The Daisy Club (11 page)

Sometimes, when she was younger, after a long abstinence from any form of gaiety, Daisy would find herself falling asleep, praying to the Lord to send her godfather to see them, if only to break the civilised monotony which was the norm at the Hall. The unbroken tenor of her life acting, as it so often did, as a burden of crushing silence, despite all the wildlife, despite all the animals around the place, despite the maids – despite, when it eventually arrived, courtesy of Gervaise, of course, the wireless – she still longed with all her heart for the kind of unexpected excitement that Gervaise brought to their lives.

But, quite unlike Aunt Maude, Gervaise had become caught up in the idea of a coming war, and had been instrumental in trying to convince the powers that be that they needed to build new and faster aeroplanes, planes that could dive out of the sky and drive away the enemy. Needless to say, the politicians could not see beyond the army and the navy, but Gervaise had persisted, and more than that, he had become convinced that with all the men fighting, the need for women to be trained as pilots would be as great as the need for women to be trained in the navy and the army. But, as he had written to Daisy a few months before, ‘I sometimes think it would be easier to be the first man to fly without a plane, than to convince our dear government and all the top brass of what is so badly needed.'

Daisy herself needed no convincing. It seemed only logical, when all was said and done, that, just as there had been a dire need for women in the factories during the Great War, now there was a dire need for women not just to work in the factories, but to join up.

The subject of joining the services had often come up while they were all meant to be learning how to be beautifully brought-up young ladies at the Court. Not that Laura wanted to do any such thing, nor Relia, nor any of the other girls, except Freddie, of course. Freddie had always set her heart on something to do with the sea, which was hardly surprising, since so many of the outlying cottages and houses of Twistleton were in sight and sound of the sea. She had always had her own sailing boat, no landlubber she. But despite seeing the distant blue, or more often grey, of the sea beyond the cliffs, Daisy wanted only to fly, and the one person who could help her to do just that was Gervaise.

With the acceleration of war rumours, Daisy had started to bombard him with letters asking for information about flying lessons. Naturally, Gervaise being Gervaise, the letters remained gaily unanswered, until one day she had a brief note from him, his usual signature embellished by a caricature of himself, but also with a cheque attached behind the letter.

Have spoken to the chaps at Bramsfield about you, you minx. Cheque attached. Best of British, but do make sure to get the hours in. At least two hundred and fifty hours logged will be necessary, so go to, dear godchild . . .

Your wicked godfather, Gervaise

It was not in Daisy's nature to deceive anyone, let alone her beloved aunt, nevertheless, in between taking Aunt Maude for her now almost daily ‘spin' in the new motor car, she also made sure to book up flying lessons as early as possible, taking off daily for Bramsfield aerodrome early in the morning, before Aunt Maude was about, determined on logging up the necessary hours.

It was not, she told herself, that she was actually deceiving Aunt Maude, she was just not telling her until the right moment presented itself, which it suddenly seemed to do just as she neared the necessary logged hours, only a few being left.

There was a long silence as Maude stared at Daisy, and it seemed to both of them that Daisy might be losing colour, as Maude's mouth tightened into a thin strip of suppressed fury, while at the same time the sound of the library clock ticking was a welcome distraction in the ensuing pause.

‘Been going for flying lessons, did you say?'

‘Yes, I have, Aunt Maude. Do love flying so much.'

Maude walked to the library window.

‘You would, it is in the blood. And I suppose that bad man, your godfather Gervaise, encouraged you in this?'

‘Not entirely, no. The idea actually came from me. I can't blame him, really I can't,' Daisy confessed.

Aunt Maude stared ahead of her, silent for a minute.

‘I forbid you to go on with this nonsense, Daisy dear,' she finally announced.

Daisy dearly hoped that she hadn't heard her only living relative correctly.

‘Why are you not keen on me flying, Aunt Maude?' Daisy finally asked. ‘You don't mind me driving a motor car, and from what I have found, flying is, if anything, even a little easier than driving, once you start to get the hang of it, that is. I had hoped that you would be proud of me.'

