Prune 24, Cookies & Cream 29 [Divide and Rule]
Title: Emergency Contact
Author: lost_spook
Story: Heroes of the Revolution (Divide & Rule)
Flavor(s): Prune 24 (if looks could kill); Cookies & Cream 29 (shake)
Toppings/Extras: Brownie + Whipped Cream + Gummy Bunnies (also for hc_bingo square “lost childhood” and origfic_bingo square “coming of age”).
Rating: PG
Word Count: 5095
Notes: February 1928; Daisy Long, Edward Iveson, Elizabeth Long, Hugh Taylor, Nancy Long.
Summary: Edward’s not well and yet again, his mother is nowhere to be found. At least there’s always Aunt Daisy…
***
The telephone call came at barely nine in the morning. Daisy answered it to find Edward’s school secretary on the line, and she shifted her hold on the receiver, immediately worried about what they might want, feeling an unpleasant jolt at the interruption to the morning’s routine. It was much too early for anything that wasn’t a serious matter. Either Edward had done something bad enough to get himself suspended, which Daisy found difficult to imagine, or something had happened to him.
She swallowed. “Speaking. Yes?”
“We’ve been trying to get hold of Mrs Taylor, and we can’t,” said the secretary. “It’s your nephew - I’m afraid he’s not well, but if you’ll hold on, Matron Worth will have a word with you.”
Daisy a momentary and quite ridiculous moment of anxiety, recalling suddenly and vividly her own schooldays, and being sent to face Matron. She laughed to herself at the idea, especially since she’d met Matron Worth several times and thought her kind, despite the requisite brisk, no-nonsense attitude.
“Miss Long?” said the more familiar voice on the telephone. “I hope we haven’t alarmed you, but Edward’s not well and we were trying to get hold of his mother. She’s away but we can’t seem to get any reply at the address she left and we thought perhaps you could help.”
Daisy mentally scolded herself for not being at all reassured by this. Of course the school had to inform people if it was anything even remotely serious, or potentially serious. “What’s the matter with Edward?”
“It’s most likely the ‘flu,” said Matron, sounding almost apologetic. “But it’s rather a nasty strain and he’s been running a temperature. We’d rather let his mother know, you understand. It shouldn’t be too serious, but -”
“Yes,” said Daisy. It shouldn’t be serious, but even in this day and age, sometimes it was. Usually not, she reminded herself, but when she’d been at school, it had been different. “I shall do my best to find Mrs Taylor, of course. However, she is in Scotland, so she won’t be able to get back quickly even if I do - should I come down there?”
Matron, on the other end, said, “The doctor’s going to look in on him again presently, so you needn’t worry. But if you were able - I think it might help and I wouldn’t mind a word with you.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” said Daisy, relieved that Matron hadn’t objected. She wouldn’t have got any work done on her article anyway, if she’d had to sit here and worry about Edward. She was ashamed of herself as she put the phone receiver back in its cradle. It was ridiculous to be making a fuss over a common ailment like this. But Daisy was suddenly remembering a scarlet fever epidemic going through her school one spring term, much the same sort of time as this, and two of the girls had died. She shook herself. She hadn’t thought about poor Becky in years, and it was no time to start doing so now. Modern medicine had moved on, and Influenza was rarely as bad as all that. No doubt, by the time she got to school, Edward’s dramatic temperature would have fallen, making them only look foolish for worrying.
Daisy sent a telegram to both of the addresses Elizabeth had given her for their Scottish tour - her husband sometimes wrote travel articles, hence the long trip. That done, she set off for Edward’s school, arriving there a little over an hour later. She announced her presence to the secretary, who roped in an unwilling second former to take Daisy over to the San, where she was met by Matron.
“Miss Long,” said Matron, holding out a hand. “I must say I’m glad you’ve come.”
Daisy felt another irrational leap of her heart in alarm, and stifled it with annoyance. There really was no point in being so nonsensical. It did nobody any good.
“Oh, no,” Matron said hastily, evidently seeing something of Daisy’s consternation. “He’s still got more of a temperature than I like, but he’s not any worse; possibly a little better, I think. But you see, he had that bout of measles at the end of last term -”
Daisy nodded. “Yes, and very bad-tempered he was, all through the Christmas holidays and the quarantine period.”
“I can imagine,” said Matron with a smile. “Nevertheless, he was still a little run down, and he seems to have been having something of a growth spurt, which hasn’t helped. And, as I said, this unfortunately seems to be a rather nasty strain of influenza, so you’ll understand my concern.”
“Yes, of course.”
Matron paused, glancing at Daisy. “I wanted you to come down here, however, because I think a good deal of the trouble isn’t physical at all. This fever - he’s been worrying about something - his mother, I think. You will probably be able to reassure him - he’ll take more notice of someone familiar.”
Daisy felt herself stiffening. She didn’t discuss private matters with anyone, nor her feelings, and most certainly she didn’t go into the business between Edward and Elizabeth. Besides, Edward barely even mentioned it any more. He was young, he’d accepted the situation - it was Elizabeth who was going to pay for it in the end. So Daisy had thought, anyway.
“I hate to pry,” Matron said, after another moment’s hesitation. “However, you do see why I’m asking, don’t you? What is the situation with Mrs Iveson? No, sorry, it’s Mrs Taylor, isn’t it?”
Daisy stared ahead, because how did one say to a well-meaning school matron that she honestly didn’t have a clue? Well, perhaps she had a clue, but nothing she could be certain enough to tell someone else, even if she ever gossiped about family members, which she didn’t.
“It’s more a case of the situation with Mr Taylor, to be honest,” she said eventually, seeing that Matron Worth was not about to let the issue drop. “My sister remarried and he won’t have Edward around. But this is old news now. If Ned’s fretting over something, it’s more likely to be a quarrel with one of his friends or a test, perhaps.”
“It may be, yes,” said Matron, but she sounded doubtful. “Anyway, I’ll let you see him for a little while, if you’d like.”
At last, thought Daisy, and gave a short nod.
Daisy pushed back the curtain and slipped into Edward’s cubicle. He lifted his head slightly when she came in and she saw the brief light in his eyes die out again when he recognised her. She knew only too well that she looked a good deal like Elizabeth, at least in outline, and she couldn’t blame him for it, but it still hurt more than she would like to admit.
