Wild Lily (6 page)

‘Did she have the farm cart and the farm horses too?’

‘Yes, she did. Mr Sylvester was very kind, and also paid for the food and drink.’

Lily was sad that she had not been able to provide her father with such good care as her mother had. She did her best, but she couldn’t help being a rowdy, untidy, slap-dash sort of girl. At least she had a lot of energy and managed to keep things going, as well as work quite hard for a living. She wasn’t a droopy useless thing like some of the girls, Melanie Marsden for example. And her father rarely complained and actually, every now and then, called her a good girl. He was very forbearing.

‘Is Mummy coming back?’ Squashy asked.

‘No, not ever. She’s gone to heaven,’ Lily said.

‘What’s it like up there?’

‘Very nice. She’s very happy. If you’re good you’ll go there one day.’

Squashy wasn’t impressed. ‘I’d rather go to Guildford.’

Lily cleared away the dishes and took hot water from the range to wash up. Her father went out to water the young cabbages and Squashy went out with his catapult to try and kill something. So far he had had no success.

Just before he went back to school Antony talked to Lily about the parachute he had acquired along with his aeroplane. He seemed to be fascinated by the thought of flying high and jumping out to float serenely down to earth.

‘It must be a terrific feeling. I would love to do it. I’ve asked around at Brooklands if someone would take me up so that I can try it, but no one would. They all say these chutes work so well it’s as safe as houses, but they won’t let me try. I think they’re scared of my father. I tell them he need never know, but they won’t.’

He had never taken Lily up again, much to her disappointment. Simon and John were forbidden, but Cedric enjoyed it and went up a few times. Lily knew though that Antony found Cedric boring with his obsession of spying on all the neighbouring farms. If he had taught her to fly too she could take him up and he could jump out with his parachute. She pointed this out to him, but he laughed her to scorn.

‘Teach you to fly! You’re mad, Lily! That’s why I like you so.
But, for a treat, I could take you up and you could jump out with the parachute – how would you like that?’

Lily tried not to show how the idea frightened her. The awful thing about her relationship with Antony, she recognized, was what a puppet she was: if he said dance, she danced. Anything to please him. But to jump out of the aeroplane … the idea was terrifying.

‘I’ll think about it,’ she said tightly.

‘You’re such a good sport, Lily. It would be great. Just us two. No one need ever know. We can find a nice airstrip, a private one where you can land safely, and I can come down after to pick you up. What a lark, eh? Until I can find someone to take me up, that is.’

Lily prayed that this might happen. But she doubted it. And, strangely enough, after the first shock, the idea that Antony had voiced was not completely unappealing. If she could really believe it was safe, the thought of swinging down through the sky from a great height had a fascination she could not deny. The more she thought about it the more the strangeness and the beauty of it took hold in her imagination. After all, she had been terrified with her flight, but it had turned out to be magic, something she would never forget. Her life was so boring and, as far as she could see, would always be so, without an education to take her out into the world, her father and Squashy to look after all her life and the unrelenting hard work – perhaps these moments that Antony offered, when her muddy heart took flight into realms she would never ordinarily reach, should be taken willingly,
greedily, to feed great memories into her dull future. All this only came to her long after Antony first broached the idea.

He said, ‘I’ll try and find the right place, and we’ll do it, if you’re not afraid. I suppose we’ll have to wait until the spring, because of the weather. Not much good at Christmas. Aunt Maud is coming at Christmas, God help us, but after that, in the summer, we’ve got the party to arrange – that’ll be fun, and your jump – great stuff.’

‘I thought you were supposed to be thinking about your career. You’ll be leaving school soon. What are you going to do?’

The ever-present thought of Antony’s departure from her life haunted Lily more and more these days. However long did these boys take to be educated? He never spoke about going to university, like Simon and John.

‘Do? Enjoy myself, of course,’ was the flippant answer.

If he went, Lily thought she might as well die.

When Antony went back to school Lily counted the days until Christmas. If he wanted her to jump, she knew she would. Strangely, she started to look forward to it. She wondered if she was capable of actually doing it when the moment came – she might be too petrified and seize up, unable to move. It occupied her thoughts all the time she was working at the mindless tasks she spent her days with: cleaning, digging, shopping, cooking, weeding, washing, running errands. Although
she had thought she might spend more time with Helena, Rose and Violet thought differently and turned her away if she tried to visit. She hated going into the big house on her own and decided she couldn’t persevere with it, in spite of Antony’s wish that she should. He didn’t own her, after all.

