The Daisy Club

by Charlotte Bingham

  They both changed into overalls and wellington boots, and Daisy, in suddenly thoughtful mood, followed Freddie round to the walled kitchen garden. She was ashamed to admit that, unlike Freddie, she was actually looking forward to there being a war, not only so that she could fly as often as possible, but also so that all the dreadful waiting and worrying would be over.

  As Freddie handed her a spade, all clean and shining from Branscombe’s precious garden shed, the realisation came to her that Freddie was thinking only of the horrors of it all. Freddie was not like Daisy, who saw the coming war as a mighty and necessary battle to be fought against an evil empire, Freddie saw it only as a future bloodbath. Daisy refused to do this. She envisioned victory, not death. She began to dig, and as she did so she pushed away any doubts that she might have about the morality of fighting for freedom, or fighting at all. Daisy was no pacifist: she would fight for Twistleton, for freedom, even for Aunt Maude – and fight to the death, too. She whacked the ground suddenly, imagining it to be a German.

  In the drive Jessica was busy pulling at the dachshunds to stop them diving under Clive’s wheels, while at the same time trying to discreetly hand him a folder which contained all the names she had culled from Hotty’s diary.

  ‘Tell Guy that there’s very little in there that we don’t know already, but a few new names are of some interest, some linking up in unexpected ways to the webs of relationships that we’ve already mapped, and some rather too royal to be comfortable. However, doubtless it will all change pretty soon.’

  Aurelia climbed into the passenger seat, and Clive shot off down the drive in his usual hurried way. Jessica watched the car for a minute. Clive was tall, handsome, blond, blue-eyed and unmarried. With any luck Aurelia would notice him instead of having eyes only for Guy, although she somehow doubted it. Most unfortunately, Guy had that mysterious thing called star quality, whereas Clive did not. Guy was so startlingly talented that he gave you the feeling that at his birth the gods had showered him with almost too many gifts. Once or twice Jessica had teased him about not having a wicked fairy at his christening.

  ‘Oh, but you are so wrong, Jessie. I am quite sure that Aston Proudfoot was there, lurking behind the pews,’ he had joked back, referring to a famous drama critic who loathed Guy’s plays, and had waged a long, and finally futile, war against the West End’s favourite son.

  ‘Anyway, life has a way of coming back at you, Jessie, believe you me, it does. The boomerang of success returns to hit you in the side of the head as sure as oeufs is oeufs.’

  Jessica went indoors. Never mind all that now. She had to get going on the hall, which, she realised, looked surprisingly large now that she and Branscombe had taken most of the furniture and paintings out and stored them in the basement.

  She looked round, frowning, imagining the place as it might well be soon. Here they could put the civilian wounded, until they could be taken on to the relevant hospital; there the shell-shocked; while over there any lost children, babies and so on.

  A desk had been put in place, and soon there would be the relevant paperwork to set out. Everything in preparation for the sorrows to come. Suddenly it seemed too real. It was all starting again. The telegrams – ‘regret to inform you that . . .’ Soon would come the sorrow, the grieving, the injuries, the trying to be cheerful, no matter what.

  She stood still as she remembered hearing the news that Esmond was dead, killed so soon after returning to the trenches. Remembering the reality of all the boys over there in France, and how helpless everyone in Twistleton had been to do anything to help their loved ones. The boys, and they had only been boys, some as young as sixteen, all going off with a smile and a wave, thinking that it was all going to be a bit of a lark. And then, once they had recovered, having to send them back to the Front again, after all that nursing, after all the caring. It had been hardly bearable then, and now it was going to be hardly bearable again. She sat down suddenly, all alone, with only the dachshunds wandering about aimlessly sniffing the floor, and to her shame she started to cry. After only twenty years of peace it was happening all over again, and there was nothing she, or Operation Z, or the Bros, or George, or Guy, or any of them, could do about it. She was suddenly quite, quite sure that there was nothing to be done.

