Daisy (3 page)

Daisy remembered many of her aunt’s criticisms of the sinful aristocracy, but prudently remained silent.

“I noticed however that His Grace noticed you particular-like. Now when an aristocratic gentleman looks like that, he is not thinking of love or marriage.”

“What is he thinking of, Auntie?”

“Lust!”

“Oh,” sighed Daisy.

“So I have decided that the time has come to tell you the facts of life. Do you know what a man does with a woman?”

“Well… he kisses her and… and… he says he loves her…”

“Codswallop!” said Sarah Jenkins, her face deepening to purple. “Now you listen closely, my girl, and I’ll tell you…”

She leaned forward in the firelight, her voice dropping to an intense whisper, and began to outline the mysteries of sexual intercourse.

Daisy stared at her, her wide brown eyes growing enormous with bewilderment. As far as she could make out, the gentleman took his mumble, and mumble, mumble, mumbled with it.

“There!” said Sarah Jenkins. “Now you know. I fear I’ve shocked you but I am a Christian woman and it is my duty to tell you these unpleasant things for your own good.”

Daisy was none the wiser and not much worried. Her aunt could make just reading a novel appear to be some terribly sinful act, so whatever the gentlemen got up to was probably something innocuous. All Daisy wanted to do was to escape to the privacy of her room and dream about the Earl.

But her aunt’s whisperings had awakened something in her mind and that night, as she unhooked her Liberty bodice, she looked in the mirror and tried to see herself with the eyes of a sophisticated man. Wide, soft, fawnlike eyes stared back at her, a soft, well-shaped mouth, a soft chin, and masses of soft brown hair.

I’m all soft
, thought Daisy sadly, remembering the hard
l
-shaped line of the Countess’s jaw.
Colorless—that’s what. I wonder what Auntie plans to do with me when school finishes?

But winter passed, then spring, then came summer and the end of school days, and still Miss Jenkins had not suggested that Daisy earn her bread.

Daisy had been asked to play Juliet in the end of term play to Amy’s busty Romeo, but on the subject of playacting, Sarah Jenkins stood firm. It was sinful, it was wicked, and Daisy was to have no part of it. Instead she would attend the methodist chapel that very evening in order to improve the dangerously low tone of her mind.

Nearly in tears, Daisy fled to her room to get ready for church. For once, it had seemed, she was to have a little glamour and excitement. She
knew
she played the part of Juliet well and now it would be played by Clarrie Johnson who roared her lines as if the audience were all stone-deaf. With a jerk, Daisy raised the heavy window of her bedroom and stared across the town with unseeing eyes.

The gardens rioted in all the summer glory of roses. There were red and white roses tumbling over trellises, roses in the hedgerows, and cultivated beauties holding up their heads in the formal gardens like so many ladies at Ascot with their heavy, elaborate hats. The air was heavy with their languorous scent; disturbing and moving. Unbidden, a picture of the house party on the lawn of the castle flashed across her brain. The characters moved with silent grace across the lawns of her mind and the Earl’s eyes flashed as blue as the summer sky. With a heavy sigh she turned from the window.

She hauled out her heavy stays from the drawer and examined a tear in the material where a vicious piece of whalebone was poking through. There would be no time to mend it. Well, what did it matter if it dug into her, what did it matter if it were uncomfortable?

She dressed and went downstairs to where her aunt was waiting, encased in black bombazine with multiple jet ornaments that glittered with reptilian brilliance in the dark hall.

Taking her aunt’s bony arm, Daisy moved toward the chapel, numb with misery. She felt as if she and her aunt were encased in an impregnable black cloud that no sounds or scents of summer could ever penetrate.

The sermon was to be given by a visiting preacher and her aunt, she knew, was looking forward to the occasion with all the excitement with which London society awaited the first notes of a visiting diva.

By the time they reached the redbrick chapel, her aunt was leaning heavily on Daisy’s arm, and for the first time, Daisy felt a pang of concern. Her aunt’s face was so red it shone like a beacon.

“Are you all right, Auntie?”

“Yes, of course,” her aunt wheezed. “A little short of breath. I will be all right when I sit down.”

Sarah Jenkins paused on the porch and turned to the girl at her side. “You know,” she said in a rush, “I do
care
for you, Daisy. Worry over you makes me a bit strict. I do care, Daisy.”