‘What’s this Aunt Maud like, that’s coming at Christmas?’ she asked her father. ‘Is she nice?’

‘Battle-axe. Old battle-axe.’

Just Antony’s luck, Lily thought.

‘Funny a brother and sister being called Claude and Maud. I suppose if you called one they both came. Save breath.’

‘They were orphaned quite early on, left a packet. There’s only money in that family, no love.’

Antony’s got me, Lily thought, feeling warm and devout. He will always have me.

She didn’t tell her father about the parachute jump.

Aunt Maud arrived before Antony came home and made her presence known at once. She had a very large dog with her which needed exercising.

‘Hey, you, girl!’ she shouted, as Lily trundled a barrow of weeds towards the compost heap for her father. ‘Come here!’

Lily came.

‘This dog needs about two miles at least, every day. If you
do it for me, I’ll give you twopence. That’s generous, for just enjoying yourself. Suit you?’

Lily considered saying that no, it didn’t, but a close look at Aunt Maud persuaded her that it would not be wise. She had an aggressive, masculine stance, foursquare on the drive in her long, belted leather overcoat, felt hat pulled firmly down on her big grim head, little grey eyes beadily taking in Lily’s inadequate presence. She was not a kind smiling auntie as in children’s books but, as Gabriel had predicted, a battle-axe.

‘What’s his name?’

‘Ludo. Be firm with him.’

‘What is he?’

‘A dog.’

‘I mean—’

‘A dog of no pedigree. It’s of no consequence. Here, take the lead.’

The dog of no pedigree was a good deal more amiable than his mistress and Squashy and Barky both took to him with delight. Lily’s heart lifted, seeing that walking the dog, to obey a demand from above, was something her father could scarcely condemn given as Aunt Maud was in lieu of his employer. Ludo was large and brown and sweetly obedient, like a larger Barky. The two dogs of no consequence quickly became like brothers. Seeing them together gave Squashy such delight that their father grudgingly permitted him to do the dog-walking together with Lily.

‘Interfering old bitch,’ he muttered though, as Lily and Squashy danced away across the park.

‘Can I have him?’ Squashy asked Lily. ‘For my own? Like Barky.’

‘No. He belongs to Miss Sylvester.’

‘I shall steal him.’

‘She will know where he is. She will come for him and have you put in prison.’

Squashy started to cry.

‘Don’t be silly. Of course you won’t go to prison. You can take Ludo for walks all the while she’s here and that’s good enough.’

Sometimes Squashy drove her mad. But walking the dogs every morning was more fun than most of the things she had to do, so bully for Aunt Maud, Lily thought. If the dog loved her she couldn’t be that bad.

Mr Sylvester was generous to all his staff at Christmas and gave them big joints of meat and branches of holly, and delicacies for the old and sick. At home he didn’t bother much but Aunt Maud took over, stoking up the fires in the gaunt rooms and organizing the festive dinner. The kitchen staff and the housemaids were all terrified of her and complained to Antony, but he told them he was terrified of her as well and there was nothing he could do about it. He kept well out of her way.

Rose and Violet complained that she was upsetting Helena, but there was nothing Antony could do about that either.

‘That girl should get out more,’ Aunt Maud declared.
‘There must be some way of educating her, this day and age. Claude does nothing to improve her life, shutting her away with those two demented women.’

Antony agreed with her, but what could he do? ‘Talk to Father about it.’

‘He’s so wrapped up in his work, thinks money solves everything. Throws it at you two – Eton for you, a mindless paradise for Helena – solved, as far as he is concerned. Useless. Eton’s done nothing for you save keep you out of his way. Not that I’ve noticed, at least. Bored? Buy you an aeroplane. Problem solved. So what are you going to do, Antony, when you leave school next year?’

‘I’m not going to university.’

‘I said, what are you going to do? Not, what are you
not
going to do?’

Antony realized that his flippant answer to the same question from Lily – ‘
enjoy myself
’ – would not go down very well with his aunt. His latest, vague idea had been to hang around Brooklands, although not actually to work. He didn’t think that would impress his aunt. A bit of motor racing appealed, if his father would finance it. Somehow he didn’t think Aunt Maud would be impressed.

‘I haven’t really thought about it much.’

