Daisy's Secret (34 page)

‘It’s not funny.’

‘It is from where I’m standing. Aw, come on, I’m yer flippin’ sister. It’s time you got it all off yer chest and told the truth. Be honest for once in yer life, lass.’

Feeling cornered, and thoroughly vexed, Florrie buckled under the pressure. ‘Oh all right, yes it’s true. He’s just a farmer and not a rich one at that. I’ve had a miserable time from start to finish if you want to know the truth. So go on, have a good laugh at my expense, why don’t you?’

By the time Laura’s first guests arrived, Lane End Farm Guesthouse was as ready as she could make it. Every room had been completely redecorated and refurbished. Fresh new curtains hung at the windows, new mattresses on the old iron frame beds, the solid wood furniture polished to perfection and new lamps, cushions and pictures placed wherever it seemed appropriate. Laura and Chrissy had taken great pleasure in choosing these, entering into lively debates when their tastes clashed, which was fairly frequent. Laura preferred flowers or landscapes while Chrissy leaned more towards abstracts in bold, primary colours. A compromise was reached by opting for the quieter style for bedrooms and bolder colours to brighten the hall and dining room.

The advertisements she’d placed in various regional newspapers and holiday guides appeared to be working and she and Chrissy spent a lot of time posting off brochures all over the country.

Felix still rang regularly if not quite as often as he had used to, and mainly to speak to Chrissy. He would be dismissive when Laura answered, as if punishing her for being uncooperative. Not that it troubled her in the least, for whenever he did take the time to talk her it was only to issue another lecture.

‘It won’t work, this nonsensical idea you have of becoming a landlady.’

‘Don’t be sniffy, Felix. They call them proprietors these days. And I rather think it will. I’m fully booked for most weekends through June and July already. This is a popular area for walkers with not a great deal of accommodation in the locality.’

‘And what about us?’

‘There hasn’t been an
us
for some time. As soon as I get a free afternoon, I mean to pop into Keswick and see Nick, my solicitor, and get things moving on the divorce. No point in letting it drag on.’

‘Don’t you ever listen to a blasted thing I say, Laura? There isn’t going to be any divorce.’ Laura quietly put down the phone.
 

Chrissy, who had been unashamedly listening in to the conversation, said: ‘You know how Dad hates to lose. Since he hasn’t managed to change your mind on this over the phone, failed to make you be nice to prospective buyers, and sending me here hasn’t worked either, he’ll only hatch up some other plot. Be on your guard, Laura. He isn’t done yet.’

‘There’s nothing he can do to me now,’ Laura assured her, wishing she felt half so confident as she sounded.
 

Felix’s attitude troubled her deeply, but not for a moment would she allow him to know that. If he imagined that clinging on to a dead marriage would help him to get his hands on her inheritance, he couldn’t be more wrong.

The first breakfast was something of a nightmare. Chrissy kept forgetting to ask if they would like coffee or tea and mixed up several orders, handing scrambled eggs to one lady who had asked for bacon and tomato, and giving a half frozen croissant to another who’d requested a full English breakfast. Laura dropped a poached egg on the floor just as she was slipping it on to the plate, and had to start all over again to cook another one. The kitchen was steaming hot and over all hung the unappetising aroma of burnt toast since Chrissy kept jamming them too hard into the ancient toaster which prevented it from popping up properly.

‘I’ll buy a new one. This very afternoon.’

It seemed a miracle to them both that the half dozen guests sitting patiently in the dining room didn’t walk out long before the painful ritual was over. Somehow or other, they did all get fed and went happily on their way to explore the area. Laura breathed a sigh of relief, put the kettle on and began to stack the dish washer. ‘It can only get better.’

‘Or worse,’ Chrissy gloomily remarked. ‘Seven weeks of this? I’ll go bonkers. Did you see that chap’s face when I forgot to warn him how hot the plate was. I thought he was about to burst a blood vessel. Anyway, your breakfasts went down a treat, saved the day. I think the guy in number four would marry you just for your black puddings.’

‘He must be seventy if he’s a day.’

