Lady Daisy Read online

  Afterwards Ned could never think exactly how it happened. He couldn’t really recall his arm shooting out and his fist landing smack on Troy’s nose, while all the children gaped and gasped, and the teacher on duty came rushing in. But he always remembered very clearly, and with much pleasure, the sight of Lady Daisy’s tormentor sitting on the floor, the blood running down his shirt, and then the look on everyone’s face as the ‘hard man’ of the First XI burst into floods of tears.

  CHAPTER 8

  ‘That’ll Teach Him!’

  ‘Ned’s been in a fight,’ his mother said when his father arrived home from work.

  ‘In a fight?’

  ‘Yes, at school today. His teacher rang up. She said the headteacher would like to see you about it, after half-term. The parents of the other boy concerned were pretty angry apparently.’

  ‘What was this fight about? Do you know?’

  ‘Yes, I know. But I think you’d better let Ned explain.’

  ‘I think you’d better let me explain,’ Ned had said to Lady Daisy when they arrived home from school. When he had returned from the headteacher’s study, the other children in Class 2 had all packed up their exhibits, and Lady Daisy alone remained, lying peacefully asleep on the table. Only now was he able to tell her what had happened.

  ‘An explanation,’ she replied, ‘would be welcome, Ned. Being shaken into and out of sleep by that large unpleasant boy was the most disagreeable experience of my life. I thought I should lose my reason. Why did you not intervene?’

  ‘I did, Lady Daisy. I hit him.’

  ‘You struck the rascal?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘With a straight left? Sidney used to say that a straight left to the jaw was the answer to such fellows.’

  ‘Well, actually, I hit him with my right hand. On the nose.’

  ‘Did it bleed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Capital, capital!’ cried Lady Daisy. ‘’pon my word, I am proud of you, dear boy! We should mark the occasion in some way, but how? I know! You shall relieve me of this black band that I have worn upon my arm for so long.’

  Ned found a pair of nail-scissors and carefully snipped through the little ring of velvet.

  ‘That is better,’ said Lady Daisy. ‘I have mourned long enough for the old queen. Let me rejoice for my gallant young prince.’

  Ned was sitting and Lady Daisy standing in the comfy old armchair, watching Neighbours, when Ned’s father came in.

  ‘I want to talk to you, Ned,’ he said. ‘Turn that rubbish off.’

  Ordinarily, Ned would have defended the programme, which was a favourite of his (as it was indeed of Lady Daisy’s. ‘Life in Australia seems to be very interesting,’ she had said when first she saw it).

  But now he could see that his father was not best pleased, so he did as he was told. He did not attempt to conceal Lady Daisy, knowing that everything must now come out.

  His father stared at her in horror.

  ‘What in heaven’s name is that?’ he said.

  ‘It’s a doll, Dad.’

  ‘I’m not blind,’ said his father. ‘I should just like to know what you are doing with a doll.’

  ‘Gran gave her to me.’

  ‘My mother . . . gave you . . . a doll?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was that what was in that shoebox you brought home?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Whatever made her do such a thing?’

  ‘I asked her, Dad. I asked her if I could have Lady Daisy. That’s her name, Lady Daisy Chain.’

  His father shook his head in disbelief. The look on his face was one of shock and disapproval.

  ‘Let’s leave that for the moment,’ he said. ‘Now then, what’s all this about you getting into a fight? First of all, who was it with?’

  ‘A boy.’

  ‘I hardly expected you to be punching girls.’

  He looked towards Lady Daisy, who was regarding him straightly from the chair.

  ‘Though it’s more likely you spend your time with them, by the look of things. Who was it you were fighting then – some poor little chap half your size?’

  ‘No, Dad,’ said Ned. ‘The biggest boy in the school.’

  ‘Was it?’ said his father in an altered tone. ‘Was it indeed? Was he bullying you?’

  ‘Sort of. But really he was bullying Lady Daisy.’

  ‘Whatever do you mean?’

  So Ned told his father the whole story, about the project, and taking the doll to school, and how Troy Bullock had been mistreating Lady Daisy.

