Summers, True Read online

  Poppy often marveled at Daisy. She could change a gentleman's frowns to smiles as easily as she twisted a tendril of golden hair into a curl around her finger. She never lost her wits or control of her tongue. She did not say she owned the cottage. She did not say removing Poppy would still leave Andy. She simply murmured that Mr. Hammett's friend was a fine, upstanding gentleman but Poppy was still a schoolroom miss and perhaps not simple but awkward in her ways. The gentleman had commiserated with her, left, and not returned. Surely Daisy would not change her mind about him now.

  Poppy jumped to her feet. Daisy was back. She could hear her voice downstairs. Now she would learn the worst. Or maybe it would be better if Daisy waited until after she had eaten and was not so cross.

  Daisy did not send for her or for Andy that night or the next morning. Noon was striking on the parlor mantel clock before Mrs. Peters came puffing up to say Poppy was wanted downstairs.

  Daisy was standing in the center of the parlor, wearing her black dress with the thin white stripe, and that was bad. She wore it only when she went to the bank on business or sallied out to dispute with a tradesman over a bill that seemed too large. The black dress meant serious trouble.

  "Dr. Minton is through with you, going to his son in the country, and I'm rusticating you and Andy with Gramps," Daisy announced.

  Poppy stared at the beautiful, golden-haired woman who was her mother and still looked no more than thirty. Rusticating? That was what they did to university men who got into scrapes. Daisy had talked to The Rev, and he was a university man. To him, that would have seemed a suitable punishment. But rusticating with Gramps? The Rev simply had not known.

  "With the man who sold you for ten pounds?" Poppy gasped.

  "Certainly he sold me for ten pounds. I'll tell it any day because girls were bringing only five pounds those hard times. Still do, even now. So I was a ten-pound virgin and proud my pa thought enough of me to do it and make a good arrangement. I'll always be grateful for it."

  "Proud of the ten pounds maybe," Poppy whispered. "But grateful?"

  "Sit down. You and I are going to have a little talk. It's only fair to Gramps you should know how things were before you go there. And maybe, too, it will make you appreciate what you've had here."

  "We didn't get into any trouble or do anything bad."

  "Not yet. And you'll not be spoiled if I can help it, the same as my pa saved me from being spoiled. So sit down and keep your feet together and your hands in your lap the way you've been taught to do while I'm speaking."

  She had never seen Daisy in such a temper. "Yes, ma'am," she whispered and sat down.

  "Now you mustn't expect too much when you get there, though things are easy now compared to when I was a child," Daisy said, pacing the floor. ''Then there were twelve of us living in that two-room cottage. We had a smithy and a garden, a few fruit trees, and a bit of pasture for the cows and chickens. But even with the smithy, that didn't feed us. From the time we were seven or eight, we were all out working at whatever came to hand-rough work, fieldwork-for a few pence a week. Those were cold and hungry times, and I suppose we were lucky, for we owned the cottage, and the fields were healthy work. If there'd been factories or coal mines near, we might have ended in them, and those are a hard life and short. Then the older ones started growing up and could get away.

  ''The oldest, Nellie, went into service, and she was lucky to get on in a big house, so she had a bed in a dormitory and hot meals and two uniforms a year and a bit of cash in her hand at the end to send home. Nellie's done well. She's an upstairs maid now. Nellie was plain and common-sensical, but poor Allie was always dreaming, and she got in trouble and would not stay to face it. She ran off and nobody knows what happened to her. The river, mayhap, or a house or it could be anything else. Josie, Tom, and Will all died young and nobody had the heart to grieve much. Davvy went for a seaman, and Dan'l got taken on at the stables up at the manor. Dorcas married, and it was a misery, the same as our folks or worse, even today. Then there was Barney, the oldest boy, and that was the trouble. He was a mean one. Still is. Finally Pa said Barney could have the place but only after he was gone, and Pa drove him off. He got taken on as a laborer with a cottage and garden space on a farm on the other side of the village. He married, but his wife has it hard, and everybody says it is a mercy the children never live long.

  "I was the last, and my folks were at their wits' end. I was as common-sensical as Nellie, but with my looks no woman was going to have me in her house with men- folks around, not in good service. A couple of men made offers for me, but Pa wanted a better life for me than he'd given Ma. But Barney kept coming around, begging for this and that, hanging around, hanging around, and he would not let me be. My folks weren't going to have me spoiled and by my own brother. I was thirteen and full grown, but I was the last, and things were easier. So it wasn't a matter of eating dinner that day to get me placed.

  "The Colonel was visiting at the manor and saw me and came around to make an offer. He was a retired Army man, with a scarred face and a limp, and he put his terms plain and clear. He liked young girls, and he liked to have them first, as so many gentlemen do, but some only for the once. The Colonel never kept them long. But neither did he turn them out when he was finished, though that's the common thing and no one would have said a word to him. He set his girls up in a decent place, he paid the rent ahead, and gave them cash to see them through until they made a new connection-if they had the sense to use their chance. If not, of course they ended on the street. Then he offered Pa ten pounds."

