Where Earth Meets Sky (28 page)

‘Here am I, rattling on about people. You know’ – she considered for a moment – ‘you’ve changed, Lily. I mean, look at that marvellous gown you’re wearing. It’s quite lovely. You’ve become a good deal more
sophisticated
. Yes, that’s it. You’re more like one of us. That’s why my tongue’s running away.’

‘Thank you,’ Lily said, choosing not to regard this as rude. She knew what Susan Fairford meant, of course. After all these months of acting as a social companion for Dr McBride, she not only had a wardrobe full of beautiful clothes, including the powder-blue woollen outfit she was wearing today, but she had become used to mixing with the socialites of British Mussoorie, who had come to be more accepting of her now the first gossip had died down. For much of that time she had been quietly observing their ways, but she had gradually assumed some of those and become more confident and at home.

That day they drove out of Mussoorie and found a beautiful place to stop and picnic at the foot of a high waterfall. As the captain drove the car along the snaking road up and down the hills, the high ridges afforded them awe-inspiring views across to the white peaks, and the air was crisp and fresh and gave a great feeling of freedom and expansion. Lily had never been out this far before and she breathed in deeply, feeling her spirits soar with the air rushing against her cheeks, the blue ribbons of her hat streaming behind her, and this family, of whom she had become more fond than she realized, here with her and wanting to see her. Most miraculous of all, seated in front of her, exchanging remarks with Captain Fairford over the noise of the engine, was Sam Ironside. She felt full of powerful, melting emotion at the sight of him.
This is now
, she kept saying to herself,
and he’s here, he’s really, really here.
The feelings were so overpowering that she could not caution herself about his wife or think of anything but how much she loved him. She had to restrain herself from reaching out to stroke Sam’s slender neck, with its dark, tapering hairline.

They parked at some distance from the falls and walked along a fern-lined path to find a place to sit and eat their picnic. Isadora had to be cajoled along with descriptions of the tumbling water.

‘But I want to go for a ride,’ she kept insisting.

Captain Fairford took her hand. ‘We’ll go riding later, I promise, Izzy, when we get back. We’ll always go riding, you and I, won’t we? But come and see the falling water. It’s very exciting.’

And the falls were beautiful, tumbling down from the rocks in an abundance of meltwater, arced with rainbows in the sunlight. Nearby, all was vivid green, the rocks speckled with ferns and flowers, and they spread the picnic rug in the fronded shade of the deodars. Lily and Susan laid out the food from the hampers. There was the usual sumptuous Fairford assortment of fare: spiced fritters, cold chicken, a game pie and sandwiches filled with egg and mango chutney and anchovy and watercress. There were walnut pickles and cheese and biscuits. To follow there were fruits and jam tarts, chocolates and a fruit cake, and there was a bottle of champagne with a bucket of ice and crystal glasses and lemon and mango juices, which were Isadora’s favourites.

For a time the two men leaned over the car, in earnest discussion, while Izzy skipped about, released from the confines of the car and enchanted by the sight and sound of the falling water.

‘She seems so happy now,’ Lily said as Izzy floated past, dreamily shredding a piece of green plant in her hands. The two women sat luxuriating in the beauty of the place and each other’s company.

‘Yes.’ Susan looked up with a smile. ‘I’ve tried to spend more time with her. She has been badly done by – by me, I mean. I was ashamed of her, I admit. And I didn’t know how to manage her at all. But I’ve tried, very hard . . .’ She looked sadly into the far distance for a moment. ‘I don’t have children easily. I suppose I’d have liked more babies, but not in this beastly country which snatches them away from you so cruelly. But Izzy is all I have here now – she won’t leave me, you see. We won’t have to send her away. Srimala’s helped me to understand her better. I owe that girl a great deal and I think we’ll need her for as long as she’s prepared to stay. I suppose she’ll marry one day, though I must say she’s not showing much sign of it so far.’ Susan eyed her daughter thoughtfully as Isadora squatted to bend over something that had caught her interest.

‘She’s older, of course. She doesn’t get agitated quite so often – not when it comes to dressing and so on. It all used to be such a battle – every last thing. You remember, of course.’ Lily could see that things had changed and she felt a great admiration for Susan Fair-ford. She still seemed nervy, not happy exactly, but a little more settled in herself.

‘After all,’ she said, self-mockingly, ‘if you can’t even get along with your own children it does seem a pretty poor show.’

There came a sudden burst of laughter from the men, both throwing their heads back, and Lily saw Susan watching them in wistful amusement.

‘That’s where he’s always been happiest, of course. Not with me.’ And she lowered her head as if she had said too much and arranged the linen napkins in a starched white fan on the rug.

Lily didn’t need to ask what she meant and saw that Susan did not want to be asked.

‘And our little Cosmo?’ she said gently. ‘When will you be able to see him again?’

Susan didn’t answer for a moment. When she looked up her eyes were very sad.

