Lakeland Lily (55 page)

‘I’m telling you the truth.’

‘As you did when you denied ever having been in prison? Well, I wish you’d never come back from there, or whatever hell hole you sprang from.’ She regretted the words almost the moment they were out of her mouth, but it was too late.

They stood in stunned silence, both breathless, as if they’d run a race or fought a battle, which in a way they had. But the anger in her was spent, and in its place had come need, sweet and dangerous.

He was so close he was almost touching her. He looked so handsome in his dark suit, smooth and close-fitting over his perfect man’s body, and a shirt of palest cream with a cravat of navy blue silk, she noticed. Lily’s
fingers itched suddenly to untie it, to peel back the shirt, and she very nearly, in that fleeting second, laughed out loud as this startling burst of desire clenched every muscle within her. If she had done so, if she had reached for him, perhaps everything might have been different. But he was speaking again and as the words penetrated, the laughter died in her throat, stillborn.

‘You’re the one who lies and cheats, Lily,
not me. I’ve done nothing to be ashamed of. I haven’t married someone I don’t love. I haven’t set out to take revenge on anyone. But I might, damn you. I just might.’

He was shaking her by the shoulders, almost lifting her off her feet in his fury. Then he let her go so abruptly that she lost her footing and very nearly stumbled.

‘If you won’t listen to advice, to hell with you! And if you want me out of your life, so be it.’ Whereupon he swung on his polished heel and strode away.

Lily stood with one fist clenched tight against her chest, watching till he’d plunged through a thicket of willow and hazel and vanished from her sight. Then she put the hand to her cold cheeks and found them wet.

The
Lakeland Lily
lay low in the water, rails and funnels brilliant white above the maroon of her hull, flag flying, a lily proudly embossed on her prow. She was a fine, neat little steamer, quick to respond to the lightest touch and easy to handle in a fractious wind. She began work at ten each day and steamed for twelve hours taking passengers up and down the lake, even continuing till midnight if a private party was on board.

Lily herself often skippered her, steering through the channels with practised ease. She’d learned to land without bumping, had become accomplished at the task and held no fear of it. Though when she’d first started she’d been perfectly hopeless, missing the pier entirely while the boatmen had laughed and shouted out to her, ‘Shall we fetch the jetty over for you?’

Now, despite the way the dales could funnel the wind from two different angles at once, she could manage the boat well, whether it be light or dark. Lily knew she could sail out in sunshine and as easily return in thick mist, and that the light could play tricks with the eyes, presenting a mirage of hills that did not exist. But Ferryman Bob and George had trained her well and made sure of her skills.

Now Lily had every confidence in herself. She took care to remember that there was more behind than in front of her. She could shout ‘Throw more wood on’, or ‘Send it on’, when the cruise was about to start as loudly as the rest, proud to be a skipper.

There were other rules to follow on the lake, of course, and it was essential that they be kept. There were currents and shallows, and underwater rocks to avoid. When two vessels met they were expected to pass on the port side, altering course well in advance in order to do so. Lily had learned all of this.

She helped to load the wood and coal in the mornings, pump out the bilges, check that everything was shipshape with ropes neatly coiled, fire buckets to hand, the correct pressure in the boiler. There was nothing she wasn’t prepared to do for the sake of her lovely boats.

Best of all Lily liked to mingle with the passengers, taking their tickets or, as today, relaxing on the buttoned seats, hearing the swish of the water creaming behind them and enjoying listening to Ferryman Bob tell one of his many yarns. This one was about Charles Fildes who built the
Fairy Queen
and used to take out her boiler and engine each winter to use in a miniature locomotive in his garden. At least this was one of his true stories, related to entertain the passengers.

The sun was shining from a wide blue sky with not a sign of a cloud. Close by the shore a heron stood in the shallows collecting its breakfast before lifting powerful wings and taking off low over the sparkling water. Grand houses peeped shyly from behind thick foliage, and the steep green flanks of the surrounding mountains were pencil sharp in the clear air - as if a child had drawn them and coloured them in with her brightest paints. Lily sighed with happiness. Life on the water here was so peaceful, as her home life could not be, which somehow added to her pleasure.

She was helping a small girl up on to the seat for a better view of Hazel Holme when the shout went up.

‘Damned fool, what does he think he’s doing?’

She glanced up to find
The Golden Lady
steaming towards them at full speed. Her blood ran cold and she was on her feet in seconds, running to George whose grey face spoke of his fear.

‘Where the hell he thinks he’s going, I’m sure I don’t know, Miss Lily.’

‘Dear heaven, she’s too big for these waters, let alone ... She shouldn’t even be here!’ One of the unwritten but hard and fast rules was that no two steamers must pass in the narrows between islands. There simply wasn’t room because of the way the land extended beneath the surface of the water around each island, creating dangerously narrow channels. ‘Isn’t she going to stop or change course?’ Lily cried, stunned as the ship steamed relentlessly nearer, leaving
Lakeland Lily
with no opportunity to get out of the way in time.

‘What do we do?’ George asked, panic rising in his voice. Lily didn’t know. Put her
in reverse? Try to turn her? While she hesitated,
The Golden Lady
came inexorably on.

George and Lily together wrenched the
Lakeland Lily
round as best they could and she rocked crazily in the water as a result. But she didn’t stand a chance.

The small steamer could go nowhere but plough through the shallows right on to land. She drove aground with a terrible grinding and tearing of her hull.
Lakeland Lily
was very firmly beached on Hazel Holme with half her screaming passengers falling over like skittles on deck.

Dear God, Lily thought, would this battle for vengeance never end?

Lakeland Lily
stood in dry dock and business was looking grim. She must be brought back into service with all speed if Lily were not to lose the best part of the season.

