The Lost And Found Girl (18 page)

‘Boyd!’ Daisy yelled at the top of her voice. ‘Wait for me!’

‘Go back home before Father catches you.’ He climbed into the driver’s seat of the wagon and took hold of the reins.

‘He’s gone shooting.’ Daisy scrambled up to stand beside him clutching her basket in one hand and her bonnet ribbons in the other.

‘Already?’

She nodded vigorously. ‘Honest. While you were hitching the cart, I saw him take his gun and a meat pie.’ She turned and beamed at her beloved brother. ‘So he won’t know, will he?’

But Boyd’s response was a frown. ‘Mother will. You should be helping her with dinner.’

‘We’re not having dinner until Father comes home at tea-time. She said I could take these eggs to sell.’

Boyd lifted the cloth covering the basket’s contents. ‘I sold
some to the cooper’s wife yesterday. She won’t want any more.’

‘Why didn’t you say?’ He didn’t answer so Daisy went on, ‘Does Mother know you took some eggs?’

‘She didn’t miss them, did she? The hens are laying well. Besides, you collect them for her.’

Realisation dawned on Daisy. ‘You’ve kept the money!’

‘Lower your voice. And sit down if you are coming with me.’

A troubled expression clouded Daisy’s pretty eyes. ‘I’d rather stand for a bit.’

‘Don’t be daft.’

‘I’ll get a better view.’ Daisy noticed his frown and added, ‘Please. I never go anywhere except to church.’

‘Climb in the back then, and hold on to the side.’

Daisy secured her basket and clambered over the wooden struts. Boyd flicked the reins and their old carthorse lumbered forward. ‘Why are you going to the cooper’s again?’ she asked.

‘The brewery needs more barrels.’

‘Oh well, I could go on to the brewery with you, then.’

‘No, Daisy! You know you’re not supposed to go any further than the cooper’s workshop. You’ll have to walk back from there.’

‘What about my eggs?’

‘I’ll take them on to the brewery for you.’

‘Oh, let me come with you, Boyd. Father won’t even let me go to market because I have to clean the house.’

‘I’ll be gone all day and Mother will be furious with you.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘You will if she clips you one round the head.’

Daisy chewed on her lips. The wheals from her last whipping had not yet healed, and she winced at the memory.

‘She won’t. I’m bigger than she is, she doesn’t hit me anymore.’

‘I should hope not. You’re not a child anymore. You’re seventeen and a grown woman.’

‘She asks Father to beat me instead.’

‘Father beats you? Dear heaven, Daisy, why didn’t you tell me? What does he use?’

‘His – his—’ Her behind was still painful after a week. ‘His cane.’

‘No! Oh Daisy, that hurts. He used that on me before I threatened to wrench it from him. He’s a brute. He’s my own father and I hate him.’

‘Me too.’

Even so, Daisy was shocked to hear him say it. She hated her sanctimonious mother as much as she did her father but she hardly dared say so. Honour thy father and mother, the Bible said. Suffer the little children too. Yes, the little children suffered in their house.

‘Mother and Father are quite old, aren’t they?’ she said. ‘Do you think they’ll die soon?’ Daisy wished they would. She knew it was wicked but she wanted them dead all the same.

‘I hope not. I’m not old enough to take over the cottage tenancy yet and even if I were, where would I find a quarter’s rent?’

‘We could take things to market,’ Daisy suggested hopefully. ‘We could go together. It would be fun.’

‘It wouldn’t be enough to keep both of us.’ He sounded disgruntled and Daisy wished she hadn’t mentioned earning because it made him irritable. ‘But it would if I worked for someone else,’ Boyd went on, adding, ‘At least I’d get a wage for my labours.’

His suppressed anger clutched at Daisy’s heart. Father didn’t give money to either of them for their efforts. Daisy
didn’t mind for herself but she knew that Boyd was angry. Father expected Boyd to labour from morning until night doing all the outside chores and the carrier work, while he went off shooting or fishing. Her father couldn’t be very good at either, Daisy thought, because he hardly ever brought home anything for tea. Boyd said he sold his bag and drank it.

Anxiously Daisy asked, ‘You wouldn’t leave, would you?’

‘I’m nineteen going on twenty,’ he muttered. ‘There are men my age down the pit earning enough for lodgings.’

