Where Earth Meets Sky Page 10

  Leaning forwards he spoke to her urgently. ‘Last night, Lily – what I said to you. I meant it, you know. Every word. Ever since I’ve been here in Ambala I have noticed you and wanted to know you better. If I was here for longer it might be different, but there isn’t much time . . .’

  She looked pleased, or worried, or both. But her eyes told him: she wanted him too, he knew it! God, he was in a state. It was the very look of her. And it wasn’t how it had felt with Helen (whom he kept trying not to think about). Lily had such a full, graceful figure, and my goodness he’d have loved to take her in his arms, but it wasn’t the same animal sort of desire he’d had before bedding Helen. That was there too, of course, he couldn’t deny it, but it was more like adoration. He wanted to kneel before her, have her take his head and rest it on her full breast.

  Breathing in deeply, he said, ‘I’ve never met anyone like you before, Lily. You must think me very forward, rude, even, but you just . . . You captivate me. I don’t know what else to say . . .’

  She was watching him intently and her face showed confusion, as if there was a struggle going on, which he could not make sense of in this beautiful woman who was at once so bold and so shy.

  ‘You’re very kind,’ she said, looking down into her lap, where her hands were tightly clasped. ‘You really are, Mr . . . Sam. I don’t know what to say. Except that . . .’ And she looked very directly at him, her dark eyes intense. ‘You don’t want to know me. I don’t have any background – nothing to offer . . .’

  What was this nonsense she was talking? It made him feel abundantly tender towards her.

  ‘If you’re not worth knowing,’ he teased gently, ‘then why have you come out here to see me?’

  She sighed, seeming remote. ‘I don’t know. Because I wanted to . . . Very much.’

  Sam felt like a man meeting a roe deer at the edge of a clearing: that he must not move, hardly breathe, because it would leap back at his slightest twitch. He longed to reach out and take her hand, but he held back, full of respect for her and said gently, ‘Well, I’m glad of that, at least.’

  She was beginning to smile, and said, ‘You’re not like anyone I’ve ever . . .’ when there came a moaning cry from inside, and she leaped up, murmuring, ‘Cosmo! I’m sorry – I must go!’ and was away along the veranda.

  Her cry roused young Hassan, who sat up blearily and began to pull on the punkah, trying to look as if he had been doing precisely that all the time.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Isadora was writhing on her bed, screaming and tearing at her red, flayed skin.

  ‘Ayah – the calamine lotion. Where is it, you silly girl? Oh, Izzy, be quiet, for the love of God!’ Susan Fairford was close to tears as she tried to quieten her flailing daughter. ‘Stop it, Isadora! Oh, Lily, what’s going to become of her?’ she wailed despairingly.

  Lily fetched the jar of calamine lotion and handed it to Srimala. Every year Isadora suffered terribly from prickly heat as soon as the winter was over, and these distressing scenes had repeated themselves since she was very young. Lily knew it was the time Susan Fairford dreaded the most.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Lily soothed her mistress. ‘You know how it is – the lotion will help a little.’

  ‘Oh God . . . If we could just get up to Simla, away from this godforsaken place . . .’ Susan Fairford sank down on the nursery chair, putting her head in her hands.

  ‘What is it?’ Lily knelt down, looking up into her face. She knew Susan well, her despair over not being able to love Isadora, her grief for the little girl whose life had fluttered away in her arms when she was only eight months old, and her sense of never being a good enough mother to Cosmo. Haunting her also was the knowledge that whatever she did or said, once he was five he would be torn away from her. Susan had, over time, allowed Lily to see her at her most emotionally raw – and, as well as the children, there was the pain of her marriage.

  ‘I don’t even know where he is!’ she sobbed one night, in Lily’s arms when Charles had disappeared again after dinner. He had also not visited her room for any intimate contact for a long time. Susan was a woman who hungered for love and for understanding, and weeks could go by without his ever requiring such union with her.

