Daisy's Secret (24 page)

Florrie was family, after all, and she must be around here some place. All she had to do was find her, then she could write and give Harry her new address. There must be no question of losing touch with Harry. She adored him far too much to contemplate such a dreadful prospect happening. Daisy had written to tell him that she’d moved and that her new address would follow shortly.

But if she didn’t find Florrie soon, she faced a night in the open. Daisy didn’t feel too concerned about this. She’d decided there were worse places to sleep than under the stars. It was a warm day in August so needn’t be too unpleasant, even quite exciting. And there was still all the afternoon ahead of her, plenty of time in which to find her aunt.

She stopped and asked several more people, but then, quite worn out with trekking around the streets, headed for the quiet of Derwentwater where she got out the sandwiches she’d brought with her.

It proved to be so pleasant sitting in the sun watching the rowing boats setting out from the landings that Daisy could almost imagine herself to be on holiday, and not a homeless evacuee at all. A mother with her two children was paddling about in the shallows, with skirts tucked up and fishing nets in hand they made a perfect picture of family fun, and Daisy felt a surge of envy. Yet how could you tell whether the mother wasn’t grieving for a husband, or at least anxiously awaiting news. Somehow Daisy didn’t think they had much hope of catching even a minnow with all the giggling going on, so perhaps all was well for them after all. Daisy sighed, as if she’d been relieved of a genuine cause for concern.

Soft white clouds bounced lightly across the mountain tops and she gazed upon them with awe, ignorant of their names but marvelling at their beauty; at the way the dappled sun chased the cloud shadows across their smooth, sleek slopes, the green so brilliant it almost hurt her eyes to look upon them. There was grace in every fold; pride, majesty, and an odd sort of security. Their timeless beauty seemed to cleanse her soul of the grubby finger marks left by dirty old men, and bring peace to a sore and fearful heart.

She felt young and strong, bursting with energy and optimism, free of all restrictions. Ever since she’d left Salford, Daisy had discovered that she’d become quite adept at standing on her own two feet, as well as solving whatever problems the war, or other people, threw at her.
 

Look at how she’d cared for Megan and Trish: how she’d found food for them when poor Miss Pratt had unexpectedly died without them knowing, stood by them as they were moved from pillar to post. Thinking of her two friends, Daisy ruefully modified her boast because, sadly, she’d failed to help them this time. She’d believed she could persuade Mrs Marshall to let them stay on, but, in the end, the poor woman’s ill health had changed everything. The children had been taken to yet another strange home where they were at least safe and well cared for.

Daisy felt cast adrift, as if they’d all been buffeted about like tiny ships on the open sea, caught up in a storm not of their making and left with no one but each other to depend upon. She could only hope that they weren’t unhappy, or missing her too much. She certainly missed them. Before leaving the village, Daisy had gone into Penrith and talked to the billeting officer who’d given her the address where they’d been sent.

They’d both burst into tears at sight of her. Megan had at once asked, ‘Have you come to take us home, Daisy?’ It had near broken her heart to say no.

‘You are all right here, aren’t you?’

Silent nods indicated that they were, Trish’s mouth turned upside down in the familiar U-shape, and Megan clearly doing her best to be brave. ‘But we miss you, Daisy.’

‘And we miss the dog,’ Trish added.

Daisy had given them both a hug and a kiss, smiling to herself that at least she’d been put before the dog. ‘Soon as I find Aunt Florrie, I’ll write. I’ll keep in touch, I promise. I’ll let you have my new address so that if ever there’s anything wrong, you can let me know.’ She didn’t make any other promises; that maybe she could persuade Florrie to allow them to join her, which was what she hoped to achieve. That was far too risky.

‘You’ll come and see us again?’ Megan wanted to know, hanging on tight to Daisy’s hand while Trish wrapped her arms about Daisy’s waist as if she might never let her go.

‘Course I will. We’re bosom pals, right? The three musketeers.’ And then they’d all wept, for how could they not when parting was so painful?

