No Wings to Fly (42 page)

The week dragged by, and then on Friday Lily received a letter from Seston. In it Mr Corelman said he was pleased to offer her the position of governess to his children at the salary agreed, and reiterated that she would begin her duties on Monday the eleventh of September. He would
write to her nearer the time, he said, to make final arrangements. In the meantime she should write back at once and confirm that she would be there on the day.

With no great heart for the task, she replied to the letter that evening and posted it on the way to Yew Tree House the next morning.

This was her last day with Alice and Rose, and although she had prepared lessons for them, she was not overly surprised when not much work was done. Eventually, though, the moment came when she must say her goodbyes to the two girls. It was a tearful time for all three of them, and there were kisses and embraces all round. In the three and a half years that Lily had been teaching them, she had come to be very fond of them, as they were of her. Even so, she was not prepared for the emotional wrench that the parting brought. Afterwards, with her bags packed with her books and other items, she left the schoolroom for the last time and went down into the hall where Mr and Mrs Acland came to meet her and thank her and wish her well for the future. Mr Acland warmly shook her hand, and Mrs Acland did the same and impulsively planted a kiss on her cheek. When her belongings had been put into the trap there came last hugs and kisses for Alice and Rose, and then she herself was climbing up onto the seat. A minute later, with Mr Acland at the reins, Lily was being driven away, leaving the house for the final time.

At the cottage in Ashway Lane, over her tea and sandwich, Lily spoke to Mrs Thorne of her regret at leaving Alice and Rose, and her uncertainty as to her future. With regard to her promised post at Seston, she was unable to hide her misgivings about it.’

‘I’m sure it’ll be just fine,’ Mrs Thorne said kindly. ‘It’ll all be new to you, but you’ll settle in and get used to it in time.’

‘Yes, no doubt you’re right,’ Lily said, unconvinced.

Glancing at the clock, she remarked that she must think about going to the Villas to pick up the rent. This errand too, she thought, would soon be a thing of the past, for once she was in Seston she would be unable to carry it out. In which case, Miss Elsie would have to make other arrangements.

A few minutes later, carrying her umbrella in acknowledgement of the clouds that were gathering, she set off for the station.

Arriving at the Villas in Brookham Way, she rapped on Mrs Tanner’s door. Her knock was answered by a pretty, fair-haired girl of about fourteen, who turned out to be Mrs Tanner’s granddaughter, Millie, who had come to spend some time with her grandmother. Lily followed the girl into the kitchen where Mrs Tanner was sitting by the range.

As Millie busied herself getting the tea, Lily and Mrs Tanner dealt with the rent money. Afterwards, Lily remarked that this would probably be the last time she would come to collect it, as she was soon to go off to Seston to live and work. Mrs Tanner expressed regret at the news, but wished her well in her new post. When she asked if a new tenant had been found for the adjoining house, Lily said no, that Miss Balfour was not yet ready to rent it out again.

After a while, Lily put aside her empty cup and got to her feet. It was time to set off for Sherrell, she said. First of all, however, she must look into the unoccupied house next door and check that all was well. After saying her goodbyes to Mrs Tanner and Millie, she let herself out, and went down the path under the laburnum tree and the lowering clouds. She was just passing through the gateway when the rain started to fall. In seconds it was teeming down, and with no time to put up her umbrella, she pushed open the gate of the neighbouring house and
started up the path. As she got to the front door she heard someone call her name.

She stopped and turned, and as she did so she saw Joel coming towards her through the rain.

Joel came through the open gate as Lily looked at him in astonishment. He stopped before her, one hand raised in a vain attempt to keep the rain from his face. His other held a leather briefcase. Lily stood speechless for a moment, the latchkey in her hand, then she said: ‘Joel – what – what are you doing here?’

‘I had to see you. I’ve been waiting for you to come out.’

She stood there while the rain poured down, then, juggling her bag and the key, she lifted her umbrella, opened it and hiked it up over their heads. ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ she said.

‘I had to see you,’ he said.

She shook her head, frowning. ‘This is lunacy.’

They remained standing there on the path.

‘I had to see you,’ Joel said again. ‘I’ve got to talk to you.’