Daisy looked at her aunt in puzzled embarrassment and searched for a reply, but her aunt was already marching ahead into the chapel. Daisy followed and sat primly next to her on the hard wooden bench.

The preacher was young and intense and was burnt up with the sins of Upper Featherington. The catholic church, he said with a dramatic shudder, had been running a raffle. The prize was a box of groceries. It had come to his ears that not only had members of this congregation taken part in this Devil’s lottery, but that one of them had actually
won
. Gasps and cries of consternation arose from the congregation, while heads twisted trying to seek out the sinner.

Gambling, he said, was the sport of Satan. “Amen!” breathed Sarah Jenkins wisting her head to stare at Daisy. Daisy wriggled uncomfortably, feeling that nasty bit of loose whalebone beginning to spear her armpit. Why was auntie staring at her so intensely?
She
had not bought a raffle ticket… much as she had wanted to.

The preacher’s voice droned on. “A simple thing like a raffle can breed the devilish seed. First it is a box of groceries, then the gambling tables at Monte Carlo.”

“Hallelujah!” cried Sarah Jenkins, her jet ornaments flashing in the gaslight.

Delighted with the fervent response, the preacher warmed to his subject.

“Men forsake their wives and families and their children are cast into the gutter. And why? Because the evil vice of gambling has them in its grip. Because…”

He broke off. Sarah Jenkins was on her feet, choking and gesticulating wildly.

“It’s true,” she yelled. “All true. And the righteous have to care for their children and feed them—and—and—”

With a choked moan, she toppled over the pew in front of her, head down. Her ancient elastic-sided boots waved feebly in the air and then were still.

There was silence. Then a long indrawn breath like a sigh, from the congregation. As they gathered around in silence and pulled Sarah Jenkins upright, it was all too evident that Death himself had stalked into the sacred confines of the chapel to claim Sarah Jenkins’s soul.

Kindly hands led Daisy from the church. She was aware of the comforting bulk of Curzon, the butler, helping her out into the open air. With a broken little cry, Daisy fell into his arms.

“Why did she have to say she cared for me?” cried poor Daisy with all the selfishness of youth. “Then I wouldn’t have cared so much….”

The three days before the funeral passed like a dream. There were constant callers at The Pines from morning till night, constant help, constant advice. And Daisy, as pliable and meek as ever, did exactly what she was told while the corpse of her aunt lay stretched out in the parlor. She numbly went through the ritual of taking in friends and neighbors to “see her,” lifting up the lace doily from the now waxen face and standing mutely to attention while the visitors stared and commented.

Curzon had gone through her aunt’s meager collection of papers to discover Sarah Jenkins’s will in which she left everything she had possessed to “my dearest ward, Daisy.”

“This might create a few difficulties,” said Curzon, lifting his heavy eyebrows in surprise. “But someone from your aunt’s lawyers is to call. And a very classy set of lawyers she has, too. Same as the Earl’s. Why now does she refer to you as her ward?”

Daisy shook her head. She had accepted the fact that Sarah Jenkins was her aunt without question.

The doorbell gave an imperious clang and Curzon got to his feet. “That’ll be the lawyers now, Daisy. Would you like me to stay?”

”Oh, yes
please
, Curzon,” said Daisy, thankful for a familiar face in a world which seemed to be becoming rootless and strange.

The gentleman who entered the hallway with a brisk step did not seem at all like Daisy’s idea of a lawyer. He was a fashionably dressed young man with a breezy manner and clever little eyes like boot buttons winking in a chubby, polished face. He sported two magnificent waistcoats and a small diamond pin winked impudently from his stock.

His first words fell like a thunderclap on the startled ears of Daisy and Curzon. He surveyed Daisy up and down with a cheeky grin and then said, “So this is the Honorable Daisy Chatterton. Well, I must say, you don’t look a bit like his lordship. Must favor your mother.”

God would surely strike her dead for twittering with excitement on the day that Sarah Jenkins was laid to rest. But the change in Daisy’s world had bedazzled her so much that she could scarcely think straight.

She was indeed the Honorable Daisy Chatterton. Her father, Lord Chatterton, was alive and well and living in the South of France. Her mother, Emily, had died giving birth to her and her father had left her in the care of a retired upstairs maid, Sarah Jenkins.

