Daughters Of Eden: The Eden Series Book 1

by Bingham, Charlotte

  ‘He was born here and he lives here, and that makes him British. Might I have stamps for America, please?’

  The whiskered woman glared at Poppy before easing herself down from her vantage point behind the counter and opening the large stamp book on her desk.

  ‘Ah should imagine thy little dog’s more than at ’ome up there,’ she muttered, tearing the stamps off the sheet. ‘Ah’d imagine that’d be just the ’ome for ’im.’

  ‘My husband likes dogs, certainly,’ Poppy agreed, once more uncertain as to what the woman was getting at. ‘We both like dogs.’

  ‘German dogs. Lord Tetherington’s partial like thyself to German dogs. They say ’e ’as two or more of them Alsatians an’ all.’

  ‘I haven’t seen any Alsatians.’ Poppy paused. ‘But then we have only just arrived up here.’

  ‘Aye,’ the post mistress agreed. ‘Aye, you did an’ all.’

  Having paid for her stamps and posted the letter to her mother in the box outside the post office, attracted by the smell of fresh baking Poppy decided to stroll down the little high street in search of the bakery, which she soon found a few doors down. There were not a great number of people about on the street, but she made sure to smile at those she did pass. In return the women nodded and the men raised their flat caps, but no one returned the smiles. Even the woman in the bakery who was laughing and chatting to her customers as Poppy entered fell silent, and while she served her without the insolence Poppy had met in the post office, she nevertheless volunteered nothing more than the price of the buns she bought.

  Despite knowing that what she was about to do would be considered improper by her husband, Poppy was so hungry that by the time she was seated once again in the back of her car she could not have minded less if anyone saw her eating the delicious currant bun she had purchased in the shop. She was also well aware that Leon was watching her via his driving mirror and would doubtless report back to his master, but the food at both dinner and breakfast having been inedible she had no compunction in satisfying her hunger pangs. In fact, when she had finished her snack, her only regret was that she had not bought a lardy cake as well.

  Life got no better during the next few weeks, and since she had received no letter from either of her parents her spirits sank to a new low, imagining that they must be travelling around America, visiting relatives, or had not received her missive. She rarely saw Basil other than at dinner, when despite her initial great efforts to interest him in conversation the meal finally always passed in silence. Basil was invariably down to breakfast at an early hour, so happily they rarely saw each other in the morning at all, and lunch was usually a solo affair since Basil was almost always busy with the estate or coping with visiting shooting parties. In the beginning he had tried, in a vague sort of way, to interest Poppy in picking up the dead birds after the guns, but seemed only too relieved when she had refused.

  On this particular morning there was a note waiting for her at the breakfast table. In it Basil informed her that he was entertaining a large shooting party that weekend, and that since it was an all male affair, perhaps she would be good enough to confine herself to her wing whenever possible, taking her meals in the small downstairs dining room. Poppy was only too happy to agree. It might mean worse food, but it could not mean worse company. She could listen to the wireless while she ate with George tucked up beside her on the chair. George, as always, being infinitely better company than Basil.

  In actual fact she was more than grateful to put distance between herself and Basil’s sporting friends, for on the only occasion when she had been forced to play hostess to them Poppy had ended up feeling less sorry for herself than for the poor women to whom they were married. It was, as she subsequently discovered, wasted pity. The women, despite becoming quite candid about their unhappiness, were, it appeared, content to put up with their husbands, just so long as there was still plenty of money in the bank.

  ‘You’ll feel just the same,’ one of her guests had remarked to Poppy as they sat crouched around the smoking fire in the drawing room, trying to keep warm, while waiting for their drunken husbands to rejoin them. ‘At first one feels quite neglected. Then one day one wakes up and realises just what sort of an oaf one has married, and one feels quite different. One lets them behave exactly as they want, always provided they give one exactly what one wants – namely two or three nice houses, a big bank balance and a large box of jewels, not to mention clothes, and a yacht, in the south of France if possible. Long as they do that, they can do whatever they please behind closed doors. At least if they get tight it puts paid to having to sleep with them.’

