Lakeland Lily

by Freda Lightfoot

  ‘What are you doing with those pictures, girl? Making off with them, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  Lily bit her lip and, acutely aware that any other maid thus addressed by her mistress would bob a curtsey, pointedly did not. She didn’t even get down off the ladder. But then, she wasn’t an ordinary maid.

  ‘I’m doing the job you asked me to do, Mother-in-law,’ she calmly responded, tilting her chin. The two women’s eyes met and held, and in that look a challenge was issued of which both were aware. Not simply a fight over Bertie, but a bid for power.

  ‘Put them back this instant. I’m expecting guests to arrive at any moment.’

  Lily’s heart sank but she managed to smile, determined not to rise to Margot’s provocation. The woman had planned this strategy deliberately, of course, in order to instil a sense of insecurity. ‘You could entertain your guests in another room, of which there are any number.’

  ‘I dare say I may be allowed to choose which room I use in my own home. I will certainly not be dictated to by you, conniving little madam that you are! You belong in those kitchens, Lily Thorpe and...’

  ‘Clermont-Read,’ Lily interrupted.

  ‘What?’

  ‘My name is Mrs Clermont-Read. Like yours,’ Lily said, quiet but firm.

  ‘Thorpe is still your name so far as I am concerned, and if I have my way, it’ll be Thorpe again.’

  ‘Bertie might disagree.’

  ‘Then Bertie will need to have the facts of life explained to him a bit more carefully.’ Margot folded her arms and smiled, though there was not a scrap of warmth in it. ‘You realise you put his life in danger each time you take one of your frequent trips back to your odious Cobbles?’

  For a moment Lily was quite taken aback. Then she rallied. ‘I would never endanger Bertie’s life. I go only to visit my family, who aren’t sick. I thought you were glad to see the back of me for a day?’

  ‘I half hoped you might stay there. But your toing and froing is dangerous for my darling invalids. You might pick up some other dire infection and pass it on. If you mean to stay at Barwick House, for the present, such visits are not at all in keeping with your new status as Bertie’s wife.’

  ‘New status? That’s a laugh.’ She descended at last from the ladder and made no further pretence of working.

  ‘Therefore,’ Margot continued, as if she had not been interrupted, ‘you will desist.’

  Lily might clench her fists, burning with furious frustration, yet she knew she must hold fast to her resolve never to rise to these vindictive assaults. Becoming embroiled in an argument with Margot only reduced her to the woman’s own petty level. In any case, what more could she say? Margot was as slippery as an eel, changing her mind, and her line of argument with the unpredictability of a serpent.

  Lily picked up her duster and departed, leaving Margot gasping with rage amidst the dark and dusty landscapes that littered her best Persian rug.

  Despite everything, without fail, at three o’clock each afternoon Lily put on her best print frock with the blue braid trim, and brushed her hair till it glowed a rich chestnut colour. Then she would pin it neatly on top of her head, letting a few stray tendrils escape about her ears and brow. She’d rub pork dripping into her hands each and every night in an effort to keep them smooth. Now she buffed them to a new silkiness. She liked to look good for Bertie. Lily pinched her cheeks and bit on her lips to bring some colour to them. Lastly, she would wash Amy’s hands and face then present herself and their child at Bertie’s room, for what was the only enjoyable part of her day. Once, as she passed by an open door, she was spotted by Selene.

  ‘Lily.’

  She stopped and waited quietly, gently rocking the bairn in her arms, resting her chin against Amy’s sweet-smelling cheek. ‘Yes?’

  Selene picked at the lace collar of her bed jacket with pale fluttering hands. ‘You do realise that I blame you for this?’

  Lily sighed. ‘I rather think you’ve mentioned it before, once or twice.’

  ‘Oh, you rather do, do you? Trying to speak properly, are you? Trying to ape your betters?’

  Lily flushed, saying nothing, for perhaps there was some truth in the accusation. She was indeed struggling to improve herself, for Bertie’s sake. Yet she felt ashamed now for trying to speak more carefully whenever Margot or Selene was around, as if in some way she were denying her true self.

  Selene was glaring at her low-cut neckline, at the smooth white column of Lily’s throat. `Where are you going, dressed like that?’ ‘To take tea with my husband.’

