Lily's Journey

by Tania Crosse

  The four of us hurried along Plymouth Road as it was so near that it wasn’t worth taking the car. It was a lovely winter’s night, crisp and clear, but very cold so that we were glad to arrive at the Town Hall and climb the stairs to the beautiful function room on the first floor. It was set out for the formal dinner for the local doctors and visiting consultants and their respective wives, silver cutlery and crystal glasses sparkling in the electric light. There was some mild joking as it was explained to those who didn’t know me who I was and why I was partnering Edwin.

  ‘I feel a bit of a fraud,’ I laughed as I spoke to Mr Nunn, the orthopaedic consultant who helped with Edwin’s more complicated cases. ‘But I’d be coming to the ball afterwards, so it made sense.’ And by next year, I might be by Edwin’s side officially. As his wife, I thought dreamily.

  He was the perfect, attentive gentleman during the meal, and my heart overflowed. I loved Edwin with a passion that overwhelmed me, and I stared into the clear brilliance of his green-blue eyes as he smiled at me, passing the salt or the butter. I was on top of the world and couldn’t wait for the dancing and all the other frivolities I had heard about to begin. After the meal, the rest of the staff who weren’t on duty that night started to arrive. Everyone was greeted by Matron who appeared a different person in a ball-gown, gaily showing the human side of her nature more than ever. The band struck up and I was tingling with excitement as I danced the first two quicksteps with Edwin.

  ‘I think I’ll ask the new staff nurse for the next one,’ he smiled down at me. ‘Don’t want her feeling left out. You’ll be all right on your own for a few minutes, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course!’ I replied with a light toss of my head. It was typical of Edwin to be so considerate. I was so proud of him and went to sit with William and Deborah who were chatting with Dr Wilkins and his wife. I watched Edwin foxtrotting with Sadie. She looked even lovelier than ever in an evening gown, and was talking easily as Edwin whisked her around the dance floor.

  ‘Come on, Lily. Let’s show them how to do it properly!’ William crowed, pulling me to my feet. A good dancer, was William, and I followed his lead, my mouth in a wide smile as our feet rose and fell in time to the music.

  ‘That was great, Lily!’ William grinned as we clapped at the end of the second tune. ‘But I’d better have a dance with Deborah before I get too worn out!’

  He led me back to my seat and he and Deborah left me talking to Mrs Wilkins who suffered somewhat from verbal diarrhoea and engaged me in conversation until long after William and Deborah came back, flushed and breathless. I nodded politely, trying to search the hall without appearing rude. When I was finally rescued by Dr Wilkins asking his wife to dance, I was able to glance across the floor.

  Edwin was still dancing with Sadie but just at that moment, they decided to stop. He took her arm and gently guided her to where she had been sitting at the far end of the hall. Then he left her to go to the bar and returning with a tankard of beer and a smaller glass of something else, sat down next to her. They were immediately deep in animated conversation punctuated with hand gestures, smiles and laughter. Edwin’s gaze left her face for just a second, and when he caught my eye, he gave me that mischievous wink and openly waved his fingers before turning his full attention back to Sadie.

  I froze, the breath raw and stinging in my throat. Edwin’s smile as he chuckled at something Sadie had said was rapturous, bursting with life and slicing at my heart. I had never seen him so elated. Among all the noise and gaiety that surrounded me, I was suddenly lost and alone, the muscles of my chest contracting in pain.

  Edwin didn’t love me.

  No. It couldn’t be true. He was simply being kind and courteous to Sadie. But as I stared across at him, I knew I was only fooling myself. A tiny, strangled sound died on my lips as I tried to deny once again what I could see before my very eyes.

  Everything, every moment I had spent with Edwin over the past two years raced through my head. He had always been affable and chivalrous. Full of fun. But had he ever shown me anything more than brotherly affection? As my heart turned to a solid block in my chest, I realised what a blithering idiot I had been. Edwin saw me as a little sister, a child. And I wanted to die.

  My senses reeled away as the music ceased and I was only vaguely aware of the band leader announcing that we should form teams for the traditional party games. Edwin had never loved me. He was fond of me as the orphan his parents had taken into the bosom of their family. But he had never loved me, not with the fathomless passion I had always felt for him. And now his interest had been drawn by Sadie Jessop, who was bright and intelligent and more of his age. And beautiful.

