‘If you ask me, you spoil that girl.’
Daisy was unable to think of a telling reply, so she merely smiled slightly and murmured, ‘I don’t think so – not really. Isn’t one of the pleasures of parenthood spoiling our children, just a little? When we have the chance?’
‘That sounds very self-indulgent to me,’ said Violet.
Daisy sighed and, remembering Maureen’s crestfallen face when she discovered Tim and Hazel were both accompanying her, she responded to her sister with unusual asperity.
‘Why don’t you try it, Vi? It would be a great experience for Maureen.’
‘Because I am not a rich woman.’
‘Then let me treat her – both of you if you would like to come too.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. I couldn’t possibly let you—’
‘You can say I am being self-indulgent, or you could look at it as a return for your hospitality to Hazel and me,’ Daisy persisted.
‘But you told me that Tim Sanders is going too.’
‘Yes, but he is going to visit his mother and his grandparents; we will only be travelling together.’ Daisy secretly doubted if that would be entirely true, but under the circumstances…. ‘Go on, Vi, let her come. You too, of course.’
After a long pause, Violet grunted ungraciously. ‘I’ll think about it – only Maureen, mind; I have no desire whatsoever to go, certainly not to fly there.’
‘Don’t think too long, please, Vi. I am going to confirm the bookings and pay tomorrow.’
*
‘Are you quite sure you don’t want to come?’ Daisy asked Violet again over breakfast.
‘Quite sure, but I won’t stand in Maureen’s way.’
She sounded so disgruntled that it was a few moments before Daisy realized she was actually accepting her offer.
‘Considering,’ Violet continued, ‘that you are in a position to pay for both girls and yourself.’
Daisy put her coffee down in the saucer with exaggerated care. Even she could feel her patience slipping. The cost of the New Zealand holiday was blowing out and secretly alarmed her. Violet’s constant, snide remarks about her so-called wealth was getting at her and she was perilously close to losing her temper. She took a deep breath, determined to make yet another effort to make her understand.
‘Violet, once and for all, I am NOT a rich woman as you seem to suppose.’
‘Not by your standards, maybe, but by mine—’
‘Not by anyone’s. Richard left me an annuity, everything else went to Giles; the business and the house. Which is why I am here. I didn’t relish the idea of being relegated to the servants’ wing in the house that had been my home for so long.’
‘What do you plan to do when you go back, or are you intending to stay here?’
‘Oh, I suppose I will go back,’ Daisy sighed. ‘There is provision in Richard’s will for alternative accommodation to be provided for me and leased to me at a peppercorn rent if I don’t wish to live in The Grange.’
‘Well,’ Violet conceded, ‘if you are not rich, you are comfortable, as they say, and secure for the rest of your life.’
‘Yes; and so, surely, are you, Violet. You have this house.’
‘True.’ Violet nodded. ‘It was good of Alice Sanders to leave me this house though only what I deserve, really. I was a bit worried for a time after she died that some of her family might contest the will, but Beth lives up in Queensland and her husband is in the money. I don’t think she wanted to be bothered with it and besides, she was grateful to me for looking after her mother.
‘Then when Edwin married again and started another family, I was worried, but I needn’t have been. There again, Tim’s mother went back to New Zealand and didn’t want to be bothered with it and, like Beth, was grateful that someone other than her was looking after her mother-in-law.’ She paused for breath, then, in what seemed like a change of direction in the conversation, rapped, ‘Why is Tim really going to New Zealand with you?’
‘He is not coming with us. Well, he is, I mean we are travelling together, but as I have already explained to you, he is going to see his mother and grandparents.’
Violet’s ‘hrrmph’ sounded as if she didn’t believe that explanation.
They sat in silence for a few moments, each lost in their own thoughts, then both sisters broke the silence between them at the same time.
‘Go on,’ Violet said, ‘you say what you were going to say. I was only going to ask if you were going straight back to England from New Zealand.’
‘To tell you the absolute truth, I hadn’t thought about it. Well, I suppose I had just assumed I would come back here.’ Oh, dear. Now Violet would think she was presuming far too much. Daisy waited for a tart comment that would let her know in no uncertain terms that it was true.