  ‘Well, let’s hope we can actually get on with the thing soon, that’s all,’ she finally murmured to the dogs. ‘Preparation might be everything in this life, but endless waiting for something to happen has nothing to be said for it whatsoever.’

  She stood up, feeling embarrassed and even a little ashamed at the way she had let go. She had been brought up never to cry, and certainly never to cry in public. Her parents would have refused to speak to her if they had seen her giving way emotionally in front of either the servants, or anyone else. It was just not done. What was done was to get on with your duty, and that was precisely what she was going to do, get on with all her duties in the village – and at home, just kick on and hope for the best. Above all not look back, that was unbearable.

  Laura was the only one to stay in London over the next few months. She had reversed her decision, and decided not to leave the Grosvenor Square flat until the bombs actually started dropping. For something better to do, besides monitoring her father’s love life at a respectable distance, she joined the Women’s Voluntary Services. She wrote to Daisy.

  The WVS are the only organisation that will have anyone and everyone, and find even those who are thick as planks (namely me!) something they can do efficiently, even if it is only sweeping floors or sewing on buttons, or making pillows for hospitals, anything really. At the moment, besides monitoring Father’s increasingly complicated love life, I am helping to plan the evacuation of thousands of poor little blighters from the East End and elsewhere. If and when the time comes there will be about a million and a quarter children on the hoof. What a fearful thought! Actually our branch is run by one of Father’s exes, so it is very amusing to hear about all his antics . . . Well, quite amusing, not very, actually. Apparently he is now entangled with a Great Society Beauty. God help her indeed, she said piously.

  In fact the planning of the evacuation seemed, finally, a little too dull, and since she had now become proficient at driving, she decided, on the recommendation of a friend, to do the decent thing and join the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, always and ever known as the FANYs, if only so that she could send her father the bill for her uniform, a very crisp affair complete with lanyard, which the tailor explained was actually now forbidden, but which the FANYs still defiantly wore.

  So pleased was she with the final look that Laura walked straight out of Mr Greaves’s shop in it, carrying her civilian clothes in a large bag. It was heaven to feel so different, and to know that, so unused were the passers-by to seeing a girl in uniform, they literally stopped and gaped at her.

  She was busy pretending not to notice the looks she was attracting, when a young man crossed the road, and stood in front of her, barring the way. He, too, was in uniform, but not army khaki: air force blue.

  ‘Congratulations,’ he said, removing his cap. ‘I have to tell you that you are the first girl I’ve come across in uniform who has good legs.’

  Laura stared at him, astonished.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, what do you think I mean?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Well, I suppose I think I mean that you have stunning pins, Miss?’

  ‘Laura Hambleton.’

  Laura had been out with many young men, but not with any who had made the slightest impression on her, for reasons that up until now she had never really brought herself to consider. Perhaps it was the fact that she was always so bored at balls and society gatherings, either with her own conversational efforts, or with other people’s. So it was only now that she was faced with a young man not in a society situation, and one who was instantly enthralled by her – and judging from the admiration reflected in his eyes, not just by her legs – that sh
e felt something. She gave in to the moment. Why not? For God’s sake, a war was just about to start, who cared where anyone met, or how?

  ‘Laura Hambleton.’

  He rolled her name around his mouth.

  ‘Laura Hambleton,’ he said again.

  ‘Look, I do have to get back, truly I do. I have to pick up my car, and take it to a garage.’ She indicated her uniform, the lanyard on her shoulder, her FANY look. ‘I need to try to learn a bit more about the internal combustion engine, and where the oil goes and all that. I mean, I can make it go forward, oh, and backwards, too, but I think I had better find out a little more about how it works, or something terrible will happen and I won’t know how to mend it . . .’

  She started to walk past him, but he stopped her.

  ‘Look, I know that this is a bit cheeky—’

  ‘A bit cheeky! It is completely uncalled for!’ she teased him.

  ‘Yes, but even so – I can teach you about engines and things, truly I can. I am, as they say, a born mechanic.’

