Daisy’s Betrayal

‘I’m no stranger to stout. Nor gin for that matter.’

‘Here … Try it first …’ He allowed her a sip.

‘Oh, I thought the gin might spoil it,’ she said with a lilt in her voice. ‘But it makes it dance on your tongue.’

He turned to the barmaid. ‘Another pint of this stuff for my lovely friend here.’

Jack turned to look the girl up and down approvingly, then smiled knowingly at Lawson.

‘So what’s your name?’ Lawson asked.

‘My friends call me Kate. What’s yours?’

‘Oh … Percival.’

‘Percival? Lord! I’d never marry anybody called Percival and that’s a fact.’

‘Hey, you’re taking a lot for granted, Kate.’

The girl chuckled amiably. ‘Have I not seen you here before?’

‘I don’t know. Have you not?’ he mimicked good-naturedly.

She shrugged. ‘What’s a masher like you doing in here, though? Don’t you have a pretty little wife to go home to?’

‘Do you wish to apply for the vacant position? I can tell you, there have been a lot of applicants.’

‘Well now … looking at you, I’m not surprised.’ She sipped her drink and licked her lips sensuously as she looked into his eyes. ‘Are you a man of vast experience then?’

‘I’ve been known to dabble here and there. To be honest, I might even fancy a dabble with you later.’

‘You’re cocksure, Percival,’ she quipped pertly. ‘I wouldn’t lay money on you getting your way.’

‘Then I won’t,’ he replied, humouring her. ‘But then you don’t seem that sort of girl.’

‘Nor am I indeed.’

He raised his glass. ‘Then here’s to the challenge.’

‘A challenge, am I?’ She raised hers and took another drink.

‘Why don’t we dance, Kate? Then we’ll finish our drinks and I’ll take you for a ride in my gig.’

She smiled coquettishly. ‘Your gig? You have a gig? Well, fancy now! All right then. Why don’t we dance?’

On 19th April, Good Friday, less than a month after his proposal, Lawson Maddox and his bride signed the register at St Thomas’s church. Although Lawson had sent out invitations to many of his top-drawer friends, some had not accepted. The redoubtable Mr Alexander Gibson, father of the artist whose work Daisy had adored so much, sent his regrets and Lawson wondered whether it was because Gibson had discovered he was marrying a woman who had been a servant; worse still, the dishonoured servant of his good friend Jeremiah Cookson. Well, that was up to him; Lawson knew Alexander would not hold it against him once he met Daisy. Jack Hayward was best man and Sarah was vividly beautiful as the bridesmaid. Mary Drake had all hell’s game trying to get Titus to attend and, in the finish, he didn’t. He would not shift, mainly for fear that somebody might kick his gouty foot, and no amount of cajoling worked.

So, in the absence of her father, Daisy was given away by her solitary uncle on her mother’s side. After the ceremony, however, she insisted that Lawson drive her home so that her father could see her again in her lovely satin dress. Otherwise, he would not catch sight of her again till she had returned from honeymoon.

‘Wish me well, Father,’ she said earnestly, and she could see he was pale and fatigued.

‘I wish yer the very best of everything, my angel,’ he replied from his armchair, his throbbing foot lodged safely in its wicker basket. ‘And I’m just sorry as I couldn’t be there to gi’ yer away, but I daresay as your mother’s enjoying herself … Lawson, just mek sure as yer look after this babby o’ mine.’

‘Have no fear, Mr Drake.’

The wedding breakfast was held at the Dudley Arms Hotel. Jack Hayward gave a witty speech and Lawson replied, lauding the qualities of his new wife with equal wit. Sarah giggled with wide-eyed admiration at Jack’s conversation. Jack seemed dangerously taken with her, and Lawson felt obliged to quietly warn his best man to quell any fantasies he was nurturing about the bride’s very young sister.

‘But she’s interested,’ Jack complained.

‘I don’t care,’ Lawson said firmly. ‘Leave her be. She’s my wife’s sister.’

Daisy looked around her, hardly able to comprehend that these people assembled were celebrating her wedding. She had hardly had a chance to get used to the idea herself; with all the work and organising she’d had to do, she’d hardly had time to think about it. She had been in a whirl ever since Lawson had proposed. Now, she scanned the guests, drawn mostly from his acquaintances and those of his family who still remained: his Great-Aunt Hannah whose necklace of jade did not suit her donkey-brown dress and made her look austere. The Reverend William Reyner Cosens, slim and clean-shaven except for his handsome sideburns, looked his usual aristocratic self, clinging to a glass of warm ginger beer. Her own Aunt Lucy was there, dowdy and old-fashioned, with nobody talking to her, especially not the well-dressed lady friends of Jack Hayward and Robert Cookson, bubbling in their modish dresses and full of themselves. Then she saw her mother with tears in her eyes because her older daughter had married so well.

A male quartet appeared, sporting identical, well-clipped moustaches and shiny hair, and entertained the guests for half an hour with some novelty songs and sparkling harmonies. After that, the bride and groom changed for their journey. Daisy wore a new outfit in the fashionable nautical style and a flat, sailor-style, broad-rimmed hat perched on her head.

Outside, on the steps of the Dudley Arms, Daisy turned her back on the carriage that was to convey them to the station and waved to her guests. Everybody smiled at her and waved back and the stylish lady friends of Jack and Robert threw rice. It had occurred to her earlier that Robert’s lady friend, whom she had thought might have been Fanny, was not indeed. She had been introduced as Miss Amelia somebody or other.

Lawson handed Daisy into the carriage and they were driven away.

‘I’ve got a confession, Lawson,’ she said, as she arranged the folds of her skirt.

He looked at her ominously, not knowing what to expect. ‘Oh? What’s that, my darling?’

‘I’ve never been on a train before. Will it be crowded?’

He smiled, relieved it was something so trivial. ‘I doubt it. Not in first class anyway.’

‘How long will the journey take?’

‘We should be in London by about eight.’

‘So soon?’

‘I know. The wonder of modern railways. We’ll be in time to take dinner in the hotel.’

Was this really happening to her? How could she have been so fortunate? What great goodness had she performed in her life that she was being rewarded thus?

In Castle Hill she stared out through the weak afternoon sunshine at the passing traffic. A troupe of bare-footed urchins squatting at the gate of the Castle Grounds seemed incongruous next to the pristine white statue of the Earl of Dudley erected only the previous year. A steam tram huffed asthmatically up the hill from the opposite direction. Old women wearing black shawls carried baskets as they trudged towards the market place. Daisy glanced at Lawson, at his magnificently handsome face beneath his expensive, shiny top hat, and again she could not believe her good fortune. Less than four months ago they were strangers. They had met with polite words, given each other polite attention and admiring glances. He had not guessed then that she was merely a servant. As their affair blossomed and she nervously received his first kisses, she could never have guessed he would choose her to be his wife. She would endow him with all the love and affection it was possible for one person to give another. He deserved it. It was his due. He never so much as looked at another woman in her company. Never had she met anybody so focused on her, so generous, so affable, so pleasant to be with. And she had yet to experience the ultimate expression of love between a man and a woman. But it would not be that night, nor the next, nor, she suspected, the one after that.

She took his hand. ‘Lawson, I have another confession …’ She smiled into his eyes apologetically.

‘What this time?’ he asked.

‘I’ve started my … you know … My monthly visitor arrived. On Wednesday.’

‘Hang me!’ he said, piqued. ‘I think the gods are conspiring against us. Ah, well, there’s nothing to be done. We’ll just have to wait.’ He squeezed her hand affectionately and she didn’t feel so badly about it.

‘You don’t mind?’