Lady Daisy Read online

  After a minute – ages, it seemed to Ned – Lady Daisy spoke.

  ‘Very well, Ned,’ she said. ‘It seems to me that to become your adopted doll might be a capital arrangement, if that is what you really wish.’

  ‘I do, I do!’ cried Ned delightedly.

  He felt like hugging her, but she was much too small for such a demonstration of affection, and anyway, he thought, it would be sloppy, so instead he took her gloved fingers in his own, and said, ‘Shall we shake hands on it?’

  ‘By all means,’ said Lady Daisy.

  So they did.

  ‘Now,’ said Ned, ‘you must be exhausted after all the excitement of today. Would you like to lie down?’

  ‘Goodness gracious, no, dear boy!’ said Lady Daisy. ‘I do not feel in the least tired. Eighty-nine years’ sleep is enough to refresh anyone.’

  ‘What would you like to do then?’

  ‘May we watch the machine of which you spoke? The “telly”, I believe you called it.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Ned.

  He looked at his watch.

  ‘Gran will be switching on the Six o’Clock News soon – she always sees that.’

  He carried Lady Daisy (upright, of course) out of his room.

  ‘Sidney,’ she said as they came to the head of the stairs, ‘used always to slide down the banister. A daring lad, was Sidney.’

  Oh, rats to old Sidney! thought Ned, and he sat on the broad, polished, mahogany stair-rail, a little nervously, to tell the truth, for he had never done this before, and pushed off.

  Down they went, at such a speed that Ned came flying off at the bottom, almost cannoning into his grandmother, who was crossing the hall at that moment.

  ‘Watch out, Ned!’ she cried. ‘You nearly knocked me flying. And carrying that doll too. I thought you said you were going to take care of it. Supposing you’d dropped it? It’s a wax doll, you know, its head is only made of hardened beeswax, it would have smashed into bits on the floor.’

  ‘Sorry, Gran.’

  ‘All’s well that ends well. Switch on the telly for the News, will you, pet? I’ve just got to put something in the oven.’

  ‘Sorry, Lady Daisy,’ said Ned softly as they went into the sitting-room.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Well, you heard what Gran said.’

  ‘I did. But you would not have dropped me, Ned. Of that I feel certain.’

  None the less, his grandmother’s words had sent shivers down Ned’s spine, and though he stared at the television, it was a blank stare. His mind was full of dreadful pictures, of Lady Daisy lying with a fractured skull, the blue eyes closed, never again to open, or, worse by far, of a headless corpse amidst smithereens of broken beeswax.

  Unconsciously, he stroked the long black hair as she stood wedged between his side and the arm of the chair, gazing at the set.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Gran as she switched off at the end of the News. ‘How I wish they could find something nice to tell us once in a while. It’s all so depressing nowadays. Whatever would that doll think of the world today – if it could think?’

  ‘Not “it”, Gran,’ said Ned. ‘“She”.’

  ‘Of course. Sorry, Ned. Sorry, Lady Daisy, will you forgive me?’ But answer, of course, came there none.

  ‘Well,’ said Ned later, back in his room, ‘what did you think of the television?’

  ‘Perfectly amazing!’ said Lady Daisy. ‘The strides that have been made in inventions! We had photographs, of course – how I wish I could show you one of my dear Victoria – but to see moving photographs, in colour, of things actually happening as one watches! Unbelievable. And the things they showed. Those great aeroplanes that carry hundreds of people to places like America in a matter of hours, and those astronauts floating about and turning somersaults in the air, and those machines that know the answers to everything – what were they called?’

  ‘Computers.’

  ‘Yes. So many new words to learn.’

  ‘Everything must seem so different,’ said Ned.

  ‘Some things have not changed, it seems,’ said Lady Daisy drily. ‘Except maybe to become worse. Wars everywhere, and cruelty, and famine. The human race may have learned a great deal, but apparently not much about loving their neighbours.’

  ‘Everyone must look very different.’

  ‘Yes, indeed – the clothes, or perhaps one should say the lack of clothes.’

  ‘Girls showing their legs, you mean?’

  ‘Not only their legs. That picture of that winner of the beauty competition . . .’

