by K. M. Peyton
‘Her keepers – nurses – are horrible. Two of them, they think they own her. They don’t like me going in. She does, though, so we could have a bit of fun if they would let her out. They’re terrified they’ll lose their jobs if anything happens to her.’
‘How do we get rid of them then?’ John asked.
‘I’m sure we can think of something. Get them drunk – I think they do drink, actually, I’ve seen sherry bottles – or bribe them, even. Or get them locked in somewhere. I’ll think of something. But you can see what a lot of planning it will take.’
‘We could start now – the planning. Let’s have a look in the grotto and see how it could look for a party. You can get the key, can’t you?’
‘I’m not allowed.’
‘What difference does that make?’
Antony laughed. ‘Not a lot. I’ll get it.’
Lily was determined not to miss out on this opportunity to view the grotto again. She knew it gave her the creeps, but it was worth it. Antony had not offered to take her flying again, although he kept promising, and she felt bitter when she knew she had been the only one brave enough to volunteer initially, but of course got no thanks for it. She was only the gardener’s daughter after all, and only hung in there with the gang by dint of her own persistence and rhinoceros hide.
They were snobs, these Eton boys, she thought, but at least they suffered her, perhaps even respected her, although they wouldn’t admit it. Cedric was a bit at the same level in the hierarchy as herself, but at least he was a male and useful in that his father had a fair bit of clout about what they could get up to on the estate. Lily could see that he was slightly outside the three others, who shared upper-class jokes that he missed out on.
She was quite familiar with the home lives of both Simon and John, the vicar’s son, because she sometimes did cleaning there when their regular ladies were ill or having babies. It was amazing what one picked up. The vicar, the Rev Simmonds, John’s father, was a pompous boring old codger and his wife twittered over her good works and ladies’ circles and was disturbed by her son’s friendship with the maverick Antony.
‘I really don’t trust that boy. I don’t know what it is about him. Having no mother, I suppose, and the father letting him have an aeroplane, for heaven’s sake! He has no guidance.’
‘He’s not got into trouble so far,’ her husband pointed out. ‘And without his father’s largesse, the church tower would have fallen down by now, so we need the Sylvesters’ goodwill, you must see that.’
‘Yes, of course. Money talks. Where does it all come from, I should like to know?’
‘It’s politics and suchlike. He’s up in Whitehall a lot of the time.’
‘They say he’s an arms dealer.’
Lily absorbed all this as she scrubbed and polished and cleaned out the grates. When she was in his house, John treated her like the servant she was. With parents like his he couldn’t help being such a nitwit, but Antony seemed to bear with him quite amicably. She realized that Antony got on with everyone, however stupid or unsuitable. Squashy loved him too, but he only glowered at John.
Simon was a different kettle of fish, far more intelligent but hard to make out; unkind, but attractive in person. Lily was nervous of him. But his parents were very nice, wrapped up in their own lives, he with his writing and nature watching and she with her craftwork, embroidering curtains in wool as in the William Morris circle, or out in her shed throwing pots and fiddling with her kiln.
‘She’ll blow up the whole village one day,’ they said of her.
But they liked her. There was a married sister somewhere, and a circle of intellectual friends who came to dinner and talked a lot. Lily was sometimes employed to wash up, and saw Simon in his best clothes behaving in an Etonish manner, very smooth. He ignored her as if he had never seen her before in his life.
Antony’s father went up to London in his Rolls-Royce and Antony collected the grotto key from the drawer in his office. It was a hot summer day and the lake lay serene and inviting below the gardens where Lily and Squashy were supposed to be working. Lily saw the boys come down from the house laughing, Antony tossing the key, and approached them from the rose bed.
‘Can we come with you? Please!’
Simon and John gave her their usual snobs’ look and Simon said, ‘No room in the boat, gel.’
Lily looked at Antony, who said carelessly, ‘Yeah, there is. Why not?’
‘We can come in a separate boat!’
‘No. Come in ours. The more the merrier. We’ll take the punt.’
