Elizabeth Elgin - Daisychain Summer

‘Elliot won’t say anything – not now. If he’d been going to make trouble, he’d have made it when he realized he’d been cheated out of hopes of the title. He can’t know – not for certain – that Drew is his. Hateful though he is, I’d give him credit for keeping his mouth shut.

‘And you wouldn’t be staying long – a week, at the most? Surely for so short a time we could make sure you and he didn’t meet?’

‘ We ? You and your mother, you mean? But she doesn’t know that Elliot Sutton is Drew’s father – had you forgotten?’

‘No. But I’m trying to. From the day he was born I always thought of Drew as Giles’s son – just as mother does. You must do the same, Alice. Elliot Sutton is a womanizer and a lecher but he isn’t so stupid that he’d stand on the top of Holdenby Pike and shout it out to the three Ridings, now is he?’

‘N-no …’

‘There you are, then! We stand together, you and I – just as we did when we were nursing. We each took care of the other, in the old days – we can do it again. We’d wither cousin Elliot at a glance. And remember, Alice – I hate him as much as you do.’

‘You can’t. You don’t know what it’s like to – to’

‘To be raped by him? No, I don’t. But he’s alive and my husband was killed in that war, so I hate him more than you do – and never forget it!’

‘I believe you do,’ Alice said, wonderingly. She hadn’t thought, not for a moment, that anyone could hate him as much as she. ‘You really do …’

‘Oh, yes. And you and Daisy would be safe with me. And bring Morgan with you, if you’d feel better. Morgan hates him, too …’

‘Oh, I couldn’t come. It wouldn’t be right to leave Tom on his own. I want to come, Julia – you know I do – but how could I?’

Yet even as she said it, she knew it was only a matter of time. One day, and soon, she would return to Rowangarth. Nothing was more certain.

‘I tell you it was Alice,’ Mary Strong insisted. ‘That’s where Miss Julia has been! Miss Julia and her ladyship were talking on the telephone and it was Alice Hawthorn they were talking about! Her ladyship said, “Where are you ringing from, Julia?” and then she said, “Good. That’s handy to know if ever we need to get in touch with Alice.”’

‘Alice Sutton , don’t you mean, and have you forgotten, Mary, that parlourmaids don’t listen to private telephone conversations?’ Cook corrected, her mouth a round of disapproval. ‘And then what did she say?’

‘Then …’ Mary pushed her cup across the table to be refilled, taking another piece of cinnamon toast without so much as a by-your-leave,‘ … then her ladyship said, “And how are Daisy, and Morgan? We mustn’t forget dear old Morgan.”’

‘Alice took Morgan with her, didn’t she,’ Tilda frowned, ‘when she left for Aunt Sutton’s, I mean. And why has she stayed away so long without so much as a word? Surely she’s better, now. And who is Daisy?’

‘Don’t know anything about any Daisy,’ Mary shrugged. ‘But I happen to know that Alice keeps in touch with Miss Julia. I’ve said so all along, haven’t I? I know her writing on the envelopes.’

‘Aye, and as for us not hearing a word,’ Tilda defended, ‘we did make it pretty plain when Alice came back from France Lady Sutton that things had changed, now didn’t we?’

‘Things had to change,’ Cook murmured. ‘Alice wasn’t below stairs any more – Miss Clitherow made sure we knew that, right from the start. And we still aren’t any the wiser, are we?’

‘Curiouser, though.’ A pity, Mary thought, she’d had to move on in mid-conversation, so to speak, but there was a limit to the time it took any one person to walk across the hall. ‘Wonder if Miss Julia will tell us about it? After all, Alice is supposed to be with Miss Sutton and that’s where Miss Julia was supposed to be going. The very last thing her ladyship said to her when she left was, “Give my dearest love to Anne Lavinia, don’t forget. Tell her we don’t see half enough of her.” I heard her!’

‘A lot of supposing , for all that,’ Cook murmured, half to herself.

‘Yes, but Miss Sutton spends most of her time in France,’ Tilda insisted. There could be no doubting it when her ladyship always gave her the stamps from the envelopes for her little brother who collected them. ‘So why do Alice’s letters have a Southampton postmark on them?’

‘Hmmm.’ Cook thought long and hard, then ventured, ‘Happen letters from France get brought over to Southampton on ships and the Post Office there –’

‘Happen my foot!’ Mary interrupted, forgetting herself completely. ‘I see all the letters that come into this house and Miss Sutton’s have a Marseilles or a Nice postmark on them so why, will you tell me, don’t Alice’s?’

‘That’s enough !’ Cook snapped, aware the conversation had gone too far. ‘What Upstairs does and where their letters come from is none of our business and we’d all do well to remember it if we want to keep our positions in these hard times. And not one word of what’s been said in my kitchen is to go beyond these four walls – do I make myself clear?’ She fixed Mary with one of her gimlet glances. ‘We’re all getting as bad as Will Stubbs,’ she added as a final reminder.

‘There’ll be none hear anything from me!’ Mary countered archly. ‘Never a word passes my lips when I’m in Will’s company. I hope I know my place here and have always given satisfaction, Mrs Shaw!’

‘That you have, Mary; that you have – so don’t spoil it!’

Whereupon her ladyship’s cook rose from her chair, indicating that morning break was over. ‘Now let’s all of us be about our business. If we’re intended to know, we’ll be told when Miss Julia gets home, Tuesday. If not, then we keeps our eyes down and our mouths shut tight!’

All the same, she pondered, there were things that didn’t add up, postmarks on letters apart. Just why had Alice stayed away so long? And who was Daisy?

Clementina Sutton was in a tizzy of delight. Not only had the first visiting card she left at the house in Cheyne Walk been accepted by a servant dressed in black from top to toe, but the next day – the very next day, mark you – a card had been delivered by the black-bearded Cossack which indicated, if Russian etiquette ran parallel with English, that Clementina was now free to call. Hadn’t the Countess added the time – 10.30 – in small, neat letters in the bottom, left-hand corner, and tomorrow’s date?

The Countess . Just to think of it made Clementina glow. Merely to look at the deckle-edged card bearing what could only be the family crest embossed in gold and the name Olga Maria, Countess Petrovska beneath it, gave her immense pleasure.

She knew little of the family next door, save that they had fled St Petersburg where the Russian revolution started, though now those Bolsheviks were calling the city Petrograd, if you please! Mind, the Bolsheviks appeared to have gained the upper hand, so were entitled to call it what they wished. The last of the British troops sent to help restore the Czar to his throne had long ago left and heaven help anyone who had the misfortune to fall foul of the men – and women – who waved their triumphant red banners. Shot, like as not, just as the Czar and his family had been.

But it couldn’t happen here, Clementina insisted nervously, even though men were joining trade unions as never before and threats of strikes were always present. But they wouldn’t strike. For every man who withdrew his labour there were ten only too grateful to take his place. She dismissed the British working man from her mind, thinking instead of tomorrow’s call. Investigating the pedigree of refugee Russians and whether the daughter of the house was in the market for a husband might prove interesting. It could turn out to be an extremely enlightening talk.