Lakeland Lily

by Freda Lightfoot

  ‘What do you mean, not for the moment? With two million unemployed, where else would you find a job?’ As if she personally paid Betty’s wages.

  When it was blushingly explained that Betty may have to change her plans if she were to fall pregnant, an utterly scandalised Margot considered the girl with new eyes.

  Plain almost past redemption, with her shiny plump cheeks, bright eyes and country-mouse brown hair held in place by a maid’s cap worn low over a broad flat forehead, it was hard to imagine Betty inflaming anyone’s passion, let alone that of good looking George.

  ‘We’ll discuss that particular matter on another occasion,’ her mistress sternly informed her, as if George would need her written permission before he dare embark upon the idea of fatherhood. ‘For now be thankful I’ve agreed to approve this fancy of yours for matrimony.’

  ‘Oh, I am that, ma’am. George is too. Right grateful we are.’

  Margot sniffed. ‘You will live in his flat over the stables, I dare say?’

  ‘If you please, ma’am.’

  ‘Hm. I trust you have saved well for this marriage?’

  ‘Oh, yes, ma’am.’ Betty had been saving for little else for years. All through the war, in her stolid way she had never lost faith in George, for all they’d had to wait so long. She had a bottom drawer to rival a royal bride’s, in Betty’s opinion. It’d been a pity they’d had the set-back of earning no money this last year or two, but things were looking up now. ‘We’d like to wed at the end of April, just before the launch of Lakeland Lily. If that’s all right by you, ma’am?’

  Margot consulted her diary, confirming that April remained, as yet, blank. ‘I see no reason why not. A wedding might cheer us all up after this endless and hard-working winter. You must make your own frock, of course, and pay for the whole thing yourself.’

  ‘Oh, yes, ma’am.’ The pattern was, at this very moment, spread all over the floor of her attic room.

  So permission was reluctantly granted. Betty bobbed a respectful curtsey and escaped with a grin on her face as wide as a Cheshire cat’s.

  The wedding took place on a beautiful sunny day in early May, and, much to everyone’s delight, Betty looked very nearly pretty. There was no doubting her joy and happiness.

  As ever George looked smart and handsome in his chauffeur’s livery, straight-backed and proud, it seemed, to have Betty on his arm. There was such tenderness in the way he smiled into her eyes and slipped the gold band on to her willing finger that Lily’s throat tightened with emotion as she watched them, envious suddenly of their loving closeness.

  Everyone had a lovely time, throwing rice, laughing and joking, and afterwards eating an enormous cream tea aboard. And Betty didn’t complain about her feet once.

  Life seemed to be going right for them all at last. But then the night before the official launch was due to take place, Ferryman Bob came knocking on the door. ‘Come quick,’ he yelled. Lakeland Lily’s on fire!’

  Lily raged. Whatever manners and etiquette she’d acquired while living at Barwick House now vanished as she paced the Persian rug, face black with soot, hands scratched and bleeding and clenched into furious fists which she pounded one into the other, like someone demented. Hot-tempered Lily Thorpe was back.

  ‘Drat, drat, drat! Who did this to me? How dare they? I’ll not give in,’ she cried. ‘I won’t be beaten. Damn it, I won’t!’

  Fortunately they’d managed to save the main hull, but the beautiful saloon with its swagged curtains and walnut panelling was burned to a crisp.

  It would take weeks, months perhaps, to clean and rebuild her. A long winter of effort and expense all destroyed. Lily looked as she felt, like a caged animal ready to pounce and kill for the hurt done to a precious offspring - only to find the culprit had flown.

  She swung about and faced her mother-in-law. ‘Did you do it? Go on, tell me. Is this your handiwork? After all, your family is pretty heartless where accidents are concerned.’

  ‘How dare you? Take that back at once.’

  Somehow Lily managed to do so. Margot, sitting wrapped in her dressing gown and curling rags, seemed far removed from the vindictive woman who had made Lily’s life such a misery in the early days of her marriage.

  Stifling her rage, she drew a long breath. ‘Perhaps a small port for each of us would be a good idea. Calm us down. What do you say?

