Lakeland Lily (57 page)

Bertie grinned, then seeing the tears in her eyes, put his arms about her and held her close, awkwardly patting her shoulder. ‘Don’t weep, old sport. We gave it a go. Fun too, some of it, eh? Apart from losing our little Amy.’ He was silent for a moment, offering her his hanky, helping her dry the tears. ‘You’ll let Thomas come and visit?’

‘Oh, yes, of course.’

He beamed. ‘I’d like that. And we can still be friends?’

‘Always.’

‘Don’t blame Nathan for that near-miss business. Blame Marcus Kirkby and my fearfully selfish sister. She put him up to it, never having forgiven you for spoiling her engagement. Though I doubt he’d ever have married her. Nathan always loved you, not Selene, and she knew it. Pay her off and start afresh, Lily. Time you left Barwick House in any case. All debts to the Clermont-Reads are cleared, as, I hope, are ours to you. There’s a new world dawning where class ain’t so important. Make what you will of it, Lily, your life is your own.’

It was the most profound speech she had ever heard him make, and for a moment they gazed upon each other with warm compassion, wanting to say so much more but not knowing how.

‘I’ll do the decent thing,’ he said at last. ‘Give you the divorce and so on. Be happy.’

Then he kissed her cheek, said he would send George up for his luggage and walked out of the door, and from her life.

Lily stood for a long while with her hand clasped to her mouth, unable to move, unable to take in what had just occurred. She was free. The trap had opened.

Debts paid, he’d said. And they were. Hers to Margot and Bertie for using up the last of Edward’s money on The Cobbles. The Clermont-Reads’ to her for killing Dick. She’d lost little Amy, her darling first child, but she still had Thomas, strong and healthy. Time at last to put the past behind them and go forward. Time to grasp happiness with both hands.

But would he still want her after all the hurt and the accusations? ‘He’ll hate me.’

‘It’s true, he might, Betty said, as she helped mop Lily’s tears with a corner of her apron. ‘Since you never believed a word he said and he were telling the truth all along. But you won’t know for sure unless you go and ask, now will you?’

‘Dare I even try?’

‘I’ll pack your things, just in case, shall I? And Master Thomas’s, while you go and find out where your future is to be. You can telephone me later.’

‘Oh, Betty.’

‘Go on with you, while you have the courage.’

Lily didn’t wait for the ferry. She drove herself in the
Faith,
not wanting to talk to Arnie or anyone at this moment. Making the steam-yacht fast at the pier, she ran along the slatted boards, not pausing at his office for dusk was already falling and she knew he wouldn’t be there. She passed the boathouses without a second glance, ran up Fisher’s Brow so fast she nearly expired for lack of breath at the top of it. Oblivious to the curious glances of people who stopped to watch her pass, she ran on, one hand pressed to her aching side. Only when she reached Mallard Street did she slow to a walk, and came at last to Drake Road.

Perhaps he had heard the sound of her hurrying feet, the clip of her heels on the cobbles. Or perhaps there was a more mundane reason, such as Betty telephoning to say she was coming. Whatever the reason, he was waiting for her at the door, and all she had to do was walk into his arms. Oh, it felt so good to be home.

1916

Prologue

The windows of the house were ablaze with light as the young girl dragged herself on leaden feet down the seemingly endless driveway, though she guessed her deathly tiredness made it seem longer than it actually was. The farm or manor house, whatever it may be, was by no means grand. Solid and square and grey in the evening light, there was a bare, unloved quality about it that chilled her. Yet since it was the first glimpse of civilisation she had seen for miles in this bleak Lakes country, she kept her eyes fixed on those lights like heavenly beacons and, gritting her teeth, plodded steadily onward.

The wind moaned through a thicket of trees, making the boughs creak and grind together as if they might at any moment tumble down upon her. Rain-soaked hair whipped like a lash against her frozen cheeks but she did not trouble to wipe it away. Once her hair would have borne a sheen as fine as that of her short silk dress; now it was tangled and dirty, uncombed for days, just as the dress was torn and spoiled. Even the thin wool coat that was meant to keep out the bitter cold did no such thing, since it too was soaking wet with mud or blood, or both. It had been bought not for any practical purpose but to conform to the vagaries of fashion. She had no thought now for such niceties.

Not that she had any right to complain. Men were dying in worse conditions on the battlefields of France; dying in a war not of their making. But then she hadn’t committed a sin against mankind either, only against society.

It occurred to her that the bewildering number of lights could indicate that the people within were entertaining guests; they might not take kindly to being interrupted by a bedraggled ragamuffin covered in mud, shivering on their doorstep in her sodden clothing. She should perhaps seek out the kitchen door or servants’ entrance, beg a bowl of hot water from a housekeeper or maid so she could wash before making her request. Mama would wish her at least to present herself well. The thought, coming so unexpectedly and automatically, made her almost laugh out loud, but then the pain gripped her again and she gasped, falling to her knees as it knotted her spine, straddled the swell of her stomach and dragged piercingly down into her groin.

She clutched at a nearby drystone wall, her finger nails breaking in the rough lichen. How much longer could she bear it? As the worst of the pain ebbed away, she pressed her heated brow against the iron-cold stone. Was this how death came, with red-hot pincers?

What if they - the people at this house - refused to give her shelter? They knew nothing of her and her troubles, so why should they agree? Where then would she go? How could she survive yet another night in this wild, empty country? Her time was near.