  I sat immobile. Glued to the chair. Stunned. Stupid. And feeling as if I was falling into a deep, dark abyss of despair. And then Edwin was pulling my hand, laughing and grinning, dragging me up to join him and Sadie in the chaotic line. Spearing the agony deeper and deeper somewhere beneath my ribs.

  Somehow I fixed a stiff smile on my face. Did whatever it was I was supposed to do with a balloon and a beanbag, moving like a clockwork doll. One of the ward sisters kicked off her shoes to move more freely, and beside me, Sadie did the same. Even her feet were pretty. She made me feel like a wilting daisy next to her blooming rose. I didn’t stand a chance.

  I dragged myself desolately through the rest of the evening, struggling to hold my shattered soul together and hide my anguish from everyone around me. When it came to the last waltz, Edwin danced it, not with me but with Sadie. Other nurses partnered each other, but I sat, alone and bleeding.

  ‘May I have the pleasure, Miss Hayes?’

  I scraped my gaze upwards to Dr Higgins. It was the first time I had ever seen him smile. He was a confirmed bachelor, and everyone said he attended the ball on sufferance. Perhaps he felt as I did now. Isolated and left out. Two lost souls together.

  We moved slowly around the dance floor, both rigid and silent. I bit back my tears. At the end, I clapped mechanically and Dr Higgins gave a polite bow.

  ‘You know, you’ve done very well,’ he growled. ‘You’ve got the makings of a good secretary.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I answered through bloodless lips.

  ‘Goodnight then, Miss Hayes.’

  I stood, alone for a moment as the dance floor emptied. I wanted to sink on my knees and howl with misery.

  ‘Tell Mum and Dad I’m just walking Sadie back to the Nurses’ Home, would you, Lily?’

  Edwin didn’t give me a chance to reply as he made for the door, his arm protectively around Sadie’s shoulder. Just as he had done so often with me.

  I walked back, almost blundering along Plymouth Road and shivering with shock. William and Deborah, a pace ahead of me, were arm in arm, romantic and happy. I went straight to bed, thankful that Wendy hadn’t waited up, bubbling and expecting to hear all about it. I curled up beneath the blankets, numbed and disbelieving, all my hopes and dreams dashed to smithereens. Then I heard Edwin come in, whistling softly, and retire to his room next to mine. Some time later, the house was in stillness, and only then did I weep until I thought my heart would break.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The next morning, I had to haul myself out of bed as I had to be at work by eight-thirty. I hadn’t slept a wink and now I felt like death warmed up. My whole world lay in splinters at my feet like broken glass. Edwin didn’t love me. The belief that he did had held my life together so that now it hung in tatters all around me. The dream had been dissipated like spray in the wind, leaving behind nothing but emptiness.

  All the old doubts flooded into the void, filling my aching head until it was ready to explode. Who really was I? Why had my mother had an affair? What had she been like? Who was my real father, and was he alive or dead, killed in the war, perhaps? Why had Sidney suffered that freak fatal accident before he had told me more, as I had been sure he eventually would? Most of all, why had Ellen died before I had reached the magical age of eighteen? If I had been but three years ol
der, I could have stayed in London living independently, and none of this would have happened. And I would still have had my dear friend Jeannie to make me laugh at every twist and turn. That night I vowed to write to her again, telling her everything and inviting myself to go and stay with her.

  I washed and dressed with lightning speed. I was overseeing Dr Higgins’s ENT clinic and mustn’t be late. He always performed four operations beforehand, mainly tonsillectomies, and I would have to see to the paperwork for him.

  My heart was too sickened for me to be able to eat anything, so I was just swallowing a coffee when Edwin stumbled into the kitchen in his pyjamas, bleary-eyed and yawning.

  ‘Morning, Lily. Great evening, wasn’t it?’

  I nodded, unable to speak, pretending I had a mouthful of drink. And then Deborah wandered in looking as pretty as I had ever seen her, despite her years, and smiling serenely.

  Edwin immediately came to life. ‘Hey, Mum, would it be all right if Sadie comes to tea tomorrow? She’s off duty and that only happens once a month on a Sunday.’