‘That seems to me to be your whole attitude to life. You’ve got a brain, haven’t you? Good heavens, Antony, you’re a man now. Are you so spineless that you are going to trail along in your father’s wake, spending his money, being quite useless? You could come and live with me in Hampstead if you want
and get a job in the City. Start a business. Or go abroad and see the world. I’m sure your father would finance that.’

The idea frightened Antony. He had never thought much about going abroad: it did not interest him. He had a very parochial outlook. He knew his limits: a fair amount of brain, but little initiative, indolent, lacking ambition. He had no core. He wasn’t brave: flying the aeroplane had proved that. He knew himself quite well, and sometimes it filled him with despair. He wasn’t even mad on girls like most of his friends. The adoring Lily pleased him, but he wanted no more of her. What was wrong with him? He only teased her with Melanie Marsden to see her spark up. The fun he had with the boys in Eton was more to his taste, but where did that get you? In prison, if the worst happened. The only idea he had with what to do with his life was very short term, as far as the great party he planned in the summer, in the grotto, but he would hardly tell that to Aunt Maud.

‘I will talk to your father about it.’

This did not frighten Antony, for his father would just take the easy way out, whatever it was. Perhaps he was more like his father than he had realized? He had never thought of this before. He was not responsible for his deficiencies, he couldn’t help it! This thought cheered him considerably. He was just like his father! With luck he might have inherited his father’s genius for making money.

For the time being he turned to making plans for Lily to do the parachute jump and to making arrangements for his big party. Lily’s jump first. He was convinced there was no danger
in it, but not convinced when the moment came she would be brave enough to jump. He wouldn’t be able to make her, after all. But she was a very spunky girl and he had hopes. If only he could do it himself! He determined, after Lily had had her go, to get a pilot at Brooklands to take him up. When his father was away in the summer would be a good time. His father need never know. For enough money, someone would oblige him, especially as they all told him it was as safe as houses.

His father was going to South America in June or July, so that was when he would have his party. At the time of a full moon.

His Eton friends were all to camp by the lake, or bed down in the house with their own gear if they wanted, and they could have the run of the kitchen as he was going to give all the staff time off. Getting rid of Violet and Rose was his biggest problem, for the party was for Helena. She would be dressed in her most beautiful clothes and come to the grotto in a punt. Of course Violet and Rose would not allow it, so they would have to be locked in somewhere out of the way. He wasn’t sure yet how he would manage this, but it could be worked out easily enough he was sure. Alcohol might come into it. He was sure they were secret drinkers. Then the party would take place in the grotto, which would be lit with hundreds of candles and the food and drink would all be spread in the great interior cave with the fountains playing, and everyone would come by water and music would be played and there would be dancing and swimming under the light of a full
moon. He had the invitations already given out, only the date to be finalized.

‘You haven’t given me one,’ Lily said.

‘I don’t need to. I know you’ll be there.’

‘You will need me.’

‘Yes, I’ll need you.’

It was so exciting just talking about it, and with Simon and John and Cedric helping to work out the sequence of events, the parking, the ordering of the food, the hiring of the tableware – ‘No, forget that. We’ve got mountains of plates in the dining-room cupboards – we can use those.’ Mountains of incredibly valuable china, Spode and Minton and Crown Derby, Lily thought, but she knew better than to protest.

‘We can punt it all across the day before, and everything we need. The food can be delivered straight there, we can carry it across the bridge ourselves. It will be ready-cooked, the joints and hams, and the desserts all made up, I’ve worked it all out, what to order.’

‘And the drink of course,’ said Simon.

‘Yes, from Father’s wine merchant. He knows.’

‘What, your father?’

‘No, the wine merchant, ass. I’m tipping him to keep it under his hat.’

‘Your father’s bound to find out.’

‘Yes, but it’ll be long over when he comes home. And he won’t mind. He’s never given me a party in my life before so I’ll say it’s a birthday party really, a bit late. That’s all. He owes it me.’

Lily was pretty sure it was not going to be the sort of birthday party Antony’s father would approve of, but nobody mentioned the obvious. It was too much fun doing it their own way. Lily had been told not to tell her father, but she knew that he was already aware of something going on, and so was probably most of the village. He didn’t ask her, saying only, obscurely, ‘Know nought, say nought, that’s my motto.’

‘Maybe you could do your jump at the party, Lily, when we’ve practised it first. It would be fantastic—’