Daisy’s first letter home was full of enthusiasm for her life for the next three years:
Dear All, she wrote, so that the letter would include everyone who would be interested.
This is a fabulous place. Fancy, I’m living in a castle! Everyone is lovely and I’ve already made a friend – Gill Portus. She’s also doing the agricultural course alongside the degree, so we spend a lot of time together. She’s from the Yorkshire Dales where her family have a farm, has a wicked sense of humour and is great fun!
Not only are there extensive orchards and vegetable plots here, but greenhouses with grapes and such, so we’re learning how and when to prune the different plants. There’s a proper farm too with a dairy herd. I am learning to milk a cow! And make cheese. We’ve got chickens, geese, turkeys: oh, there’s so much to learn. It’s wonderful. Thank you so much for supporting me coming here. It’s what I want to do for the rest of my life . . .
Robert, in particular, grinned broadly when he read Daisy’s letter.
‘Lets you off the hook nicely, doesn’t it?’ Alice teased him.
‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘But it seems it’s what she really wants to do.’
‘There’s no doubt about that, so you can stop feeling any guilt that you’re pushing her into it.’
Robert guffawed. ‘Push Daisy into anything? You must be joking. Now, who else will want to read her letters, apart from Mother and Father?’
Alice wrinkled her brow. ‘Luke, of course, and Jake. He’s so interested in all she’s doing. Probably Harry, and I would think my mam and Peggy too.’
Robert chuckled. ‘You’ve forgotten someone?’
‘Have I?’
‘Bess Cooper. She’d love to be able to share all Daisy’s news with everyone.’
‘As long as there’s nothing private in the letters, then I don’t see why not. All the village are so interested in what the next manager of the estate is going to do.’
‘Can’t blame them. Most of them get their livelihoods from the estate – in one way or another.’ He was thoughtful for a moment before saying, ‘You know, we ought to go down to see her in a few weeks’ time. Jake could take us and then he could see what she’s doing for himself.’
Alice beamed. ‘I’d love that.’
‘My goodness,’ Gill said, ‘who’s the dishy RAF pilot who picked you up on his motorcycle yesterday afternoon and didn’t bring you back until just after curfew? Mrs Gordon nearly had a fit when it got to ten past ten. You know what a stickler she is for the rules. I had an awful job persuading her not to report you.’
Gill’s eyes twinkled and Daisy knew she was teasing her. Gill had bright red hair and green eyes. She was slim and energetic and was always the leader in any escapade.
‘I’m an only child, so the family farm will pass to me,’ Gill had told her when they had first become friends. ‘Luckily, I like nothing better than plodding around in muddy wellingtons, ploughing or feeding the animals. What about you?’
Daisy had licked her lips and replied carefully, anxious not to alienate her newfound friend by appearing too grand. ‘Um – much the same, actually. My grandmother inherited the – um – land, but my father has never been interested in running things. All he ever wanted to be was a doctor, following in his father’s footsteps.’
They chatted amiably as they walked between classes, finding themselves attending lectures together and gradually learning more about each other.
‘So, you still haven’t answered my question. Who was he?’
‘Johnny Hammond. His uncle’s a friend of my aunt’s.’
‘Has he got any brothers? I’m not one to pinch another girl’s chap, but oh, I could make a beeline for him.’
‘He’s not my boyfriend,’ Daisy said and then wished she hadn’t been so quick to deny it.
Gill threw back her head and laughed. ‘Are you blind, Daisy Maitland? He’s besotted with you.’ She regarded her friend more thoughtfully. ‘But then, you’re so pretty that I expect you’re so used to having all the young fellows you meet gazing at you with cow eyes.’
Colour flooded Daisy’s cheeks, but she said nothing. She’d never really thought about it, but the way Johnny looked at her was exactly how Luke, and even Harry, regarded her.
Johnny had been her very first visitor, but towards the end of October, Jake drove Robert and Alice down to see her.
‘I wish you could have met Gill,’ Daisy said, as she showed them around the castle and its gardens, ‘but she’s working on the farm today and won’t be back until after evening milking.’
Jake gazed around him. ‘It’s wonderful, Daisy. You’ll have so many ideas when you come home.’
Daisy laughed. ‘I’m here for three years, Jake. You’ll have to hold the fort until then.’
He grinned at her. ‘You mean your granny will, but I can’t wait to try all the new ideas you’ll have.’ For a moment, his face was pensive and Daisy guessed he was a little envious that she had had the sort of chance that he could never have had. But, as if reminding himself just how lucky a scruffy little waif and stray had been to find Henrietta Maitland, his expression changed and he smiled down at her. ‘You’ll have to teach me everything you learn, Daisy.’
She put her arm through his and hugged it to her side. She loved Jake as a good friend. ‘I will, Jake. I promise.’
As they parted, Robert said, ‘I think your granny and grandpa would like to come down. Maybe in the spring when everything is starting to grow again.’ He chuckled as he glanced at Jake, who was still gazing around him as if committing everything to memory. ‘I’m sure Jake wouldn’t mind bringing them.’
Daisy worked hard and, at the end of the first term, came out top of her course. Much to her relief, Gill was a close second.
‘You must come and stay with us in the holidays,’ Gill said, as they packed up ready to go home for the Christmas holidays. ‘But bring your flannelette nighty. Winter can be a bit chilly up north. Eeh, what am I saying? You live not much further south than I do.’
