“Sue! What are you doing? I don’t need a tree!”
“Of course you don’t. Nobody needs a tree, do they? But it’s Christmas and what kind of vicar would I be if I sat by and let you be without one? I wouldn’t be doing my job.”
“I don’t think Christmas trees are biblical,” I protest, but Sue isn’t listening.
“Now, before you say you haven’t got baubles and lights, don’t panic. I’ve got it covered. Tim and Cas are on their way to help decorate. We’ve got stacks of decs and we’ll soon have this place looking festive. It’s the least I can do, since you refuse to come and join us for Christmas dinner!”
I’m quite happy not to be festive at all. So far I’ve managed to put my mother off and I’ve been looking forward to a quiet Christmas all alone. I’d planned to paint all day, eat toast and have an early night without a bauble, tree or Santa hat in sight. Still, I know Sue well enough now to give in. Like she said, she’s not one for taking no for an answer.
“Where were you anyway? I was knocking for ages,” the vicar grumbles as I step aside to let her in.
“Up in the attic. I’m making a studio there.”
“Oh! What a fantastic spot. I bet the light’s amazing and the views must be incredible. Good for you. Let’s put this down and you can show me what you’ve done.”
Without asking where I want the tree, Sue charges down the corridor, pushes open the door to the sitting room and all but drops the spruce onto the floor. Needles scatter around it and I know I’ll still be sweeping them up in June.
“Phew. That weighed a tonne! I’ve just done St Nonna’s one too. I’ll be as skinny as Kate Moss at this rate,” she laughs, brushing needles from her jumper and flexing her fingers. “Just as well I’ve brought some biscuits with me, else I might pass out. How about we stick the kettle on while we wait for Tim?”
I make tea and we take our drinks up to the attic. As I show Sue around my unfinished studio, I explain how I’ve been distracted by the discovery of the poems. Of course, I have to tell her about finding Daisy’s diary too, and by the time I’ve finished retelling the story we’ve worked our way through a packet of chocolate digestives.
“There goes my diet,” Sue sighs, glancing down at the empty wrapper. “Ah well, never mind. At least we shared.”
I hide a smile because I’ve eaten one.
“But never mind biscuits,” she continues. “What an amazing story! How wonderful that there are more poems. The Kit Rivers Society will pop with excitement!”
“I think quite a few literature professors will pop too. The poems are amazing, Sue. They gave me shivers.”
“It’s great news for Rosecraddick and the Manor if we have more background on Kit. To think that all the clues were right under our noses all along! Daisy lived here and she was the love of Kit’s life. How romantic and, now I think about it, how obvious. Of course it was all about love! Isn’t that what makes the world go round?”
“You old romantic!”
Sue blushes. “I guess I am. I want everyone to have their happy-ever-after. Don’t you?”
I do. It’s just a shame mine was so short. Still, it was longer than anything Nancy or Daisy or millions of other young women were able to hope for during or immediately after the war. I may have lost Neil, but at least we were together for all those years, even married for a couple of them, and I have a whole treasure chest of memories to sift through.
“Do you think the Church will claim the poems?” I ask Sue.
She looks thoughtful. “I’d say that’s unlikely. They never belonged to the Church in the first place and, from what little I know, it was made very clear that all Kit’s work was left to the Kit Rivers Society. Matt shouldn’t have an issue there – unless Daisy Hills had hidden a few of St Nonna’s candlesticks too? Or some chalices?”
“No, nothing like that,” I smile.
“Did you find a photo of Daisy? We’ve all seen Kit but she’s a mystery. I’d love to know what she looked like.”
I shake my head. “I know there was an engagement photo because she wrote about it, but I never found it. Daisy must have taken that with her.”
“Do you know where she went after here?”
“Not a clue, although she mentions joining her father at a military hospital. Matt and I are going to try and trace her. He has some ideas where to start looking, and with her father being a doctor we should be able to find something fairly quickly. I take it you’ve never heard of Daisy Hills? Or come across her name in the parish records?”