  ‘Charles only married me because he knew it was the form to have a wife. I was really the only girl he knew,’ she told Lily when she was a little calmer. ‘My brother was at Eton with him – they educated Lewis, of course. They hadn’t the funds for Audrey and me. I met Charles when I went to a prize-giving. The first time I saw him he was standing under a pink blossom tree and he looked like a god! I remember I thought he was very handsome and charming, but we hardly knew each other. And I suppose he just thought I was suitable. He was supposed to choose a wife from home and I was the first resort rather than the fishing fleet.’

  The ‘fishing fleet’ consisted of girls who caught the steamers to India for the winter season in search of eligible men to marry, and the love-starved bachelors of the army and police, the trades and civil service were all expected to take their pick. The disappointed fisher girls would have to get back on a boat home at the end of the season, still single and without prospects.

  ‘I don’t know if he even likes me, quite honestly,’ Susan told Lily despairingly that night.

  ‘Of course he does,’ Lily said. She was baffled by the whole situation. ‘He’s always so nice to you!’

  ‘He’s polite to me,’ Susan retorted. ‘Of course, we can both put on a good show. But other than that, he’d rather be in the mess, where he’s got the men round him. He needed me to have children, of course. I was his brood mare. But now he’s got the son he wanted, he hardly ever comes anywhere near me. And I feel so useless. Some days I just can’t bear the thought of life going on and on like this . . .’

  Lily knew now that so much of Susan Fairford’s tense, angry manner arose through her unhappiness and that there was a lonely, girlish person inside. Today she seemed close to despair.

  ‘I’m not much of a mother,’ she said flatly, staring at her lap as Srimala struggled with Isadora. ‘You’d think I could manage at least to get that part right, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Oh, dear Susan,’ Lily said, taking her hand. ‘Cozzy, do come and see your mater and cheer her up.’

  Cosmo approached, wide-eyed. He was really more used to Lily’s company and was slightly in awe of his mother, but he did as Lily bade him and came and took Susan’s hand.

  ‘I don’t feel well,’ Susan admitted.

  ‘You go and have a lie down,’ Lily encouraged her.

  ‘Oh, I get so weary with it all,’ Susan said, dragging herself to her feet. ‘This climate, all these sicknesses. I just ache to be at home so much I think sometimes I’ll die of it.’

  Lily took Cosmo out on the lawn. She had a big parasol and they sat in the shadow of the tamarind trees, but unlike Susan Fairford, she mostly didn’t mind the heat. She had taken some story books and Cosmo sat beside her on a rug, looking at pictures of animals. Susan insisted that he learn the names of British birds and flowers, although he was surrounded by an almost completely different flora and fauna. He sat in the crook of her arm saying, ‘That’s a robin’ or ‘a blackbird’, as if they were wildly exotic species from another world.

  Lily listened with less than half her mind to Cosmo’s reading. She had come outside because she knew that Sam might appear in the quiet time after tiffin and that sooner or later Cosmo would drift off into a nap and they might be alone. And more than anything she longed to be alone with Sam Ironside.

  She had never met anyone like him before, and she had certainly never felt like this before. She could think of nothing else these days: of his intense gaze which seemed to burn into her each time they met. She had felt it even before he spoke to her, the way he watched her. She loved his strong, impatient walk, and his love of the Daimler and expertise when anything went wrong. She loved the fact that he was funny and kind. That night they had taken Cosmo to Dr Fot
hergill’s, she had felt the electric atmosphere between them and found herself more and more affected by him. But she was afraid. Anyone else whom she had even come close to loving had died or disappeared. How could she let herself feel for this man? Yet, when he declared that he loved her, her whole heart and soul longed to answer. Someone loved her! This handsome, interesting man loved her – and she loved him back! Since that night nothing had been the same and, despite her fear, she had fallen more and more deeply in love.

  Of course he soon appeared. He knew she would be there, and they could not keep away from each other.

  ‘Motor-car man!’ Cosmo enthused, seeing a movement at the side of the house.

  ‘Motor car’ had been one of his first words, very precisely pronounced.

  ‘Oh yes!’ Lily said, trying not to sound too excited as Sam strode towards them.

