Where Earth Meets Sky Read online

  ‘I’ve never been that kind of person,’ Lily said. ‘I don’t . . . know men.’ She was trembling and for a moment she could not look at him, then she raised her eyes to see him watching her with a tender expression.

  ‘I can see that.’ He reached for her other hand and held both of hers in his, turning her to face him. She saw his face tighten with desire.

  ‘Of course you’re not, my dear. And I don’t want you to think I’m treating you in a beastly way, that I have no care for you. God, Lily, I’d do anything for you. I shan’t deflower you and discard you. I love you. I want to be with you and look after you.’ He stared into her eyes. ‘Go to your room, darling, and I’ll come to you. My own is too close to Muriel. She mustn’t hear anything.’

  As if in a dream, she found herself obeying. Alone in her room, she lit two candles and sat on the edge of the bed. She could not seem to think properly. Nothing seemed quite real. Should she get undressed, or wait as she was?

  There came a discreet knock and the doctor came inside without a word and softly closed the door. He came to her immediately, his breathing fast and heavy and took her in his arms.

  ‘At last. Oh, at last, my dear little girl!’

  Lily pressed against his large body, smelling him, sweat and tobacco and old wool, and felt his hands moving over her with increasing intimacy.

  ‘Let’s take some of these clothes off, my dear.’

  He undressed her and she let him, passive as a doll, until she was standing naked and he was still fully clothed and she felt vulnerable and embarrassed. He knelt, suddenly, as if before an altar and said, ‘Oh, my dear, you’re so lovely.’ Hungrily, he kissed her breasts, and Lily felt sensations pulse through her nipples as his tongue played over them. She felt confused. How could she feel pleasure in this when she had no love for this man?

  ‘Lie on the bed – I must have you,’ he ordered, and stood to undress himself, with great impatience, until she was confronted for the first time in her life by the sight of a naked man, fully aroused and kneeling over her. She found the sight of his body disturbing, the shadows round his belly and groin, his thick penis standing up, and she made a small sound of distress.

  ‘Don’t worry, my dear – I shall be gentle with you. I’m not a monster. And remember, Lily, there will be no issue. There’s no need to be afraid.’

  But she could see that he was very aroused and he reached down so that she felt his fingers moving in the intimate parts between her legs and it was sore and made her gasp. He eased his fingers inside her and she lifted her body, moaning more from pain than pleasure, which excited him all the more.

  ‘Oh, dear God, open up for me, Lily . . .’ He moved urgently on top of her, pushing her legs apart and forcing his way into her so that she yelped at the burning pain it caused. The pain ebbed away but he felt so hard and strange moving in her, acutely excited by her. His bulk blocked out most of the light so that he was like a great shadow engulfing her and she was trapped under the weight of him as he groaned and thrust into her. It was soon over and he rolled to the side and took her passionately in his arms and to her surprise she found herself grateful for it. It was something new, to be held like that, as if she was loved and precious. Her chest began to ache, but she pushed any feelings away. It was no good thinking she could have any emotion about this. Look what had happened with Sam. She had been hurt almost beyond enduring and it was not going to happen again.

  ‘Thank you,’ Ewan McBride breathed into her hair. ‘Thank you, my dearest love. Oh, you’re mine now. My very own. You and I will have some times together, Lily, my love. Oh, we shall!’

  Lily closed her eyes. She felt sore and stretched down below and all she could think, at that moment was, I’ve survived it, then. It wasn’t so bad.

  From then on, Dr McBride treated Lily as his lover. She dined with him every evening and he came to her room afterwards, almost nightly as well. He liked her to come to the study for dinner at exactly the same time every night and he was always waiting. One evening she was held up and a few minutes late and when she reached the doctor’s study room he was standing just inside.

  ‘Where have you been?’ he demanded, and he seemed really worked up.

  ‘Nowhere,’ she said, puzzled. ‘I just had to show Prithvi how to do something, that’s all.

  ‘Don’t be late for me.’ It was a mixture of plea and stern command. ‘I don’t like it. I can’t stand it.’

