Daisy's Secret (39 page)

For the first time in her life Laura appeared to have left her father speechless. The silence lasted for so long that she had to ask if he was still there.

‘Of course I’m still here.’

‘Have you forgotten Megan? She seems to remember you well enough: a sturdy little chap, she called you. Claims she spent a good of deal time picking up your toys.’

‘I remember Megan perfectly well. She used to read me endless Beatrix Potter stories. And Trish. They were evacuees. Went home eventually, after the war, then came back again.’

‘Really? She never mentioned that. Well, what do you think? A reunion might be fun?’ Laura fully expected him to refuse. Robert could not be called the most gregarious of people at the best of times. However, she was wrong. He mumbled something about having to look up train times, and which days weren’t suitable because of golf or bridge commitments but, in the end, a day was agreed upon. Laura told Megan Crabtree, who was thrilled with the promise of meeting up with ‘little Robbie’ again so soon. ‘I can’t wait,’ she said.

Neither can I, thought Laura.

It was the most touching sight she could ever have imagined. Laura parked her Peugeot on the gravel forecourt and by the time she’d climbed out, Megan was at the front door, anxiously waiting. She took one look at her ‘little Robbie’, now a seventy- something grey-haired man with a paunch, and held wide her arms. To Laura’s utter amazement, her father beamed and happily succumbed to being thoroughly hugged and kissed. In fact, he seemed to be doing quite a bit of that sort of thing on his own account.

Laura was stunned. Even Chrissie, standing equally slack-jawed beside her, whispered, ‘Would you believe it? Soppy old Gramps.‘

The pair rarely stopped talking for the entire afternoon, most of it incomprehensible to Laura, all about school friends, nature rambles and concerts not to mention numerous teachers, a Miss Copthorne being the only name she recognised. Megan held a particularly fond memory of herself and Trish dressing up as Gert and Daisy.
 

‘Don’t remember that,’ Robert said. ‘I was probably too young at the time.’

‘It was perhaps during that first wonderful summer. Oh, but it was great fun. Trish was always a great mimic, had them off to perfection. Do you remember the Christmas Carol concerts and the time Trish was the Virgin Mary and dropped the baby doll?’ Roaring with laughter they were off into other reminiscences.

Chrissy slipped away half way through the afternoon, saying she was going to meet a friend down in Threlkeld. Laura was pleased that she’d found one and made no objection, knowing it must be rather dull for her to spend all her time with boring adults. It briefly crossed her mind to ask who it was but then the telephone rang and by the time she’d taken another booking, Chrissy had gone. Laura went to put on the kettle, to freshen up the tea.

It wasn’t until her father was about to leave that Laura plucked up the courage to mention the subject of the land. She knew it would be a delicate issue, with deep connotations. Helping him on with his coat she tried, and failed, to persuade him to stay overnight.

‘No, I don’t want to be any trouble. Besides, I’ve things planned for tomorrow.’

‘Wouldn’t it be nice for you to stay in your childhood home for one night? You could have your old room. Which was it?’

‘Unlike you, Laura, I have no wish to revisit the past.’

‘You just have, with Megan, for an entire afternoon. You mean Daisy’s past I suppose, since you, personally, have scarcely mentioned her name, for all it has cropped up countless times out of Megan’s mouth. For goodness’ sake, why? I should perhaps warn you that I’ve found out about the land, about you owning it, I mean. Did you think I wouldn’t? I’m not sure why you kept it from me though I’ll admit it really is no concern of mine who owns it.’

He looked shocked for a moment, his usually florid face paling slightly and the mouth tightening to a grim line. ‘I have nothing to do with it. Nothing at all. Never touch the rent from it, it stays in the Trust.’

Laura’s mouth dropped open. ‘You mean you’ve never used the money, and you so often crying poverty? Where’s the point in deliberately depriving yourself of a decent standard of living? That’s not what Daisy wanted.’

‘I’ve not touched a penny of it. Never will. What about the way she behaved with Harry? She cheated on my father with him. Betrayed him. He deserved better. Hadn’t he suffered enough as a casualty of war?’