  ‘Hello, young fellow!’ He sat down on the rug beside them and, with mock formality, he doffed his hat and added, ‘Afternoon, Miss Waters.’

  ‘Good afternoon.’ She tried to sound sober but could not stop the joyful smile which took full possession of her face. He was here, at last!

  They sat talking in the quiet afternoon, but Cosmo was not going to be left out.

  ‘Story! Story!’ he demanded. He loved to hear any tales of motoring exploits.

  ‘Oh, all right then,’ Sam laughed. ‘Let’s see now. What about the Thousand Miles Trial, eh? That was a good one! You see, Cozzy, when new cars are built they have to be put through their paces to see how fast they can go and whether they can climb hills and so on. So there are all sorts of races and trials to test them. So to test a car over a thousand miles is a very big test!’

  Cosmo listened, rapt. They knew he would only understand a fraction of what Sam was saying, but he listened with absolute attention.

  ‘Just a few years ago – nineteen hundred it was – sixty-five motor cars and motorcycles all met in Hyde Park – that’s in London, Cozzy. There were Napiers and MMCs and Daimlers, of course, and all the foreigners, De Dions, Panhards, Benz . . . They all set off to do a thousand miles – west to a big city called Bristol and then north to Birmingham, Manchester . . .’ He smiled at Cosmo’s fascinated expression. ‘And there were all sorts of mishaps, I can tell you! One fellow had the brakes fail and d’you know how he stopped his car? It was a Daimler like your pa’s, as well – and he ran it backwards into a wall! And there was another good story about a Daimler: a chap called Grahame-White bust up his steering gear by running into a ditch. So, you’ll never guess what he did.’

  Lily was laughing as Sam talked excitedly, as much with his hands as his voice.

  ‘Go on, tell us!’ Lily said.

  ‘Well, he needed to steer the car somehow, so he stood on the step, stuck his foot out onto the front wheel and steered it all the way to Newcastle with his boot – fifty-two miles! And d’you know what?’

  ‘What?’ Cosmo breathed, utterly captivated.

  ‘When he got there, the sole of his boot was completely worn through.’

  ‘No!’ Lily cried. ‘That can’t be true! Surely no one could do that?’

  ‘True as I’m sitting here.’ Their eyes met in mutual love and laughter and Lily felt herself turn weak with longing for him to hold her, for them to kiss and while away the whole afternoon together.

  ‘More stories!’ Cosmo insisted.

  Sam laughed. ‘No peace with children around, is there? I suppose I’ll soon . . .’ But he bit back the rest of what he had been about to say: that he would soon know what it was to have a child of his own.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sam knew he was in love in a way he had never experienced before, as if every nerve in his body was alert – more than alert – on fire! And with it came a tenderness which took him by surprise, and a sense of vulnerability that he, cocky, ambitious Sam Ironside felt in this woman’s presence. It was like nothing he had known before. It was exhilarating and rather frightening; above all, he knew he could not let it go.

  He had made clear his feelings to Lily, or he hoped he had. He gave scarcely a thought to Helen and all that was waiting back in England. It was as if he had walked into another life so very far off and different that neither one had anything to do with the other. Every moment around the Fairfords’ house was charged with excitement at the thought that he might see Lily and be able to speak to her. Through the days, like a miracle, ran a refrain in his head, I love Lily Waters, my Lily, Lily, Lily . . .

  The next few times he saw her after their meeting on the veranda, she was with Cosmo, or Susan Fairford. One morning he met her with Srimala and the children out on the drive with nets and she said they were going out looking for butterflies. She was dressed in pale blue and looked at him from under her hat, her eyes full of dancing life.

  ‘I only wish I could come with you,’ he said, as they stood on the drive, out of hearing of the ayah.

  Lily looked down for a moment, then back. ‘So do I,’ she said softly. And her gaze sent a spasm of intense longing through him.

  ‘Where can I see you?’ he said quickly. ‘I can’t bear not seeing you alone.’

  She hesitated for a moment, and he thought he saw a struggle going on within her.

  ‘Outside, at the back. Late – eleven o’clock. It’s the only way. We’ll just need to keep out of the watchman’s way.’

