“Hello, my dear,” John said. “I have a message for Rory. Is he there?”
“He’s upstairs,” Lily said. “He’s a little overtired today. I shouldn’t call him to the phone. Can I take a message? Or do you want to call back at dinner time? He might come down for dinner.”
John hesitated. “I can ask you to give him a message,” he said. “Just between you and me, my dear, we were both concerned with Stephen’s plan to buy the farm and I’ve sorted it out. The farmer returned Stephen’s note. The sale is cancelled. Just tell Rory that it’s all off, there’s no need for him to worry.”
He heard Lily’s little sigh of relief. “I’ll tell him,” she said. “You’re an angel, John!”
He gave a little complacent chuckle. “All in a day’s work!” he said. “We can’t have you worrying! And we couldn’t have had you buried in the country! I don’t know what the boy was thinking of!”
“He said it reminded him of a place in Belgium,” Lily said. “Somewhere he used to go on leave. I suppose it mattered to him because it was a peaceful place in the middle of war.”
“Well, for heaven’s sake—it’s peace now, isn’t it?” John exclaimed. “He doesn’t need a refuge now!” He recollected that he was speaking to Stephen’s wife. “I do beg your pardon, my dear. Now, if you can tell Rory that it’s all settled, we’ll say no more about it.”
“As usual,” Lily said sapiently. “Whenever there’s anything in this house that we don’t like, we say no more about it.”
In the background John could hear the front door open. “Oh!” Lily said in a quite different voice. “I have to go! I’ll deliver your message! Goodbye now!”
She put the phone down and faced Stephen as he came heavily into the hall.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he said with icy courtesy.
Lily shook her head with a smile. “It was nothing,” she said.
“Was the message for me? The message you had to deliver?”
Lily shook her head. “No.”
“Oh? Is it for my mother?”
“No.”
“For Father?”
Lily glanced around the hall but there was no distraction. “Yes,” she said. “A message for your father.”
“How odd,” Stephen said. “From my office?”
Lily nodded. “I’ll go and tell him now,” she said. “He’s not been very well today. He didn’t come out for a walk. If he’s not asleep I’ll tell him now.”
“I’ll come up with you,” Stephen said pleasantly. He slipped his hand around Lily’s waist and they climbed the stairs together. Lily had a momentary, foolish thought that it was like being under arrest, being marched somewhere. She could not see how to escape giving John Pascoe’s message in front of Stephen and she knew that Stephen would dislike the knowledge that Rory and John had worked together to subvert him.
Lily tapped softly on Rory’s door, hoping that he would be asleep and there would be no reply.
“Mmmm!” he called. His voice was strong and clear but the betraying muscles around his lips and mouth and throat would not shape the words he needed.
Lily opened the door and slipped in, Stephen following.
Rory smiled at them both but his dark eyes were wary.
“Good afternoon,” Stephen said genially. “I am sorry to hear you’re off-colour. Perhaps you’ve been overdoing it?”
Rory shook his head slowly, the muscles in his neck straining with effort. “I’m well,” he said finally.
“Lily took a phone message for you,” Stephen said. “Didn’t you, Lily?”
Both men looked at her. Lily flushed as if she were keeping some clandestine secret.
“John Pascoe telephoned,” she said. She put on her Duchess voice and kept it steady. “He said to tell you not to worry, and that it’s been sorted out.”
“How very odd!” Stephen said. “What does he mean? D’you know, Father?”
Rory tried to nod, but the muscle in his jaw started to tremble.
“He must have said something else, Lily,” Stephen said gently. “What matter was this? What was it all about?” He looked from Lily to his father as if he could not imagine what they were withholding. “You must have a clearer message,” he said. “This is meaningless! I had better phone John back! If my father is worried about something then we had better put his mind properly at rest.”
Lily and Rory exchanged a trapped look.
“Unless it is just me who does not understand?” Stephen asked. “Perhaps it is me who is misunderstanding here? Just me who would need a clearer message?”
