Emily and Daisy , livre ebook

Troubador Publishing Ltd - Paul Yates

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162 pages

English

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This is a love story. A love story with a difference that lives across time and space and explores the ways in which the accidents of love can combine in the forging of a life.Rural Devon, World War II. In her last year of school and living above the family shop, Daisy studies for her exams and keeps her journal. After he paints a watercolour portrait of her, she falls for James, a young army captain.Paris, the end of the twentieth century. Emily lives comfortably with her father, having just left university and unsure of what comes next. Upon discovering Daisy's portrait, she becomes enchanted by the young woman who seems to have inexplicably disappeared from her uncle's life.Campiston house in rural Sussex connects the two women. In her teens Emily spends her Summer vacations with her great uncle, but he never speaks of Daisy. Later, James wills the house to Emily who pursues the mystery of Daisy's disappearance.Their lives may have different trajectories, but something resonates with Emily as she delves deeper into the traces of Daisy's world. Each revelation demands that Emily see herself and her world in new ways.

Informations

Publié par	Troubador Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	28 novembre 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781800466319
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Copyright © 2021 Paul Yates

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Cover image, Girl on a Chair, by kind permission of the estate of Roy Newby.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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For Susan

Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20

Chapter 1
Miss Hewitt picked up the brass hand bell from the table in front of the Honours Board and positioned herself in the middle of the Grammar School building, a symmetrical Palladian mansion showing signs of wear. She flipped up the small fob watch on the lapel of her tweed jacket and, as the hand reached the minute, began to swing. The clapper hit the bell at four o’clock precisely and would continue to do so for two minutes.
Daisy rushed out of the library, down the wide staircase and hurried along the corridor. Running was against the rules. The cloakroom smelt of damp and sweat. It doubled as the girls’ changing room for the daily Physical Exercise. Most girls loathed it. Jumping about in the playground in your knickers was mortifying. To avoid it, Theresa Moore had forged a letter saying she suffered from asthma and had got away with it. Daisy quickly shrugged on her navy blue mackintosh, pulling the belt as tight as it would go around her waist. Jamming her hat on her head, she swung the stuffed satchel onto her shoulder, and dashed out of the cheerless building. She must not miss the old coach that dropped the girls, like so many parcels, at the villages and hamlets around Marleigh.
Daisy got off at the Market Cross in Porthwiel. She walked down the High Street to near the edge of the village. The shop was one of several in a row. Passing the bootmaker, the haberdashery and the bakery she came to one painted dark green with the legend – Eric Lanyard and Son, General Stores – written in white paint across the top of the window. Pushing open the door carefully, she tried to grab the little bell before it sounded. Usually she failed, but this time she just managed to get her hand to it before the vibration of the door made it ring. Daisy closed her eyes and made a wish. Her mother came out of the back room, drying her hands on her flowered pinafore.
‘Hello, love.’
‘I’m that tired,’ Daisy said, ‘any chance of a cup of tea?’
‘I expect you are. After all, the brain must be like a muscle, if you have to use it a lot it gets worn out. I expect your dad will be wanting one. I’ll put the kettle on.’
She went through to the back parlour and down a step to the small kitchen. Daisy followed.
‘Take your school shoes off, dear.’
‘Oh, mum, do I have to? There’s holes in my slippers and the floor is freezing.’
‘Don’t talk nonsense, that lino takes the chill off the flags lovely. You can put some cardboard in your slippers,’ her mother said. She took the filled kettle to the enamel gas stove and clicked a lighter, until with a little thumping noise, she got a flame.
‘There was a sack of sugar come in today, so your dad will want you to bag it up, only in four ounces mind.’
‘Mum, please. It’s my higher exam year, you know that. I’ve got French, Geometry and English homework tonight. I’ve got to do it. If I don’t get the work done it’s just wasting your money sending me to the Grammar School.’
‘That’s as maybe, but if you don’t bag the sugar this evening then you just get up early and do it before you go tomorrow.’
‘Then I’d be fagged out before I get to school.’
