Daisy’s Betrayal. Nancy Carson

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СКАЧАТЬ hardly able to comprehend that these people assembled were celebrating her wedding. She had hardly had a chance to get used to the idea herself; with all the work and organising she’d had to do, she’d hardly had time to think about it. She had been in a whirl ever since Lawson had proposed. Now, she scanned the guests, drawn mostly from his acquaintances and those of his family who still remained: his Great-Aunt Hannah whose necklace of jade did not suit her donkey-brown dress and made her look austere. The Reverend William Reyner Cosens, slim and clean-shaven except for his handsome sideburns, looked his usual aristocratic self, clinging to a glass of warm ginger beer. Her own Aunt Lucy was there, dowdy and old-fashioned, with nobody talking to her, especially not the well-dressed lady friends of Jack Hayward and Robert Cookson, bubbling in their modish dresses and full of themselves. Then she saw her mother with tears in her eyes because her older daughter had married so well.

      A male quartet appeared, sporting identical, well-clipped moustaches and shiny hair, and entertained the guests for half an hour with some novelty songs and sparkling harmonies. After that, the bride and groom changed for their journey. Daisy wore a new outfit in the fashionable nautical style and a flat, sailor-style, broad-rimmed hat perched on her head.

      Outside, on the steps of the Dudley Arms, Daisy turned her back on the carriage that was to convey them to the station and waved to her guests. Everybody smiled at her and waved back and the stylish lady friends of Jack and Robert threw rice. It had occurred to her earlier that Robert’s lady friend, whom she had thought might have been Fanny, was not indeed. She had been introduced as Miss Amelia somebody or other.

      Lawson handed Daisy into the carriage and they were driven away.

      ‘I’ve got a confession, Lawson,’ she said, as she arranged the folds of her skirt.

      He looked at her ominously, not knowing what to expect. ‘Oh? What’s that, my darling?’

      ‘I’ve never been on a train before. Will it be crowded?’

      He smiled, relieved it was something so trivial. ‘I doubt it. Not in first class anyway.’

      ‘How long will the journey take?’

      ‘We should be in London by about eight.’

      ‘So soon?’

      ‘I know. The wonder of modern railways. We’ll be in time to take dinner in the hotel.’

      Was this really happening to her? How could she have been so fortunate? What great goodness had she performed in her life that she was being rewarded thus?

      In Castle Hill she stared out through the weak afternoon sunshine at the passing traffic. A troupe of bare-footed urchins squatting at the gate of the Castle Grounds seemed incongruous next to the pristine white statue of the Earl of Dudley erected only the previous year. A steam tram huffed asthmatically up the hill from the opposite direction. Old women wearing black shawls carried baskets as they trudged towards the market place. Daisy glanced at Lawson, at his magnificently handsome face beneath his expensive, shiny top hat, and again she could not believe her good fortune. Less than four months ago they were strangers. They had met with polite words, given each other polite attention and admiring glances. He had not guessed then that she was merely a servant. As their affair blossomed and she nervously received his first kisses, she could never have guessed he would choose her to be his wife. She would endow him with all the love and affection it was possible for one person to give another. He deserved it. It was his due. He never so much as looked at another woman in her company. Never had she met anybody so focused on her, so generous, so affable, so pleasant to be with. And she had yet to experience the ultimate expression of love between a man and a woman. But it would not be that night, nor the next, nor, she suspected, the one after that.

      She took his hand. ‘Lawson, I have another confession …’ She smiled into his eyes apologetically.

      ‘What this time?’ he asked.

      ‘I’ve started my … you know … My monthly visitor arrived. On Wednesday.’

      ‘Hang me!’ he said, piqued. ‘I think the gods are conspiring against us. Ah, well, there’s nothing to be done. We’ll just have to wait.’ He squeezed her hand affectionately and she didn’t feel so badly about it.

      ‘You don’t mind?’

      ‘It’s not a question of minding.’

      ‘I wouldn’t have wished it for the world, Lawson, not on our wedding night, but what’s a girl to do to stop it?’

      He laughed at the irony of her words. ‘What some girls wouldn’t do to start it …’

      ‘But we shall most likely be at Bath before we can …’

      He patted her hand. ‘Then roll on Bath, eh?’

      They reached Paddington Station as it was getting dark. In the noise and bustle a porter close by was lighting gas lamps while another took their baggage to a line of hansoms. Daisy tripped along behind, astounded by the number of private carriages and horse-drawn buses that screamed advertisements from every side. The roads seemed jammed full of them and everywhere the street noise was unbelievable. More than four million souls inhabited that vast city, and it showed.

      They reached their hotel. Once she had unpacked, Daisy suggested that they have dinner, then take a walk in London’s bright gas-lit streets. In the comfortable dining room they sat at a table next to a young man and two elderly ladies, one silked, one velveted. The young man, she noticed, kept looking at her through rimless spectacles and made her feel uncomfortable. She felt the urge to do what she would have done in her early years – bob her tongue at him – but she could not behave thus now she was a lady. So she listened and spoke more attentively to Lawson, and held his hand across the table to confound the young man.

      Lawson ordered a bottle of champagne and a bottle of red burgundy. She had tasted champagne before at Baxter House and told him so.

      ‘And did you like it?’ he asked, humouring her.

      ‘Once I got used to the bubbles tickling my nose.’

      Talk of Baxter House set them conversing during their meal about the people that Lawson knew who had visited the house.

      ‘What happened to Fanny?’ Daisy asked. ‘Did she and Robert not hit it off?’

      ‘Fanny? Oh, I think he still sees Fanny from time to time,’ he answered dismissively.

      ‘He plays the field, doesn’t he?’

      ‘Robert? No more nor less than any other single man in his position. His father is pressing him to wed, but he doesn’t admire the girl his father would have him marry.’

      ‘Oh? Who is she?’

      ‘Some mine-owner’s daughter.’

      ‘Wealthy, I presume.’

      ‘Why else would he want them to marry?’

      ‘And Jack?’

      ‘Jack will now be running the family firm. I daresay he’ll need a good woman to anchor him down.’

      Time passed quickly. Before they knew it they had finished their meal and the bottle of wine and the bottle of champagne СКАЧАТЬ