‘We’ll sink it, all of us,’ Simon said.
‘You take another one, if you want.’
But Simon, put down, looking angry, got into the punt where it lay against the jetty. There was an assortment of boats, some smart, some half-sunk, and a tangle of oars stacked up against an overhanging willow. Nobody looked after them. The boys always used the same one and haggled over who was to use the quant. Antony and Simon were very good at it and John and Cedric useless, but Antony didn’t mind them trying. Farther out the water was too deep and they had to use the paddles that lay under the thwarts.
Lily lay nose down over the bows looking into the deep water, fascinated. She loved going on the lake, but didn’t dare take a boat without asking, however idly they lay. Her father had a heavy old dinghy that he sometimes used for carrying heavy stuff across the lake, or down to the end, and both Lily and Squashy were confident rowers, but being in the punt with the boys was something quite different. Elegant! she thought. Like in the photos in the smart magazines. She imagined herself lying on cushions, with a parasol and a beautiful dress of chiffon and a straw hat.
She put her hand in the water and trailed it dreamily, watching the sun spearing down into the mysterious depths. They said it was very deep and dangerous. Not for a good swimmer, she thought. I would never drown, nor Squashy either, whom she had taught to swim almost before he could walk. Never stand up in the boat – she knew the mantra from her father’s insistence – and had taught Squashy. Punting was different, of course, but then the water was shallow if the quant reached the bottom and so no danger of drowning if you tipped in. How lucky they were to have this beautiful lake to hand. And beautiful Antony to go with it … she laughed as he came forward and knelt beside her with the front paddle.
‘Who are you? The Lady of Shalott?’
‘Who’s she?’
‘A lady in a poem. “Down she came and found a boat, beneath the willow left afloat … da di da, di da, di da … She loosed the chain and down she lay, The broad stream bore her far away” and so on and so on. She was in love with a gorgeous knight whom she saw from her window.’
‘The knight is you?’
‘Of course. “His broad clear brow in sunlight glowed, From underneath his helmet flowed, his coal-black curls as on he rode,” et cetera, et cetera.’
Lily laughed. ‘And she was very beautiful too, I hope?’
‘Of course. That’s what reminded me.’
‘You are a nut. Is that what you learn at Eton?’
‘I learned that at my mother’s knee.’
‘Lucky old you. I can’t remember my mother.’
‘No, I don’t remember much of mine either. She was always with Helena.’
‘Are you sure you’re going to get Helena to this party?’
‘It’s for her, the party. Yes, I will. The whole point.’
‘Why can’t she come out with us sometimes? Doesn’t she ever go out?’
‘She has her own garden behind the house. She goes there. But she never meets anyone.’
Lily tried to imagine being blind and deaf, but couldn’t. Neither to see nor to hear … how did you make contact with people? ‘She would like to be in the punt, like us, wouldn’t she?’ she said. ‘Feel it, smell the lake, put her hands in the water like I’m doing. And wouldn’t she sense the other people, somehow? She could feel their faces, is that what they do?’
‘She strokes
my face when I go in there. And smiles. She knows me. She hugs me.’
‘Can I come one day?’
‘Why not? If the harridans will let you in.’
‘They can’t be so awful?’
‘Not to her, I suppose. They are two sisters, living up there like royalty. My father gives them whatever they ask for. Salves his conscience, I suppose. But what can he do, otherwise? He’s a useless dad, even to me.’
‘He gave you an aeroplane!’
‘Yes. That’s his way. He thinks you can buy love.’
Lily wondered if that were true, and if so if it were true for other parents too. She wondered if her father loved her and Squashy. He never displayed any symptoms of loving, but on the other hand he never beat them. He never said please or thank you like Simon’s parents, but then he never threw his dinner at her if her cooking went wrong. He ate it stoically just the same. No comment. He was very protective of Squashy, which surely meant he loved him, even if he must have longed to have had a strong and hearty son like Cedric.