“Not that I recall,” Sue replies, “but then she was here for a very short time really, and she wouldn’t appear in the registers unless she married or was buried here. I have heard stories about Reverend Cutwell though. Village legend has it he was a right tartar! A real fire-and-brimstone man, by all accounts. I can’t imagine living with him was a barrel of laughs for your Daisy.”
“Killjoy Cutwell,” I say, recalling Kit’s nickname and Daisy’s attempts to read the newspaper over the breakfast table. “So you don’t think he was the one who put the daisy in the window then?”
“Unlikely, from what we know of him. And anyway, I’m pretty certain he died before the original was installed. He’s buried here, I think.”
So it wasn’t Daisy’s godfather who made certain that her story wouldn’t be lost. The mystery deepens.
“There’s nothing here left of his? No records?”
“I doubt it. The C of E sold this place off in the eighties and anything left would have been destroyed or shoved up here in the attic. Your best bet is to start trawling through the parish records for information about the people who lived here – and the same for the Fulham area, if that’s where Daisy was from originally. Lots of records are online now. Hills is quite a common name, though, so it may take a while.”
“Her father was a doctor and her mother went to university, which was unusual then,” I remark.
“That should make it a bit easier then, surely? If Daisy became a nurse too, then that might help. The Red Cross might be a point of contact? There’s lots of places to look.”
Sue isn’t wrong. The amount of possibilities is overwhelming and I hardly know where to start. “This is all Matt’s area of expertise. I’m sure he’ll know exactly what to do and where to begin.”
Sue gives me a sideways look. “It sounds as though you and Matt are spending quite a lot of time together. Anything you want to confess to your vicar?”
I know she’s teasing but I feel my face growing warm – which is amazing really, since the attic’s icy cold. Luckily I’m spared any further interrogation by the doorbell announcing the arrival of Tim and Caspar, armed with carrier bags that are lumpy with baubles and stuffed full of lurid coloured tinsel. Tim has brought a takeaway too, so Daisy and Kit recede to the past as I’m swept up in the Perry family’s tidal wave of tree decorating, fairy-light hanging and filling up on Chinese food. By the time they leave, the Rectory’s looking festive and cheerful, if a little garish. Before I fall into an exhausted sleep, I can’t help reflecting that Daisy would have thought all of this was great fun, even though her godfather would have been most disapproving.
The next morning finds me at Rosecraddick Manor by half past eight. As I walk up the drive I see the house through Daisy’s eyes, a symbol of everything that stood between her and Kit, and I’m in awe of her courage. Even in the twenty-first century the Manor is imposing; with the added concerns about her relative position in society, it must have taken a great deal of bravery for Daisy to come here and speak to Lady Rivers.
Somebody’s placed a small Christmas tree in the entrance hall. It’s bravely twinkling away, but the cavernous space needs an enormous spruce reaching to the ceiling and smothered in white lights and red bows. I make a coffee, say hello to Jill and a couple of the other volunteers and then slip away on the pretext of sketching. I fully intend to do some work, and my fingers tingle with the longing to pick up a pencil, but before I start on my sketc
hes I need to revisit a few rooms and overlay the present with my knowledge of the past.
It isn’t hard to locate the drawing room where Daisy met with Kit’s mother. The long corridor leads to a heavy door set within a granite arch, beyond which there’s dark panelling inside. The room feels oppressive. The windows are now choked by wisteria, which blocks out most of the light, and there’s no fire today to take the chill from the air. In my imagination I see the flames leaping in the hearth and hear Daisy’s cry of distress as Kit’s letters turn to ash while his mother watches. My skin prickles and I back away hastily. Is it fanciful to believe such unpleasantness leaves a ripple in the atmosphere?
I wander around the Manor, peeking into other empty rooms and picturing the servants and family going about their daily business. Finally, I drift through the oldest wing of the house and climb up to Kit’s tower, where I trace the carved daisy in the crumbling window ledge and wipe the grime from the pane so that I can see the Rectory. The attic window glints in the sunshine and I smile to think of Kit tying his handkerchief to the catch while Daisy looks across, her heart leaping when she spots his signal.
