Lady Daisy Read online

  In fact, the dog made no effort to outstrip him, but lolloped ahead and after a while actually turned back and began to gambol around him. It was obviously delighted to have hit upon a game to play with the boy next door, even though it was not with the football which Ned still clutched.

  ‘Drop it! Drop it!’ Ned shouted angrily, and then, since this had no effect, he tried blandishment.

  ‘Come along, good dog, come here, there’s a good boy,’ he said in the friendliest of voices, but though the dog would allow him to get quite near, almost near enough to make a grab, it would then whirl away again, tail wagging happily, shaking its head from side to side as though it were a rat that it held in its mouth.

  At least Lady Daisy lay flat, Ned could see. Her head and shoulders stuck out at one side of the dog’s jaws, the white-gloved arms raised as though in token of surrender, and her pink-shod feet hung from the other side. But the eyes were tight shut, proof that at least she was unconscious of her ordeal.

  So far the game of tag had taken place on the pavement, but now the Labrador seemed to tire of it and crossed the road in a determined manner, as if to say, ‘That’s enough of that. Now I’m off to have a bit of fun chewing this thing to bits.’

  In the nick of time, Ned had a brainwave. Suddenly realizing that he still held the football, he began to bounce it, and at the sound the dog stopped and looked back. Ned kicked the ball a little way along the pavement. The dog watched it intently as it rolled along. At last! Ned could see it thinking. What I’ve been waiting for all this time – a game of football, and it suddenly dashed back across the road, dropping the doll on the way, and attacked the ball with mouth and paws, snapping at it and barking with excitement, and eventually dribbling it away at high speed with its nose.

  All the time that Ned had been trying to catch the dog, not a single car had passed, but now, as he ran to pick up Lady Daisy, a small white van swung round a nearby corner and in a matter of seconds was almost on top of the fallen doll.

  Few goalkeepers can have made such a save as Ned now did. Throwing himself full-length off the pavement as though it was soft grass and not hard tarmac beneath him, he shot out a desperate arm and, grabbing Lady Daisy by her long hair, pulled her clear as the van swerved and braked and stopped.

  Ned picked himself and Lady Daisy up. His jeans were torn and his knees and one elbow skinned, but he gave no thought to this as he laid her carefully on the pavement and knelt beside her, looking anxiously to see what damage there was.

  Mercifully there seemed little, perhaps because the Labrador had the soft mouth of all good gun-dogs that retrieve game without marking it. Her face was unspoiled, her limbs unharmed, and the worst that seemed to have happened was that her hair was mussed and the green gown dirty and wet with slobber.

  Ned had got out his handkerchief and was mopping rather ineffectually at the material, when a voice said, ‘You’re a bit young to be trying to commit suicide.’

  Ned looked up to see a man standing beside him. He was a very tall man, so tall that it was difficult to see how he could have fitted himself into the little white van behind him. On its side, Ned could see, was written:

  EMJAY ANTIQUES

  Ned got up, holding Lady Daisy.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You see, a dog stole her and ran off with her and then it dropped her and then I was afraid you were going to run over her.’

  ‘I might well have done,’ said the man. ‘My eyesight’s not exactly 20/20.’

  Ned could see that he wore thick spectacles, that he had a large beaky nose and a crop of white hair, and that as well as being very tall, he was very thin. He looked like a long-legged wading-bird, a heron perhaps.

  ‘But,’ he went on, ‘I’m very glad that I didn’t, now that I see what it is that you have there. May I have a closer look at it?’

  Rather reluctantly, Ned handed Lady Daisy over, and the tall man held her up to inspect her. Her blue eyes opened and she stared into the thick spectacles.

  ‘A remarkable specimen,’ said the man after a while. ‘And the clothes – exquisite. No harm done, it seems – she just needs a wash and brush-up. By the way, let me introduce myself. My name is Merryweather-Jones, and I am an antique dealer. Now, I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but this is almost certainly an extremely valuable doll. You say a dog stole her? From your sister perhaps?’

  ‘No, she’s mine.’

  ‘Really?’ said Mr Merryweather-Jones.

  ‘Can I have her back, please?’ said Ned.

