Barefoot on the Cobbles

by Janet Few

  It was hard to believe that it was eighteen months since that dreaded telegram had arrived at Gardener’s Cottage, devastating her dreams. On that stifling August afternoon, she had known that one day she would need to escape but it had not been easy. In the months that followed Abraham’s death, there had been several occasions when Daisy had heard news of a place elsewhere. Some had been too close to home, in Bideford, Appledore or Westward Ho!. If she went there, weekly visits to Clovelly would still be expected of her. It wasn’t that she wanted to cut herself off from her family completely but she knew that her mother would cope better without constant reminders of Daisy’s desertion.

  She had been right to bide her time and now here she was in Torquay, with the glorious opportunities of the south coast beckoning. In Daisy’s imagination, Torquay was the gateway to liberation. She wanted, no, she needed, to surround herself with the harshness of war and not remain shut off in the seclusion and safety of Clovelly. Of course, her home village had been wracked by the last four years of turmoil and she had suffered alongside her neighbours. Somehow though, Daisy thought, in Clovelly, the war all seemed rather remote, as if she were looking on from behind a thick pane of tarnished glass, instead of taking part. Here the platform was crowded with convalescent soldiers. Abraham was beyond her aid but there were other men, faceless and in need, whom she could tend. In Torquay, Daisy resolved, it would be different. Now she could expose herself to the conflict’s raw realities and bury the guilt that she felt. They had died. She had not.

  Daisy glanced at the letter in her hand, which gave the information that she needed in order to find her new home. Obeying the detailed directions, she set off up Newton Road. There, on the right, was a large cream-painted house with its name affixed to the wrought iron gates. Aylwood. Daisy’s heart gave a lurch of excitement. That was a name she recognised. She owed this thrilling opportunity to the house’s mistress, Mrs Gilley.

  Her thoughts turned to the October day last year when this great venture had first seemed possible. Mrs Gilley had been visiting Clovelly with her husband, as part of a large shooting party at the Court. They had arrived for the start of the grouse season and stayed for several weeks. The Gilleys had been taking a stroll in the Court Gardens when Daisy was cutting the last of the pale yellow dahlias. Mary Gilley was small and solidly built. Despite her greying hair and a slight stoop, she was impeccably and fashionably dressed; her speech underlining that she was a woman of some refinement. Mr Gilley, brusque and tweedy in his plus-fours, had exclaimed over the beauty of the late roses and expressed an interest in the hothouses. Daisy had fetched Mr Tuke, who was pleased to find someone who appreciated his work and was gratified when Mr Gilley engaged him in a lengthy discussion about the possibilities of growing grapes. Meanwhile, Daisy was required to serve tea to Mrs Gilley, in the rarely used parlour of Gardener’s Cottage. The afternoon stretched on, daylight began to fade. Daisy lit the oil lamps and offered yet more tea. She was at a loss to know how Mrs Gilley might be entertained. Mrs Tuke had died three years earlier, so it was not as if there was a lady of the house, who might have magazines their visitor could peruse whilst she waited. Mrs Gilley however had seemed unperturbed. She’d even asked an embarrassed Daisy a few questions about herself and her life in Clovelly.

  The autumn day was unseasonably chilly and Daisy was glad that she had lit the parlour fire when Mrs Gilley first arrived. The men came back indoors, stamping their feet and rubbing their palms to warm them. Daisy noticed that Mr Gilley’s hand was bleeding steadily from a deep scratch.

  ‘Oh sir,’ she exclaimed, ‘I believe you have hurt yourself.’

  ‘Must have been those damned thorns,’ Mr Gilley replied, examining his wound, ‘Pity they don’t make thornless roses, eh Tuke!’

  Mr Tuke looked concerned, as if he could somehow be held responsible for the misbehaviour of his roses. He sent Daisy to find a bandage and she neatly dressed Mr Gilley’s hand, pleased to be able to put the first aid that she had learned into practice.

  Mrs Gilley had remarked on Daisy’s efficiency and explained that she was involved in overseeing volunteer work in a military hospital in South Devon, where more than two hundred wounded men were cared for.

  ‘I wish more of our girls were as proficient as you,’ she had said.

