Lakeland Lily

by Freda Lightfoot

  At which point Arnie lifted his head long enough to take an interest in what was going on. ‘Married? Don’t talk daft, girl. Enough of this. You’re too young for such notions, our Lily. I’ll tell you when you can get wed.’

  ‘Oh, will you?’ she said, defying her father for the first time in her life and feeling a strange satisfaction at the startled expression that registered in his blue eyes. Then she was shocked to see them narrow and harden.

  ‘Aye, I will. And I’ll tell you who to, an’ all.’

  ‘Listen to your father, Lily,’ Hannah soothed. ‘I know you liked young Dick well enough. He were a grand lad. But you’ll find someone else. You’re young and will love again.’

  ‘Can’t you understand? I don’t want anyone else. I want Dick. And now he’s gone.’

  Bursting into tears Lily fled noisily upstairs to the tiny room she shared with her younger sisters, the sound of her father’s voice echoing angrily after her. ‘Come back here this minute, girl. You’ll not speak to your mother in such a way.’

  But she did not go back. She paid him no heed at all. Nor did she speak to any of her sisters as later that evening they crept into the room and silently got ready for bed. So far as Lily was concerned, her life was empty, happiness vanquished, and she wished at this moment that she too were dead. What did she have to live for without Dick to love her? She’d never be a dressmaker now, never make her fortune and live in a fine house with a loving husband beside her. Probably never marry at all. Instead she must somehow find the strength to attend his funeral and watch them put his beautiful young body into the cold dark earth. She shuddered, and the pain in her chest expanded, filling her entire being with an anguish which robbed her of the very breath of life, her dreams turned to dust like that which filled the old ash pit.

  This thought reminded her of their last sweet love-making session on that very roof, of how he’d laid on top of her, pushing his tongue into her mouth, and a new fear started. What if the rumour were true and such kissing did get you a bairn? What would she do then? The tears spurted afresh, hot, unstoppable and horribly silent.

  Emma said, ‘I brought you a cheese and pickle sandwich, our Lily,’ thrusting a much squashed piece of bread in her hand. Two-year-old Kitty dabbed at the tears on her face with a damp flannel and Liza brought her a mug of hot tea from which Lily took two sips then left it to go cold. Only the warmth of her three sisters curled close about her like spoons in a drawer brought her the comfort she craved. And then at last, after two sleepless nights, Lily slept.

  The simple interment of young Dick Rawlins took place two days later. Lily stood in the stiff breeze of the churchyard, eyes red but squeezed dry of tears as she watched the bearers carry the plain coffin to its final resting place. The small cemetery was packed with silent women in unrelieved black, turned green from long years of service, and men in hard bowler hats saved specially for this purpose. The rooks cawing in the lattice of branches above almost drowned out the minister’s words, and Lily thought the sob wrung from Dick’s weeping mother at her side as the first clod of earth rattled on to the cheap wood would live with her for the rest of her days.

  There was no wake, no funeral cake, not even the money to hire the horse-drawn parish hearse, nor any exchange of chatter and happy memories. Paying the laying-out woman, gravedigger and minister would put Dick’s family into debt for weeks. There was certainly no money to spare for cold meats to feed those who came to grieve with them. Nor was it expected. This tragedy was too keenly felt, the boy too young for anyone to have the heart.

  Duty was dispatched as quickly as possible, words of sympathy issued, and then the grieving woman was borne away by her family and friends and everyone hurried back to their own home or workplace, dabbing at their eyes and blowing their noses. For the next few days at least they would exhibit a touch more patience towards their own loved ones.

  Lily was the last to leave, lingering by Dick’s grave to drop a wild rose she’d gathered specially on to his coffin. It seemed a pathetic offering in comparison with the enormous glass bowl of waxen lilies and white gardenias which had been sent by the Clermont-Reads. Though hers was offered with love, she told herself, not guilt as theirs undoubtedly was.

  As if spirited up by this thought, she found herself joined by a dark figure in greatcoat and tall hat.

  ‘Miss Thorpe?’

  Lily lifted her chin, gaze hostile, and was surprised to see grey eyes filled with sympathy fixed upon her.

