The Daisy Club (10 page)

Maude stooped down and started to replace one or two of the potatoes that had strayed from their box, her gloved hand becoming marked by the dry clods of mud clinging to them, and as she did so the name on the side of the box caught her eye.

‘This says these are Jean Shaw's potatoes,' she said, in a surprised voice. She turned to Daisy. ‘You know I have leased some fields to her, on the advice of Mr Chittlethorpe, my farm manager? Does this mean she is growing a potato crop, do you think, Daisy?'

At that moment a cloud moved across the sun, blocking out the warmth from the day, just as a frown came to Aunt Maude's face, and Daisy realised with a sinking heart that the warmth had gone out of her expression.

‘Come, Daisy, we must drive back to the Hall, and inspect the lower fields that run down towards the sea, those that I have leased to Jean Shaw through Chittlethorpe.'

Oh, dear poor Geoff Chittlethorpe! He had suddenly lost his right to being a ‘Mr'. It was as if a knighthood had been withdrawn from him.

‘I daresay we could do that after luncheon, couldn't we, Aunt Maude? I mean, whatever Jean is growing on the fields will wait until we have finished our drive, surely?'

‘Very well, continue on, Daisy, but after luncheon, willy-nilly, we will be driving across the estate to those leased fields. I was always a little nervous of Chittlethorpe's modernising ideas, and I only hope I am wrong.'

Of course she knew very well that she couldn't be, and that the potatoes must have come from somewhere, and that that somewhere must be her own fields. And of course, after luncheon, despite Daisy trying to deflect her attention from such a tedious matter, she insisted that Daisy drive her to the relevant fields, which were indeed planted, many acres of them, with potatoes. Daisy dropped her back at the Hall, and then shot off to the Court, only thankful that she had promised to give Laura and Aurelia driving lessons.

The next day Geoff Chittlethorpe was summoned to the Hall.

‘Miss Shaw has ploughed up my ancient pastures to plant her wretched potatoes!'

Daisy, who was listening at the drawing-room door, straightened up. There was no need to put her ear to it any more, Aunt Maude had raised her voice. It was unheard-of for Aunt Maude to raise her voice, let alone shout, and what Daisy had just heard was really quite near to a shout.

‘Well, Miss Maude.' Daisy heard the panic in Geoff Chittlethorpe's voice as he sought to justify himself. ‘I know it must seem strange to you . . .'

‘Strange! It is hideous. Potato crops! Cabbages! In fields that have been pastures since Oliver Cromwell! You should be shot at dawn, Chittlethorpe. If you knew of this, I shall personally court marshall you.'

Daisy wasn't sure that Geoff Chittlethorpe would believe even Aunt Maude had the authority to bring about her threat. Even so, she was very frightening, as people who believe absolutely in their own authority so often are.

‘Miss Maude, may I explain?' Geoff Chittlethorpe had obviously taken a deep breath while pausing to think, because his voice had become a great deal firmer. ‘There is a war coming, Miss Maude. We are going to need to eat – and not just meat. Potatoes and suchlike must be grown in place of so much pasture for sheep and cattle. We will need to eat cheaply, Miss Maude. Cabbages and potatoes will become our national diet.'

‘From whom did you gather this?'

‘From the wireless, Miss Maude, and from the newspapers. We all know there is a war coming.'

Another long silence, and then finally Aunt Maude spoke.

‘I am severely disappointed in you, Chittlethorpe. However, what is done is done, and cannot now be undone. I imagine we have leased the fields to Jean Shaw for some interminable time?'

‘For five years, I believe, Miss Maude, and she has never yet been late with the rent, Miss Maude. Never. Brings it herself, in cash.'

Cash or no cash, Aunt Maude was obviously not in a mood to be reasonable.

‘Well, well, well, that it should come to this, Chittlethorpe. But, and I must in duty say this to you, if you are to make something of yourself, which I somehow now doubt, but if you are, you should take the advice I am now giving you. Avoid reading newspapers, avoid listening to that contraption called the wireless, read your Bible, go to church, listen to the sermons preached by the reverend – although not his locum who has some very peculiar ideas about almost everything including the creation – and above all, remember to say your prayers at night, together with your wife and children.'