‘All my schoolfriends will come to the party and Helena will be queen. That’s the idea.’
‘Can I come?’
‘Yes.’
‘And Squashy?’
‘Yes.’
If all his schoolfriends were coming, Lily thought that she and Squashy would melt into the crowd and not be noticed – what a relief! Her contact with Antony’s Eton friends in the past had not endeared them to her. None of them had treated her like a human being. That’s why she loved Antony so; in spite of all the teasing she knew he respected her.
‘Will you ask Melanie Marsden?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘I hate you.’
He laughed.
The punt approached the high rocks of the grotto and the boys paddled for the opening of the tunnel between them. The water was too deep for the quant and went dark as the punt drifted into the shadow of the overhanging trees. It was cold suddenly to Lily’s hands, and she withdrew them and sat up with a shiver. It was creepy, this approach, no sun ever penetrating this entrance. She had never come by boat before. The sun shone on the other side.
The punt scrunched up against the landing and they all piled out. Squashy tied the mooring rope onto a tree trunk and Barky peed on it. They all laughed.
‘Bags you cast off, Squashy!’
‘I don’t want to go in.’
‘You needn’t, Squashy,’ Lily said quickly. ‘You can wait here in the sun. Look after the boat.’
‘Yes, we’d rather.’ Squashy sat down on the landing with his arm round Barky, and Antony fished for the key in his pocket and unlocked the grille.
The boys had brought torches so the entrance was well lit by the stabbing beams, a large arched cave quite high at the front, lined entirely with silver shells that twinkled in the torchlight. From the roof stalactites hung down, spearlike, also glistening with that looked like pearls, and on one wall water ran down into a large basin where stone mermaids lay intertwined round the rim.
The sound of the dropping water was magnified by the acoustics and echoes, it seemed, from a far distance.
Antony’s torch picked out the opening of a passage at the back of the cave. ‘This is the way.’
Lily wished she was out in the sunshine with Squashy and Barky, but she hadn’t the courage to back out in front of the boys who were pressing eagerly into what looked to Lily like the entrance into Hades. It did in fact run downhill. Are we under the lake, she wondered, where the water was so deep and dark and creepy? It was all she could do to force her steps to follow them. The gritty silver walls grazed her arms; she kept her eyes on the rays of the torchlight ahead of her.
The passage opened out into what was obviously the heart of the grotto, a large round room positively glittering with the silver shells that covered every bit of rock and all the ornate fountains and niches that lined the walls. Strange stone statues leered from the niches, half-saint, half-monster, with gargoyle faces, swathed in cloaks of coloured stones and with hollow eyes that stared unseeing at this crude invasion. More fountains played against the walls and fell into basins, again occupied by mermaids and grotesque fish. The torches flashed here and there making the figures seem to move, coming forwards and retreating into darkness, and the hollow noise of the falling water drowned their voices which – Lily was pleased to note – were stifled with unease.
Only Antony was his ebullient self. ‘This will be the party room, lit by masses of candles. Just think of it – the look, all glittering and the food laid out and lots to drink, and then – a summer’s night – swimming in the lake, lying in the punts looking at the stars. We’ll choose the full moon nearest the longest day …’
‘Does your father know your plans?’
‘No, of course not. He’s going to be in South America.’
‘How will you pay for it?’
‘On his account. He won’t notice.’
‘Crikey,’ said John.
Lily noticed that Cedric had backed out, and guessed that he had been unsettled by the creepy atmosphere, the same as herself. She appreciated that the place would be quite different set for a party, full of lights and people laughing and talking and the food all laid out: she could see it quite plainly, but just now, the way it echoed and the clammy air in one’s face almost like cobwebs – and the ghostly echoes from, it seemed, all directions – she could not wait to get out into the sunshine again.
On the landing Cedric was sitting with Squashy and Barky, chatting happily. Their feet hung in the water, splashing.
‘Gives me the creeps,’ Cedric said to Antony.
