Where Earth Meets Sky (29 page)

‘You were so quiet, so miserable afterwards. I didn’t realize, of course. But Lily – he still is married!’

‘I know,’ Lily said, even more brightly. ‘There’s nothing to worry about, really!’

‘Well, I do hope so!’ Susan said urgently. ‘I’m going to speak very frankly, Lily: if there was anything between you, you’d have to get over it, both of you. I’d feel so responsible for throwing you together again. You’ll only be in a dreadfully unhappy and shameful situation, Lily, dear! I can see he is far from indifferent to you and men can use one terribly falsely! After all, he can’t leave a wife and children, can he? So there’s no place for you – none at all. And certainly not without scandal and heartbreak.’

Lily hated to lie when she knew Susan was trying to protect her, but she simply could not bear to let Sam go again or to admit to the obstacles in the way of their being together.

‘It’s all right, I assure you,’ she said, looking Susan directly in the eye. ‘I’m very touched by your concern, but there’s nothing between myself and Sam Ironside. That was all over years ago. I feel quite calm and indifferent about seeing him again.’

‘Well,’ Susan said. ‘I’m immensely relieved to hear it.’

There were brief times when she was alone with Sam, or almost, walking ahead of the Fairfords, or behind, on the way to or from a picnic. And they talked in low, urgent voices. Lily was now aware that they were being watched. That day, after Susan’s warning, they stepped ahead along the path.

‘She told me to keep away from you,’ Lily murmured.

‘Does she know?’ Sam’s voice was tense.

‘She guessed. It’s not surprising really, is it? She guessed last time as well. I mean look at us now. It must be very obvious. I told her she had nothing to worry about . . .’ For the first time she allowed reality to wash cold over the situation. Turning to him, she said, ‘Sam, I don’t know what to think. Whatever are we going to do?’

Sam stepped round a rock in the path, his face very serious. ‘God, I want to see you alone, Lily. To spend time with you somewhere so that we can talk properly.’

Lily felt just as desperate. It was wonderful to see Sam every day, but they had had so little time alone, and the days were rushing past. Only five remained, and he would be snatched away from her again. Until now she had barely allowed herself to think about it.

‘But how can we? Everyone is so determined to chaperone us.’

‘One evening? Could you get out, d’you think?’

‘Not tonight. I have to dine with Dr McBride and his guest. Perhaps tomorrow?’

‘Tomorrow,’ Sam said. ‘Without fail.’

Soon after breakfast that morning, Ewan McBride had ordered her presence for dinner in the evening.

‘Make sure you wear something especially nice, won’t you, Lily? Perhaps one of your more exotic gowns. Would you like me to come and choose for you?’

Lily felt her hackles rise at the way he had to control everything, and realized that that was new. Before, she had simply grown used to it. But she knew the way to handle him.

‘Perhaps the mirror gown?’ she suggested compliantly. It was a very striking dress, stitched from rich pink, blue and peacock-green cloth from Rajasthan, with circles of mirror glass embroidered into the skirt and sleeves. Light shimmered and danced off it and it always produced gasps of admiration when she had appeared in it at parties. She often wore it with a strip of raw green mirrored silk wrapped round her smoothly coiffured hair.

‘Oh yes, I think so,’ Dr McBride almost purred. She could see that she was to be shown off as a trophy to Dr McCluskie. The thought of dining with the two men made her recoil. She knew she would feel the usual sense of being unreal, not herself, like the china doll that Ewan McBride required her to be.

Stephen, the cook, was in a tizzy because the advent of a guest was so unusual.

‘There is going to be a misadventure,’ he wailed to Lily, who, on return from the picnic with the Fairfords, decided she had better help.

‘But everything is going perfectly well,’ she told him. ‘Look, you’ve already done nearly all of it.’ They were to have a roast duck with trimmings, and apple pie, and Stephen always got himself worked up about pastry. Even Prithvi seemed in a bit of a state, though she only had to serve the food. The household was simply not used to visitors.