‘We don’t know that for sure. We don’t yet know what happened between the three of them. And there was a war on; circumstances were difficult.’

‘I agree there may be some things we never discover, or fully understand. But I’ll not touch her money. It’s nothing at all to do with me.’

‘But she was your mother!’

His gaze was filled with fury now as he turned on her. ‘No, Laura. She was not my mother. God knows who I was, but I didn’t belong to Daisy. Haven’t you understood anything you’ve heard from Megan and from these tapes you’ve been telling us about. I wasn’t Daisy’s child at all. I was
stolen
. Florrie told me so just before she died. That’s why we quarrelled. That’s why Daisy never loved me.’

Her father was so upset after this declaration that he stormed off into the night, slamming the door in Laura’s startled face. For a whole thirty seconds she stood rooted to the spot before being galvanised into action by the sight of his fleeing figure. Grabbing her car keys and coat, she jumped in the car and went in pursuit of him down the lane.

They were sitting outside the railway station, talking quietly now. Robert had calmed down but his eyes still looked suspiciously bright. Very gently, Laura asked him why he believed that Daisy hadn’t loved him.

‘She lied. She told me I was her lost boy returned to her, the one she’d thought never to see again. Then Florrie told me I wasn’t at all, that she herself had picked me up out of the rubble during the blitz and they hadn’t the first idea who I belonged to. All that tale about Percy’s sister and brother-in-law adopting me was a complete fabrication.’

Laura listened in silence as the hurt came pouring out. So this was the reason for that terrible quarrel, the family feud. ‘I can see that it must have been painful to learn such a thing, but it doesn’t prove that Daisy didn’t care for you. Perhaps she believed Rita’s story; had been taken in by her own mother’s lies. And if she had ever discovered otherwise, perhaps she kept up the pretence because she wanted you to feel secure. That’s what mothers do. In any case, even if she knew all along that you might not be her son, perhaps she wanted, needed, to believe that you were.’

He stared at her, saying nothing. ‘Why would she choose to do that?’

‘Because she loved you, why else? She didn’t want to lose you. She says on the tape how she lost her son twice and hoped you would forgive her for the hurt you suffered.’

‘I was either a foundling or illegitimate,’ he snarled. ‘I don’t know which. Not much of a start in life, is it? If the former, as Florrie insisted was the case, then Daisy only kept me out of pity, because she felt sorry for me as she did for Megan and Trish. Just another evacuee. We were her compensation for the baby she lost, not a genuine, heartfelt love. That’s what has haunted me all my life. ’

‘Oh, no, I can’t believe she’d ever simply do things out of pity. She adored Megan and Trish, I can tell that from the tone of her voice let alone all the other evidence I’ve heard. As for you, you were special. You were her
son
. Whatever the truth, whether you were her own natural child or adopted, she wanted to keep you out of love for you, not pity. None of it was your fault, nor Daisy’s, and nothing at all to be ashamed of. I expect she was angry with Florrie for telling you, for putting that doubt into your mind but Florrie was an old and bitter woman. You’ll have to forgive her too.’

He looked at her then, his eyes beseeching her to convince him.

‘Dad,’ Laura said. ‘I love you too,’ and she put her arms around him and hugged him.

‘And I love you,’ he mumbled into her collar.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Clem had no objection to the two little girls staying on, not if it meant that Daisy would stay with them, and personally went to see the billeting officer to make it all legal and above board. ‘Just what we need, to have a couple of young ‘uns about the place,’

‘They can help with the cleaning,’ Daisy said, laughing when they both pulled mock faces of dismay, for their shining eyes were telling quite a different story.

They quickly came to love the old man and readily obeyed his every word, trailing behind him wherever he went. ‘Like Mary and her flippin’ lamb,’ he would say with a chortle of mirth, secretly delighted to have such adulation.