  So long as she did as he wanted, Lily saw this shy, unhappy man blossom in front of her eyes. This gave her a certain amount of satisfaction, that she could have such an effect on someone. And the doctor had quickly grown besotted with her, promising her all the things he would buy for her and places they would visit. He made her feel special, and adored, and Lily drank it in hungrily. Suddenly she felt powerful and excited. Sometimes she woke, alone in her bed, and wondered if she had dreamed the entire thing. How had this come about? And she did not know if it was a secret in the house. No one said anything, even Jane Brown, though they took tea together regularly and talked. Jane would be embarrassed to raise such a subject, of course, but Lily realized, too, that other than Prithvi, no one saw her very much with the doctor. Even so, she felt self-conscious.

  One night, over dinner, she said, ‘Ewan, whatever must the rest of the servants think, with me eating in here every night? Don’t you worry about them telling your wife?’

  The doctor sat back, lighting his pipe, looking contented and well fed.

  ‘There’s no need to worry, Lily. The only one who has any contact with Muriel is Jane Brown and she won’t breathe a word even if she guesses. She’d be far too wary of upsetting her. She’s a good woman, Jane is, if rather starchy. And you know,’ he sat back, beaming at her across the table, ‘apart from the question of Muriel, whom I obviously don’t want to hurt, I find myself strangely indifferent to the idea of scandal. There’s plenty of all sorts going on in Mussoorie, make no mistake. It’s rather that kind of place. And too many people look for my help for them to condemn me. Blind eyes will be turned, you can be sure.’ He reached across for her hand, speaking with great energy. ‘I just want to live, Lily. God, I do. All this time, I feel as if I’ve been buried alive. And then you came along . . .’ He smiled beatifically at her. ‘Say I can come to you tonight, darling! Don’t shut me out, will you?’

  He had developed some fiction in his mind that Lily was the one who could decide whether to give or withhold her favours, when she felt now that in fact she had no choice.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  ‘Whoever’s that?’ Lily heard the gossip as she and Dr McBride swept in through the airy foyer of Mussoorie’s Savoy Hotel. People didn’t even trouble to lower their voices.

  ‘It’s that creature old McBride’s been seen out and about with. Hadn’t you heard? She’s his housekeeper, I’m told, but my goodness, you can see what he sees in her! Fancy – you wouldn’t have thought he had it in him, would you?’

  ‘Well! You’d think he might be more discreet. Positively flaunting her! But she really is rather a looker, isn’t she?’

  The hotel was buzzing with one of the winter parties, walls festooned with green boughs, bows and baubles and the red glow of poinsettia leaves and holly, fires burning in the hearths, polished cutlery and glasses and crisp white cloths on tables laden with food and drink. Snow had fallen all across the hills outside, blanketing them in magical white and the mornings were bejewelled with icicles hanging from railings and roofs. The air was bitterly cold, breath streaming away white. On bright days the view across the hills was glittering clear, but when the fog came down, filling the valleys, everyone moved along the Mall and through the bazaars like spectres: jhampanis and women in saris, bearers with huge loads tied to their backs and mountain people in hats with ear-flaps appearing in silhouette out of the gloom.

  It was warm and cosy inside the hotel, and loud with the sound of festive British chatter. Lily took off her wraps and shawls and they were whisked away
by a smartly liveried servant.

  ‘Come along, my dear,’ Dr McBride said, taking Lily’s arm. When they were out together he always seemed to want to be touching her, pulling her arm through his, or holding his hand in close contact with hers. He left no one in any doubt as to what their relationship was. And as they passed through the festive partygoers, soon finding themselves with glasses of sherry in their hands, he was greeted with cordiality but also a certain embarrassed reserve.

  ‘Evening, McBride!’ a short, whiskery man boomed at him. ‘Nice to see you in circulation again, old man. Been a long time!’

  ‘I say – Dr McBride!’ This time a thin woman, with a harsh voice and inquisitive face. ‘So glad to see you’re still joining us, with your, er, friend! I don’t believe we’ve been introduced?’

  ‘This is Miss Lily Waters,’ Dr McBride declared. He gave no other explanation. He knew they had been seen about together already and that the gossip was flying.

