And now there was the affair of the fishergirl. True, she deserved some recompense for assisting his son, although he doubted if her part in the proceedings had been quite as dramatic as William would have them believe. Sir Augustus had tried to tell his son that these half-remembered images and memories he had could just as likely have been caused by the bump on his head than be based on truth, but the boy would have it that he had been sinking to the depths of the ocean before this fishergirl had intervened. Certainly Kirby seemed to think the rescue tale had been grossly exaggerated in favour of the young girl standing before them now. But Sir Augustus would get to the bottom of what had really happened. He had spent too many years meting out justice as a local magistrate not to recognise fabrication when he heard it.
Sir Augustus looked at the person in question and saw to his annoyance that the chit was staring back at him. So Kirby had been right. This girl, young as she was, was clearly used to earning her living in a manner which made her bold.
‘I understand from my son that you played a part in assisting him on the day the
Aquitania
was lost. Is this so?’ His voice was quiet but every word distinct and clear.
Daisy blinked. She didn’t understand where this was leading but it felt odd, strange. It was almost as though Sir Augustus thought she had done something wrong, but how could it be wrong to save his son from drowning? She found she had to moisten her lips before she could say, ‘Yes, sir.’ And although she didn’t look at anyone but Sir Augustus she was conscious of four other pairs of eyes trained on her.
‘I would like you to relay to me the series of events which took place from the first moment you saw the ship. Can you do that?’
He was talking to her as though she was half sharp, an imbecile like poor Amy Croft with her slobbering mouth and unintelligible ramblings. Daisy stared into the hard dark face before her and unconsciously brought her shoulders back and her chin up. ‘Of course I can do that, sir,’ she said evenly, and then she spoke a word she hadn’t even realised was in her vocabulary, but which had been planted there on witnessing an altercation between Farmer Gilbert and a shop owner who had come to the farm complaining the farmer had short changed him on the number of potato sacks he had delivered. ‘An’ there are plenty of folk back at the village who can corroborate what I say an’ all.’
Sir Augustus’s expression didn’t change by so much as the flicker of an eyelash, neither did he move, but Daisy was aware of an indignant rustling of taffeta from his womenfolk, and of William throwing the blanket to one side as he stood up, saying, ‘I am sure that will not be necessary, Miss Appleby. Please, do come and sit down and make yourself comfortable, and then perhaps you would be kind enough to do as my father has asked.’
Silence fell, and continued while Daisy sat down on the exquisitely upholstered chair William had indicated. She knew she had turned rosy red, but it was less to do with her temerity in daring to speak as she had than with the look on William’s face when he had smiled at her. He hadn’t just smiled with his mouth but with his eyes, and they had applauded her firm stand.
‘William, sit down, dear.’ Gwendoline was a lady born and bred, and everything about her proclaimed this from her softly spoken voice to her gracious manner. She came from an old and wealthy county family but her grandfather had had the foresight to reach his fingers into all sorts of pies, including boat building, thus reinforcing the family’s assurance of their own superiority as natural leaders.
As far as William’s mother was concerned the world was quite simply divided into those who led and those who were fit only to be led, or as Lady Warwick put it, rural society was ‘a small select aristocracy born booted and spurred to ride, and a large dim mass born saddled and bridled to be ridden’.
Consequently she was furiously angry with her beloved son right at this minute for forgetting himself so far as to address this common fishergirl as an equal, but the only sign of this was in the rigidity of her back. Her voice, manner and face were as gracious and cool as ever, even when she had to repeat herself and say, ‘William, dear? You know you should be resting. The doctor said no exertion.’
‘I don’t think he meant I had to be cocooned in cotton wool, Mother, and the heat from the fire is excessive.’ So saying he took a chair a few feet to the left of Daisy, and as he sat down, said, ‘When you’re ready, Miss Appleby.’
He shouldn’t be talking to her the way he was, his mam didn’t like it. Daisy’s senses, which had always been more finely tuned than most people’s, were alert to the tension in the woman. And the rest of them were the same. Her gaze flickered over the two elongated plain young women with smooth hair and cold eyes who were sitting on the chaise-longue. But it was nice of him to try and put her at her ease, which was what he was doing. William was kind, she could see that, and different from the rest of his family. Daisy took a deep breath and began to speak.
She was careful not to embroider the facts at all but neither did she think this was a time for false modesty, and although she paused once or twice to collect her thoughts her voice was clear and concise as she related exactly what had happened that morning on the beach.
When she came to a halt at the point where Josiah Kirby had first knocked on the door, silence reigned again. Felicity and Cecilia Fraser looked at their mother and Gwendoline looked at her husband, then they all looked at William who hadn’t taken his eyes off Daisy, and Augustus broke the silence by addressing his son. ‘It seems you are a very fortunate young man, m’boy.’
It was Augustus’s way of saying that he believed Daisy’s account of what had happened and William recognised it as such, but at the same time as a feeling of relief made itself known he experienced a surge of anger. Why couldn’t they simply thank this girl for saving his life? Why was it so hard? There was nothing difficult about it as far as he could see. What did they think she would want as a reward, for crying out loud, the family silver?
He brought his eyes reluctantly away from Daisy’s pink face and looked straight at his father. ‘I couldn’t agree more. I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone - man, woman or child - in the whole of Sunderland and Newcastle or beyond who would attempt what Miss Appleby did, and for a stranger at that. Yes, Father, I am indeed a fortunate young man to have made the acquaintance of Miss Daisy Appleby.’