When Elizabeth had first had to send Edward away, it had been taken for granted that he would go to live with Ted and Anne and the two girls, not with his awkward academic spinster aunt, but at the time, the others had been on holiday and then Amy had followed that up with a bout of something contagious, and by the time quarantine was up, it had seemed unkind to move Edward on again. Daisy hadn’t known what to do with him to begin with, but it was only Ned, after all, whom she’d known all his life, and he wasn’t expected to be there for long, so she merely continued much as ever and made sure that her help, the sturdy Mrs Gibbons, fed him well, while Daisy found him books out of her library, and helped him with his homework. She let him have his own patch in the garden and discussed with him what to grow in it, and sometimes in the evenings they’d both listened to the radio together - that first summer there had been a broadcast of Treasure Island that had worked well. He’d spent a lot of time over at Ted and Anne’s anyway, of course - he and Nancy were practically inseparable.
Perhaps, thought Daisy, as she sat down in the wooden chair beside the bed, none of that had been enough, after all. She never had been terribly demonstrative. Even now she wasn’t sure what one did in these sorts of crises.
“It’s me,” she said, probably unnecessarily, but he did look rather feverish, his face flushed and eyes too bright. “Aunt Daisy.”
He turned his head and gave a slight nod, but was evidently too ill to muster a smile yet in return. “Hello,” he managed.
“Shh,” she said. “You lie still and don’t worry about anything - you need to get well. I’m here now, and it’ll all be quite all right.”
Perhaps she should ask him if it was Elizabeth who was preying on his mind, but Daisy didn’t know how to broach such a delicate subject, nor did she think it a propitious moment to try. She talked instead about Amy’s school fête and the trouble when the canvas over the cake stall had blown right over into the vicarage garden; she told him about the state of her own garden and what she would be planting in a month or so, while he sometimes listened and sometimes drifted off.
The nurse came in and took his temperature from time to time. On the second occasion, she smiled at Daisy and told her it had gone down a little again, and no doubt he’d be more himself soon.
“You hear that, eh?” she said, when the nurse left, but Edward didn’t seem to, and she felt suddenly unreassured by the nurse’s optimism. “Ned,” she added, and he opened his eyes reluctantly, slowly focusing on her, again with that hurtful moment of hope and disappointment too visible in his thin face.
Even after nearly four years, he wanted his mother; Matron was right. Daisy could only put out her hand to his arm, and then, awkwardly, moved it down to place it over his hand. She felt a stab of anger at That Man, and the whole situation. Well, she thought vindictively, if anything happened to Ned, and he’d kept Elizabeth from getting to him, Elizabeth would never forgive him for that, but it would be nothing but cold comfort.
Edward found himself in that odd state where there hardly seemed to be much difference between dreaming and waking; his thoughts followed him into his dreams and twisted themselves into strange shapes, and were still gripping him when he slipped back into wakefulness.
The thing that was always constant was that, just as when he’d had the measles last term, Mother was never there. He felt awful, he was probably dying, and Mother still didn’t care. He knew that - if she hadn’t answered his peculiar letters full of tales of wolves and unlikely disasters years ago, how could she care? And then there were wolves trying to get into the San for a while, before it dawned on him that that part was probably a dream too.
Aunt Daisy was here now, and that comforted him a little. Aunt Daisy wasn’t Mother, but he knew she’d do anything she could to keep him from harm. When they’d asked him, ages ago, if he wanted to stay with her or go to Uncle Ted and Aunt Anne’s, he’d asked to stay, because even though Aunt Daisy lived in his grandparents’ rather rambling and sometimes spooky Victorian house, he knew that she’d never let Mr Taylor get in. For quite a long while back then, Edward had had bad dreams about Mr Taylor finding him. Not that he’d ever done anything to him, except for that time he had locked him out of the house, but Edward had been scared by Mr Taylor’s irrational dislike of him and the way he pretended he didn’t exist. Aunt Daisy, however, would make short work of Mr Taylor if he had ever dared to come to her house, Edward was sure of that. And she wanted him. She’d never said so, only given him books and bulbs and things and demanded to know if he was eating properly any time she thought he looked a bit too thin or under the weather, but Edward understood that language. It wasn’t so different to the way he and Mother worked. So, even though sometimes the house had seemed big and dark, and he’d been glad to go and play with Nancy, he still chose it, and Aunt Daisy.
“Ned,” said Aunt Daisy, breaking him out of another nightmare. “Your mother is in Scotland, you know. That’s why she can’t be here. We’re still trying to get hold of her.”
But there was always some reason, wasn’t there? Edward thought. And it all added up to the fact that she didn’t care, even though she pretended she did. Why didn’t she care? Why couldn’t she have chosen him instead of Mr Taylor? Why had Father had to die? The questions circled round his mind, turning into a dream in which he could hear them both from somewhere in the Long house, but he couldn’t see them, and couldn’t find them and felt the despair of it: he was just never good enough to get to them.
And Mr Taylor, whom Edward had only the vaguest memories of by now, stood by and laughed like the wicked villain, the monster he had become in Edward’s mind.
“Hey,” said Aunt Daisy, leaning over him this time, a firm hand on his shoulder, and he struggled to sort out his confusion of thoughts, shivering suddenly. “Ned. Have some of this,” she said, helping him to drink the lemonade the nurse had left. It tasted a little odd, but it did help. “I told you,” she added, “I’m here. Everything will be all right.”
He nodded as he lay back down. “You’ll have to go, though,” he told her. Matron had strict rules about visitors. He was surprised Aunt Daisy had even been allowed in. “They’ll make you.”
A particular dark light came into her eye; even in his present state he recognised it well. “Oh, no, they won’t,” she said. “That Matron of yours is a reasonable woman, and I’ll stay till the end of the day at the very least.” She followed that up by bathing his face with the cloth that Nurse had left and a comment that even she could manage this much, before she draped it over his forehead.
“I didn’t mean to make a fuss,” he said, feeling at least momentarily clearer and immediately embarrassed. He was nearly fifteen, and he felt stupid at the whole business. He ought to be too old for any of this sort of thing. It was marginally better than measles, but it was still a rotten nuisance.