The lawyers had received a letter from her father requesting that she be put in the care of the Earl and Countess of Nottenstone until his return. He had written to the Countess to explain the situation.

The door to the magic garden was wide open. Poor Daisy was only human. Her mind fled from the more unsavory aspects of the case—that, for example, her father had failed to supply Sarah Jenkins with any money for her care and that her education had taken up a good part of the spinster’s life’s savings. She would see the Earl again, talk to him on equal terms, be a part of that fairy-tale world glimpsed from the bushes and never forgotten.

The carrier was to take her belongings to the Castle, but Daisy elected to walk, to savor the opening of her new life.

Carrying a Gladstone bag with a few of her private possessions and wearing her best gray alpaca gown, Daisy set out to take up residence in her new home.

Amy Pomfret was waiting at the corner of the road. “Don’t forget me, Dais’, now you’re going to join the nobs,” said Amy, giving her a quick hug. Daisy hugged her back, but her treacherous mind was already registering that there was something, well… blowsy and common about Amy. She could not envisage her in the elegant surroundings of the Castle.

Without a single pang Daisy left her familiar surroundings behind and with a light step, set out on the golden road to Marsden Castle.

The Honorable Daisy Chatterton, oblivious of her shabby appearance, gave a condescending nod to the startled lodge keeper and walked briskly up the Castle drive. She could see it all. The lovely Countess would rush forward and hug her. The Earl would give his beautiful warm smile. Her room would be elegant with long windows overlooking the Park. Perhaps she would ride. The money from the sale of The Pines would furnish a new wardrobe and she and the Countess would sit in the evenings, their heads together, turning the pages of the fashion journals, while the Earl looked on and laughed indulgently.

The drive turned and there was the Castle, basking in the summer sun. Tinkling voices and tinkling cups echoed on the still air. Daisy was once again making her appearance at teatime.

She took a deep breath, grasped her bag firmly, and moved across the lawn. The women of the house party tacked elegantly back and forth around the tea table like galleons under full sail, with their lace and bows and enormous hats. A housemaid came flying toward Daisy, the streamers of her cap dancing behind her.

“What was you wanting, miss?” Shrewd eyes took in the best alpaca and the worn Gladstone bag.

“I have come to stay,” said Daisy haughtily.

“Then you’d better follow me. You’ve come the wrong way, miss.” Without waiting for a reply, the housemaid sailed off, leaving Daisy to trail behind. She led her to a doorway at the side of the Castle and up and up flights of uncarpeted stairs.

“Here’s your room,” she said opening a door and giving Daisy a little push. “And you’d best get ready and come down to the kitchens. We’re shorthanded.”

Then she flitted off before Daisy could reply and clattered back down the stairs.

Daisy looked slowly around her. Where was the elegant suite of rooms she had imagined? She was in a bare attic furnished simply with three cot beds and a hooked rug on the floor. The windows were dingy and barred.

It slowly dawned on her that she had been taken for a servant and all her newfound confidence began to ebb.

“I am the Honorable Daisy Chatterton,” she repeated over and over again. “My father is a lord. I will go downstairs and introduce myself. Because if I stay here, I will soon find myself waiting at table!”

Straightening her back and grasping her bag, she ran down the stairs and walked once again to the front of the Castle. Ignoring the footman’s yell of “Here, where do you think you’re going?” Daisy marched straight up to the Countess.

“I,” said Daisy in a very loud voice, “am the Honorable Daisy Chatterton.”

“Dear God,” said Angela, Countess of Nottenstone, faintly. “What on earth is it?” She fluttered her beautiful hands and appealed to the other guests.

The Earl smiled happily at Daisy, winked and then calmly proceeded to eat a large chocolate éclair.

“Chatterton’s gel,” said one of the young men, replying to the Countess’s question. “
You
know. Poor Old Neddie.”

“Oh!” said the Countess. “Neddie. Oh, yes, the poor old lamb wrote something about his daughter, didn’t he darling?”

The Earl gave a cream-filled grunt from behind his pastry.

“But what on earth happened to your
clothes?
” remarked the Countess sweetly. “Did poor old Neddie gamble your wardrobe away at Monte?”