Daisychain Summer

‘Things change, Alice. The war changed them,’ she smiled, sadly. ‘I remember how agitated you were when I told you I was going to call on Andrew. It wasn’t right, you said. And what if his wife answered the door …?’

‘Yet you came back safe and sound and in love. I could see it in your eyes.’

‘I told you it would be all right; said I wouldn’t do anything unladylike. Word of a Sutton, I said. I was shaking, though. It was such a relief when it was he who opened the door. And I remember exactly what he said.’

‘Tell me?’

‘He opened the door. I couldn’t speak, I was so ashamed at what I’d done. After all, I was running after him, wasn’t I? Then he smiled. He smiled and he said, “My dear – I hoped you would come.” And that was it, Alice. I knew there’d be no going back for either of us.’

‘And there wasn’t. Now unlock the door, love …’

The passage was dark and gloomy because all the doors leading off it had been closed. Julia stood still, listening, then tilting her chin she walked on, opening the kitchen door, standing again, waiting.

The room was clean, the table top scrubbed to whiteness. The cooking range was black and shining, a fire laid ready for a match.

‘When we were married – next morning – I couldn’t light that fire,’ Julia murmured. ‘I’d never cleaned out a grate nor laid a fire in my life. I was so angry, I wanted to weep. So we boiled a kettle on the gas ring and ate bread and jam for our breakfast.’

‘And I’ll bet he didn’t care.’

‘He didn’t. We just left everything and went to Aunt Sutton’s. She hadn’t come to our wedding, you’ll remember, so I wanted her to meet Andrew.

‘She gave us an oil painting of Rowangarth – a very old one – for a present, then announced, calm as you like, that she’d just made a new Will and I was to get everything.’

‘She liked Andrew, didn’t she?’ There was nothing for it, Alice knew, but to go along with Julia’s heartache – let her get it out of her the best way she knew how.

‘Mm. She said he had a look of Pa. Mother thought so, too. Mother adored him, right from the start.’

‘We all did. He was a fine man.’ Alice opened the parlour door and the same air of loneliness met them.

‘We never sat in this room. Not ever,’ Julia said, half to herself. ‘We were only here three days and when we weren’t out walking in London we were – well, we went to bed. Do you think that was awful?’

‘Of course I don’t, silly!’

‘His surgery.’ Julia turned her back on the parlour, gazing at the door opposite and the small brass plate bearing her husband’s name. Andrew MacMalcolm MD.

Alice opened the door wide, then stood aside.

The desk was highly polished, everything on it arranged by Sparrow with care and precision. Medical books and journals stood tidily on a shelf; a sheet was draped over a skeleton, covering it completely. Sparrow had not liked that skeleton.

‘I have all his instruments, at Rowangarth. I went to the field hospital after he was killed, took all his things away with me.’

‘Yes. You told me that day you came home to Rowangarth. I’d almost gone my full time, with Drew.’ Julia had come back from the war a sad, pale-faced wraith. There had been no comforting her, so desolate was she. It had taken the birth of a baby to wrench Julia MacMalcolm back to life. Drew had been her salvation.

‘I’m not going upstairs today, Alice – I couldn’t. Tomorrow, maybe. But I want to take the bed back to Rowangarth, and I want –’ She lifted her chin, her eyes daring Alice to defy her. ‘I want to take everything in his surgery back, too.’

‘No reason why you shouldn’t.’ What was going through that tormented mind, now?

‘No, Alice – you don’t understand. The room next to the sewing-room at Rowangarth. Do you remember it?’

‘Not particularly, ’cept it was full of old furniture and bits and pieces nobody wanted. No one used it.’

‘Yes – but think! The window and the fireplace – the door, even …’

Alice shook her head, unspeaking.

‘Think. Almost the same black iron fireplace with a window on the wall to the left of it. And the door opposite it. Just like this room. I could hang Andrew’s curtains at the window. All his things, Alice – arranged just as they are here. I’d have his surgery at Rowangarth, don’t you see?’

‘No! Not his surgery! You’d be creating a shrine – hadn’t you thought?’

‘Yes, I’d thought. I thought about it even before we came here. It’s the only way I can do it, Alice – give up these lodgings, I mean. Don’t you see? I’m not being maudlin nor mawkish. I still love him every bit as much as the first day I came here. I’m going to do it, you know!’

‘Then if you’re set on it – what can I say?’ Alice took her friend’s hand, leading her to the door. ‘Let’s go, now? Before I go home, we’ll see to it, together.’ She closed the front door, locking it behind them. ‘And I know what today is. It’s his birthday, isn’t it – the last day of August. He’d have been thirty-three …’

‘Yes. That’s why I wanted to come here, today. And bless you for remembering, love.’

‘Did you think I’d forget those times – any of them?’ She linked her arm in Julia’s. ‘Now let’s get back. Between them, I’ll bet those two bairns are driving poor Sparrow mad.’

‘You’re a dear person, Alice. I couldn’t have gone there without you. You’re still my sister, aren’t you?’

‘Still your sister,’ Alice smiled. ‘Come on. Let’s get ourselves to the bus stop!’

‘Talking of buses,’ Julia murmured. ‘Or talking of the nuisance of having to wait for buses when you’ve got a car, I mean –’

‘No!’ Shocked, Alice stood stock still. ‘You don’t intend buying one? What would your mother say? You know you can’t keep a car at Rowangarth, so why think of getting one?’

‘But I already have one. Aunt Sutton’s. It’s in her garage at the end of the Mews. She drove it all the time in London, remember. I shall drive it up to Holdenby.’

‘Not with Drew beside you, you can’t! It wouldn’t be safe – not even if you tied him to the seat!’

‘Not yet. And certainly not with Drew to distract me. But that car is mine now, and I intend using it, Alice!’

‘There’ll be trouble, Julia.’

‘There will.’ Her chin tilted defiantly. ‘But Will Stubbs learned about motors in the army – he could look after it for me.’

‘You’ve been determined all along, haven’t you, to get your own motor?’

‘Yes. And if Andrew had gone into general practice, he’d have needed one, so what could mother have done about that, will you tell me?’

‘In your own home, it would have been different. But it isn’t right you should take Miss Sutton’s motor back to Rowangarth; not against her ladyship’s wishes. Don’t do it, Julia. It’ll be nothing but trouble, I know it. Your mother is set against motors and you should try to understand her feelings.’

‘And this is 1920, and I’ll be twenty-seven, soon. I endured almost three years in France. I saw things that will stay to haunt me for the rest of my life. So now that I have my own motor, I shall drive it and there is nothing either mother or you can do about it!’

So Alice, who knew Julia almost as well as she knew herself, said, ‘All right! Subject closed. But don’t say I didn’t warn you!’

‘Elliot and I,’ said Clementina Sutton firmly, ‘will be going to London, shortly.’

‘But you’ve just come back.’ Edward laid aside his newspaper. ‘Have you mentioned it to Elliot?’