  Laura looked at him. He was tall, and dark, and, well, tall and dark, and the expression in his eyes was sweet and beguiling, and his very cheekiness was really very acceptable. She did the only thing she could do, she invited him back to her father’s garage, where they opened up her car’s bonnet, and after only a few minutes both of them found they had become completely enthralled with the engine, and each other, naturally.

  His name was David Moreton, and he was from Sussex, only recently joined the Royal Air Force, and due back at RAF quarters all too soon.

  ‘Let’s go to dinner, before my pass runs out.’

  ‘Oh, very well,’ Laura said, having hardly allowed a decent interval to pass before agreeing. ‘And after that we could drop into The Four Hundred.’

  He immediately looked embarrassed, so she knew, equally quickly, that he did not know The Four Hundred, and that she might have made herself sound really quite blasé and beastly.

  ‘I am afraid I only know London a little,’ he said, coming clean immediately. ‘Came up on the off chance of meeting a friend, but he failed to show up, and then I saw you.’

  Laura smiled.

  ‘You’re staying . . . ?’

  They were outside the garage now, and she found herself quickly looking up the street to make sure that her father wasn’t about, or drawing up in a taxi, or driving off in his own motor car.

  ‘I’m staying at Browns.’ He seemed even more embarrassed, as Laura looked vaguely amazed. ‘I know, I know, but a great aunt decided to give me a treat, and I think that’s the only hotel in London that she knows.’ He gave Laura a pleading glance. ‘Please don’t think less of me because of where I am staying. I shall be out of there pretty quick.’

  ‘Look, I’ll meet you at Browns, I love it, it’s a lovely safe hotel. We can have a drink and then go on to the Berkeley for dinner, and after that The Four Hundred to dance, and don’t worry, the Rossis know me there, so everything is taken care of. We even have a bottle of my mother’s favourite champagne waiting there, for whenever we should want it. I don’t go there to drink, though, I go there to dance. You do dance, don’t you?’

  David nodded. He danced all right. He loved to dance. He had sisters. They all danced back at home, rolling back the rug in the second half of the drawing room and putting on a gramophone record whenever they could.

  Laura chose her dress for that evening as carefully as Mr Greaves had tailored her FANY uniform for her. It was pink, and had an embroidered top, which came off when you wanted to dance, revealing thin silk straps and a marvellous bodice with tiny appliquéd butterflies. She knew it was perfect for what she wanted, which was to make David fall even more wildly in love with her, which of course he did, and long before they began to dance.

  ‘What is it about dancing that is so particular, so special, so perfect?’ David asked once he had led her back to their table.

  ‘The joy of it, I suppose?’

  Laura looked at him through the low lights that made evenings in places such as The Four Hundred seem even more attractive. Although on the surface David was no different from any other young man in the room – black tie, perfectly cut evening jacket, crisp white collar – he was actually not like any other man that she had met so far. It was not just that he had joined the RAF instead of some smart cavalry regiment, and that he was not from a so-called top public school, it was his outlook. He was so aware, so bright, so determinedly himself.

  ‘Let’s go for a drive,’ she said, suddenly getting up from their table, and snatching her evening bag.

  David followed her, half-pleased, and half-puzzled at their sudden exit.

  ‘You drive!’ She threw her keys at him, and he caught them, and they drove off.

  ‘Where to, Miss Hambleton?’ he asked, still feeling puzzled, as they motored.

  ‘Anywhere, anywhere you choose,’ she told him.

  ‘Anywhere being?’

  ‘Out of town, Richmond Hill, perhaps, to watch the dawn come up? Just drive out of town.’

  Laura stared ahead of her, trying not to think of what she had just witnessed in The Four Hundred, and yet knowing all too well that in a few hours she would be forced to do so.

  ‘You might have told me, Father. I mean, I am your daughter.’