Lily shrugged. “I know nothing about it,” she said. “I’m going to change.”
“It’s about the farm, isn’t it?” Stephen said suddenly. Lily’s guilty face told him at once. “Oh! If that’s what it’s all about then I can tell you all about it. There’s no need for this foolish and childish secrecy. I can tell you all about it.”
Rory moved his hand in a quietening gesture, as if begging Stephen to stop. Lily said, “It doesn’t matter, Stephen. It was about the farm. It was a message to tell your father that John had cancelled the sale and not to worry. That was all.”
“Did he tell you how he did it?” Stephen asked. “Or did you all plan it together, perhaps? Perhaps you all got together to work out what you should say? It was really quite brilliant. I congratulate you, all three of you! He told the farmer that I was dotty. From the war. Not fit to take decisions. Probably better off in a home. Perhaps my affairs should be in trust, d’you think? Who cooked that one up? Was it you, Lily?”
Lily shot an anxious look at Rory and then shook her head. “I didn’t know anything about this,” she said. “I didn’t want to buy the farm and I didn’t want to live there. But I didn’t ask your father or Mr. Pascoe to do anything.”
Stephen nodded and slid his arm around her waist. Lily stiffened but he drew her to him. “You loyal little darling,” he said softly. “But you have it all the wrong way round. You don’t have to express a wish before someone will grant it for you. You don’t have to fight and struggle and demand to get what you want, my darling! You just have to open those blue eyes of yours and someone will do it for you.”
Lily let him hold her, but she turned her face away. Stephen looked towards the bed. “And you, Father, what a pair of old rogues you and John are, to be sure! I shall take care never to go against your wishes again! D’you know for a moment then I thought I might live the life I wished? I thought that since I had gone to Ypres, as you wished, and come back against all the odds, and worked in your office for three years, that I might do as I wanted after all this time! But not with you and John at the helm, eh? You run a tight ship, Father, I admire you for it.”
Rory heard the bitterness in his son’s voice and heaved himself up on one elbow. “Sorry,” he said. “My boy . . .” He reached a hand out towards his son. Rory’s overloaded brain gave him the wrong word, precisely the wrong word for the case. He stretched his hand out further and his eyes looked at Stephen with pity and with love. “Christopher.”
Stephen gave a low sob of a laugh, turned on his heel and went out of the room. Lily stepped forward and took Rory’s hand. She patted it gently. “Never mind,” she said. “You acted for the best. He’ll get over it. And at least we do have a Christopher now.”
• • •
Stephen left early for court the next morning, his wig and his gown in a small bag. Coventry drove him there and parked nearby to wait for him. Lily watched Christopher being wheeled out into the garden and heard Nanny Janes’s heavy tread as she went upstairs to tidy the nursery. She slipped on a jacket and went outside.
The wind was blowing in off the sea and she could smell the salt in the air. The late summer roses, creamy and thick, were nodding their heads and opening their petals under the warmth of the sun. Bedding plants in scarlet and white blazed in the circular flower bed in the plumb centre of the garden, birds sang loudly, and as Lily sat and rocked the pram and smiled in r
eply to Christopher’s contented gurgles, she watched the housemartins swooping low and rapid across the sky.
Christopher was dozy, his eyes closed and Lily let the pram rock to a standstill. A little breeze caught the wooden gate from the garden to the garage and courtyard at the side of the house and it banged softly. Lily went to lock it, but the key was missing. She pushed it shut, and wedged it with a stone so that it should make no noise which might disrupt Christopher’s sleep. She went back to sit on the bench and turned her face up to the sunshine as Sally came running out of the kitchen door.
Lily put a finger to her lips and went to greet her. “Telephone, Mrs. Winters,” Sally whispered. “It’s Mr. Smith.”
Lily glanced at Christopher, sleeping soundly, and then up at the nursery window where Nanny Janes moved to and fro, occasionally glancing down, observing Lily’s interference with proper discipline.