  ‘Oh, Miss World, you mean? In her swimsuit?’

  ‘Is that what it is called? Unfortunately I could neither look away nor close my eyes. Shameless!’

  Downstairs, the phone rang.

  ‘Ned,’ called his grandmother. ‘It’s for you.’

  ‘Coming!’ shouted Ned.

  He propped the doll on a chair and ran out.

  ‘It was the telephone,’ he said when he returned. ‘It’s a machine for talking to people who are a long way away.’

  ‘Oh, go and teach your grandmother to suck eggs!’ said Lady Daisy rather sharply. ‘The telephone was invented a hundred and fifteen years ago, my dear Ned.’

  ‘Oh. D’you mean you had one, here in this house?’

  ‘Of course. We were not savages, you know, even if we knew nothing of some of the benefits of today’s civilization. To whom did you speak, if one might ask?’

  ‘To my dad. They’re coming to fetch me tomorrow morning.’

  ‘To fetch us,’ said Lady Daisy.

  ‘Oh yes, yes!’

  ‘And we shall travel in a motor car?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Along one of those motorways we saw on the News, where there was that dreadful accident?’

  ‘Yes, but don’t worry, Lady Daisy. Dad’s a careful driver.’

  ‘But the speed they go! In my day a man carrying a red flag walked in front of the motor car. I confess I am nervous.’

  ‘Would you rather travel in your shoebox?’

  ‘If you please, Ned. So much is happening to me, so fast. I am used to life at a far slower pace. And you must remember that now I am an elderly doll, very old in fact.’

  But you cannot die, said Ned to himself, and then, remembering Gran’s warning, or can you?

  ‘You’re not old, Lady Daisy,’ he said. ‘You’re ageless. You’re the most beautiful doll in the world!’

  ‘Oh Ned,’ said Lady Daisy, ‘how nice of you! That is what Victoria always used to say.’

  Do her cheeks look a little pinker than usual? thought Ned. No, it must be a trick of the light.

  CHAPTER 5

  A Battered Old Shoebox

  ‘I wonder what your father will say,’ said Gran next morning.

  Ned had chosen a special breakfast – Gran always allowed him to do this on his last day – of two hard-boiled eggs squished up with a fork after adding a big knob of butter, and then crumpets spread with more butter and Gran’s home-made strawberry jam.

  He swallowed his last mouthful and said, ‘Say about what?’

  ‘About the doll.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t suppose he had one, when he was my age.’

  ‘He most certainly did not. Your dad and his chums were macho types – always playing war games, or doing judo, or kicking a football.’

  ‘Sounds just like Sidney,’ said Ned, without thinking.

  ‘Sidney? Do you mean your great-grandfather? How on earth do you know about him?’

  ‘Oh, Sidney’s a boy at school,’ Ned lied quickly.

  He thought for a bit and then he said, ‘Dad doesn’t have to know about Lady Daisy, does he?’

  ‘You mean you’ll take her in her shoebox?’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘What about your mother? Is she to know? Or are you just going to keep the doll boxed up? Probably safer that way, then she can’t be dropped or damaged.’

  ‘Oh Gran, that won’t be
very comfy for her!’

  ‘You’re a funny boy,’ said his grandmother. ‘You really seem to have become quite fond of Lady Daisy Chain. Anyway, you can rely on me – I shan’t say anything.’

  ‘Oh thanks, Gran.’

  ‘Has he been good?’ said Ned’s mother at lunchtime.

  ‘Good as gold,’ said Gran. ‘Though there’s nothing much for him to do here, it’s a bit boring for him.’

  ‘It’s not, Gran,’ said Ned.

  He caught her eye, and they grinned at one another.

  ‘Well, it’s back to school next week, Ned,’ said his father. ‘And this term you’ve got football to look forward to. Did you know, Mother,’ he said to Gran, ‘that Ned plays in goal for the school’s First XI? He’s their keeper. Pretty good, eh?’

  ‘A chip off the old block,’ said Gran.

  Ned’s father looked pleased, with himself as well as his son.

  ‘I used to play on the wing,’ he said. ‘Pretty nippy I was, though I say so myself. Now then, we must get a move on. I want to be through London before the worst of the rush-hour.’