“Where did you go, Daisy? What happened to you?” I say aloud. But of course there’s no answer, only the haunting cries of the seagulls and the creaking of the old floorboards beneath my feet as I cross the room. When my phone starts to ring I jump, snatched back to the present.
“Morning!” says Matt when I answer. “I’m not interrupting another literary discovery, am I?”
“Hardly. I’m at the Manor looking at all the places Daisy mentions in her diary. It’s fascinating, like seeing them for the first time.”
“I bet,” he says. “Look, I can’t talk for long because I’ve just nipped away from Lowenna, but I wanted to let you know that I’ve spoken to the guy I was telling you about who’s an expert on war poetry, and obviously he’s really excited about all this and frantic to see the poems. I just wanted to make sure you were happy for me to pass them on?”
“What about who owns the poems?”
“I’ve taken legal advice on that, and there’s no doubt that they belong to the Kit Rivers Society. I’m the Chair and passing them on is fine with us, but I want you to be sure before this all goes public.”
I’m impressed he’s asked and not just ploughed ahead. Matt’s a thoughtful guy.
“It’s fine by me. Those poems definitely need to be shared.”
“I knew you’d feel like that.” Matt’s voice is warm. “I’ll meet him and personally put them in his hands. Be prepared though; this will be a big story. The romance element will really elevate it too. I think there’ll be huge interest.”
“I do too, and when we know the full story we’ll share it,” I promise.
“But in the meantime, let’s see if we can solve the mystery of the daisy window,” Matt decides. “I’d better go. Gina will be sending a search party if I’m gone too long, and I’ve also rashly promised to read Harry Potter out loud to Lowenna. Stephen Fry doesn’t cut it apparently: only Dad will do.”
The pride in his voice would melt the coldest of hearts. We end the call, agreeing to meet up when he returns to the village. As I slide the phone back into my coat pocket I’m thinking that Matt’s a wonderful father – and a wonderful man in general, come to that. I like him a lot. I like the way his hands felt when they covered mine and I like the way he says we, because it makes me shiver deep inside. When his eyes hold mine I feel warm all over and…
Hold on! What’s happening to me? Do I like Matt as something more than a friend, or is this how all lonely widows feel when they spend time with an attractive man? I wait for the stab of guilt that ought to come from thinking that any man except my husband is attractive, but it doesn’t come – and no matter how hard I try to summon him or how much I plead with him to stay with me, neither does Neil.
Just like Daisy Hills, he’s vanished without a trace.
Chapter 4
Chloe
“So far it’s come to a bit of a dead end,” Matt sighs. He looks exhausted. A week of tearing up and down to Exeter to visit his daughter is taking its toll, and I can’t imagine that all the long evenings have helped. He’s spent so many of them poring over printouts from genealogy sites and copies of records from various other sources. “I’ve managed to trace Dr Charles Hills and Mrs Marie Hills, but with his medical career and her Oxford education that was relatively simple. We already know that Marie Hills died at 6 Charlotte Villas in 1911 and Dr Hills died in 1937 at the same address. Daisy’s brother, Edward Hills, was born there and he died in the same area at a ripe old age, but there’s no mention anywhere of his sister. I can only assume Daisy moved away.”
It’s a raw Saturday before Christmas and Matt and I are in the pub, drinking coffee and thawing out by the wood burner. We’ve chosen to meet here because the manor house will be absolutely freezing without the fire. We’ve ordered some cheesy chips and commandeered a table in the window, where Matt’s spread out all the research he’s managed to do so far as he struggles to piece Daisy’s story together. She’s proving elusive. After she placed the biscuit tin beneath the floorboards and hid Kit’s poems in the wall, Daisy Hills slipped from sight and out of history.
It’s as though she never existed and I hate this. Kit loved Daisy. It was the thought of her that kept him writing and gave him hope. If he hadn’t shared his poetry with Daisy, the twenty poems the scholars are now so excited about would have turned to pulp in the trench mud. Daisy deserves to be remembered and I’m not the only person to think this way; somebody else felt so strongly that they paid to add the daisy to Kit’s window.
