Lakeland Lily (21 page)

Not even Edward seemed to notice Lily’s plight, which again did not surprise her in the slightest.

On that first night she made up a make-shift bed for baby Amy in a bottom drawer and settled herself into the hard truckle bed beneath cold, unforgiving sheets knotted with scratchy darns. Silence fell upon her like a heavy blanket, cold and dark and lonely.

As she lay freezing in the bed, a lump came to Lily’s throat at the thought of Bertie. She might well have married in haste, and for all the wrong reasons, but she was fond of her young husband and missed his cheerful presence in her life. Not to mention the warm comfort of his body beside her in bed.

Where did he imagine she was sleeping? In splendid comfort, no doubt. Did he think she strolled with his dear mama about the park, took tea with her in the little parlour and meals with his family, bare-armed and fancy-frocked, in the freezing dining room? A giggle of near hysteria rose in her throat at the very idea which Lily quickly stifled by stuffing the sheet in her mouth. It was a relief really that this was not the case, the servants’ hall being much warmer and a sight more friendly.

Mrs Greenholme, the cook, had taken quite a shine to little Amy, making a point of providing suitable meals for a growing infant, even delectable titbits now and then.

‘Though not too much spoiling, my precious,’ she would say, as she handed Amy a gingerbread man she’d baked specially.

A small voice came to her now out of the darkness. ‘I made her mad once. Locked me in the cellar for a week, she did.’

Lily was appalled. ‘Didn’t your parents complain, Betty?’

She heard a throaty chuckle. ‘God knows who they are - I don’t. Will yours help you?’

Lily thought of explaining all of this to her own family and gave up. ‘No.’

‘There you are then.’ And that was the end of the matter so far as Betty was concerned. A
 
new friendship had been forged. Lily curled herself up like a mouse, tucking her nightdress round her frozen feet. The nights were bitterly cold up here in the attic where no sun ever reached. Tomorrow she’d ask for a hot water bottle. Surely that would be allowed? Though she’d slept in worse conditions, oh, yes. And it was only temporary.

Margot would come out of her temper in the end. Bertie would get well, and in the meantime at least they’d be well fed. No, life wasn’t all bad. Reaching out a hand, Lily stroked the curls of her sleeping child. What a blessing she had in Amy, who was the most loving and placid of children. Lily adored her, and so long as she was fine and healthy, which she certainly would be in a grand house like this, what else mattered?

Her last thought as sleep claimed her was of her small cottage in Mallard Street and that wonderful trout breakfast. And the curving smile of Nathan Monroe.

On Sunday afternoons the invalids were permitted to rise for an hour and sit in the little drawing room to take tea with Margot and Edward. This was on the strictest understanding that they were not in any way to be alarmed, excited or disturbed, which somehow meant that Lily was rarely invited.

Margot got around this problem by telling Bertie that Lily chose to visit her family each Sunday. It was proving to be a bitter winter, the diphtheria lingered on, and Lily was concerned for them.

‘The poor do not have our sense in staying within doors and keeping properly warm,’ Margot explained.

Bertie predictably responded by insisting food should be sent, coals, blankets, and whatever else the Thorpe family should need.

Margot hushed him and smoothed his brow, assuring her son that all was well. Hadn’t she dispatched a beef jelly only this afternoon? Unfortunately Arnie was out of work again, but Hannah was holding her own at the sanatorium. Really, they didn’t know how well off they were and Bertie mustn’t excite himself. Privately, she considered a little food and coal a small price to pay to be rid of Lily Thorpe for a whole afternoon.

What she did not tell Bertie was the fact that Sunday was Lily’s only free time, for she was now confined entirely below stairs. Nor did she tell him that his wife left Amy, or ‘the brat’, as Margot privately dubbed the child, with Betty. If she had, he’d want her brought to the little drawing room, which would never do.

These steps taken towards ridding them of Lily would not be her last.

She was also actively engaged in discussions with their man of affairs, seeking advice on the legal position. After all, the harlot may well have foisted someone else’s brat upon her poor darling Bertie.

Margot had once briefly touched upon the subject to Edward, though as usual he had made no comment, hardly seeming to notice or care what was going on since he only came home at weekends. Half the time Margot felt his mind was a million miles from Barwick House, if not with his dratted business then with his boats. She did not trouble him with these domestic trifles again, since she felt well able to take care of them herself.

Lily’s duties appeared to be of a general and somewhat inconsistent nature. She accurately assumed they were the ones no one else wished to do, and were changed daily, entirely at the whim of her mistress.

She might be asked to clean away the ashes and light fires in all the rooms, sand the wooden floor boards, shake out rugs, dust plaster cornices, or scour out the pantry with hot water and soda crystals, then scrub the back steps. Another day might be taken up entirely with shoe cleaning, as if she were the boot boy. Or she’d be set to black-leading the boot scraper and kitchen range, and buffing up the fire irons.

Peeling vegetables with Betty for hours on end was the most hated job. But of one thing Lily could be certain, the tasks would be as unpleasant and as difficult as Margot could make them.

Her mother-in-law also had a nasty habit of changing her mind at the very worst moment. One morning Lily spent an hour or more in the little drawing room, taking down all the pictures in preparation for wiping the frames, as instructed. They were heavy and dusty, necessitating a precarious climb up a ladder to reach them. She’d finally got them stacked ready, those she could actually lift down anyway, when the double doors were flung open and Margot swept in.

‘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.