Daisy’s Betrayal

She looked at him with disbelief. ‘Honestly?’ She saw humour dancing in his eyes. ‘You’re mocking me. I’ve seen you drinking … and her.’

‘Well, I’ve already told you we’re not romantically linked, but you persist in asking questions as if we are.’

‘You might not be romantically linked,’ Daisy replied, aware that her jealousy was surfacing, ‘but she is.’

‘So you said before. Well, if she’s got such preoccupations, that’s her concern.’

She was happy to hear it. It confirmed that Fanny had no prior claim on him.

All too soon their dancing was interrupted. The New Year was about to be greeted and everybody was expected to link hands and sing ‘Auld Lang Syne’. They lost each other in the mêlée while everybody was hugging the person closest to them, shaking hands and giving their sincere best wishes for a happy and prosperous 1889. Daisy decided she must go and check on the soup that would already be heating up in the kitchen to be served later … until she realised in a blind panic that she had not finalised the arrangement to meet Lawson. She spotted him, shoved through the noisy crowd of revellers and tapped him on the shoulder.

‘I’m sorry, I have to go.’

‘You’re leaving already?’

‘I have to. Do you still want to meet me on Sunday?’ Maybe she was being forward, but she was desperate not to let him go now she had found him.

‘I’ll call for you. Just tell me your address.’

‘It would be better if I met you somewhere … You know …’ She wanted him to think it might be embarrassing with her family, or even frowned on to be seen going out without a chaperone. ‘Can we meet outside the police station?’

‘All right. Shall we say three o’clock?’

‘Three o’clock, Sunday.’ She turned and made her way to the kitchen, extraordinarily pleased with herself.

By the time they had cleared up after the party it was nearly four o’clock in the morning, but it had been a huge success for the Cooksons and a personal triumph for Daisy. She had met the man of her dreams and was euphoric. She couldn’t sleep, of course she couldn’t. She lay awake for what remained of that cold night thinking about him, going over and over in her mind every word they had spoken to each other. After she’d bid him goodnight she made it her business not to be seen again, staying in the kitchen till everybody had gone. It peeved her beyond endurance to know that Lawson must, out of etiquette, deliver Fanny back home and she imagined with resentment those big, soft pleading eyes, begging for a goodnight kiss. She tossed and turned imagining them kissing, imagining her trying to lead him on. How was a girl of eighteen allowed out, alone with him, without a chaperone?

Then she remembered her assessment of Fanny. Fanny was evidently not from polite society. Fanny was a working-class girl. It was even possible that her mother and father neither knew nor cared where she was, or with whom. But if so, what was somebody so obviously well bred and well educated as Lawson Maddox doing with her? She had to be a cousin or a niece whom he considered worthy enough to reward with such an evening out. Perhaps he had even invited her just to introduce her to Mr Robert. After all, they danced together quite a lot, and certainly seemed to laugh a lot. Daisy felt happier with this perfectly rational explanation.

Chapter 3 (#u9b12c5ec-05e5-5e37-93a1-a6f7ad75b7a1)

New Year’s Day fell on a Tuesday in 1889. Following the party as it did, it promised to be busy. A few guests had stayed the night so there were more people than usual for breakfast. The beds they slept in had to be stripped and remade, chamber pots emptied and scalded, the rooms they occupied cleaned and dusted. But, after lunch, when the visitors left, things were expected to settle down. Lots of sandwiches and pies remained uneaten from the previous evening and Mrs Cookson asked Daisy to organise one of the girls to take the leftovers to the Dudley Union Workhouse in Burton Road. There would be many a poor soul there glad of the extra food. Daisy offered to go and requested an extra hour besides, so as to visit her mother and father.

‘As long as you’re back here by five I have no objection, Daisy,’ Mrs Cookson said kindly. ‘Do you think your sister might like to accompany you?’

‘Oh, I’m sure she would, ma’am, if you could spare her.’ Daisy was forever surprised at how generous and thoughtful her employer could be.

‘I hope your father’s feeling better. No doubt it’ll perk him up to see his two daughters on New Year’s Day. Give them both my very best wishes and compliments of the season.’

‘Oh, I will, ma’am, and thank you.’

So, at about half past two, she and Sarah set off. They huddled into their coats and pulled up their collars to protect themselves from the cold. Shaver’s End, on the way to the workhouse, was one of the highest ridges in Dudley and a cold east wind, howling in with unhindered keenness directly from the Urals of Russia, penetrated through their layers of clothing and chilled their skin.