‘Perfect. He’ll soon die and leave you a pot of money.’

‘Stop that,’ Laura said, giggling despite herself. ‘Now, all we have to do is clean bathrooms, tidy bedrooms, polish and vacuum upstairs and down, scrub pans and re-lay the tables for tomorrow.’

‘Simple, if you say it quickly. No evening meals then?’

‘Not till I feel strong enough to cope with them.’

‘Which if I have any say,’ said Chrissy. ‘Will not be for a long, long time.’

It was Laura’s misfortune that a couple of nights later, David called, just on the off-chance that she might feel like popping out for a drink down at the Salutation Inn in Threlkeld. Worse, he walked straight in without even bothering to knock, it being so wet, he explained, and not wanting her to get drenched by coming to the door. All explanations stopped short when he spotted Chrissy sitting in front of the TV set, staring at him wide-eyed with disbelief.
 

‘And Laura said there was no talent round here,’ she cooed.

‘Sorry? Ah, you have company, I didn’t realise.’

‘I would have said, if you’d troubled to knock,’ Laura tartly retorted. ‘Still, as you’re already in, allow me to introduce my step daughter.’

‘I’m the wild child,’ Chrissy said, with some degree of pride in her voice. ‘I expect she’s told you all about me already.’

‘Not really. Why are you wild? Were you brought up by wolves or something?’

To Laura’s utter amazement, she saw Chrissy flush and give an entrancing giggle. Obviously, David’s charm transcended age, and since he made her blush too; perhaps she wasn’t quite over the hill, after all.

It took something of a tussle but Laura finally shooed Chrissy off to bed and over a bottle of wine told David about the startling revelation that her father actually owned the land he leased. She demanded to know why he’d never mentioned it and, to her surprise, he calmly replied that he hadn’t known either. Rent payments were apparently made through his solicitor to a Trust, the name of which gave no indication of ownership.

They both considered this for a moment before David murmured his thoughts out loud. ‘He must have owned it for quite a while. I’ve been dealing with the Trust ever since I took the place on. I mean, it’s fairly common practice, to leave the house to one person and the land to another but I wonder why he never told you? Why be so secretive about it?’

‘Because he doesn’t wish to appear beholden to Daisy, I suppose, the mother he hated. What else could it be? I’m assuming that she was the one who gave it to him, perhaps years ago. Which means she didn’t disinherit him after all, and he let me think that she did, the silly old man. Was that so I’d feel sorry for him, or perhaps not nag him to come to her funeral? If only there were some way I could find out more about her. If she’d kept a diary.’

David cast his eyes heavenwards, his face inscrutable. Laura watched him for a moment, thinking that perhaps he had something more to say, perhaps even some quip about Daisy having better things to do with her time than scribble in a diary but he said nothing and it finally dawned on her that his silence was telling. A burst of excitement exploded within her.

‘She did keep a diary, didn’t she? Where is it? Tell me. Oh, I would so love to see it.’

‘Sorry, no, that wasn’t her style. But I was just thinking, Daisy was a member of the Local Oral History Society.’

‘Oh!’ All the excitement drained out of her. Although Laura appreciated that these sort of tapes were a valued method by which an older generation could pass on information on how they’d lived their lives in the days before television and computers and technology changed employment and life styles for ever, yet she was disappointed. ‘I wanted more than snippets about how the war was won, or when rationing was brought in. I long to discover more personal, intimate details, to know and understand the woman herself; to get inside her head.‘

‘Suit yourself, Laura, but you might find them worth a visit. I don’t think you’d be disappointed. I have the telephone number of the secretary somewhere. I’ll drop it in some time, if you like.’

For once in her life, Rita quietly sat and listened to her sister’s tale without interrupting, so avid was she for every mouth-watering detail. She learned all about Florrie’s many disappointments over the state of the farmhouse, the hard work she had to do, the loneliness of the place, even the foulness of the weather. Florrie’s bitterness at the way things had turned out was all too evident.

