The Daisy Club

by Charlotte Bingham

  Daisy stopped, and then realised, for the first time, what an idiot she was being. Of course! Laura’s disappearance was not something that Aurelia could speak about, even if she wanted to. Her officers would not want her to know if Laura had been blown, would keep Aurelia thinking that Laura had merely gone into hiding, for fear it might affect Aurelia’s own work.

  Numbers everywhere were shrinking, pilots’ numbers, workers’ numbers – there were just not enough people to go round.

  Women were now to be conscripted, and the rumour was that older women would be next, and men, grannies and grandpas – anyone would do. Just as had happened in the Great War, boys hardly old enough to have begun shaving were now being called up, quickly trained, and flung into fighter planes, or seated at the back of them with guns, and sent off to do their bit to defend their beloved island.

  ATA girl numbers were down, too, accidents had been too frequent lately, and the people who had reported being shot at by friendly fire while trying to bring in planes to land had grown far too numerous for comfort.

  Very well, it was nobody’s fault, it was just one of the thousand other hazards of war, but flying through mist was bad enough without being shot at by your own guns!

  Daisy lit a cigarette. It was so hard, so bloody hard. God, her language had deteriorated. She had damn well better pull up her socks and start dropping the bad words. Yes, she had. She stared at herself in the mirror as she smoked. She looked quite pretty smoking her elegant holder. She had to admit that she did. David had given her the holder to replace one she had lost. They had not seen each other for aeons. There were reasons for this. The main reason being that Daisy, now that Laura was known to have gone missing, out of guilt, out of despair, out of – well, you name it, out of so many emotions – had written and told him that they must not meet again.

  She had not heard back from him, as she knew she would not. And although it was now nearly Christmas again, she did not expect that she would ever hear from him again.

  Smoke curled around her head as she continued to stare at herself accusingly in the mirror.

  It was the ‘supposing’ that she had not been able to conquer. That was the truth.

  The ‘supposing’ that Laura had volunteered to be dropped into France because she had not heard from David?

  Supposing Laura had been dropped into France because she knew that Daisy had fallen for – and indeed made love with – her David?

  Supposing David had told Laura, but not told Daisy?

  Oh God!

  Daisy turned away from her image. She had never thought she would become this sort of tortured person. Was this what war did to you? Did it completely change your character? Did it send you from being a positive creature, not much to go on, but optimistic and cheerful, to this? That’s what she had been, and now look at her! Talk about yesterday’s rice pudding, she was last week’s custard, if anyone could get any.

  She picked up her shoulder bag, and swung it on to her shoulder.

  Time to go back to the war. As she went out she passed the closed visitors’ book, not wanting to see inside it, not wanting to see Laura’s dear handwriting and the words she had written: Back soon, don’t you worry!

  True to Jean’s dream, her baby boy was christened in the little chapel next to the Hall. It was a family chapel, very small, very much of the Beresford clan, filled with plaques commemorating former Beresfords killed in battle, killed fighting for King and Country, for their homelands, for the honour of their families. And goodness, Freddie thought, looking round for the rector to arrive, the Beresfords were an honourable lot. Their intractable nature, their love of their country, it all seemed to be in the air of that small church. So full of the history of a family was that church, that the chapel’s very existence seemed as much a symbol of the history of England as any far greater edifice.

  ‘Who stands as godparent to this child?’

  Freddie nodded. She did. She looked sideways at Miss Maude. Miss Maude did, too. They both raised their hands, as did Branscombe and Alec.

  It had actually been at Miss Maude’s insistence that Edward Joseph Frederick John Shaw Huggett had been christened in the Beresford family chapel.

  By the time Miss Maude had recovered enough from her bad bout of influenza and was out and about, many weeks later, helping outside with the harvest, or bringing the cows in, or any other thing that her now restored health was able to allow, Ted, as the little chap was now known, was practically a toddler.

