‘You must. Your reputation would never recover.’
‘I don’t care about my reputation.’ She felt the beginnings of panic.
‘Yes, you do. All those years turning yourself into a lady, to throw it away on a rapscallion like me? I’m no good for you, Lily. Never will be.’
The pain in her throat grew till it was almost impossible for her to swallow. ‘I don’t care about your past, about anything but being with you.’
His eyes were compelling and filled with a deep sadness. ‘You care what they think about Thomas. Would you have them label your son a bastard? Go home, Lily. Make Margot believe you’re sorry, that we’ll never see each other again. And that Thomas is Bertie’s son. It’s the only way.’
She gazed at him then with eyes filled with fear. How could she do it? How could he ask her to give him up?
‘I should have stayed away,’ he told her. ‘Instead, I’ve ruined your life.’ Then, abruptly, he got up and walked away, and the silence of the woods washed over her - a silence so profound Lily dare not even break it with her tears.
Thomas was happily attempting to tie a double overhand and two half hitches when Lily reached the boat. He’d lost a button from his navy blue coat and a smear of oil streaked his small nose. She rubbed at the oil and kissed the nose, earning a squirm and a grimace for her trouble. Ferryman Bob glanced up and grinned.
‘He’ll make a good sailor, just like his grandpa.’
Lily struggled to find a smile. ‘I dare say he will.’
But her mind was elsewhere, her heart strangely empty. She picked up her son and hugged him, feeling the need to hold him close in her arms. He was boy enough to hate this show of maternal affection in front of the old ferryman, and wriggled frantically till she set him down.
‘Bob was telling me about the Kisel.’
‘The Kaiser,’ Bob gently corrected, nodding his head and making the flies on his hat dance as he launched into his yarn. ‘I remember as if it were yesterday. Back end of last century that was. Around 1894 - no, ‘95. What a to-do! He lunched at the Old England, guest of Lord Lonsdale. Then he was taken up to Waterhead in the launch Maroo. His entourage followed in the Elfin, which had the cheek to overtake the Kaiser’s boat.’ He gave a cackling laugh at the memory. ‘That didn’t suit the Yellow Earl at all. All boatmen have their pride, you know, lad, just like your grandpa.’ The old man continued with his tale but the words came to Lily as if from a long distance, for all she tried to show interest.
‘Are we going home now, Mummy?’
Lily swallowed. She had no home. Turned from every door she had nowhere to take her child. Not even Nathan wanted her. Suddenly overwhelmed, Lily’s legs started to wobble and before she could stop herself, she sank to her knees and burst into tears.
‘By heck, what have I said now? I never realised my yarns were as bad as that.’
Ferryman Bob took her to the Faith, safe in her quiet backwater. It was the only place he could think of where there was a bed. He asked few questions, assuming there’d been some tiff with Margot that a good night’s sleep would easily resolve. Lily did not disabuse him. He proved to be a kind friend, and set about organising her good and proper.
‘You’ll need provisions for tonight,’ he said, and brought her pillows and blankets, a box full of bread and butter, bacon, eggs, and a pot of jam for the bairn. He lifted Thomas into the boat, and set the box by his feet. ‘Stow this lot aboard for your mam. You’re going to have to be a real sailor, lad.’ As if it were all part of a game.
‘Can I be a pirate?’
‘Happen not. Pirates can get in a lot of bother. Now you do as your mam tells you, son. All right? You’re the man of the house now.’
‘Of the boat, you mean,’ came the swift reply, followed by a giggle. Ferryman Bob shot Lily a wry grin.
‘Sharp, that one.’
‘Yes.’
Bob sounded the Faith for leaks, checked that the storm lantern was fuelled up and working. Then, satisfied she would neither sink, freeze nor starve, he helped Lily aboard. ‘Will you be all right?’
Lily nodded. ‘We’ll be fine.’ She didn’t feel fine. She felt sick to the heart but Thomas was jumping up and down with excitement, and somehow she must find the strength to go on pretending it was all a game, for his sake.
‘I’ll come and see you tomorrow, lass. Keep your chin up.’ Then she was alone with her son in the boat as a purple dusk crept about them, a stiff breeze rustling eerily through the branches overhead, seeming to emphasise her loneliness.