She said, ‘How did you know where I’d be,’ then gave a nod as memory came. ‘Of course – I told you I came here every fortnight.’

‘Can I talk to you?’ he said. ‘Please, I’ve got to talk to you.’

The heavy raindrops drummed on the umbrella’s black canopy, struck the old flagstones on which they stood, and bounced off. The umbrella was not protection enough; the shoulders of Joel’s brown jacket were being darkened by the rain.

‘We can’t stand out here,’ she said. A warning voice in her mind told her she should send him away, while another
part of her mind embraced his presence and lifted at the sight of him standing so close. There came a loud crack of thunder, so loud and seeming so close that she flinched. The key to the door was in her hand. Joel, standing before her, was getting wetter by the second.

‘We can’t stay out here,’ she said again. Turning from him, she put the key in the lock. ‘Let’s go inside for a minute.’

Seconds later she was closing her umbrella and stepping through into the tiny hall, with Joel coming up behind her over the threshold. She stood in the hall while he closed the door on the rain, and in a moment all was silent.

‘We’ll go into the kitchen,’ she said, and led the way the few yards along to the kitchen door and passed through. ‘Wait here.’

Stepping on through into the tiny scullery, she stood her dripping umbrella in the old stone sink. When she went back into the kitchen a moment later she found Joel standing beside the table with his hat in his hand.

‘D’you mind if I take off my jacket?’ he said. ‘I’m a bit wet on the shoulders.’

‘Of course not.’ She put her bag on the table. ‘Do you need a towel?’

‘No, I’ll be all right.’ He took off his jacket and draped it over the back of a chair, then ran fingers through his hair. They stood facing one another.

He gazed at her. ‘You look as if you’re poised for flight,’ he said. ‘Like a bird.’

She said nothing.

‘Can we sit down?’

‘Of course.’ She avoided his gaze as he pulled out a chair from the table and sat down.

‘Are you going to take off your hat?’ he said.

‘I’m only waiting for the rain to stop, then I must leave again.’

He gestured to the second chair at the table. ‘Lily, sit down – please.’

‘I – I must check on the house,’ she said. ‘That’s what I came here for – to make sure everything’s all right. You get these vagabonds roaming about – these wandering navvies. Some of them would think nothing of coming in and making free with the place.’

‘Lily, please . . .’

‘No – I must.’

She left him then, sitting at the table, and went into the hall, and from there opened the door into the little front parlour and went inside. All was much as she expected to find it, except that the rug had been rolled back from the hearth, and dust sheets placed around the fireplace. Mr Shad must have been here to sweep the chimney, she realised. Everything else was as it should be.

She left the room and went up to look in the two bedrooms. They looked rather cold and uninviting with the mattresses and pillows bare on the beds, but all was in order. In the front bedroom, the larger of the two, she drew out the drawers of a chest and found them empty apart from neat layers of old newspapers. In a cupboard beside the old bed she found a number of items that Mrs Callinthrop had left behind, forgotten or discarded: a few old sheets and blankets, clean but rather worn; a pair of old shoes, some stockings and an old petticoat. She closed the cupboard door on them. Outside the window the rain dripped from the laburnum tree. The deserted street beyond looked sodden under the dark grey sky. Joel would be waiting still in the kitchen. After a moment she went out of the room and down the narrow stairs.

He was sitting just as she had left him, and he looked around at her as she entered. ‘Is everything all right?’ he asked.

‘Yes, everything’s fine.’

‘Is the place to be let again soon?’

‘I don’t know.’ She came to a stop at the table. ‘Miss Balfour doesn’t have any immediate plans for it. She’s going to take the opportunity to get a few repairs done – that sort of thing.’

He looked up at her as she stood there. ‘Sit down, Lily,’ he said softly.

After a moment’s hesitation she pulled out the chair and sat. ‘As soon as the rain stops we must go,’ she said.

‘I know. I know. I have to go too. There’s someone I have to meet.’ He took his watch from his pocket, opened it and looked at it. ‘I mustn’t be late.’ He raised himself slightly from the seat and moved his chair closer to her own. Now they were sitting so near. ‘I wish you’d take off your hat,’ he said.

