Where Earth Meets Sky (26 page)

‘Lily?’ He stood before her, seeming unable to say any more either, his eyes searching her face. And then he retreated into formality. ‘I hope you don’t mind my calling.’

‘We must get away from here.’ It was the first thing she could think of. She could not let Dr McBride come home and find her here talking to another man, let alone one who meant so much to her.

‘Well, if that’s what you’d like,’ Sam said, startled by the urgency in her voice. ‘Whatever’s convenient.’

‘We must go – quickly . . .’ Frantic, she snatched up her coat and hat and hurriedly put them on, words tumbling from her lips. ‘We’ll go along the Camel’s Back Road. I walk there often and it’s fairly quiet. He won’t come there but we must be back by midday . . .’

She saw Sam looking strangely at her and when she’d led him, half running, up the steps out of the garden and turned right along the path, he stopped her, putting a hand on her arm, in a way which felt so familiar she almost wanted to weep.

‘Lily, what’s the matter? You seem in such a state – all nerves, and so pale and thin! Not like before. What are you so frightened about?’

It was only then that she felt how true that was, how overwrought was her constant state living with the McBrides and how frightened she was of the doctor. But she couldn’t begin to put this into words.

‘I’m not in an easy situation here in some ways,’ she said abruptly. She still felt they were too near the house and she wanted to stop him asking difficult questions. ‘Let’s walk on. Why are you here? To deliver another motor car?’

‘Yes – to the Fairfords again. He wanted the latest model . . . The thing is, they’re here, Lily. Staying in a house about a mile away. It was all rather sudden. I asked after you, of course, and they said you were up here. And it was Mrs Fairford – she suggested that they come here instead of going to Simla. I don’t think she’s all that keen on Simla and she wanted a change, and she said she’d like to see you. She’s very taken with the way you’ve kept up the contact with young Cosmo all this time. I rather think she misses you.’

‘Yes, I hear from her now and then,’ Lily said. ‘I missed her when I first came here, and Cosmo, of course, but I haven’t missed Ambala and the cantonment life much. You can see why they all want to get away from it.’

‘It seems very nice here.’ Sam looked across at the scene unfolding to their right from the Camel’s Back Road. ‘This is a beautiful place. My goodness, it is.’

They walked for a moment in silence. Lily was wearing a skirt in dark red wool. She became acutely aware of everything: the movement of her skirt, the sounds of their boots on the path, of the astonishing fact of Sam here beside her after all this time, his left hand at his side, so close, and of the huge, longing ache which rose in her which she knew she must suppress.

‘How is your wife?’ she asked, sharply.

‘She’s well, thank you. Yes, going along all right.’

‘And children?’ She didn’t look at him, but ahead, at the gateway to the cemetery which they were approaching, with its monsoon-stained paint.

‘Yes. We have two daughters, Ann and Nancy.’ Sam’s tone was stiff, as if somehow he did not want to give her the information.

‘How old?’ She wanted to drill him, to make him suffer, yet she knew it would be herself who suffered the most from hearing about his family.

‘Ann is two and a half, Nancy just over a year.’ He did not look at her, but peered at the plaque inside the cemetery gatehouse:
MDCCCXXVIII – I am the Resurrection and the Life.

‘And do they look like you?’ She glanced at him then, those familiar, intent eyes, the dark moustache. How close she had once been to every detail of him. A kind of tremor went through her, remembering the feel of his body as they had held each other.
Stop it
, she raged at herself.
It should never have happened.
They were passing the grounds of the cemetery on their right and both of them instinctively walked towards the fence and leaned on it.

‘Ann does, yes. Nancy favours her mother.’ They looked down at the stone crosses and angels among the tall conifers, sunlight shining between the branches and white flowers scattered like stars in the grass.

‘And what does her mother look like?’ Lily was relentless. She knew she was being hostile, but she couldn’t manage the hurt she felt any other way.