  But christened he must be, whether his true grandparents the Huggetts were there or not. It mattered not at all, Miss Maude had insisted, to Freddie and Branscombe, and Alec and Dick and Tom, who had all looked and felt astonished, if only because they all knew just how much at odds Miss Maude had been with Jean, but that had been before the war. Now everything was different.

  The christening cake, as was now the custom, was made for the most part of decorated cardboard, covering a make-and-do recipe of sponge; but the tea was as bumper as could be managed, with sandwiches, and biscuits made of grated carrot, and all sorts of other treats that the land girls, the Lindsay brothers – not to mention old Dan, and Budgie and his wife – could find.

  ‘No wine to wet the baby’s head, though,’ Branscombe had muttered. ‘Only gin . . . Well, I daresay that will have to do.’

  Maude overheard him, and went up to her vast cold bedroom, and without more ado produced an enormous bottle of vintage champagne which she had hidden behind her old ball gowns.

  ‘No baby christened in our chapel goes without his health being toasted in champagne,’ she murmured to the portrait of the little boy, before staggering downstairs with the jeroboam.

  Of course, thanks to the baby having come through both winter and summer, and now winter again, proving to everyone’s relief that he was a bonny bouncing little chap, the christening party was a wonderfully joyous occasion, as it should be when vintage champagne from long ago is flowing.

  That night Ted was put to bed by Freddie, one of his two new godmothers, in an old cot that, in its turn, had been found and painted up by old Dan. Freddie could not leave him alone in her flat, and so she sat knitting and listening to the wireless, which was now her habit. She was back on day-duties at the hospital, leaving Ted with Maude, Alec, Tom, Dick and Branscombe, and sometimes Mrs Budgie, who now came up to the Hall from the station to help on the farm. They all took it in turns to look after him until Freddie was back from her duties, and perhaps because he had become used to so many different faces, Ted seemed to be the least nervous and fractious of babies.

  Freddie stopped knitting, looking about her dimly lit room, with its old whitewashed walls, suddenly having the feeling that she was being watched.

  She did not feel frightened, but she had the definite feeling that she was not alone. It was as if someone was above her, and smiling. She could also smell flowers. It was as if she had been presented with a bouquet and she was now leaning forward, and smelling them. The light scent was beguiling and reassuring, as if promising something good to come.

  She picked up her knitting again. Before the war would she ever have thought to see herself as she was now? Knitting for half the night, looking after someone else’s baby. She had never really liked babies when she was growing up, just not a very maternal girl, loved animals, but neither dolls nor babies had been attractive to her. Now she had Ted, it was all different. She loved him with all her heart, and although rushed off her feet at the hospital, she looked forward to coming back to the Hall, longing only to see his cheerful face – so like his father Joe’s – loving to pick him up out of his cot and play with him before bedtime.

  Freddie sighed suddenly. She could not now remember what she had wanted to be and do, before the war. And yet, after thinking that she smelt flowers, and feeling someone who loved her was watching her, she felt reassured. It was as if she knew that they would now win through. God knows how she knew, and only God did know, but that scent of flowers, the feeling of
warmth in the cold room, had meant something. Tomorrow was Sunday, 7 December 1941. This year there would be no turkey. Branscombe, despite his well-earned reputation for foraging, despite what Freddie jokingly referred to as his not black market activities, but ‘back-door market activities’, had not been able to come up with much. He was always at pains to conduct his nefarious goings-on discreetly, and even more importantly, well behind Miss Maude’s back, for he knew that Miss Maude would have had sixteen fits if she had known what he was up to.

  But this year it seemed Branscombe had not been able to fix anything at all, not for Christmas lunch, nor indeed for any other lunch. They had to make do with what they had, whatever that happened to be.

  Despite all this, Freddie felt something good was going to happen. She could not have said why, until she heard on the kitchen wireless that Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor.

  The celebration at America at last coming into the war was muted, as it should be; but after that, as another wartime Christmas came upon them, yet again, everyone in England kept going about saying ‘we are no longer alone in the war’.