Aunt Daisy sat back down. “You’re not. Now, lie still and don’t be silly. I’ll tell you about my article. It’s one of the interesting ones, I promise.”
By the time Daisy returned in the morning, Edward’s temperature had returned to more reasonable levels. He was still ill enough to find it hard even to read, dozing off frequently, but nothing to worry anyone over.
Daisy sat with him for a while and then went away, first to send a telegram to Anne to tell her that Edward had turned the corner, and then to telephone the Taylors’ house, where she got hold of a Mrs Smith who had come in to check on the place. She could at least tell Daisy that the Taylors would be back in a week.
A week, thought Daisy. Just you wait, Hugh Taylor!
Edward didn’t want to leave school for a few weeks to recuperate. He’d only get behind and miss half a dozen things he’d been looking forward to, but neither Matron, Aunt Daisy or his form tutor had thought his need to be there when the fourth formers hosted an evening for the rest of the school overrode the issue of his current state of health.
He was feeling better enough to be frustrated by it all, although still ill enough to be made far more dismal at the prospect than he would otherwise have been. He sighed heavily, and continued to pack his things with a bad grace, stopping every so often to cough.
He didn’t want to go home, when there wasn’t even any Nancy around, and sit around in the big house, being bored to death and probably fussed over. Mostly, of course, if he went back home, it would only remind him all over again how little Mother cared. He shouldn’t still mind by now; it wasn’t a new thing. It was just that every time he saw her, it was all right again, but then even if he wrote, which he was getting less and less willing to do, she hardly ever replied. Sometimes she sent short letters that didn’t seem to have taken any notice of anything he’d said.
He shoved the thought aside and concentrated on hunting out a book that had fallen under the bed, and caused himself to feel wobbly and breathless at the effort, something which underlined the point all the adults had been making. He scowled and kicked his trunk.
“It’s not forever,” said Matron, coming in to see how he was getting along. She examined the contents of the trunk, and tutted, pulling out the shirts and folding them properly. “Only until half term, and then you’ll be back.”
Edward could only nod. He was feeling far too washed out again to argue. Getting out of bed properly for the first time, and complaining about what they were making him do seemed to have taken everything out of him, worse luck.
“I can’t have you in and out of the San like a bad penny,” she said. “Better to go home now, rest properly, and you won’t be likely to be ill again later and miss the cricket.”
“Yes, Matron,” he said, and coughed again.
She gave him a sharp look. “Hmm, well, I’ll give your cubicle a look-over,” she said. “You lie down until your aunt comes for you - and that, Iveson, is an order.”
Daisy made sure she called on Elizabeth and Hugh Taylor the moment they returned. She arrived early and sat in her car, watching and waiting, grimly upright in the car seat. She was going to tell Elizabeth what was going on, straight away, before That Man had any chance to whitewash over it.
They didn’t see her there when they pulled into the driveway, and Daisy hesitated for a moment after all, seeing Elizabeth standing outside the house, looking unexpectedly frail herself, but what else could she do now? Daisy got out of the car and marched across the road, catching them even as they were going in the front door.
“Daisy!” said Elizabeth, reacting first as they both stared at her in surprise. “Whatever is it - Edward?”
Daisy raised her chin, determined not to understate the matter for once. “Yes, it is. I hope very much that your tour was worth it - and perhaps you’ll care to explain why Edward’s school couldn’t reach you, though they tried all week!”
“Daisy!” said Elizabeth again.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter now,” she said. “It’s much too late -”
She only realised that had probably not been the best way to phrase it when Elizabeth interrupted her by abruptly turning white, all but fainting before Hugh caught her.
“I’m sorry,” said Daisy, once Elizabeth had been helped into an armchair the living room, and Hugh, after a dubious look at Daisy, had gone out to see about getting a cup of tea for Elizabeth. “I wanted to make my point, but I had no intention of being so melodramatic.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “I was tired after the journey; that doesn’t matter. Edward is all right now, isn’t he?”
“Oh, yes, of course - he’s at home with me, being listless and complaining,” Daisy told her. “But in another way he isn’t, and neither are you, I think. The school had the addresses of both hotels - they sent several telegrams to both and telephoned. Of course, Edward was fine - it was only the influenza, but there was a while before I got there where he’d given the school a nasty turn, I think. And he wanted you - where were you?”
She stiffened a little: Daisy was, after all, her younger sister. “For heaven’s sake, I was in Scotland, Daisy! I could hardly have returned in an instant even if we had received the message. We did go to one or two small places, so I suppose -”
“Can you let yourself believe that?” said Daisy. “How many other messages have never reached you, I wonder? How many letters?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “Don’t be absurd. He’d hardly have the chance. Jennings usually picks up the mail, anyway. I’ll certainly have to ask him about this, but it’s not your business.”
“Oh, isn’t it?” said Daisy. “In the normal way of things, I would agree, but when I’m the one getting summoned to that school to see Matron and explain to her about this whole mess, it is! I had to sit there and be told that this state of affairs isn’t doing Edward any good - he misses you still. Which of course he does. Elizabeth, you have to do something about it.”
Mr Taylor returned, and said that Mrs Smith would see to the tea, and then wanted to know if Daisy had been upsetting Elizabeth. “She hasn’t been all that well herself, you know.”
“I won’t have the two of you talking over my head,” said Elizabeth. “And while I don’t seem to have been quite right lately, it’s not anything that will stop me going with you to see Edward. I take it that was what you meant?”
Mr Taylor frowned. “Not now, surely - tomorrow -”
“Daisy’s here now, and I gather I’m already far later than I should be,” Elizabeth said. “We’ll have a conversation about those missed messages when I return.”
Daisy had wandered over to the fire, and she looked up. “You can stay with us, you know,” she said. “For the night, I mean - then it shouldn’t be so tiring for you, and you’ll have more time to try and right this tangle.”
“I really do think she needs to rest first,” said Hugh Taylor.
Daisy, almost unconsciously, tightened her hand around the nearby poker and thought, with a seriousness that startled her, of how easy it might be to kill him with it. Of course, it would be awful, and she wasn’t quite sure she could do it if it required several blows, as it no doubt might, and she would have to go to prison, but she would have simultaneously saved both Elizabeth and Edward, who were probably dearer to her than anyone else in the world. She was a little alarmed by the fact that she thought it might well be worth the sacrifice.