Maude turned back to look at her.

‘No flying, Daisy, do you hear? Just no flying, and that is an end to it.'

Daisy knew all too well that the Beresford manner of clamping down on any activity of which they found they could not approve was unrivalled. There was never any room for discussion. This had always been true of Aunt Maude. Once she had pronounced, as far as she was concerned, that was – always and ever would be – that.

Daisy gazed around her in silence. Aunt Maude was in front of her, her expression grim. Daisy's, by contrast, alternated between despair and determination.

It might be an incontrovertible fact that when a Beresford put one of their elegant feet down, it stayed down. But what Aunt Maude did not perhaps realise was that Daisy was also a Beresford, and it seemed that quite soon there would be the sound of one of Daisy's feet coming down, too – if not both. Fly she would, fly she must, whatever Aunt Maude said or did.

Joe only realised what a mistake it was to take Jean to tea with his mother when it was too late. Somehow, after their joyous bus rides to and from Wychford, and their delicious lunch at The Pantry, it had seemed just the right thing to do. Perhaps he had seen too many American films, or just too many films, full stop, but taking a girl to tea with mother was what he thought a nice boy did. And, of course, it was quite possible that nice boys everywhere in the county
were
taking their girls to tea with their mothers before kissing those same girls goodbye, and going off to join the army and fight the future war. But, unfortunately for him, and Jean, his mother lived in Holly House, a Georgian gem with Georgian furniture and exquisite china in cabinets, and Jean was from The Cottages, and cottagers' children, and children from such places as Holly House, might go to the village school together, they might play in the village stream, and go bird-nesting, and heaven only knew what together, but once they grew up, things became very different, as the expression on Mrs Huggett's face, as she sat behind her silver tea service, was now making quite clear.

To give Mrs Huggett her due, once in the drawing room of Holly House, even Joe quickly realised that to an outside eye, Jean did look just a little wild, definitely beautiful, but – wild. Her dark curly hair and green eyes might be arresting, but they had about them something challenging and, worse, untamed. Besides which, her clothes, which had looked at lunch at The Pantry no more than pleasantly bohemian, now looked almost purposefully rural, which Joe happened to like, but which, next to his mother's excellently tailored light-tweed suit, pearl earrings and matching lapel brooch, made their guest look just a little like something from a country holiday poster – ‘
Come to Twistleton for Country Air!
'

‘I gather you have taken up farming, Miss Shaw?'

Jean nodded.

‘Yes, Mrs Huggett, I am renting eighty acres from Miss Maude Beresford, at the Hall, because with war coming I realised that we were not growing enough food to eat, and we were going to need to, to feed everyone.'

‘And what sort of food do you have in mind?'

‘Potatoes and cabbages, turnips, root vegetables in particular, since they are warming, and go a long way, and are inexpensive.'

‘I see . . . turnips and, er, cabbages, you say? Gracious, how very . . . hearty.'

Mrs Huggett carefully and quietly offered Jean lump sugar from a silver sugar bowl with attached tongs. Jean gaily ignored the proffered tongs, and popped the sugar into her cup with her fingers, after which she gave everything a vigorous stir. Seeing this, Joe had to pinch himself hard under the table to stop himself from laughing, the way he used to when he was a boy, and something went awry in church. The whole Huggett family were all too aware that Joe's laugh was so infectious it could set the whole church off. Rows and rows of shaking shoulders was not what the Reverend Johnson wanted to see when he faced his congregation.

‘I don't think your mother liked me very much, Joe,' Jean told him in a non-committal tone, as he walked her back to her cottage, down the hill from Holly House.

‘Mother's very shy,' Joe stated in a determinedly detached voice. ‘She's like that with everyone she doesn't know.'

‘But she
does
know me, she's known me since I was knee-high to that grasshopper there, but now I'm a grown woman it's all different, isn't it? It's Miss Shaw this, and Miss Shaw that, and while she might have let me join your picnics when I was a child, now it seems I'm just not good enough to go to tea with her.'

