Lakeland Lily (36 page)

As the platform cleared, there was still no sign of him. Surely he couldn’t have let her down? For a moment she did indeed feel tearful as disappointment welled in her throat. All that anxious waiting and anticipation for nothing.

Perhaps he’d simply missed the train. He’d certainly promised to be on it. No great letter writer, yet he’d written to tell her of his imminent arrival. Lily curled her fingers around the crackling paper in her pocket, drawing it out to read it for the hundredth time. It was a typical Bertie-type note, written more than a week ago.

‘Home next Saturday. Be on afternoon train. Wait for me. Love B.’

Lily folded it away again. She’d waited for four years. Another day or two wouldn’t matter. Sighing, she turned away and bumped into a young couple, lips glued together, arms wrapped about each other in a passionate embrace. Her heart lurched. Then she dipped her head and hurried quickly from the platform. She really shouldn’t feel jealous. Everyone had the right to love and be loved.

As have I, a voice in Lily’s
head reminded her. She was a healthy young woman, wasn’t she?

What would be the state of her marriage when Bertie did come home? Would fond affection still be enough? Could they carry on as before, living their separate lives, with all that that implied? Or could she make the necessary effort to build a marriage that worked? Many questions but few answers.

Choking back tears, Lily
felt oddly alone and abandoned.

She’d brought the gig to collect Bertie and his luggage, leaving it in the station yard. Now she skirted the horse-omnibus and the knot of people bustling each other in their eagerness to board, and set off in that direction as quickly as she could, mentally rehearsing the words she would need to prepare Margot for a disappointment.

At this very moment her mother-in-law was organising a feast of biblical proportions. The table had been laid with the finest silver and glass. The champagne was on ice. Every larder groaned with Bertie’s favourite dishes, made in preparation for this great day. Except that the chief guest, the prodigal son, would not now be present.

Others too would be missing. Dora for one. She was lying in a French hospital somewhere. She’d written a long letter to Lily, declaring how terribly boring it all was, and how she couldn’t wait to be up and about again instead of slowly recovering from pneumonia and exhaustion. Lily had written back instructing her to stay exactly where she was, or she would come and deal with her personally.

Then there was Nathan. Still with no word, the loss Lily felt had become a permanent ache in her heart. She’d learned to live with the silence. Many young men were missing after all, and some - a few anyway - did come home eventually. How could she possibly accept the idea that she might never see him again? It was too frighteningly final.

In the melee of the station yard Lily could make little progress towards the gig. Try as she might she kept being stopped by people who knew her, all anxious to share their news, good or bad. She learned a great deal about her old neighbours in that short distance.

Jim, the landlord of the Cobbles Inn, had survived but left one of his legs in France, Mrs Edgar of the cook shop informed her.

Mrs Robbins, who still supplied the choicest bull’s eyes, stopped to tell Lily that Percy Wright, the agent who had once threatened them with eviction, had been officially declared missing, presumed dead, so there’d be no grave for his poor wife to visit and mourn by.

‘He’ll be one of the unknown warriors buried somewhere in France.’

Lily expressed her regrets, struggling to make them sound sincere for he had always seemed to her a most unpleasant man, for all she supposed he’d only been doing his job.

She paused to congratulate Mrs Adams on the return of her younger son. The elder had died at Gallipoli, quite early in the war, but young Josh, topping his tiny mother by a good foot and a half, stood beside her now, having survived against all the odds.

‘And your own husband?’

‘Been delayed, but he’s on his way.’

‘Oh, that’s good.’

‘Yes, isn’t it?’

‘Grand to hear a bit of good news for a change.’ The woman proceeded to reel off such a litany of bad that Lily regretted having stopped to speak to her in the first place. But then from somewhere above her head came another voice, dearly familiar.

‘Lily?’

She jumped as if she’d been scalded, for there he was. As if spirited somehow from the recesses of her mind into the wind-swept station yard.

