by Jess Foley
‘Here.’ She held them up as she turned back to face her stepmother. ‘Here they are, Tom’s letters, just where you put them, hid them – safely away from any eyes but your own. Just where you put them – without having the decency to show them to my father.’ She put the letters down on the table. Her heart was thumping in her breast.
Her stepmother was standing looking at her, her tight-shut lips a thin line of fury and self-righteousness. ‘And indeed why not?’ she spat. ‘Your father was already ill. Why should he be bothered by such things? Your brother was never anything but trouble. And as for writing to ask for forgiveness, I should think he’d have been ashamed even to show his face here again. In case you’ve forgotten, he went to prison for being a common thief.’
‘He stole a piece of celery!’ Lily’s voice was full of incredulity. ‘He didn’t murder anyone or rob a bank.’
‘He stole.’
‘Yes! A piece of celery. He was hungry, and he was desperate.’
‘Desperate! In the eyes of the law he’s a thief!’
‘Yes,’ Lily hissed, struggling to hold back her tears, ‘and for that – for stealing a piece of celery they locked him up with some of the most evil men in the country.’ Now her tears could not be held back, and they ran down her cheeks. ‘It was a piece of celery, Mother. He stole it, and my God he has certainly paid the price for it. Would you punish him for ever?’
‘It doesn’t matter what he stole. He went to prison and he brought disgrace on us.’
‘Disgrace,’ Lily echoed.
‘Yes, disgrace. Which is something that might have concerned you too, in your own behaviour.’
Mrs Clair’s words were shocking to Lily. Her father had told her that he no longer blamed her for what had happened, and that he accepted her story of the attack by Mr Haskin. Clearly not so her stepmother. Lily realised now that Mrs Clair would never alter her view.
‘Yes,’ Lily said, ‘and you treated me like an outcast. Someone totally immoral.’ Turning from her stepmother’s hostile gaze, she took up her bags, and once more stepped to the door. Here again she turned.
‘I shall not be coming back,’ she said, brushing a hand across her tear-stained cheek. ‘We shall not meet again. I shall miss seeing Dora, for she’s a dear child and I love her. I can only hope that she takes after her father and not you.’
At these words Mrs Clair opened her mouth to speak, but Lily went on:
‘You never liked me, and you never liked Tom either. And while I’ve come to accept what you did to me, I shall never forgive you for how you treated him. You were a monster to him.’ She took a step forward, and Mrs Clair took a step back. ‘Yes,’ Lily said, ‘you were a monster. You are a mean, vindictive, selfish woman, and you are cruel and a liar. I shall send you your fifteen pounds, never fear, and when I’ve got some money together I’ll send you a little so that you can buy something for Dora. But as for you, I never ever want to see you again.’
Her bags in her hands, she turned and passed through the scullery into the yard. As she did so, she knew she would never enter the house again.
When Lily arrived back at Rowanleigh she met Mary in the hall, who offered her condolences. Lily thanked her and enquired as to whether any post had come for her in her absence. No, Mary said, there was nothing. On learning that Miss Elsie was resting, Lily went up to her room. It was not long, though, before Miss Elsie, having learnt of her return, came knocking at her door to offer her sympathy again and enquire as to how she was faring.
Later that evening Lily made her preparations for the following day when she was to go to Little Patten, and the next morning she was up early for breakfast and soon ready to leave for the station. In the last minutes leading up to her departure she and Miss Elsie were sitting together in the drawing room when Mary appeared. She brought with her a letter for Lily that had just been delivered, and also announced that Mr Shad had the trap ready. Rising from her seat, Lily thanked her, glanced hurriedly at the letter and put it into her reticule.
‘Well,’ she said to Miss Elsie, ‘it’s time to go, and I don’t mind saying that I’m nervous.’
‘Of course you are.’ Miss Elsie nodded and drew on her cigarette. ‘You’re taking a step into the unknown – but you’ll be fine.’ She gestured towards the door. ‘Go on now. Don’t keep Mr Shad waiting or you’ll miss your train. I’ll see you next weekend, and I shall expect a blow-by-blow account of how you got on.’
Lily said goodbye, then picked up her reticule and umbrella and went out into the yard where the trap was waiting. The large bag containing her clothes and books had already been stowed inside it. Mr Shad helped her up, and moments later he was in the driving seat and urging the sturdy cob forward down the narrow drive and out into the lane.
As the little carriage rattled on its stony way Lily took out the letter which she had already seen was from Joel. She sat looking at the envelope for a minute or two, then slipped it back into her reticule.
On their arrival at the station Mr Shad carried her heavy bag up onto the platform and wished her good luck. When he had gone, Lily sat on a bench, all the while sharply aware of the letter. She wanted to take it out and read it then and there, but it was not the time; the train was due, and also she was afraid. Why, she wondered, had Joel not written sooner after their meeting?
At last the train came in and she climbed aboard. In the compartment a young man took her heavy bag and stowed it in the overhead rack. She thanked him and sat down between an elderly businessman and a young woman. As the train started up again she opened her reticule and took out Joel’s letter.