  Daisy's face lit up, and she sank down into the chair across the hearth from Poppy. "I was a ten-pound girl and in hard times. I knew then, and the folks knew, too, that I would be all right. The Colonel was not a patient man, and I could not call him kindly or say I ever could like him, but he was fair. I ate good food and wore pretty clothes and had as sweet a pair of rooms as anybody could want in London. When the Colonel got to hungering for a new one, he told me straight and kept his word. He paid a quarter's rent ahead, gave me another ten pounds, and let me keep the clothes and trinkets I had.

  ''Now, he had kept me to himself, and I was young and green from the country. I was timid, knowing that. But I kept my wits about me. I didn't know where the gentry went or how to meet them without picking them up on the street and making myself cheap. But I let myself be seen, and I didn't jump at the first offer I had. I never even considered I might go on the streets or end up in a house. A few gentlemen had seen me with the Colonel, and when they saw me without, word got around. By the time the ten pounds were gone, I had a new connection. That gentleman taught me about London, the people, and the different places-where to avoid the rough ones and where the gentry went. When William saw me, strolling in the park, I was on the arm of a gentleman and had on as pretty a walking costume as any woman could wear. Blue, it was, with a white satin stripe and a bonnet with a double-fluted edge and velvet ribbons floating to my waist.

  "He was a fine gentleman, your father, lovable. He set me up in this house, but he wasn't a young man. We both knew someday I had to make a life for myself, but I would be all right. By the time he died, I was not twenty yet, and I was one of the beauties. Not one of the first ones, with my pictures on sale and all, but I was pretty as any picture, and my next gentleman was as sweet a boy as I ever knew. We were happy, Poppy, we were happy as a pair of lambs in a spring meadow all those years. And he was good to you, too. When his family made him marry, and he went back to the West Country, I couldn't settle. It's a wonder I didn't end up between the hammer and the anvil."

  ''That was when you got Andy?"

  "Not from him. My next was a manufacturing gentleman from Manchester who came in occasionally to see about loans in the city. In and out, he was, but I wasn't ready to settle, either. He never grudged what he spent, but the times he was gone-well, I was lonely, and we never fixed it as a permanent connection. So when I met this lovely young cavalry boy in the park, on leave he
was for just a few weeks, I fair lost my head for a while. Oh, it was lucky the manufacturing gentleman was a long time away just then, but that's the reason I've never been sure about Andy. To be truthful, I never thought the officer gave me his right name. Some will do that when they're on leave and running free. So I just called the baby Andrew, meaning manly, because they were both good men, but I've never been sure which it was. After he arrived, my manufacturing gentleman left. I always thought maybe he had too many babies at home and didn't enjoy another one. I knew I had to face up to my responsibilities. Mr. Manwitter was just the right man for me at that time. He thought my being settled here in this house proved I was settled, not flighty, and he could not tolerate a flighty female."

  "I remember you yawning behind your fan."

  "I wore mitts too. Gave me an excuse to put my hand to my face and flirt with them. He was such a serious man. But he was the one who made me take the bank notes from under the carpets, the gold from where I had it hid under the loose tile on my bedroom hearth, and the trashy trinkets out of my powder box. He got them all together, not the rubies or my diamond earrings or the gold bracelets or the other things I wear, of course, and took me to the bank. I did as they told me, bought the freehold here and let them invest the rest in four percents. From that day, I've never had a real worry that I wouldn't have a roof over my head or would go hungry."

  "I couldn't find a fan big enough to yawn behind, with a man that serious," Poppy cried.

  "You could learn the lesson he taught me," Daisy said severely. "It's not enough to be provident today, you've got to be wise for tomorrow, too. Oh, dear, oh, my, but he was a provident man himself."

  "You were certainly unsettled when he left."

  "Why shouldn't I have been?" Daisy cried, her cheeks rosy with remembered indignation. "Here we'd been cozy as two birds on a high roost all those years and then that wife of his got to acting up. I think that was the reason he valued me so high, we were easy together, He'd married above him, and she made him feel it. When she finally heard about me, she went to her family, and they all crashed down on him together. He sold to the Royal Navy, you know, brass fittings and things. What that family did was ask him how many orders he thought he'd get if our dear queen ever heard about me and his leaving his wife alone so much. Now he was between the hammer and the anvil."

  "If you understood, why did you get all in a flutter and go running off to Paris after he left?"

  "I said he was a provident man. He'd given me a proper allowance, paid on the dot every quarter, to run this house the way he liked. But when he left, he said getting the bank to take me as a client and his advice on the investments were my settlement. Not one penny in cash did he give me more."

  "He was no gentleman," Poppy cried hotly.

