Lakeland Lily (41 page)

But she loved Nathan more.

The terrible dilemma of being a part of two worlds and belonging to neither made her feel, in that moment, physically sick. Here, on the
Faith,
was the only place she could create a world of her own. One where she could be her own person.

Lily lifted her face to the sun. ‘It isn’t too bad a world either,’ she said to Thomas, before she had time to change her mind. ‘Shall we stay here for a while? Have a real adventure?’

‘You mean, not go home tonight either? Oh, yes. Please, Mummy.’
Flinging his chubby arms about her neck, he smacked a wet kiss on her cheek.

Lily burst out laughing. ‘But you must be good and promise not to fall in the lake?’

‘Oh, I promise, I promise.’

‘I might even teach you to swim.’

Another kiss till the two of them were rolling over in the grass, with the child stuck fast around her neck, both laughing as if they hadn’t a care in the world. At least, Lily thought later, as she washed the greasy plates with difficulty in the cold waters of the lake, somebody loved her.

Ferryman Bob helped Lily clean the boat and get the boiler running. He brought her wood to burn, showed her how to operate the pumps and boil water in the kettle. Then on Friday afternoon Edward appeared, standing on the bank and grinning down on her. ‘Well, would you believe it? Swiss Family Robinson. Permission to come aboard, Cap’n?’

‘I’m a pirate, Grandpa, and Mummy is my slave.’

Lily laughed. ‘I believe you’ve come to my rescue just in time, sir. This wicked pirate here was about to make me walk the plank.’

‘Dear me, and before you’ve had your tea?’

Thomas giggled. ‘Can I tie you up instead?’

‘Why don’t you do that, so long as I can have my tea at the same time. You’ve got the boiler going?’

‘I reckon I’ve got its measure.’

‘Put the kettle on then. I’m parched.’

Moments later they sat side by side, eyes on the blue-misted mountains, sipping mugs of scalding tea, which tasted so much better in the clean, spring air than in Margot’s stuffy parlour, and ate scones with Ferryman Bob’s pot of jam. Thomas practised his knots. The sun beat down on the fringed canopy while coot and mallard swam lazily by. They could have been any loving family out on a Sunday picnic, except for a certain formality between the adults, who carefully avoided eye contact above the boy’s head. ‘It’s bonny here.’

‘Mm.
^,

‘We’ve neglected poor
Faith
recently, eh?’

‘I suppose so.’

Seeing he could draw little from her, Edward said, ‘I used to have a boat for freight too. Small-time, of course, and not as big as the Raven on Windermere, but I reckon folk found it useful for shifting the stone from the quarry or timber from the woods and such like.’

‘Why don’t you work her now?’ It seemed easier to speak of other things.

Edward shook his head. ‘Margot didn’t care for messy boats passing her front door.’ As if caught out in some minor disloyalty, ‘Mind you, there was no money in it. The roads were getting better all the time and I was busy with my warehouse enterprise in Manchester, which subsidised the boat in her last season.’

‘So where is she now?’ Lily was interested, despite herself.

‘Scuttled.’

Lily frowned. ‘Scuttled? What on earth does that mean?’

‘It means we decided she was neither use nor ornament, so we holed and sunk her.’

‘Oh, but that’s dreadful! What was her name?’

‘
Kaspar.
Fancy name for a cargo boat, eh? It means treasure, and that’s how I thought of her. She was a proper little beauty.’ His sheepish smile grew sad. ‘I might’ve made something of her if circumstances had been different, but we’d no real use for her any more so we scuttled her. Broke my heart, that did.’ As if wishing to disguise this unwonted show of emotion, Edward briskly changed the subject, addressing his small grandson who was deeply engrossed in the tale.

‘The
Raven’s
still going on Windermere, though for how much longer we’ll have to see. Fine cargo boat she is, built by T.B. Seath & Co. of Rutherglen on the Clyde. Made in sections and transported by rail to Penrith, then taken by horse-drawn dray to Pooley Bridge, put together and launched. Cost more than two thousand pounds. That firm sent boats in exactly the same fashion all the way to Africa. Marvellous, eh? Very inventive, the Victorians.’