Lily went up the steps to the verandah through the French windows, into the dining room, still smelling heavily of fat from Stephen’s cooked breakfast, and picked up the telephone in the hall.
“Sweetie, I have to go away for a couple of days,” Charlie said. “It’s the Palace Theatre, London. They just rang. Their MD has been taken sick and they’ve offered me the chance of the job for a week. I’d be mad not to go.”
Lily felt for the back of the chair near the phone and sank down into it.
“A week,” she said.
“It could turn into the season, I suppose. It was a very brief phone call, I didn’t have time to discuss everything. I said I’d take a train up this morning, and see them this afternoon.”
Lily nodded. “That’s wonderful news.”
Charlie chuckled. “You’re a little trouper,” he said. “It’s not wonderful news for us, I know. But it’s a big break for me if I take it.”
“Of course you must take it,” Lily said. She heard a tiny tremor in her voice and took a deep breath and ironed it out. “Of course you must take it.”
“If it came right for me, and I was earning, earning a good deal of money, then a lot of other things would be possible,” Charlie said. “I could buy you a house of your own. I could send Christopher to whatever school you wanted. You could leave Stephen.”
Lily glanced guiltily around the hall. There was no-one there. Muriel was in her bedroom, Rory was in the laborious process of being dressed for the day, Nanny Janes was in the nursery and the maids and Cook were in the kitchen.
“I don’t even think about it,” she said.
“Well, I do,” Charlie replied. “And this might be the way forward.”
There was a little silence.
“Will you stay in town tonight?” Lily asked.
“If they’re desperate, I’ll have to. I don’t know what’s wrong with the other chap. If he can’t work at all, they might want me to start right away. If that does happen I’ll call you at once, sweetheart. And I’ll come back on the last train Saturday night and see you Sunday. We’ll sort something out then.”
“Yes,” Lily said forlornly.
“If you want me to stay, then say it,” Charlie said tightly. “But I can’t go on like this with you, and you can’t go on in that house. If you want me to stay then I’ll stay, but I’ll only be here to help you leave him. Things have got to change, Lily. It’s destroying all three of us.”
Lily nodded. “I know.” There was a little silence. “I’m not ready to leave yet,” she said quietly. “There’s his father and mother to be considered as well. And I have to know that I could keep Christopher.”
“Only if you’re prepared to divorce him for cruelty,” Charlie said. “I took some advice. If you’re prepared to testify that he’s cruel then you’d get a divorce, and you’d be able to keep Christopher. Especially if you could show that you had independent means—if I endowed you with some capital.”
“I can’t do that.”
Charlie breathed out, trying to restrain his impatience. Lily held the phone close to her ear. More than anything in the world she wanted Charlie’s arms around her.
“Don’t be angry,” she said. “I want to do the best. I want to do the best for Christopher.”
“I know,” he said. “And I’m not angry. I’m—oh!—impatient! Unhappy! I want something to change! I want something to change dramatically! I want to snatch up you and Christopher and take you away and have everything different! Like a fairy story!”
Lily smiled. “I want that too,” she said. “I want that day at the sea again. When I was in love with you so much that I could hardly breathe! And we went swimming, and we had tea at that little post office, and I wore Madge’s trousers, and you had that motorbike.”
“I remember,” Charlie said. “D’you know, if I was on my deathbed that would be the day I would remember? A perfect day. A perfect day. I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.”
There was a little silence. Lily thought, irrelevantly, that only lovers use the telephone to say nothing. “Only you could ring me up and then just breathe at me,” she said.
“I like to know you’re there,” Charlie replied. “I could happily spend all day on the phone to you, just so I know where you are, and what you’re wearing, and how you’re looking and what you’re feeling.”
“I’m in the hall,” Lily said. “Sitting on the chair. I’m wearing my blue and white striped dress with the little jacket. I wish I was with you.”
“What about that mad farm idea?” Charlie said. “What’s happening about that?”
“Oh, Rory spoke to John Pascoe, and John spoke to the farmer, and he returned Stephen’s note, and the sale is off. It’s all off.”