  ‘Of course. Well, it’s none of my business why a boy like you – a very athletic boy, judging by your performance just now – should want to carry a doll about, but I tell you here and now . . . what’s your name, by the way?’

  ‘Ned.’

  ‘. . . I tell you here and now, Ned, that if ever you should consider selling that doll, I should be most happy to make you an offer.’

  Ned shook his head.

  ‘I am not talking of a paltry sum of money, you know,’ said the dealer, and he took from his pocket a wad of ten-pound notes and riffled them.

  ‘She’s not for sale,’ Ned said.

  Mr Merryweather-Jones nodded.

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Anyway, should you change your mind, here’s my card,’ and he handed Ned a little square of pasteboard which read:

  LOFTUS MERRYWEATHER-JONES ANTIQUES

  SPECIALIST IN VICTORIANA

  and beneath there was an address and telephone number.

  ‘I hope you haven’t hurt yourself,’ he said.

  ‘I’m all right,’ said Ned.

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘Not far.’

  ‘Can I offer you a lift?’

  ‘No thanks,’ said Ned.

  He knew that you did not accept lifts from strange men, and this one looked strange all right.

  ‘It’s only a few minutes’ walk,’ he said.

  ‘Very well,’ said Mr Merryweather-Jones.

  He turned away and walked to his van with long heron’s strides, and folded himself inside.

  Ned waited for the antique dealer to drive on, but he did not. Instead, he produced a large curved pipe and filled it with tobacco and lit it.

  Ned turned for home.

  He looked back just before the next corner, but the white van was still standing there, big puffs of smoke rising from the driver’s window.

  The moment Ned was out of sight, he stopped, and holding Lady Daisy up before him, said urgently, ‘Are you all right? Are you hurt? Did the dog hurt you?’

  ‘A dog, was it?’ said Lady Daisy. ‘I could not see, it all happened so swiftly. One minute I was standing on the garden chair, and the next some fearful creature grabbed me. I could not properly see what it was, just that it was terrifying, as in one of those nightmares you were telling me about. Then everything went blank and I knew no more until just now, when I found myself being held and stared at by a total stranger.’

  By the time Ned had told Lady Daisy everything that had happened, they had reached home. He carried her upstairs.

  ‘Perhaps you’d like a little rest?’ he said.

  ‘I think I would,’ said Lady Daisy. ‘I feel a trifle shaken, I do declare.’

  As he laid her in the shoebox, he heard his name being called, and opened the window to see the lady from next door standing below, holding a punctured and much-chewed football.

  ‘Oh, there you are, Ned,’ she called. ‘Is this yours?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ned, none too happily.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘It was Sandy, the bad dog. He got out somehow and got hold of it. I found him waiting outside our gate with it in his mouth. Don’t worry, we’ll buy you a new one. I am sorry.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ Ned said.

  As the neighbour went out of the gate, the white van came along the road and stopped beside her. Ned could see her bend down to the window, and listen, and nod her head, and point towards his house.

 
Then the van drove away.

  CHAPTER 11

  Quite a Sum of Money

  ‘Oh dear, she certainly is in a mess!’ said Ned’s mother when, having heard a distant screech of brakes in the road, she came downstairs to see what had happened. He said nothing about Mr Merryweather-Jones, he didn’t know why. He simply said the doll had been taken by the dog next door and then nearly run over.

  ‘I tried to wipe the dirt off her clothes,’ he said, ‘but it made it worse. What can I do, Mum?’

  ‘I think you’d better leave this to me, Ned,’ said his mother.

  She turned Lady Daisy over and saw that the apple-green gown was fastened down the back with a long row of tiny hooks and eyes.

  ‘Lucky they made things with such care and attention to detail in those days,’ she said. ‘I can take this dress off, and then I can wash and iron it.’

  ‘Take off her dress?’ said Ned, and there was a note of horror in his voice that made his mother smile.

  ‘Of course. She’s only a doll, you know that.’

  She’s not just ‘only a doll’, thought Ned, but you don’t know that. Why, whatever will she think, being made to stand there without a stitch on? She’ll be dreadfully embarrassed. Ah, but wait – she needn’t know, need she?