  Arthur was drunk. He had actually arrived at luncheon well over the eight – he liked to call it ‘well over the nine’ – and had become progressively ever more drunk, to his own satisfaction, and his daughter’s distress.

  ‘I meant to, Laura darling, I did really, but you know how it is. Dora put it all together so quickly I hardly had time to think, let alone think about telling you, sweetie, truly. And anyway you had gone off and joined the army, so it seemed like a good idea just to get on with it, and then settle everything later.’

  ‘I have not joined the army, Father, I have joined the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry.’

  ‘That’s what I mean. You were so busy climbing into uniform I had no idea where to find you, Laura. What with that and leaving so early for your work with the WVS, or whatever it calls itself. How could I find you? In fact I couldn’t. And you know, Dora has been a widow for so long, she wanted to get everything over with as quickly as possible, so it was off to the registry office, and then on to dinner and The Four Hundred.’

  ‘Yes, I saw you there, Father, the other night.’ Laura stared at him. ‘I saw you, but I didn’t know who you were with. It could have been anyone, although she was very beautiful, so it was obviously not just anyone, but someone, most particularly since you seemed to have gone and married her.’

  ‘Oh, so you did see me with Dora?’ Her father looked rather satisfied by that, a little bit of the peacock showing despite the amount he had drunk. ‘She is very beautiful, I must admit, very beautiful – and rich, I am happy to say, very rich.’

  ‘You do realise that now you are married once more, you will have to behave yourself, don’t you, Father?’

  Arthur stared at Laura.

  ‘Oh, I doubt that, darling, after all, I never did before!’

  He laughed heartily at his own joke, and as he did Laura found it was her turn to stare at him.

  ‘How did Mama ever put up with you, Father?’ she asked him slowly. ‘Or perhaps why did she ever put up with you? You’re really a rogue, aren’t you, Father?’

  ‘I suppose she must have loved me, sweetie. Women do find me irresistible, you know. Now, ducks, do please be good enough to wish me luck. I am off on honeymoon this afternoon, so let’s at least you and I drink to Father’s long and happy new marriage, shall we?’ He turned to the waiter. ‘More champagne, please.’

  Laura stood up.

  ‘I have to go, Father. I’m meeting someone. And if you’re going on honeymoon, you had better go off and meet your new wife, hadn’t you?’

  ‘Dora’s waiting for me at Claridges, where she is living at the moment. We’re going to pop off on honeymoon, have some fun.’

  ‘I wish you e
very happiness, Father, and Dora, too, whoever she is. I wish you every happiness you can snatch before our world comes to an end, which it assuredly will, quite soon.’

  Laura hurried out into the street, feeling wretched. Bad enough that he had married without telling her, that she had a stepmother she had never met, but the fact that he had had to get drunk to tell her, for some reason she could not name, seemed to make it all far, far worse.

  And then she saw David, and hurried forward. He had managed to make it to London for a few hours. They would be together for a short time. Maybe they would even marry?

  She stopped.

  She was not yet twenty-one. She couldn’t marry David without her father’s consent, and she knew he would never give it, not in a million years. He would see David as being from a different class because he had not been to Eton like Arthur. David would not be good enough to be Arthur Hambleton’s son-in-law. How ironic that Arthur could marry whoever he wanted, caring nothing about his daughter’s feelings, and she couldn’t move an inch without his say-so.

  ‘Come back to the house,’ she said suddenly to David. ‘Father’s going off on honeymoon, the house will be empty of everyone. Not even the maids will be about, only the caretaker in the basement, and we needn’t worry about him.’

  She caught his hand and they both started to run. It was a wonderful moment, and one that neither of them would ever forget. Somehow it seemed to Laura that they were running away from everything that had hurt her, and that she need not mind any more about Arthur or his new wife, or the whole of the world being about to enter into some new and terrible conflict. As for David, he felt he was running towards a temporary respite, a moment of hoped-for, longed-for union, of happiness held for a second and then released, his hands freed once more to go round the controls of his fighter plane.