‘No matter, it has to be done and you have to do it. There’s a war on and your dad will be out with the ARP wardens again tonight, though don’t ask me why it takes so many grown men to supervise the blackout in a little village. And stop answering me back all the time, he’ll be home in a jiffy.’
Daisy said nothing. Taking off her shoes, she hung her coat on a hook behind the door. Passing the mirror above the fireplace she piled her long brown hair on her head and stuck out her tongue. She put on her dilapidated slippers and went through to the windowless storeroom, redolent with the dismal smell of stale Woodbines.
The sack of sugar didn’t look as big as Daisy had feared. She spread some newspaper on a low table, to catch any spills, and took down a pair of grimy brass scales. The sack was lugged over to the table and a stool set before it. Taking a pile of stiff blue cartridge paper bags, she opened out the first twenty and put them on the table. Carefully undoing the stitching at the top, she rolled down the sack to expose the white granules. Daisy put two fingers in her mouth and wet them down to her knuckles. They were stuck in the sugar and then put back in her mouth. She did it a second time. Using a small cylindrical shovel, she weighed out four ounces and tipped the sugar into a bag. She deftly folded the top of the paper to make a sound seal and put it to one side.
She was soon into a rhythm where her mind could disengage. Her mother came in with a cup of tea. Daisy drank half and then poured some sugar in, drinking down the syrupy concoction in one draught. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she again set to. Working fast helped her to keep warm in the unheated storeroom and got the boredom over more quickly.
The previous Wednesday had been Speech Day. All the girls sitting cross-legged on the floor of the hall while stacks of unspeakably boring books were dished out to goody goodies and brown-nosing teachers’ pets. No one ever got nylons or nail polish, or even a packet of chewing gum. A former Head Girl had given out the prizes. The inevitable speech had been full of dull exhortations, urging the girls to put country first and do what they could for the war effort. She had at least kept up the tradition of visitors in asking that the school be awarded a half-day holiday. Everyone had cheered and clapped her for that, until, fearing a breakdown of social order, they were quelled by the Headmistress, standing up in her black gown and moving her forearms up and down with splayed hands. The holiday would be tomorrow, for an unknown reason they were always on a Thursday afternoon.
Her friend Alice was going to the pictures, but Daisy had made no plans. No doubt her father would find things for her to do, stifling complaint as always by telling her how hard he had to work to pay her school fees, a chance he had never had, and that giving him a hand was the least she could do. She never said that in her opinion, even given the chance, he would have been too stupid to benefit from it. Of course, French was due in last period on Thursdays and so she could postpone the homework until the following evening. This meant she would have time to write her journal before she went to sleep.
For supper, Daisy’s dad had supplied a rabbit, acquired from an old farm labourer in the pub at lunchtime. Fresh bread was on the table, even if it was the stodgy National Loaf. The law forbad the baker to sell bread until it was one day old, but her dad seemed able to persuade him. He was always doing little deals, or big ones for all Daisy knew. She had weighed up not mentioning the half-day holiday, but there was nowhere to hide, and they’d probably find out anyway.
‘If you’ve got the afternoon off you can help me with the deliveries. So, make sure you’re home sharp. There’s a lot of groceries to go to the camp tomorrow.’
‘Let her be, Eric,’ her mother said, ‘the girl’s got schoolwork to do.’
‘She can help me and still have time for that. Can’t you, love?’ he looked across at Daisy but did not smile.
Daisy avoided his gaze and said nothing. After the meal she helped her mother with the washing up. Surreptitiously she took her coat off the peg and went to the storeroom. Her mum did not like her wearing it indoors, she said it made her look like orphan Annie. Daisy finished bagging the sugar and put it in the shop, stacked neatly under the counter. At last, keeping her coat on, she went to her attic room. It was better to do homework in the cold than stay in the smoky parlour with the chattering radio.
Daisy put up the blackout before turning the feeble light on. Sometimes, after a while, it made her eyes swim. She felt under the iron bedstead for the red exercise book she used for writing her journal, a word she preferred over diary. It was elegant. She found her lovely Waterman pen that auntie Hilda had given her when she passed her scholarship. It had a gold tipped nib that moulded itself to your particular way of writing.
Loosening the buckle on her coat she got into bed, balancing the books on her lap. Homework first, then writing. Out came compass, set square and protractor. Geometry would be the most difficult, so get it over with. English was a précis. It w