  ‘Didn’t I see the two of you at Kempty Falls a few weeks ago?’ the woman shrilled. ‘How very lovely it is there. So marvellous for an outing.’ Lily had noticed, in all the time they had been out in public, that no one ever mentioned Muriel McBride, as if she and her condition were some kind of dirty and shameful secret.

  ‘You may indeed have done,’ Dr McBride agreed amiably. They had taken an afternoon out together to the waterfall, a beauty spot outside Mussoorie, in the glowing autumn sunshine, not long after Lily had become Dr McBride’s lover. Since then they had gradually come to be seen out more and more in public.

  ‘Lovely spot, isn’t it?’ the woman cooed to Lily. ‘And I must congratulate you on your dress, my dear. What a marvellous design. You really are the belle of the ball tonight, I must say!’

  Lily could hear the barbed tone of her voice, but she also knew that what the woman said was true. She had seen an entirely different side of the apparently austere doctor emerging. Ewan McBride liked to dress her himself, choosing the highest quality silks and velvets from stores in Mussoorie and Dehra Dun, even ordering items for her from emporia as far away as Bombay and Madras. He did have an eye for colour, and Lily discovered in herself a gift for adorning herself lavishly, flatteringly, which she had never realized before. Among her wardrobe she now had some of the most beautiful handiwork that India could offer, fashioned into European-style gowns: turquoise and gold silk from Benares, rich coloured mirror cloth from Rajasthan for a dress she had worn for the Hindu festival of Diwali – where the doctor had paraded her among the burning lights of scores of oil lamps and the firework display – Kashmiri embroidery and shawls, and dyed raw silks tailored by the best dirzi in the area.

  Tonight she had on a long, sweeping gown in a rich cranberry and a delicate, cream, hand-embroidered pashmina. She had smoothed her hair up into a pleat and clipped tiny glass beads into it, rather as she had seen Susan Fairford wear hers, and put on Mrs Chappell’s lovely brooch and seed pearls. The jewels glowed against her fresh skin. When she looked at herself in the glass she recognized that her pretty, rounded girlishness had matured into a feminine beauty which took even herself by surprise.

  ‘Oh, my dear, you look quite out of this world.’ Dr McBride seemed excited when he saw her. He stroked her cheek as if she were a marble statue. ‘Oh, my Lily, you are so beautiful, my dearest child. You really have excelled yourself this time. Come now – are you ready?’

  Lily realized that more and more people were starting to recognize her and that she and the doctor were becoming the talk of the town. As they went about the place some were scandalized, some kind, and some a mixture of the two. No one could fail to notice the doctor’s transformation from a crusty old recluse to a cheerful socialite with the most beautiful and stylish woman in the room on his arm.

  They were much less sure how to deal with Lily, though. As his consort, she smiled at the doctor’s side, looking gorgeously attractive but being quiet and reserved. All her life she had never welcomed questions about her background or her past. She did not fit into a normal social mould in any case and now they were scandalizing such moulds by her acting blatantly as his mistress. The other women had to decide whether to be envious or to make a friend of her, but the doctor, it seemed, was indifferent.

  ‘You don’t need to worry,’ he had said one evening as they rode along the moonlit Mall in a rickshaw on the way back from a party. In the distance Lily caught sight of the white peaks, lit by the moon. The doctor was in a relaxed mood after several whiskies. ‘I’ve told you, I have high standing in the town and despite my outraging some of the more, let’s say puritanical types, they’ll just have to accept me. I’ve lived like a dead man long enough. And besides, I’ve attended most of them at their bedsides over the years and they know it. They’re grateful. So you don’t need to be afraid. Why don’t you just tell them about yourself? Come to that, why don’t you tell me, to start with?’

  ‘Oh, Ewan.’ She rested her gloved hand on his and smiled at him. ‘I’ve told you – there’s nothing to say of any note. I’m a vicar’s daughter who became a nanny and came to India. That’s all.’

  ‘Well,’ he chuckled. ‘You don’t behave much like a vicar’s daughter, I must say. Or perhaps you do.’ He nuzzled his face up close to hers, searching out her lips. ‘Perhaps they’re the naughtiest of the lot!’

  After he had kissed her he drew back and in the dim light she saw his face harden. ‘You’re not fast, are you?’ His tone was nasty. ‘Giving favours to anyone who asks?’