‘Golly,’ said Thomas.

Lily said, ‘Bertie is too, don’t you think? He was always keen to design a really fast power boat.’

Edward’s lips thinned. ‘Power will never beat the grace of steam, not for me.’ He stubbornly continued with his tale. ‘They used to reward the crew of the
Raven
in kind for carrying large quantities of beer - which made the return journey a bit tricky.’ Edward roared with laughter, little Thomas enthusiastically joining in so that even Lily found herself smiling.

‘You might not agree with everything Bertie does,’ she persisted, ‘but he would so like to make you proud of him.’ She didn’t really know if that were true but hoped to reconcile father to son, and perhaps lead on to her own problems. ‘Can neither of you admit how alike you are? Each refusing to let the other see how they feel, yet both feeling rejected. It’s proper daft.’

‘You sound just like the old Lily.’

‘Oh, she’s still here,’ Lily agreed with a wry tug at the grubby sleeves of her linen frock which had not benefited from her sojourn on the
Faith,
let alone the cleaning of the boiler.

‘Aye, but tougher, eh?’

Lily frowned. ‘Not necessarily. The old Lily was pretty tough, but she made a lot of mistakes that the new Lily would like to put right.’

Edward gave a wry smile. ‘Story of my life.’ He applied himself with vigour to polishing the boiler tubes with a rag, then quite casually remarked, ‘Margot says you walked out.’

‘Not exactly, but you could say it was for the best that I left.’

After a moment he halted in his labours and considered her too-bright eyes. ‘She tends to go into a panic sometimes and say the first thing that comes into her daft head. Then afterwards she’s sorry.’

Lily said nothing. Clearly she couldn’t view Margot with the same benevolence as her husband did.

‘We all make mistakes. Bertie too.’ Edward cast her a sideways look which spoke volumes. ‘Will you come home? She’s calmed down a bit now.’

She sat in the sunshine, watching her father-in-law work on his beloved boat, enthusiastically assisted by the small boy. Never had Lily wished more than she did at that moment that little Thomas were truly Edward’s grandson. ‘Not just yet. We’re having an adventure, aren’t we, Thomas? We might sail away for a year and a day.’

Her son looked at her with solemn eyes. ‘D’you mean in a proper boat, at sea?’

‘Why not?’

The little boy considered. ‘I don’t think we could, Mummy. If we went away, like the Owl and the Pussycat, we might miss Daddy coming home.’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘How silly of me.’ In her heart she knew that the trap she had built for herself all those years before might never open. Not now. Not even to let Nathan in.

The air was heavy with a humid heat broken only by the plip-plop of racquet on ball as Selene and her friends chased languidly up and down the tennis court. Lily was sitting with Thomas making daisy chains on the lawn while Margot dozed beneath her parasol, her soft snoring outdoing the noisy crickets. Out on the lake half a dozen small yachts lay becalmed in the still air, the only movement coming from the Public Steamer, at this moment gliding gently towards the distant pier where a blur of people waited in the heat haze. Only on the lake itself could any coolness be found and for once Lily rather envied the tourists their forthcoming cruise.

She closed her eyes and lay on the sweet-smelling grass, as always letting her mind drift back to Nathan, picturing him, loving him. Yet resolutely she’d kept away from him, for the sake of her child.

Lily had still not fully moved back into Barwick House, though Margot made no protest when she brought Thomas to visit. Strangely enough Selene seemed unperturbed by the whole business. She never once remarked upon her broken engagement. Almost as if it had never existed.

Thomas, thinking his mother’s lying down was some kind of game, climbed all over her, dangling the daisy chain over her face, making her giggle and squirm.

‘Look at the boats, mummy. They’re stuck. There isn’t enough wind.’

‘Mmm,’ she sleepily agreed.

‘It would be all right in the steam-yacht. Can we take out the
Faith
this afternoon?’

‘No, Ferryman Bob is working and Grandpa is away at his business.’