  Margot brightened as Lily fetched bottle and glasses, and the two women sat side by side on the sofa, going over the night’s events. ‘At least it was only the boat and not the house,’ Margot kept saying. ‘No loss at all, really.’

  ‘No loss? No loss? Lakeland Lily represents our income, our livelihood. Have you any idea how much she cost to restore? Now she’ll need stripping out and refitting all over again.’ Lily topped up both glasses then slumped back upon the uncomfortable, straight-backed sofa, tears threatening as anger gave way to despair.

  It was incredible to find herself actually fighting for the Clermont-Reads. Partly from guilt, of course, but partly to save Barwick House for Thomas, and Bertie from the threat of madness. Even Margot from herself.

  Where was Bertie? Lily thought on a wave of resentment. Fast asleep in an alcohol-induced stupor, no doubt. Why was he never around when he was most needed? She felt bone weary, desperate for sleep herself, and the port only increased her lethargy. She fought to stay awake and concentrate.

  Margot asked, ‘How will you find the money to start again? If you continue stripping my house at this rate, Lily Thorpe, I’ll have nothing but empty rooms.’

  A slight exaggeration, but say what you like about the woman, she had the unhappy knack of putting her finger on any problem. Where indeed could they find the money? Oh, she’d got her revenge all right. Upon them all, herself included. Lily had bled the Clermont-Reads dry, so that now she couldn’t even get together the necessary capital to launch one extra boat, let alone an entire business.

  Yet she would succeed dammit, come what may. Even if someone did mean her not to succeed.

  But who?

  In truth Margot was an unlikely candidate, too afraid of hurting Bertie and knowing quite well which side her bread was buttered, or rather where her next dish of salmon pate was coming from.

  ‘We could ask Selene to approach Marcus Kirkby,’ she suggested, breaking into Lily’s reverie. ‘He made a fortune out of munitions during the war.’

  Lily looked at her mother-in-law with new respect. ‘Do you think she’d help?’

  ‘I’m her mother.’

  Selene, however, when the suggestion was put to her, seemed appalled at the very idea.

  ‘Good heavens, I simply couldn’t do it.’

  ‘I’m only asking for a loan, at a proper rate of interest,’ Lily told her, trying not to remember she had said much the same thing to Margot. Panic fluttered in her breast as she saw the debts mounting again.

  Selene lifted her hands in a flurry of chiffon and clinking jewellery, wrinkling her pretty nose as if perplexed. ‘In any case, why should he? It’s not his problem. And I’ve no money. I’ve seen no sign of any inheritance from Papa.’

  ‘There isn’t any inheritance.’

  ‘Well, there should be. Mama has the house, Lily the boats, Bertie his idle life and Pa’s whisky. What do I have?’

  Even Margot felt moved to protest. ‘I’ve worked all my life for this house and everything in it, so I deserve it. Your father and I hadn’t a penny between us when we started out. We achieved everything ourselves. You must do the same. Bertie isn’t well because of the war, as you well know, miss.’ It was a rare thing for her to attack Selene, and be so revealing about her own past life. But she didn’t go so far as to defend Lily’s using the Faith, for all it had been necessary. That would have been going too far.

  ‘Marcus doesn’t believe everything can be gone, and neither do I.’ Selene patted a curl into place unnecessarily, her hair was arranged in some complex ‘Greek’ coiffure and tied up in a fringed scarf. ‘He really
has far more important projects to spend his money on. He’s currently engaged in buying shares in some local company or other. In addition he has the expense of a sick wife.’

  Not to mention, Lily thought, Selene’s singing lessons which she had recently taken up, and extensive wardrobe. Lily thought that her beads grew longer and her flimsy frocks shorter every time she saw her. Well above the ankle now and in the very pink of fashion. She also hosted his dinner parties and had developed a taste for cocktails. Whatever her life with Marcus Kirkby consisted of, Lily judged it to be one of extreme comfort, if not highly luxurious.

  Did Selene still bear a grudge over Lily’s ruining her chance of marriage with Nathan Monroe? Surely not? She’d been considerably more upset by the loss of her father’s fortune.