No one wanted her. Not Bertie who’d deliberately stayed away, not Margot who blamed her for everything, nor Selene who accused her of ruining her engagement. Not even Arnie, her own father.
Now Nathan had let her down. In his way he was doing the honourable thing. But it seemed to Lily as the sun sank behind the black mountains that she was quite alone in all the world.
Chapter Twenty
During the next few days alone with her child, Lily found a kind of peace. She woke each morning to a world of sun and silence, of soft green trees and the gentle lapping of water. It had rained quite hard during that first night, hammering on the roof of the saloon. But Lily and Thomas, cuddled up warmly together and deeply asleep, never heard a thing.
When Lily woke, surprisingly refreshed, the sun on the rain-washed new day lifted her spirits. Bathed in the pink and gold glory of early morning, the sight of the crisp clear mountains invigorated her. The familiar surroundings of the boat, which she’d grown fond of on their weekend ferry trips during the war, comforted her.
Urged on by Thomas’s bubbling high spirits, Lily set about trying to recall the mysteries of the boiler which Edward had once so painstakingly explained to her. If only she had listened more carefully! Shovelling in coal was one thing, getting it started on her own another entirely. But Lily knew that the Windermere kettle could boil water in the twinkle of an eye, or any bucket of water set over the steam would likewise boil. Would it also fry bacon?
After half an hour, filthy and exhausted from her efforts, she gave up. The small failure had demoralised her completely and the tears that swelled in her heart finally overflowed. What reason was there to go on?
‘Don’t cry, Mummy. I might not be hungry.’
Lily rubbed her cheeks dry and smiled through her tears.
‘I reckon we’ll have to be pirates after all. Marooned on a desert island. Let’s hunt for wood and light a fire.’
‘Ooh, yes, yes!’
It was the best breakfast Lily had ever tasted. Thomas’s high-spirited giggles, the bright comfort of a flickering fire, the smell of woodsmoke and frying bacon, all served to make her feel better. Later, as Lily watched her son happily toss sticks of wood into the lake, delighted if one floated, moaning if it sank, she took stock.
Whatever she decided now could affect the rest of her life. Should she abandon her fine life at Barwick House, her carefully nurtured reputation, and go and live with Nathan Monroe despite the gossip and the censure of her own family? Wasn’t this, deep in her heart, what she wanted most of all? And if it meant that she must bring her child up in The Cobbles, what of it? The place was much improved. She’d achieved that, at least.
But was it right to turn her son into an outcast, as he surely would be? The son of a fallen woman. It made her shudder to think of it.
Or should she, for his sake, beg Margot’s forgiveness? Give Nathan up for good as he insisted, just when she had discovered the depth of his love.
Nathan or Bertie? Each represented a different part of her, a different world. Lily silently recalled her bright-faced, boyish husband and couldn’t help but admit that she did worry over him. Had no wish to hurt him.
But she loved Nathan more.
The terrible dilemma of being a part of two worlds and belonging to neither made her feel, in that moment, physically sick. Here, on the Faith, was the only place she could create a world of her own. One where she could be her own person.
Lily lifted her face to the sun. ‘It isn’t too bad a world either,’ she said to Thomas, before she had time to change her mind. ‘Shall we stay here for a while? Have a real adventure?’
‘You mean, not go home tonight either? Oh, yes. Please, Mummy.’ Flinging his chubby arms about her neck, he smacked a wet kiss on her cheek.
Lily burst out laughing. ‘But you must be good and promise not to fall in the lake?’
‘Oh, I promise, I promise.’
‘I might even teach you to swim.’
Another kiss till the two of them were rolling over in the grass, with the child stuck fast around her neck, both laughing as if they hadn’t a care in the world. At least, Lily thought later, as she washed the greasy plates with difficulty in the cold waters of the lake, somebody loved her.
Ferryman Bob helped Lily clean the boat and get the boiler running. He brought her wood to burn, showed her how to operate the pumps and boil water in the kettle. Then on Friday afternoon Edward appeared, standing on the bank and grinning down on her. ‘Well, would you believe it? Swiss Family Robinson. Permission to come aboard, Cap’n?’