Daisy knew that poor Geoff Chittlethorpe had no wife or children, so this last advice could surely and most happily be ignored? Before the wretched man could back out of the room in the manner of some crushed debutante at a royal occasion, Daisy shot down to the kitchens. When, oh when, would Aunt Maude start believing that there was going to be a war? Perhaps only when one of Hitler's cohorts was forcing her to have dinner with him?

Freddie had been counting gas masks for some time before it actually came home to her that they were real. Gas masks up to that moment had just been, well – just gas masks. Now, all of a sudden she remembered the Sargent painting of the gassed soldiers in the Great War moving slowly forward with blindfolded eyes, each with a hand on another's shoulders. Oh
dear
, that was how they could all be in a few months' time, she with a hand on Daisy's shoulder, Daisy with a hand on Relia's shoulder, Relia with a hand on . . . She stopped, and clicked her fingers sharply beside her head. No point in thinking like that, no point at all. The truth was that in a very short space of time their whole world would be turned upside down. She imagined, as she always had as a child, making a camp in the cellars below the house, Aunt Jessica, and herself, Blossom, and Branscombe and all the dogs, all of them quietened, listening, all waiting for the inevitable sound of people overhead going through the house, going through their things, searching, searching, not just for possessions, but for human beings, for anyone or anything.

Just for a second Freddie felt quite sick, imagining trying to keep the dogs quiet, stop them yapping; but then she went to the window, sat down on the window seat, and to steady her nerves she stared out at the distant view of fields and trees. It settled her, and finally it was bracing. Whatever happened she would fight for their land, and for their right to lead their lives the way they wished, for everything that they all held dear. She'd fight for the gentle ways of Twistleton, all of which had been arrived at slowly through the centuries, so that not even the proud red letter-box outside the general store in the village was allowed to be disturbed until after the young robins, who hatched there annually, had flown the nest.

Twistleton had ducks on its pond, cows that stared over the five-bar gates as you walked into the village. It had birdsong at dawn, it had night skies of such beauty that it was impossible to go to bed without believing in a greater good. It held everything that was dear about life and the countryside, and despite its sometimes irritating vagaries, Freddie loved it with all her heart.

She returned to the table where she had been unpacking the gas masks with renewed determination. Gas them, bomb them, let Hitler do what he could, they would never give in. She pulled out a child's gas mask. There
would
be another generation. The idea that there would
not
be was appalling. She clicked her fingers by her head once more, in yet another attempt to drive away thoughts of gloom.

Blossom, as always nowadays, with the two dachshunds firmly attached to her waist with string, came in to help with the unpacking and the checking. Freddie could see from her expression that she had heard something on the wireless.

‘It seems we may expect to have Christmas on our own. No evacuations from the cities yet, but we can't count on it. And there's rumours about it becoming illegal to store tins and suchlike.' She looked baleful. ‘Since when is the government going to hold sway over our larders, may I ask?' She sighed. ‘Since when are they going to tell us what to do at every turn? It'll be identity cards soon, mark my words. Do this, do that. Anyone would think the high-ups were better than us, instead of just people, the same as us. And people with a great deal less sense than a lot of us low-downs, I sometimes think.' She sniffed, and then sighed. ‘I found myself just wishing the blessed war would get on with it. Here we all are, making plans for this, plans for that, gas masks and I know not what, and yet, blow me, not a word from Hitler now he's disporting himself in Czechoslovakia. Not a word, not a funeral note, only rumour, rumour, rumour.' She took out a handkerchief suddenly, and dabbed at her eyes. ‘I sometimes think I can't stand any more of this waiting, Freddie, truly I can't. I just want to get on with it. Gas mask or no gas mask, I just want to stop the waiting, it's worse than anything, truly it is. I just want something to fight, not nothing, day after day of nothing.'

Freddie went to where the old darling was seated, but instead of trying to comfort her, which she knew Blossom would hate, she knelt down and stroked the dogs, giving Blossom time to calm herself.