  ‘Of course, dear. You two looked as if you were getting friendly last night.’

  That was it. I wanted to scream and my stomach rebelled. I made a dash upstairs to the toilet, but I wasn’t sick. I just felt a cloud of misery bearing down on me.

  I made my first error in one of Dr Higgins’s postoperative reports. Despite our last waltz the night before, he yelled at me and I burst into tears. He mumbled something about blubbing children. A child. That was how everyone saw me. Especially Edwin. I was eighteen to his twenty-six, nearly twenty-seven, years. Sadie must be twenty-three or four, much more his age.

  ‘I think Ed’s a pig!’ Wendy scowled that afternoon.

  I was lying on my bed pretending to read, but in truth the words were marching through my head without any meaning. I had wanted to be left alone and wished Wendy hadn’t come to plonk herself, uninvited, on my bed at my feet. I sat up, organising my face into a carefree expression.

  ‘You won’t say anything, will you, Wendy?’ I said, trying not to sound too desperate. ‘I don’t think anyone else realised how I felt about him.’

  ‘Felt?’ Wendy’s eyebrows shot up.

  I shrugged as casually as I could. ‘Well, nothing was ever said between us. About love, I mean. And he’s obviously smitten with Sadie, and I wouldn’t want to spoil it for him by being silly about it. And Sadie’s very nice. And there’ll be plenty more fish in the sea for me. There was Ian’s friend, Rob, for a start. I rather liked him.’

  ‘Really? Oh, I’ll see if he’s still unattached, then.’ And with that, she jumped up quite satisfied, leaving me to drown in my own wretchedness.

  ‘Could I possibly borrow the car for a couple of hours after lunch, please?’ I asked William, trying to sound relaxed and contented the next day. ‘I’d like to visit Kate. I haven’t seen her for ages except in the shop.’

  ‘Yes, that’s fine,’ William smiled back. ‘Good to keep your hand in at the wheel. Just be careful if it’s at all icy.’

  ‘Don’t forget Sadie’s coming to tea, though, will you?’ Edwin put in, his eyes shining. ‘She said she likes you and wants to get to know you better, too.’

  My heart shrivelled. ‘No, I won’t be very long,’ I lied, since it was my intention to stay away as long as possible.

  As it happened, I wasn’t that long after all. Kate’s mum opened the door to me with her usual welcoming grin.

  ‘I’m afraid Kate’s not here. You know Pete’s been back from his National Service for a bit? Well, they’ve gotten pretty friendly, like.’ She paused to wink knowingly at me. ‘Don’t know where they’ve gone, I’m afraid.’

  I felt my shoulders sag. ‘Oh, never mind. Tell her I’ve called.’

  ‘Of course, dear.’

  I stood on the pavement, totally deflated, and glanced towards the jail. The prisoners were on the inside and I was on the outside, but I felt equally as trapped – in my own despair. Sally had gone back to university and the only other person I could talk to was Gloria. But when I knocked on her door, there was total silence.

  I went back to the car and sat inside for a few minutes, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel. I even felt tempted to drive out to Fencott Place. I hadn’t seen Daniel for months, not since we had met in the bank. Edwin sometimes went to see him, but I never went with him. But how would seeing Daniel help except to give me someone to vent my frustrations on? Even Daniel didn’t deserve that.

  So I set off home and then, at the last minute, I turned off to the little car park by the track to Yellowmeade Farm and my old home at Foggintor. I wouldn’t risk the Rover’s suspension on the old stone setts of the original horse-drawn tramway, so I walked along the uneven way even though I wasn’t really wearing the right shoes for it. The wild Dartmoor wind pulled at my hair, whipping it across my face and in some ways driving away the demons. But then I remembered the happy time when Edwin and I had walked there together, and I wanted to cry again.

  I felt even worse when I glanced along to where the cottages had stood. They had been totally demolished the previous summer. The stone had been used to face the buildings at the new television transmission station at the foot of the towering mast on North Hessary Tor just outside Princetown, which was due to start broadcasting in a few months’ time. All that remained of the cottages were the foundations of the walls, pathetic mounds that the grass was gradually reclaiming. Only the back wall of our block had been left to brave the elements, a sorry reminder of my time there with Sidney. So I hastily turned away and, knocking at the backdoor of Yellowmeade Farm, let myself in.