  ‘No!’ she said, appalled. What on earth made him say that? ‘I’m not. You know I’m not!’

  ‘Well, I hope so. Let’s keep it that way, hm?’ Lily was chilled by the tone of his voice. Every so often he had these little bouts of jealousy over things he imagined she might be doing. They were all in his mind, but she was stung by the way he talked to her.

  She stayed at his side throughout the evening, eating some of the Anglo-Indian mix of food: mutton and poached salmon accompanied by chicken pilau and pickles. Lily was the doctor’s decoration: the conversations, the decisions about where in the room they moved or sat, were all his. Sometimes one of the young women who had decided to be friendly would come up and talk to her and Lily found she enjoyed the company, but if Ewan McBride decided to move she would have to cut short her conversation. She had to sit with people he wanted to be with, who were usually older, and she was often bored, but she told herself this was the price she had to pay. It was her job. She had a fine life, lovely clothes and status as a beautiful woman to be looked at. The doctor had told her to cut down on her work in the house, to preserve her energy and keep her hands smooth and soft. She was barely more than his mistress now. But at times she felt terribly lonely and went to the kitchen to talk to Stephen and Prithvi. If it was not for them and Jane Brown her life would have been really very solitary.

  She followed the doctor round the room, exchanging pleasantries. The party included some singing of Christmas carols round the piano, led by a plump woman in a crimson dress who was an accomplished player and good at jollying everyone along. The doctor steered Lily into the carousing huddle just as ‘I Saw Three Ships’ was coming to a lusty end with clapping and cries of, ‘Encore!’ and ‘Marvellous. I say, it does make one long for home!’ There was a moment of confusion during which someone pushed in and positioned himself somehow between Lily and the doctor, who had to step aside for politeness sake.

  ‘How about “Good King Wenceslas”?’ the pianist cried, and everyone joined in enthusiastically, except Lily, who had no idea of the words. She stood among the crowd, the air laced with smoke and whisky fumes, pretending to mouth the carol and hoping no one would notice. But someone did.

  ‘Would one of these be any help?’ a voice said close to her ear, and she turned to see a fair-haired young man in a well-cut suit smilingly offering her a sheet with some of the words on it and little drawings of bells and holly printed in the corners.

  ‘Oh – thank you!’ she said, startled.
‘Is it so obvious I don’t know it?’

  ‘Oh no, not at all,’ he assured her. ‘I suppose I’m just rather good at lip-reading, that’s all! What you’re mouthing doesn’t seem to correspond all that well. Nothing to worry about, though!’

  He laughed so merrily that Lily could only join in as the group launched into, ‘Hither, page, and stand by me . . .’ ‘Thank you – I don’t happen to know this one.’

  She saw a puzzled expression come into his eyes, but he refrained from further comment at this odd gap in her education. One of so many, Lily thought. She had been skivvying for the Horne family instead of going to school.

  ‘I’m Johnny Barstow,’ he said, holding out his hand.

  Lily shook hands, and as she did so, saw the doctor’s gaze swivel towards them.

  ‘Lily Waters.’

  They were almost having to shout above the singing and he drew her aside a little. She saw that he was well built and very sprucely dressed. His jacket fitted beautifully.

  ‘I’ve seen you about town, I’m sure,’ Johnny said. ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘Kulri – near the end of Camel’s Back.’

  ‘Ah yes – a fine spot.’ He was sipping from a glass of something dark and warm and saw her looking. ‘Punch – have you not had some? Here – I’ll snaffle you a glass.’

  The two of them moved over to where a waiter was ladling out the hot punch and he handed her a glass. Lily sipped it and found it strong and fruity. It made her cough and Johnny laughed.

  ‘Not used to that either, eh? Are you long in India?’

  She told him a small amount about her time there, about Ambala.

  ‘Ah yes – good old Umbala,’ he said, pronouncing it the old way. ‘Funny that – I spent a short time there. I’m an engineer – based at Meerut now, though I’m not army. I’m with the railways. But I always like to get up to our lovely Mussoorie whenever I can. Much better than stuffy old Simla. D’you know the place?’