  Whatever the reason she point-blank refused to help financially. ‘I have my own life to lead,’ she said, confirming Lily’s thoughts. ‘Far removed from Barwick House. And, really, I’m not at all interested in Lily’s little schemes.’ Or even her own mother’s, it seemed. ‘Besides which, I know full well who was responsible.’

  Lily sat up. ‘You do?’

  ‘Nathan Monroe. Marcus saw him creeping about the place on the night of the fire. He assumed, Lily, that he was waiting for some tryst or other, therefore none of his business.’

  There was amusement in her tone, and the words seared Lily like fork lightning. She had to turn away from the triumph that blazed in Selene’s eyes.

  Dear God, could it be true? She recalled how totally uncooperative he had been when she’d needed advice at the start of her enterprise. He had also bluntly declined her invitation to come to the launch. What was that if not jealousy? Yet this was the man she loved, the man to whom she’d felt she could trust with her life.

  The next morning Lily made her accusation. She took the ferry to the steamer pier, well wrapped up in a green wool cape and matching hat, pulled down over her ears against a chill breeze. A bank of scowling clouds hung over the nearby fells, reminding her of Nathan’s habitual expression, and Lily shuddered with trepidation. This was not going to be a pleasant interview.

  She chose to confront him in the first-class saloon of his new steamship, The Golden Lady. With its twin columns and gilded Corinthian capitals between windows dressed with thick velvet curtains, the whole ship was cushioned and carpeted in the style of a luxurious first-class railway carriage. Which was a pity in a way, for its very grandeur made her own Lakeland Lily seem shabby by comparison, serving only to increase her sense of insecurity.

  Nevertheless Lily braced herself and calmly put her accusation, then watched with growing alarm as the lines of anger deepened on his face. Still favouring his stiff arm, though there was some movement in his fingers now, Nathan thumped one fist on to the desk and leaned towards her.

  ‘That is how you see me, is it? As a vengeful arsonist? You avoid me for months and then accuse me of this. What exactly have I done, Lily, to deserve such an accusation?’

  ‘I would’ve thought that was obvious,’ she declared, tilting her chin. ‘You can’t deny that you are the most likely suspect. For all you claim to have spent those missing eight years in the navy, and not in prison! Tell me now if that’s the truth? Make me believe in your innocence.’

  He glowered at her, more ferocious than she had ever seen him in her life. ‘Damn you, Lily, why will you always rake up the past?’

  Her legs had gone so weak with misery she longed to sit down, but, since he hadn’t offered her the opportunity, didn’t dare. Wishing now that she hadn’t come, she longed only to turn and run.

  ‘If you must know, before I did near seven years in the Navy, I spent two in Walton Jail, Liverpool. For stealing. The fact that I’d run away from home and fallen to theft in order to survive didn’t help to lessen my sentence one bit. They were tough in those days.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and she was. The misdemeanours of a young urchin living rough on the streets of Liverpool didn’t make Nathan evil, only unfortunate. Even so ... She stared at her buttoned shoes for a long moment. ‘We have proof.’

  ‘What proof?’

  ‘You were seen by Marcus Kirkby.’

  ‘Kirkby?’ Nathan made a sound deep in his throat. ‘You’d rather believe that weasel than me?’

  She looked at him then with pleading in her eyes. ‘What else could I think? It couldn’t be Margot. She’s far too selfish, and anxious for me to provide the wherewithal for her to enjoy herself. As for Selene, she has a new life now and is totally uninterested in me, Barwick House, or even her own mother. While you - well, you were jealous of my plans from the start, refused to help, so I thought…’

  ‘I would enjoy destroying the woman I love?’

  Since there could be no proper answer to this, Lily burst into tears.

  But the idea would not leave her mind. If Selene were right and Nathan was the perpetrator of this vindictive crime, then she must take care.

  Yet why would he do such a thing? It surely couldn’t be from simple jealousy. How could her little cruises in any way harm his big Public Steamers? One glimpse of The Golden Lady had put paid to that notion.

  He’d refused categorically to declare his innocence, claiming that since she loved him she should trust him. Yet if he loved her, why hadn’t he trusted her enough to tell her before about his prison sentence? How could she believe him a word he said?