  Barry Coleman, Nora and Mark were sitting at the kitchen table, unusually in sombre mood. But they looked up in unison as I came in.

  ‘Hello there, young maid,’ Barry smiled, his craggy face brightening. ‘Us ’asn’t seen you in a while.’

  ‘Is there anything wrong?’ I asked, the irony that they might have been asking me the very same question pricking my conscience.

  ‘Two of our sheep ’as bin killed over at Merrivale stone rows,’ Barry moaned. ‘And not by dogs or ort like that. But by ’uman ’and. Sacrificed and… Well, you doesn’t want to know the details.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ I was genuinely shocked and shuddered with revulsion as I recalled the horrific sight that had led to my first encounter with Daniel.

  ‘And us ’asn’t bin the first,’ Barry sighed. ‘If I catches they buggers, I’ll kill them.’

  ‘If I doesn’t get them first,’ Mark added, speaking quite forcibly for once. ‘What with that and all they dead rabbits from that myxo whatever it is. Must be putting the old warreners out of business. At least that don’t seem to affect our livestock, mind.’

  I nodded. When I had come to live on the moor, I had been surprised to learn that there were still isolated rabbit farms where these cute wild animals were encouraged to breed in man-assisted warrens later to be culled for their meat and fur. I wasn’t sure I approved, but I supposed it was no different from any other sort of farming.

  ‘I’m really sorry about the sheep,’ I said instead. ‘Have you contacted the police?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Us ’as to for the insurance. Valuable ewes, they was, not young wethers that’ll go to slaughter afore too long. The insurance people wasn’t too ’appy ’bout it, neither.’

  ‘And the police?’

  ‘Making enquiries, but they needs to catch they devils red-’anded and with three hundred and sixty odd square miles of moor to patrol, it won’t be easy. Can’t watch every ancient site twenty-four hours a day, as one officer put it.’

  That was exactly what Daniel had said, nearly a year ago now when we had met at Gloria’s. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant subject to discuss, but at least it gave me something else to think about. But the black depression gradually settled over me again as I drove home, knowing that Sadie and Edwin would be there together. I couldn’t help liking her, mind, as she chatted in an open and friendly way,
totally oblivious to the fact that she was ripping my soul to shreds. Once or twice, Wendy caught my eye and threw a disgruntled glance at Edwin as if she should be the one who was so distraught.

  I had decided that to show my feelings would simply be childish, and Edwin wouldn’t thank me for that. My only chance to win him back was to be pleasant and mature. This thing with Sadie might just be a flash in the pan, and if I could hold on, waiting in the wings, Edwin might turn to me for comfort if they broke up. I would be more than happy to step into the breach.

  It didn’t happen. As the weeks passed, my only escape was to get up on the moor and wander alone for hours. William and Deborah weren’t at all happy about it and limited my use of the car as there was no other way of getting there with no suitable connections on Saturday afternoons and no trains at all on Sundays. There was time, though, after I finished work at Saturday lunchtime, to catch a train to Whitchurch Down, the village of Horrabridge with its access to Knowle Down, or to Yelverton and the popular open area of Roborough Down and the obsolete wartime airfield there. William and Deborah felt that these places were safer, but it wasn’t the same for me. They couldn’t understand my sudden need to roam and I couldn’t tell them the truth. But I did decide to buy myself a car so that I could go anywhere I pleased. I paid for my keep, of course, but had saved enough to purchase something fairly small. Before I did, however, something else happened that weighed heavily on my heart.

  It was announced that the little moorland train that had played such an important and happy part in my life was to close. Why was it, I despaired, that fate seemed to be bringing the past back to haunt me, reviving all the soul-searching that had torn me apart? My thoughts kept returning to the box up in the loft. Gloria had said I would know instinctively when the time was right, but I was still hesitating, so perhaps I should wait a little longer.

  The news about the closure drew hundreds of people to travel on the line that last week. If only they had used it more regularly it would never have closed. Instead of the engine and one carriage that the service had been reduced to even in my time, three coaches had been required for each trip. I couldn’t go until Saturday afternoon, the very last day. The third of March 1956. I would always remember it.