Where Earth Meets Sky Read online

  Where Earth Meets Sky

  Annie Murray

  Pan Macmillan (2010)

  Tags: Sagas, Historical, Fiction

  * * *

  Synopsis

  Beautiful, dark-haired Lily has been abandoned in a Birmingham slum as a tiny child. With few clues as to her identity she endures a childhood of loneliness and loss. At eighteen she applies for a post as nanny with the family of a Captain Fairford, a soldier in Ambala, north India and his highly strung wife Susan. Lily is drawn into the emotional life of the Fairford family and adores her charge, two year old Cosmo. When, in 1907, Captain Fairford orders a new Daimler car, it is brought out by a young motor mechanic, Sam Ironside. Sam and Lily fall deeply in love, and it is only later that Lily learns that Sam is married and feels utterly betrayed. When Cosmo is later sent home to school, Lily finds another post with a Dr. McBride and his invalid wife, in a beautiful Himalayan hill station. The place is idyllic, and Lily settles for a quiet life. However, she is unprepared for the pain and misunderstandings that follow and force her to run from everything she has known . . . Where Earth Meets Sky takes us from Edwardian England and the British Raj, through the darkness of the Great War to the glamour of Brooklands Race Track in the 1920s. Spanning two continents, it is a story of enduring friendships and two hearts which cannot be kept apart.

  Where Earth Meets Sky

  Annie Murray

  Pan Macmillan (2010)

  Tags: Fiction, Historical, Sagas

  * * *

  Synopsis

  Beautiful, dark-haired Lily has been abandoned in a Birmingham slum as a tiny child. With few clues as to her identity she endures a childhood of loneliness and loss. At eighteen she applies for a post as nanny with the family of a Captain Fairford, a soldier in Ambala, north India and his highly strung wife Susan. Lily is drawn into the emotional life of the Fairford family and adores her charge, two year old Cosmo. When, in 1907, Captain Fairford orders a new Daimler car, it is brought out by a young motor mechanic, Sam Ironside. Sam and Lily fall deeply in love, and it is only later that Lily learns that Sam is married and feels utterly betrayed. When Cosmo is later sent home to school, Lily finds another post with a Dr. McBride and his invalid wife, in a beautiful Himalayan hill station. The place is idyllic, and Lily settles for a quiet life. However, she is unprepared for the pain and misunderstandings that follow and force her to run from everything she has known . . . Where Earth Meets Sky takes us from Edwardian England and the British Raj, through the darkness of the Great War to the glamour of Brooklands Race Track in the 1920s. Spanning two continents, it is a story of enduring friendships and two hearts which cannot be kept apart.

  ANNIE MURRAY

  Where Earth Meets Sky

  PAN BOOKS

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Chapter One

  Birmingham, 1905

  ‘Don’t cry over me, Lily, my dear girl! I’ve had such a very good life – you mustn’t grieve.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Chappell, I can’t help it,’ Lily sobbed, as she sat beside the dying woman whose motherly kindness she had known during these past, precious years. ‘You’ve been so very good to me!’

  She had waited all evening, in an agony of pent-up emotion, for Mrs Chappell’s jealous son Horace to allow her to pay her last respects to the woman she loved so much.

  ‘You’ve been like a daughter, you know that . . .’ Mrs Chappell’s rasping whisper came to her. The lids flickered over her blue eyes. She was fading fast.

  Lily sat in the candlelight beside the big comfortable bed with its silk drapes. She clung desperately to the shrunken hand of this woman into whose household she had arrived as a scullery maid when she was thirteen. In her own grief and loss Maud Chappell had, over the years, grown to depend on Lily as a companion. Mrs Chappell’s body had fast become frail with her illness. She did not look any more like the comforting figure who had dressed in pretty, floating clothes, who adored small children, beaming at them with her beautiful, loving eyes. The light of her life was failing and her sons were in the house, waiting. Lily told herself that they were full of pain at losing their mother, that it was their sorrow that made them so harsh, especially Horace, the older brother. They had kept her out of the room all evening, only reluctantly letting her in now it was so late.

  ‘Mother’s asking for you,’ Horace had said, stiff with resentment. ‘You’d better go up.’

  Now she was here she sat in dread of them coming to tell her to go again.

  ‘Oh, Mrs Chappell,’ she whispered, looking down at the ravaged face, her own tears flowing again. She felt her heart was being torn in two. ‘What’s going to become of me without you?’

  Mrs Chappell was a year off her seventieth birthday, and until her illness had looked younger than her years, with her soft, glowing complexion and cheerful ways. But she was much changed now, months of sickness taking their toll. She lay with her arms straight, outside the covers, her soft brown hair which had so fast turned grey brushed back from her face. She seemed to have slipped far away into sleep, so that Lily thought she might never wake again. But as if a sign had been given, just as the grandfather clock down in the hall was striking eleven with its gentle ‘bong’, the elderly lady opened her eyes, seeming quite alert, and tried to get up.