“No, not this time,” Elizabeth said, and stood up. “But, Daisy, allow me a half an hour at least to get myself together.”
Edward heard them come in, Mother and Aunt Daisy, but he kept on reading his book, wrapped up on the sofa.
“Ned,” said Mother, some minutes later. “How are you now?”
He kept his hold on the book, refusing to look up or respond.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Ned. I was in Scotland. I could hardly have made it back to see you even if the message had reached me - and I’m here now.”
Edward swallowed and closed up the book, and made himself face her. “Yes, but you weren’t there last term - or Christmas.”
“I was ill, too, at the end of last year,” she said, moving nearer. “I am sorry about all of it, and I’ll make sure this doesn’t happen again, that I will promise.”
“But then next time it’s half-term, or holidays, or prize-giving, or anything, you won’t be there,” he said. He was, he found to his surprise when he stood, almost as tall as she was now. “And I hate wondering if you will come or not - it’s not fair.”
Mother didn’t say anything for a moment; she merely looked at him, before eventually, she asked, “Would you rather I didn’t come, and then you would know where you stood?”
Edward hesitated; he felt angry enough to say yes, but the understanding between him and Mother had not yet entirely vanished and he knew that she was serious. If he said that, she would go away until and unless he asked for her to come back and, he wasn’t quite ready to give up what little he had of her. But one day, it would happen, he thought with sudden, painful clarity. You couldn’t go on and on like this. You just couldn’t.
“No,” he said, but he didn’t move any nearer.
She concealed her feelings as carefully as ever and gave a short nod. “Thank you. And it’s as well, since your Aunt has asked me to stay the night, and I’m going to. Maybe you can think about whether there’s anything you’d like to do while I’m here.”
Edward nodded.
“Ned,” she said, suddenly, moving closer and putting a hand to his shoulder, “you’re shaking, darling.”
He forced a smile. “I do seem to be a bit wobbly still. The ‘flu, you know.”
“Yes,” said Mother, giving his arm a light squeeze, “I know.”
“Stay,” said Daisy, the next morning. “Don’t go back. Hugh must have seen at least one of those telegrams - and let’s face it, this whole business with his behaviour to Edward is beyond the pale!”
Elizabeth turned her head. “We’ve already had words about that, and there will be more. But I can’t leave him.”
“You could,” said Daisy. “You won’t. And Ned has had enough of this, you know. And who can blame him?”
Elizabeth picked up her bag. “Oh, Daisy, I only wish it were that simple. The whole thing is my fault, not Hugh’s - and I can’t run away from it now because I was foolish enough to think it would work out differently. And there it is: I can’t leave Hugh, and I can’t have him and Edward together.”
Daisy merely looked at her.
“Edward has all of you,” said Elizabeth.
Daisy sighed, and accompanied Elizabeth out through the hallway to the front door. “Doesn’t Hugh have a sister? Not to mention that manservant of his.”
“Pat lives away,” Elizabeth said. “It’s not the same. I know you think it’s archaic nonsense, but I won’t break my marriage vows, not lightly at least.”
“Lightly!” said Daisy. “Lizzy, don’t go. Stay. I wouldn’t ask you to do it lightly, either, but the situation is making you ill, the Matron at Edward’s school is convinced it’s making him ill, and at this rate, I’ll probably get an ulcer if this goes on much longer! Stay with us. If Hugh comes after you, I’ll send him packing. This isn’t the dark ages.”
Elizabeth gave a brief smile, and then leaned forward to briefly take Daisy’s hand and kiss her on the cheek. “Don’t, Daisy, or I shall cry, and where will we be? Just drive me to the station and let’s say no more about it. I do appreciate what you’ve done - it’s more than I have any right to ask of anyone. Now, please - I must go, and there’s nothing to be gained in making it more painful than it already is.”
When Daisy came back in, Edward hurried down the stairs to meet her. He had, she noted, been crying, although she was tactful enough not to mention it.
“Come on,” she said. “To the kitchen. Tea and shortbread.”
Edward gave a reluctant smile. “All right. But I think we finished the shortbread yesterday.”
“I’m fairly sure there’s another lot in my study,” said Aunt Daisy, and after a brief detour to rummage around under her papers, pulling out half a tin of shortbread in triumph, led them into the kitchen and put the kettle on the stove.
Edward opened the tin of biscuits. “How can there always be another one?”
“Magic,” said Aunt Daisy, but once the tea had been made, she sat opposite him at the bare, wooden kitchen table, and said, “Let’s not pretend. I miss her too. She’s my sister, and we were every bit as close as you and Nancy once upon a time.”
He nodded.
“But,” Daisy said, “she can’t stay with us, and I suppose, knowing Elizabeth as I do, I shall have to accept her word on that - and that she still cares, especially about you.”
Edward pulled a face.
“I know,” said Daisy. “It’s a tiresome tangle, I agree, but here we are, so we’ll have to make the best of it, won’t we? Now, have another shortbread - I need to feed you up and get you back to that school of yours!”
“Thanks,” said Edward, and bit into it. “How old is it? It’s gone soft.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Aunt Daisy. “People give me them, and then I put them away and find them again months later. It always seems to be more or less all right.”
Edward grinned.
“And,” said Aunt Daisy, moving across to sort through some newspapers on the end of the worktop, pulling out the Radio Times. “Here. Take this and while I get some work done, you find something nice for us to listen to this evening, eh?”
Edward nodded and took it from her. “Thank you.” He slipped off the chair again and then hung back, screwing up his face a little. “I mean - thank you for everything.”
“Oh, everything,” said Daisy, as she hastily brushed the crumbs off the table before Mrs Gibbons came back and scolded her. “Pfft. No need. It’s my privilege. Now, go back to your sofa with your book - I need to get some things done, and you need to be lying up like the doctor ordered.”
Edward grinned, and gave her a mock-salute. He hovered awkwardly in the doorway before he left, however, and said, “I did mean it, though, Aunt Daisy. Honestly.”
He was gone before she could respond, which was as well, Daisy thought, because she never did know what to say when it came to the things that mattered the most.