She looked at him in silence for a second, then put up her hands and pulled out the pins that were holding her hat in place. She lifted it off, stuck the pins back into it and laid it on the table. Taking off her gloves she put them inside the crown. As she touched at her hair, Joel smiled, pleased with the transformation.

‘Ah, yes, that’s better.’

She did not know what to say, and looked down at her hands. She was so conscious of his nearness, and aware too of the beating of her heart. ‘You shouldn’t have come here, Joel,’ she said after a while. ‘Why did you come?’

‘I had to. I told you, I had to. I knew you’d be back here today; you told me you would. And I knew where you’d be – one of the houses had a laburnum tree, you said. So I just came along and waited. It wasn’t an impulsive move – I’ve known for days that I had to do it.’

‘You could have written to me.’

‘If I had, you might have avoided me.’

She raised her head and looked at him now. ‘Why did you come?’

He hesitated only a second before replying, then said simply, ‘I love you, Lily.’

For a moment her breath caught in her throat. His words were like water to a thirsting man, like bread to one starving. She could live on them; she could drink them, eat them, she could breathe them like the very air. ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Oh, Joel, don’t say such things. You wouldn’t if you knew what they do to me.’

‘I mean it,’ he said. He leant a little closer, moved his hand and laid it on hers as it rested on the table top. She could feel the warmth of his palm on her flesh. A pause, then he said, ‘I’ve got to go away, in just a few days, and I had to come and see you before I go.’

‘Joel, please,’ she said, withdrawing her hand. ‘Where is this leading us? For heaven’s sake, you come here out of the blue – and you tell me you love me. But it can’t lead anywhere. It can only cause more pain.’

‘Listen to me.’ He gave an urgent little nod. ‘I meant it – when I said I love you. I do. I’ve never stopped loving you.’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘You shouldn’t be talking like this. It’s too late. Too much has happened. We’ve made our own lives now.’

‘No, it’s not too late. Listen to me, Lily. Please. I hurt you. When we met again, over three years ago, after we found one another on the train – I wrote to you, and I hurt you. And I want to tell you how desperately sorry I am. I wanted to tell you this the other day in the square – but I couldn’t. It wasn’t the right time, or the right place. I’ve got to tell you now, though.’ He paused. ‘My letter . . .’

‘Yes . . .’

‘I was cruel. Oh, God, I was cruel.’

‘You did what you had to do,’ she said softly.

He frowned. ‘I – I was so – shocked. Learning of your child. Oh, Lily – nothing prepared me for that.’ He groaned. ‘As I told you – I’m my father’s son in so many ways. I’ve
had to face up to that. There’s an old saying that the fruit never falls far from the tree, and it’s so true. I’m my father’s son, and I’ve been carefully taught.’

Lily opened her mouth to answer, but he lifted a hand. ‘Please – let me speak for a minute.’ He paused then went on, ‘He’s a strong man, my father. A man of strong will and strong principles. He’s very sure of his God, and very sure of his morals and the morals of society – what he sees in others, what he expects from others. It’s not always easy, being his son. And with the death of my brother my father invested even more in me, demanded even more of me. My brother and I – we were very different – but I don’t think my father was ever aware of it, that difference.’ He gazed at her in silence for a moment, then gave a sigh. ‘I turned from you, Lily, because of what had happened to you, because of your child. I turned away from you. It was something I could not – could not deal with. I just couldn’t. It was completely outside my whole – sphere.’

Silence in the little room, silence broken only by the sounds of the rain.

‘I thought I would get over it, in time,’ Joel continued into the quiet. ‘The parting from you, I mean. I thought I would get over you – forget you. It would only be a matter of time. But it didn’t happen. I couldn’t get you out of my head – or my heart. You’ve been there, all the time – and in the end I knew it didn’t matter about what had happened in the past. In your past.
You
were all that mattered.
You
had not changed. You were the same person that you always were. The fault was in
me
– my narrowness, my bigotry – my own limitations.’ He sighed. ‘I know it now. Forgive me, Lily.’

She did not speak.

‘I’ve learnt a lot over these months, these years, and I know how wrong I was. About many things. And I know too, what I feel for you. That you’re everything to me.’

A sudden gust of wind rattled the pane and threw the rain at the glass. The two people did not move.