“Daisy was five years old when her mother died. She told me about it. ‘She could stand it no longer. She was often ill. Her cough frightened me. Then one night, when it was snowing and a gale was blowing, she went out onto the moors, wearing a flimsy blouse and skirt, and she stayed out most of the night. When she came back she was very ill. She died within a few days. She had had more than she could endure.’ She was vehement. ‘I hate them,’ she said. ‘I will never be poor. I’ll be rich and famous and laugh my way through my life. I will go away and never, never see them again.’ “
“She rarely spoke of her childhood to me,” I said. “I sensed she did not want to. I understand now. She must have been very unhappy.”
“You would have thought a girl in that position would have been. Not Daisy. She radiated the joy of living. Nothing could dampen that. I was fascinated by her. She had decided me. I knew what I must do. Meningarth was for sale. It was very cheap. I could just about afford it. I would set up house here. I should be near her. She used to come often. I would come in and find she had lighted a fire and was curled up by it. I knew I was important to her at that time. It was to me she came when she wanted to talk. I knew of her plans and dreams, and they never varied. They were to escape and never come back to this place. I refused to accept the fact that she would go away. I thought we should go on like that forever and in time she would come to me at Meningarth. I thought she was just a dreamer … as I was. But Daisy lived in a world where dreams can come true. She was going to call herself Daisy Ray. She was Daisy Raynor. It was the hated name of her grandparents. Daisy Ray, she said, sounded just right for an actress.
“She used to speculate about her father. She was certain that he was a gentleman … someone wealthy like the Tremastons. ‘He was young,’ she said, ‘and afraid of his family.’
“She built up a picture of him. He had wanted to marry her mother, she said. He had not known that she was going to have a child. The family had sent him away … abroad … and when he came back it was too late.”
“What an unhappy life she must have had,” I said.
“Ah, as I told you, Daisy could not be unhappy. It was not in her. She always believed … I had never seen such gaiety. She was always dancing. I called her the Dancing Maiden. I said sometimes I believed she was one of those stones who had come to life. She was amused by that. She used to say: ‘Here is your dancing maiden.’ We would talk about what I was going to do. I was going to be a great musician … a sculptor. I made a statue of her. I called it the Dancing Maiden. It is rather beautiful. I will show it to you. It is the best thing I have ever done. I had caught something of her and the mystic quality of the stones. I was offered quite a large sum of money for it. It could have been the start of a career. But I couldn’t part with it. It meant so much to me … particularly as I realized at that time that she would go away. I felt while I had that I had something of her. It was a symbol in a way. It might have been the start of a career. She said I was a fool. But I couldn’t help it. That was the way I was. I could not part with the Dancing Maiden.”
“I understand,” I said. “I am understanding so much.”
“She made me see myself clearly. The more I was with her, the more I saw what I lacked. I did not want to go out into the world and compete. I wanted the simple life I was making for myself here. Daisy knew that.
“She was fifteen years old when she told me she was almost ready. The time had come, she said. She must delay no longer. You can imagine my dismay. In spite of her insistence, I had secretly dismissed her yearnings as dreams. I had judged her by myself … which was a great mistake. We had become very close friends. She had confided more in me than in anyone. Our meetings had been important to us both. I could not bear the thought of losing her.
“I asked her to marry me. ‘How could I?’ she replied. ‘I’d be here for the rest of my days. We’d be poor … living here … and with them close by! I’m going to dance. I’m going on the stage.’ At one time I thought I would go with her. She shook her head. She said how much my friendship meant to her, but we were different people, weren’t we? I did not believe in things as she did. We didn’t really belong together … not in that way. I knew she was right. But I argued with her. I said, did she think she was the only country girl who had dreamt of a successful stage career? She said of course not. Did she consider how many thousands ended up in wretched circumstances, worse than those they had left? ‘But I’m going to get what I want!’ she said. She believed that, and when I looked at her, so did I.
“The day she went away was the most wretched of my life … to that time. I said goodbye to her. ‘Promise,’ I said, ‘that if it doesn’t work out, you’ll come back to me.’ But she could not conceive that it would not work out. She said it had been wonderful knowing me, that she loved me, but that we were different. She would be no use to me living here … looking after hens … driving the trap into the village to get the stores. And I should be no use to her in her career. ‘We have to face the truth. We don’t fit. But we shall always be good friends.’
“She called herself Daisy Tremaston—after the rich family here—with Daisy Ray her stage name. Then someone advised her to change it to Desiree. Desiree,” he repeated. “She did what she had set about doing. She had the fire, the determination and the talent. And she succeeded.”
He paused and put a hand to his brow. He had been talking for some time and, I knew, living it all again. I, who had known her so well, could visualize it clearly. I could understand that rebellion the puritanical grandparents had raised in her, that contempt for conventions, the determination to go her own way.
Marie-Christine had listened entranced to all this, but I could see that she was impatient to get to the root of the matter. Was this man my father?
He said suddenly: “I usually take coffee at this time. May I give you some?”
Marie-Christine and I were about to say we would rather talk, but I could see that he needed a pause to recover from the excess of emotion which recalling the past had brought to him.
I said I would go into the kitchen and help him make the coffee. Marie-Christine was about to rise, but I signed to her to stay where she was.
When we were in the kitchen, he said to me: “I have often thought of your coming here.”
“With her, you mean?”
He nodded.
“She never talked to me of you,” I said.
“No, of course, she would not. She had other plans.”
“There is one thing I want to know.”
“Yes,” he said. Then he paused before he went on. “She would write to me now and then. I knew of her successes. It was wonderful. And I know why you have come here. You found letters which she had kept, and they have raised a possibility in your mind. Am I right?”
“Yes.”
“I kept her letters. She did not write often. They were wonderful days when I received them. I lived her success through them, although I had no part in it. I knew there was no hope of her coming back. Particularly after your birth. I will give you the letters which she wrote to me at that time. Take them back to the inn and read them. They are for your eyes alone. When you have read them, bring them back to me. They are important to me. I could not bear to lose them now. I read them often.”
I said: “I will read them and bring them back to you tomorrow.”
“I think they will tell you what you want to know.”
We took the coffee back to the sitting room, where Marie-Christine was waiting with obvious impatience.