By seven-thirty Lily had dressed herself, with a little help from Prithvi with the hooks and eyes, and put her hair up, wrapping the bandanna round it, and applied a thin line of kohl round her lids. Turning her head from side to side she realized that she looked very exotic. The doctor would be pleased. It was her habit to try and please him. It made her life peaceful. Tonight, though, her own spirit was strong in her and she felt a great flare of anger. Who did he think he was, some sort of puppet master, to have her dancing to his every tune?

‘You may think you’ve got me on a string,’ she whispered to her reflection, ‘but not for much longer, Doctor. Because I love Sam Ironside and he loves me. And you have no power over that.’

And walking tall, haughtily, she went to the doctor’s study and rapped on the door.

‘Ah Lily, my dear!’ Dr McBride said, throwing open the door to enable her to make a triumphal entry, and in so doing made Lily see that Dr McCluskie knew exactly what was her position in the household, and that she was there to be displayed as if part of a harem. She felt deeply shamed and angry, but she knew that coldly, quietly, she would play her part, for the moment.

‘I say, how splendid!’ Dr McCluskie leaped to his feet. ‘What a very beautiful addition you are to the room, Miss Waters.’ Unlike the last time she had seen Dr McCluskie, when he had appeared very gentlemanly, this time she sensed a lascivious edge to his speech which repelled her.

‘Good evening, Dr McCluskie,’ she said coolly, as they shook hands. She saw by the blush rising from his collar that this bashful bachelor was strongly affected by her presence.

Dr McBride handed her a glass of sweet sherry and Lily sipped it, feeling its syrupy warmth in her throat.

‘From what part do you hail?’ Dr McCluskie asked, and Lily, feeling the usual dread of questions, trotted out her usual version of events very briefly, before quickly diverting the conversation on to himself, a subject on which he appeared ready to elaborate at some length. As Dr McBride ushered them to the table, Dr McCluskie was telling Lily that much of his work from Patna involved travelling the villages, where he lived for weeks at a time, scarcely ever seeing another white face except those of missionaries in the field.

‘It can make a man very hungry for a sight or sound of home,’ he said, almost apologetically. ‘And tonight is a veritable feast.’

Lily smiled faintly. She saw Dr McBride frowning, but Dr McCluskie, who suddenly seemed to have come to life, began to regale Lily with stories of medical oddities he had encountered in his work in remote villages, and as Prithvi carried in the soup, he was in the midst of a descriptive parade of goitres and tumours and birth defects hideous enough to turn the stomach.

‘The whole of the foot was infested with white ants,’ he said enthusiastically, as Prithvi fled from the room.

‘D’you think, Duncan, we could manage to find a less picturesque line of conversation in front of the ladies?’ Dr McBride requested in irritation. ‘After all, even some medical men are not used to the rigours of rural India.’

‘How utterly remiss of me,’ Duncan McCluskie said, raising his glass to Lily. There was a twinkle in his eyes, but whereas before he had seemed placid, now there was a hard edge to him, something mocking. He was already well gone for drink. Both men were drinking whisky. ‘Ewan and I go back a long way together – and we medical men, you know, we grow accustomed to talking about things which are not usually aired in polite society. My humble apologies, Miss Waters.’

Lily inclined her head graciously. She wasn’t having him thinking that she was so easily shocked. ‘Not at all. It was most interesting. I haven’t had the privilege of visiting the more remote parts of the country.’

‘Ah – no place for a lady, that I can tell you,’ Dr McCluskie said, and another stream of reminiscences began.

They finished their soup and Prithvi came in, looking terrified, with the duck, which turned out to be excellently done. As they ate the two men exchanged stories and memories of student years in Edinburgh and their work since and Lily became their captive audience, though she was in any case oblivious to most of it, her mind wandering longingly to Sam. From what she did hear, the more they drank, the more competitive the storytelling became, each man trying to cap the other’s experiences. Dr McCluskie had worked in some of the poorest parts of Glasgow before arriving in India and he was a fund of extraordinary tales which Dr McBride, who had been in Mussoorie for years, simply could not match.

