Candles in the Storm

by Rita Bradshaw

‘She will be. Constitution of a shire horse, has Mam. You sure you want to go, lass? You know they’ll all whisper about it not being right for a female to attend, and an unmarried one at that. It’ll be another nail in your coffin,’ Kitty added with unconscious dark humour.

  Daisy inclined her head slowly. She had to say goodbye properly, she’d never forgive herself if she didn’t. And she hadn’t taken any notice of those who said it wasn’t seemly for females to attend funerals when Tom and her da died so she wasn’t about to start now. ‘I have to go, Kitty.’

  ‘Then I’m coming with you.’

  ‘Alf might not like it, lass.’

  ‘I’m coming.’ Kitty stared at her, still shaking her head. ‘You know, I wouldn’t have believed even Mam could sink so low as to set up something with that horrible man. By, I’m glad I’m out of it, lass. If the flow of the milk of human kindness depended on me mam it’d have dried up years ago. She’s knocked me from Monday to Saturday since I was a bairn, but her fists are nothing compared to her tongue. And she’ll think she’s got the upper hand now, that’s what gets me. Crowing like a rooster, she’ll be. I don’t know the Bible well enough to know if the devil had a mam, but if he did, rest assured she’s alive an’ well an’ living in Fulwell.’

  ‘Oh, Kitty.’ In spite of everything the ghost of a smile touched Daisy’s lips. Whatever else changed Kitty remained the same, and Daisy had never been so thankful for the stout, warm-hearted northern lass as she was at that moment.

  The day of the funeral was one of high winds and bitter cold, but as Daisy sat shivering at the very back of Whitburn parish church next to Alf, with Kitty on the other side of the fisherman, her thoughts were on her mistress and not her own icy feet or frozen hands. Alf had insisted on escorting the two girls when he had realised Daisy was determined to go to the funeral, and Kitty was equally determined to accompany her, and in truth Daisy was glad of the big solid fisherman’s presence. There was something very comforting about being under her old friend’s protection when she felt so sad about Miss Wilhelmina and upset about her granny.

  The congregation were waiting for the hearse to arrive, followed by the family. As a subdued stir announced its arrival Daisy closed her eyes. Oh, Miss Wilhelmina, I hope you’re able to run and dance and do all those things you wanted to where you are now. Forgive me for not being with you when you needed me most, she prayed.

  When she opened her eyes the cortège was filing past. As she took in the sight of a young man on crutches next to Sir Augustus her heart actually missed a beat. He hadn’t seen her, all the family were looking neither to left nor right, but as her eyes followed his blond head she felt faint for a moment.

  Kitty must have nudged Alf. Daisy was aware of him leaning towards his wife and Kitty whispering something, causing Alf’s head to shoot up as he glanced first towards the black-clad figures and then at Daisy. This was on the perimeter of her vision and Daisy didn’t turn to meet his eyes, not even when he kept them on her for some moments before looking to the front again.

  William was here. Why hadn’t she considered the possibility he might come to Miss Wilhelmina’s funeral? And then she answered herself. The last she’d heard from her mistress before her granny took bad was that it was going to be a long old haul before William was well again, and the doctors were insisting he take it very slowly. And, after all, he hadn’t bothered with the old lady in years.

  Daisy could remember only parts of the service afterwards, although she was conscious of standing up and sitting down at all the right moments, and singing each of the three hymns that had been chosen, some with very poignant words. Her emotions were muddled during this twenty minutes. Part of her was aching to see William face to face, if only from a distance, and feast her eyes on the features she’d thought never to see again, but another part of her was saying, and with some bitterness, it would have meant far more to Miss Wilhelmina if her nephew had spared her just one visit in the last years, rather than making the grand gesture now when it was too late for her mistress. But over all the other thoughts one kept clamouring however much she tried to dismiss it: How could you just leave like you did, without saying goodbye?

  When the service finished and the family filed out again, Daisy kept her eyes turned to the floor until the church was practically empty. Kitty and Alf said not a word as the three of them left the building, but they had stationed themselves one on either side of her, their arms through hers.

  The wind was whipping round the gravestones, and by unspoken mutual consent the three of them paused some yards away from the other mourners who were standing at a respectful distance from the family gathered round the open grave. Sir Augustus was on one side of William and Francis Fraser on the other, and they were standing with their backs to the church, the parson of Whitburn church directly facing Daisy and the others. And then, as the parson began speaking, William turned, his eyes searching the crowd until they fell on Daisy whereupon they became still. And Daisy in her turn did not move a muscle. He must have seen her in the church. She acknowledged that thought as her mind said, He looks older, much older, but of course he would do with what he’s been through recently. And even more handsome.

  It was with some difficulty that she broke the hold of the piercingly blue gaze but she managed it, lowering her eyes again as she struggled to take in what the parson was saying and to concentrate on the last few minutes of the funeral.

  Goodbye, Miss Wilhelmina. As the first thick clod of earth hit the coffin which had now been lowered into the ground, Daisy winced. She hated that sound. God bless. I love you.