Violet did not answer immediately; she was grappling with the uncomfortable feeling that she had not always been as warm and welcoming as one might expect from a sister. She finally mumbled, somewhat stiffly as if embarrassed by her own feelings.
‘Sorry, that didn’t sound very nice, almost as if I hoped you would go back to England. I didn’t mean it like that. You are more than welcome to come back here; in fact, I – well – I hope you will.’
‘Oh, Violet, thank you. I truly don’t know what I am going to do. But I think I can say yes, I would like to come back here; that is, if you don’t mind.’ Impulsively Daisy reached across the table and put her hand on her sister’s. ‘I have had the impression that you didn’t really want me here. You … well, you seemed to harbour some sort of resentment towards me. I don’t know why. Surely not because our mother came out to visit you and got trapped here by the war?’
Violet stared at her. ‘God, no, Daisy. I never really blamed you for that, whatever I said.…’ Her voice trailed away. She glanced at Daisy, then away into the middle distance somewhere, then down at her hands.
‘What do you blame me for, Violet?’ Daisy’s voice was so soft, it was barely audible. She could feel sweat breaking out on her palms and was aware of a tight feeling in her chest, but she knew she couldn’t stop now; she had to go on and repair her relationship with her sister, if it was at all possible. ‘Do you blame me for – for – who I am … or who I am not?’
Violet looked up sharply. ‘You know,’ she said in a flat voice. ‘How long have you known? And how did you find out?’
‘Mother left an explanatory letter, to be opened only after her death.’
Violet snorted. ‘How melodramatic.’
Daisy smiled. ‘I suppose it was. But then she was rather given to melodrama, or at least the unconventional which is how she landed out here with.…’ Her voice trailed away; she found she didn’t know how to refer to the man who was Violet’s father but not her own. ‘How did you learn the truth?’ she asked instead.
‘From Rosie. She told me.’
‘Oh, yes, of course. But why? What made you so …’ Daisy searched for the right word and was surprised when Violet supplied it herself.
‘Resentful?’
Daisy nodded.
‘I suppose I was jealous. I always knew there was something different about you, something special, and whatever it was, it made Mother prefer you to me, but of course as a child, I had no idea what it could be, other than your innate superiority – or my inferiority. When Rosie told me that Dad was not your father, that you were Edwin Sanders’s child, I was so angry. I felt I had been made a fool of all these years; and worse, that I only had what I had, that Alice Sanders left me this house because I was Mother’s daughter, not because she had cared for me at all. Stupid, I suppose, but that’s how I felt.’
Daisy felt her eyes misting and her throat tightening. ‘Oh, Vi, how perfectly dreadful for you, but you are quite wrong, I am sure. Mrs Sanders left you her house because you were the one to look after her when she needed it, just like she looked after us all when we needed it.’
‘That’s what I tell myself, then I think that if you had still been in Australia, she would probably have left it to you. After all, you were her flesh and blood.’
A thought struck Daisy and she cut in quickly. ‘But did she know that, Violet?’
Her sister stared at her. ‘I don’t know, Daisy. I just assumed she did, but she never gave any indication that she knew. But that doesn’t make it any better, does it? It just means that she should have left it to you, not me.’
‘It doesn’t mean anything of the sort.’ Irritation flared in Daisy. If her sister was determined to play the martyr, there seemed little she could do. She had tried hard to get on well with her from the moment she arrived in Australia, but it seemed she was never going to be allowed to transcend the circumstances of her birth.
She sighed and stood up from the table. ‘Thank you for your invitation, but no, I don’t think I will come back here after all. I will arrange to go straight back to England from New Zealand.’ She could not stop the sigh that escaped. ‘That being so, I had better make sure I pack everything.’
She moved with a heavy step and a heavier heart towards the door, overwhelmed by the sadness and futility of the situation. She had come to Australia with the best of intentions, to renew her sibling relationship with Violet as well as catch up with Hazel. Now it seemed there was little left for her to do but return to England and try and pick up the threads of her life there. Trouble was that now she had come back to this hemisphere, she felt more at home here. She supposed that was normal; after all, Australia was where she had been born, where she had grown up, where her roots were. However, she had a son and a daughter-in-law and it was quite on the cards that she would have grandchildren born and bred in England in the not too distant future. She would look for a nice little cottage not too far away from Giles and Sue, but not too close either, and settle down to being an ageing English gentlewoman.