  But the shooting party this particular week was very different from the previous one. For a start they seemed an oddly sober and serious lot, even once they had returned from the moors. Whereas before all the men started drinking the moment they came in, this party of very disparate souls retired en masse quietly to the library from where it was possible to hear none of the usual boisterous laughter and noisy banter, but instead the sound of a single voice, or at most two, as if there was some sort of committee meeting in progress behind the heavy double doors. Partly from boredom, and partly from curiosity, Poppy found herself sneaking back when she knew they had finished dinner to hide herself in the large closet to the side of the library, whither Basil’s guests had once more adjourned. Feeling like a naughty child she watched with interest as Liddle and Craddock took in trays of coffee and drinks, but once again instead of the sounds of drunken exchanges she could hear only the murmur of male voices, none of them raised, none of them excited, all of them in seeming agreement.

  Poppy pulled the closet door as wide as she dared, just in time to see Leon, the chauffeur, engaged in conversation while crossing the hall with Liddle, Leon looking around him all the time they were talking, as if he might be being followed, or – worse – looking for someone.

  ‘You are sure?’ Poppy heard him saying as she carefully pulled the door back almost tight shut. ‘You are quite sure she’s not in the west wing?’

  ‘Not been there all evening, according to Craddock, who was ordered to take her up her supper. It was the little dog yapping that brought it to his attention. He was yapping and scratching to get out and look for her.’

  ‘Then we had better find her.’

  The butler disappeared into the small sitting room that was sometimes used as the ladies’ retirement room, while Leon headed straight for the closet where Poppy was hiding. He was half a dozen steps from the door when Basil emerged from the library, and seeing Leon called him over. Leon hesitated, prompting Basil to insist that he join the party in the inner sanctum, until the butler reappeared. Leon muttered something to him, which Poppy guessed might be an order to continue the interrupted search, before accompanying his master into the library, leaving Poppy to wonder first why someone like that should be required to join the shooting party in their post-prandial entertainment, and second whether or not she was now about to be discovered if not by the chauffeur then by the butler.

  She need not have worried. The butler, obviously tiring of the whole idea, turned on his heel and crossed the hall towards the pass door, lighting a cigarette from the packet he produced from his back pocket as he went.

  After a moment, and breathing a deep sigh of relief, Poppy cautiously pulled the closet door towards her, intent on making a bid for freedom, only to run straight into a well-built gentleman who had obviously just come out of the library.

  ‘Gracious!’ Poppy exclaimed. ‘I mean I’m so sorry – you sort of startled me.’

  ‘You sort of startled me too,’ the man said in a deep, mellifluous voice, regarding her steadily from behind a pair of thick dark-rimmed spectacles. ‘Is it – Lady Tetherington?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. But please – don’t say anything to anyone. I don’t really think I’m meant to be here.’

  ‘No,’ the man replied evenly. ‘I don’t suppose you are.’

  ‘My husband – my husb
and thinks, hopes actually, that I’m fast asleep in the west wing.’

  ‘Your secret is quite safe with me, Lady Tetherington. Don’t worry. And if I’m not mistaken the gentlemen’s cloakroom is the next door along?’

  ‘Yes.’ Poppy nodded. ‘Yes, I think it is.’

  ‘Good show,’ the man replied, and walked slowly off down the side corridor.

  With a sigh of heartfelt relief Poppy turned on her heel and hurried back to her room.

  The next day followed the same pattern, the shooting party disappearing for the day in a convoy of estate vehicles led by a truck driven by Leon with his master beside him in the front seat and a pack of dogs in a cage that sat on the open back of the vehicle. In the evening, after drinks and baths, another dinner party was held – like the previous one a strangely muted affair – and extended once again into a meeting in the library behind tightly closed doors. Since she had been unable to hear anything from the closet Poppy decided that if she timed a foray to follow the butler’s visit to the library to serve the first round of drinks, and his subsequent disappearance back to the servants’ quarters to have his usual smoke, she might be able to eavesdrop directly at the library doors, although looking back afterwards she could hardly have said why she wanted to take such a risk a second time.