***
Author: lost_spook
Story: Heroes of the Revolution (Divide & Rule)
Flavor(s): Prune 24 (if looks could kill); Cookies & Cream 29 (shake)
Toppings/Extras: Brownie + Whipped Cream + Gummy Bunnies (also for hc_bingo square “lost childhood” and origfic_bingo square “coming of age”).
Rating: PG
Word Count: 5095
Notes: February 1928; Daisy Long, Edward Iveson, Elizabeth Long, Hugh Taylor, Nancy Long.
Summary: Edward’s not well and yet again, his mother is nowhere to be found. At least there’s always Aunt Daisy…
***
The telephone call came at barely nine in the morning. Daisy answered it to find Edward’s school secretary on the line, and she shifted her hold on the receiver, immediately worried about what they might want, feeling an unpleasant jolt at the interruption to the morning’s routine. It was much too early for anything that wasn’t a serious matter. Either Edward had done something bad enough to get himself suspended, which Daisy found difficult to imagine, or something had happened to him.
She swallowed. “Speaking. Yes?”
“We’ve been trying to get hold of Mrs Taylor, and we can’t,” said the secretary. “It’s your nephew - I’m afraid he’s not well, but if you’ll hold on, Matron Worth will have a word with you.”
Daisy a momentary and quite ridiculous moment of anxiety, recalling suddenly and vividly her own schooldays, and being sent to face Matron. She laughed to herself at the idea, especially since she’d met Matron Worth several times and thought her kind, despite the requisite brisk, no-nonsense attitude.
“Miss Long?” said the more familiar voice on the telephone. “I hope we haven’t alarmed you, but Edward’s not well and we were trying to get hold of his mother. She’s away but we can’t seem to get any reply at the address she left and we thought perhaps you could help.”
Daisy mentally scolded herself for not being at all reassured by this. Of course the school had to inform people if it was anything even remotely serious, or potentially serious. “What’s the matter with Edward?”
“It’s most likely the ‘flu,” said Matron, sounding almost apologetic. “But it’s rather a nasty strain and he’s been running a temperature. We’d rather let his mother know, you understand. It shouldn’t be too serious, but -”
“Yes,” said Daisy. It shouldn’t be serious, but even in this day and age, sometimes it was. Usually not, she reminded herself, but when she’d been at school, it had been different. “I shall do my best to find Mrs Taylor, of course. However, she is in Scotland, so she won’t be able to get back quickly even if I do - should I come down there?”
Matron, on the other end, said, “The doctor’s going to look in on him again presently, so you needn’t worry. But if you were able - I think it might help and I wouldn’t mind a word with you.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” said Daisy, relieved that Matron hadn’t objected. She wouldn’t have got any work done on her article anyway, if she’d had to sit here and worry about Edward. She was ashamed of herself as she put the phone receiver back in its cradle. It was ridiculous to be making a fuss over a common ailment like this. But Daisy was suddenly remembering a scarlet fever epidemic going through her school one spring term, much the same sort of time as this, and two of the girls had died. She shook herself. She hadn’t thought about poor Becky in years, and it was no time to start doing so now. Modern medicine had moved on, and Influenza was rarely as bad as all that. No doubt, by the time she got to school, Edward’s dramatic temperature would have fallen, making them only look foolish for worrying.
Daisy sent a telegram to both of the addresses Elizabeth had given her for their Scottish tour - her husband sometimes wrote travel articles, hence the long trip. That done, she set off for Edward’s school, arriving there a little over an hour later. She announced her presence to the secretary, who roped in an unwilling second former to take Daisy over to the San, where she was met by Matron.
“Miss Long,” said Matron, holding out a hand. “I must say I’m glad you’ve come.”
Daisy felt another irrational leap of her heart in alarm, and stifled it with annoyance. There really was no point in being so nonsensical. It did nobody any good.
“Oh, no,” Matron said hastily, evidently seeing something of Daisy’s consternation. “He’s still got more of a temperature than I like, but he’s not any worse; possibly a little better, I think. But you see, he had that bout of measles at the end of last term -”
Daisy nodded. “Yes, and very bad-tempered he was, all through the Christmas holidays and the quarantine period.”
“I can imagine,” said Matron with a smile. “Nevertheless, he was still a little run down, and he seems to have been having something of a growth spurt, which hasn’t helped. And, as I said, this unfortunately seems to be a rather nasty strain of influenza, so you’ll understand my concern.”
“Yes, of course.”
Matron paused, glancing at Daisy. “I wanted you to come down here, however, because I think a good deal of the trouble isn’t physical at all. This fever - he’s been worrying about something - his mother, I think. You will probably be able to reassure him - he’ll take more notice of someone familiar.”
Daisy felt herself stiffening. She didn’t discuss private matters with anyone, nor her feelings, and most certainly she didn’t go into the business between Edward and Elizabeth. Besides, Edward barely even mentioned it any more. He was young, he’d accepted the situation - it was Elizabeth who was going to pay for it in the end. So Daisy had thought, anyway.
“I hate to pry,” Matron said, after another moment’s hesitation. “However, you do see why I’m asking, don’t you? What is the situation with Mrs Iveson? No, sorry, it’s Mrs Taylor, isn’t it?”
Daisy stared ahead, because how did one say to a well-meaning school matron that she honestly didn’t have a clue? Well, perhaps she had a clue, but nothing she could be certain enough to tell someone else, even if she ever gossiped about family members, which she didn’t.
“It’s more a case of the situation with Mr Taylor, to be honest,” she said eventually, seeing that Matron Worth was not about to let the issue drop. “My sister remarried and he won’t have Edward around. But this is old news now. If Ned’s fretting over something, it’s more likely to be a quarrel with one of his friends or a test, perhaps.”
“It may be, yes,” said Matron, but she sounded doubtful. “Anyway, I’ll let you see him for a little while, if you’d like.”
At last, thought Daisy, and gave a short nod.
Daisy pushed back the curtain and slipped into Edward’s cubicle. He lifted his head slightly when she came in and she saw the brief light in his eyes die out again when he recognised her. She knew only too well that she looked a good deal like Elizabeth, at least in outline, and she couldn’t blame him for it, but it still hurt more than she would like to admit.
