Debutantes (30 page)

‘I wish you’d tell me more about the palace,’ complained Rose. ‘You and Marjorie are always chatting about parties. What happened next?’

‘And then it was my turn. Well, I’ve told you all about that – you have enough to make up a story. I must go and get ready. I’m having lunch with Marjorie and some of the other girls so I must fly.’

‘Don’t worry, Rose, you’ll make a much better story out of it – Violet has no imagination,’ said Daisy.

‘Doorbell – someone for me!’ called Violet, running down the stairs. She was revelling in her status of being, according to
The London Illustrated News
, one of the most popular debutantes of the year. She was already dressed in a stylish purple overcoat, knee-length with four prominent buttons and a velvet-lined stand-up collar. The style suited her slim figure and brought out the intense colour of her eyes.

The housemaid was already on her way to the door and Violet waited on the last step, smiling broadly at the sight of a chauffeur on the doorstep. He touched his cap deferentially.

‘Lady Giselle is waiting in the car for her ladyship,’ he said politely.

‘I’m off, girls – be good,’ said Violet gaily. ‘Where’s Elaine? Oh, of course, she has taken Rose to see
Peter Pan
, hasn’t she?’

And then she was off, high heels tapping down the steps, and the parlour maid closed the door behind her.

‘Well, I’m off to see—’ began Poppy, but Daisy interrupted her.

‘Poppy, will you come somewhere with me?’ she asked. ‘I’d really like you to come,’ she added.

‘Sure. Where do you want to go?’

‘Just down the Strand,’ said Daisy. ‘Let’s get our coats.’ But then she hesitated. This concerned Poppy as well as herself. She had to talk to her first. ‘Come into the morning room for a moment,’ she said. ‘I want to tell you something.’

The morning room was a cheerful place, facing south so that the spring sunshine poured through the windows, and with a bright coal fire burning in the well-swept grate. Daisy sat down on the easy chair beside it and held her hands out to the flames. Her thoughts were so complicated that she found it hard to disentangle them. She looked across at Poppy, that face so familiar. It was so unlike her own and yet the bond was so strong that it almost seemed as though the girl opposite her was part of her own body.

‘Poppy,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I am your twin after all.’

‘What!’ Poppy stared at her. She began to laugh. ‘You’re thinking of that old nurse, aren’t you? The one that kept going on about how small you were. Well, it’s not possible, you know. You’ll have to get Rose to tell you the facts of life. You’re either my twin or you would have to be about a year younger.’

‘Not . . .’ said Daisy, hearing her own voice as if it were the voice of a stranger, ‘. . . not if we had different mothers.’

There was a long silence then. Poppy’s face had gone white. She stared across at Daisy. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked eventually.

‘It’s like a jigsaw,’ said Daisy dully. ‘You know the way you get all sorts of pieces that are obvious-looking and yet they don’t make sense until eventually one tiny, little, almost meaningless piece suddenly makes everything else fit together? Well, it’s been like that with me.’

‘What little piece?’ Poppy tried to smile, but her mouth trembled. Daisy felt tears blur the face opposite her. She pulled the backs of her hands across her eyes, blinked twice, bit her lip and began to speak as resolutely and calmly as she could.

‘I suppose the letter was the first clue,’ she said bravely. ‘We got distracted by Maud and her tragic story, but of course that letter could be nothing to do with her. She was born in 1909. The child of the woman who wrote that letter was born in the last months of 1906 – the year when we were born. So who wrote it? And then came the mystery of Elaine. Why did she suddenly disappear – in the middle of her season – aged only seventeen? Why did she suddenly go out to India? And then there was the finding of the photograph, you in the arms of Mo – I mean of Mary Derrington, but not me. And then the other photograph – one bouncing, well-grown baby and one tiny one – and then there was the nanny at the Duchess’s place.’ Daisy began to laugh, gulped a few times, took a deep breath and quoted: ‘Very backward – a three-month-old baby, looking like a six-week-old one.’

‘There could be a perfectly simple explanation . . .’ began Poppy, but Daisy interrupted her.

‘Don’t think that I haven’t said all this to myself,’ she went on, half laughing, half crying. ‘But there’s the way that Elaine looks at me, especially when she thinks nobody is looking – the way that doll was called Daisy and then, the other night, when she brought His Excellency from India over, I could see her watching me the whole time. She didn’t bring him to Violet, or to you; she wanted him to dance with me, she wanted to see how we got on – funnily enough, that seemed to make everything real to me.’

‘What are you going to do? Can’t you just forget about it?’

‘I think I have to know so I am going to go down to Somerset House. Maud found her birth certificate there and if I am your twin, mine will be there too. Justin told me that twins have separate birth certificates. It proves which is the elder twin in the case of inheritance. Will you come with me, Pops?’

‘Of course I will,’ said Poppy. She held out her hand, hooked Daisy’s little finger with her own and said, ‘Twin power.’ Then she went to the door: ‘I’ll get Morgan to drive us,’ she said. ‘You look very white. I might be the bigger twin, but I don’t fancy carrying you down the Strand. We’ll get him to wait by the Embankment and then we can just walk up to Somerset House. I’ll make up an excuse – I’ll say that Sir Guy asked you to plan something that could be filmed on the Embankment and by the river. He’ll be quite happy sitting in the car and reading one of his magazines.’

Once inside the cool, dim depths of Somerset House, Daisy felt better. As she and Poppy walked up from the Embankment she had planned what she was going to say.

‘My sister and I are twins,’ she said, smiling at the clerk behind the counter. ‘Our father, Michael, Earl of Derrington, has forgotten which of us was born first. To settle an argument, could we have a look at our birth certificates?’ She gave both names, the place of birth, the names and titles of Michael and his wife, and then waited calmly. The clerk looked puzzled, but he was quite a young man and she could see him deciding that he didn’t want to cross-question the daughter of an earl. After a minute he disappeared.