‘Oh, dear God…’ Hand to her mouth she couldn’t even say his name. He had lived in her mind for years. Now all she could think to do was stand and stare at him. Very tentatively she put out one hand to touch his cheek, as if fearful he might be a mirage or a puff of smoke left by the departing train which would disappear at her touch. ‘Nathan?’ She breathed the word like a caress, liquid gold on her tongue.

Without thinking of the wisdom of such an action, forgetting the open-mouthed Mrs Adams and her grinning son at her elbow, forgetting Mrs Edgar and Mrs Robbins, pausing as they were about to climb aboard the horse-omnibus, Lily fell into his arms. As he lifted her off her feet, swinging her round and sending her hat bowling across the station yard, she kissed him as though she would never stop.

‘I should go,’ Selene said, searching for her stockings. ‘Mama will be having a small fit that I’m not home already.’

Marcus reached out one hand to smooth her bare back but made no attempt to get up from the couch. They were in his study, having sneaked her in via the French windows as usual. The door firmly locked, the servants ordered not to disturb him at his work, they were free to enjoy each other at their leisure. Upstairs Catherine took her afternoon nap, as usual. Later, she would come down and offer Selene tea and cakes, and the two would chat together, as the good friends they had become.

A scheme had been devised for every occasion. This was the procedure for a Saturday afternoon. Marcus approved of routine and discretion. Not that the latter was strictly necessary so far as his wife was concerned.

Catherine would not ask when Selene had arrived, or how she had spent her time while her hostess slept. She never asked questions. It was one of the things Marcus liked most about her.

But today there would be no tea-party. Catherine would not even see Selene as she was expected home for the return of the warrior son. Marcus scowled his disappointment. He hated to have his plans upset.

‘You’ll come tomorrow?’

She shook her head. ‘I can’t, not with Bertie just home. It’ll have to be next Saturday.’ She leaned over to place a lingering kiss on his lips, allowing the soft warmth of her breasts to graze his chest. ‘Will you miss me?’

‘What do you think?’

‘That you’re a fortunate man to be so well served by adoring women.’

He chuckled, and, wrapping an arm about her, pulled her squealing back on to the couch. ‘Perhaps I think you are both fortunate women.’ He began to caress her with a new purposefulness and for a moment Selene sank against him with a sigh, the familiar excitement rising hot and sweet in her breast. Then she thought of Margot.

‘No, I must go.’

‘See what you do to me.’ He indicated his arousal. ‘How cruel to leave so soon.’

Selene slanted a glance up at him. ‘I am not your wife, Marcus, so I must always leave, mustn’t I?’

‘There are times when I almost wish...’ He didn’t finish the sentence. He never did. ‘But you’re a damned sight more fun.’

Selene found that, after all, she could stay a few moments longer.

Much later, over a cup of weak tea in the station cafe, Lily saw that although Nathan had returned in one piece, with not a mark on him, he was not the same man who had gone away. He seemed in some way to have shrunk. No longer the big brawny chap he had once been, his face appeared gaunt and grey. His speech, when he spoke at all, was slow and halting and his eyes carried a haunting bleakness. She noticed too that he never moved his right arm. He left the hand resting on his lap while he drank his tea with his left. Lily had never seen him do this before.

But the sight of him across the table, near enough for her to touch, as she felt compelled to do every few minutes, was utter bliss. She had never felt so happy. As bubbly as a young girl, as if she had drunk a whole bottle of champagne. She could simply sit here and gaze at him all day, greedily drinking in every beloved feature. And he was gazing at her in exactly the same way.

‘I-I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you,’ she said, for the hundredth time.

‘Me too.’ For a second his eyes lit up, telling her in more than words how he felt. ‘B- Bertie?’ he queried, and she pulled a wry face.

‘Being perverse, as always.’ She told him about the letter and the missed train. ‘I shouldn’t even be here. I should be hurrying back to Barwick House to give Margot the news that her chief guest has done a bunk.’