  Having made as sure as was possible that there were no other sentries posted anywhere in the shadows of the hall she tiptoed over to the doors and pressed herself as close as she dared against them. The first voice she heard was that of her husband, who seemed to be addressing the gathering quite formally.

  ‘Which is why I am proposing that a select number of us make the journey next week in order to attend the rally,’ he was saying. ‘I have assurances of safe conduct and a personal invitation for six of us to enjoy the hospitality of the same host who entertained us on our last visit. I think it is essential that we attend in person as a delegation in order to show our continued solidarity, as well as to express our loyalty to the person whom we all hope and trust may one day lead us with the same vision and purpose and dynamism with which he is leading his own country.’

  He then paused and continued in German.

  Poppy straightened up. German, as even she knew, was really the first language of the English court. No one who moved in royal circles was completely ignorant of it. It just so happened that she understood not a word of it. She straightened up, frowning to herself, as she tried to work out the implications of the gathering in the library. As she did so she heard footsteps approaching the library doors, and voices becoming louder. It took hardly more than a few seconds, and she was once more back in her original hiding place, her heart in her mouth.

  Her viewpoint from the cupboard was less than perfect, but she nevertheless was quite able to see several men milling about the hallway, led by Basil, and the chauffeur Leon, who had somehow materialised from nowhere. The group stood about chatting quietly in a mix of languages until one of the men eventually detached himself from the others, seeming to be heading towards her hiding place. With relief Poppy saw it was the bespectacled gentleman whom she had directed to the cloakroom the previous evening, and so pushing herself back tightly into the corner of the large cupboard she closed her eyes and said a very silent prayer.

  ‘No!’ she heard the man’s distinctive tones call back to the rest of the party. ‘There’s no brandy in here! Only brooms. Brooms and soda, anyone! Ah, here we are …’ He had obviously moved on to the next cupboard.

  Poppy heard all this being greeted with a murmur of laughter, followed by a clink of glasses, and a toast which she couldn’t quite make out.

  She had just breathed a sigh of relief when a low voice said, ‘Just stay right where you are and don’t move until I tell you.’

  To her horror Poppy heard the key being turned in the door. Left alone in a darkness that now seemed suffocating, Poppy began to panic. It took all her strength of mind not to go at once and hammer on the door and beg to be let out. She managed to control her claustrophobia by closing her eyes and breathing in slowly and deeply. A quarter of an hour later, just as she was wondering whether she might be about to asphyxiate, she heard the key turn in the lock.

  Her unlikely rescuer stood in the frame of the doorway, squinting through his heavy-framed spectacles as he tried to adjust to the dark inside.

  ‘Gracious heavens, I thought you’d forgotten me. Or that you weren’t coming back.’

  ‘Neither of those things, my dear Lady Tetherington,’ the man assured her calmly. ‘You’re not the sort of young woman who is easily forgotten, and there was no chance of my not returning.’

  ‘I wasn’t to know that,’ Poppy whispered, peering out of the cupboard, and looking round the hall to make sure the coast was clear.

  ‘They’ve all retired,’ the man assured her. ‘Including your husband.’

  ‘Thank you. Might I ask to what I owe this pleasure?’

  ‘You might. But you’d be far better advised to be off to your room.’

  He glanced at her briefly while producing a small briar pipe from his pocket, which he then proceeded to fill from an oilskin pouch.

  ‘Yes,’ Poppy agreed, abashed. ‘Well. Anyway. Thank you again.’

  ‘Just one more thing.’

  When she turned back she saw he was holding a small scrap of paper out to her. She took it and saw a telephone number written on it.

  ‘Victoria three nine four? Mr Jack Ward?’ Poppy read out.

  ‘You might need to call me sometime. You never know. When you reach your bedroom, learn it, and then burn it.’