Life, Daisy had discovered, was desperately uncertain and insecure and you never knew what might be waiting for you around the next corner. She was forced to admit that really she’d had very little control over what had happened to her thus far, only in the decisions she made to deal with it.
 

Now she was in a strange town she didn’t know, looking for a woman nobody had ever heard of. Daisy had knocked on the door of every fine house which seemed a likely candidate, remembering how her mother had never stopped complaining over how her sister had got above herself, living in grand style in Keswick.

‘Too posh to talk to us now. Thinks she is someone. Always did give herself airs, that one.’ Just as if Rita would never dream of doing such a thing.

Several of the imposing terraced houses with their dark slate walls and bright windows looking out over the fells, had turned out to be boarding houses with landladies grumbling about the war ruining the holiday trade.
 

Daisy had even rung the bell at the Keswick Hotel, mistaking it for a private house which looked fine enough for an aunt who had gone up in the world. Instead, she learned that some posh school called Rodean had been evacuated into it. Several other equally grand houses and hotels nearby had suffered the same fate. She didn’t envy these girls in their smart uniforms, all cooped up together like chickens. Daisy valued her freedom too much.

She’d called at the station to make enquiries there, and found herself in the middle of a geography lesson in the waiting room. Daisy had begun to feel like Alice-in-Wonderland in a world gone mad, where everything was topsy-turvy and not at all what it should be. Even those houses which had not been turned into something entirely different, whose doors were opened by smiling maids or the lady of the house, knew no one of the name of Florrie Pringle.

Daisy tossed the last few crumbs to the ducks swimming about on the water’s edge. The sun was hot on her neck, making her feel quite sleepy but she couldn’t allow herself to succumb to a desperate need for rest. She must do her utmost to find her aunt. Focusing her mind on the problem, Daisy recalled that the last time she’d wanted help and information, on that occasion over Miss Pratt, she’d gone to a corner shop. So that’s what she’d do now. Aunt Florrie must do her shopping somewhere. She’d visit every shop in town till she found the one she patronised.

A few miles outside of Keswick, and chaffing over a life which didn’t suit her, Florrie pegged out her washing thinking how she longed for a bag of fish and chips and a dish of mushy peas soaked in vinegar, followed by an afternoon at the flicks with her friends. How she would love to put on her glad rags, doll herself up and go to Benson’s Dance Hall. This year she would turn forty, surely young enough to still hope to find a bit of fun and romance, in place of this living death up here in the middle of nowhere?

She’d soon been disabused of any hopes for a lively social life amongst the country set. No hunt balls or harvest suppers for Florrie. A church coffee morning or rummage sale, and occasional visits to the Alhambra Cinema in Keswick with her nearest neighbour, Jess Jenkins, were the limits of her social delights. Never with Clem. Florrie couldn’t remember the last time they’d been out together, probably when they were courting and he’d still been trying to win her. He didn’t have time for such treats nowadays, couldn’t bear to tear himself away from his precious farm.

The second shock came when she learned that she was expected to help with the animals on the farm, feed the hens and calves, make milk and butter, and when a pig was killed do all kinds of dreadful things with the bits that came out of it. She’d been thoroughly alarmed. ‘What, me?’

‘Aye, why not you? Mam managed all right.’

‘I dare say your mam was born to it. But I’m a city girl, Clem, a townie. I haven’t the first idea where to start. Oh heck, why did you choose me for a wife?’

And his eyes had darkened as they’d rested upon her. ‘You know why.’ And he’d taken her upstairs.

Oh aye, there’d been compensations at first, at least within the confines of the bedroom. But then in those halcyon days the expression in his dark eyes whenever he’d looked upon her had made her heart beat faster, filled as they were with intense interest and admiration, and a frank, raw need.

Life in the farm yard, however, was another matter. The kind of tasks that any country housewife would take for granted, were quite beyond her. She frequently forgot to feed the hens, or put some of the eggs in isinglass as she’d been told to, so they’d have none to eat when the hens went off laying. Once, she’d left the pop hole open and a fox finished off the lot. Then when they got new hens to replace them, she forgot to clip their wings and they all flew away. She just seemed to get everything wrong.