When Elizabeth had first had to send Edward away, it had been taken for granted that he would go to live with Ted and Anne and the two girls, not with his awkward academic spinster aunt, but at the time, the others had been on holiday and then Amy had followed that up with a bout of something contagious, and by the time quarantine was up, it had seemed unkind to move Edward on again. Daisy hadn’t known what to do with him to begin with, but it was only Ned, after all, whom she’d known all his life, and he wasn’t expected to be there for long, so she merely continued much as ever and made sure that her help, the sturdy Mrs Gibbons, fed him well, while Daisy found him books out of her library, and helped him with his homework. She let him have his own patch in the garden and discussed with him what to grow in it, and sometimes in the evenings they’d both listened to the radio together - that first summer there had been a broadcast of Treasure Island that had worked well. He’d spent a lot of time over at Ted and Anne’s anyway, of course - he and Nancy were practically inseparable.
Perhaps, thought Daisy, as she sat down in the wooden chair beside the bed, none of that had been enough, after all. She never had been terribly demonstrative. Even now she wasn’t sure what one did in these sorts of crises.
“It’s me,” she said, probably unnecessarily, but he did look rather feverish, his face flushed and eyes too bright. “Aunt Daisy.”
He turned his head and gave a slight nod, but was evidently too ill to muster a smile yet in return. “Hello,” he managed.
“Shh,” she said. “You lie still and don’t worry about anything - you need to get well. I’m here now, and it’ll all be quite all right.”
Perhaps she should ask him if it was Elizabeth who was preying on his mind, but Daisy didn’t know how to broach such a delicate subject, nor did she think it a propitious moment to try. She talked instead about Amy’s school fête and the trouble when the canvas over the cake stall had blown right over into the vicarage garden; she told him about the state of her own garden and what she would be planting in a month or so, while he sometimes listened and sometimes drifted off.
The nurse came in and took his temperature from time to time. On the second occasion, she smiled at Daisy and told her it had gone down a little again, and no doubt he’d be more himself soon.
“You hear that, eh?” she said, when the nurse left, but Edward didn’t seem to, and she felt suddenly unreassured by the nurse’s optimism. “Ned,” she added, and he opened his eyes reluctantly, slowly focusing on her, again with that hurtful moment of hope and disappointment too visible in his thin face.
Even after nearly four years, he wanted his mother; Matron was right. Daisy could only put out her hand to his arm, and then, awkwardly, moved it down to place it over his hand. She felt a stab of anger at That Man, and the whole situation. Well, she thought vindictively, if anything happened to Ned, and he’d kept Elizabeth from getting to him, Elizabeth would never forgive him for that, but it would be nothing but cold comfort.
Edward found himself in that odd state where there hardly seemed to be much difference between dreaming and waking; his thoughts followed him into his dreams and twisted themselves into strange shapes, and were still gripping him when he slipped back into wakefulness.
The thing that was always constant was that, just as when he’d had the measles last term, Mother was never there. He felt awful, he was probably dying, and Mother still didn’t care. He knew that - if she hadn’t answered his peculiar letters full of tales of wolves and unlikely disasters years ago, how could she care? And then there were wolves trying to get into the San for a while, before it dawned on him that that part was probably a dream too.
Aunt Daisy was here now, and that comforted him a little. Aunt Daisy wasn’t Mother, but he knew she’d do anything she could to keep him from harm. When they’d asked him, ages ago, if he wanted to stay with her or go to Uncle Ted and Aunt Anne’s, he’d asked to stay, because even though Aunt Daisy lived in his grandparents’ rather rambling and sometimes spooky Victorian house, he knew that she’d never let Mr Taylor get in. For quite a long while back then, Edward had had bad dreams about Mr Taylor finding him. Not that he’d ever done anything to him, except for that time he had locked him out of the house, but Edward had been scared by Mr Taylor’s irrational dislike of him and the way he pretended he didn’t exist. Aunt Daisy, however, would make short work of Mr Taylor if he had ever dared to come to her house, Edward was sure of that. And she wanted him. She’d never said so, only given him books and bulbs and things and demanded to know if he was eating properly any time she thought he looked a bit too thin or under the weather, but Edward understood that language. It wasn’t so different to the way he and Mother worked. So, even though sometimes the house had seemed big and dark, and he’d been glad to go and play with Nancy, he still chose it, and Aunt Daisy.
“Ned,” said Aunt Daisy, breaking him out of another nightmare. “Your mother is in Scotland, you know. That’s why she can’t be here. We’re still trying to get hold of her.”
But there was always some reason, wasn’t there? Edward thought. And it all added up to the fact that she didn’t care, even though she pretended she did. Why didn’t she care? Why couldn’t she have chosen him instead of Mr Taylor? Why had Father had to die? The questions circled round his mind, turning into a dream in which he could hear them both from somewhere in the Long house, but he couldn’t see them, and couldn’t find them and felt the despair of it: he was just never good enough to get to them.
And Mr Taylor, whom Edward had only the vaguest memories of by now, stood by and laughed like the wicked villain, the monster he had become in Edward’s mind.
“Hey,” said Aunt Daisy, leaning over him this time, a firm hand on his shoulder, and he struggled to sort out his confusion of thoughts, shivering suddenly. “Ned. Have some of this,” she said, helping him to drink the lemonade the nurse had left. It tasted a little odd, but it did help. “I told you,” she added, “I’m here. Everything will be all right.”
He nodded as he lay back down. “You’ll have to go, though,” he told her. Matron had strict rules about visitors. He was surprised Aunt Daisy had even been allowed in. “They’ll make you.”
A particular dark light came into her eye; even in his present state he recognised it well. “Oh, no, they won’t,” she said. “That Matron of yours is a reasonable woman, and I’ll stay till the end of the day at the very least.” She followed that up by bathing his face with the cloth that Nurse had left and a comment that even she could manage this much, before she draped it over his forehead.
“I didn’t mean to make a fuss,” he said, feeling at least momentarily clearer and immediately embarrassed. He was nearly fifteen, and he felt stupid at the whole business. He ought to be too old for any of this sort of thing. It was marginally better than measles, but it was still a rotten nuisance.
