‘My dear child.’ The doctor’s voice was even more gentle now. ‘Surely you understand they will get to know? With the best will in the world someone, at some time, will tell them the news.’
She had to make him
see
. Daisy schooled her voice to sound more matter-of-fact as she said quietly, ‘I’ve met these people, Doctor, I know how their minds work. They want to pretend they never had a daughter because of what she has done, it’s more comfortable that way. But should the bairn be presented to them they would take it and out of spite and . . . and shame they would get rid of it. I’m sure their intention was to put Margery in the workhouse when they discovered her condition. They wouldn’t think twice about disposing of my brother’s bairn in the same way. We have lost Tom and nothing can bring him back. Please don’t make us lose his son too.’
Edmund Hogarth stared into the face he would later describe to his wife as memorable, but made no reply. Daisy watched him close his eyes after a moment or two, his head bowed and shaking slowly from side to side. The wait for him to speak seemed interminable but something told her not to rush him. And then he said, ‘You are placing me in a very difficult position.’
White-faced and dry-eyed now, she said, ‘You have advised us of the correct procedure regarding Margery’s parents and if anyone asked I would make that perfectly clear, you have my word on that, Doctor. But I can assure you Margery’s mam and da won’t pursue their grandchild; as far as they’re concerned they don’t have one. Can . . . can we leave it at that? For all you know we are going to follow your instructions and inform them about the wee laddie.’
The doctor raised his head. ‘Who would care for him? You provide for the family, I understand, and I’m sure your mistress would object to a baby being foisted upon her.’
‘I can see to him, Doctor.’ Tilly’s voice was eager. ‘With five of me own one more’ll make no difference, an’ with me youngest in the process of being weaned an’ me always providing milk to feed twins we wouldn’t even need to find a wet nurse.’
Doctor Hogarth stared into the rough, workworn face of the woman beside him who had lost her husband a few months ago and looked twenty years older than her twenty-eight years. Then his gaze moved to Nellie whose emaciated frame was positively skeletal but whose eyes had more life in them than he saw in many women half her age. Lastly his gaze fastened on Daisy. In the hurry and distress of the last hours her hair had come loose and a few shining silky strands were curling about her face. Those lovely eyes were beseeching him. He knew when he was beaten.
‘I shall speak of this to no one,’ he said gruffly, ‘and of course it is no one else’s business anyway.’
‘Thank you.’
Doctor Hogarth said nothing. He was standing in a miserable fisherman’s cottage that was without any of the niceties his wife would take for granted. It smelt, it was filled with the lowest of the working class, their enunciation poor and without refinement, and yet he knew this child was fortunate. He himself had been brought up in a rambling mansion overlooking its own private two miles of beach, the eldest of four boys who had all gone on to carve a niche for themselves in the medical world in some form or other, but there hadn’t been an ounce of what he was feeling now in his childhood and youth. His wife too was very well bred, but - thank God, and he did, daily - Charlotte loved him and theirs was a marriage and home filled with the same closeness and support he sensed in this room, despite their disappointment about being unable to have children.
‘It’s a momentous task you are taking on, that of providing for someone else’s child, and it will have far-reaching effects on your life. Do you understand this?’ he asked softly after some moments. ‘It needs thinking about, and very carefully.’
Silence fell on the room for a second, and then the young girl with the amazing eyes looked him full in the face. ‘He’s not someone else’s child, he’s mine now,’ she said, even more softly, and such was the conviction in her voice that the good doctor knew there was no more to be said.
Part 3
Friends and Enemies
1903
Chapter Fifteen
It was Daisy’s nineteenth birthday. The fierce gales which had been sweeping the country for over two weeks had blown themselves out, though not before wreaking havoc and destruction in the north. But now a September sun was shining warmly on the tall young woman making her way to the waiting carriage.
Daisy had changed considerably in the last three years. Not so much in her physical appearance, although her height had shot up some inches and she was now tall for a woman at five foot nine inches, the main transformation was in her manner and her speech. Thanks to the tutor Wilhelmina had employed for the first year of Daisy’s stay at Evenley House her vocabulary and diction had improved enormously.
As well as encouraging her to delve into different areas of literature, Wilhelmina had made sure her young companion became acquainted with certain aspects of political and social reform, not least the case for women’s suffrage. There was much which Daisy found disturbing as well as fascinating in her studies, but the more she learnt, the more determined she became that she would make a good life for herself and her lad - that was how she thought of Tom’s little boy, as her son, her own - once her time at Evenley House came to a finish. Her goal was to have little Tommy with her all the time and she had thought long and hard about this, with the result that some time before she had purchased a book and was now teaching herself the rudiments of shorthand. However, Wilhelmina having become increasingly frail, Daisy was now in a position where she did almost everything for her mistress which left little free time, but the idea of a secretarial career in the future had been planted in her and Daisy was determined to hold on to it.
Her Sunday afternoons with Tommy were the most precious things in Daisy’s life, and in spite of only seeing her once a week the child’s feeling for her was something quite separate from the way he felt about anyone else, even Tilly. He loved Daisy every bit as much as she loved him.
The nature of Tommy’s arrival and the bond which had been forged between them had played a large part in helping Daisy to come to terms with Parson Lyndon’s defection. After he hadn’t called for a week or more she had expressed concern that he was unwell to Wilhelmina, and it had been then her mistress had confessed about an altercation she’d had with him after he had called on her to ask a few pertinent questions. The good parson had clearly misjudged the intelligence of Sir Augustus’s sister, and after she had forced him to explain himself further and the matter of the letter had been raised, he had received short shrift from the old lady who had terminated their friendship.