  ‘Did Mama buy you that gown?’

  ‘I made it myself. You’ve seen it before.’

  A small silence, then Selene gave a trilling laugh. ‘Of course. Dear heaven, you people think you can be as well dressed as we are.’

  Lily made no mention of these trials to Bertie. She felt she owed him that much at least. It was enough to see him smile again, well on the road to recovery, for all he still looked deathly pale and fragile. Not for the world would she jeopardise his health. If he told her how pretty she looked and they passed a pleasant hour together, then Lily was content.

  Today he was seated on the chaise-longue at the foot of his bed. ‘Dash it, but I miss you, Lily,’ he told her, reaching out to kiss her the minute she sat beside him.

  ‘By heck, we are feeling better then?’ Laughing softly, she kissed him back. ‘I miss you too, you great soft lump. But you have to get well, don’t you? No excitement, that’s what your ma says.’

  ‘Hang Mama.’ His velvet brown eyes shone with need, which set them both giggling like naughty school-children, Amy chortling with glee between them, demanding her share of the kisses.

  ‘Let’s sneak into bed, Lily. Have some fun, eh?’

  She pretended to appear quite shocked. ‘With Amy here? The very idea. Not to mention your ma arriving unexpected like.’

  ‘She’ll come on the dot of four-thirty. Always does.’ Which was true, and when Margot did come to end the little tete-a-tete, Lily again placed a kiss upon Bertie’s cheek. As she did so, she whispered in his ear, ‘I’ll happen have summat special for you tomorrow, in view of this new need of yours.’

  ‘Oh, Lily,’ he breathed, ‘will you?’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  They sat side by side on the chaise-longue, only on this occasion Lily had left little Amy with Mrs Greenholme. Politely they waited, neither daring to glance at the other, while Betty served tea as she always did. The moment the door closed, Bertie grasped Lily’s hand and kissed it. ‘Oh, golly, it’s dashed lonely without you, Lily.’

  They made love, fast and furiously, on the bedside rug, both of them panting like steam engines by the time they’d done.

  ‘Let’s get into bed and do it again, more slowly,’ he urged.

  Lily sat up to adjust her clothing, glancing anxiously at the door. ‘What if Betty should come back?’

  ‘She never does.’

  ‘Or your mam? Oh, heck, where are all my hair pins?’ Lily began to search the rug, hampered by Bertie’s attempts to kiss her neck, her ear, her mouth.

  ‘There’s lots of time. Mama will be fully occupied with her own affairs for half an hour exactly,’ Bertie said, busy at Lily’s dress buttons as she searched on all fours for the means to restore order to her tousled hair. ‘You have such lovely soft skin, Lily. And you’re a real sport.’

  ‘I have to be wi’ the likes of you around, don’t I?’ she said, gasping as his fingers finally found the nub of her breast and slid it into his mouth. On the instant her limbs turned to liquid fire and she flung back her head, shamefully wanting more.

  ‘Happen I really am a wanton,’ she gasped, her own hands pushing weakly at his dressing gown, quite of their own volition.

  Bertie was annoyed by this suggestion. ‘The hell you are. Anyone would think we didn’t have the right. You’re my wife, dammit.’

  Lily giggled. ‘Course I am. Fancy me forgetting that.’

  In sec
onds he had lifted her into the great bed and Lily had forgotten all about the pins, the maid or even Margot. It took less than a moment to peel off every layer of clothing, each of them keenly aware of the shortness of the time they had together. Bertie made love to her with a slow deliberation that left them both shuddering at the climax. Afterwards they lay together between the soft linen sheets, Bertie with his head on her breasts, caressing her thigh with one lazy hand.

  ‘I know you didn’t love me when I married you, old thing. But it ain’t been too bad between us, would you say?’

  Lily kissed him on the top of his head. ‘You’re grand, as me mam would say. I’m very fond of you, Bertie. No one could have a better husband. What’s love, anyroad?’

