‘They broke the mould when they made you, my treasure,’ Pops declared only yesterday. ‘We’ll see you in the House one day, arguing for women’s rights just like Mrs Pankhurst.’
‘Nicky, please don’t give the girl high ideas,’ scolded Mother. ‘She has enough of her own right now.’
‘My high ideas won you over, dearest,’ Nicholas Purbright teased. ‘Without them I would surely have been rejected.’
‘Nonsense,’ argued Mother, but blushing all the same.
Daisy’s father had winked behind the newspaper only to be interrupted by Matt who contributed a particularly dull comment of his own.
‘After Germany’s occupation of Czechoslovakia, Chamberlain’s chaps have unveiled plans for a National Register,’ Daisy’s brother spouted. ‘Telling everyone what they should do when war starts.’
‘Just rumours, Matt,’ Mother dismissed. ‘Europe has had its fair share of conflict. Our leaders have more sense now than to rise to Hitler’s baiting.’
‘Not rumours, Mother,’ Matt objected heartily. ‘Haven’t you heard, the dockyards are riveting the ships for action already? Why, some lads I know are joining up.’
‘Well, you are not,’ Mother returned.
‘Pops was seventeen when he enlisted!’ Matt protested.
’The matter is settled,’ Mother decided. ‘As soon as you leave school, you’ll follow your father into the family business.’
Daisy’s complaint however, was not with this supposed “war” in Europe with which her brother was so enamoured, but something much closer to home. Why must it be Matt who was to follow Pops into business? Why not her or Bobby? Matt might be the oldest Purbright offspring but he hadn’t the least bit interest in electrical engineering. Whereas Bobby actually knew who Isambard Kingdom Brunel was - the most famous engineer in the land. As for Matt, likely he wouldn’t have a clue!
Daisy emerged from her thoughts and returned to the bright, crisp morning. Bobby’s proper bed was next door in Matt’s room, or it had been until the appearance of Amelia Collins. After which, Matt had begun to insist on privacy and Bobby transferred to the put-u-up in Daisy’s room, with a promise of the box room next week.
Not that Daisy minded sharing, for there were definite advantages. Tidiness, cleanliness and Godliness - Mother’s mantra - had all gone to pot the minute Bobby had decamped, bringing all his clutter with him.
So Daisy had escaped housework, which suited her fine. And besides, she quite enjoyed their nightly discussions concerning the day’s observations. Bobby was one year up at school, but for a boy he was quite a card.
She was closer to Bobby in looks and nature than anyone else in the family. Bobby was her ally. She could always count on him for support. Whereas Matt teased her unmercifully, unaware how silly he himself sounded when he drooled over Amelia!
Quietly, Daisy left the figure of her slumbering brother and went to the window. Here, a shaft of light spilled in through the curtain just as it had in their old house in Wattcombe village, south of London. Until two years ago, the Purbrights had existed serenely, though in Daisy’s mind, rather boringly, amongst the fields and fauna of the countryside.
Sweet smells had meandered off the fields. Bats skittered against the lattice windows. Every floorboard creaked. Mice enjoyed a carefree existence in the barn. The thick walls of their home had kept out winter’s bite. But when Pops accepted a partnership with his brother in the dockland’s electrical engineering factory, everything had changed.
Yes, everything! Even now Daisy was disappointed to realise that she was forgetting the look of those fields and the delicate little mice and the fragile black wings that stroked the lattice at night.
She was forgetting - and somehow it felt wrong. For hadn’t she lived such a happy - if undisturbed life - in Wattcombe? Where there had been no talk of war or of fighting or of terrible things that happened in other countries and might soon happen in Britain.
Drawing the curtains wide, Daisy undid the catch softly and sniffed the sweet air of the new day. Craning her neck, she could glimpse the city where there was not one thatched roof in sight. Instead, there were energetic hordes of people, unlike Wattcombe with its drab, mumbling farmers and stuffy village shopkeepers.
London was energetic and vibrant. Foreign visitors of every shape and size wandered the streets. Bowler hatted gents walked briskly to their offices. Ladies in furs hailed taxis. Theatres abounded, huge glass-fronted shops like Hamleys displayed their delights. Then of course there was the river, Daisy’s most breathtaking discovery. For here in the house in which they now lived, a home tucked neatly away from the busy thoroughfares of the East End, she could view the unbroken line of the snaking grey waters.
Should she peer westward, over the roof tops of Poplar Park Row, the river sparkled in the dawn’s light, bright as a diamond. A rowboat’s ride directly across the swirling pools, lay Greenwich Observatory. This view was breathtaking to Daisy. Sir Christopher Wren - like Isambard Brunel - was another of her heroes. His magnificent old Royal Naval College was a stone’s throw from the famous Queen’s House. She had learned at school that this historic building had been designed by Inigo Jones, a famous architect of the 1600’s. But never would she have imagined when living in Wattcombe that one day she might view this spectacle from her window.
Dawn broke as Daisy made her way downstairs; above the front door a milky hue stole through the skylight. Here she paused; at this hour of the morning talk of “the war” was thankfully absent. So too were the whispers of bombing and deadly weapons dropped from the sky to destroy London below. Daisy thought
