trying to shake off his adversary, but he could not do it, and he lay, gasping for breath until he was picked up by his owner.
Razor Bill had won and Lawson reckoned he owed Daisy two hundred and fifty-six guineas.
‘Two hundred and fifty-six guineas?’ she repeated in utter astonishment. ‘I can’t take that much money from you.’
‘Course you can. That was our agreement. Razor Bill won. I told you he might.’
‘But it’s a fortune, Lawson.’
‘I’ll say it’s a fortune.’
‘I don’t think you understand. It’s more than four years wages for me … Four years … It’s probably more than you’ve taken the whole evening.’
He winked artfully. ‘Before I met you tonight I placed a bet myself with another bookie. I had a five-guinea accumulator on Razor Bill.’
‘Five guineas? So you’ve won … more than twelve hundred and fifty guineas.’
‘Not a bad night’s work, eh?’
‘But how did you know that Razor Bill would win?’
‘Oh, I didn’t. You can never be certain. But he has good form. He’s in fine condition and he has a good trainer … But there was a sentimental motive that made me bet on him …’
‘I didn’t realise you were sentimental.’
‘I am about cocks,’ he said, with a twinkle in his eye. ‘He belongs to me, you see. I own him. I always bet on my own cock-a-doodle …’
Daisy was not so prudish as to be shocked by this innuendo, rather she was amused by it. Lawson’s unconventionality was acceptable, not only because he broke the rules of what was expected in polite society, but he had also made her rich. For the sake of writing a few words on a piece of paper, at his behest, she was better off by two hundred and fifty-six guineas. It was magic.
Now she had money enough to spend on a doctor for her father – all thanks to Lawson Maddox. She blessed the day she met him. The trouble was, it turned out that Dr McCaskie had been right in the first place. Her father’s illness was incurable by medicine.
‘For a patient who is consumptive I prescribe not medicine, but a new mode of life,’ he told them on the day of his visit. ‘We cannot cure anybody of consumption. Endless steadfastness, courage, self-discipline and self-denial are the key. If I can get Mr Drake to alter his mode of life I am giving the correct treatment in some measure.’
But how far could her poor father go in altering his way of life? He would need the support of not only her mother, but Daisy and Sarah as well. Well, Daisy would give hers to the absolute best of her ability, for as long as her windfall lasted. She wanted to pay for her father to enter a sanatorium but, not surprisingly, he refused. They argued with him, they cajoled, they tried gentle persuasion. All failed. So her mother’s care and application of a rigid, monotonous discipline was what they depended on for him.
Doctor McCaskie also decreed that Titus Drake was to be given three good meals a day. ‘No special diet is necessary,’ he explained, ‘but the food has to be thoroughly masticated and digested. He is allowed a little alcohol – rum in warm milk. He should have a little cod liver oil every day, for it will be beneficial. As many hours as possible must be spent in the open air and, when he is indoors, the windows are to be widely opened, or even taken out of their sashes …’
‘In this vile January weather?’ Mary queried, looking at the doctor as if he’d lost touch with reality.
Dr McCaskie ignored her look. ‘Your husband has to be made to rest and he must maintain a cheerful attitude of mind …’
That amused Daisy; she hadn’t seen her father smile in years.
‘Additionally, he must carry a special receptacle to spit into, which should contain disinfectant fluid or a solution of mercury salt. He must never swallow his phlegm. Also, he has to sleep by himself. All this is necessary,’ he went on. ‘Mrs Drake, you must breathe through your nose at all times to avoid picking up the infection, and wash your hands every time you handle anything of your husband’s—’
‘Pah! I never touch him,’ Mary interjected with distaste.
‘And if they can stand to do all this, will his health improve?’ Daisy asked sceptically, because it all sounded rather like shutting the gate after the horse had run off.
‘Truly, I cannot say for certain. But it is the only chance he has got. If he is foolish and lapses, then his health will not improve.’
Lawson and Daisy became regular companions, although her evenings off and Sunday afternoons were the only times they could be together. Every other Sunday she was given the whole day off and it was on the mornings of those days that she visited her mother and father. Sometimes, during the week, her duties took her into the town and then she would make a quick diversion to their house in Campbell Street, less than five minutes’ walk from the market place.
There was not a profusion of eating houses in Dudley but, on a couple of occasions, Lawson entertained her at the Dudley Arms Hotel and at the Fountain Dining Rooms. He made her feel like a princess. He never failed to bring her a gift; some trinket that she could wear or place on the mantelshelf in her little attic room at Baxter House. Lawson was becoming increasingly attentive, to Daisy’s great satisfaction.
The weeks passed in a haze of tantalising romance and sweet talk, and Daisy began to wonder whether Lawson loved her enough to make her his bride. She had thought long and hard about it. The very fact that she was contemplating the possibility told her how much she wanted already to be his wife. She pondered all aspects. At night she went to bed in her attic bedroom in a reverie of romance, imagining delightful evenings curled in his arms on a sofa in front of the fire, weaving dreams and planning what names to give their children. She imagined laughter ringing through the house as they decided how they would design each room. She imagined trips to the shops to choose new furniture, bone china dinner sets, tea sets and silver cutlery for when they entertained his influential friends. Oh, she would love being married to Lawson.
She had not failed to consider their love life either. Lawson was always sweet and attentive. He made her ache with desire with his delicious, lingering kisses, but he had not made the suggestion or contrived to manipulate her into a situation where he might have tried to take advantage of her. She was still intact of course, yet here was the one man for whom she would gladly lose her virginity without a second thought, so much did she love him.
Each time they met, she wondered if this was the occasion he would take her to his home. She was dying to see his house, to assess its potential, to plan what she would do to improve it when she became Mrs Lawson Maddox. But never did he suggest that he might one day take her there. Daisy wondered, anxiously, if it was because he was already married. It would explain a lot. The thought made her grossly unhappy. She was hooked like some poor fish dangling on the end of a line and the possibility that she might actually be sharing him with another woman began to worry her.
One Wednesday evening Daisy and Lawson were invited for supper at the house of one of his well-to-do friends. They played whist and the lady of the house played piano and sang very pleasantly for them. It was a convivial evening and Daisy drank port. She was becoming very attached to port; it seemed to boost her confidence. Lawson never embarrassed her by letting on to any of his high-class friends that the lovely young lady who accompanied him