  ‘Mum,’ he said, ‘when you’ve taken Lady Daisy’s dress off, can you put her back in her box?’

  ‘Why? Think she’ll catch cold?’

  ‘She might.’

  ‘Oh honestly, Ned!’

  His mother undid the top hook and eye.

  ‘Wait a tick,’ she said, ‘and then you can wrap your precious Lady Daisy in a towel and put her to bed with a hot-water bottle, if you want.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Ned hastily, ‘I’m going across to the park. I’ve fixed to meet some of my friends from school for a game.’

  In fact, he had fixed no such thing, but when he got there he found that there were, as usual, a dozen boys kicking a ball about, with piles of folded coats for goalposts. Among them, Ned saw with some alarm, was Troy Bullock, but it was too late to draw back, for someone caught sight of him and shouted, ‘Here’s old Ned! Come on, Ned, get in goal, our goalie’s hopeless.’

  Troy, whose nose, Ned noticed, still looked a bit the worse for wear, was on the opposing side, and Ned was soon kept busy saving a number of fierce shots seemingly designed to take his head off. Once the two boys collided, and as they picked themselves up, Troy said softly, ‘I’ll get even with you, dolly boy,’ and ran off again before Ned could think of a reply.

  Walking home after the game had ended, he wished he had been ready with a slick answer like ‘You and who else, cry-baby?’ and then was rather glad he hadn’t. After all, next time it might be his nose that suffered. But he soon forgot about Troy for thinking of Lady Daisy. Would his mother have been able to clean her up?

  The answer was plain as soon as he came into the kitchen. There, standing on the working-surface beside the Aga cooker, staring straight at him, was Lady Daisy. Her gown was spotless, and not a hair of her head was out of place.

  ‘Oh, thanks, Mum!’ Ned cried. ‘She looks great! How did you manage it?’

  ‘With a great deal of caution,’ his mother said. ‘That dress is awfully old, you know. I had to wash it very carefully, just squeezing it out gently in lukewarm soapy water, and then putting it on the rack above the Aga till it was dry enough to press with a cool iron. By the way, you needn’t have worried about her catching cold. Under that gown she was wearing two petticoats, one of them full-length, and under those a camisole and a pair of drawers. The Victorians didn’t do things by halves, you know. When they dressed a doll, they dressed her properly. So you needn’t have been embarrassed about seeing her in the altogether.’

  ‘Embarrassed? Me?’ said Ned. ‘Oh honestly, Mum!’ and then, changing the subject quickly, ‘How did you manage with her hair?’

  ‘It took some doing. She looked as though she’d been through a hedge backwards. I didn’t dare wash it, I just dampened it a little to make it easier to comb out; and, as you see, I’ve gathered it into a pony-tail and tied it with a ribbon. D’you think it looks nice like that?’

  ‘Very nice,’ Ned said.

  ‘I always thought they used horsehair for dolls, but hers is surprisingly soft and fine. Anyway, she’s all right now. What about you? You’ve torn your jeans, I see.’

  ‘Yes, sorry. And I scraped my knees and my elbow a bit, but it’s nothing.’

  ‘Can’t be if you’ve been straight off playing football again,’ said his mother. ‘Here, I’d better mend those jeans. Take ’em off. I’ll go and get my sewing-box,’ and she went out of the room.

  ‘Do I understand,’ said Lady Daisy, ‘that you are about to behave in a most ungentlemanly manner?’

  ‘How d’you mean?’ said Ned.

  ‘That you are about to remove your nether garments in public? Because if that is the case, I should be obliged if you would assist me to adopt a supine position. There are some sights unfit for a lady’s eyes.’

  One sight that was decidedly fit for this lady’s eyes, it turned out, was her reflection in the looking-glass. When he was once more decently dressed, Ned took Lady Daisy upstairs to show her how she looked in the now spotlessly clean and beautifully ironed gown. Since she could not turn her head, he used a hand-mirror as well, holding it so as to reflect her profile on to the looking-glass and thus show the new hairdo. His mother had tied the pony-tail with a bow of gold ribbon from a chocolate-box, and Lady Daisy obviously liked what she saw.