Daisy smiled, thinking of the warm fires that her grandmother insisted were kept constantly burning through the long, cold days – and sometimes even nights – of winter. ‘I’d love to,’ she said, making a mental note to take her warmest clothes with her.
But an invitation to visit Yorkshire during the Christmas holidays was not forthcoming. Christmas at the hall was a merry affair, with the Dawsons, the Coopers and the Nuttalls invited to a buffet lunch as usual on Boxing Day, which was also Harry’s birthday. Conrad Everton, the doctor who worked with Robert, and his wife Florence were included in the gathering too.
Bess Cooper, as jovial and loud as ever, sought Conrad out. ‘I have to say, doctor, that when you came, we never thought you’d stay the course, but I must admit you and Master Robert make a good team. See, we’d had Dr Maitland’ – Conrad knew she was referring to Edwin – ‘for so long, we couldn’t imagine anyone taking his place, except Master Robert, of course, and even then it took a while for the older ones to accept the little lad they’d known in short trousers becoming their doctor.’ She laughed raucously. ‘But you’ve done well and we’ve all taken to you.’
Conrad smiled modestly. ‘Thank you, Mrs Cooper. I’m relieved to hear it as both my wife and I love it here.’
‘He manages very well,’ she said, nodding towards Robert on the other side of the Great Hall, ‘but it took him a while to get back into it after the war.’
‘Understandable,’ Conrad murmured.
‘Well, here’s to you and your missus, young man.’ Bess clinked her wineglass with him. ‘And here’s to 1937. Let’s hope it’s a good ’un.’
‘I’ll drink to that, Mrs Cooper.’
On the other side of the room, however, the talk between Robert and Pips was far more serious as they mulled over the events of the passing year.
‘It’s been a strange one, hasn’t it?’ Pips murmured. ‘I never – in my wildest dreams – thought we’d have an abdication.’
There had been every sign that the new king would be sympathetic towards the ordinary working man. On his visit to Wales in November, he was moved by the plight of the unemployed there, which followed the Jarrow March to London in October, highlighting the sufferings of the jobless in the north-east. But at the beginning of December, the British newspapers broke their silence that the new king, loved by so many, was locked in a romance with a twice-divorced American woman. By 12 December, he had abdicated to marry the love of his life and the burden of monarchy fell upon his brother, George.
‘He’ll be a great king, you’ll see,’ Robert remarked confidently to Pips. ‘He’s even got a good name,’ he teased his sister to which she replied with her usual ‘Oh phooey.’
Being present for the young ones’ birthdays wasn’t quite so easy now with Daisy at college and George working, but alternate Christmases were sacrosanct. And this year, it was Lincolnshire’s turn.
‘You think so? Edward was the People’s King. They don’t know his brother so well.’
‘Not yet. But he has a happy and settled family life. Give him time. He’ll win them over.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ Pips said, ‘because I don’t like the way things are shaping up in Europe again.’
‘Nor do I. Since his victory over Abyssinia, Mussolini is now declaring that Italy has its empire. It’s causing a lot of unrest and argument amongst governments and now we have a civil war in Spain.’
Pips sighed. ‘They’ll never learn, will they? You’d really think the whole world would have had enough of war, but no. What’s this skirmish all about, then?’
Robert smiled. ‘Hasn’t George told you anything? I’d have thought you’d know, better than any of us, what’s going on.’
Pips grimaced. ‘To be honest, Robert, George says very little about his work and I think it’s better that way.’
‘Surely he knows you well enough to know that you’d never ever repeat anything he told you.’ Robert grinned. ‘Not even to me.’
They laughed together. ‘Quite. But if that’s the way he feels, then I respect him. If I worked for the Government, or something terribly secret, then I’m sure I’d feel the same.’
‘Fair enough. I’ll just have to put up with what appears in the press, then.’
‘You could ask him yourself.’
‘I could,’ Robert said thoughtfully, ‘but I don’t want to put him in an awkward position of having to refuse to tell me.’
Pips chuckled. ‘I’m sure he’s used to fending off nosy parkers.’
At that moment George appeared at Pips’s elbow. ‘What’s all the laughter about? May I join in?’
‘We were talking about you,’ Pips teased.
George smiled. ‘Oh dear!’
‘Robert expected that I would know all about the political situation – especially about the Spanish Civil War – but I told him you don’t tell me much about your work.’
George wrinkled his brow. ‘It’s not that I don’t trust you, Pips. It’s that I don’t want you to be worried.’
Both Pips and Robert stared at him. ‘Should I be?’ she asked softly.
‘There are – rumblings, shall we say – in Europe and in other parts of the world too, it has to be said. But our informers tell us that the little corporal in Germany is becoming more powerful by the day. Rumour has it that he wants to recover Germany’s lost colonies. He’s watching Mussolini’s progress carefully.’
‘And then, of course, there are all his new laws against the Jews,’ Robert said. ‘That has been in the press. There are some dreadful things going on.’
‘He’s virtually torn up the Versailles agreement.’
Robert grimaced. ‘I said at the time I thought the terms were too stringent. It was bound to lead to resentment.’
‘And it seems Adolf Hitler epitomizes that bitterness,’ George said.
‘You think the problems are going to escalate, George, don’t you?’
Solemnly, he said, ‘Sadly, Pips, I do.’ He glanced across to where Daisy was joking with Luke and Harry. ‘But God forbid that we should be plunged into another war, because it’ll be those wonderful young people and their generation who will have to fight once again for our freedom.’