  No one said such a thing in front of Maude, because they knew that if they had done they would have had the worst of her tongue. Brigadier MacNaughton, up at the Hall for reasons he did not at first feel inclined to explain, did have the misfortune to say exactly that to her, and was given the full treatment.

  ‘We have never been alone in the war, Brigadier! To begin with, we English have had the Welsh and the Scots with us. We have had Canada with us, we have had Australia and Tasmania with us, we have had New Zealand with us, we have had Malta with us, we have had India with us, we have had the Irish – yes, the Irish – eighty per cent of the male population of Southern Ireland have crossed the Irish Channel to come here and fight with us. We have had the Gurkhas, we have had the Tongans, we have had the Maoris, we have had the Norwegians, the Danes, not to mention the Polynesians, the Maltese, the Poles, the Czechs, the Hungarians, and the Free French. It is sheer nonsense to say that we have been alone! We have not been alone, we have had everyone with us, and now we have more people with us, now we have America. Well – that will be a help, but never, ever say, never let anyone say, that we have been alone. It is ridiculous, and what is more, it is mistaken, and it is utterly and stupidly wrong.’

  Brigadier MacNaughton was so astonished by this speech that for a second or two he quite forgot what he had come up to the Hall to say. He frowned at the splendidly upright figure of Maude Beresford.

  ‘Quite so,’ he finally said. And then again, ‘Yes, quite so. However, it is my duty to inform you that there is some disagreement about the entitlement of Twistleton Hall to be exempt from being requisitioned by the army. I have papers here that indicate that the Hall is as much part of the village as the Court and so on and so forth, and always has been from earliest times.’

  There was a short silence which Maude was disinclined to fill.

  Perhaps for want of something better to do, the brigadier produced a sheaf of papers. Maude took them and, after giving them a cursory glance, put them on the table in front of her with a look of such disdain it seemed to the brigadier they might have been contaminated with Spanish flu.

  Since he had sent an outrider up to the Hall announcing his intention of coming up to see her, Maude had elected to interview the brigadier in the hall, the inference being that that was precisely as far as she would allow him into her house, to be greeted by its owner. She remained seated behind her table, he was not invited to sit, and no chair was provided for him, either.

  ‘Well, that is interesting, Brigadier,’ Maude said finally, adopting her sweetest and most charming tone, which if Branscombe had been present would have immediately made him feel a little bit sorry for the brigadier.

  Never was Miss Maude more dangerous than when she used a sweet or charming tone.

  ‘Very interesting,’ Maude continued. ‘And I suppose you came by this information via some sort of county officer, or some such?’

  The brigadier nodded. He had. He smiled, looking round. He could not wait to set up shop at the Hall. Not that Holly House was not a nice and comfortable bivouac, but it was not grand like the Hall. Here, in the hall of the Hall, he would be able to stride about, his boots ringing against the marble stone floor, pretending that the portraits were of his ancestors, not this fearful old woman’s.

  ‘I know the character who would have provided you with this, Brigadier MacNaughton. I used to know him quite well, because he used to work here, years ago, after the Great War. He was not the most reliable of characters, not even capable of being a boot boy. I am afraid to say, he can hardly have changed, for this information is what is known by you and me as misinformation, and I am afraid he has led you sadly astray.’

  Maude opened a leather folder embossed with the Beresford coat of arms.

  ‘Here,’ she said, and she could not help sounding both sweet, charming, and thoroughly self-satisfied, since she had always known that this day would come. ‘Here are papers from the Minister of Labour himself, from the Minister of Agriculture – even from that good man Mr Bevan – from many and varied ministers, guaranteeing the safety of the Hall from being requisitioned, simply on the grounds alone, quite apart from anything else, that we are a working farm here. You cannot at this time requisition what is not part of the village proper, nor can you requisition my working farm. Good day, Brigadier.’

  She stood up, and nodded to him, and when Aunt Maude nodded, as Daisy had often said – ‘you take flight’. A nod from Aunt Maude was as good as a kick in the pants.

  She watched him go to his car, which was parked, sheer impertinence she thought, right at the bottom of her steps, and, anxious to make sure that he was going to be seen to go, and not hang about, she followed him out on to the steps, and watched his driver open the door to him.