Clem showed them how to collect eggs from the hens, still warm from the nests, without getting pecked by the bad tempered cockerel. He taught them how to cut peat and trundle it back to the shed in an old wooden coup cart. They were allowed to help wash and carefully dry the lamp glasses, so long as they were careful, but were never permitted to use matches, or go anywhere near the paraffin. The ceremony of lighting the lamps was strictly in Clem’s domain.

He was quite strict with them in other ways too, making it clear they must never come anywhere near his plough, harrow or other sharp implements which he kept in the barn. ‘Farms are dangerous places, these aren’t playthings and this isn’t toy town, so think on, leave well alone. We don’t want no chopped off fingers messing up the works, now do we?’

Trish gave a delicious squeal of horror while Megan solemnly shook her head.

But it wasn’t all work. He tied a bit of plank to a length of rope and hung it from the big old ash tree behind the house. The pair of them would happily swing on it for hours. Sometimes, he let them take jam sandwiches and a bottle of tea down to the beck and they’d tuck up their skirts and paddle, Daisy along with them, something they’d never had the opportunity to do in their lives before. And he bought them a tin hat each for sixpence at the church jumble sale, just like the one William wore in the Richmal Crompton books. They were rarely seen without them after that.

‘Well, at least them two nippers is ready for the invasion, even if we aren’t,’ he quipped.

Their favourite task was to feed the calves and Dolly the old shorthorn cow. Megan loved their big brown eyes and long lashes, and Trish loved anything that made Megan happy. They’d fill a bucket with water down at the beck, and another of feedstuffs mixed to Clem’s secret recipe and stand quietly by, watching while they dipped in their noses and munched away. When the bucket was completely empty the calves would lick their hands instead, their rough tongues making the children shriek with laughter.

Miss Copthorne found them a place in the village school and marched them there every morning at breakneck speed. ‘Perhaps we might purchase a bicycle each,’ she suggested one day, when she saw Trish having difficulty in keeping up.

Megan said gloomily, ‘It would be fine riding down in the morning, but cycling back up the lane every afternoon wouldn’t be much fun.’ Anyway, she loved to dawdle, nibbling “bread and cheese” from the hedgerows, as the local children called the hawthorn leaves that grew along each side of the lane.

The evacuee class used the schoolroom in the mornings, while the village children had it in the afternoon. When the children couldn’t work inside, they put on their coats and were taken for long rambles to study flowers and trees, draw pictures, do bark rubbings and potato prints, or do some digging and weeding on the school allotment. And then they held a school concert and Megan and Trish pretended to be the famous music hall act, Gert and Daisy. They had the whole school in tucks of laughter, even Miss Copthorne.
 

It felt a bit odd to be with Miss Copthorne all day as their teacher, and then to walk home with her after school and have her turn into one of Daisy’s lodgers. They tried not to speak to her much in the evenings when she was in any case generally busy marking homework, or filling in forms, about which she complained a good deal on their long trek homeward.

‘I have to fill them in for everything: milk, clothing, national savings, not to mention dozens more from the clinic and several from the canteen. Anyone would think I had nothing else to do all day but collect information to put on these pestiferous forms.’

Megan would maintain a shrewd silence but Trish’s eyes would grow round. She always loved it when her teacher used rude words.

It was an unforgettable summer, and in September while Russian pilots flying Hurricanes and Spitfires desperately defended Leningrad, Clem looped a piece of string through a National Dried Milk tin and the pair went happily off blackberry picking, without a care in the world.

All in all, everything was going well for Daisy too. September was by tradition a month for shows. Clem had reminisced for days over how it used to be before the war, the serious discussions that would take place over whether the animal was well ribbed up, if its ears were pricked at just the right angle. And how he generally won a prize or two for the carefully bred tups and ewes he showed. Because of the war most shows had now been cancelled, but the one Clem was attending today was still going ahead. It would be a mere shadow of its former self, of course, more of a shepherd’s meet for the purpose of buying and selling prize stock, borrowing tups and returning strayed ewes; a time to have a bit of a crack and a chance to share problems. He’d wanted Daisy and the children to go with him but she’d said no, there was too much to do.