  Respect for Mr Tuke stilled Daisy’s tongue but she had longed to blurt out that she was desperate to nurse, to be useful, to contribute in some meaningful way. If only she could help other soldiers, it would be in some measure an atonement for Abraham, for missed opportunities, for the relationship they had never had.

  As if he could read her thoughts, Mr Tuke responded, ‘Daisy’s needed here for the time being,’ he said, ‘but I am getting too long in the tooth for this. I shall be stepping aside for a younger man afore long. Time enough then for her to go gallivanting about the county nursing and what not.’

  Daisy could not conceal her disappointment. Mrs Gilley, sensing this, addressed her directly, ‘I’ll give you my card,’ she said, withdrawing a gilt card case from the bag that hung over her arm.

  She passed the embossed scrap of board to Daisy, who looked at it reverently, as if it were the key to untold treasures. Daisy read the elaborate script. “Mrs T Gilley, Aylwood, Newton Road, Torquay”. Aware that Mrs Gilley was looking at her appraisingly, Daisy bobbed hurriedly in acknowledgement and scarcely containing her bubbling excitement, she put the precious address in her apron pocket.

  To Daisy’s amazement, Mrs Gilley had said, ‘Mrs Hamlyn and Mr Tuke both speak highly of you.’

  Goodness, when had Mrs Hamlyn, or Mr Tuke for that matter, discussed her worth with this eminent lady? Daisy wondered. She could only think it must have been on one of the occasions, during the last few weeks, when she had been delegated to help out with the guests at the Court.

  ‘There are a number of convalescent homes in Torquay that would welcome your help,’ Mrs Gilley was saying. ‘You would need a position of course. I’ve many contacts. If I hear of a suitable vacancy, I will send word and if the time suits Mr Tuke, I am sure he would give you a good character.’

  Shortly before Christmas, an envelope had arrived at Gardener’s Cottage, bearing Daisy’s name, inscribed in florid purple ink. The letter explained that Mrs Gilley’s former servant, Mrs Cornelius, had done well for herself. She had married a local butcher and established a small household in Torquay. There was now a vacancy for a general servant with the Cornelius family. If Daisy could secure a satisfactory recommendation from Mr Tuke, she could take up the post in the New Year, if she wished.

  Daisy’s spirits had soared. This was her moment. It was as if providence was finally on her side, especially as Violet had recently left school and was looking for work. The duties in the Tuke household had diminished with only Mr Tuke to do for. Violet, even with her poor health, would be capable of managing a little light housework and preparing the meals. Surely, thought Daisy, she could persuade Mr Tuke that her younger sister would make an adequate substitute, thus freeing Daisy for this position in Torquay. So it transpired and in the few weeks since the letter arrived, Daisy had been able to show Violet how Mr Tuke liked things done.

  Breaking the news to her mother had been more difficult. Polly had been terse and dismissive when Daisy had announced that she was moving to take up a post in the south of the county. It had been Daisy’s half-day and she was helping her mother with the weekly wash. The two women were alone; it had seemed as good a time as any to broach the subject.

  ‘What do you want to be off down there for?’ Polly had said, as she wrung out Lily’s newly laundered pinafore. ‘The likes of us too dull for you now? Suppose that’ll be the last we see of you then.’

  Polly had turned her back, mangling the clothes with a renewed ferocity. The subject was closed. Daisy knew that Polly would not do, or say, anything that would betray her true feelings; her emotions were too deeply hidden for that. Nonetheless, the girl sensed that the barrier of indifference, that her
mother had constructed to keep out her grief, was remarkably fragile. Nelson had been Polly’s hardest blow of course but it was not only the loss of Nelson. Since then there had been all the worry with Leonard joining the merchant service and being torpedoed not once but on three occasions. Awful though the past few years had been, Daisy resolved to harden her heart. She deserved to have this chance to make her own way, as Polly herself had done in her time. She could not be held back by her mother’s pain.

  ***

  Daisy’s box had been sent on ahead, so she was unencumbered by heavy luggage as she wound her way up the street above Torre Station. The steepness of Upton Hill caught many a visitor unawares but Daisy was accustomed to the Clovelly cobbles, so she was barely conscious of the gradient. Another glance at her instructions informed her that she would find number 48 on the left hand side of the road, three doors up from Bertram’s grocers’ shop. The air was cold and she tightened the belt of her serviceable woollen coat. Her dark blue hat was pulled on firmly against the wind.