  Love was what she had felt for Dick. But she’d lost him, hadn’t she, and the pain had near sliced her in two. No, best to do without love, and Bertie was a good second best. Unexpectedly, a vision came into her head of Nathan Monroe, all smart and clean-shaven, enjoying supper at her table, smiling at her from those crystal blue eyes. A shiver rippled up her spine as she remembered again the silky smoothness of his fingers brushing against her cheek. How dare the man come unbidden into her thoughts? And when she was making love to her husband.

  ‘Take me again,’ she said, putting his hands to her breasts, wanting to banish the waking dream. ‘Would you believe it, me, Lily Thorpe, in bed with the toff of The Cobbles? A man who can see off a gang of louts with one hand tied behind his back.’ They were off again, Bertie tickling and caressing her most vulnerable places with those teasing hands of his, till Lily was begging for mercy even as she wriggled beneath the sheets in a pretend effort to escape him.

  Neither heard the footsteps approach, nor the sound of the door opening.

  Only when the bed covers were flung back and Margot’s eyes scanned every inch of their naked flesh, did either become aware they were no longer alone. Unfortunately, they were both far too involved in the heat of the moment to care.

  ‘Drat it, Mama,’ Bertie said, as equable as ever for all he was panting for breath between each thrust. ‘Don’t you ever think to knock? A chap must have some privacy, don’t you know?’

  As the door slammed shut they both collapsed into fresh peals of laughter.

  Bertie decided that he was perfectly well. There would be no further confinement to his room, no more invalid meals of milk sops, nor freezing salt baths. He was young and fit, possessed a beautiful wife, and meant to enjoy life to the full.

  Lily and Amy moved out of Betty’s room and into Bertie’s. Margot might grind her teeth with fury but she knew there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. Her plan, thus far, had failed. The girl even occupied a place at dinner each evening, and Bertie seemed to delight in instructing his young and undeniably common wife in the intricacies of handling cutlery and wine glasses. Thankfully she had the good sense to keep her mouth shut on these occasions.

  Worse, the woman’s brat was established in the nursery suite with a nursemaid to attend her. Margot had attempted to point out to her son the error of this arrangement, but he’d only laughed.

  ‘She’s my daughter too, Mama. Know you wanted a boy, son and heir and all that, but mebbe next time, eh?’ Then he’d winked at her in a most vulgar fashion. Margot shuddered each time she recalled it.

  Catching them in bed together had not surprised her in the least. Hadn’t she said all along that the girl was a harlot? But she dreaded to think of the outcome. That a son of this trollop might one day occupy Barwick House as its master was surely more than she could be expected to stomach?

  ‘Over my dead body,’ she kept telling Edward.

  Yet Margot knew that if she objected too strongly, or too soon, as she had already attempted to do, Bertie could turn exceeding stubborn. Might even take it into his silly head to return to The Cobbles. He’d said as much, quite bluntly. Really, he was the most vexatious boy imaginable.

  She even found herself being forced to supply Lily Thorpe, as she still thought of her daughter-in-law, with a wardrobe of respectable clothes to wear, at Bertie’s insistence.

  ‘Dashed well deserves it, poor thing. Can’t have my wife looking like a damned servant, now can I?’

  With a strength of will Margot hadn’t thought she possessed, she ordered the carriage and sent Lily off with a protesting Selene to the mantle-maker. It was the most humiliating defeat to date, but in her eyes a mere skirmish. The battle may have been lost, but not the war.

  The residents of The Cobbles were not so fortunate as those of Barwick House. Diphtheria raged through the overcrowded streets like an inferno, and it soon became clear to Lily that Margot’s advice to cease calling there had been entirely correct. The last thing she wanted was to spread the disease still further, perhaps even endanger the life of her own child. She watched Amy with anxious eyes but the child seemed as healthy as ever, baby cheeks glowing with health, hair already showing signs of her father’s sandy curls. Lily smiled to see her. Margot wouldn’t be able to deny her parentage for much longer.

  A letter arrived in her father’s careful handwriting, saying the family was quite well, considering, and he was keeping them within doors as much as possible. Hadn’t she known they would be? Never ailed a thing, Hannah’s merry band. Not long afterwards a second letter came, brought by a boy whom nobody wished to touch. He left the note under a stone and ran off. By the time it had been thoroughly wiped with disinfectant Lily’s heart was pounding. She knew it must be bad news, else why would her father write again so soon? The ink had run and was hard to read, even so the words jumped out at her, blunt and stark.