As they walked they talked about the party and discussed some of the guests.

‘Did you notice that friend of Mr Robert’s I told you about?’ Sarah asked, clutching her collar to her throat to keep out the cold, with a basket of food hanging in the crook of her arm.

‘Oh … er … Which one was that?’ Daisy hedged.

‘The tall, handsome one. You must’ve seen him. I told you about him. Remember?’

It suddenly dawned on Daisy that she meant Lawson Maddox. It had never occurred to her that Lawson might be the same friend of Mr Robert that Sarah had mentioned before. So she feigned ignorance.

‘I don’t recall.’ Daisy felt she could acknowledge nothing about Lawson, simply because Sarah seemed so taken with him.

‘Oh, you’d remember him all right. I served him his food. He’s a dream … He had a girl with him, though.’

‘Well,’ Daisy said, trying to affect disinterest. ‘That’s hardly surprising if he’s so handsome.’

‘A pretty girl, I thought, with lovely fair hair. But he wants to watch out because Mr Robert was all over her.’ Sarah shrugged and a smug grin spread across her face. ‘Still, I don’t mind if he pinches her off him. Then he’d be free to marry me.’

‘You know gentlemen don’t marry servants,’ Daisy said impatiently and, as soon as she had said it, she realised that this sage remark applied equally to herself. Her unwitting wisdom depressed her. Of course gentlemen didn’t marry servants. Oh, they would bed maids at every opportunity, but marry them?… ‘Which basket have you got there, Sarah?’

‘The one with the pies and sausage rolls in.’

‘Right. We’ll swap some over. Mother and Father can have some of this stuff. They’re just as deserving as workhouse folk.’

When they were only a couple of hundred yards from the workhouse they stopped and, resting their baskets on a wall, sorted out the food so that they had a decent selection for their folks.

‘I’ll take this stuff in, our Sarah. You wait at the gate.’

Daisy asked to see somebody in authority. Unless she handed over the food to somebody trustworthy the poor folk in care might never see it. Eventually she let it go to a shy young man in a frock coat who was unsure of her at first, but who thanked her liberally when he realised she was not a gypsy trying to peddle something.

She returned to Sarah. It was a long walk to their home and unbearable in the biting cold. They took it in turns to carry the basket of food that also contained some oranges Daisy had been able to sneak out. Sarah didn’t mention Lawson again but it was evident she had a young girl’s crush on him. How could Daisy have confessed to Sarah that he already had an interest in her and she in him, despite her private realisation that any liaison was doomed from the start? She hoped that Sarah’s infatuation would wane just as soon as the next handsome young man appeared. In truth, she hoped her own interest was an infatuation just as silly, and that she would get over it as quickly.

At last they arrived and walked up the entry to the back door, their cheeks red, their noses cold and shiny, and their breath coming in steamy wisps. As they opened the door and walked in, their father was nodding in his armchair, his gouty foot in his washing basket. He roused when he heard them greet their mother.

Daisy bent down and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Happy New Year, Father,’ she said. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Bloody lousy,’ he replied grumpily.

‘It’s your age,’ Mary remarked without sympathy.

‘Is it snowing yet? There’s snow in the air, I can bloody well feel it.’

Daisy placed the basket of food on the scrubbed table. ‘Not yet, Father. We’ve brought you some food left over from the party last night at Baxter House.’ She turned to her mother, tilting her head in his direction. ‘How is he really?’

‘Miserable as sin.’ Mary was darning several pairs of socks and had a darning mushroom thrust inside one of them as if she was about to draw the innards from a rabbit. ‘I daren’t get near him for fear of kicking his washing basket. I’ve a good mind to kick him up in the air.’

‘Pity yower damn nose ai’ throbbing like my blasted foot,’ Titus protested, feeling very sorry for himself. ‘Then yo’ wouldn’t keep pokin’ it where it ai’ wanted.’

Both girls chuckled at this bickering, which they knew was mostly pretence and nowhere near as venomous as it sounded.

‘Well tomorrer morning I don’t know what you’ll do wi’ yer precious foot, but I shall want me basket back for the washing.’

‘But it’s Wednesday tomorrow,’ Daisy said. ‘I thought washing day was Monday.’

Mary chuckled. ‘Oh, ain’t I a blasted fool? It’s ’cause you’ve come. I was thinking it’s Sunday today.’