Hope leapt in Daisy; Violet was going to ask her to come back after her New Zealand trip, but it died as quickly when her sister added, ‘You had better give me a forwarding address if you are not coming back.’
‘Yes – yes, of course. I’ll give you the address of my hotel in Christchurch.’
‘But you will only be there a short while.’
‘Then I’ll leave them another address to send mail to if any comes after I’ve left. I think it highly unlikely there will be any.’ She would be with Hazel, and who else was likely to want to contact her anyway?
Daisy was sorting through her clothes when the thought hit her that there was no need to sort through them at all; she simply had to pack everything. With a sigh, she started again, this time laying everything out on the bed.
With cases half packed and the realization that she needed more toothpaste, she decided to go out to the shops and maybe go and see how Hazel was getting on with her packing; she knew she would not be at work this morning. As she passed through the hall, Violet called her.
‘There is a letter just arrived for you, Daisy. It’s on that little table near the door.’
‘Thanks,’ she replied automatically, picking up the letter and turning it over in her hand. It was an air letter from England. The writing was unfamiliar, but when she turned it over to read the address on the back, she saw it was from her daughter-in-law, Susan. How odd, she thought, repressing a sense of unease.
She shoved it into her handbag to read later, aware that she had also felt disappointment as soon as she saw that the letter came from England and not New Zealand. If it had, she thought gloomily, it would probably only have been James reneging on his offer to meet their plane.
She bought her toothpaste and walked round to Hazel’s flat. There appeared to be no one at home. She was beginning to feel really sorry for herself and about to leave when she heard the outer door slam and footsteps on the stairs, two sets of footsteps and two excited voices.
‘Hello, Mum. What are you doing here?’ Hazel asked as she and Maureen rounded the last bend in the stairs.
‘I just came round to see if you were here. I – I came out to buy toothpaste.’
‘Good idea. They probably don’t use it in New Zealand.’
‘Don’t be silly, Hazel,’ Daisy retorted in a testy voice, not in the mood to appreciate teasing.
Maureen looked from one to the other. She could see Daisy looked what her grandmother used to call ‘fraught’. She hoped her mother hadn’t been difficult – again. She thought it wonderful of Daisy to be so generous and hated it when her mother made some of her comments.
‘I’ll make us some coffee, or would you rather have tea?’ asked Maureen.
‘Tea, please, if it’s not too much trouble, but perhaps you girls would rather have coffee?’
‘Tea suits me,’ Hazel said cheerfully, suppressing her irritation. Why on earth did her mother always have to be so self-effacing, and what, for goodness’ sake, was the matter with her? Ten to one that Auntie Vi had upset her. Sure, she had an acid tongue at times, but her heart was probably in the right place and her mother was stupid to let her needle her. She was suddenly glad that she was half a world away from her own brother and sister-in-law.
As if on cue Daisy, rummaging in her bag for a hanky, noticed the letter she had stuffed in there.
‘Oh, I haven’t read my letter yet. It came just as I was leaving.’ She held it in her hand, lifting it up to show Hazel. ‘It’s from Giles and Susan. Looks like her writing, though. Wonder what she wants.’
‘Open it and find out,’ Hazel said impatiently. She could see by the way Daisy was staring at the flimsy air letter in her hand that she was afraid. ‘Give it to me. I’ll open it.’
As Hazel took the letter, she felt some of her mother’s reluctance to open it. Susan must want something to have bothered to write. ‘Let’s just put it in the rubbish, shall we, and pretend it never arrived,’ she suggested, only half joking.
Hazel quickly scanned her sister-in-law’s neat if rather immature writing and wished that was what she had done. ‘It seems you are going to be a grandmother,’ she said and pushed the letter away. She passed Daisy her cup of tea with a meaningful look at Maureen who, misinterpreting it, apologized for their lack of biscuits.