‘I’m a pirate, Grandpa, and Mummy is my slave.’
Lily laughed. ‘I believe you’ve come to my rescue just in time, sir. This wicked pirate here was about to make me walk the plank.’
‘Dear me, and before you’ve had your tea?’
Thomas giggled. ‘Can I tie you up instead?’
‘Why don’t you do that, so long as I can have my tea at the same time. You’ve got the boiler going?’
‘I reckon I’ve got its measure.’
‘Put the kettle on then. I’m parched.’
Moments later they sat side by side, eyes on the blue-misted mountains, sipping mugs of scalding tea, which tasted so much better in the clean, spring air than in Margot’s stuffy parlour, and ate scones with Ferryman Bob’s pot of jam. Thomas practised his knots. The sun beat down on the fringed canopy while coot and mallard swam lazily by. They could have been any loving family out on a Sunday picnic, except for a certain formality between the adults, who carefully avoided eye contact above the boy’s head. ‘It’s bonny here.’
‘Mm.,
‘We’ve neglected poor Faith recently, eh?’
‘I suppose so.’
Seeing he could draw little from her, Edward said, ‘I used to have a boat for freight too. Small-time, of course, and not as big as the Raven on Windermere, but I reckon folk found it useful for shifting the stone from the quarry or timber from the woods and such like.’
‘Why don’t you work her now?’ It seemed easier to speak of other things.
Edward shook his head. ‘Margot didn’t care for messy boats passing her front door.’ As if caught out in some minor disloyalty, ‘Mind you, there was no money in it. The roads were getting better all the time and I was busy with my warehouse enterprise in Manchester, which subsidised the boat in her last season.’
‘So where is she now?’ Lily was interested, despite herself.
‘Scuttled.’
Lily frowned. ‘Scuttled? What on earth does that mean?’
‘It means we decided she was neither use nor ornament, so we holed and sunk her.’
‘Oh, but that’s dreadful! What was her name?’
‘Kaspar. Fancy name for a cargo boat, eh? It means treasure, and that’s how I thought of her. She was a proper little beauty.’ His sheepish smile grew sad. ‘I might’ve made something of her if circumstances had been different, but we’d no real use for her any more so we scuttled her. Broke my heart, that did.’ As if wishing to disguise this unwonted show of emotion, Edward briskly changed the subject, addressing his small grandson who was deeply engrossed in the tale.
‘The Raven’s still going on Windermere, though for how much longer we’ll have to see. Fine cargo boat she is, built by T.B. Seath & Co. of Rutherglen on the Clyde. Made in sections and transported by rail to Penrith, then taken by horse-drawn dray to Pooley Bridge, put together and launched. Cost more than two thousand pounds. That firm sent boats in exactly the same fashion all the way to Africa. Marvellous, eh? Very inventive, the Victorians.’
‘Golly,’ said Thomas.
Lily said, ‘Bertie is too, don’t you think? He was always keen to design a really fast power boat.’
Edward’s lips thinned. ‘Power will never beat the grace of steam, not for me.’ He stubbornly continued with his tale. ‘They used to reward the crew of the Raven in kind for carrying large quantities of beer - which made the return journey a bit tricky.’ Edward roared with laughter, little Thomas enthusiastically joining in so that even Lily found herself smiling.
‘You might not agree with everything Bertie does,’ she persisted, ‘but he would so like to make you proud of him.’ She didn’t really know if that were true but hoped to reconcile father to son, and perhaps lead on to her own problems. ‘Can neither of you admit how alike you are? Each refusing to let the other see how they feel, yet both feeling rejected. It’s proper daft.’
‘You sound just like the old Lily.’
‘Oh, she’s still here,’ Lily agreed with a wry tug at the grubby sleeves of her linen frock which had not benefited from her sojourn on the Faith, let alone the cleaning of the boiler.
‘Aye, but tougher, eh?’
Lily frowned. ‘Not necessarily. The old Lily was pretty tough, but she made a lot of mistakes that the new Lily would like to put right.’