Daisy had been first angry and then terribly hurt, a feeling of humiliation taking hold of her which had been difficult to shake off for some time. She had thought Hector Lyndon was her friend, and after William’s departure for foreign shores the parson’s interest in her - which she had recognised as more than mere benevolence - had been a balm to her sore heart. Moreover, she had liked him very much. Whether anything more would have come from their friendship was another matter, but it had pained her that the parson could dismiss her from his life so cursorily and without even the courtesy of allowing her to defend herself against vile accusations. In such an atmosphere little Tommy’s unconditional love had been all the sweeter, causing her often to count her blessings and eventually put the matter of the parson behind her.
This was not so easy where William was concerned. The way he had forsaken her, without so much as a goodbye, had cut deep, and as the months and years passed she’d made herself hate him. And she would go on hating him; it was vital protection for the day she would hear of his engagement to some fine lady or other from across the sea . . .
Once Daisy had seated herself in the carriage, Harold clicked his tongue and the pony ambled off. This had been accomplished without Daisy or he exchanging a word.
Daisy eyed the back of Harold’s head upon which his flat cap sat like an aggrieved pancake. There was always the same cold silence from the cook’s husband when they made a detour to this part of town after Daisy had taken care of any purchases Miss Wilhelmina wanted. Of course the network of streets stretching west from Monkwearmouth docks
was
grim, and the terraced dwelling Daisy had just visited was in a street close to Potato Garth, a well-known haunt of dockside dollies, but that was where Molly’s sister lived so it couldn’t be helped.
She had first heard of the desperate plight of this family, struggling to keep their heads above water and avoid the workhouse after the breadwinner had suffered an accident in the North Sands shipyard, a few months ago on her weekly visit home. Molly’s brother-in-law had suffered serious injuries in the fall which had put him in the Sunderland Infirmary, and his wife and seven bairns - all under ten years old - had been in dire straits. It wasn’t an uncommon story, but with the brother-in-law coming from the south and Molly and her bairns already having moved back in with her mam and da after Molly’s husband was lost along with Daisy’s father and brothers, there had been no help forthcoming from normal channels.
Daisy had gone to see Molly after Tilly had put her in the picture. She had always liked the big jolly fishergirl and felt an extra kinship with her somehow as a result of Molly’s husband perishing in the same storm which had taken Daisy’s father and brothers. The outcome of this visit had been a trip into Monkwearmouth on her next half-day off after she had spent some hours with Tommy, although she had persuaded Kitty to go straight home from the fishing village, knowing her friend would incur Gladys’s wrath if she was late back.
Molly’s sister’s house had been steaming with the washing the woman was taking in in a desperate effort to make ends meet, and poverty was evident in her gaunt frame and the bairns’ hungry faces. The gratitude the poor woman had displayed when Daisy had given her enough money to clear the backlog of rent and buy food and fuel for the week had been thanks enough for the depletion in Daisy’s savings. Over the next few weeks she had made two more visits to Molly’s sister’s, and it had been the Monday after the last call when Wilhelmina had taken her to task.
Was it true she was in the habit of visiting a less than salubrious part of Monkwearmouth on her half-day off, her mistress had inquired, and in the late evening at that? Daisy had stared into Wilhelmina’s cold face and for a moment it was as though the letter Parson Lyndon had received was right there between them. It took all her self-control to bite back the sharp retort which sprang to mind and to say, quietly and with dignity, ‘Respectability is not confined to grand houses or clean streets, ma’am. The family I visit are good people who have fallen on hard times.’
‘Explain.’
She had explained, and although it was clear Wilhelmina had believed her the old lady had still asked her not to visit them again but to send any gifts or moneys through Molly. It was only when Daisy said she couldn’t hurt Molly’s sister’s feelings by cutting her in such a way that her mistress had said, and tersely, that if Daisy meant to persist in such a venture herself then she must do so in daylight hours during the week, and Harold would take her. Relations between Daisy and her mistress had been strained for a few days over what Wilhelmina saw as her companion’s obstinacy, but when Daisy walked out to the carriage on the day the old lady had designated she’d discovered a hamper full of food along with a sack of potatoes and another of coal.
Wilhelmina had brushed her thanks aside with an abrupt, ‘I’m sure you need the pennies you put by more than me, child,’ but things were back on their old footing again and Daisy was glad. When Kitty had discovered it had been her parents who had caused the storm in a teacup after Gladys had sent Harold to spy on Daisy’s visits, it had seemed poetic justice that Gladys had to prepare the food and Harold drive her to Monkwearmouth on future calls.
As the carriage left the oppressiveness of the town Daisy’s thoughts moved to the coming afternoon. Miss Wilhelmina had said she could change her half-day off this week in order to see her family on her birthday, but she hadn’t told her grandmother, aiming to surprise the old woman. Now she hugged the thought to her. Her granny would get a gliff and no mistake.
As it happened, it was Daisy herself who was surprised and not a little frightened as she approached the cottages by means of the road over the sand dunes from Fulwell. She suddenly felt herself lifted right off her feet by a brawny arm round her waist, and twisted frantically to see who had grabbed her from behind.
‘Alf!’ Her voice wasn’t as strong as she would have liked.
‘Who else?’ He had been laughing but then, as he lowered Daisy to her feet and she turned to face him, his smile vanished as he took in her angry expression. ‘Aw, don’t go on, lass.’ His voice was placating. ‘It was just a bit of fun.’