Aunt Daisy sat back down. “You’re not. Now, lie still and don’t be silly. I’ll tell you about my article. It’s one of the interesting ones, I promise.”
By the time Daisy returned in the morning, Edward’s temperature had returned to more reasonable levels. He was still ill enough to find it hard even to read, dozing off frequently, but nothing to worry anyone over.
Daisy sat with him for a while and then went away, first to send a telegram to Anne to tell her that Edward had turned the corner, and then to telephone the Taylors’ house, where she got hold of a Mrs Smith who had come in to check on the place. She could at least tell Daisy that the Taylors would be back in a week.
A week, thought Daisy. Just you wait, Hugh Taylor!
Edward didn’t want to leave school for a few weeks to recuperate. He’d only get behind and miss half a dozen things he’d been looking forward to, but neither Matron, Aunt Daisy or his form tutor had thought his need to be there when the fourth formers hosted an evening for the rest of the school overrode the issue of his current state of health.
He was feeling better enough to be frustrated by it all, although still ill enough to be made far more dismal at the prospect than he would otherwise have been. He sighed heavily, and continued to pack his things with a bad grace, stopping every so often to cough.
He didn’t want to go home, when there wasn’t even any Nancy around, and sit around in the big house, being bored to death and probably fussed over. Mostly, of course, if he went back home, it would only remind him all over again how little Mother cared. He shouldn’t still mind by now; it wasn’t a new thing. It was just that every time he saw her, it was all right again, but then even if he wrote, which he was getting less and less willing to do, she hardly ever replied. Sometimes she sent short letters that didn’t seem to have taken any notice of anything he’d said.
He shoved the thought aside and concentrated on hunting out a book that had fallen under the bed, and caused himself to feel wobbly and breathless at the effort, something which underlined the point all the adults had been making. He scowled and kicked his trunk.
“It’s not forever,” said Matron, coming in to see how he was getting along. She examined the contents of the trunk, and tutted, pulling out the shirts and folding them properly. “Only until half term, and then you’ll be back.”
Edward could only nod. He was feeling far too washed out again to argue. Getting out of bed properly for the first time, and complaining about what they were making him do seemed to have taken everything out of him, worse luck.
“I can’t have you in and out of the San like a bad penny,” she said. “Better to go home now, rest properly, and you won’t be likely to be ill again later and miss the cricket.”
“Yes, Matron,” he said, and coughed again.
She gave him a sharp look. “Hmm, well, I’ll give your cubicle a look-over,” she said. “You lie down until your aunt comes for you - and that, Iveson, is an order.”
Daisy made sure she called on Elizabeth and Hugh Taylor the moment they returned. She arrived early and sat in her car, watching and waiting, grimly upright in the car seat. She was going to tell Elizabeth what was going on, straight away, before That Man had any chance to whitewash over it.
They didn’t see her there when they pulled into the driveway, and Daisy hesitated for a moment after all, seeing Elizabeth standing outside the house, looking unexpectedly frail herself, but what else could she do now? Daisy got out of the car and marched across the road, catching them even as they were going in the front door.
“Daisy!” said Elizabeth, reacting first as they both stared at her in surprise. “Whatever is it - Edward?”
Daisy raised her chin, determined not to understate the matter for once. “Yes, it is. I hope very much that your tour was worth it - and perhaps you’ll care to explain why Edward’s school couldn’t reach you, though they tried all week!”
“Daisy!” said Elizabeth again.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter now,” she said. “It’s much too late -”
She only realised that had probably not been the best way to phrase it when Elizabeth interrupted her by abruptly turning white, all but fainting before Hugh caught her.
“I’m sorry,” said Daisy, once Elizabeth had been helped into an armchair the living room, and Hugh, after a dubious look at Daisy, had gone out to see about getting a cup of tea for Elizabeth. “I wanted to make my point, but I had no intention of being so melodramatic.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “I was tired after the journey; that doesn’t matter. Edward is all right now, isn’t he?”
“Oh, yes, of course - he’s at home with me, being listless and complaining,” Daisy told her. “But in another way he isn’t, and neither are you, I think. The school had the addresses of both hotels - they sent several telegrams to both and telephoned. Of course, Edward was fine - it was only the influenza, but there was a while before I got there where he’d given the school a nasty turn, I think. And he wanted you - where were you?”
She stiffened a little: Daisy was, after all, her younger sister. “For heaven’s sake, I was in Scotland, Daisy! I could hardly have returned in an instant even if we had received the message. We did go to one or two small places, so I suppose -”
“Can you let yourself believe that?” said Daisy. “How many other messages have never reached you, I wonder? How many letters?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “Don’t be absurd. He’d hardly have the chance. Jennings usually picks up the mail, anyway. I’ll certainly have to ask him about this, but it’s not your business.”
“Oh, isn’t it?” said Daisy. “In the normal way of things, I would agree, but when I’m the one getting summoned to that school to see Matron and explain to her about this whole mess, it is! I had to sit there and be told that this state of affairs isn’t doing Edward any good - he misses you still. Which of course he does. Elizabeth, you have to do something about it.”
Mr Taylor returned, and said that Mrs Smith would see to the tea, and then wanted to know if Daisy had been upsetting Elizabeth. “She hasn’t been all that well herself, you know.”
“I won’t have the two of you talking over my head,” said Elizabeth. “And while I don’t seem to have been quite right lately, it’s not anything that will stop me going with you to see Edward. I take it that was what you meant?”
Mr Taylor frowned. “Not now, surely - tomorrow -”
“Daisy’s here now, and I gather I’m already far later than I should be,” Elizabeth said. “We’ll have a conversation about those missed messages when I return.”
Daisy had wandered over to the fire, and she looked up. “You can stay with us, you know,” she said. “For the night, I mean - then it shouldn’t be so tiring for you, and you’ll have more time to try and right this tangle.”
“I really do think she needs to rest first,” said Hugh Taylor.
Daisy, almost unconsciously, tightened her hand around the nearby poker and thought, with a seriousness that startled her, of how easy it might be to kill him with it. Of course, it would be awful, and she wasn’t quite sure she could do it if it required several blows, as it no doubt might, and she would have to go to prison, but she would have simultaneously saved both Elizabeth and Edward, who were probably dearer to her than anyone else in the world. She was a little alarmed by the fact that she thought it might well be worth the sacrifice.
