Call of the Kiwi (22 page)

2

N
ot now, later,” Lilian said between clenched teeth.

Though her unforeseen reunion with Ben had made her heart skip a beat, she knew that no exhibitions of joy would be appropriate just then. With Ben standing beside Florence and Caleb Biller, she knew he must be the son who had just returned from Cambridge. She knew also that neither the Billers nor Lilian’s own father would be particularly pleased to know that their children had scratched their names into a tree in England with a heart around them.

Ben did not catch on so quickly. No wonder, since he still did not know Lilian’s last name. But fortunately the reverend remedied that.

“Ben! How nice to see you again,” he said. “And how you’ve grown. The young ladies of Greymouth will be falling over themselves to get you to ask them to dance. Allow me to introduce the first of them to you.” He indicated Lilian and the two other girls who had been decorating the altar. “Erica Bensworth, Margaret O’Brien, and Lilian Lambert.”

Erica and Margaret giggled as they curtsied; Lilian only managed an anxious smile. After all, she had just met Florence Biller’s cool gaze. Lilian had dealt with her a few times in the context of her work for her father and had probably not left the best impression. Not only did she refuse to be intimidated by Florence, but she’d lured away clients and suppliers so that the Lambert Mine was attended to before the Biller Mine during busy times. In the Biller family circle, “little Lambert” was already labeled an “impertinent brat.” Even Ben had heard his mother go on about her. And now he was standing across from the “little beast” in the flesh—and she had revealed herself to be Lily, the girl he had not been able to get out of his head since she had turned it, back in England.

Lilian gave him a quick wink. Ben understood.

The two families sat on opposite sides of the lawn during the service, but Lilian and Ben could not concentrate on the pastor. Both sighed with relief when the last song had died out and everyone made for the refreshments. Lilian managed to land a spot next to Ben in line for the punch bowl.

“Soon. When everyone’s eaten and is tired, let’s meet behind the church,” she whispered to him.

“In the cemetery?” Ben asked.

Lilian sighed. She had not wanted to express herself so prosaically—and she had wondered whether the graveyard was suited to the first secret rendezvous between two lovers—but she had come to the conclusion that it was thoroughly romantic. A bit morbid perhaps but bittersweet too. Like a poem by Edgar Allan Poe.

Besides, there was no other spot guaranteed to be as parent-free as the cemetery.

She nodded. “Just keep your eyes on me. You’ll see when I get up.”

Ben nodded and poured himself some punch. Then he winked furtively at her and went on his way. Lilian watched him go, rapt. Finally something was happening. And it was just like in her novels—her long-lost sweetheart had returned. Lily sighed. But he was an enemy of her family. Like in Shakespeare! Much to her frustration, she had never been chosen to play Juliet in the Christmas performance at Oaks Garden. But now she was part of the story.

In the end it was Ben who left his family first and surreptitiously sauntered over to the church. Lily separated herself almost unwillingly from the table, where Elaine, Tim, Matt, and Charlene were chatting about the Billers’ eldest son. Lilian’s mother and Charlene simply could not get over how much the boy resembled his father. Lilian found their reaction a little strange. Her brothers resembled Tim, and Charlene’s eldest was the spitting image of Matt Gawain. But no one had ever wasted more than a word or two about that. In any case, the families kept each other well entertained, and no one paid attention when Lilian decamped. When she arrived at the churchyard, Ben was in the process of carving their initials into the old beech by the fence. Lilian thought it romantic, if perhaps not wise tactically. There could not be that many L. L.s and B. B.s in Greymouth, after all. But what could she do? She decided to feel flattered that Ben was taking risks for her.

He beamed at her as she came toward him between the gravestones.

“Lily, I thought I’d never see you again. This odd girl at Oaks Garden told me you were going home. I thought that meant London or Cornwall or somewhere in England. You didn’t tell me you were from Greymouth.”

“I thought you were from around Cambridge too. And I thought you were poor on account of the scholarship.”

Ben laughed. “No, just young. Hence the preferential treatment. I skipped a few grades, and the universities were fighting for me. With the scholarship I could study what I wanted—not what my parents envisioned. Until now anyway. This stupid war gave them an excuse to bring me home. And now I sit in this dreadful office and am supposed to care about how to extract coal from underground. For all I care it could stay there.”

Lilian frowned. The idea of leaving coal in the ground had never occurred to her and did not seem all that smart. After all, a person could sell it for a lot of money. But Ben was a poet and he saw things differently. So she smiled indulgently.

“You have two brothers. Couldn’t one of them take over the mine? Then you could continue your studies.”

“They’re chomping at the bit for it. Sam is only twelve, but he knows more about the business than I do. It’s a shame I’m the eldest. But let’s talk about you, Lily. You haven’t forgotten me?”