  ‘Have you packed your things, Ned?’ said his mother.

  ‘Yes, Mum.’

  Ned had only brought a small case, not roomy enough for his clothes and the shoebox as well. Anyway, he didn’t like the idea of the box being inside anything, though common sense told him that if Lady Daisy had survived eighty-nine years without the need of a breath of fresh air, a couple of hours more wouldn’t hurt. But he would tie the box up again with string, he thought, in case Mum or Dad should be nosy enough to take the lid off.

  In his room, he lifted the doll up. Lady Daisy’s eyelids slid silently back.

  ‘Good morning, Ned,’ she said. ‘Or is it afternoon?’

  ‘It’s half past two,’ said Ned, ‘and we should be home by five. Could you manage another little nap till then?’

  ‘Let me have a last look out of the window,’ said Lady Daisy, and then, ‘What is that great long white machine outside the front door?’

  ‘That’s our car,’ said Ned.

  ‘Goodness gracious! To think that the last time I went for a drive, with Victoria, we were in the governess-cart behind the old grey pony. Put me to sleep, dear boy, I beg you.’

  Choosing the moment when his parents were saying farewell to his grandmother, Ned put case and shoebox quickly into the back of the Volvo and lowered the tail-gate.

  ‘Shut it properly, have you?’ his father said.

  ‘Yes, Dad.’

  ‘I’d better check.’

  Checking, he looked through the rear window and said, ‘What have you got in that box?’

  ‘Something I gave him,’ said Gran quickly.

  ‘Oh, a secret, eh? Come on then, say your goodbyes.’

  ‘Thanks – for everything, Gran.’

  His grandmother hugged him, as the others got into the car.

  ‘Goodbye, Ned,’ she said, and as she kissed him, she whispered in his ear, ‘And goodbye, Lady Daisy. Don’t forget, Ned, you’re not just a goalkeeper, you’re a dollkeeper.’

  Sitting behind his parents, Ned was thinking how difficult this business of secrecy was going to be, and for the first time in his life he felt the tiniest twinge of regret that he wasn’t a girl. Then he would have had Lady Daisy on his lap for the whole journey, and could have held her up to the window to look out.

  How astonished – and interested – she would be to see all the sights, so different, now in 1990, from everything that she had known. And I shan’t be able to carry her around at home, he thought, like I could at Gran’s – Dad would have a fit. We aren’t going to get much chance to talk.

  Talking to Lady Daisy Chain, he realized as they sped along the motorway, had become a very important part of his life and something that he would miss dreadfully if it were to become impossible. He no longer thought of her as a doll, a toy, made in some long-demolished factory and clothed by some long-dead seamstress. She was a person, and an extraordinary person at that.

  Last night they had talked for ages, or rather Ned had asked questions galore and Lady Daisy had answered them – all about life in 1901, what people had worn, what they had eaten and drunk, the games and sports they had played, the songs they had sung, their horses and carriages, their pets, their hobbies, their view of the world, a world so different from today’s. A human would have had to be nearly a hundred years old to have known all those things, but in Lady Daisy’s memory they were as fresh as paint.

  How much he had learned from her already! I bet I know more about those times than any of the teachers at school, he thought.

  ‘You’re very quiet, Ned,’ said his mother from the front. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, fine, Mum. I was just thinking.’

  ‘A penny for your thoughts,’ said his father.

  ‘I was thinking . . . about Gran,’ said Ned quickly. ‘How old was I when Grampa died?’

  ‘You were . . . let’s see . . .’

  ‘Nearly two,’ said his mother.

  ‘Yes, that’s right, it must be nearly eight years ago that my father died.’

  ‘What was his name, Dad?’

  ‘Harold.’

  ‘And what was his father’s name?’

  ‘My grandfather, you mean? He was called Sidney.’

  ‘Did he have any brothers or sisters?’

  ‘He had one sister, but she died very young. Can’t remember her name. You’re very interested in family history all of a sudden.’

  ‘Gran was telling me about the entail. On the house.’

  ‘Was she now?’

  ‘Yes, she said that when she dies, we’ll go and live there.’