  ‘And he said I must be a big girl, to have a doll,’ Ned finished. ‘Which is what you’re thinking, Dad, really, isn’t it?’

  His father hesitated.

  ‘Well, no, not if you had a go at him, he sounds as if he deserved it. A lot bigger than you, is he?’

  ‘Quite a bit.’

  ‘Well, that was gutsy of you, but you should try not to go round hitting people. You don’t seem to have suffered much damage.’

  ‘I haven’t. I just hit him on the nose and that was that.’

  ‘Did it bleed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I guess that’ll teach him – he won’t tangle with you again in a hurry. I like to think you take after me, Ned, able to stand up for yourself. I even did a bit of boxing when I was your age.’

  ‘But I don’t suppose you had any dolls.’

  ‘Ah well, I’m beginning to look at that in a different light now that you’ve told me the whole story. I see now that this doll is . . . well, kind of out of the ordinary . . .’

  ‘Yes, she is.’

  ‘. . . because Gran gave it . . . her . . . to you.’

  ‘Well, she’s sort of entailed – like Gran’s house – and it’s my job to look after her, Gran said, and that’s what I was doing. But the head wasn’t a bit pleased, Dad, and nor were Troy’s parents, Miss Judge told Mum.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that, Ned,’ his father said. ‘You did the right thing. I’ll sort all that out for you. Which hand did you hit him with, by the way?’

  ‘My right one.’

  ‘Haven’t damaged it, have you? A goalkeeper needs to take care of his hands.’

  ‘No, it’s just a bit sore.’

  ‘Not as sore as the other kid’s nose, I bet,’ said his father.

  He picked Lady Daisy out of the armchair and held her up in front of him.

  ‘Pretty little thing,’ he said in a jolly, slightly embarrassed voice, and he went out of the room.

  ‘A fine figure of a man!’ said Lady Daisy as the door closed. ‘Let us hope that you will grow up to be as tall and broad-shouldered. I must say, it is a relief that he now also knows of my presence in the house. I realize you had no option, Ned, but it has been a trifle wearing suddenly to be thrust into that box on so many occasions, often in the middle of a conversation. Now everything is out in the open.’

  ‘Well, not everything, Lady Daisy,’ said Ned. ‘They don’t know you can talk. You won’t speak in front of them, will you?’

  ‘You are continually asking me that, dear boy. What you have never understood is that it would make not the slightest odds if I did. Victoria and I would converse freely in front of her parents, or Sidney, or the governess, or any of the servants, and they were none of them any the wiser. They simply heard a little girl talking to her doll.’

  ‘I don’t understand how that can be so.’

  ‘My dear Ned,’ said Lady Daisy, ‘there are more things in heaven and earth (as Hamlet said to Horatio) than are dreamt of in your philosophy. May I suggest that, since your father now appears to have accepted your guardianship of me, you should make bold to take me downstairs, to a meal perhaps, in the bosom of the family. Then you will see what I mean.’

  So next morning Ned took Lady Daisy down to breakfast. He sat her on the table, propped against a packet of cornflakes, and she joined in the conversation with a will. Yet neither his mother nor his father appeare
d to hear a word.

  ‘Oh, you’ve brought the doll,’ his mother said. ‘Good morning, Lady Daisy. I hope you are recovered from your dreadful experience?’

  ‘Quite recovered, I thank you,’ replied the doll, and Ned, listening, held his breath, but his mother went calmly on pouring out coffee and his father did not look up from his newspaper.

  ‘Mrs Thatcher’s going to Moscow, I see,’ he said from behind it.

  Ned said nothing.

  His mother said, ‘Oh, really?’

  Lady Daisy said, ‘I cannot get used to the idea of a woman as Prime Minister. A woman’s place is in the home, would you not say, Ned?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ said Ned without thinking.

  His father looked over the paper.

  ‘You suppose what is what?’ he said.

  ‘Oh!’ said Ned. ‘Um . . . I suppose . . . it is Saturday.’

  ‘Whatever’s the matter with you?’ said his mother. ‘Eat your breakfast, do.’

  ‘Children should be seen and not heard,’ said Lady Daisy. ‘That is what Sidney and Victoria were taught – sit up straight, chew each mouthful thirty times, and no talking at the table.’

