‘Gran?’
When Nellie felt a warm hand close over hers she realised she had been staring at the lass without seeing her, and the look on her face must have been disturbing because Daisy was clearly agitated.
‘You feeling bad, Gran? Do you want me to get your medicine?’
‘No, lass, no.’ How many times had she held her tongue lately? It was beginning to feel like too many. Her lass was blossoming, Daisy was more beautiful each time she came home, and she was frightened for her. Gut frightened. ‘Lass, I want to say somethin’ but ’tisn’t easy. You . . . you might not thank me for voicin’ it.’
Daisy smiled a small smile. ‘Since when has that stopped you?’
Nellie couldn’t return the smile and there was a tightness in her throat. It hurt her to say anything that might take the light out of her bairn’s eyes, but she couldn’t lie here another minute without speaking. She glanced across at the others who were chatting among themselves. They were used to her and her lass talking quietly for a while when Daisy first came home. ‘It’s the lad . . . Mr William.’ The tone of her voice was different, she could hear it herself. Although still low and pitched so the others couldn’t hear, it had a rough note to it.
Nellie swallowed and tried again. ‘Lass, you know nothin’ can happen there, don’t you? Not between you and him?’
The girl’s hand left hers and Daisy tossed her head but didn’t answer. Nellie waited until the grey eyes met hers again and then she said softly, ‘Hinny, he’s a being from another world, an’ whatever you’re thinkin’ he’ll never leave it an’ you can’t enter it. You can’t, lass. It don’t happen.’
‘Gran, you don’t know that.’
‘Oh, aye, I do, lass. I do. He couldn’t survive a week workin’ like Alf or your brothers, an’ you wouldn’t survive a day trying to live like the women he’s used to. They wouldn’t let you.’ Nellie’s face held sadness touched with pity. ‘You might tell yourself it don’t matter that he’s never encountered hunger an’ hardship, that he knows nothin’ about workin’ till he drops an’ for a pittance that barely feeds a wife an’ family, but it does, lass, it does. They think different, the gentry. Right from birth they do. He might be charmin’ enough but he’ll never marry you. He’d be content to take you down, oh, aye, he’d be quick enough to do that. But marry you? Never. Never, lass.’
‘He . . . he’s not like that.’
‘Lass, they’re all like that.’
Nellie watched Daisy bow her head, her voice a whisper as she said, ‘Gran, you don’t know him.’
‘Neither do you, me bairn. Neither do you. Their world would never normally touch ours, that’s the thing. Even in them big houses like Greyfriar Hall, the upstairs an’ the downstairs still keep to their own worlds. But when you pulled him out of the sea it muddled things just enough to let you peep round the door sort of.’
‘The green baize door,’ murmured Daisy.
‘What?’
Daisy raised her head and looked straight at her grandmother. Shaking her head slowly, she said, ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘You’ll think on about what I’ve said? You know I’m right at heart, lass, don’t you? An’ it’s only ’cos I care about you.’
Daisy bent over her and kissed the grey head, but she didn’t say, ‘Aye, I know you’re right, Gran’, or, ‘Aye, I’ll think about what you’ve said’, as Nellie had hoped. Instead she reached for the empty cup in Nellie’s hand and stood up, her voice quiet and flat when she said, ‘I’ll get you another sup, Gran.’
The air was soft and warm after the heat of the day on the walk back to Evenley House, and carried the scent of wild flowers and grass in its mild caress. Tiny gnats were dancing in dying shafts of sunlight and birds were singing. It was the sort of evening that normally filled Daisy with the inexpressible joy of being alive, but tonight, even as she responded with every appearance of normality to Kitty’s chatter, her mind was going round in circles.
Her granny was worried about her, she knew that, and her granny was the last person in the world who would want to say anything which might hurt her, but Nellie didn’t
understand
. William was different from his father and the rest of them. Her heart told her so. He didn’t have a big opinion of himself, he was kind and gentle and - oh, just wonderful. She felt she really came alive when she was with him, even if Miss Wilhelmina was there too.
But when they were alone . . . The way he looked at her then . . . Her heart began to thud. Was she being stupid? He had taken her hand the last time they were alone; even before that he had always complimented her on her appearance and talked to her as though he valued her opinion and thoughts, but was that just his way? She couldn’t take her eyes from his face when he was near her; did he think she was throwing herself at him? Worse,
demanding
the sort of attention he gave her? Her stomach turned over at the thought that William’s regard might be prompted more by gratitude that she had saved his life than real interest in her as a person.
‘Eeh, the carriage from the Hall is here, an’ on a Sunday. That’s unusual.’
Kitty’s voice brought Daisy out of her reflections as they walked up the drive to Evenley House. Her head came up and she saw the waiting carriage. Was William here? Or perhaps it was just other members of the family? Lady Fraser and her daughters visited but rarely and never on horseback as Sir Augustus and William sometimes did. According to Miss Wilhelmina, Gwendoline Fraser was frightened of horses and had instilled this fear in her daughters.
Daisy compelled herself not to hurry but to continue walking at a sedate pace by Kitty’s side, but once they entered the house by the kitchen door her heart sank as she saw Josiah Kirby sitting at the table. The valet’s presence meant Sir Augustus was here, and even if William had accompanied his father she wouldn’t have a chance to speak to him directly.
Josiah had been in conversation with Harold. Neither man acknowledged the two girls’ entry into the kitchen, but the next moment Gladys appeared carrying a large silver teapot and looking more than a little flustered. Her small beady eyes flashed over her daughter and Daisy before she said to Kitty, ‘You, get your uniform on. The mistress has company an’ they want more tea.’