  ‘Let’s go.’ She turned blindly away, fighting back the tears, and Alf and Kitty moved swiftly with her, but then, as she heard her name called once, and then again, she was forced to stop, aware it was causing something of a stir.

  She turned as William approached, willing herself not to betray her deep agitation and to conduct herself with dignity, and then, when he almost stumbled within feet of them, the crutches making him clumsy, her hands went out to steady him before dropping back to her sides as Alf caught him, saying, ‘Steady, sir, steady.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He was speaking to Alf but looking at Daisy, and now he was so close she found she couldn’t say a word. ‘I’m sorry to delay you, I just wanted to say hallo.’ His voice was tight, and she wasn’t to know it was embarrassment at his physical inadequacy to meet the occasion that was biting at him. ‘How are you?’

  Daisy didn’t answer this directly. What she did say was, and stiffly, ‘I’m very sorry about your aunt, Mr William. She was a wonderful woman.’

  Mr William? Her emphasis on the division between them grated on him even as her presence made him light-headed. Never once in the time he had fought the doctors and his mother to come back to England for his aunt’s funeral, or since he had arrived at Greyfriar the day before, had the name Daisy Appleby been mentioned, but she had been on his mind constantly. When he had seen her at the back of the church as they had followed the coffin out, he had asked his father what she was doing here and why Lyndon had allowed her to come alone. ‘Lyndon?’ his father had replied. ‘What’s he to do with the fishing wench? Your aunt fell out with him years ago as I recall and the last I heard he’d married and moved to take a parish down south.’

  Now, as Alf moved back in between the two women, his hand cupping Daisy’s elbow and that of Kitty, a new thought struck William. The action had been distinctly protective, even possessive. Was this rugged, good-looking individual the reason Daisy’s romance with Lyndon had come to nothing?

  Before he could think of a way to broach the subject, Daisy said, ‘You know Kitty, Mr William, and this is Alfred Hardy.’

  The two men nodded at each other, Kitty giving a little curtsey as the years of training kicked in. Now Daisy’s voice expressed nothing but cool politeness when she said, ‘I am pleased to see you are on the road to recovery after your accident. It must have been a trying time for you.’

  ‘Yes.’ H
e stared at her, his mind racing, adding as an afterthought, ‘Thank you.’

  After the rush of emotion Daisy was feeling slightly numb and not at all herself, but she welcomed the anaesthetising effect on her feelings. He had probably felt obliged to come across and speak to her, might even have experienced a slight sense of guilt at the way he had behaved when he’d left England without warning, but the last thing she wanted was him feeling sorry for her. She could stand anything but that. He had known she . . . cared about him - at this moment she could not bring herself to acknowledge the word love - and he had led her on. Oh, yes, he had, she reiterated as though someone had challenged her. And when he had tired of his fun he had taken himself off to Paris to one of his fancy women.

  She feasted her eyes on him one last time, knowing she was taking in every detail because there was little chance their paths would ever cross again, and then she turned her body slightly into Alf’s in an action that deliberately hinted at intimacy as she said, ‘We have to go, I’m afraid, my grandmother is not well. It was nice to see you again after all this time, Mr William. Goodbye.’

  Say something. Stop me. Make everything all right somehow.

  William was standing stiffly now, and his face, too, was stiff when he said, ‘Goodbye, Daisy.’ That was it then, she was with this fellow. Well, looking at her, in the full bloom of her beauty, he would have been a fool to expect her to stay unattached, wouldn’t he? Nevertheless he felt sick as he watched the three of them walk away after Alf had nodded at him and Kitty had given another little bob. Sick to his soul.

  That had shown him she didn’t need any grand gestures on his part, that her life was fine without him. Daisy’s head was high and her back straight as she walked away, and she was willing herself with all her strength not to turn round for one last glance at him.

  ‘You all right, lass?’ Kitty’s voice was soft, and in answer to her unspoken sympathy Daisy’s pride rose up again, enabling her to look round Alf at her friend and smile as she said, ‘I’m fine, Kitty. It was a good turn out, wasn’t it? Miss Wilhelmina would have been pleased so many people wanted to come.’

  Kitty hadn’t been asking how Daisy felt regarding Miss Wilhelmina’s funeral and she knew Daisy realised this, but taking her cue from her friend she made a suitable reply and the three of them walked on.

  It was much later that night, when Daisy was alone apart from the sleeping form of her grandmother and there was only the sound of the sea washing the shore outside the cottage, that she finally allowed the hot tears to fall.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  ‘I knew you would suffer for going, and your aunt would not have expected it. Now please, darling, let me spoil you a little. You look perfectly dreadful.’

  ‘Thank you, Mother, that is most encouraging.’ William’s voice was wry but there was a quality to his smile as he glanced at his mother which would not have been there some months before. He had found, much to his surprise, that since her arrival in France he had felt altogether differently about her. But then she was different, he told himself. It was as though, having shaken off her marriage and more especially his father, she had taken on a warmth and lightness of spirit which made her a changed woman. All his life he had believed his mother was a social butterfly with little real substance - and he had to admit she had entered with gusto into the whirl of French society - but he had discovered over the last weeks and months when they had been together much of the time that she was more like her sister Lydia than he had previously given her credit for.

