She’d dreamed up so many plans to rescue her mother from the beast. One fond imagining was that she would save her pin money, hire a carriage, and take them both far north. They might live in a forest with kind faeries and if her father ever came for them, the faeries would beat him about the head and drive him out. They would live in peace and her dear delicate mother would rest and recover under the cool shade of greenery.
Her mother was dead before Daisy could enact any kind of escape. She was ten, and told it at breakfast by a governess, as if she were being told the weather. Weeks later, that same governess left abruptly. Daisy always suspected her father had meddled with the woman. Mrs. Jellops arrived in her place and it was Daisy’s understanding that she’d been sent by a concerned cousin, Lord Mayton. She was certainly not a lady her father would have hired, but she was installed all the same.
In those days, Daisy had clung to Mrs. Jellops like she was a lone buoy in the midst of an Atlantic storm. When she was too old for the schoolroom, the lady had become her companion. Mrs. Jellops might have been driven out like all the rest, but she was a distant poor relation and even for Lord Childress, that might have been a step too far. He would not have cared for Daisy’s opinion on the matter, but he would not have liked to be whispered about in his wider family, or worse, in wider society. He held a great regard for titles and one’s place in the world and that regard was the only thing that kept him in check. In any case, Mrs. Jellops, though seeming a comfortable and round sort of person, had a determination to stay by Daisy and would not have been driven out anyway.
As for his daughter, Daisy was nothing more than a commodity on the market. She had been told, in no uncertain terms, that she’d better marry well, as her only use to him was for the connections she might bring. She was never left to forget how unfortunate it was that she’d been born a girl, and how her mother had failed in producing a son and heir.
It was also supposed Daisy’s fault that her grandmother, Lady Alicia Polworth, had settled a great deal of money on her, cleverly locked up and overseen by trustees. It was a source of near constant aggravation that he could not get his hands on it and he was determined to at least find a way to claw back her dowry in some distant future.
She and Mrs. Jellops had gone on in such a house, always careful not to aggravate and to stay out of the way as much as possible. The house was like a tomb and had never seen laughter. The only servants who ever stayed more than a month were those who did not mind being constantly berated. She had sometimes dared to tell people that her at-home day was on Wednesdays. There were some, from time to time, who even ventured to come. They were those who did not know and had not heard of the awful Lord Childress. Always, Daisy listened for footsteps, fearing her father would arrive and say something scathing to a person he did not feel was suitably elevated.
Just now, though, Daisy began to hope her father had been silenced forever. Mr. Gringer had looked up to their window and shaken his head sadly.
The other men began to haul Lord Childress from the cart to carry him inside. Daisy could see now that the sheet that covered his face was tied securely around the neck. The men did not have a care for how the head lolled to one side as they dragged it off the wagon. A person alive would never be carried in such a manner. Not even as a ruse would they dare it.
“He is truly dead!” Daisy whispered. “My mother rejoices in heaven, whilehetravels in the opposite direction to pay in eternity for his crimes against her.”
“And against you, my dear,” Mrs. Jellops said.
“Yes, and you too,” Daisy said. “Butwehave outlived him. In a year, I will be twenty-one and have access to my grandmother’s money. I will have three thousand per annum and you and I can go and live somewhere in peace.”
“By the seaside,” Mrs. Jellops said, “as you have always spoken of.”
“Yes, though not Ramsgate. Not anywhere near that house, or any other that my father ever called home.”
“Agreed,” Mrs. Jellops said. “We will go somewhere that does not contain the taint of him. Brighton, perhaps?”
“Yes, it must be Brighton, I think. We shall swim every fine day and be as free as dolphins,” Daisy said, the relief of shaking off her father’s yoke coming upon her in waves, just like the sea she yearned for.
Mrs. Jellops staggered back over the suggestion that she would one day find herself bobbing in the sea. She was a very circular person, her waist belying her fondness of cakes, but though there was little doubt she would float sufficiently, she did not seek out exercise of any sort.
“Never mind it, then,” Daisy said, laughing. “Iwill swim and you will wave to me from the shore.”
“As has ever been my habit.”
“And I shall give you your own money,” Daisy said. “I am certain my father has been stingy with you. You will have no household expenses and I will settle on you three hundred pounds a year to spend of fripperies. I know how fond you are of pretty things—you can fill our house with them.”
The lady gently sighed, no doubt thinking of all the pretty little trinkets and gewgaws she’d seen in this or that shop that she’d not had the means to pay for. She smoothed her skirt, as if to dismiss that pleasant reverie. “Until then, though,” Mrs. Jellops said, “I wonder what will happen to us?”
Daisy could not care less. Whatever it was, it would only be a twelvemonth.
“You don’t suppose,” Mrs. Jellops said, peering down to the street, “that he’d name a guardian fromthatgroup of scoundrels?”
“Oh no, I do not think so,” Daisy said. “You know how he was always such a stickler for titles. It’s bound to be some cousin or other with as lofty a title as he could wrangle. I am certain he approached the Duke of Glastonburg, he is the entailed heir. But he would not have found success there, for the duke never liked him. I think it must be Lord Mayton, he is a cousinandan earl.”
“Ah yes, Lord Mayton, he sent me here to begin, very pleasant fellow. I suppose we will do very well under his roof. Though, it is just like your father that he would not have ever informed you of the circumstances,” Mrs. Jellops said.
“Oh, but why would he? What man like my father would believe he would ever die or care what happened to me if he did?”
Mrs. Jellops breathed a sigh. “And yet, he has died, and thank goodness for it. Now, I think we’d better go downstairs and see what must be done.”
Daisy turned and grasped Mrs. Jellops’ hands. “We must appear suitably devastated, though. I am not certain either of us is that talented of an actress, but we must try. It would be unseemly to appear relieved.”
Mrs. Jellops nodded and attempted an expression that might indicate her sorrow upon discovering Lord Childress had perished. It was wholly unsuccessful and only ended up appearing absurd and sending Daisy into fits of giggles.
It was near a half hour before they could compose themselves, go down, and claim that they had been crying too heartily to attend the men below.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