Her heart began to thump in fear. Daisy’s life was hard enough already without having to face it without him. ‘Don’t go, Boyd,’ she pleaded. ‘I’d hate it here with just those two.’

‘Don’t you fret yourself. I wouldn’t leave you.’ He twisted his neck to give her a smile and she felt better. But her anxiety didn’t really go away for she knew he was as unhappy as she was.

‘What will happen to us?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know. But I promise I’ll look after you. I won’t let anyone treat you like they do.’

Daisy leaned forward and kissed the back of his head. His thick hair had stayed fair as he grew up and nowadays he had a good growth of beard to shave off for church on Sundays. Daisy’s light-brown locks were darker than his but they became streaked with gold in the summer sun and the blue of her eyes intensified when her skin took on a little colour.

She did love her brother. But no matter how much she tried to do her duty, she found it very hard to love her mother and father. It was so difficult to warm to someone who never showed you any affection or even praised you. She was just a servant to her mother, doing all the dirty jobs in the cottage and forever at her bidding. The only time she
had the total attention of her parents was when her father was punishing her while her mother watched. She was punished for the least little thing she had forgotten or not completed to her mother’s satisfaction. She really did try to do better. But she would have run away before now if it hadn’t been for her beloved Boyd.

Boyd always took her side even if it meant he got a beating too. But Father didn’t beat him now he was full grown and more than capable of hitting back. Anyway Boyd had been turned out of their tiny house to live in the shed these past ten years and he didn’t know what went on in the cottage after tea at night. Smaller, younger, weaker Daisy was the focus of her mother’s righteousness and her father’s discontent with his life.

Daisy didn’t tell Boyd any more for she feared he would make matters worse. Whenever Boyd had stuck up for her in front of Father, Daisy had been given extra punishment, ‘for engaging others in your wickedness’, he told her between strokes. He may be an old man but he could still wield a cane with maximum effect. Well, Boyd knew about it now.

The cooper’s yard and workshop came into view. ‘You’d better go back from here,’ Boyd said.

‘But I don’t want to,’ she whined.

‘You’ll only suffer more. You know what Mother and Father are like about disobedience.’

‘Can’t you say one of the cart wheels came loose and we were held up?’

‘How would I explain getting the barrels to the brewery? Father will be over here tomorrow for his money.’

‘When Mother and Father die, we’ll have that money,’ Daisy pointed out.

‘You don’t really want them to die, do you?’

‘Yes I do because then you and me can be married and live on our own in the cottage.’

‘Don’t start on that again. I’ve told you before. You can’t marry me! I’m your brother. I thought you’d grown out of all that silliness.’

‘But I want to.’

‘Now stop it, Daisy. You’re old enough to understand these things. When you grow up you meet someone from outside your family and fall in love with them, and then you marry that person.’

Daisy could not imagine meeting someone who would be as dear to her as Boyd and as she was reflecting on this he added, ‘Well, if you’re lucky, you marry her.’

He sounded sad and she glanced at him again. He was more grown up than she was. She suddenly realised the truth of what he was saying. He had met someone he did want to marry. Who was she?

Daisy stood up straight. Mother and Father let her go to church with Boyd so she was often with him. She thought hard. There was no one at church that he looked out for or spoke to. The only place he went alone was to deliver the new barrels to the brewery. It was someone there; someone at the brewery that he wanted to be with more than he wanted her. Who was she, this someone who was taking her darling brother away from her? Well, she certainly wasn’t going to go back home now. She wanted to see who it was.

‘I’m coming to the brewery with you,’ she decided. ‘I’ll say I got down but climbed back when you weren’t looking and hid in one of the barrels. Then none of it is your fault.’

Boyd pursed his mouth and frowned. ‘You’ve got an answer for everything, you have. And you’ve put on your good gown. Oh, Daisy, why do you do these things?’

Daisy smoothed down her skirts. ‘I like it and I’m only allowed to wear it on Sundays. It’s not fair.’

‘Well, it certainly won’t be if you get it dirty or tear it. Go home to Mother.’

‘No, I won’t. She’ll make me scrub all the floors – even the ones that don’t need doing – while she reads the Bible at me. I can’t spend my days doing that for ever. I only want a little fun. Is it too much to ask?’