‘They might fly back, don’t you think?’ she’d asked.

‘I reckon Mr Tod has had them for his supper by now,’ Clem had dryly remarked.

‘Well, why can’t you see to them? The farm is your responsibility, after all.’

‘Looking after poultry is allus the job of the farmer’s wife,’ Clem carefully explained, and would patiently go through the tasks expected of her all over again.

Florrie did her best but would get confused over when to plant the potatoes, leeks or other vegetables in the little plot behind the house, or she’d plant them in the wrong place and they wouldn’t thrive and Clem would be forced to buy some from the market, which he said was a waste of money when they could easily grow their own. She was happy enough to feed the pet lambs he brought to her kitchen, while they were still small, but getting up at three hourly intervals during the night and walking out onto the freezing cold fell to feed them as they grew a bit older, was another matter entirely. She refused, point blank to do it.

‘If I look after the hens, It’s surely your job to look after the sheep.’

‘Not the pet lambs, love. They’re
your
responsibility. It’s not as if you have to go far, they’re kept close to the house, after all.’ So she’d wrap herself in several layers against the raw cold, pull on a pair of Clem’s old boots and go out into the freezing darkness, tripping over her night-dress and hating every minute, wishing she’d never set eyes on Clem Pringle.

Now there was a war to trap her even more firmly, spending her days in an endless litany of dull chores. Today she’d fed and cleaned out the hens, churned the butter, dug some potatoes and earthed up the rest. Florrie had mended the roof on the outhouse, since she was tired of asking Clem to do it. She’d fetched the peat and chopped several logs, winter being just around the corner. She’d scrubbed and cleaned, mended and fixed, heaved and shifted, and the worst of it was that tomorrow, much of it would all have to be done over again, in addition to whatever tasks she generally did on that particular day of the week. The drudgery seemed endless.

‘And our Rita thinks she’s got it hard.’

Silence had become a way of life, conversation non-existent. save for Clem’s stock phrases. Florrie served him his supper on this particular evening as on every other, which he ate without a word, without even lifting his head. Except that at the first mouthful he said, ‘It’s warm, bless it.’ And as he lay down his knife and fork at the completion of the meal he’d commented, ‘That were reet tasty,’ just as he did every night.

In fact Florrie felt certain she could mark the progress of each day with these remarks. The moment he set foot out of the door each morning he’d tug on his cap, lift his face to the mountain as if sniffing the air and out would come another, ‘We’ll get a wetting afore nightfall,’ or, ‘we might escape it today,’ depending on the direction of wind and density of cloud, but he always liked to prove that he knew better than the man on the wireless what the weather was going to do.

And when he returned, after a long day out on the hills, dog at his heels he’d say, ‘It’s cold enough to freeze a brass monkey.’

He never failed to go to chapel on a Sunday. Afterwards he would read his bible and, as the clock chimed ten, climb into bed in his long night-shirt, pull the covers up to his chin and quietly remark, ‘A Sunday well spent brings a week of content.’

Sometimes Florrie felt she might scream as she waited for the next predictable response. She hated the dull repetition of her life, the grinding routine, the habitual treadmill of the farming year, and the knowledge that if something didn’t happen soon, she’d go mad.

His favourite remark was to look at her, shake his head and say in his droll way, ‘Nay Florrie lass, it’s seeing you so cheerful what keeps me going.’

It was almost as if he enjoyed her misery.

She knew she should be grateful for small mercies: a roof over her head, food in her belly. What else need concern her? Anyone she did meet at chapel or market, would see only the superficial picture of a couple disappointed by life but giving every appearance of getting along in a contented marriage. They went through the motions: doing chores, eating meals, sharing a bed, more out of habit than for any other reason. Clem didn’t bully her, or order her about, rarely in fact acknowledged her presence. He asked only that she put food on his table as and when required, keep his clothes and home in reasonable order, so that he could work every daylight hour.