“They cancelled his agreement?” Charlie asked.
“Yes.”
“Poor chap,” Charlie said. “They don’t give him a lot of chances, do they?”
“I couldn’t have stood it,” Lily said.
“I know. But he wanted it. It was something he wanted. And they didn’t even let him have that. He had no right to force it on you, but . . .” Charlie broke off. “It’s a bit thick!” he said lightly. “For a chap to go through what he went through, and then come home and have to toe the line still. It’s just a bit thick, that’s all.”
Above Lily’s head Muriel’s bedroom door opened and closed again, and Muriel started coming down the stairs.
“I have to go,” Lily breathed into the telephone.
“Someone there?”
“That’s right.”
“I’ll go and get my train then. I’ll ring you from London. I’ll tell you what’s going on. Don’t get anxious, I’ll see you soon.”
“Break a leg!” Lily said in the old theatre tradition. “I hope you get it! You deserve it!”
“Give my little boy a hug from me. I shall miss him this afternoon.”
“I will. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
Lily put the telephone down and pushed the upright instrument to the rear of the table, on its linen mat, as Muriel liked it to be. From the road outside she heard a car door slam, a car start up, pause at the T junction at the side of the house, and then drive off.
“You’re pale,” Muriel said. “Not bad news?”
Lily smiled. “Not at all! That was Charlie! He had an audition in London this afternoon at the Palace Theatre. Wonderful news.”
Muriel put her hand gently on her daughter-in-law’s shoulder. “Perhaps it is for the best,” she said quietly.
Lily blinked quickly on a rush of sudden hot tears. “I know,” she said. “I’m very pleased for him.”
Muriel hesitated, afraid to say more and yet wanting to tell Lily that she understood. She chose to say nothing. “Could you drive me into Southsea?” Muriel asked. “I wanted to collect a dress from Mrs. Mates. I forgot that Stephen was keeping the car all day.”
Lily nodded. “Of course,” she said. “I’m not doing anything this morning. Now Charlie won’t be here for my lesson this afternoon I’m free all day. And I love an excuse to show off my Morr
is!”
Muriel opened the door and went in to the drawing room. “I’ll only be a minute with Mrs. Mates and then we could call in and see Sarah Dent for coffee, if you would like. She’s just around the corner.”
“Certainly,” Lily said pleasantly. “I’ll get my hat.”
She glanced out of the drawing room window. “And my umbrella!” she said. “It’s going to pour! I’ll get Christopher brought in and tell Sally to take the pram into the kitchen. Look at that sky! It’s clouded over so quickly. I was in the garden only a moment ago and it was beautiful sunshine then!”
Muriel rang the bell for the tweeny as Lily went from the hall, through the dining room and out on to the verandah. Already, large drops of warm rain were starting to fall. Lily started for the steps to the garden and then stopped short.
The little garden was quite empty.
The pram, and Christopher, were gone.
36
“OH!” LILY SAID. “Sally must have already brought him in.” She went back to the dining room. Muriel was in the hall, pinning on her hat. Sally was coming up the back stairs from the kitchen.
“Have you brought Christopher in?” Lily asked.
“I’m just going, Mrs. Winters. I’ve only just this minute been asked.”
Lily looked at Muriel. “The pram’s not there,” she said stupidly. “Has Browning brought him in?”
“Browning’s in the kitchen, doing the ironing,” Sally said. “We thought he was to be left to sleep.”
“It’s raining!” Lily said irritably. “Not even Nanny Janes says he has to sleep outside in the pouring rain!”
“I didn’t know it was raining,” Sally said with injured dignity. “You can’t see the sky in that kitchen.”
“Oh!” Lily exclaimed with irritation. “Where is Nanny Janes?”
The nursery door opened at the top of the stairs and Nanny Janes came down.
“Nanny Janes!” Lily called up to her. “Did you bring Christopher in?”
“I am coming down to ensure that he is brought in,” Nanny Janes said with quelling dignity. “It is starting to rain.”
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