‘Oh Rita. You can’t imagine what I’ve gone through,’ Florrie moaned, dabbing at her eyes with a fresh white handkerchief. ‘I’ve been so lonely up there, on that mountain. And you wouldn’t believe the wind and the rain we get. My nerves are in shreds.’ But if she’d hoped for a glimmer of pity, or a softening of Rita’s stance, she was soon to be disenchanted.

Rita folded her arms across her skinny bosom and gave a smirk of satisfaction. ‘Serves you right, you daft happorth. You should’ve had more sense than to run off with him in t’first place: a man old enough to be your father, and a perfect stranger you knew nowt about. I warned you not to marry him and see how right I was.’

‘I thought I was in love.’

Rita made a pooh-poohing sound. ‘You fancied yer chances at lording it over the rest of us. But it hasn’t worked, has it?’

Florrie glared moodily at her sister. Sometimes Rita had an unhappy knack of putting her finger right on the pulse. Of course she’d hoped that marrying Clem would take her up in the world, out of Salford and into a fine house smoothly run by a housekeeper and a bevy servants so that she wouldn’t have to lift a finger. Why else would she choose to marry such an unexciting man as Clem Pringle, fond though she’d been of him at the time? Instead, all she’d achieved was a lifetime of toil and misery.

‘Sometimes Rita, I don’t think you have a heart. I’ve really suffered, can’t you see? Have you no pity?’

‘Not when it comes to no-good little madams like you were when you were young, and like our Daisy is now. You’ve got your just desserts, no doubt about that. And if our Daisy isn’t careful, she’ll get hers an’ all.’ Rita was positively glowing with moral rectitude. She’d waited years for this moment. ‘Ever since you walked through my front door months ago, we’ve heard nowt but how hard done to you are: how tired and lonely, how Clem doesn’t understand you. Now you tell us your husband isn’t rich, you don’t live in a posh house, you’ve no servants and you’re overworked. You and the rest of the flippin’ universe. Hard cheese. You aren’t the only one to be suffering, so stop feeling sorry for yourself and get on with life.’

If there was an iota of common sense in her sister’s advice, Florrie certainly wasn’t in the mood to take it. Twin spots of fire burned on flat pale cheeks as she furiously sought self-justification. ‘What about losing my child? You don’t seem to appreciate how that has affected my life.’

‘You could’ve tried again but no doubt a child would have got in the way, taken Clem’s attention away from you.’

‘That’s not true. I would’ve loved another only I was too afraid the same thing might happen again. Anyway, you’re wrong. Clem isn’t the attentive sort. He doesn’t like a fuss, and he’s far too busy on the farm.’

‘Ah, that’s the way of it, is it? You were wallowing in self-pity and he wasn’t fussing over you enough. So you turned into this moaning Minnie where nothing were ever right.’

‘How can you be so cruel?’

‘I speak as I find, take it or leave it. There’s others have lost childer, them what grew up and were loved for years. Nay, not me, thank God, but plenty in this street, and there’ll be more before this war is over. They don’t wallow in self-pity. They pull themselves up by their boot straps and carry on.’

‘Drat you, our Rita.’ Florrie’s tears were all too real now, though more from anger and frustration than genuine distress. She was utterly convinced that throughout her married life she’d suffered terrible deprivation and anguish and nobody cared; not her husband, not even her own sister. ‘You never did like me and I’ll not stop where I’m not wanted.’

‘Nobody’s asking you to. You don’t belong here, Florrie Pringle. So stop your moaning, pack your bags and go on home to your husband, even if he isn’t flippin’ rich. Or else batter somebody else’s ears with your troubles. I can’t say we care one way nor t’other where you go or what you do, but we’ve had enough of your whining here.’

‘I’ll not stop where I’m not welcome.’

‘And you’re certainly not that.’

Florrie marched upstairs, stuffed her new clothes into her bag and stormed out of the house, making sure she banged the door shut behind her. Determined to have the last word, Rita whipped it open again to stand screaming from the doorstep as her sister strode away through the entry. ‘See if I care, you useless baggage!’

When Joe came home later, he gazed with suspicion upon his wife standing quietly at the sink and asked where Florrie was.