  He looked at Gwendoline now, busy heaping a plate with dainty sandwiches and cake for him from a trolley one of the maids had wheeled in a few moments before. They had not really discussed the matter of the divorce, but then they had not needed to. He would have understood why she wanted to leave his father even if he had not heard her whispering about it with his Aunt Lydia one day when they had thought he was asleep. She so wished she had waited and married for love, like Lydia, his mother had murmured, rather than the prestige of a name and great wealth. It had been a mistake from the start, a grave mistake, but at least she had William to show for the years of unhappiness. That had touched him, she had sounded as though she really meant it.

  ‘So overall you are glad you went to the funeral?’ Gwendoline asked, handing him the plate before reseating herself on a couch to one side of the full-length window overlooking the grounds of Claude’s château in the Loire Valley, the Garden of France. ‘And your father wasn’t . . . difficult about your decision to return here immediately rather than stay at Greyfriar?’

  ‘No, he wasn’t difficult.’ William bit into a wafer-thin sandwich. But as to whether he was glad he had gone or not, he wasn’t sure. It had been hard seeing Daisy again - seeing her with someone else was perhaps nearer the truth - harder even than he’d expected when he’d considered the matter in the past. But at least it had helped make up his mind once and for all that he would never take up residence at Greyfriar Hall again.

  During the weeks he had lain in no man’s land, unable to think or escape the muzziness which had penetrated his brain and kept everything - past and present - muffled in an impenetrable fog, he had expected to die. He should have done, that’s what the nurses in the infirmary had told him once he began to improve, and it was a miracle he was doing so well. He agreed with them, it was a miracle, and that being the case he couldn’t waste this second chance at life.

  He had been speaking the truth when he had told the police and his family that he could remember nothing of the attack or the hours leading up to it, but that hadn’t meant he didn’t know who was responsible. He had considered mentioning von Spee’s name, but after thinking about it for a while had to admit he owed the man enough to keep quiet. Make a cuckold of a man and you make an enemy; he had received rough justice but perhaps it had been no more than he deserved. Whatever, thanks to Monsieur Richer who had put his legs back together again he was going to recover, and that being the case he had resolved to put the whole episode behind him. Once he was sufficiently recovered he would follow through on the idea he had had before the attack and join the army, but until then he would keep quiet about his future, for his mother’s sake. He knew she would be aghast at the thought of him becoming a soldier; time enough for her to come to terms with it when she had to. She had already been making noises about this girl or that over here, the matchmaking urge still strong, but when - or perhaps it would be if - he took a wife, it would be his choice and his alone.

  ‘Were you aware of what was in the letter your father gave you to give to me?’ his mother now asked, bringing William out of his thoughts.

  ‘No.’

  She sighed. ‘Apparently he has asked Francis to come here after Christmas with papers which will then be ready for me to sign. Of course, reading between the lines, what your father is hoping is that Francis will persuade me that a divorce is not necessary. Let him try, he will not succeed.’

  ‘I didn’t think for a moment he would.’

  ‘And in the letter your father is adamant that Francis has turned over a new leaf incidentally. Do you believe that, William?’

  ‘No, Mother, I do not. The man is incapable of it.’

  ‘Quite.’ They smiled at each other in mutual understanding and continued with their tea.

  ‘You saw her, didn’t you, Kirby, on the day of the funeral? Butter wouldn’t have melted in her mouth.’

  It was a few days after Christmas and the night before Francis was due to leave for France, a trip he had been loath to agree to. However, in his new guise of Augustus’s nearest and dearest, he hadn’t felt he could refuse his brother. Augustus was beside himself at the thought of the ignominy of a divorce, and pinning all his hopes on ‘making the damn’ silly woman see reason’ as he had put it to Francis when he’d asked him to go and see Gwendoline.

  Not that Francis intended to do any talking round. It suited his purposes admirably to have Gwendoline out of the way and William with her; Augustus wa
s relying on his brother more and more, and in a little while Francis intended to start planting seeds of resentment and bitterness regarding William’s decision to live with his mother rather than his father. There was nothing to stop Augustus capitalising the estate’s assets in his lifetime; by the time William came to inherit he could well find there was little of value left.

  But for the present moment Francis’s thoughts were all on Daisy. It had riled him beyond measure that she had dared to show her face at the funeral, and remain so aloof and contained at that.

  ‘The chit’s brazen! Do y’hear me, Kirby?’ Francis held out his brandy glass and the valet refilled it as he had done several times since dinner. It was now nearing midnight but still Mr Francis did not seem disposed to let him go, thought Kirby, the other man’s drunken breath wafting over his face.

  ‘Does . . . doesn’t know her place, that’s the thing.’ Francis gulped at his drink before gesturing at the valet, his tone irritable as he said, ‘Have another, man. You know I don’t like to drink alone.’

  He waited till Josiah had dutifully poured a small measure of brandy into his own glass, then said, ‘Cu . . . cunning as foxes where she comes from.’