She sat there with it in her hand as the train moved from station to station. She was hardly aware of the stops, of the passengers getting on and off.
And at last she could wait no longer. As the train pulled out of Stretton she inserted her index fingernail under the envelope’s flap and tore the paper across.
The letter was in two sheets. She smoothed out the pages and read:
The Hazels
Greenbanks Road
Corster, Wilts
29th November 1867
Dear Lily,
I know I should have written before this, and please forgive me for not doing so. I could make the excuse of pressure of work, but that would not be entirely true. The truth, in fact, is that I have not known how to write to you. Even now, as I sit here with my pen in my hand, I am at a loss as to what to say.
It was, of course, just splendid to see you again after so long, and to see you looking so well. Indeed I think that perhaps it was because of my being so thrilled at seeing you, and being so swept away by my pleasure that I perhaps acted rather impulsively, as I know now I did. However, I have had long, long periods of thought about our meeting, and I have come to the conclusion that I must behave with some degree of responsibility, and not, like some impetuous schoolboy, go charging off without a thought of the consequences. I know now, after much soul-searching – and I hope this does not come as the most awful disappointment to you – that I am not yet ready for any commitment such as settling down. I thought I was, but I was wrong. I have much to do in my life – building my career, preparing for a future – and I am simply not in the position of being able to offer the things that a husband should be able to offer a wife. We were very young, of course, when we first met, and by nature youth is allowed to dream and love and have extravagant ambitions, but now, alas, I realise I must be more realistic in my outlook and my desires.
Please forgive me, Lily, if I have hurt you; and I’m sure I have. But believe me, it is the last thing I would want to do. You are a splendid, honest and upright young woman, and you deserve someone better than I. And you will meet him, I have no doubt. You will meet that special person – that certain someone who can offer you all the things that I cannot – and you will be happy with him, as you deserve to be.
Let me say in closing that I hope we can still be friends. Perhaps, after a time, I might get in touch with you again.
In the meantime please believe that I shall always be
Your loyal and most devoted friend
Joel
Lily sat with the letter in her hand, leaning forward slightly in her seat. Through her pain she became aware of the beating of her heart, and of the sensation that her palms were damp. Sitting opposite was a young couple intent in a conversation about farming, and against the rhythmic sounds of the train Lily caught the occasional murmured words as they spoke of haywains and yields and wagons. In the corner seat on her right, the elderly man polished his spectacles with a handkerchief, while over by the window to her left a young mother brushed a fond hand through her small son’s mop of red hair. For everyone else life was going on as usual. For Lily it seemed that in those moments her life had come to a halt.
Steeling herself, she read the letter through again – almost as if she could find different words from those that he had written. But there they were, in black and white, and no matter how many times she might read them they would not change.
So, it was over. And so soon. For a little while she had dared to hope – almost to trust – that the two of them had a future together, but that hope had lasted so little time, blossoming and dying like some exotic flower.
It was what she had feared from Joel’s silence after their meeting, and following her revelation. For she did not for one moment believe him when he spoke of not being able to give her all that a wife should have, of not being financially fit for marriage. It was because of the child. Nothing else. Once again the thought went through her mind that she should not have told him of the child. But no, she had had to tell him; he had to know. And of course her revelation had been a shock to him, but he had loved her, he had said, and in her hopeful mind she had clung to that belief. But it had not been enough.
She read the letter through yet again, hanging on the words and phrases, trying to see beyond their banal face value some alternative meanings, some crumbs of comfort. She could find nothing; there were no hidden shades there.
All now was lost. But the realisation brought no tears. Rather, as it took hold, a little tremor of chill touched her body and made her draw in her breath. As she opened her eyes again she became aware that the rhythm of the carriage’s movement was changing, slowing again as the train drew nearer to a station. Glancing dully from the window she recognised the scenery that was passing by: a derelict watermill, a row of cottages. They would soon be drawing into Little Patten.
She folded the letter, put it back in the envelope and slipped it into her bag. The train was slowing further now, the carriage rocking with a different tune. She touched at her hat, checked on the fastening of her coat and drew her belongings to her. As the train came to a halt she rose from her seat. The young man in the seat opposite got up and kindly lifted down her heavy bag. Moments later she was on the platform with the carriage door closing behind her.
She straightened, her reticule and umbrella in one hand, the heavy bag in the other, and met the icy-cold wind that came swooping along the platform, its sudden keenness bringing tears to her eyes. She blinked them back and stepped out.
As she walked along the near-deserted platform the thought came to her that she was entering a new phase of her life. Ahead of her was nothing but the unknown.
So little now was as it had been, and she had nothing to hold on to from the past. In a relatively short time almost everything had changed. Her father was dead, and her ties with her family home were as good as severed. Joel had gone out of her life too, while she had no idea what had become of Tom. As for her boy, he had long been gone from her. She must accept the fact that she was now alone.
Bending her head to meet the wind, she walked on.