  ‘Our little Emma died last night,’ Lily read, and felt the life drain from her own body. ‘We’re burying her tomorrow. But don’t you come home, lass. The sickness is everywhere.’

  Not attend her own sister’s funeral? Somehow it seemed obscene. But she knew Arnie was right. Lily shut herself in her room and gave herself up to helpless grief. How could her lovely Emma be dead? She was a child still, ten years old and full of fun. Why, only a few Sundays back they’d taken a picnic out into the words, playing hunt the acorn, Emma skipping and giggling as any child should. How could she be gone? It wasn’t possible.

  What of the others? Kitty and Liza? Were they safe? And Arnie himself? At least Hannah was out of that dreadful place now, slowly recovering in the sanatorium.

  In the days following Lily felt as if she would go mad in the isolation of her grief. But much as she ached to run to Arnie’s side, she followed his advice and stayed away.

  When finally the quarantine period was over, the first thing the Clermont-Reads wished to do was give thanks, along with the rest of the community. Once again they attended St Margaret’s Parish Church, glad to meet up with old friends. Lily breathed a sigh of relief to be out in the late April sunshine, to hear a cuckoo deep in the woods, see the green spears of daffodil shoots turning yellow in the sun, smell the wild hyacinth and garlic flowers. She felt as if she’d been down a long dark tunnel, and had at last been let out into the light. Even so, watching a swan take off across the lake, wide wings beating in the warm air currents, again brought Emma to mind and how she’d used to save her jammy crusts for the birds. A lump came to her throat and the ache in her heart swelled to a greater pain. How could the family go on without Emma’s cheerful face about the place?

  It didn’t feel right to be sitting with Bertie in the front pews when her own family were in their usual places at the back. By rights she should be with them, helping them nurse their grief if nothing else.

  Lily could see her father sitting stiff-backed, looking as if he’d shrunk, cheeks hollow and gaunt. He was no longer the brawny well-set up chap he had once been. The loss of a beloved daughter so soon after his wife’s sickness had clearly taken its toll.

  Lily tried to catch his eye, but he stubbornly refused to meet her gaze or heed her frantic signals. It was as if he wished to make a point of not fraternising with those in the best pews. He had never ful
ly understood Lily’s marriage, nor quite approved of her ‘getting above herself’, as he called it. Much as he might have believed the alliance with Bertie to be a mistake, moving into Barwick House was worse in his eyes. So, smothering her distress, she waved instead to Liza and Kitty, and the two girls waved eagerly back, small faces bright with happiness to see her.

  She’d go round to the side entrance when the service was over and talk to her dad, no matter what Margot said. Lily needed that even if he didn’t, as well as to offer comfort to her sisters.

  But by the time she had escaped from the Clermont-Reads and pushed her way through the crowd, there was no sign of her family anywhere. Lily very nearly ran after them but Margot called to her, insisting they were due for coffee at the Dunstons’ before going on home for lunch at one. Bertie too urged her to hurry. Only Edward seemed to understand how she felt.

  ‘Are you all right, Lily?’ he asked as she fell silently into step beside the Clermont-Read party.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’

  ‘I saw you waving to your father, and him turning away.’

  ‘He’s a proud man, suffering more than he can rightly cope with at present.’

  ‘You too, I shouldn’t wonder, losing your young sister in that dreadful way.’

  Unable to respond to the unexpected kindness in his voice, Lily looked up into Edward’s face and saw it to be genuine. She’d always imagined her father-in-law to be hard and merciless, caring only for profits and bank accounts. And his own family, of course. It shook her deeply to see his concern for her, and made her wonder if she knew him at all.

  Lily remained thoughtful throughout the ensuing visit, and as they walked home an idea started to form in the back of her mind.

  After a lengthy Sunday lunch of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, followed by a substantial apple pie, eaten in a silence broken only by the ticking of the clock, Edward was the first to leave the table.

  ‘I’m off down to the jetty. See how Faith has weathered the winter. Got to get her ready for the Easter cruise.’