  ‘It makes me look more youthful, do you not think, Ned?’ she said. ‘And how beautifully your mother has cleaned my gown. I had thought the colours to be faded, but it must have been the dust of ages, for they have come up like new!’ and she spent quite a time admiring herself from various angles.

  A couple of days later, Ned went to a friend’s house to play video games. He did not of course take Lady Daisy, but left her in the bed-sitter propped between her elephants, in front of the television set, watching ITV. She preferred the commercial channels, for the advertisements fascinated her.

  When Ned returned home, the first thing he noticed as he walked up the garden path was a strange smell. The morning was the sort of crisp November one when scents like woodsmoke hang in the clear air, but this smell was of a different sort of smoke – tobacco. And when he reached his room, the television was switched off, and, though the elephants still stood patiently before the set, they were supporting nothing.

  Ned shot downstairs.

  ‘Mum!’ he shouted. ‘Where’s Lady Daisy? I left her in my room. She’s gone!’

  ‘Calm down,’ said his mother. ‘She’s all right. By the way, you didn’t just leave her, you left the television on – I switched it off when I went to fetch her.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, what use is TV to a doll?’

  ‘No, I mean, why did you fetch her?’

  ‘To show her to someone. Someone who called on purpose to see her. You didn’t tell me about Mr Merryweather-Jones, did you?’

  ‘He’s been here?’

  ‘Yes, he’s only just left. And he was most enthusiastic about your Lady Daisy Chain. When he had seen her before, she was dirty and untidy, but now she’s looking her best. And, of course, he was most impressed by all her clothes. And as for her hair, it actually is human hair, Ned.’

  ‘How d’you know?’

  ‘Mr Merryweather-Jones told me. It seems there was quite a trade in human hair at the turn of the century, from Italy mostly, where the girls of poor families would have their long tresses cut off for sale to other countries. Most of it went for ladies’ hairpieces, but some was used in the making of the finest dolls, which were all made in Germany or France. Lady Daisy, you’ll be interested to hear, is French.’

  ‘With Italian hair.’

  ‘And Mr Merryweather-Jones is very keen to acquire her. He made me an offer.’

  ‘You didn’t accept, Mum?’ said
Ned in horror.

  ‘I couldn’t accept it, Ned. The doll is yours to sell, not mine.’

  ‘But I won’t sell her, ever.’

  ‘Well, that’s up to you. But you might want to consult Gran about this, and find out what she thinks. You see, there’s quite a sum of money involved, for a boy of your age. Mr Merryweather-Jones is offering five hundred pounds. Cash.’

  CHAPTER 12

  ‘Will You Be All Right?’

  ‘Five hundred pounds!’ said Gran, when Ned rang her. ‘That’s a lot of money, Ned. What are you going to do?’

  ‘How would you feel if I sold her?’ Ned said, winking at his mother.

  There was a short silence at the other end of the line, and then his grandmother said, ‘I’d be disappointed, pet, I must admit. We did rather agree that you would look after Lady Daisy.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Gran, I was only teasing,’ Ned said. ‘Of course I won’t sell her. I wouldn’t sell her for five thousand pounds.’

  ‘Five hundred pounds!’ said his father, when he came home. ‘I can tell you one thing, Ned. If a dealer offers you that, the doll’s worth twice as much, at least. You must play hard to get, keep him dangling, he’ll come up with more. Just think, you might get enough to buy yourself new football boots and a fancy track-suit, and that terrific skateboard you had your eye on, oh, and your own video recorder, and a brand-new bike – all the things you’re always saying you want.’

  The fact that he did want all those things did not tempt Ned for more than a couple of seconds.

  ‘I’m not selling Lady Daisy, Dad,’ he said firmly. ‘I couldn’t. She’s one of the family.’

  His father looked at him. He looked at his wife. Then he looked at his son again.

  ‘OK,’ he said, ‘if that’s the way you see it, that’s fine. Selling a member of the family is wrong, eh? Mind you, it’s an established fact that a couple of hundred years ago men used to sell their wives if they got fed up with them. A chap used to put a rope round his wife’s neck and lead her off to market and auction her off to the highest bidder. Though I wouldn’t do that to your mother.’