  ‘Would you like that?’ said his mother.

  ‘I wouldn’t like Gran dying.’

  ‘That won’t be for a long time, let’s hope,’ said his father. ‘You’ll probably be a grown man by then, maybe with children of your own.’

  I’ve already got a child, thought Ned, an adopted one. Except that no one could call Lady Daisy a child. She may look like one, with her plump pink cheeks and her baby-blue eyes, but really she’s a woman, a wise little old woman.

  That evening, in the safety of his own bedroom in his own home, he untied the string, took off the lid and lifted the wise little old woman out of her box.

  Neither his father nor his mother had referred to it again as he was taking it out of the car, and with a bit of luck, he thought, they’ll forget all about Gran’s ‘secret’ present.

  ‘Welcome, Lady Daisy,’ he said, as the doll opened her eyes. ‘I hope you’ll be very happy here.’

  ‘How kind of you, Ned,’ she replied. ‘Now, this is your own room, I presume.’

  ‘Yes. Mum and Dad call it my “bed-sitter”. Let me show you round.’

  ‘What a fortunate young man you are, to be sure,’ said Lady Daisy, when the tour of inspection was over.

  Ned had carried her slowly around the long low bedroom and pointed her in every direction, to show her, in addition to the bed, his little desk where he did his homework, his quarter-size snooker table, his hi-fi system and, faced by a comfy old armchair, his own small portable TV set.

  ‘Why, you even have your own telly!’ the doll went on, and she sounded rather pleased.

  ‘I know,’ said Ned. ‘Mind you, I’m only allowed to watch at certain times.’

  ‘But you will allow me to watch also?’

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘How different this room is,’ said Lady Daisy, ‘from the one in which you slept at your grandmother’s. For one thing, you have so many pictures.’

  The walls of Ned’s bedroom were literally papered with large blown-up posters of pop stars and footballers. The largest of all was a huge photograph of a track-suited figure with dark curly hair, at full stretch in mid-air, his gloved fingers edging a football round the outside of a goalpost.

  ‘Who,’ said Lady Daisy, ‘is that handsome gentleman immediately above your bed? Is he on
e of those astronauts – he appears to be flying?’

  ‘That’s the England goalie,’ said Ned. ‘That’s what I dream of being, one day. And talking of dreams, Lady Daisy, I remember you saying that you used to have a doll’s bed. When you were with Victoria.’

  ‘Indeed. With silken sheets, and blankets of pure wool, and the warmest of eiderdowns. Not that I remember lying in it, of course, for I was always asleep the moment my head touched the pillows.’

  ‘I suppose they still make such things,’ said Ned. ‘Would you like a new one?’

  ‘Why, no, Ned, thank you. It would be a waste of your pocket-money. When I am not awake and talking with you, then I do not care two pins where I lie. And I think I have grown quite fond of that rather battered old shoebox.’

  At that moment, Ned heard footsteps on the stairs.

  ‘Sorry, Lady Daisy,’ he whispered hastily. ‘I’ll have to put you in it now.’

  Quickly he did so, and slipped the box under the bed.

  ‘Ned,’ said his mother, coming into the room, ‘could you be very kind and let me have something I need?’

  ‘Of course, Mum. What?’

  ‘Well, you know that present that Gran gave you.’

  ‘You can’t have that,’ said Ned hurriedly.

  ‘I don’t want it, Ned – I’ve no idea what it is and I don’t want to know unless you wish to tell me. It’s simply that I’m packing up a present for Aunt Lucy – it’s her birthday next week – and the thing that I’m giving her is just the right size.’

  ‘Right size for what?’

  ‘Why, to fit in that box. That’s all I’m asking you for, Ned – one rather battered old shoebox.’

  CHAPTER 6

  Secrets Everywhere

  ‘But . . . but Gran gave it to me,’ said Ned. ‘I mean, she didn’t just give me . . . what’s inside it, she gave me the box too. It’s part of the present. I promised to look after it, you see.’

  His mother sat down on the edge of his bed and looked at him thoughtfully.

  ‘I don’t see, Ned,’ she said. ‘But if the old box is so precious, why, you keep it of course. I’ll find something else. Where is it anyway?’