Nathan rang with his apologies and some tale of its all being an accident, caused by a new skipper. She put down the phone without even troubling to respond. Then she sent the family solicitor, Mr Groves, to see him. He stood before a grave-faced, tight-lipped Nathan and issued a formal warning.

‘Any more trouble of this nature and Mrs Clermont-Read will have no hesitation in taking the matter to court.’

Nathan’s frozen glare said it all.

Groves handed him a written warning, lest he be in any doubt that she was serious. ‘I would advise you, Mr Monroe, to stay well away from Mrs Clermont-Read and her steam launches in future. Is that quite clear? Do we understand the situation?’

‘We understand it fully. Tell her nothing on God’s earth would induce me to come anywhere near her. Not ever again.’

It was exactly the reaction Lily had requested, yet somehow it offered no comfort whatsoever.

From that day on it was as if open warfare had been declared between them. After four frantic weeks of effort
Lakeland Lily
was back in the water.

Lily instructed Rose to shout all the louder on the pier, and put up more blackboards. She rented a small cafe nearby and served refreshments to those waiting to board. She organised bargain runabout tickets with the railway and charabanc companies who brought people from Bradford, Leeds and Halifax, or Liverpool, Preston and Blackburn. She hired a band to outplay the ones on board the
Lucy
Ann
and
The Golden Lady.
She even offered brown ale on her picnics, something which Margot hated. And her efforts paid off. The number of customers doubled, packing her fleet of steamboats with gentlemen in moustaches and gaiters, ladies in cloche hats, and children in sailor suits.

And they loved it. Some thought they could sail all the way to the sea in one of Lily’s boats and Rose rarely disabused them. So long as they handed over their shillings they could think what they liked.

Finally, Lily put in an order for a large steamship. She had paid off her loans, had a fair amount saved and would beg or borrow the rest from the bank, bully Margot to sell more pictures, steal the money if she must, but she would not be beaten. Certainly not by foul play perpetrated by Nathan Monroe. She would work every hour God sent, and make her fortune in no time.

Margot had taken to her bed, and this time it looked as if she meant to stay there. Barwick House had never seemed more depressing. The lamps were shrouded with squares of black linen, the green window blinds drawn, and Betty and George tiptoed about the place, afraid to disturb the all-enveloping silence.

It was as if the last of Margot’s energy had seeped away. She would receive no visitors, talk to no one. She had stopped her constant criticising, never interrogated Lily on her routine, didn’t even utter a single complaint if her luncheon was late. She just lay in bed, staring out of the window or flicking through old magazines without reading any of them, growing older by the minute before Lily’s eyes.

When Lily begged her mother-in-law to get up and take tea in the parlour she simply sighed and looked away. Her life, she said, had served no purpose. She had been a complete failure as a mother. Neither of her children had come up to scratch, so the fault must be entirely hers. ‘What did I do wrong?’ she asked pitifully.

Lily took a more prosaic view. ‘It must be the way of the world for parents to be disappointed in their children. Certainly mine suffer exactly the same sentiments over me.’

Margot looked at her askance. ‘How can you say so? You’ve gone up in the world. You have married into one of the finest families in Carreckwater.’

Lily smiled. ‘There are some matters which cannot be measured in terms of money or class. Certainly my mother thinks so.’

Margot frowned, clearly not believing this to be true, but Lily had no wish just then to go into the question of morals. To open Margot’s eyes to whatever pranks Bertie had got up to in the past, or risk hinting at what Selene might be up to now, would be too much for her to absorb. So she tucked in sheets, plumped pillows and said no more.

‘I wanted only the best for them, and neither cares a scrap about me,’ Margot wailed.

‘I’m still here,’ Lily gently reminded her.

Tearful eyes looked up into hers. ‘Why?’

Lily could only chuckle as she slid a fresh hot water bottle beneath the covers. ‘You always told me I was born daft. Happen you were right,’ she said, in a return to her old accent. ‘Now, Betty has made some lovely oxtail soup. I’ll go and fetch us a bowl each, and we can take lunch together up here. Then I can see you drink every drop.’

‘Harridan!’ Margot called after her, but Lily didn’t mind. Her mother-in-law was a sad creature now, not yet sixty but old before her time. Perhaps she had good cause. Lily felt almost sorry for her.

Nor did Lily feel quite her old optimistic self. She too had changed over the years. Grown a little wiser, a touch calmer and more patient in her dealings with people - Nathan Monroe notwithstanding. And was perhaps more realistic in her expectations of life. Sadly, on the other hand, she had also lost a little faith and trust in the people she loved. Lily now believed that she could rely on no one but herself.

Certainly living with the betrayal and hurt caused by the man she loved had proved to be more painful than even she could have imagined. The days and weeks following the near collision were the worst she had ever known. How could he have done this to her? How could he have been so cruel? Was this the proof of his love? Of his mindless, heartless obsession?

Competition, however fierce, was surely healthy. But not this. Selene had warned her that Nathan was jealous of her success. She hadn’t believed it then, and still couldn’t now. There must be more to it than that.

As for sending those mysterious little notes, trying to put the blame on Bertie, that left her utterly breathless. Could Nathan truly have staged an ‘accident’ on the lake. Why would he? There could be only one reason: to punish her for refusing to leave Bertie.

Tears shone in her hazel eyes.

Nathan Monroe was selfish, rotten to the core. Always had been, always would be. And she really was much better off without him.

It was the end of another long and tiring day. Lily had worked late at the office. Now she wearily rang for the new steam ferry, glad at least of the opportunity to see Arnie. It pleased her to see her father happy and content at last.

‘You like this job, don’t you?’ she said as they sat together in the bow.