‘She’s . . . Well, her hair is sort of, I suppose you’d call it toffee-coloured . . .’ He was tremendously uncomfortable, she could see. For a moment he stared ahead of him, tapping one hand on the fence in an agitated way. Then abruptly he turned to her.

‘Lily, for God’s sake – I had to come and see you. Don’t keep on like this!’

‘Like what? I’m asking about your family, that’s all. The family you somehow didn’t think to tell me about the last time you were here.’

She didn’t meet his eyes. A lump had come up in her throat which made it hard to speak and her cheeks were aflame. How humiliating to show this emotion, all the feelings that had erupted back up in her that she hoped she had long ago laid to rest.

‘I know,’ Sam said wretchedly. The long pent-up words poured out of him. ‘It was wrong of me – utterly wrong. But I was in love with you, Lily . . . So in love in a way I’d never been before – and never have been in my life apart from with you. You bring out feelings in me which no one else . . . I
had
to get to know you, had to love you. If I’d told you then you would never have had anything to do with me, would you? It would have been terrible . . .’

‘And it’s been terrible ever since!’ It came out in an anguished wail, and she found she was overtaken by sobs, quite unable to hold back. She put her hands over her face, her shoulders shaking. ‘Oh God, Sam, I wish I’d never met you so I didn’t know how it was possible to feel . . .’

‘Oh, Lily . . . Lily, my sweet love . . .’

She moved her hands away from her cheeks, which were running with tears, and saw the anguish on his face.

‘My lovely Lily. I just . . . I didn’t know what to do, to say . . . You were so angry and I knew I’d done wrong. When you left the house in the
tonga
that day I felt as if I was being torn apart . . .’ He seemed about to weep too, but controlled himself.

‘I married Helen because I thought I loved her. I’ve tried to be true. I’ve been a good husband in every other way – we don’t go short. We have our children, our house . . .’ He stopped and drew in a deep breath. ‘And not a day goes by when I don’t think of you, Lily. I told myself it would wear off, that I’d forget – you know, knuckle down, get on with my work . . . But it’s been like that ever since I left, and I try . . . The thought of you is like an
ache
that I can never seem to lose.’ Daring to move closer, he put his hand on her shoulder and said helplessly, ‘You’re the woman I love. But . . . in another way it’s all wrong! I’m married, responsibilities . . . I just don’t know what to do. I just love you – that’s all I know.’

‘Oh, Sam!’ Lily felt her hurt and anger melt away in the face of his sadness and her heart was filled with tenderness. She drank in the sight of him, so full of sorrow and so lovely to her. ‘I was so hurt, so sure you’d deceived me just to play with me, as if I was a little diversion while you were away from home. And I didn’t want to believe that because I felt so much for you. But you were married – what was I to think?’

‘I don’t know.’ He took his cap off and rubbed his head as if to try and order his thoughts. ‘You couldn’t have thought any different. How could you know whether to trust me? And why should you have trusted me when I wasn’t telling you the truth?’ He replaced his hat and looked into her eyes. ‘I’m so sorry. You have my heart, Lily. But even now . . .’

‘You’re still married,’ she finished for him, soberly.

‘But, my God, I don’t
want
to be, not to her.’ There was great sadness and regret in his voice. ‘Seeing you again . . . Oh, my love, you’re really here . . .’

He was looking down at her, seeming about to kiss her when a giggling group of Indian girls from one of the local schools came past, dressed in red and navy-blue uniforms. Lily and Sam turned and looked down over the cemetery again until the children had moved on.

‘I mustn’t be long,’ Lily said, remembering with a jolt of panic. For those moments Dr McBride had seemed like another life. But here she was and he was horribly real.

‘You seem so nervous. What’s wrong?’ Sam was concerned.

‘Nothing.’ How could she say what her status was in the McBride household? A servant-cum-mistress, to be controlled and used? For that was the truth of it and she saw now how she had let herself slide down and down into it. ‘It’s just that they’re very particular about punctuality.’

He was staring at her, as if he could still scarcely believe she was here. ‘God, girl . . .’