‘What are you going to do once it starts, Blossom?' she asked her, eventually.

Blossom sniffed and then cleared her throat, before rearranging the combs on either side of her great bun of white hair.

‘I think I must get into something. No point in hanging around Jessica here, getting on her nerves. I mean, she's been very kind, and given me a roof and a job all these years, but she won't want me around once the balloon goes up, will she? Stands to reason. I know I wouldn't want me hanging around. I'm not good for much here anyway, really, just a bit of this and a bit of that, and all that is to come to an end.'

Freddie straightened up. This piece of news was not at all welcome.
Freddie
was the one who planned to leave Twistleton Court, in the certain knowledge that Blossom would always be there to help Aunt Jessica. If Blossom left, then Freddie might be forced to stay. It was not that she didn't love Twistleton, as she kept saying to herself, nor that she would not fight for it, as she had previously assured herself while she was seated in the window, but neither did she want to
stay
. She passionately wanted to leave, to fight for what was right.

‘But what if we have to take in evacuees? You will surely be needed by Aunt Jessica then?'

Blossom shook her head.

‘I never was any good with city folk, or children, for that matter. One of the reasons why I could never, would never, marry. No, I must go and find some sort of work – on the land, preferably. I am still strong, and as long as they don't mind dogs, I'll find myself a place all right. I know, it won't be popular in some quarters, but I can't stay here, part-relative, part-servant. It won't do, dear, truly it won't. Neither fish nor flesh, and certainly not good red herring.'

Freddie stared at Blossom.

She had always imagined that Blossom was so happy at the Court, never really thought, she suddenly realised with a rush of beastly guilt, of Blossom as anything except, well –
Blossom.
Hadn't really thought of her as a human being, as a whole person with feelings and with any kind of independence. Good old Blossom, good old Jessica's impoverished cousin, given a cottage to live in, allowed her dogs, helping out every hour of the day, and sometimes the night, too; expected to be grateful, to be courteous, to be there, all the time. No actual feelings, though, nothing on display. The rest of them, even Branscombe, could have feelings, but not Blossom – except about the dogs, of course. She was allowed those, but even that was a kind of unspoken joke. Blossom and her dogs! Tied to her waist! Eternally frightened that they would attract anti-German feelings, people trying to kick them, as if anyone in Twistleton would do that . . . ha, ha, ha.

‘Have you told Aunt Jessica of your plans to leave the Court, Blossom?'

‘Of course.' Blossom stood up. ‘But don't you discuss them with her, will you?'

‘No, no, of course not.'

‘I don't think she imagines for a second that anything will come of them—'

‘But Aunt Jessica is the one who has always been convinced that war is on the cards. It's Miss
Maude
who is the one who won't even discuss it.'

Freddie knew that if there was one thing that was never spoken about in Twistleton, it was the continuing silence between the Court and the Hall, and all of a sudden she also knew she had to join up, and a great deal sooner than she had imagined. The only trouble was that she wanted to be a Wren – and they had been disbanded after the Great War.

Chapter Four

Daisy had never known any of her parents' circle, friends who might have been able to tell her a little of what the people who had given her life had been like. In fact, besides Aunt Maude, she had no connections outside Twistleton Hall, with the single exception of her godfather, Gervaise Fanshawe.

For Daisy, growing up a lone child among adults at the Hall, Gervaise was an adored figure. Adored because he was tall and handsome, funny and fun, and always and for ever – unexpected. For the simple reason that he never gave Aunt Maude or Daisy any warning when he came to visit.

Only Gervaise could get away with turning up in his elegant motor car, and hooting the horn outside the house, before running in, calling for Daisy, calling for Maude, ‘Where are the women in my life?' And demanding luncheon, tea or dinner, as appropriate, or not.

Unbelievably, too, Gervaise could make Aunt Maude laugh, which was only a little more difficult than making the cow jump over the moon. Not only could he make Aunt Maude laugh, but he could show her the latest dance steps, and exhort her to try them, which of course she never did, but nevertheless it brought colour to their lives even to hear about them, and all this before Gervaise sat down at the piano and played and sang the latest hits.