‘I’m sure Miss Waters doesn’t want to hear about all this,’ he said more than once, leaning forward to replenish Dr McCluskie’s glass.

‘Ah, but I must just tell you this one,’ Duncan McCluskie insisted, and launched into a story about a family he had been involved with in Glasgow with thirteen children and almost every degree of ill health and misfortune that could be imagined. Listening to him talking about the lives of this poor family made Lily very uncomfortable. Little do they know, she thought, that I come from a place not so different. The Horne girls had left her in no ignorance of the fact that she was a poor foundling whose parents had deserted her. She felt a shudder go through her at all that she might have become. Better to put up with Ewan McBride’s maulings than be poor like that!

But she was also becoming more aware of the strained atmosphere between the two men and especially when Duncan McCluskie said to her, ‘Perhaps you’d like to come with me on one of my jaunts into the countryside, Miss Waters? I’m sure you’d find it highly educational.’

Dr McBride let out a sudden gust of laughter, but Lily could tell there was a dangerous edge to it.

‘Really, Duncan – you are a card. Can you imagine this Lily-flower here out in the squalor of the villages?’

‘Oh – I rather think Miss Waters has more to her than meets the eye,’ Duncan McCluskie said, looking deep into Lily’s eyes, before she lowered her gaze. The conversation was making her feel increasingly uncomfortable, these men acting so competitively over her. Fortunately Prithvi came in again then to clear away the plates and bring in the hot apple pie.

‘I say – you’ve done us proud here!’ Duncan McCluskie said. ‘I haven’t enjoyed a splendid meal like this in a very long time!’

‘That’s also thanks to our Miss Waters here. She has taken responsibility for organizing the household and making us fully shipshape.’

‘Well, it’s time someone took you to task, if you won’t employ the normal number of servants like anyone else, McBride!’

‘I don’t need servants – I just need Lily here,’ the doctor replied unguardedly. In his half-drunken state he gave her a soulful stare, like a lecherous spaniel. Lily felt more and more uncomfortable, and as soon as the pie was eaten she got up quickly from the table.

‘I’ll leave you gentlemen to your coffee now,’ she said.

The two men lurched to their feet in surprise. ‘No, Lily – don’t leave us yet,’ Dr McBride said. Lily knew it was an order, but she decided to treat it as a request.

‘It’s kind of you, but I’m very tired and I’m sure you would like more time to talk alone. Goodnight, Dr McCluskie. It has been most enjoyable.’

He took her hand in his clammy one and held it for seconds longer than necessary, staring into her eyes.

‘Goodnight, Miss Waters. I’m charmed. Utterly charmed.’

At last she was free to leave the room.

If he knocked on the door she didn’t hear it. The first thing she became aware of was a light in the room and she sat up, pulsing with shock. She had been deeply asleep, but now there was a figure standing by her bed, holding a candle and she knew immediately from his slender build that it was not Dr McBride.

‘No need to be frightened,’ he whispered. He lifted the mosquito net and sat down on the bed. Lily could see that Duncan McCluskie was very much the worse for drink. His eyes looked glazed and strange.

‘What are you doing here?’ She was torn between outrage and fear. It must be the small hours and he had seen fit just to wander in here! What was she, some woman of the streets that everyone could use on a whim? But he was a strong-looking man, with a wild look in his eye at this moment and she was frightened of what he might do. Setting the mosquito net alight with the candle seemed a distinct possibility, quite apart from anything else. She eased herself away from him, in readiness to slide off the other side of the bed.

‘Don’t pretend you don’t know, you beautiful, teasing whore.’ His voice was low and urgent. ‘Flaunting yourself at me like that all evening. This is what you do for him, isn’t it? So you can do it for me. That’s what you want, isn’t it? I can see you looking at me . . . Well, I’m ready for you.’

Without even putting the candle down he lunged at her, grabbing her round the shoulders with his left hand and forcing his lips to hers while he held the candle with the other, perilously close to her hair. Lily struggled, panic-stricken, and managed to get her legs on to the floor the other side of the bed. She struggled away from him, fighting her way out from under the mosquito net.