‘How long are you staying?’ she asked. Suddenly she was excited. It would be lovely to see the Fairfords as well! She would hear more of Cosmo.

‘I’ll be here for two weeks. I expect Mrs Fairford and Isadora will be staying during the heat. That’ll be nice for you, won’t it? They said to ask you to call in as soon as you can. Can you get away? You have time off, I take it.’

Lily’s mind was working fast. The one thing the doctor must not find out on any account was that she was meeting Sam. But she knew that if she said the Fairford family were here in Mussoorie and she would be visiting Mrs Fairford, that would be just about acceptable, unless he was in an especially difficult or demanding mood, when nothing she did except giving him her full and slavish attention would do.

‘Oh yes – of course I’ll come! I’d like to see Mrs Fairford very much.’

‘And me . . . ?’

‘Oh, Sam.’ Her eyes were full of pain as she looked up at him. ‘Have you come to break my heart all over again?’

With great solemnity he said, ‘No, Lily. No. I’ve come to be with the woman I love, and have loved ever since I saw her.’

And uncaring of who might be watching, he took her in his arms and kissed her passionately.

Lily lay awake much of that night. The doctor had left her alone, to her enormous relief, but she felt as if her heart had been broken open and her emotions were raw and strong. Sam Ironside loved her and she loved him, and she was so full of tremulous joy, as well as fear and disquiet about what that might mean, that she could hardly bear even to lie down. All she could think of was his face, his words of love to her. Her body was full of restless energy and in the small hours she got up and walked around the room trying to quiet herself.

The most immediate worry was how she was going to see anything of Sam without the doctor finding out. The very thought of her anywhere near another man would send him into a jealous rage.

And then a miracle happened. Before he went out to his surgery the next morning, Dr McBride said, ‘I’ve had a wire from an old friend, Duncan McCluskie – he trained with me in Edinburgh. He’s doing a spot of work in Patna for a few months and he’s coming up to pay a visit. He’ll be arriving at about tiffin time. So things will be different for a few days, Lily. I shan’t be able to spend as much time with you, I’m afraid. You’ll have to find ways to amuse yourself.’

Lily felt her eyes widen and had to suppress a grin of astonished delight. She seized her chance immediately.

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she said, trying to look sober and talking in the quiet, careful way she always used with him now. ‘But perhaps it’s a happy chance. You see, I heard yesterday that the family I worked for in Ambala are staying here in Mussoorie and I was going to ask you if I might visit and spend some time with them.’ She couched the request very humbly. ‘Would that be all right, while you have a visitor yourself?’

‘This is Captain Fairford’s family, I take it?’ he asked. There was an edge of suspicion but he seemed in a good humour. ‘Who will be there, d’you suppose?’

‘So far as I know, just the captain and his wife and daughter and a handful of servants,’ Lily said. ‘And I should very much like to see Mrs Fairford and Isadora, their daughter. I spent a lot of time with them, you see.’

Dr McBride seemed reassured. He came and gave her a fatherly pat on the shoulder, then kissed her on the lips, forcing his tongue into her mouth. ‘That sounds like a nice little holiday for you, my dear, to spend time with your old mistress. And you deserve a little break. You’ll be here at nights, of course, if I need you.’

‘Of course,’ Lily agreed, her heart soaring with excitement. She could hardly believe how easily he seemed to accept the thought of her going out, and realized it was because he saw no threat to his control. ‘Things will be just as normal, dear.’

When it came to meeting Sam again later that morning, as she had arranged to do, Lily was full of misgiving. She felt shy of meeting him, as if they would have to break the ice again.

She wore a favourite dress stitched in raw silk of kingfisher blue and a blue hat to match. The costume looked very striking set against her sultry colouring and she saw Sam react to the sight of her. He was waiting just where she had asked him to, at the corner of the road leading up into Kulri Bazaar. There was a strong smell of frying onions and spices in the spring air and she breathed in happily, catching sight of Sam standing, looking rather self-conscious on the corner, beside a cow with sharp horns that was trying to nibble his sleeve.