  ‘How she does boss everyone about!’ said Ned’s father.

  He must have heard her, thought Ned in a panic, he must have heard Lady Daisy!

  ‘Why, did you hear what she said, Dad?’ he said.

  His father put down the newspaper.

  ‘What are you talking about, Ned?’ he said. ‘How could I hear what Mrs Thatcher said? I read it – in this paper. Honestly, that doll’s got more brains than you.’

  CHAPTER 9

  Goalkeeping Practice

  Ned’s grandmother rang up next day.

  ‘Gran wants to speak to you,’ his mother called.

  Ned came to the phone.

  ‘Hello, Gran.’

  ‘Hello, pet. How are you?’

  ‘Fine, thanks.’

  ‘And Lady Daisy Chain?’

  ‘Yes, she’s fine too.’

  ‘Does Mum know about her yet?’

  ‘Oh yes, and Dad.’

  ‘Your father knows that you have a doll?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what does he say about that?’

  ‘Oh, he said she was a pretty little thing.’

  ‘Blow me down!’

  ‘It’s a long story, Gran. I’ll tell you when I next see you.’

  ‘Well, when you do, I’ve something to show you. I was tidying my writing-desk the other day – it’s something I’ve been meaning to do for ages . . .’

  ‘Like the box-room?’

  ‘. . . ha, yes, and of course it’s a very, very old desk, that belonged in fact to your great-great-grandfather, and as I was going through all the little cubby-holes in turn, dusting them, I must have pressed on a spring or a catch or something, because what d’you think I found?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘A secret drawer!’

  ‘Wow!’

  ‘Yes, and in it was a packet of old photographs, all of your great-grandfather Sidney as a boy, and of his sister Victoria. He looks to be about seven years old, and she about four, and I dare say you can guess who she is holding in several of the pictures?’

  ‘Lady Daisy!’

  ‘Yes. D’you remember I said to you, when you found the doll, that I thought it might have been Victoria’s, and now it’s proved.’

  ‘That’s great, Gran,’ Ned said. ‘If you hadn’t found those photos, I should never have known who Lady Daisy belonged to, should I?’

  ‘Of course not. How could you?’

  Lady Daisy was delighted when Ned told her.

  ‘Next time we go to Gran’s, I’ll show you the photographs,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, that will be splendid, Ned! To be able to see my own dear little Victoria again!’

  The small pain that Ned felt was, he suddenly realized, of jealousy.

  ‘Do you think of me as yours, Lady Daisy?’ he said.

  ‘Of course, dear boy. Why, to be sure, you sound almost to be jealous of someone so long dead. There is no call for that, Ned. You have quite taken Victoria’s place in my affections.’

  ‘Oh, that’s great!’ said Ned. ‘And I’m very fond of you, you know. I always shall be.’

  ‘You may tire of me,’ said Lady Daisy, ‘as you grow older. That would be only natural. You may pass me on, to another child.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it!’ said Ned.

  Perhaps it was the red October sun, sinking in the west and shining in through the window of Ned’s bed-sitter, but once again it seemed to him almost as though there was a blush on the doll’s smooth cheeks.

  ‘Dreams,’ she said thoughtfully after a while. ‘Now there is something in which we are not alike, for I do not have them. In fact, I never really know the meaning of the word.’

  ‘Dreams are thoughts you have while you’re asleep. Thoughts about people or places or happenings. You imagine things in your head.’

  ‘You may. I do not,’ said Lady Daisy. ‘When my eyes close, I know nothing until they reopen. Pray tell me more of these dreams. How, for example, do you establish that you are dreaming? You may be dreaming now, at this very moment, may you not?’

  ‘Oh no!’ said Ned, laughing. ‘I’m wide awake!’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Oh, it’s easy to tell. You give yourself a hard pinch, and if it hurts, you’re not dreaming.’

  He pinched his arm.

  ‘Like this,’ he said. ‘Ow!’

  ‘Now pinch me,’ said Lady Daisy.

  Feeling rather silly, Ned pushed back the sleeve of the apple-green gown and pressed the chubby pink upper arm hard with thumb and index finger.