  ‘Lily?’

  ‘Yes, dear Mrs Chappell?’ Hope sur
ged through her. Perhaps Mrs Chappell was not dying! She seemed so bright suddenly, as if she might sit up and take some broth.

  ‘I’m still at home, then?’

  ‘Yes, you are. You’re in your own bed.’

  ‘Bring me the picture, please, my dear. Of my Naomi.’

  ‘It’s here – right beside you.’

  She lifted the silver-framed photograph from its position on the bedside table and turned it so that Mrs Chappell could see the face of her dead daughter. Naomi, a dark-eyed beauty, had died of a cruel brain fever when she was only seventeen. It was the last portrait taken of her, her shoulders wrapped in a lace shawl and the young face, never now to age, smiling radiantly from behind the glass as it had for over twenty years.

  Mrs Chappell reached out as if to embrace the portrait, a gentle smile on her lips.

  ‘My darling . . .’ she murmured. And her arms dropped back. She had not the strength.

  ‘I think you’d better fetch my boys,’ she whispered. But she clutched at Lily’s hand to stop her.

  ‘You’ll get a good appointment. You’re so sweet, so beautiful. You be happy, my dear love. Bless you.’

  By the time Lily had fetched Horace and John Chappell up to their mother’s room, she was lying on her pretty, embroidered pillows with her eyes closed and a look of utter peace. She had already left them.

  ‘My mother has left you a small bequest, according to our solicitor,’ Horace Chappell told her. His voice was icy cold.

  Lily stood before him on the Persian rug in Mr Chappell’s old study. Horace had not invited her to sit down.

  They’re kind really, she made herself believe. Mrs Chappell said so. Since Mr Chappell died only three years ago, Mrs Chappell had relied on her sons, Horace and John, for everything. After all, they have looked after their mother, Lily told herself. And don’t they both have wives and families who all look happy and well cared for?

  These were the families who, at Mrs Chappell’s strict instructions that she should be included, she had followed to the funeral: Horace and his wife and three little girls, and John and his wife and twin sons, alike as two peas. None of them had said a word to her or even acknowledged her existence, but of course they were wrapped in grief and she was only a maid. Why would they have any time for her? It was a beautiful June morning with laburnum and lilac in bloom, just the right kind of day for Mrs Chappell’s funeral as she was such a sunny person who loved young life and flowers and pretty things around her. Once the funeral was over, though, they were fast making arrangements to clear and sell the house and seemed to be in a great rush to get it all done and dismiss all their mother’s employees.

  ‘Can’t get shot of us fast enough, can they?’ grumbled Cook, who had worked for Mrs Chappell for more than twenty years.

  ‘I suppose they have a lot of business to sort out – they’re very busy men,’ Lily replied, knowing it was the sort of thing Mrs Chappell would have said because she always tried to see the best in her sons.

  ‘They just want their hands on the money,’ Mary, one of the maids, retorted. ‘Since Mr C died she’s had no say in anything – not with those two vultures in charge. They couldn’t wait to get their father out of the way – no, it’s no good arguing, Lily. You’re just like Mrs C – you’ll see black as white to find the best in someone. You’re going to have to toughen up your ideas when you go away from here! They ain’t all like her, you know.’

  Horace, the older brother, had called her into the study. He had his mother’s blue eyes, but instead of her embracing warmth, his looked cool and calculating. There were official-looking documents laid neatly across the desk.

  ‘My mother left us a number of instructions regarding you and your future,’ he said. He didn’t meet her eye. He had always seemed most uncomfortable in her presence. ‘Far too sultry, that’s your trouble,’ Cook once said. ‘You provoke him.’

  ‘You are very fortunate.’ He held out an envelope. ‘Firstly, this contains references to secure your future. You should be able to attain a very good position.’ He cleared his throat, grimacing, and, as if it pained him to speak, said, ‘My mother has not left you money. She did not think that would be the best thing for your welfare.’ Lily watched him, wondering, after what Mary had said, whether Mrs Chappell had had any money to call her own in any case. ‘But she has left you a number of items of jewellery, from her personal effects.’ He nodded at a small box, inlaid with ivory, on the desk, then looked sternly at her. ‘I believe them to be rather valuable. More than generous, I should say, Miss Horne. And this is where we draw a line. I should like to make clear that after this there is nothing else you can take from this family.’

  Lily was stung to the core by this remark.

  ‘I never . . .’ she stuttered. ‘I never took anything that was wrong or out of place! She wanted me . . .’ The last utterance, the miraculous truth of it, brought her to tears.

  ‘That will be all, Miss Horne.’

  With the envelope and box in her hands Lily fumbled her way from the room, hardly able to see through her tears. She was dreadfully hurt by his unjust, jealous remarks, and overcome by Mrs Chappell leaving her anything at all. Her heart ached with longing for her friend.

