So she tried to look no further than their next assignation. It was to be on her evening off, on Wednesday. Like the Sunday before, it seemed an eternity coming. It was a cold evening but dry. As she walked up St James’s Road to meet him she looked up at the sky and saw how clear it was. There would be a hard frost that night.
Once again she had arranged to meet Lawson outside the police station and once again his cabriolet was standing outside the Saracen’s Head, the fine black horse tethered to a gas lamp. Once again he beckoned her to join him and, once again, she skipped biddably across the road to be at his side, her heart in her mouth.
‘Maybe we should arrange to meet outside the Saracen’s,’ she suggested lightly.
He smiled genially. ‘Or even inside.’
Like the last time they met she could smell drink on his breath.
‘Where are you taking me?’
‘Jump in.’ He handed her up into the carriage. As she settled herself, he untethered the horse, got in beside her, flicked the reins and turned the carriage around in the street. ‘Fancy some cockfighting?’
‘Cockfighting?’ At once she was alarmed. ‘I thought cockfighting was illegal.’
He laughed irreverently. ‘Lots of things are illegal, Daisy. That doesn’t stop ’em going on.’
‘Are you serious, though? You’re not serious, are you? You’re going to take me to a cockfight?’
‘You’ll love it. It’s great sport. Great fighting spirit those birds have … I’ll let you into a secret … I have a financial interest.’
She wanted to ask in what way but thought it best not to poke her nose in. For a few seconds she was quiet, wishing to be taken anywhere but a cockfight, for she knew she would loathe it.
‘I’ve missed you, Daisy,’ he said, and his welcome remark was like the direct hit of an arrow from Cupid’s bow. ‘I’ve thought about you a lot since Sunday.’
‘Have you honestly?’ Suddenly, her eyes brightened, delighted that he should admit it.
‘The only problem was that I couldn’t picture your face in my mind’s eye. Let me have a good look at you.’
As he drove he turned to look at her in the puny light from the town’s gas lamps. She tilted her face towards him with a self-conscious smile and was aware of involuntarily blinking.
‘Your eyes,’ he said. ‘So beautiful. So clear. I’ve been dreaming about your eyes.’ They turned right, into High Street then came to a halt by the crossroads. ‘Here we are.’
‘It was hardly worth getting in the gig,’ Daisy commented. ‘We could have walked.’
‘Why walk when we have a fine trap like this?’
They stopped outside a drab coaching house called the Old Bush. Daisy looked at it with apprehension. She recalled when she was a child her father telling her that the ‘Tally-Ho’ coach used to leave this inn every day for Birmingham and London. It was not the sort of establishment a wholesome young woman would consider frequenting, and she mentioned this to Lawson.
‘You’re with me, Daisy. People respect me. They won’t think any the less of you for being here. Anyway, it’s likely you won’t know anybody anyway, so it ain’t gonna matter.’
Thus chided, she followed him inside. In the public bar he asked her what she would like to drink.
‘Port,’ she said.
‘A port and brandy – your best,’ he ordered from the bartender.
‘I only asked for a port,’ she protested meekly.
‘It’s cold out there in the yard. The brandy will keep you warm.’
‘In the yard?’
He looked at her patiently and smiled. ‘Yes, in the yard. There’ll be a ring for the birds to fight in, with seats all around. There’s no room inside suitable for cockfighting … Thanks,’ he said, turning to the bartender. ‘And a large whisky …’
‘But if it’s outside in the yard, won’t some bobby hear what’s going on when he does his rounds?’
‘Be assured, Daisy,’ he said, whispering into her ear, ‘the beat bobby will turn a deaf ear.’
He handed her the port and brandy, which she sipped gingerly, then he took the watch out of his waistcoat fob and looked at the time.
‘We’ll finish these then go into the yard. Proceedings are due to start at half past eight.’
Daisy could feel the brandy warming her and was thankful for it. She looked around her. She felt grossly out of place in that smoke-filled bar, even with Lawson at her side. Although she was working-class herself she did not feel any empathy at all with the folk that surrounded her. They were not her equals. Most were ill-kempt, ill-mannered and rough. They yelled at each other across the room, they coughed asthmatically and spat rudely into spittoons that lay at strategic locations on the sawdust floor. Those folk closest to her stank, as if they hadn’t had a decent wash down for months. She longed to go outside into the fresh air of the yard, cold or not, so finished her drink much sooner than she normally would.
‘Another?’ Lawson asked kindly.
She nodded. ‘Please. Then can we go outside? I don’t like it in here. Some of these folk smell.’ She wrinkled her nose to emphasise her point. ‘There must be a big opportunity to sell tin baths in this town, but nobody’s addressing it, I venture to say. Maybe you should, Lawson, since you’re so enterprising.’
He laughed at her derision and paid for the drinks. He led her through a door at the back of the room, down a dismal passage and through another door. Already, about forty men and women were assembled, some standing, some sitting, arguing, laughing, hooting and bawling, nearly all smoking. As soon as one of the men saw Lawson he stepped up to him, shook his hand and led him to a bench that was evidently reserved for him. Other men acknowledged him deferentially as if he were the local squire, then looked Daisy up and down curiously. She could feel men’s leering eyes following her as she followed Lawson to their bench.
‘Tasty bit o’ fanny, that,’ she heard one man say.
‘Trust Lawson Maddox to come up with the goods,’ his companion replied venerably.
She smiled to herself as she sat down. Never had she considered for a moment that Lawson was entirely without sin. He was too good-looking and far too outgoing to have led a sheltered life. Perhaps he’d left a string of broken-hearted lovers behind him. That didn’t bother her at all. Men were men, and the more women they knew before marriage, the better. It was the way of the world. Even she understood that. The thing that pleased her was that right now Lawson was with her, nobody else. However many women he’d known, she was the one in his company that night. It was a stimulating thought. She thought of Fanny who wore her heart on her sleeve. Of course Daisy wanted Lawson to want her more than he’d wanted all the others, Fanny included, but the greatest stimulation came from knowing that all those other women must have desired him as much as she did herself, and that confirmed her