Joe stopped walking, and taking both Jean's hands he forced her to face him.

‘Listen, kid,' he said, putting on what he imagined was a passable American film-star voice. ‘We don't have time for class warfare no more. There's going to be gas attacks, and bombs dropping, and whether or not you take the sugar with the tongs won't matter one hoot, or even two hoots, because there won't be no tongs, and there won't be no sugar.'

Jean snatched her hands away from him and started to walk quickly towards her cottage door.

‘So you noticed. I thought you did!' she said, flinging her words over her shoulder. ‘You noticed that I didn't take the tongs!'

Joe followed her to her door. Fleetingly, as Jean turned the heavy iron handle of the studded old oak door, he wondered if it would be hanging off its hinges in another few months.

‘I thought it was marvellous, I thought you were marvellous. I never have had much time for all that silver tea service and get-out-the-best china malarkey, and never less than now. What will it all mean, what will it all matter when the jackboots are marching up the village street?'

Joe glanced up the street, and down again as Jean's front door swung open. He wanted so much to follow Jean into her cottage, but, on the other hand, he did not want to be seen by the rest of the village. It would damage her reputation, and he did not want that. Jean was too special.

‘You won't want me to come in, Jean, I know that, but I just want you to know that I hate Mother being or seeming snooty, truly I do.'

The honesty in his eyes convinced her. It was not his fault that his mother was so snooty, and had a silver tea service, any more than it was Jean's fault that she was from The Cottages.

‘Quickly, Joe, come in, before anyone sees you.'

Joe went eagerly through the door, and Jean shut it behind him. Sunshine flooded her little sitting room with its two Staffordshire pottery dogs on the chimneypiece, and arrangement of flowers on the side table overlooking the back garden. She turned to Joe, and he put his arms around her, which he had of course been longing to do, and they started to kiss, and kiss some more, very shallow kisses, and then deeper and deeper. At one point Jean pushed him away, but then allowed him to take her back into his arms, finally giving in to his passion for her.

After all, he was going off tomorrow morning at crack of dawn, and after that they might never see each other again.

When Laura returned to London and put her key in the door of her father's Grosvenor Square apartment, she could not help hoping against hope that he would not be there. It was not that she had stopped loving him because of his amatory ways, it was just that she found the sight of him smooching on the sofa with a society lady distasteful in the extreme. Of course she knew she should feel sympathetic to his needs, to the fact that he had rebounded from the awfulness of his wife's sudden death into the arms of every and any passing fancy, but the truth of the matter was – and she had to be honest about it, there was no avoiding the reality – she felt revolted by it. Happily it seemed he was out, and only a few of the maids were in residence.

It was two days before Arthur finally caught up with her.

‘Ah, there you are, Laura darling. I thought you might be back, had a feeling that you were, but you are so mouse-like quiet that neither the maids nor I ever know whether you are in or away.'

Arthur Hambleton was tall, exquisitely handsome – ‘Arthur is almost too good-looking' Laura's mother had often been heard to say, laughing appreciatively – on top of which he was charming and attentive, so naturally he was irresistible to women.

‘Yes, here I am, Father.'

Laura knew that her father hated being called ‘Father', which was why she called him ‘Father' as often as she could, especially in front of his mistresses.

‘You are not at all in a good mood, are you, Laura darling?'

He put his head on one side and stared at her, a humorous look in his eyes.

‘I am in a perfectly good mood, Father.' Laura turned away to pick up her handbag, determined that if he was staying in with a girlfriend, she would go out, anywhere, rather than hang around listening to alien feminine laughter coming from the drawing room. She knew the public rooms would suddenly be filled with exotic scents, sometimes slyly Amber, sometimes distinctly Chanel, always deliciously feminine – like the sounds of the laughter, which always seemed to her, for some reason, to be vaguely challenging, as if the cause of the laughter was not something that she would ever be allowed to know about.