‘Yeah, well, it’s been neglected. But it won’t be like that for the party. It’ll be all lights and sparkle and fun.’
‘Does the water run in the fountains all the time?’
‘No. You switch it on in my father’s office.’
‘Really weird! Who built it? All that work! Must have cost a fortune.’
‘It was a fashion a long time ago, to make grottoes. Just a fashion. You can’t imagine anyone doing it now. That’s why I think it’s a shame not to make use of it. Such a waste. It cries out to be used.’
The others obviously thought Antony was biting off more than he could chew, but any chap who could get an aeroplane for his birthday had to be respected. They were happy to follow where he led.
‘By the way, no word of this to anyone. It’s got to be a secret, else it won’t happen. Not to the vicar, John, for God’s sake.’
‘No, of course not.’
John, without adventure in his soul, didn’t look too happy about it and Lily guessed he would cry off when the time came. Not a party animal. They all got back in the punt and Squashy cast off. Barky jumped in as he pushed off. As they paddled out through the dark tunnel of trees, heading for the glorious light, Simon said to Antony, ‘You know, you can’t just bring Helena to the party out of the blue. She hardly ever goes out – it’ll terrify her, plunged into what you’re planning.’
‘No, I’ve thought of that. I’ll have to work on it. I thought Lily might take on the job. Better to have another girl, tame the harridans, take Helena out and all that. You’d do that, wouldn’t you, Lily? Start giving her a life.’
He smiled at her, as Lily’s heart stopped in mid-beat. She stared at him and her mouth dropped open. The words came back into her head: ‘His broad clear brow in sunlight glowed …’
‘Yes,’ she said, wanting to die.
‘Good, that’s settled then.’
7
Lily knocked on the door at the tradesmen’s entrance to Lockwood Hall. Antony had said to come at eleven o’clock, but he wasn’t waiting for her outside and she felt it wasn’t her place to use the front door. She was excited and very nervous. She had told her father about the invitation and, to her surprise, he had been sympathetic towards the proposal.
‘The poor lass has no friends, the life she leads. Maybe you could help her.’
She had dresse
d carefully, to try and look like a lady. Not that the Lockwood servants would respect her, although several were friendly, mostly the younger ones. Antony was a pig not to be meeting her.
A manservant opened the door and looked down his nose at her.
‘Mister Antony is expecting me.’ She lifted her chin.
‘Come in.’ He led the way into a gloomy room full of boots and muddy coats and unused dog baskets. ‘Mister Antony receives at the front door as a rule.’
‘Well, how am I to know? He didn’t say.’
‘Follow me.’
The room opened into a scullery. In the kitchen beyond, the cook and kitchen maids stared at her as she passed by, but Lily kept her head down. Through a maze of gloomy corridors they emerged eventually into the main hall where she should have been received at the front door.
‘Wait here, miss.’ The man indicated a dusty sofa by an empty fireplace and disappeared.
The hall was huge, bleak and terribly empty. An enormous stone staircase led out of it to a gallery above, punctuated by closed doors. If ever the place had received a woman’s touch, Lockwood Hall had long forgotten it. Lily dreaded to think what she was going to find in Helena’s apartments.
Antony came, unapologetic. ‘Good, let’s go visiting then. Hey, you look smart. Waste of time, Helena can’t see you.’
‘It’s to impress the harridans.’
‘Oh, they’ll be as nice as ninepence, don’t worry. They won’t show their harridan side to you. They’ll be all charm – until we suggest we take Helena for a row on the lake. Then it’s shock, horror, hands off! How dare you suggest such a thing! You’ll see. This way.’ He indicated the staircase and bounded up.
Lily hurried after him. Then she lost track of the rooms they passed through, more passages, some with high windows looking over the parkland, another staircase, up, down, until there was a pair of double doors facing them in what Lily reckoned must be the very far end of the house.
Antony knocked loudly.
The door opened and a mousy-looking middle-aged woman peered out. ‘Oh, you’ve come, Mr Antony. We thought you wouldn’t.’