‘Can’t we ask George? Will we have another picnic? Can I have a go at driving it this time, if we do?’

‘Oh, Thomas, do stop asking questions. You make me tired. We’ll see.’ She was drifting into sleep as the heat of the sun made her soporific.

A gentle snore vibrated softly through the summer air and the little boy giggled. ‘Grandmama is asleep.’

‘So should you be,’ Lily murmured. ‘Shall I take you upstairs?’

‘No, no. I’m not tired,’ he protested. Thomas hated keeping still. He had any lively four year old’s boundless energy and inquisitive nature, being far more interested in the boats on the lake than sleeping or making silly daisy chains. Quickly growing bored with his uncooperative mama, and fearful she might keep her word and take him upstairs to his nursery, he set off across the grass at a great pace. Spotting a family of mallard he chased them right to the water’s edge where, in his anxiety to catch them, he tripped over a stone and landed on his knees in the water.

‘Whoops,’ he said. But the water swished delightfully all over his shorts. He always enjoyed his bath each night when Betty splashed him or poured warm water over his head. Now he cupped his hands beneath the lake water and saw how white and funny-looking they went. Then he brought them up in a rush and splashed water over himself, giggling with delight.

The small flotilla swam tantalisingly beyond reach. Thomas lay on his tummy in the shallow water and waved his arms about as he had seen George do each morning in the lake. When he made no progress, he got to his feet and waded out a bit further. He heard a shout and half turned, laughing.

‘Mummy, look at me! Look at me, Mummy! I’m swimming like you showed me.’

‘Not without me to hold you.’

He could see her now, running towards him, but he wanted to prove how clever he was. Thomas lifted one foot which, unfortunately, was his undoing. Somehow his other foot rolled about on the slippy shingle in the lake and the next instant the water was over his head as he went down with a bump.

Then he was being lifted from the water, bright lights exploding in his head as he was held up high in the air, dripping like a fish on the end of a line. And, horror of horrors, he was crying.

‘Mummy!’ But it wasn’t his mummy. It was a strange man who held him. His mother was there beside them in the water, and Thomas was instantly concerned. ‘Mummy, Mummy, you’re getting your pretty frock all wet.’

‘It doesn’t matter, darling. Nothing matters but you, my sweet.’

‘You’d never think so, after what I’ve just witnessed. While you sleep, your son is drowning.
My
son was drowning.’

Lily looked up into her husband’s furious face with a fast-sinking heart. For more reasons than one.

‘It’s all right, I’d seen him too. I would have got to him in time.’

‘So you say.’

Lily sat on the edge of their bed, her face in her hands as she struggled to wipe away the tears. Thomas had been scolded, bathed and put to bed, but still she shook with shock. ‘I would. He’d only been gone a minute. He was simply being naughty and running away because I’d told him it was time for his nap. Children are like that, up to mischief all the time. Sometimes I wish I had eyes in the back of my head. He’s totally fearless, very much your son.’ She’d said the right thing at last. Looking up, she saw the ghost of a smile. ‘Don’t be cross, Bertie. I’m so very glad to see you.’

She didn’t say ‘at last’. She didn’t ask where he had been all these months, or mention that everyone else had long since returned. He put out one hand and awkwardly touched her cheek. ‘You’re right, old thing. It was only a few inches of water. I was probably over-reacting. Tend to these days, don’t you know? Anyway, the little chap’s come to no harm. I’d best teach him to swim, though, starting first thing tomorrow.’

‘That would be an excellent idea, living as close to the lake as we do.’ She put her hands to his face and kissed each cheek then his lips. There was no emotion in the kisses, only a friendly formality. ‘I can’t believe you’re actually here.’ She laughed. ‘Listen to the pandemonium downstairs! Margot will be killing the fatted calf. She’ll expect you down there for tea shortly, all spruced up and ready to answer her every question. You’d best hurry to bathe and change, or she might come up and do it for you!’

Bertie smiled. ‘Mama wouldn’t dare do such a thing. Not even when I had diphtheria.’ But the jokes had eased the tension between them, established some kind of rapport, however shaky.