  ‘My card. Should you ever require help or assistance in any small degree, you have only to ask,’ Edward Clermont-Read told her.

  Anger kept Lily silent, the scent of the graveyard yews becoming in that moment so overpowering she felt suffocated. How dare he? As if he could atone with money for having killed poor Dick.

  When Edward had gone, Lily sank to her knees and, finding the card still in her hand, thrust it into her pocket. For a long time she fixed her burning gaze, unseeing, upon Dick’s grave, determined not to break down, not to give Edward Clermont-Read the satisfaction of witnessing her weakness. At length the choking sensation in her throat eased sufficiently for her to put her thoughts into words.

  ‘Goodbye, my love. I’ll never forget you, Dick, for as long as I live. I swear it.’

  ‘I don’t wonder at it. He were a right grand lad.’

  The voice made her jump. Lily saw first a pair of patched black boots, from which protruded stick-like legs beneath several layers of indistinguishable clothing. Then the legs bent, and beside her squatted a girl of around her own age. Dark, curly hair hung in straggling rat’s tails about a small pixie-like face, from which a pair of moist dark eyes regarded Lily with candid interest. The end of the small pointed nose was red, as if it had been blown a good deal.

  'Who’d have thought we’d lose our lovely Dickie?’

  Lily stared at the girl. ‘Your lovely Dickie? I didn’t know Dick had any sisters?’

  The girl seemed to think this hilarious. ‘Bless you, I ain’t his sister. Me an’ him was, you know, friends.’ She winked, then seeming to realise what she had said, fresh tears spurted and she let out a great howl of anguish. ‘Oh, lordy.’ And plopping backwards on to the turf by the graveside, the girl brought out a big red handkerchief and buried her face in it. ‘I can’t believe he’s gone,’ sobbed the muffled voice. ‘How will we manage without him?’

  Lily felt a bit odd inside. Who was this girl? What did she have to do with Dick?

  ‘Friends?’ she ventured. ‘What sort of friends?’

  The small face emerged screwed up with pain, then the red handkerchief was used to scrub away the remaining drops of tears. ‘Oh, don’t you worry none, Lil’. You don’t mind me calling you that, do you? Only I feel as if I know you already, him doing naught but talk about his darling Lily. I know you loved him. But I loved him too. As a dear friend, you might say. He were right kind to me, even though he telled me over and over that you were his girl. D’you see?’

  Lily wasn’t too sure if she did see, or if she were missing some vital piece of information. But the girl had evidently cared for Dick, or Dickie as she affectionately called him, and clearly grieved, as Lily did, over his death. Well, perhaps not quite as she did. The girl had made it plain Lily’s own relationship with Dick was special.

  She was right. However would Lily manage without him? Then it was she who was weeping, sobbing and hiccuping as if her heart were broken, for surely it was, and the girl was holding her close against a chest even flatter than Lily’s own. Patting her shoulder as if she were a young child.

  ‘There, there, don’t take on so. I didn’t mean to upset you, lass. Dick wouldn’t want you making yourself ill, now would he?’ When the red handkerchief had been pressed into further service and the tears were all mopped up, the two girls exchanged tremulous smiles.

  ‘I’m Rose. Rose Collins.’

  ‘Hello, Rose. I’m Lily Thorpe. Oh, how silly. You already know that.’ And they grinned at each other
.

  ‘Well, we’ve summat in common, anyroad,’ Rose said. ‘Our mothers must have thought we both looked like flowers.’

  ‘I’m no pale and peaceful lily.’

  ‘And I’m no pretty pink rose.’ Rose grinned widely. ‘But then, we both loved that great daft cluck who’s gone to his untimely end. If in different ways of course.’ The huge dark eyes, almost too large for her small pointed face, narrowed into slits of anger. ‘I don’t know about you, love, but I’d like to see someone swing for what happened.’

  ‘Me too,’ Lily admitted, realising on the instant it was true. ‘Steaming along in their great yacht without a care for other folk.’

  ‘Aye. Bloomin’ toffs,’ Rose said with feeling. ‘Think they own the lake, they do.’

  Arms about each other, the two girls began to walk down St Margaret’s steps and along the shingle to the old boathouses, sharing the damp handkerchief from time to time. Swept along by the emotion of the day Lily opened up her heart to this sympathetic stranger.