PART THREE
Chapter Nineteen
Carried on the breeze came the chiming of the church clock striking the hour of twelve. It was the only sound against the fluting of the birdsong, which came from all around them. In half-an-hour Lily would be leaving her charges to return to her lodgings in Ashway Lane. Under the terms of her yearly contract with her employers, she was allowed free every Saturday afternoon and the whole of every other Sunday. This weekend marked her Sunday off, and she would be spending it in Sherrell with Miss Elsie.
Now, sitting under the tree, Lily touched at the brim of her straw hat, briefly easing it from her forehead. The July day was warm, with the sun blazing from the clear sky. She felt its heat even in the shade where she sat on a small footstool. Just a few feet away were her pupils, Alice and Rose, side by side on an old tartan rug that had been laid on the sparse grass beneath the wide-spreading boughs of the apple tree. In less than two months they would be eleven years old. Lily had been their governess now for three and a half years.
They were in the orchard, at the foot of the kitchen garden, and the lesson was what Lily referred to as nature study. The girls had their nature sketchbooks with them, balanced on their laps. With their soft pencils they were making drawings of items of interest around them, and adding little textual notes in the margins of the pages. They had been at their work since eleven-fifteen after finishing a lesson in arithmetic, and Lily knew them well enough by now to tell that, although they were quiet and industrious, their interest was nevertheless flagging. She couldn’t blame them; the growing warmth of the day was having an increasingly soporific effect, and she herself was finding it difficult to concentrate.
She fanned herself briefly with her hand, then got up and bent to look at the results of their work. Their efforts were concentrated on a little cherry tree that grew nearby, and although they had drawn the same thing, there was an obvious difference in their abilities. While Alice was the more forthright of the two, the quiet, unassuming Rose was only too evidently the more artistically talented.
Lily made murmured comments of encouragement and approval. She enjoyed teaching them. They were good girls, and rarely gave her any cause for complaint, being generally respectful and well mannered. Like all children they had their moments of being disagreeable, but such occasions were relatively rare.
‘Oh, miss,’ Alice groaned dramatically, ‘it’s getting too hot to work.’
‘Yes, miss,’ Rose added, ‘it’s too hot. Much too hot.’
‘Well, I agree, it is rather warm,’ Lily said, ‘but there’s not long to go now.’
‘Thank heavens.’ Alice sighed again. ‘And no more work till Monday.’
Lily moved back and sat down again on the footstool. The green of the grass was heavily starred with white clover, with bees busy among the blossoms. In one sunlit patch a cock blackbird moved through the grass, followed by two fledglings. As it was relatively late in the season it must, she thought, be the bird’s second family. She watched the little act being played out. The two chicks kept only a couple of feet behind their father, waiting to be fed, and every so often the parent found some titbit which he put into one of his offsprings’ gaping mouths. They gave him no rest.
As Lily sat taking in the scene, the Aclands’ housemaid, Esme, appeared and came to Lily’s side. She was sorry to interrupt, she said, but Mrs Acland would like to see her in the drawing room before she left. Lily thanked her and said that she would be there at half-past-twelve.
Watching the maid’s departing back, Lily wondered what it was that Mrs Acland wanted to see her about. Following her arrival at the house she had at first been carefully observed – which of course was only to be expected – but the scrutiny had soon relaxed as her employers had found that they had no need for concern, and could have confidence in the new governess. What, then, Lily now wondered, was the reason for her being summoned? Had she, unknowingly, been guilty of some misdemeanour or caused displeasure in some way? She hoped not; she loved her work in the Aclands’ household. Not only had her tenure at Yew Tree House been for her a happy time, but it had also been a lifeline, giving her focus and purpose, without which she could not imagine what she would have done.
‘Miss?’
From behind
her came Alice’s voice, and she turned and moved back to where the girls were sitting. ‘Yes, Alice.’
‘Is this better, miss?’ Alice had added some detail to her drawing of the little tree, and also put in the margin a closer view of a few leaves.
‘Yes,’ Lily said, ‘that’s much better. Well done.’
And so the rest of the lesson continued for a while longer, until the church clock struck the half-hour, at which Lily said, ‘All right, girls, you may put away your things and take them back to the house. I shall see you on Monday morning.’
The pair needed no second telling, and soon their pencils and books had been stowed away. At the same time Lily shook out the rug, folded it and tucked it under her arm and picked up her bag. The three of them then moved off through the orchard and up the garden path to the house where they went in through the back door and into the hall. There the two girls said goodbye, and as they headed for the stairs Lily moved to the drawing room and tapped on the door. A moment later she heard a call of ‘Come in,’ and she turned the handle and entered.
Mrs Acland was sitting on the sofa with some fabric in her hands and a sewing basket beside her. She smiled as Lily came forward, and Lily was relieved.
‘You wanted to see me, ma’am,’ Lily said.
‘Yes, I did.’ Mrs Acland laid down her sewing and indicated a chair nearby. ‘Sit down, please.’
Lily took a seat and Mrs Acland beamed at her, her plump face creasing. ‘How was your morning?’
Lily smiled in return and said that it had gone well.
‘Excellent. It’s good for the girls to get out in the fresh air. Particularly Rosie. She’ll stay indoors with her nose stuck in a book given half the chance. They’ve gone upstairs now, have they?’