But Daisy was not to be fobbed off.
‘May I have the letter, please, Hazel,’ asked Daisy.
Reluctantly, Hazel handed it over and watched gloomily as her mother read it. Her gloom changed to anger when her mother announced, ‘I shall have to go back.’
‘Because Susan says she is expecting a baby? I should have thought that was good news,’ said Hazel.
‘Read the rest of the letter and you will see why I have to go.’
Hazel read aloud: ‘Susan is pregnant, her parents are away on some luxury holiday and Giles has broken his ankle,’ she summarized. ‘So … why must you go back? By the time you have organized your ticket and spent a month at sea, she will have recovered from the morning sickness that she says is incapacitating her, her parents will be home and Giles’s ankle will be mended.’
‘I could fly….’
‘Mum, you are flying, with us, to New Zealand, remember?’
‘Yes,’ Daisy murmured doubtfully. She had almost forgotten. ‘I could cancel it, or let Violet have my ticket. I could—’
‘Moth-er, you could not. You are booked to go to New Zealand.’ There was a taut edge to Hazel’s voice as she fought to keep her temper. ‘They are married. It’s up to them to look after each other. If they wanted you there to wet-nurse them, they shouldn’t have thrown you out of the house.’
‘Oh, Hazel,’ Daisy looked aghast, ‘that really isn’t fair. They didn’t – well, not really.’
‘They may not have actually shown you the door, but you know as well as I do that as soon as Giles hit twenty-one and inherited, you were only there on sufferance. Marriage to Susan just underlined things. Personally, I think it was unjust, old fashioned and … well, unreasonable of Dad to leave things like that in his will.’
‘Yes, well….’ Until Hazel put it into words, Daisy had not admitted to herself that that was exactly how she felt herself. Now that her feelings, so long repressed, were bubbling up to the surface, she surprised herself by bursting out: ‘Oh, it was totally unreasonable!’ She gasped, shocked at her own vehement outcry but was unable to stop. ‘But was your father ever reasonable? On anything?’
‘Seldom, as far as I recall, but that’s past history. You are the one now who is behaving in quite the most stupid, unreasonable and selfish manner.’
‘Selfish?’ Daisy was stung into retorting. She could accept that she was being stupid, even maybe a little unreasonable, but selfish – never!
‘Yes, selfish, Mum. You don’t care a damn about spoiling our holiday, treating James like shit—’
‘Hazel!’ Maureen, who would never dare to talk to her own mother in that way, protested. Embarrassed to be a witness, she turned to leave the room.
‘Don’t go,’ Hazel commanded. ‘You are affected by this as well. If Mum backs out—’ she gave Daisy a withering look which, added to the mention of James, stung her into protesting.
‘I really don’t think it’s fair to say I am selfish, or to say I am treating James … badly.’ She couldn’t quite bring herself to use the same colourful expression as Hazel.
‘But it’s true, Mum. You know it is if you are really honest. You see yourself as whiter than white, some sort of noble, self-sacrificing saint. Well, I don’t think it is noble, now or when you turned James down all those years ago. God knows why he is prepared to even speak to you.’ Hazel stopped, appalled. She shouldn’t have brought James into this. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘I am afraid I sort of lost my temper.’
As Daisy listened to this tirade, one thing slammed her between the eyes: Hazel knew that James had asked her to marry him.
‘How do you know?’ The question came out as a hoarse croak and fell into the silence. Neither of them noticed that Maureen had left them.
Hazel stared at her mother’s white, strained face, ashamed of her outburst. She had never thought she would ever have to confess to that long ago eavesdropping.
‘I was in the room, on the window seat, behind the curtain. I wasn’t deliberately listening; I just sort of got caught there. I heard James ask you to marry him and go to New Zealand. I was quite excited, then you turned him down with the excuse that you had to stay and look after Giles’s inheritance. So bloody noble of you. I could hardly believe it. I always knew that Dad only had time for Giles, but I thought you … and now you are about to do the same thing again. You’re just a – a professional martyr, Mum. Not … noble … at all!’ The last words came out in short, choking gasps. Before burying her face in her hands, Hazel burst into noisy sobs.
