Daisy’s Betrayal. Nancy Carson

cast its grey mantle over the town and the lamps were lit, they had shifted onto harder stuff and the late Arthur became further removed from their thoughts.

      ‘I’ve got some news to share with you,’ Lawson said, as he casually picked up the last of the ham sandwiches that were now curling at the edges and dried on top. ‘I’m getting wed.’

      ‘You’re getting wed?’ Jack Hayward queried incredulously. ‘When?’

      ‘Good Friday.’

      ‘Jesus! What madness has seized you?’

      ‘I’m in love,’ Lawson answered nonchalantly and took a bite.

      Jack flashed Robert a quizzical look. ‘Did he say what I thought he said?’

      Robert shrugged a limp, inebriated shrug and drew up a high stool, scraping it harshly along the linoleum floor. ‘He just said he’s in love, Jack.’

      Jack turned to Lawson, his glass in his hand. ‘The only person you’re in love with, Lawson Maddox, is yourself. Who’s the poor, unfortunate wench? She should be warned about you.’

      ‘She wouldn’t listen. She’s in love with me.’

      Robert, resting his backside on the stool, was suddenly struck by the light of realisation. ‘Don’t tell me it’s that Daisy Drake who used to be our housekeeper. I’ll wager it is.’ He took a gulp of his whisky and held it in his mouth to savour it while Lawson nodded and grinned.

      ‘You mean he’s marrying a servant wench? Bloody hell, Lawson. You can do better than a servant wench.’

      ‘She’s a treasure,’ Lawson said, his affability enhanced by the banter he always enjoyed with his friends. ‘Servant wench or no, I’d be mad not to marry her. She’s a gem. And I defy anybody to tell she ain’t from the upper classes.’

      ‘I trust you’ve sampled the goods already, Lawson,’ Robert leered. ‘Indeed, I take it she’s up the stick already if you’re marrying her so quick?’

      Lawson put the last piece of sandwich into his mouth, chewed it and smugly picked up his glass.

      ‘Come on, Lawson. Since when have we had any secrets? You’re generally very forthcoming with information about your conquests.’

      ‘Well, she ain’t up the stick. And I ain’t ashamed to say that I ain’t even sampled the goods yet. The truth is, I don’t want to sully her before the wedding night. She’s pristine, Robert. Intact – and there ain’t many still intact at twenty-two. You know I like my women intact. And as sure as hell I ain’t about to marry a woman who ain’t.’

      ‘Hang me, but I ain’t a bit surprised she’s intact,’ Robert said.

      ‘Saved herself all these years, she has. Just for me. I’d have to be a right vandal—’

      Jack called the bartender. ‘Three more whiskies, my man. We’ve a celebration here.’ He turned to Lawson. ‘I can see the attraction in marrying a virgin, Lawson, and I understand that finding one over the age of twenty-one must be a bit of a novelty, especially among the working-classes. But if she’s a looker to boot …’

      ‘Oh, she’s a looker all right. And honest with it. Straight as a die.’

      ‘But, hang it all man, why d’you want to get married in the first place? I’ve never known you short of women.’

      ‘I’m taken with her, Jack. She amuses me, she’s intelligent … and like I say, she’s beautiful.’

      ‘Oh, she’s worthy and no mistake,’ Robert Cookson said resolutely. ‘I expect you’ll have a lot of fun with her between the sheets. Always quite fancied her meself, but she’d have no truck wi’ me.’

      ‘Because she’s got the good taste of a born lady.’ Lawson parried. ‘In any case, I get fed up with the sort of women I’ve been mixed up with. Daisy’s like a breath of fresh air. She’s bright. I can talk to her.’

      ‘But who wants to just talk?’ Jack remarked, full of bravado. ‘How long have you been courting?’

      ‘Three months, give or take a day or two.’

      ‘You dark horse. And you ain’t touched it yet? No horizontal exploits? Christ, you’ll be getting boils on the back of your neck.’

      ‘Unless, of course, he’s been getting it elsewhere on the quiet …’ Robert suggested, winking and tapping the side of his nose.

      ‘Ah … That’s more like it,’ Jack agreed. ‘You’ve been dipping your wick elsewhere, eh, Lawson?’

      ‘The duty of every Englishman,’ Lawson replied with a roguish gleam in his eye.

      ‘Anybody afresh?’ Robert enquired. ‘Anybody you’d like to pass on?’

      Robert looked at the women in black, still standing in front of the fire, talking. A couple of them were young and not unattractive and their perfume mingled with the smoke and the sweet aroma of whisky, a sensual cocktail for Robert who had been drinking all afternoon and, by now, had an exaggerated sense of his own desirability. ‘I wonder if any of those women are wearing drawers,’ he said fancifully.

      ‘They’re no nearer you, whether or no,’ Lawson said. ‘You’re fuddled.’

      Robert sighed and took another swig from his drink. ‘You’re right, Lawson, I am. I reckon we could do with a change of scenery. Granted, a couple of those fillies are worthy, but it strikes me they’ve taken this funeral a bit too much to heart. This is supposed to be a sort of celebration of Arthur’s life, for God’s sake.’

      ‘One happens to be Arthur’s broken-hearted widow, Robert,’ Lawson reasoned.

      ‘All the more reason for us to go out and find a bit of lively female company.’

      ‘I’ll drink to that,’ Jack said. ‘Is there still a cock and hen do of a Thursday night at the Castle and Falcon? There’d doubtless be some likely wenches there.’

      ‘Let’s have a look,’ Lawson replied. ‘But let’s get something to eat first. I’m starving.’

      So the three men bid farewell to their hostess, walked to the market place and entered the Railway Vaults. There, they ate hot pies and reverted to pale ale to pace their drinking. They talked about women, about venereal disease, about Salisbury the prime minister and the Irish question, then, inevitably, about women again.

      As it approached nine o’clock, the trio ambled boisterously to the Castle and Falcon in Wolverhampton Street with its brass-bound barrels piled up behind the bar. As they went upstairs to the assembly room, a band was playing, trying hard to be heard over the squeals and the guffaws of the rag-tag folk already in there. The appeal of cock and hen clubs was that men of all classes could move between women of all social groups at will, even different races since so many had been drawn to the Black Country seeking work. Gentlemen mixed freely and uninhibitedly with the working-class girls of the town. Indeed, some of those girls thought they had done rather well for themselves when they managed to attract the attention of a swell, although it was seldom more than one encounter, unless they genuinely liked each other.

      ‘What shall we drink?’ Robert called to his companions over the noise.

      ‘Stout and gin,’ Jack suggested in jest.

      Lawson laughed incredulously. ‘I’m game. Stout and gin it is.’

      ‘Three pints of stout with a large measure of gin in each,’ Jack shouted to the barmaid, a plump girl of about nineteen. ‘And have a drink yourself.’ That last comment drew her attention. She smiled at Jack and began to pour.

      ‘The thing I like about these cock and hen nights is seeing the lower orders at play,’ Robert said into Lawson’s ear. ‘They really enjoy themselves, you know. And they drink like fish. Just watch.’

      ‘It’s