Sir Augustus kept a smile on his face with some effort. This was exactly the sort of response which so irritated him with regard to William. His son should express proper appreciation for what had certainly been a courageous act, of course, but the girl was a menial of the most base kind and a little restraint was in order here. This misplaced sympathy for the lower classes had caused William to embarrass them all greatly not so long ago when over dinner one night his son had all but accused a guest, a wealthy and influential mine owner, of employing slave labour in criminally unsafe working conditions. That had resulted in the boy being sent on his latest trip across the Channel to stay with his French cousins, out of harm’s way. It had been on his return from that trip that William nearly lost his life. And here he was now, acting almost as though there was no difference between himself and a common fishergirl.
‘Quite.’ Sir Augustus turned from his son and trained cold eyes on the person in question. He didn’t like to admit it but this was one of the rare occasions when he had been surprised by someone. From what Kirby had intimated he had expected to see a coarse, brash young woman brought to the house, but although Daisy Appleby had spirit he saw now he had been mistaken in his initial assumption that this boldness went hand in hand with brazenness. He had sampled many of her class in the whorehouses of Newcastle and Sunderland when he had fancied a little diversion from his more cultured mistresses, but this girl was no prostitute. Not yet anyway. She had an air of untouched innocence about her which would make her a better actress than Lillie Langtry if it wasn’t genuine. She had spoken concisely, and appeared very clean - her clothes, although threadbare and patched, were proper - but there was something more, and it annoyed him that he couldn’t quite define it. If she had been other than she was, a fishergirl, he could have thought it a self-possession born of dignity.
He had been of the mind when William had first insisted that something must be done for the girl to summon the wench to the house and give her a generous purse, but now, having seen her and heard her story, he wasn’t so sure. Surely it would be a more fitting reward for her service to his son if the girl was given the chance to escape her background.
She could train as a maid of some kind. He could leave the finer details to the redoubtable Mrs Finlay - he understood from Kirby that his housekeeper kept the indoor staff on their toes, which was all to the good. And perhaps, if the chit proved suitable and of a pleasing disposition, she could progress to attending his daughters? She was presentable enough. Sir Augustus inhaled deeply, feeling rather pleased with himself as he said, ‘I understand you told Mullen that your father and two of your brothers were lost at sea in the same storm in which the
Aquitania
went down? Do you have other family?’
Daisy lifted her head. ‘Yes, sir. Three brothers, all married with families of their own, an’ there’s me granny. She lives with us - with me,’ she corrected quickly, flushing again.
Sir Augustus nodded abruptly. He wasn’t interested in the girl’s family but from what Mullen had discovered it would appear Appleby had lost her provider. ‘So you are in a position to take up employment, should it be offered to you?’
Daisy stared at him, completely taken aback, and then she became aware that her mouth had fallen open in a little gape and brought it shut quickly. What was he saying? He couldn’t be offering her work, could he? Not here, in this house?
Lady Fraser had obviously been wondering the same thing because she made a small movement in her chair and said, ‘Augustus?’
He ignored his wife - a not uncommon occurrence - and spoke in the manner of one bestowing an enormous honour when he said, ‘How would you like to go into service here, girl? Work and live in Greyfriar Hall?’
‘No.’ It was an instinctive response and spoken from the heart without any consideration for where she was or to whom she was speaking. Daisy immediately tried to remedy any incivility, saying, ‘Thank you most kindly, sir, but I can’t work here.’
‘You are refusing my offer?’ Sir Augustus’s voice displayed little emotion, but his Adam’s apple moved rapidly up and down, betraying displeasure. ‘You have other employment?’
She could lie. She could make out she had other work and then that would be the end of it. Daisy’s head was in a whirl. But her granny always said that lies - proper lies, and not the little white ones you said not to hurt folk’s feelings and such - had a way of tripping you up when you least expected it, and then before you knew where you were, you found yourself up to your eyes in muck and bullets.
Daisy’s heart was thumping, but she forced herself to speak carefully although she couldn’t help stuttering a little. ‘I . . . I haven’t got other work, sir.’ If she had spoken the truth here she would have gone on to say that she had seen enough in the last few hours to know she would rather labour gutting fish on one of Sunderland’s quays from dawn to dusk than try to fit into the set-up here. Apart from hating the thought of being trapped indoors from sunrise to sunset seven days a week, and being so far from her granny and everyone, it just wasn’t in her to bow the knee constantly to this family, let alone stomach the hierarchy among that lot in the kitchen and the rest of the servants. And to
live
among them - she’d be fit for the asylum in a week. However, truth often needed to be measured out in drops and not bucketfuls - another of her granny’s sayings - and so she added politely, ‘It’s just that bein’ brought up out of doors so to speak, I couldn’t be inside all day an’ in such a great big house an’ all. I . . . I’m sorry, sir.’
‘Father--’
As William began to speak, Augustus brought up his hand in a sharp cutting movement which forbade his son to continue. He caught his wife’s eye as he did so, and read from Gwendoline’s stiff expression that she hadn’t approved of the notion of this low creature living under their roof. It only served to spur on his ideas a step further. His wife irritated him nearly as much as their son did.
Sir Augustus glanced at Daisy again, sitting with her hands lying neatly on her calico cloak which she’d pulled round her to hide the tar stain as she had sat down. Her large grey eyes were fixed on him. He cleared his throat and said, ‘There is another position which I know of in a smaller establishment where your duties would be that of nurse companion, involving morning and afternoon walks and things of that nature. There is a small staff of three or four. Is this of interest to you? Oh, and I understand your village is no more than a mile or two from Evenley House?’