Somebody else knew about Daisy and Kit. But who?
In an attempt to find out, I’ve trawled a few websites myself. It’s fascinating if time-consuming stuff and I’ve gained so much respect for Matt, whose painstaking research highlights my own clumsy and amateurish efforts. After only a couple of hours spent reading, my eyes were sore and gritty. I was searching for anyone linked to that time who might have known about Daisy and Kit. Sue had already shown me Reverend Cutwell’s grave, marked by a plain cross starkly silhouetted against the sky (which conveys perfectly his stern personality). Gem had died long before him in the war, of course. I managed to find Nancy Trehunnist, or Nancy Poldeen as she later became. Nancy hadn’t travelled far from home and I was pleased to learn that the young girl who’d loved and lost her Gem had eventually married and had four children. I couldn’t imagine she would have paid for the alterations to the window, but it was one more avenue to pursue. Nancy’s descendants still lived in Rosecraddick and it was odd to think I must have passed them in the street. Maybe I could trace them and ask what they knew? I’d also hunted for Mrs Polmartin, only to discover that she’d died shortly after the Armistice in the flu pandemic of 1918. So that ruled her out. Recalling how she’d wept for her lost son, I hoped she’d found peace. Both women were buried only yards from my front door, and when I’d returned home that day I’d pulled the weeds from their neglected graves and paid my respects for a few quiet moments. Gone but not forgotten. Nothing is ever forgotten.
I couldn’t help being moved when I read the records; it felt like catching up with long-lost friends. After all, I knew these people! I saw them wherever I went and I heard the echoes of their voices. I was even sketching them in the places where they’d lived and worked, using Daisy’s descriptions to help me. Matt had photocopied the diary for me and I’d read it several times now. The people and events it contained seemed more vivid than my own life. As I’d scanned all the historical records, I’d been hoping desperately to see Daisy’s name again, but I’d found nothing to suggest that she’d ever returned to Rosecraddick. Mr Emmet the butler had cropped up and so had Clarence, the Rectory’s ancient gardener. Both had outlived their employers, but I shouldn’t be surprised by this. Hadn’t I seen first-hand how death had no respect for youth? On and on I’d read, but it hadn’t made the slightest difference because there were no
mentions of Daisy at all.
She’d totally disappeared from Rosecraddick.
“Did her brother have any children?” I ask Matt now. It seems odd to think of little Eddie being a grown-up.
Matt pulls a sheaf of papers towards him, leafing through with a frown until he finds the piece he’s looking for.
“He was married in 1930 and he had a daughter, Mary, whose birth was registered in Fulham, but I’m yet to trace her. She probably moved away and married. There was a son too, another Edward, born in 1939, and I’m still looking for him as well. These things take time.”
I nod and take a sip of my coffee. “I can totally see that. It’s like needles in a haystack.”
Matt pulls a face. “If only it was that easy. This feels more like trying to find one grain of sand amongst all the others on the beach. The right clue’s there somewhere but we have a mammoth task in front of us first. We’ll just have to keep faith that at some point we do come across the information we need.”
He sounds so disheartened and, without thinking twice, I lean across the table and squeeze his hand. It’s a natural reflex of comfort that takes us both by surprise, but fortunately Matt doesn’t seem offended; he squeezes mine in return.
“You’ve done a great job,” I tell him, gently sliding my hand away, even though it was resting there easily. “You’ve traced Daisy to the hospital where her father worked, so at least we know she did get out to the Western Front. There were thousands of women nursing there, so it’s an achievement that you managed to find her.”
“That link was relatively easy to make once I’d found where her father was based. And we now know she was in the VAD right until the end of the war.” Matt flicks through his notes. “We also know that she contacted the Red Cross several times during the 1920s in her search for Kit. She wrote regularly to the War Graves Commission too. She used the Fulham address for those letters. Although she must have returned home, she never gave up her search.”
The Letter Page 30