  ‘Dick was the love of my life.’

  ‘Aye, I know.’

  ‘We were going to be married. Happen sooner than we planned, what with me mebbe carrying his bairn.’

  Rose stopped in her tracks. ‘Nay. Ee, you poor lass. Dickie told me how you was to wed, but he never said aught about that.’

  ‘He didn’t even know.’

  Intrigued, Rose linked arms with Lily. ‘Tell me all about it? Happen I can help. You never know.’

  As dusk gathered and a breeze filtered down from the high fells, cooling the deep wooded valley and gently ruffling the slate surface of the lake, Lily poured out the pain of her longings and secret fears about the things her own mother had never fully explained. As Lily talked, she plainly revealed her naivety, and the gaps in her patchy knowledge.

  ‘So when did you last see the curse?’ Rose asked, bewildered, as well she might be, by Lily’s tale.

  ‘What curse? Curse of what?’

  When this was explained, which took a good long time, tied up as it was with more intimate facts of life with which Rose was easily familiar but which held more surprises than Lily was prepared for, she learned the full extent of her ignorance. It turned out she was in no danger at all of having anyone’s baby. Not only because she and Dick had never actually done anything likely to bring one about, but because so far as Mother Nature was concerned, Lily’s malnourished body was still that of a child. Somehow this upset her even more than an unwanted pregnancy, for all her mother would have scalped her alive had it been true.

  Now Lily forgot her vehemence about not wanting to be shackled by children. She forgot how they had dreamed of escape and making a fortune together. For now she would never have Dick’s child ever, any more than next summer she would be his bride? The Clermont-Reads had denied her all of that.

  Her darling Dick was dead and gone, and she’d never see him again.

  It was in that moment that Lily made her pledge. One day, no matter what the sacrifice, she would take her revenge. She took Edward’s card from her pocket and ground it into the mud under her heel.

  Chapter Three

  1911

  Over the next two years Lily and Rose became almost inseparable. Lily never enquired into the true nature of Rose’s relationship with Dick, nor did Rose ever fully explain it. They were content to enjoy their burgeoning friendship and bring what comfort they could to each other.

  Rose had recently come to live on Fossburn Street, quite close to the churchyard where the two girls had met. And if, on the occasions when Lily visited, there were more comings and goings than seemed quite normal for a modest cottage, she made no comment upon the matter. None of the many men who tramped up the narrow wooden stairs in their heavy boots made any trouble or stayed very long.

  Rose’s mother Nan, rake-thin and little more than a girl herself, had a pretty face beneath a thatch of none-too-clean red hair, soulful eyes and a big laugh.

  After her latest visitor had gone she would come downstairs in a silk dressing-gown, as if she were a music hall artiste, and sit and roll her own cigarettes, a habit which Lily considered dreadfully daring and modern. Then she’d prop her slippered feet on the brass fender and blow smoke rings while she passed on the juiciest bits of gossip she had picked up, and describe her men friends with such hilarious accuracy it made the two girls weep with laughter.

  Nan was more than generous. Lily did not fail to notice that unlike her own family, who survived mainly on thin soup and bread when the fish weren’t running, Rose and her mother ate well.

  Lily was sick of fish. Even on those rare occasions when the catch was a good one, the best part of it - the char - was sold to Agnes Lang, who potted it in fancy little pots and packed them off to London to be enjoyed by the well-to-do. The Thorpe family lived mainly on eels, small perch and brown trout.

  ‘Here, lovey, go and buy three pennyworth of meat and potato pie from Mrs Edgar’s Cook Shop,’ Nan would say. And off the girls would run to the corner shop where a fat old lady with a toothless grin stood sentry over a huge pot from which she doled out platefuls of the best steaming hot meat and potato pie Lily had ever tasted: the pastry golden and crisp, the meat succulent and tender. It made Lily’s mouth water just to stand there and breathe in the appetising aroma. Or they would buy Cumberland sausages, fat and spicy and dripping with hot fat.

  ‘We’ll take a drop of stout to wash it all down,’ Nan would say, sending Rose running next to the Cobbles Inn with a jug.