‘No, it isn’t. It’s just that I’m worried for you. More so now I know about the beatings. I’ll make a detour and drop you in the village to sell your eggs.’

‘But I want to go to the brewery,’ she insisted.

Boyd gave an exasperated sigh and flicked the reins. ‘Well, I don’t want to waste my time going to the village just for the eggs.’

‘Then don’t.’

‘Listen to me. When we get there, you’re not to go off on your own. I mean it, Daisy. A young girl like you can get into a lot of trouble.’

‘I can go with you, then?’

‘I suppose so. I’ll think of something to tell Mother and Father, but I’m not that good at lying.’

‘I’ll explain. You’re not to say anything. It only makes it worse for me.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Nothing.’ Daisy dwelt briefly on the real possibility of a beating, pushed the notion to the back of her mind and commented, ‘Father let you go with him to the brewery when you were only ten.’

‘It’s different for lads.’

Daisy didn’t have an answer for this because she knew that it was. She’d had lessons at Sunday school until Mother
put a stop to it as she needed her home to cook the Sunday dinner. So although she could read and write well, apart from the few sermons she’d listened to, Daisy knew very little about the world around her except for what her parents told her.

The wagon with its valuable load of empty barrels bumped along the track until it left the woodland and joined the turnpike for town. The cooper’s had made barrels since before the brewery came into existence. Boyd Higgins was welcomed as a more reliable carrier than his father had been. Daisy was serious about wishing her parents dead. As soon as he was one and twenty Boyd could set up as a carter in his own right. Daisy could keep house for him and even though they could not marry they could be together and look out for each other. Boyd couldn’t argue with that. It’s what brothers and sisters were for, wasn’t it?

Daisy dreamed of that day. In her dream there were no parents, only the two of them, a horse and cart, the hens and – and some geese and a pig to see them through the winter.

‘Do you think the cooper will always want to send barrels to the brewery?’ Daisy asked.

‘They will. The South Riding pits and furnaces produce thirsty workers as well as coal and iron. There’s a tavern on every corner in the town. But they might not always want me to be their carrier, unless I do a good job. So you behave yourself, Daisy Higgins.’

Boyd turned the horse’s head into the brewery yard. Daisy inhaled the heady smells and her eyes darted backwards and forwards taking in the tall brick buildings and chimneys. Boyd carefully negotiated his wagon and several working men wandered outside to watch. One took the horse’s bridle and Boyd tossed him the reins. ‘Wait here, Daisy, while I’m in the office.’

‘Let me take the eggs round to the kitchen. I want to see in the house,’ Daisy said as she hitched up her skirt and clambered over the front of the cart to the driving seat.

‘
Daisy, keep your legs covered! I can see your garters.’

Boyd was too late to stop her. A ripple of comments and whistles from the brewery workers attracted more of their fellows outside and when she righted herself and straightened her bonnet she had a gathering audience. Boyd had covered his eyes with his hand and was shaking his head slowly.
‘You’re too old for those capers now, Daisy,’ he whispered. ‘You’ll get a reputation.’

‘I’m sorry.’ She should have thought! She clutched the egg basket tightly and began counting them earnestly.

A voice called, ‘What do you do for an encore, lass?’

Daisy blushed and looked at her feet. When she glanced at Boyd his face was like thunder.

‘Haven’t you got work to do,’ he growled at the man.

At the same time the brewer appeared from his office building and strode across to the wagon. ‘What’s going on out here? Get back to work, all of you. I’ll tell you when you can unload.’ He looked angry too and Daisy concentrated on the contents of her basket.

‘My sister Daisy, sir,’ Boyd explained. ‘She has some new-laid eggs from our hens.’

‘Take them into the house, lass. The kitchen is round the back.’

The house was another high brick-built affair across the yard from the brewery. The brewer and his family lived there behind a large front door at the top of a flight of stone steps. The kitchen was underneath. Daisy followed a stone-flagged footpath round the side of the house and found a girl hanging out bedsheets on a network of washing lines in the yard. She was older than Daisy and quite plump. Her breasts pushed out her apron top. Daisy noticed these things on other girls and compared herself with them. She was thinner than this girl and her breasts were smaller.