‘I-Is he - all r-right?’

Lily could hardly bear to watch the agony it took for him to speak. Her head buzzed with questions. What had caused this disability? Gas? Or those terrible explosions? She’d heard talk of soldiers being too shocked to speak at all. But now was not the moment to pry.

‘He’s fine,’ she said brightly, deciding the best thing was to behave normally. ‘You know Bertie. He’ll turn up tomorrow or the next day, bright as a button and with not one word of apology. "Got talking to this chap, old thing," he’ll say.’ She laughed at her own mimicry. ‘And, no, I’m not being unkind.’

Nathan gave a lop-sided grin, one half of his face staying completely rigid. ‘You’re - right. Exactly - w-what he’ll s-say.’

Lily’s heart clenched with love for him and from then on she did most of the talking. She chattered on about her own war efforts. How she’d helped Edward clean the
Faith
, even run it as an extra ferry
as transport was so short. He almost laughed at that, as if the idea of her working on a boat were too far-fetched to contemplate. Lily grinned and went on to talk of her recent visits to her parents, and of Margot’s committees. Should she mention Thomas? Discretion made her hold her tongue. She’d been about to mention Selene when she stopped abruptly.

‘I’ve just had a wonderful idea!’

Nathan’s brows lifted but he said nothing.

‘
You
can be our special guest instead of Bertie. Back at Barwick House there’s a Welcome Home feast of gargantuan proportions being prepared. Bertie isn’t here to enjoy it, but you are.’

He shook his head, frowning fiercely, but Lily was in no mood for argument. Already reaching for her coat and hat, she urged him to leave his kit in the Left Luggage office until later.

‘It’ll be fun. When’s the last time you tasted champagne? And you really ought to hurry straight to your bride-to-be.’ Her words made them gaze thoughtfully upon each other. Here, in the station tea room, dreams were still a delightful possibility. Once they stepped outside, reality would intervene. Lily drew in a steadying breath and gave him a rueful smile. ‘Ready?’

Nathan merely picked up his kit bag and stood patiently waiting for her to tell him what to do next.

As they walked towards the gig, a group of young soldiers were singing a chorus of ‘
Mademoiselle from Armentieres’
.

‘At least,’ she said, ‘your presence will do me a great favour. It’ll stop Margot from blaming me for not bringing home her darling son!’

Barwick House seemed to have been spring-cleaned especially for the occasion. The grey and white pillared facade glinted in the cool sunshine, long windows mirroring the blue of lake and sky. Along the shore clusters of hazel catkins hung like yellow candelabra from winter-bare branches, and beneath their shelter a carpet of purple crocuses and white snowdrops shyly flowered.

The ladies too were bright spots of colour against the pale green lawn in their unseasonably thin frocks, worn in honour of this special day - except for Millicent Gowdry, whose brown suit was so dull people walked past without even noticing her. Lily noticed Sophie Dunston with her spectacles sliding down her nose, and Felicia Morton-Cryer proclaiming loudly that her ‘darling orphans’ would now have to manage without her, since she really was perfectly worn out with all the work.

All these once likely candidates for Bertie’s hand had come to welcome him home. But Bertie was not here. Even had he been, he was well and truly taken. Which sadly echoed the fact that with so many of their friends not returning from the front, the chances of matrimony for these girls had shrunk to almost nil.

Even the lively Heddington boys would never again fall out over who was to give up their chair for Selene, having been killed together on the Somme. Lily could hardly bear to think what the carnage must have been like out there. Thank God Nathan had come home safe and well, if not exactly sound. Hadn’t she always believed he would? And with time and loving care, he’d improve, she was sure of it. Unfortunately, it would not be she who had the right to give him that care.

Lily linked her arm through his in a friendly fashion and smiled reassuringly up at him. ‘You don’t have to stay long. Just say hello.’

He nodded, eyes flashing a look of gratitude at her understanding.