“No, not this time,” Elizabeth said, and stood up. “But, Daisy, allow me a half an hour at least to get myself together.”
Edward heard them come in, Mother and Aunt Daisy, but he kept on reading his book, wrapped up on the sofa.
“Ned,” said Mother, some minutes later. “How are you now?”
He kept his hold on the book, refusing to look up or respond.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Ned. I was in Scotland. I could hardly have made it back to see you even if the message had reached me - and I’m here now.”
Edward swallowed and closed up the book, and made himself face her. “Yes, but you weren’t there last term - or Christmas.”
“I was ill, too, at the end of last year,” she said, moving nearer. “I am sorry about all of it, and I’ll make sure this doesn’t happen again, that I will promise.”
“But then next time it’s half-term, or holidays, or prize-giving, or anything, you won’t be there,” he said. He was, he found to his surprise when he stood, almost as tall as she was now. “And I hate wondering if you will come or not - it’s not fair.”
Mother didn’t say anything for a moment; she merely looked at him, before eventually, she asked, “Would you rather I didn’t come, and then you would know where you stood?”
Edward hesitated; he felt angry enough to say yes, but the understanding between him and Mother had not yet entirely vanished and he knew that she was serious. If he said that, she would go away until and unless he asked for her to come back and, he wasn’t quite ready to give up what little he had of her. But one day, it would happen, he thought with sudden, painful clarity. You couldn’t go on and on like this. You just couldn’t.
“No,” he said, but he didn’t move any nearer.
She concealed her feelings as carefully as ever and gave a short nod. “Thank you. And it’s as well, since your Aunt has asked me to stay the night, and I’m going to. Maybe you can think about whether there’s anything you’d like to do while I’m here.”
Edward nodded.
“Ned,” she said, suddenly, moving closer and putting a hand to his shoulder, “you’re shaking, darling.”
He forced a smile. “I do seem to be a bit wobbly still. The ‘flu, you know.”
“Yes,” said Mother, giving his arm a light squeeze, “I know.”
“Stay,” said Daisy, the next morning. “Don’t go back. Hugh must have seen at least one of those telegrams - and let’s face it, this whole business with his behaviour to Edward is beyond the pale!”
Elizabeth turned her head. “We’ve already had words about that, and there will be more. But I can’t leave him.”
“You could,” said Daisy. “You won’t. And Ned has had enough of this, you know. And who can blame him?”
Elizabeth picked up her bag. “Oh, Daisy, I only wish it were that simple. The whole thing is my fault, not Hugh’s - and I can’t run away from it now because I was foolish enough to think it would work out differently. And there it is: I can’t leave Hugh, and I can’t have him and Edward together.”
Daisy merely looked at her.
“Edward has all of you,” said Elizabeth.
Daisy sighed, and accompanied Elizabeth out through the hallway to the front door. “Doesn’t Hugh have a sister? Not to mention that manservant of his.”
“Pat lives away,” Elizabeth said. “It’s not the same. I know you think it’s archaic nonsense, but I won’t break my marriage vows, not lightly at least.”
“Lightly!” said Daisy. “Lizzy, don’t go. Stay. I wouldn’t ask you to do it lightly, either, but the situation is making you ill, the Matron at Edward’s school is convinced it’s making him ill, and at this rate, I’ll probably get an ulcer if this goes on much longer! Stay with us. If Hugh comes after you, I’ll send him packing. This isn’t the dark ages.”
Elizabeth gave a brief smile, and then leaned forward to briefly take Daisy’s hand and kiss her on the cheek. “Don’t, Daisy, or I shall cry, and where will we be? Just drive me to the station and let’s say no more about it. I do appreciate what you’ve done - it’s more than I have any right to ask of anyone. Now, please - I must go, and there’s nothing to be gained in making it more painful than it already is.”
When Daisy came back in, Edward hurried down the stairs to meet her. He had, she noted, been crying, although she was tactful enough not to mention it.
“Come on,” she said. “To the kitchen. Tea and shortbread.”
Edward gave a reluctant smile. “All right. But I think we finished the shortbread yesterday.”
“I’m fairly sure there’s another lot in my study,” said Aunt Daisy, and after a brief detour to rummage around under her papers, pulling out half a tin of shortbread in triumph, led them into the kitchen and put the kettle on the stove.
Edward opened the tin of biscuits. “How can there always be another one?”
“Magic,” said Aunt Daisy, but once the tea had been made, she sat opposite him at the bare, wooden kitchen table, and said, “Let’s not pretend. I miss her too. She’s my sister, and we were every bit as close as you and Nancy once upon a time.”
He nodded.
“But,” Daisy said, “she can’t stay with us, and I suppose, knowing Elizabeth as I do, I shall have to accept her word on that - and that she still cares, especially about you.”
Edward pulled a face.
“I know,” said Daisy. “It’s a tiresome tangle, I agree, but here we are, so we’ll have to make the best of it, won’t we? Now, have another shortbread - I need to feed you up and get you back to that school of yours!”
“Thanks,” said Edward, and bit into it. “How old is it? It’s gone soft.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Aunt Daisy. “People give me them, and then I put them away and find them again months later. It always seems to be more or less all right.”
Edward grinned.
“And,” said Aunt Daisy, moving across to sort through some newspapers on the end of the worktop, pulling out the Radio Times. “Here. Take this and while I get some work done, you find something nice for us to listen to this evening, eh?”
Edward nodded and took it from her. “Thank you.” He slipped off the chair again and then hung back, screwing up his face a little. “I mean - thank you for everything.”
“Oh, everything,” said Daisy, as she hastily brushed the crumbs off the table before Mrs Gibbons came back and scolded her. “Pfft. No need. It’s my privilege. Now, go back to your sofa with your book - I need to get some things done, and you need to be lying up like the doctor ordered.”
Edward grinned, and gave her a mock-salute. He hovered awkwardly in the doorway before he left, however, and said, “I did mean it, though, Aunt Daisy. Honestly.”
He was gone before she could respond, which was as well, Daisy thought, because she never did know what to say when it came to the things that mattered the most.
***