  It was then that she noticed the driver. A woman, in her thirties, slim, pretty in a vaguely vulgar way, but wearing the kind of expression that Maude particularly disliked. It was the good-as-you expression of a jumped-up piece of tat. The see-if-I-can’t-get-back-at-you expression of someone who has a score to settle.

  This young woman, so smartly uniformed, was none other than the dreadful nursemaid who had, it seemed, made young Daisy’s life such a misery, and who had been dismissed and replaced by the delightful Nippy. Maude watched as Patty Bywater carefully closed the door on the brigadier’s portly figure, and then made a well-known Churchillian gesture of victory at her former employer.

  Maude stood on, expressionless. Victory Miss Bywater might think it, but not when it came to a Beresford.

  Maude watched the car drive away. Of all the people she would not want to see shipped up on her doorstep that young woman was one. She turned to go back into the house. Women drivers were being used everywhere, and not just for driving, either. How in all that was unholy had that young woman managed to pull herself up by her bootstraps? Maude did not like to think. She closed the hall door behind her. Hadn’t Branscombe told her the brigadier’s housekeeper was of dubious virtue? Patty certainly had not got where she was by saying her prayers, of that Maude was quite certain.

  Maude leant for a few seconds against the half-glassed door and thought about the implications of the brigadier’s visit. She knew, she was quite certain, that the wretched man would not leave it at that. He would stop at nothing until he got his foot in the door once more. It was only a question of time. But by then perhaps, please, please, dear God, perhaps the war would be over by then?

  With the army occupying Longbridge Farm, Guy had found a cottage in the Buckinghamshire countryside in which to spend Christmas. His experience in prison had been unpleasant, to say the least. He had only been there a couple of weeks when he contracted double pneumonia, an event which made Clive moan, ‘Must you do everything to excess, old boy, even pneumonia?’

  In the event the infection had nearly carried Guy off, but now he was out and about in the West End again – o
r at least out and about in what was left of it – he was beginning to feel better. An actor and a playwright once more, seeing the people he understood, being with the people he cared for, and who cared for him. He might be thinner, older, and not at all wiser, but he was still alive, and while his heart would never be the same again – since he knew very well the lady behind the trumped-up charges brought against him – on the other hand, his heart being free, he was now at liberty to fight even harder for victory, without giving a thought to anything else.

  He summoned Miss Jones, of whom he had heard nothing but good, to his office.

  Aurelia, freshly back from France, came to see him, marvelling at how strange London had become, not just because she had been in France, but because, with no familiar landmarks, it was so difficult to find anything that you remembered. Happily it was not difficult to find Guy, as he was at work in one of his favourite theatres, ensconced once more among the old theatre posters, in his dear old cabin, with its red velvet curtains, above the upper circle.

  ‘How are you, Miss Jones?’

  He laughed lightly. As a child actor Guy had been taught how to laugh lightly, and it had always stood him in very good stead, not least when he was in prison, where he had found that his ‘light’ laugh seemed to cheer up the other lags no end.

  ‘How am I? How are you?’

  Aurelia stared up into Guy’s thin, taut face, a face much changed from the last time she had seen it. Inevitably the expression in her eyes was one of undisguised maternal anxiety, which made Guy smile. She was far too young to look so worried.

  ‘How am I? You may well ask, indeed, how I am. Well, I am as well as can be expected after prison, and double pneumonia,’ he told her, indicating that she should sit down.

  They both lit cigarettes and stared at each other through the smoke.

  Miss Jones had now, Guy noted, a great deal to be said for her. She had matured into a charming-looking young woman. All the schoolgirlish awkwardness had been knocked off her, and she was now slimmer, her whole demeanour calmer, stronger. In fact she was really rather beautiful. He found he could appreciate her in a way that he could not have done before, and had he not known that Clive was smitten, and had he not had enough of love, for ever and ever amen, he might have been tempted to fall in love with her himself . . .