  There was a moon that night. Sam had dinner with the Fairfords then spent the evening in an itch of impatience. At last, when the house was quiet, he slipped out of the back door and stood under one of the trees at the back of the house in the night air. How he loved that smell, he realized, breathing in deeply. Dung smoke and vegetation and the rich smell of the country’s earth. He had not expected this, that he would begin to love the place as well. India was changing him into a new man.

  The door opened and he heard her coming out to join him. She stopped, in the darkness, uncertain.

  ‘Over here, Lily . . .’ He had been about to call her Miss Waters.

  She came to him and for a moment they strained to see each other’s faces through the darkness.

  ‘Oh God, you’re here,’ he said. And they couldn’t hold back then, but were in each other’s arms immediately. He nuzzled her cheek, seeking out her warm, full lips, stroking her face, her hair, overwhelmed by the feel of her.

  ‘Sam,’ she whispered, when they drew back for a second. ‘Sam.’

  ‘I love you.’ He kept saying it because it seemed the only thing to say. ‘God, Lily, I love you.’

  She was silent and he realized she was profoundly moved. ‘Do you?’ Her voice was full of wonder. ‘Do you love me? No one – not one person has ever . . . I’ve never . . .’ She stumbled over the words and he was touched by her difficulty. He saw her looking searchingly into his face. ‘I don’t know if I know how to love. But the way I feel, Sam, it’s something I’ve never known before . . . I love you, I think. Yes, I’m sure I do!’

  ‘Oh, my Lily,’ he said. ‘Lily, my sweet darling . . .’ And all sorts of soft things spilled from his lips that he’d never said before because he had never felt like this before, so melted and overcome.

  And she, though seeming frightened and unsure of it at first, responded, holding and stroking him as if there was a deep reservoir of love in her, never used, that she was pouring out over him.

  ‘Meet me every night, my love,’ he begged her, after they had stood talking in the darkness for a long time, so softly that they had not roused the elderly chowkidar from his doze on the veranda. ‘I can’t bear a day without being with you.’

  ‘Of course I will,’ she whispered back. ‘Oh, Sam – I never, ever believed anything like this could happen to me. And now it has, I never want to let you go!’

  That week was the happiest Lily had ever known, like an ecstatic dream. Since Sam Ironside had come into her life, she knew she was not the same person. She had allowed herself to love and to be loved. When, in their meetings in the dark garden, Sam held her and kis
sed her, she felt she had been reborn. Everything was lit up about her life. India, the beauty of the garden, Cosmo and her work here: all appeared intensely beautiful because of him. Because of love.

  She had never talked so much with anyone. After that first night they moved further from the house and found a spot to stand in under the trees, where they held each other close and kissed and talked – of their hopes and dreams, about the Fairfords and Lily’s time in India. She teased Sam about his fear of horses.

  ‘You should learn to ride while you’re here, and come out with us!’ she urged him. ‘There’s nothing to it!’

  ‘Not on your life!’ He seemed to enjoy her teasing, was prepared to laugh at himself over his ineptitude.

  He told her about his family, his widowed mother, his brothers, Alfred and Harry, and his Coventry childhood. And she drank this in, hearing about a real family, something which she idealized as the height of human happiness. And she told him about Mrs Chappell and how she came to be her companion, and about all the grandchildren because they were the nearest thing she had to family. But the rest of her past, her vanished parents and her suffering at the hands of the Hornes, she had still locked firmly behind her.

  Sam, longing to know her, would say, ‘But your family, your mother and father – you must be able to tell me something about them?’

  And she would divert him, kissing him playfully and saying, ‘Oh, it’s all very boring,’ or change the subject, saying, ‘There’s nothing much to tell.’ The truth was she knew so little about her own origins that she was a closed book even to herself. And she did not want to admit that they had abandoned her. It felt so shameful. That was all she knew of her parents – that they didn’t want her. What did it matter now, anyway? It was the future she wanted to think about, and now she dared to dream that she might have some of the things which she had never allowed to hope for herself: family, marriage, her own children.