Another good influence on Daisy was Miss Payne, her schoolmistress at St Thomas’s School. Alice Payne taught her common sense and how to do complicated sums. She taught her to read and write, to appreciate the more cultured aspects of life, and vigorously discouraged her from speaking with a broad Black Country accent, correcting her at every slip. Miss Payne’s influence stayed with Daisy.
Daisy’s best friend in those days was Emily Tucker who went to work in service at the house of Mr Charles Ralph Spencer, a highly respected solicitor. He regularly attended Top Church.
‘Guess what,’ Emily whispered to Daisy at a moment when the point of Reverend Cosens’s sermon was particularly elusive. ‘There’s a position to be had at Mr Spencer’s. They’m after a maid. Why don’t you apply?’
‘Me?’
‘Tha’s what you wanna do, in’t it? Work in service?’
Daisy shrugged. ‘Yes.’
‘So ask about it. Mr Spencer’s in church. Ask him about it after.’
Emily was older than Daisy and far more sensible, Daisy thought. After fretting all through Matins and taking furtive peeps at the lordly Mr Spencer, to try and judge just how approachable he was, Daisy finally managed to pluck up the courage to address him after the service as he and his wife were leaving.
‘Excuse me, Mr Spencer,’ she said apologetically, running beside them down the stone steps that spilled onto High Street. ‘My friend Emily Tucker says you have a vacancy for a maid. I … I wondered if you would consider me?’
Mr Spencer’s initial expression was one of disbelief that any girl as young and insignificant as Daisy could have the brazen audacity to confront him on God’s day of rest. But he got over his shock and smiled at her patiently and rather politely, considering her lowliness.
‘Your name, Miss?’
‘Daisy Drake, sir.’
‘One of our regular congregation,’ Mrs Spencer, who was holding his arm, informed him pleasantly.
‘Of course, I know your face,’ he said with an agreeable smile. ‘Well … How old are you, Miss Drake?’
‘Thirteen, sir,’ Daisy answered, blushing as she realised just how forward she must have seemed. ‘Thirteen in May.’
‘Do you know where I live?’
‘Yes, sir. On Wellington Road, sir. I know just where it is.’
‘Come and see my wife at half past four tomorrow afternoon … and don’t forget to bring your character.’
As he and Mrs Spencer left, Daisy looked at Emily with open-mouthed disbelief and chuckled at her own audacity.
‘There you am,’ Emily said. ‘Easy. Yo’ll get that job and no mistek.’
‘But who’ll give me a character?’
‘Ask the vicar.’
It was July 1879 and since Daisy was just about to leave school, the timing could not have been better, for she was given the job, as Emily had predicted. Although she was thrilled, she was naturally sorry to leave her mother and father and little Sarah in that modest terraced house of theirs. Her mother was so proud, however. She cashed in her older daughter’s insurance policy, bought her uniform and off Daisy went to work. For many a young girl, leaving home to live and work in a strange house was a lonely and depressing experience. Daisy was lucky; she knew Emily. Otherwise, for a time, she might have been lonely even though Mr Spencer was very kind to his staff. She had Sunday afternoons off, when she would visit her family, one night off every week besides, and she was promised two weeks’ holiday a year. In addition, she was to be paid an annual salary of £10, most of which she hoped to give to her mother.
Daisy and Emily joined the St Thomas’s Girls’ Friendly Society which they attended on their night off. It provided social and religious activities and sewing. They bought material at half the price it was offered in the town shops and a lady came in and taught them how to cut it and sew it, so they could make dresses and other garments. There were Bible readings from Reverend Cosens, beetle drives, and Daisy made friends with some lovely girls, though not all were in service. She felt a great affinity to that sisterhood of young women who taught her so much, not just about sewing either, but about life.
She settled well into working at the Spencer household and enjoyed it. Once, she was taken ill with flu and Mr Spencer paid the doctor to come and see her, then allowed her home for a week afterwards to convalesce. Yet, despite his kindness and commendable charitableness, he docked her a week’s money.
In the summer of 1882 when she was sixteen, Daisy realised that the baker’s boy was taking an interest in her. Charlie Bills was a good-looking lad with a cheeky grin and she’d secretly been admiring him for some time. One day, when he was delivering, he asked to see her on her night off.
‘But I go with Emily to the Girls’ Friendly Society at Top Church on my night off,’ she told him disappointedly.
‘I could meet yer after and walk yer back.’
Her heart started hammering hard at the prospect. ‘All right,’ she agreed with a smile, and the tryst was arranged.
When that eagerly anticipated time came she bid Emily goodnight and Charlie whisked her away.
‘Want to see a wasp’s nest?’ he asked boyishly.
‘Not particularly.’ Daisy was not impressed. The thought of being attacked by a million of the humming little devils terrified her.
Yet despite a poor start, Charlie Bills became her first sweetheart. He harboured some exalted plans: he was going to start his own bakery and marry her. They would live in a fine house on Ednam Road, have several children and a top floor full of servants. He was a dreamer and Daisy took all this in like the immature young girl that she was. Charlie never once considered the difficulties, the sacrifices. To start a bakery business he first needed money. Then he would have to work all the hours that God sent, getting up at two or three in the morning to bake bread ready for his first customers who wanted it before their husbands scurried off to work. Once Daisy realised this, she decided she didn’t fancy the life of a baker’s wife.
When you are sixteen and in love, your emotions boil over. They run away with you. Thus it was with Daisy. She was besotted, early on at least. Sometimes, when Charlie called to deliver the bread, she would contrive to be in the laundry and he would come and furtively seek her out. He would take her in his arms, press her against the mangle or the stone sink, and she would feel all swoony with pleasure when he kissed her. She could always smell fresh-baked bread on him, a smell she adored. Of course, she never allowed him to go any further than kissing … except for the few occasions after they got to know each other better, when she allowed him to feel her breasts, but only ever over her bodice, never underneath. After all, she went to church regularly, she was a regular member of the Girls’ Friendly Society and they were always warned about what happened to silly girls who allowed boys to take liberties; well, the workhouse was full of unfortunate examples. Yet, when she sat daydreaming, the thought of having her breasts fondled in the flesh, imagining what his lips might feel like nuzzling her nipples, was decidedly appealing. When Charlie kissed her on the lips she would feel her breathing coming harder