With the last dregs of her energy, the girl pulled herself upright and, redoubling her efforts, reached a low flight of stone steps that led up through a wide storm porch to a solid oak door. She doubted her ability to climb them, let alone reach the high polished brass knocker. Her feet slipped on the rough stone chippings and she half fell, half sank thankfully upon the lowest step with an agonised cry, as the pain sliced through her back bone once more with merciless precision.

1930

One

His first sight of them brought the blood rushing to his head. He could actually hear it pounding in his ears.

The golden light of evening bathed their milk-white bodies in an almost ethereal glow. They had lit several candles on the shingle beside the tarn since it was both Hallowe’en and the boy’s birthday. The flickering flames were reflected a hundred times in the ripples of the water as they splashed and dived beneath the sheltering willow and alder trees. Their laughter drifted across to him on a wayward breeze, bounced back by the surrounding Lakeland mountains, and fear rose in his throat like bile.

A rope hung from a tree down into the water and the girl’s head came up beside it, shaking the sparkling water from the copper locks of her long hair. Then she dipped once more beneath the ripples, twisting her slender body up and over, again and again, like a young otter at play, or some kind of golden water sprite.

When she climbed out of the tam to run along the tree branch, as graceful and slender as a gazelle, he saw how the young breasts were already budding with promise, the swell of her hips and a small triangle of curled hair indicating the first signs of womanhood. She showed not the slightest sense of embarrassment at being naked before the boy, proving that this was not the first time they had swum together thus.

James Hollinthwaite lifted his hand from the rock he had been holding, and found it starred with blood.

What a blind fool he’d been! Why hadn’t he anticipated this? Done something about it.

Because, like a moth attracted to lamplight, he could not resist keeping her in his sight.

But then to be fair to himself, he’d thought of them still as children. Yet they were fourteen, with childhood almost gone. He stepped hack into the shadows, anxious not to be seen, knowing they should not have come to the tarn without supervision, that some ill could befall them if he didn’t send them off home at once. But he did nothing.

Hollinthwaite had never thought himself a coward in all his forty-five years he had faced many trials and tribulations, lived through a general strike and a World War, and met and dealt with them all in the certain knowledge that he was a man in control of his own destiny. He owned a profitable farm, a bobbin mill, and a large parcel of woodland which supplied all the timber it needed. He must be one of the biggest employers of labour in the valley, if not the whole Furness peninsular, thereby gaining himself a position of respect in the community.

He would survive this recent depression better than most. New York might crash and shares fall, but since he’d had the sense to put his money in land, which they’d never be making any more of, he’d do all right. Land would always go up in value, if one bided one’s time, and he had every intention of coming out of this financial crisis with his fortune not only intact, but increased.

He possessed a wife, beautiful and talented, if not so compliant as he would like her to be. Most important of all, he’d got himself a son.

But now, for the first time in his life, he felt matters were slipping out of his control, a state of affairs he abhorred.

Turning his gaze back to the two bathers, ignorant still of his presence, he was forced to admit their air of innocence. But how long did such innocence last? His thoughts grew darker, soured and curdled like bad milk in his mouth.

‘Catch me, Rob,’ she squealed, as once again she jumped into the water. Dragging his gaze back to the boy who ran close behind, reaching for her just a second too late, James saw for the first time, that his son too was near manhood, and the expression in the boy’s bright eyes as he leapt after her told all.

Blind anger erupted, raging through him like a summer storm. The pain of it spread through his chest and ran down his arms like fire. For a moment Hollinthwaite thought he might actually pass out. The urge to pull the heedless, ignorant boy from the water, cart him off home and thrash the life out of him, was almost overpowering. James clenched his two great fists, managing by dint of enormous will-power not to hammer them into the trunk of a nearby alder. He wanted to slap the wanton girl for this flagrant breach of convention, her lack of propriety and shamelessness. Instead he stood transfixed by her beauty, making not a sound as she skipped and ducked and ran between the flickering candles, leaping in and out of the water in a hectic game of tag. He became bewitched by the mounting excitement that flowed between these two young creatures who stood on the brink of adulthood. Sweetly innocent they may be as yet, but dear God, how long before this magical, breathless aura of gilded youth changed to something much less wholesome, far more potent, and a thousand times more dangerous?

Why did he hate her so? Because she was rebellious and undisciplined, or simply a burr beneath his skin that would not leave him alone? Already there had been times when she had looked at him with something like insolence in those damned fine eyes of hers. And she had a brain far too agile and knowing for a child’s.

Even as he fought the urge to bellow his fury at them, the girl raised her arms above her head and, lifting her hair from her neck in a languid gesture, let it tumble down loosely over her bare shoulders. It glowed like molten fire in the dying sunlight as she walked on sure feet along the tree branch. James heard her gurgle of laughter, saw that the simple action held the boy’s gaze spellbound; saw her raise herself high on her toes and dive cleanly into the pool, a perfect arc formed by a perfect lithe body. When she surfaced she was laughing, her lovely young face bright with joy - and something else. Knowledge. Power. The age-old wisdom of all beautiful women.

An urge to turn and run hit him for the first time in his life. His entire body began to tremble at what must inevitably happen next.

But he was wrong. The pair stood inches apart in the water, not moving, not touching, simply gazing at each other as if they had made a tremendous discovery. It seemed worse, somehow, than any fumbling adolescent caresses.

It was then that he made his decision.

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