  ‘What did he say?’ Cook and the others were all agog to know. They had been told they would each have a turn to be called in.

  ‘She left me some jewellery!’ Lily told them with tears running down her cheeks.

  ‘Well what’re you blarting about?’ Cook demanded. ‘You’re a rum ’un, you are.’

  ‘She was so kind!’ Lily sobbed. Mrs Chappell had been her saviour and friend; she had raised her up from nothing, from her beginnings as an abandoned urchin off the streets. It felt unbearable that she was gone.

  Lily went up to her room at the top of the house and sank down on the edge of her bed. She realized she was still holding the box and envelope. She wanted to look inside in private. Opening the lid of the box she smelled a lovely scent of lavender, and what she saw on the base of the velvet box made her weep all the more. Lying in a pale, glowing coil was Mrs Chappell’s skein of tiny seed pearls. Maud Chappell had always said to her, ‘You should wear pearls, Lily. They would look marvellous on your skin.’ She picked them up, feeling their warm, smooth weight, and held them lovingly to her cheek. ‘Oh, thank you . . .’ she whispered. Also in the box were a matching pearl bracelet and a beautiful opal brooch in a silver setting. Lily laid them out and looked at them in awe.

  Then she remembered the envelope containing her references and she pulled out an expensive piece of notepaper. She could hardly read the warm, praising words through her tears. ‘. . . kind and sweet-natured . . . staunchly honest, hard-working . . . it would represent the greatest good fortune to employ her . . .’

  Overcome, Lily lay on her side and wept heart-brokenly. What tugged so powerfully at her heart in those moments was not the shower of kind words, or the gift of precious jewellery, but the strength of Mrs Chappell’s love and kindness, flowing to her from beyond the grave.

  Chapter Two

  Later, she got up from the bed and poured water from the pitcher to wash her face, sitting to look in the glass tilted over her little white chest of drawers. Her face was blotchy from weeping and her dark eyes stared mournfully back at her. Mrs Chappell’s death had taken away all the safety she had found for the last nine years in her employment and friendship, where she had settled into a household where she knew her place and was treated with ever-increasing kindness.

  When she was fifteen, by which time Lily had worked for nearly two years on the lowest rung of the ladder, Mrs Chappell stopped her one day as Lily was passing through the hall carrying a heavy coal scuttle, dressed in her black maid’s uniform with a white cap and apron. She was pink-cheeked and strong, in good condition from the physical work demanded in the house.

  ‘My goodness!’ Mrs Chappell uttered the words in a shocked tone, as if she had just noticed some terrible fault in the domestic scene. ‘
Wait, child! Stop and look at me!’

  Lily paused, heart pounding. Although she had barely ever had anything to do with Mrs Chappell, by then she knew her employer was usually a gentle lady. What had she done so wrong?

  ‘Come a little closer, dear – er, what is your name again?’

  ‘Lilian Horne.’ I’m in for it now, Lily thought, keeping her eyes lowered, seeing the lower edge of Mrs Chappell’s sage-green skirt and her elegant brown shoes on the polished tiles of the hall.

  ‘Do look at me,’ Maud Chappell said softly. ‘It’s quite all right. You’ve done nothing wrong. Put the coal down, dear – it looks heavy.’

  Lily obeyed and looked blushingly up into her employer’s face. Mrs Chappell wore her hair swept up and pinned in a wispy, abstracted style which made her look rather artistic and vague. Wisps of it were forever escaping about her round face. In her eyes, Lily saw kindness, and a great yearning.

  ‘Oh, my dear . . .’ Mrs Chappell put a hand to her chest and her eyes suddenly filled with tears. ‘So like – in a way. Your lovely dark hair, your shape . . . A kind of essence . . . I’m sorry, dear, you must find me very strange. You’ll know we lost our daughter Naomi, bless her heart, oh, eleven years ago now! And when I saw you just then, of course you’re different, but you have a look of her . . . Why have I never seen it before?’ She sighed, wiping her eyes. ‘How lovely, to have you in our house . . .’

  And she drifted away, lost in emotion. Lily picked up the coal scuttle, confused, but also surprised to find her own eyes full of tears, her own hunger for a mother and for love answering Mrs Chappell’s loss and grief.

  That was how it began, her ascent in the house. By the time she was seventeen, the age at which Naomi Chappell lost her life, Lily had risen to be a maid of all work, and then, gradually, into personal maid and companion of Maud Chappell, a woman whose personal warmth covered a great inner loneliness. There was no shortage of money as Mr Chappell owned a string of carriage-building works, and the house in Hall Green, a pleasant suburb of Birmingham, was large and beautifully furnished. But with a mostly absent husband, two sons whose lives had long moved away from her into working the world, and a dead daughter, Mrs Chappell had lost a great deal that was dear to her. She adored young life and waited in hope of grandchildren.