  ‘That does not hurt at all,’ said the doll. ‘Therefore it is I who must be dreaming. Maybe the whole of life is but a dream. What do you say to that, Master Ned?’

  ‘Oh, Lady Daisy, you’re pulling my leg!’

  Expressionless as always, Lady Daisy Chain nevertheless made a noise that could only have been a giggle.

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it!’ she said.

  ‘Mind you,’ said Ned, ‘dreams aren’t always nice. Mum always says “Sweet dreams” to me last thing at night, but they’re sometimes horrid. A really bad one is called a nightmare.’

  Which is exactly what Ned had, that night.

  Whether it was because he was lying flat on his back instead of on his side as usual, or because he had had Welsh rarebit for supper, or simply on account of that conversation with Lady Daisy, he dreamed that something awful was happening to her. What it was he did not know, for there was a wall between them so that he could not see her. But he could hear her voice, and it was raised in anguish.

  ‘Help, Ned!’ she was crying. ‘Help! Save me!’ and then there was a sudden silence. He woke up, trembling.

  Still half in the grip of the dream, he switched on the light, to see to his relief that Lady Daisy lay peacefully asleep in her shoebox beside the bed.

  Next morning, he did not tell her of his nightmare. It promised to be a beautiful autumn day, sunny and mild and just right for the start of the half-term holiday. Ned’s father had gone to his office and his mother was working upstairs, so that he and Lady Daisy had the place more or less to themselves.

  ‘I’m going out to do some goalkeeping practice,’ he said to her. ‘D’you want to come and watch?’

  ‘By all means,’ she replied. ‘But how will you manage to do that without a playmate to kick the ball at you?’

  ‘I’ll show you.’

  Ned’s method was primitive but effective. The side of the garage ran along one edge of the lawn, and he simply kicked his football against the wall and then saved (or was beaten by) the resulting rebound.

  Lady Daisy, carefully propped upright by Ned on a garden seat at one side and out of the line of fire, stood and watched.

  Conscious of his audience, Ned proceeded to show off, banging the ball against the
brickwork harder and harder, and throwing himself about in a series of wildly exaggerated and theatrical saves (or gallant but unsuccessful attempts), and generally playing to the gallery like mad.

  The constant thudding of the ball against the garage wall was soon matched by the ceaseless excited barking of the neighbours’ dog. This was a large and friendly young Labrador, whose one ambition in life, never yet realized, was to play football with Ned. However, the dividing fence between the two gardens was just too high for it to leap over, though it had made many efforts to do so.

  After a while the thudding ceased, for, as sometimes happened, the rebound from a fiercely struck shot not only evaded the goalkeeper, but went clear over the front wall of the garden into the road beyond. It was a quiet suburban road with little daytime traffic, but it sloped steeply, down to a point perhaps a hundred yards below Ned’s house. And once the ball had cleared the wall, it always rolled all the way to the bottom of the hill.

  Ned set off to retrieve it, momentarily forgetting about his audience. Hardly was he through the gate and out of sight than, with a desperate leap, the Labrador managed to get a purchase with its front paws on the top of the fence, and, scrabbling madly with its hind feet, to topple over, successful at last.

  Ned had collected his football and was trudging back up the slope, when suddenly he heard a voice raised in terror from behind the distant garden wall.

  ‘Help, Ned!’ cried the voice. ‘Help! Save me!’ and then there was a sudden silence.

  His heart in his mouth, Ned began to run, but before he could reach the gate, the dog came rushing out of it into the road. Held in its jaws was a small body, a body whose long black hair blew out in the breeze like a distress signal as the Labrador galloped away.

  CHAPTER 10

  Mr Merryweather-Jones

  As Ned ran wildly after the fleeing dog, his mind was filled with an awful picture of Lady Daisy’s likely fate. One thing was certain, that the dog could run far faster than he and would soon be out of sight. And then – and this was not certain, but horribly probable – the Labrador, which was not much more than a puppy, would treat the doll as puppies are wont to treat anything that is chewable, from a bone to an old slipper. Much chance hardened beeswax would have in those strong jaws.