It seemed to Daisy he was away a long time. Poppy was looking worried. A few times she opened her mouth to say something and then shut it. Daisy was grateful to her. She knew that she was past speaking. In another moment, either she would be completely reassured, or else her life would have been turned upside down.

And then the clerk was back. And in his hand was just one piece of paper.

‘I’m sorry that I have been so long,’ he said, looking rather bewildered. ‘There’s some sort of mix-up, I’m afraid. I can only find one birth on that date and in that place. I’ve looked at the days before and the days after and there is nothing else. Here it is. Father: Major Lord Derrington; Mother: Lady Mary Derrington née Carruthers.’ He held out the certificate.

The name of the only baby born to the couple on 11 October 1906 was Poppy Mary Derrington.

Daisy felt strangely calm as she walked down towards the car. She would get in the car, she planned, allow Poppy to cross-question Morgan about his music magazine, sit quietly there, and when they arrived home she would go up to the bedroom, lie on the bed and have a sleep.

And after dinner she would talk to Elaine.

And then something occurred to her. She stopped suddenly. ‘Poppy,’ she said in an undertone, ‘I’ve thought of something else. I know who my father was.’ She felt a cold, shivering feeling come over her, and then Poppy linked arms and dragged her across the wet grass. There was a seat there with a large plane tree behind it and in front of it a straggling bush. Daisy sat down and felt Poppy’s arm across her shoulders. She took a deep breath and was glad to hear that her voice sounded fairly normal.

‘Poppy, do you remember when we were having the drag hunt and Violet was teasing Justin about being afraid to jump the hedge?’

Poppy shook her head. She wore a look of concern that touched Daisy. It was not often that Poppy worried about anything other than her music.

‘You were with Baz, I think. But anyway, Justin shouted at Violet. He said something about his Uncle Clifford being killed jumping a hedge and that he was about five years old at the time – on his first pony. But this is the important thing. Clifford Pennington was seventeen and the year was 1906.’

Poppy stared at Daisy. ‘The letter,’ she breathed.

Daisy nodded. ‘That’s what I was thinking. It was dated in the spring of 1906. And you remember what it said:
They can’t say we’re too young now
.’

Tears flooded her eyes and she put her head in her hands.

‘Oh, Poppy,’ she sobbed. ‘They were my parents. And they were not much older than I am now. What must she have felt like when she heard of his death?’

‘Don’t cry, don’t cry,’ said Poppy. She had her arm around Daisy and with her other hand pressed her sister’s head against her shoulder. ‘Don’t cry,’ she begged and her voice broke.

‘I have to,’ sobbed Daisy, and Poppy said no more, just sat on the bench beside her and kept her arms tightly around her until the sobs began to slow. Then she hooked her little finger inside Daisy’s and said: ‘We’ll get through this together. And don’t start going on about not being my twin; I’ve thought about it in Somerset House and decided that we’ll always be twins.’

Somehow that made Daisy feel worse. She broke into a loud wail that surprised even herself. Poppy held her tightly and said nothing this time, just allowed the wail to continue. And then footsteps sounded on the nearby path and before they could escape a man’s voice was saying in alarmed tones, ‘Is someone hurt?’ and Morgan appeared in front of them.

‘Oh, Bob. She’s so upset,’ said Poppy.

Morgan was much more than a chauffeur – he was a friend. By now he was kneeling on the ground in front of them. He took Daisy’s hand and said in a comforting voice, ‘Now, what’s the trouble?’

Daisy shook her head. It was impossible for her to stop crying. She didn’t want him to go away though. Somehow it was very comforting to have her hand held in that large, firm grip.

‘It’s a secret, but—’ began Poppy and he interrupted her. ‘Then don’t tell me it,’ he said firmly. ‘Old buried secrets should be kept buried. Sometimes it does no good to dig them up.’ He gave Daisy’s hand a comforting little squeeze. ‘You’re a brave girl,’ he said unexpectedly. ‘You take the world on your shoulders too much though. Now dry your eyes and come down to the car. We’ll go for a drive along the river and I’ll show you all the sights – Tower of London and everything.’

For the whole of the drive down by the river he chatted like a tour guide, pointing out sights on river and land that neither girl looked at, but gradually Daisy began to feel better. I’ve known for a long time, she thought. I think I guessed when I saw the doll. I was just keeping it buried inside me. Perhaps Morgan is right. Perhaps it should have stayed buried. But then I don’t think that I could be like that. I’ll talk to Elaine tonight – she still could not really think of her as her mother – I’ll talk to her and then I’ll just leave it. Father – at least Michael Derrington, she amended – he knows the truth and of course so does Great-Aunt Lizzie, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Bateman and Mrs Pearson and Mrs Beaton all know it too.

Everything worked out well for the conversation that evening. It was one of the few nights when Violet was not going to a ball so she took herself off to bed early with a copy of every magazine in the house tucked under her arm. Rose was in the throes of writing a play so she disappeared with a large notebook and Poppy gave a few exaggerated yawns and then she went off too. Only Daisy and Elaine were left beside the fire.

Now that the moment had come, Daisy did not quite know how to start. It was all so difficult, she thought, and then she wondered how she would film the scene. In the end she said simply and quietly, ‘I went to Somerset House today and I tried to get my birth certificate. They didn’t have one for me – just one for Poppy. I’m your daughter, am I not?’

‘Who told you?’ Elaine’s face flushed up angrily. And then she added defensively, ‘I was going to tell you as soon as I found the right moment.’