longue, ‘Is your mother being reasonable? Now is she?’ He didn’t wait for an answer before turning back to his wife. He wagged his finger in her face as he ground out, ‘Plenty of young bucks take their pleasure with girls from the common people, it’s a natural enough need and one which is easily met. It gets rid of excess . . . emotion when they are in decent society. If he did sport with her, which I doubt, that was all it was.’
At one time Gwendoline would have been intimidated by her husband’s fury, but now neither his voice nor his manner had the slightest effect on her. She loathed him. She had always disliked him although she hadn’t recognised this until the first night of their honeymoon. It had been only then she had discovered exactly what being married entailed, and for some long time afterwards she had felt she would not be able to endure it.
Each time she had found herself with child after Augustus’s abominable demands and experienced the horror of her body swelling and distorting she had thought she’d go mad, her only comfort being that her husband did not force himself upon her again until after the confinement. She had prayed - oh, how she had prayed - that each child would be a boy after Augustus had made it clear the disgusting procedure would continue until she provided him with Greyfriar’s son and heir.
And then, at long last, William had been born, and Gwendoline had found to her amazement that she felt affection for this child in a way she did not for her daughters. Perhaps part of that love stemmed from gratitude that with her son’s birth her body became solely her own again, but it wasn’t wholly that. She actually delighted in the boy, who from birth had shown signs of considerable beauty and definitely took after her side of the family. And now,
now
her precious son could be in dire straits, or worse . . .