  "He did as he saw right. Still, none of my other gentlemen ever did a thing like that. I thought if it could happen once, maybe times were changing. I'd heard how high and handsome those Paris beauties were flying, and I thought I'd better find out for myself if I'd have it finer over there. Besides I was unsettled in my mind." Daisy pursed her rosy lips in a kitten's hiss of contempt and shook her golden head. "High and handsome it was, but when I saw those grand horizontals, as they call them, and the way they live and throw their money around, I tell you I was fair disgusted. They'd break themselves, they would, for a dress for a grand ball or a costume for the races or a necklace they fancied. There they were, laying around half the day and letting their servants steal them blind because they were too lazy to care. Oh, I don't grudge the year we spent there because you children did learn a nice French, proper accent and all, but I came back knowing England and the English ways were best. Maybe our dear queen would be shocked at the likes of me, but she knows how to run her house and raise her family, and what's good enough for her is good enough for me," Daisy finished breathlessly.

  "Andy and I used to put it in our prayers every night. for you to decide to bring us home," Poppy confided. "Even if the Queen doesn't like dancing and balls the way she used to and the Court is getting so proper."

  Daisy's charming, girlish smile flashed. "Were you wishing for the old days? They weren't so good, I've heard, miss. Oh, we've had our high steppers, on the throne and off. But the days are gone when Nell Gwyn could roll down her carriage window and call out, 'I am the Protestant whore, good people,' and be cheered for it. Even she had her troubles getting her king to set her up proper in her own house and provide for her children as was right. No, these are the good times, and we're lucky to live in them." Her face sobered. "So don't you go thinking I'll let you do anything but what your father wanted for you, marry a respectable man. Now you go upstairs and pack and help Andy do the same. I'm putting you both on the train tonight and sending you to Pa."

  "We don't know him, he doesn't know us," Poppy cried in a panic.

  "He's expecting you. Dr. Minton had a friend who was traveling that way last night, and he took a message to be passed along. It's all arranged."

  "For how long?"

  "Until I can make suitable arrangements here. That may take a while so don't go counting the hours."

  "You wouldn't-that man-Mr. Hammett's friend," Poppy began and could not put the thought into words.

  Daisy understood. "Not unless you drive me desperate, miss, and sometimes I've thought you would."

  Chapter three

  POPPY knew she would not have hated the country if so much if Andy had not been so wildly happy and she had not been such a failure. She could not do one thing right.

  Daisy put them on the train herself and watched until it pulled out. Poppy could remember the trip only as a bad dream. The second-class car had no heat or lighting or glass to protect them from the soot flying back from the engine. She and Andy huddled together on the bare board seat, their feet on the single portmanteau holding the old clothes Daisy had said were good enough for the country. They were terrified by the burly, rough-spoken countrymen around them, who spoke in accents they could hardly understand. They were too frightened to eat the parcel of food Daisy had given them, sure it would be snatched away.

  Besides, Gramps might not have enough food for them when they arrived. Andy was certain they would have to sleep on straw on the floor. Poppy knew they would wade through mud outside and share the house with pigs and chickens.

  Gramps proved to be a red-faced, jovial man, as big as Granma was small and quiet. Seeing her, Poppy understood why Gramps had wanted an easier life for his beautiful daughter. Granma's face was a fine-featured mask of wrinkles, and her mouth looked like a nutcracker due to the loss of her teeth. Her hands were gnarled and swollen with hard work, and her body was thin and bent. She looked twenty years older than her husband and wanted only to slip away and nap every chance she could find.

  The tiny thatched cottage was as clean as scrubbing could make it. The mattresses were straw, but the mended sheets were fine linen. Poppy recognized them as some Daisy must have sent when they became too shabby for Pallminster Lane. Flowers grew around the door and bordered the path leading to the smithy. The three pigs and the dozen chickens were in pens between the kitchen garden and the orchard. The two cows had a small pasture.

  Andy took one look at the smithy, and, giving a whoop, ran out there. He watched Gramps shoeing a big farm horse. After that, he could hardly be dragged away to eat or sleep. He did not listen when Gramps roared with laughter and said he was the worst smith in four counties and only worked the forge because it was the family trade and he had inherited it. He got only the poorest work, shoeing farm horses brought in because he was cheap or mending broken rakes, hinges, or whatever oddments came his way.

  Andy, blue eyes shining, pounced on a hammer small enough for him to handle and, day after day, hung over the anvil, heating and pounding every piece of old metal he could find.

  Poppy was less successful at finding something to do. She tried to weed the kitchen garden. She did learn that if the tiny roots were orange or red, she had pulled carrots
or beets, food for next winter, and hastily thrust them back. At the end of a week, Granma said it was lucky she had saved back some seed. She planted again and forbade Poppy to set foot in the place. Once, only once, Poppy brought in an armload of lovely blossoms from the orchard to decorate the house. Gramps beat her with them, not hard and smiling cheerfully, then explained each blossom would have been a fruit. She stayed out of the orchard after that. She carried scraps to the pigs and chickens. She thought the pigs quite amiable but she took the chickens in strong aversion.

  Nothing could have gotten her in the pen with the nasty pecking things that might fly at her. She drove the cows in from the pasture and tried to milk them, but she got only half as much as Gramps or Granma, so she was not allowed to do that, either. She would not go near the forge because of the way the farmers stared at her and the remarks they passed. The washing, cleaning, and cooking in the tiny cottage were soon finished.