  Lily couldn’t help recalling how, as a boy, he’d often made her feel uncomfortable. How he’d ingratiated himself with her family as a lodger on his return, and later had come into Bertie’s life as a friend, to such an extent that each had saved the other from drowning. Or so they claimed. But how far could she trust him? And if it were all true, why would he, a friend, deliberately set out to hurt her?

  Because she refused to leave Bertie?

  Even as the chilling thought formed in her head, Lily fought to reject it.

  1922 proved to be another hard-working year. Margot agreed to sell one of her gloomy landscapes, which, surprisingly, brought in enough money to clean, dry out and rebuild the Lakeland Lily and put the ship at last into operation.

  The musical parties proved to be extremely popular. George would wind the gramophone, punctiliously changing needles after each record, and the Lakeland air echoed to symphonic syncopation, a jolly foxtrot, or such lively numbers as ‘Ain’t We Got Fun’, while the bright young things danced or lounged about and chattered endlessly.

  Lakeland Lily could hold fifty people easily, so birthday parties, anniversaries, and even small wedding receptions were now possible aboard her, and Lily discovered that she loved every aspect of the business. When she wasn’t actively working on the boats she was devising ways to advertise them, writing to charabanc and railway companies offering runabout tickets or special day trips as Nathan had told her he’d done for his company. Then there were the accounts and an increasing number of staff to see to. She never seemed to have a minute to herself. It was a relief in one sense to be so busy as it gave her less time to think. But Lily was tired.

  ‘I need more help,’ she wailed, as she burned the midnight oil checking bookings, adding up columns of figures, and still had to be up at dawn to help with the loading of wood on to and Faith.

  She called on Rose, much to her old friend’s surprise. ‘Why would you want me?’

  ‘Because I need help and it’s time you did something with your life besides sell vegetables. Anyway, you’re my friend, aren’t you?’

  ‘Happen. What about Bertie?’

  ‘He doesn’t wish to be involved with my boats.’

  ‘I meant…’

  ‘I know what you meant. Are you interested in the job or not?’

  Rose shrugged. ‘Why not?’

  Rose was installed in a wooden office painted bright blue on the pier, which improved bookings enormously. Her bright face seen through the window seemed to draw people to make enquiries. She chalked details on blackboards and stuck them all over the place, often n
ext to those set up by Nathan. If no customers appeared she would walk up and down crying out in a loud cheerful voice as the other boatmen did. If they dared complain, she’d give them short shrift. ‘If you can yell your heads off, so can I, woman or no. Roll up, roll up. Whatever they have to offer, ladies and gentlemen, we’ll better it.’

  ‘Comfort and refreshments on board the Lucy Ann.’

  ‘The luxurious Lakeland Lily will take you to secret islands, where those lumbering old boats can’t go. Or a private picnic on the Faith, if you prefer. With champagne.’

  ‘Orchestra on board to play all the latest tunes,’ cried the Public Steamer man.

  ‘Dancing and music while you eat. Cheapest fares on the lake. Roll up, roll up.’

  ‘Cream teas.’

  ‘Three-course dinners,’ Rose recklessly offered, not knowing whether it were possible or not but determined to make it so.

  Her attitude to the customers was friendly but far from servile, as if she had something very special to offer and if they couldn’t see that, then the fault was entirely theirs. They’d hear her shouts and come over out of curiosity, quickly make their booking and thrust money at her. Sometimes, if a note was offered, Rose would screw it up in her hand as if this happened every day of the week and she could afford to treat it with contempt. Then when the customer had gone she would smooth it out with a licked finger and put it carefully in the box she kept under the counter.

  Lily watched all of this with pleasure and saw her takings rise.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  1923

  Rose’s presence gave Lily more time to spend with Thomas. Grown into a sturdy schoolboy now, he had become far more demanding than when he’d been small. She contrived as well to spend what time she could with Bertie. That summer they would often sit in the conservatory together after dinner, or on a dry-stone wall watching the boats on the lake. Another pleasure was helping their son with his swimming lessons, and introducing him to the joys of Lakeland.