Daisy stared at her without moving, almost without seeing her. She felt perilously close to tears herself, but was honest enough to recognize them as self-pity.
Hazel’s tears had subsided to a sniffle when Daisy finally spoke.
‘What a pity you didn’t come out from behind that curtain, Nutmeg (she did not notice that she had slipped into using the childhood name) and yell some sense into me then.’
‘Well, I am doing my best now.’ Hazel looked up and managed a wobbly half smile. ‘Don’t you see? Fate, or whatever, has given you another chance, putting you on the same ship as James.’
‘How did you know about that?’ Daisy didn’t think she had mentioned it.
‘I answered the phone to him at Auntie Vi’s one day. I was thrilled to hear him – we had quite a chat. Mum, he cares, and if you still care for him, for God’s sake don’t louse things up again by being noble. You do, don’t you? Care for him, I mean.’ Hazel’s voice dropped to a mumble. ‘Sorry, it’s none of my business.’
Daisy flushed slightly but did not answer the question. Instead she asked, ‘What about Tim?’
‘What do you mean, “what about Tim?” He’s a really nice person, I like him a lot. No wonder Grandma fell for his father.’ She paused before adding in a low voice, without looking at her mother: ‘There’s a really strong likeness between you. I noticed it at once, and so did Tim. When I mentioned it to him, he told me the whole story his father told him before he died. Apparently, he and Grandma made a pact not to let the secret die with them.’ She looked directly at Daisy now. ‘So, if Grandma kept her word too then you must know that you and Tim are half-brother and sister?’
Daisy looked up, swallowed and nodded. ‘Yes. It worried me – you and Tim.…’ Her words trailed away and she looked at Hazel in surprise when her daughter gave a great peal of laughter.
‘Gosh, Mum, were you worried about consanguinity or whatever it is that stops people marrying their relations?’
‘Well, I—’
‘Well, you don’t have to. I don’t think it applies in our case. I mean, we aren’t that closely related and in any case, no one would know because your birth certificate has William Weston down as your father.’
‘You mean…?’ Daisy wondered how she felt about this, but Hazel cut in again.
‘No I don’t, so stop interrupting. Tim is great; we are terrific friends, but he is more like a brother than anything else. In fact, he is my favourite brother. It’s Maureen he is nuts about.’ She looked round, noticing for the first time she and her mother were alone. ‘I’ll dig her out of her room and she can tell you herself.’
‘Maureen,’ Hazel commanded as she brought her back into the room, ‘tell Mum about you and Tim. She’s got some weird idea that I – that he and I….’
Daisy shook her head. ‘I seem to have got it all wrong. I thought it was Maureen and Derek and you and Tim. How does Derek fit in?’
‘He doesn’t – in the way you mean, Auntie Daisy,’ Maureen explained. ‘Tim persuaded him to come along to make a foursome.’
‘Auntie Vi thinks Maureen is too young to get serious,’ Hazel, who could never keep silent for long, took up the story, ‘so Tim and Maureen are playing it cool – on the surface, anyway – till Maureen is twenty-one, then they will announce their engagement.’
‘I … see,’ Daisy murmured. ‘I gather you and Derek didn’t strike sparks off one another?’
‘Absolutely not. We really are just friends. I am footloose and fancy free and intend to stay that way for a long time. I have come out here to see the world, not tie myself down.’ She wanted to beg her mother to give James a chance but thought that she had said enough, or more than enough, and managed to swallow the words. Instead, she just said quietly, ‘Please don’t do anything silly, Mum. You’re needed on this side of the world at the moment.’
Daisy’s only reply was, ‘I think I had better go.’ As she stood up and moved to the door, Hazel stared at her, afraid she had said far too much, then Daisy added, ‘Or I shall never be up to get that plane.’
Hazel stared at her for a moment then flung her arms round her.
‘Oh, Mum. Does that mean? Are you coming with us? To New Zealand?’
‘Daisy’s lips curved in a half smile. ‘You’ve just talked me into it.’
‘We shall pick you up at nine-thirty – sharp.’ She stepped back and grinned teasingly. ‘Auntie Vi is relying on you to be a chaperone.’