Kitty didn’t remind her mother that her half-day finished at midnight as Daisy had hoped her friend would do, especially after the scene which had occurred earlier. Instead she shrugged at Daisy and left the kitchen without speaking. As Daisy went to follow her, Gladys spoke again, her tone the same but the words phrased as less of an order. ‘The mistress said if you got back afore Mr Francis left, she’d like you to go along to the drawing room.’
‘Very well.’ Daisy’s face had no softness in it as she looked at the cook. ‘I shall go and tidy myself first and be along directly.’ She didn’t allow her glance to encompass the two men at the table who were now sitting watching them, she never looked at Josiah Kirby if she could help it. From her first week at Evenley House it had been war, albeit a silent one, between the two of them.
Once the kitchen door had shut behind her Daisy moved swiftly along the corridor leading to the main hall. Miss Wilhelmina hadn’t spoken directly to her about this brother, but Daisy had gleaned enough from listening to her mistress’s conversations with Sir Augustus to know she needed to be perfectly composed and in command of herself when she met him. She ran lightly up the stairs and along the landing, but on coming to the servants’ quarters and opening the green baize door she paused, fingering the coarse material for a moment once she had stepped into the uncarpeted section of the house.
Did William see her as being on one side of this door and himself on the other? His eyes, his manner, the way he looked at her sometimes could lead her to think differently, but she was being foolish to hope for anything more than what she now had, she knew that at heart. Her granny was right. His class would never accept her. Her chin came up in silent protest at the thought. The more she learnt about the gentry and their blue blood and this breeding business, the more . . . nasty it seemed to her. Their morals were such that often they didn’t marry for love but for purely worldly reasons regarding lineage or wealth, and it seemed almost acceptable for them to have associations outside their marriages. And yet they thought they had the blood-bought right to look down on decent working men and women who wouldn’t dream of behaving in such a way. It was wrong. And the more she learnt in her lessons with Mr Price, her tutor, and from her conversations with William and Miss Wilhelmina, the more she was beginning to understand that there were lots of things that were wrong at every level of society. Issues she had never questioned before.
The parson had said much the same thing the last time he had visited the mistress. He was a very intelligent and learned man, Parson Lyndon, and she had to confess she was in awe of him. He somehow seemed much older than his thirty-one years. Miss Wilhelmina had said this was because he was the only child of scholarly parents who had had him late in life and devoted themselves to his education. Daisy rarely said much when the parson was here but she enjoyed listening to the discussions he had with the mistress.
Kitty’s door opening and her friend emerging clothed in her uniform brought Daisy out of her thoughts with a bump.
‘Creeping Kirby would come today after the do with me mam,’ Kitty said, adjusting her thick bun of curls behind her cap as she spoke. ‘I bet he’d hardly got in the door before she was on about me.’
Daisy thought her friend’s nickname for the valet was very apt, having seen him dancing attendance on Sir Augustus with an obsequiousness which was sickening. ‘Kitty, your mam an’ da might work hard but you work harder,’ she said quietly. ‘You’re entitled to leave the house on your half-day and do as you please.’
‘Aye, I think so an’ all. I’ll see you downstairs then.’
As Kitty’s plump body waddled off, curls bobbing, Daisy opened the door to her room and stepped inside, flinging her straw bonnet on the bed. Five minutes later she was downstairs again after quickly changing her crumpled dress and washing her hands and face, reaching the drawing-room door just as Kitty emerged from the end corridor carrying the big silver teapot.
Daisy paused and waited for her friend to reach her.
‘I’ve just had a right ear bashing from Creeping Kirby,’ Kitty whispered indignantly, her cheeks scarlet. ‘Going on about showing me mam respect and saying that me elders are always right, he was, as if he’s in charge of us here as well as them at the Hall. He said your village was no fit place for a lass like me, and when I asked him what sort of lass that was - you know, sarcastic like - he nearly choked on his tea.’
‘I wish he had done.’ It was said with great feeling.
‘Anyway, just as I walked out I told him the mistress was quite happy for me to go with you and if he didn’t agree with that perhaps it’d be better for him to talk to her. To put his mind at rest like.’
Daisy was impressed. Kitty wasn’t usually so outspoken. No doubt her friend’s newfound courage with the valet would be laid at Daisy’s door and seen as another nail in her coffin, but that worried her not a jot.
She knocked twice at the drawing-room door and opened it, allowing Kitty to precede her with the heavy teapot before following the maid into the room.
‘Ah, Daisy. Come here, child.’ Wilhelmina had inclined her head at Kitty and motioned with her hand for the teapot to be placed on the trolley. Now she focused all her attention on Daisy, patting the space on the sofa beside her.
She walked across to her mistress and sat down, silently chastising herself for the sharp pang of disappointment she’d felt when she had realised William was not present.
Sir Augustus was sitting at the far end of the room near the french windows which were open to catch the warm evening breeze. After a cursory nod in Daisy’s direction he returned to his languid contemplation of the gardens. His brother was seated in an ornate Queen Anne chair directly facing his sister and close to the sofa. It barely seemed adequate to contain his fleshy bulk.
‘Francis, this is the new nurse companion who has been looking after me so well. Daisy - my brother, Mr Francis Fraser.’
Francis did not rise from his seat as he surveyed the young woman he had heard so much about, and from so many different sources. One did not show that courtesy to a servant. When Daisy rose and bobbed a curtsey before seating herself again, he said, ‘So . . .’ pausing for some moments before he continued, ‘You obviously have hidden talents, m’dear.’
‘I’m sorry, sir?’ Daisy kept the polite smile on her face with some effort. She didn’t think she had ever met anyone she found so instantly repulsive. Miss Wilhelmina’s younger brother was making her flesh creep.