  Here was a small shop, on the end of a terrace and here, as expected, was number 48. Daisy was surprised that it was so small, a typical Victorian house, like many she’d seen in Bideford. There was no sign of a basement, nor an attic and Daisy wondered how it could accommodate the household that she had been led to expect. She could not help noticing that the privet hedge was overgrown and that a few weeds were forcing their way between the cracks in the paved front garden. There was no obvious rear entrance, so Daisy climbed the two steps to the blue painted front door and raised the brass knocker tentatively. A lady, approaching forty, opened the door. She was well turned out but her roughened hands told their own testimony, branding their owner as a former servant. This must be Mrs Cornelius. She greeted Daisy stiffly and began by showing her to a tiny upstairs room at the front of the house. Daisy’s trunk stood forlornly in a corner, the tattered labels bearing evidence of its lonely journey across the county. Laid on the narrow, iron-framed bed were two uniforms, one of coarse blue linen for the rougher work, the other of finer material, in black, for the afternoons, when Daisy might be called upon to serve visitors. Mrs Cornelius studied Daisy closely.

  ‘You are a good deal more slender than I was expecting,’ she criticized. ‘I am afraid the uniforms might be a little large for you. I had to guess the size. I hope you will be up to the heavier work.’

  Daisy was aware that she had lost weight over the past months. Somehow, since Abraham’s death, eating had seemed such an indulgence. Nonetheless, she replied firmly, ‘Oh yes, I am really quite strong. I did everything for Mr Tuke.’

  ‘He writes in your character of you doing some of the garden work,’ said Mrs Cornelius. ‘There is the vegetable garden to tend. I don’t suppose it affected you in the countryside but we’ve had trouble obtaining foodstuffs here. Of course, there’s never a problem with meat, Mr Cornelius being a butcher but we’d like to have a few more vegetables for the table. It will soon be the time of year for getting seeds in. My brother Francis used to see to it but now he’s too busy up at the market garden to be spending his time on our little plot.’

  Daisy’s eyes lit up, ‘Oh, I loved to help Mr Tuke in the garden,’ she enthused. This job was going to be better than she’d expected.

  Left alone to change into her uniform, Daisy began to unpack her few belongings, laying her clothes neatly in the two drawers beneath the oak wardrobe. A strong smell of mothballs caught her throat as she opened the wardrobe doors and hung her coat on the wooden hanger. The room was no more than nine feet by six but it was her own. The advantage of being the sole servant in a household was that she did not have to share. As it was well past midday, Daisy opted for the black uniform and looked out her tortoiseshell comb, so she could tidy her hair. She peered in the speckled mirror that formed the panel of one of the wardrobe doors. With difficulty, Daisy secured the lace cap on her head with hairpins and sighed. She longed to have her hair styled in a fashionable short cut. Her mother would be horrified but maybe, when she had saved enough from her wages, this was something that she could do. Satisfied that she had made every effort to look presentable, given the over-large uniform, she went downstairs to begin her new life.

  Daisy listened patiently as Mrs Cornelius explained what was expected of her. It all seemed quite straightforward. She was stood in the back room, whilst her employer sat in a high-backed chair on one side of the fire. The room was gloomy, with only a small window, looking out on to the long garden; a thick net curtain blotted out much of the light. A door in the corner led to the narrow kitchen and beyond that, the scullery. Daisy took in the large table that was pushed to one side of the room. Eight wheel-backed chairs were tucked tightly underneath it. The cushioned seats by the fire were upholstered in deep red velvet, which was showing signs of wear. Embroidered antimacassars protected the backs of the armchairs and matching doilies adorned every surface.

  Mrs Cornelius was talking of the inhabitants of 48 Upton Hill.

  ‘There’s myself and Mr Cornelius and our daughter Kathleen. She has just started school and I shall have to fetch her shortly. I will show you where the school is, then it will be your job to collect her.’

  Daisy nodded. Little Kathleen must be about the same age as Rosie. Accompanying the small girl on her way to and from school would be a pleasure.

  ‘Then there’s my father, Mr Meyers and my brother Francis, you’ll address him as Mr Francis of course. They have the downstairs front room.’