  Poppy went to say something, but the mysterious Mr Ward had gone, walking steadily off down the corridors to disappear into the darkness.

  Chapter Three

  Marjorie had long grown used to Mrs Reid’s School for the Children of Gentlefolk, when Billy arrived.

  ‘This is a dump.’ Billy stared at Marjorie. ‘You know why it’s a dump? ’Cos people dump you here, that’s why. That’s why this place is a dump.’

  Marjorie frowned at the white-faced boy who was sitting on the floor cross-legged beside her.

  ‘Isn’t anyone coming back for you?’ she asked him. ‘Your mum or dad, they’ll come back for you, won’t they? Soon as they’ve finished doing whatever it is they’re doing. Most people’s do come back, you know.’

  ‘No, he won’t.’ Billy’s face set. ‘My dad, he won’t come back. Uncle Mikey told me. No, he won’t come back because he’s left me here, he’s paid for me to stay here, see? So he won’t come back and fetch me, not ever. I ain’t got no parents now.’

  Mrs Reid’s School for the Children of Gentlefolk was a boarding school for boys and girls from five to eighteen – that at least Marjorie knew. She had managed to read the words on the sign by the door when she herself had arrived. In fact it was less of a school than a place for negligent parents to dump their children, for few of the pupils ever went home to see relatives, even if they knew where they were, and so holidays and term times all merged together. The Dump, as Billy continued to call it, was nothing less than a large, badly maintained and rundown Victorian house, managed by a woman who liked to call herself Pet and her partner, the self-styled ‘Uncle Mikey’.

  Marjorie had no idea why she herself had been dumped at Mrs Reid’s except that her mother had been intent on going to Australia to marry someone she’d just met in London, and couldn’t afford to take Marjorie. She also knew, young as she was, that the acrid smell of blackened toast would always and ever prompt the memory of that bleak place with its rows of broken desks, and dirty walls.

  ‘You can’t have no parents,’ Marjorie had stated, to reassure Billy. ‘You just can’t. Everyone has parents, even me, really. No, you’ve got parents all right, Billy, but where they is, I wouldn’t like to say.’

  She took him about with her after that, but their conversation always returned to the same place. Billy had no parents. He knew he had no parents now. If he stated this once he stated it a hun
dred times, so that even Marjorie finally accepted this version of his life, and left it at that. Billy had no parents.

  ‘I heard Pet and Uncle Mikey were your parents,’ someone on the other side of the dormitory murmured one night, evoking general laughter from the other occupants.

  ‘They’re not, they’re not!’ Billy protested.

  But the idea appealed to the other children as being so awfully funny that they kept repeating it to each other, until Billy began to cry. He cried all that night, and was still crying the next morning. Even a beating with Uncle Mikey’s belt failed to stem his tears, which seemed to surprise the perpetrator.

  ‘It usually works,’ he told Pet, shrugging his shoulders, before going off to the pub.

  After that Pet and Uncle Mikey left him alone, much as owners might abandon a barking dog to its kennel, perhaps because they had never seen anyone cry with such anguish before. As it happened neither had Marjorie. She had seen other little girls crying themselves to sleep at night in their narrow rickety iron beds with only a much-darned sheet and two thin grey blankets for warmth, but Billy’s tears were different. At first they terrified her, then they upset her, and finally they moved her to comfort him. Finding him alone and crying in the garden she held him carefully in her young arms and rocked him backwards and fowards, until, at long last, his tears stopped.

  For a moment Marjorie, feeling vaguely astonished, looked down at Billy’s pinched white face with its startlingly red eyes, wondering if he might have died of exhaustion, or expired from sorrow. He seemed to feel the same.

  ‘I want to die.’

  ‘No you don’t, Billy.’

  ‘I do—’

  ‘No, you don’t—’

  ‘Yes, I do – I know I do. I want to die.’

  ‘No, you don’t.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘’Cos there’s no talking when you’re dead, that’s why.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk to anyone.’