Edward gave a wry smile. ‘Story of my life.’ He applied himself with vigour to polishing the boiler tubes with a rag, then quite casually remarked, ‘Margot says you walked out.’
‘Not exactly, but you could say it was for the best that I left.’
After a moment he halted in his labours and considered her too-bright eyes. ‘She tends to go into a panic sometimes and say the first thing that comes into her daft head. Then afterwards she’s sorry.’
Lily said nothing. Clearly she couldn’t view Margot with the same benevolence as her husband did.
‘We all make mistakes. Bertie too.’ Edward cast her a sideways look which spoke volumes. ‘Will you come home? She’s calmed down a bit now.’
She sat in the sunshine, watching her father-in-law work on his beloved boat, enthusiastically assisted by the small boy. Never had Lily wished more than she did at that moment that little Thomas were truly Edward’s grandson. ‘Not just yet. We’re having an adventure, aren’t we, Thomas? We might sail away for a year and a day.’
Her son looked at her with solemn eyes. ‘D’you mean in a proper boat, at sea?’
‘Why not?’
The little boy considered. ‘I don’t think we could, Mummy. If we went away, like the Owl and the Pussycat, we might miss Daddy coming home.’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘How silly of me.’ In her heart she knew that the trap she had built for herself all those years before might never open. Not now. Not even to let Nathan in.
The air was heavy with a humid heat broken only by the plip-plop of racquet on ball as Selene and her friends chased languidly up and down the tennis court. Lily was sitting with Thomas making daisy chains on the lawn while Margot dozed beneath her parasol, her soft snoring outdoing the noisy crickets. Out on the lake half a dozen small yachts lay becalmed in the still air, the only movement coming from the Public Steamer, at this moment gliding gently towards the distant pier where a blur of people waited in the heat haze. Only on the lake itself could any coolness be found and for once Lily rather envied the tourists their forthcoming cruise.
She closed her eyes and lay on the sweet-smelling grass, as always letting her mind drift back to Nathan, picturing him, loving him. Yet resolutely she’d kept away from him, for the sake of her child.
Lily had still not fully moved back into Barwick House, though Margot made no protest when she brought Thomas to visit. Strangely enough Selene seemed unperturbed by the whole business. She never once remarked upon her broken engagement. Almost as if it had never existed.
&nbs
p; Thomas, thinking his mother’s lying down was some kind of game, climbed all over her, dangling the daisy chain over her face, making her giggle and squirm.
‘Look at the boats, mummy. They’re stuck. There isn’t enough wind.’
‘Mmm,’ she sleepily agreed.
‘It would be all right in the steam-yacht. Can we take out the Faith this afternoon?’
‘No, Ferryman Bob is working and Grandpa is away at his business.’
‘Can’t we ask George? Will we have another picnic? Can I have a go at driving it this time, if we do?’
‘Oh, Thomas, do stop asking questions. You make me tired. We’ll see.’ She was drifting into sleep as the heat of the sun made her soporific.
A gentle snore vibrated softly through the summer air and the little boy giggled. ‘Grandmama is asleep.’
‘So should you be,’ Lily murmured. ‘Shall I take you upstairs?’
‘No, no. I’m not tired,’ he protested. Thomas hated keeping still. He had any lively four year old’s boundless energy and inquisitive nature, being far more interested in the boats on the lake than sleeping or making silly daisy chains. Quickly growing bored with his uncooperative mama, and fearful she might keep her word and take him upstairs to his nursery, he set off across the grass at a great pace. Spotting a family of mallard he chased them right to the water’s edge where, in his anxiety to catch them, he tripped over a stone and landed on his knees in the water.
‘Whoops,’ he said. But the water swished delightfully all over his shorts. He always enjoyed his bath each night when Betty splashed him or poured warm water over his head. Now he cupped his hands beneath the lake water and saw how white and funny-looking they went. Then he brought them up in a rush and splashed water over himself, giggling with delight.
The small flotilla swam tantalisingly beyond reach. Thomas lay on his tummy in the shallow water and waved his arms about as he had seen George do each morning in the lake. When he made no progress, he got to his feet and waded out a bit further. He heard a shout and half turned, laughing.
Lakeland Lily Page 30