“Never. Things were so lovely in Cambridge. I really wanted to meet you that day. I would have done anything, but my uncle came for me that very afternoon. And I couldn’t get away. But now here we are.”

Ben smiled. “Here we are. Maybe we could, well, I mea
n . . .
”

“You can look to see what color my eyes are again,” Lilian said mischievously, stepping closer and looking up at him.

Ben caressed her cheek shyly, and then wrapped his arms around her. Lilian could have embraced the whole world when he kissed her.

“Who was the boy in the cemetery?”

Tim Lambert was rarely strict with his daughter, but now he loomed over her as threateningly as his crutches and leg splints would allow. Lilian was sitting at her desk in his office and had just hung up the phone. She looked more cheerful and radiant than usual—a more skillful observer than Tim might have seen she was in love. Tim, however, had more of a sense for business. He had just completed a transaction with Bud Winston, a lumber dealer, who was delivering the support beams for the planned mining expansion. Tim had snatched a whole wagonload of lumber out from under Florence Biller’s nose. If Tim were honest, he primarily had Lilian to thank for that, as his daughter had led the negotiations. But that day he was less concerned with fairness than the rumors circulating in Greymouth. They must already have spread far if Bud Winston’s men had heard them. After all, the lumber trade was hardly a bastion of gossips. And it was only eleven on Monday morning—by afternoon the whole city was guaranteed to know that Lilian Lambert was seeing a boy in secret.

“Don’t deny it. Old Mrs. Tanner saw everything. She’s nearsighted, though, so she couldn’t make out the boy.”

Lilian felt a twinge of uneasiness.

“What does she think she saw then?” she asked, as lightheartedly as she could manage. If Mrs. Tanner had observed the kiss, she was in trouble.

“You were talking with a boy. Secretly, in the cemetery. It seems the whole town is talking about it.”

“Then it couldn’t have been all that secret,” Lily remarked, thumbing casually through a document. She breathed a silent sigh of relief.

Tim sank into his desk chair. That robbed him of his strategically advantageous position, but he was exhausted after his ride into town, and his hips hurt.

“Lilian, was it Ben Biller?” he asked. “Someone mentioned that name. And otherwise I can’t think of anyone here who’s a match for you in terms of age.”

Lilian smiled at him divinely. Normally, assessing her conversation partners was among her strengths, but now she was in love.

“You think we’re a match too? Oh, Daddy!” She leaped up and made as if to hug her father. “Ben is so wonderful. So gentle, so dear.”

Tim frowned and pushed her away. “He’s what? Lilian, you can’t mean that. After strolling around between a few headstones for three minutes, you decided he’s the man of your dreams?” He alternated between horror and amusement.

“That’s right.” Lilian beamed. “But we already knew each other from Cambridge.” And she laid out the story of the boat race to her father, leaving out the bit about the kiss and the heart on the tree trunk.

“He writes poems, Daddy. For me!”

Tim rolled his eyes. “Lilian, that may all appear very romantic to you. But I would prefer that he write his poems for someone else. You’re too young for a boyfriend, and he’s too young for a girlfriend.”

“Ben is very mature for his age,” Lily said. “He skipped who knows how many grades.”

“No doubt the boy is intelligent; his parents aren’t dumb, after all. But he should use his brain and not go about flirting with the only girl in town with whom problems are guaranteed. You simply can’t fall in love with the son of Florence Biller, Lily.”

Tim waved a crutch to emphasize his words, appearing ridiculous even to himself.

Lilian threw her flaming red hair back and raised her head proudly.

“Watch me.”

“Tim, they’re nothing but games. How can you take it seriously?” Elaine was sitting in the garden, watching her husband, who was snorting with rage, with a mixture of concern and amusement. Whenever Tim became excited about something, he couldn’t sit still. Even years after the accident, he still took his limitations hard, and now he was limping back and forth, lamenting the obvious catastrophe Lilian and Ben were in the process of unleashing.

From Elaine’s perspective, he shared in the guilt for the latest dramatic developments. That morning he could think of nothing better than to send his stubborn daughter home. Lilian had obediently mounted her small mare, but instead of heading straight home, she had decided that the horse desperately needed to stretch her legs that day. The well-paved road to the Biller Mine was the perfect place to gallop her, and halfway along the stretch she had come upon the Billers’ car, which caused the horse to shy. The chauffeur stopped the car, and Ben hopped out.

What followed was hard to reconstruct without subjecting the two main participants to a highly embarrassing inquiry. The chauffeur—who had been ordered by a fuming Florence Biller to take her recalcitrant son home by the most direct route—reported that the young master had stepped out with the excuse that the young lady might need help subduing her horse. After which Ben, in truth just looking for Lily, disappeared into the fern forest near the river, where the chauffeur could not pursue him.