  Mrs Cornelius gabbled on, ‘My brother is out all day, gardening but you will have to be careful what time you do their room, as my father is elderly and has had to give up work, so he spends most of the day in there. It’s best that you clean that room in the mornings, when he walks down for his newspaper. Then there’s my widowed sister-in-law, Mrs Alice Meyers, who shares the back bedroom with Kathleen.

  Daisy, who had already had the composition of the household described to her by Mrs Gilley, found her attention wandering. Her gaze alighted on a black-framed photograph on the mantlepiece. The soldier whose likeness had caught her eye was not a young man, much older than Abraham but his image was a harsh reminder of her loss. Mrs Cornelius noticed Daisy’s lingering glance.

  ‘That’s my brother Owen,’ she said, for once forgetting herself and taking tentative steps across the divide that social convention had created between them.

  ‘He died on the Somme, that’s when his wife, Alice, came up from Plymouth to live here.’

  With a start, Daisy realised that Mrs Cornelius’ brother had been lost at the same time as Abraham. Mistress and servant were united in a silent moment of reflection.

  ***

  Alice Meyers appeared to have come to terms with widowhood but Mrs Cornelius found it difficult not to dwell on her brother’s death. She stole quiet moments to mourn. Daisy often glimpsed her, sat in the chair, with Owen’s picture on her lap and a damp handkerchief balled in her hand. How thankful Mrs Cornelius must be to have her surviving brother, Mr Francis, living with her, Daisy thought. Daisy usually only encountered Mr Francis at meal times and then he seldom addressed her directly. However, an incident that occurred shortly after her arrival aroused Daisy’s sympathy for the uncommunicative man. Aware that old Mr Meyers had gone for his daily walk, Daisy went to clean their room. It was mid-morning, so she was surprised to find Mr Francis at home. He looked up guiltily as Daisy entered and she backed out of the room, with an apology. As she did so, she couldn’t help noticing that Mr Francis’ eye was blackened and his lip was bleeding, as if he had been in a fight.

  Although she had not been at Upton Hill for long, Daisy had already overheard dining table conversations about the mistreatment that the Meyers family had suffered because of their Germanic sounding surname. In truth, the Meyers had been Devonshire folk for generations. They’d chosen not to Anglicise their name when war broke out, relying instead on being well known in the neighbourhood. There had been incidents though, name calling and those who snubbe
d them in the street. Could it have been something of this kind? Daisy wondered.

  She had just begun sweeping the hall when Mr Francis came out of his room.

  ‘You won’t say ’aught about this, will you miss?’ he’d said, looking around nervously, making sure that no one else was within earshot.

  Daisy smiled to herself, thinking that it was a good job Mrs Cornelius couldn’t hear her brother addressing the maid of all work as “miss”.

  She guessed correctly that Mr Francis, who had only joined his sister’s household the previous year, was unused to dealing with servants.

  ‘Of course not sir,’ she reassured, wondering how he was going to explain away his visible injuries.

  Francis Meyers banged the front door as he left the house, presumably on his way back to work. Daisy finished her tasks in the hall and re-entered the front room that Mr Francis shared with his father. Their belongings were sparse and there was little to tidy away. Daisy ran the feather cobweb brush round the coving and then began to dust. The bottom drawer of the chest by Francis Meyers’ bed was not shut properly. Daisy pushed it firmly. It appeared be stuck, so she went to remove the drawer from its carcass, intending to rub the runners with a candle, a sure way to free a sticking drawer. Aghast, she looked at the four seagull’s feathers, waxy white and condemning. They lay, a symbol of reproof, poorly concealed under a pile of undergarments. Hastily, Daisy replaced the drawer, attempting to leave it exactly as she had found it.

  Although she grieved for a lost soldier, all Daisy’s sympathies were with Mr Francis. Had he been fighting with someone who had branded him a coward? She supposed whoever had done this, saw a fit and healthy man and resented the fact that he was not at the front. His unthinking accusers did not consider that he might be doing vital work at home. Daisy saw him set off each day, heading for the market garden that had been carved from the allotments by the reservoir. She knew that he came home late each evening, exhausted from the extra hours that he did without pay. There was no shame in his contribution. At least he was doing something useful, providing much-needed food. The sense of her own worthlessness burdened her.