  Nor did she worry about tidying up the mess when the delicious meal was over.

  ‘We’ll see to it tomorrow,’ was her favourite phrase. Oh, so unlike my mam, Lily thought, only too aware that Hannah could never sit still for a minute if there was a cup to be washed or a hearth swept.

  Arnie was fond of telling his wife: ‘If the good Lord himself were to come calling you’d tell him to wipe his feet first.’

  ‘He wouldn’t need to be told,’ Hannah would say, at least able to laugh at herself. ‘He’d have more sense than to come in with dirty boots on, unlike some chaps I could mention.’

  But for all her mother’s cheerful disposition and Arnie’s good heart, Lily told her parents little of her new friend’s home life. Hannah would not have approved of the goings on in Fossburn Street. Rose was polite and quiet on her frequent visits to the house in Carter Street, for all she was an odd little creature, and her innately cheerful nature seemed to be good for Lily, so she was accepted at face value, with no enquiries made into her background - never a wise thing to do in this district, in any case.

  Hannah made over a warm coat for Rose when winter came. She’d meant it for Lily, but the other girl didn’t seem to possess such a garment. Arnie helped her to find a job working on the greengrocery stall at The Cobbles market every Wednesday and Friday. Rose could hardly believe her good fortune.

  ‘By heck, a proper job with money in me pocket every week, and a good coat to keep the cold out. I’m right glad I met you, Lily. And your lovely family.’

  ‘I’m glad too,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t want to end up like my mam, you know.’

  ‘Neither do I.’ And the two girls smiled at each other in perfect understanding.

  ‘It’s changed my life it has, to have a friend like you.’

  It seemed to Lily that the day Dick drowned her whole world too had changed, but unlike Rose’s, not for the better. Their friendship was the only thing which had kept her sane. Not only had she lost her dearest love, but she felt the chains of The Cobbles weigh heavy upon her.

  The subject of her apprenticeship to a Bowness dressmaker had only once been broached.

  ‘You’ll have to ask your father,’ Hannah had said, looking sad and troubled when Lily had ventured to make her request. It had seemed so much harder to ask without Dick beside her for support.

  Arnie’s response had been entirely predictable. ‘Your mother needs you on the fish stall. How would she manage without you?�
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  ‘Our Liza could help more.’

  ‘She’s too young, nobbut ten, and can’t add up for toffee. Anyroad, what good would dressmaking do you? Mixing with your betters. No point in getting above theeself, young lady. I hope I’m a man who knows his place.’ Arnie sat on his stool in the back yard and applied his full attention to mending his nets, the subject closed so far as he was concerned.

  ‘Don’t you want me to better meself?’ Lily demanded.

  ‘How would you do that, pray? Thee’s good enough as you are. There’s naught to be ashamed of in being poor. We do an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay and don’t hanker after aught we can’t have.’

  ‘Yes, but...’

  ‘Lily!’ He flung down the half-mended net in exasperation. ‘Don’t you think I’ve troubles enough, without listening to yours? The Board of Conservators are hell-bent on putting an end to commercial fishing in this lake. They say it’s been over-fished for years and stocks are running out, and it’s true it don’t support us like it used to. I have to work at boat building, odd jobs, aught I can lay me hand to.’

  ‘All the more reason for me to get out of anything to do with fish,’ Lily stubbornly persisted. She could hear Mrs Adams next door, shouting at her two sons. She’d be out in a minute to complain to Arnie about how wicked and lazy they were. The yard door creaked open and Bessie Johnson staggered in with a sack of wood she’d collected.

  ‘Evening, Arnie.’

  ‘Evening, Bessie. Winter here already, is it? And here’s me thinking it were nobbut summer.’

  ‘Found a tree down, out in the woods. Waste not, want not, eh? I like a li’le fire of an evening.’ The old woman shot Lily a piercing glance. ‘You all right, lass?’

  ‘Yes, thanks. I’m fine.’

  Oh, but she wasn’t fine. She wasn’t fine at all. How Lily ached for a bit of privacy. A place where a person could have a conversation without being under the scrutiny of every prying busybody. Where ceilings didn’t drip with damp and you didn’t spend half your time scrubbing the stench of urine from the yard flags.