‘He stays every holidays with Charles’s elder brother, on the estate. Charles says it will be good for him, let him get to know England, the English countryside and so on. After all, he looks set to inherit the place. Charles did the same, of course – but then he wasn’t alone; he had his brother and there were more relatives around then. Now there’s only William . . .’ She frowned. Lily realized she was battling tears. ‘The man’s . . . I don’t know, unhinged in some way, I’m sure of it. He’s most peculiar. Quite harmless, I would think, but – that’s what I can’t stand, you see . . .’ Her eyes filled. ‘There’s my poor little Cosmo, every holiday in that great pile of a place with Uncle William, who’s mad as a hatter, and the servants . . . No one to love him . . . And no other children except some of the servants’ boys who are rough and older than Cosmo, and from what I gather he spends all possible time with them, when he’s not wandering about alone. I’m sure they’re a ruinous influence, but . . .’ She was trying not to get worked up, but Lily could see she was fighting her sobs as she spoke. ‘Charles keeps insisting that it will all be terribly good for him and character-building, and that it will stand him in good stead for the army – you know, the rough and tumble and mixing with all sorts . . . I really don’t know . . .’ She wiped her eyes. ‘Sometimes I just can’t bear it, not seeing him, having no say at all in what happens to my beautiful little boy. They’re turning him into a stranger! He’s become so naughty and rough and dishonest and he never used to be like that at all, did he, Lily?’

Lily found what she was hearing very sad and disquieting and her heart ached for Cosmo. But she wanted to try and be reassuring.

‘No, of course not. He was always sweet and well behaved when he was little. But boys do go in for a lot more rough and tumble as they get older, don’t they? After all, they don’t stay tiny and sweet all their lives. Perhaps Captain Fairford is right. Cosmo’s education must be rather like he had himself?’

‘Yes, it is, exactly like. And that’s what makes me wonder if he’ll be like Charles . . .’ She bit off her words and looked down, a flush appearing on her face. Visibly pulling herself together and wiping her eyes as the men were approaching for tiffin, she said in a different, sober voice, ‘And, of course, this is the way of things. One must do one’s duty.’

By the time Sam and the captain reached them she was a model of composure.

‘My – this looks a good spread,’ Charles Fairford said, rubbing his hands together. ‘I’ve worked up quite an appetite even without my morning ride. I say, Susan, I could get jolly fond of this place. What do you think? A little more relaxed than dear old Simla, eh?’

‘Yes, much more,’ she agreed demurely, ‘though I do rather miss our dear house in Simla.’

‘But no motors allowed in Simla!’ the captain said. ‘That’s no damn good, is it, Ironside?’ As Sam sat down, the captain pointed at the rocks on each side of the falls. ‘Fancy climbing up there after tiffin, Ironside?’

But Sam’s eyes were fixed on Lily. He looked handsome and invigorated by the fresh air and sunshine, and he was smiling at her so hungrily, so attentively. She looked into his lovely face and for a moment they might have been alone.

‘Ironside?’

‘Ah – yes. A climb? That sounds a fine idea,’ Sam agreed with absent-minded politeness.

The afternoon passed blissfully. The sky was a deep blue and they sat half in the shade of the tall trees, the sound of the white, rushing falls constantly with them, eating their sumptuous picnic. Everything tasted wonderful and Lily sipped the cool champagne, feeling herself growing even more relaxed and muzzy. She felt she was in heaven, in this place with Sam nearby, able to look at him, talk with him whenever she wanted to. She was just drinking in his presence and she could see that he was doing the same. She hummed with happiness like an instrument that had found the right note and could only keep playing it.

And Sam seemed in such happy form. He entertained them with more of his motor-racing stories, which the captain always seemed to be keen to hear and laughed unrestrainedly as he listened to the thrills and spills of attempts at a round-the-world car race.

‘And when they got halfway across Russia – Zust, the Italian car, that is – first of all they almost drowned by driving on to what they thought was dry land and finding it was a swamp. And they had to botch together a new crankshaft bearing – and what did they have for the job? Well—’ Sam chuckled gleefully – ‘some bits of mud and wood and a handful of bullets in a tin which had had cough sweets in it, and that’s how they made do! And then, to cap it all, when they finally got to Omsk, they were arrested – they didn’t get to Paris for another two months!’

‘But
why
on earth?’ Susan Fairford was enjoying the story as well. Lily saw Sam cast a surprised glance in her direction.

‘They thought they were spies, because they tried to send a cable in Italian. And when they did get to France, long after everyone else, they claimed that they were the winners because everyone else had cheated!’

‘Oh really, that’s too much!’ Charles Fairford laughed. ‘I’ve heard of some rum carry-on during the reliability trials out of Bombay,’ he said, chuckling at Sam’s latest tall story. ‘But that takes the biscuit, it really does!’

‘Ah well, that’s not the end of it.’ Sam was enjoying himself, the corners of his eyes creasing with laughter. ‘After the race, the Zust car was taken back to England – and it was caught up in a fire at a railway station and burned to billy-oh!’

‘No – you’re having us on, Ironside!’

‘I’m not. It’s true as I’m sitting here!’

‘What a fellow you are,’ Captain Fairford said. Lily could see that he genuinely enjoyed Sam’s company. After all, the two of them had travelled together and it had created a bond. And she sat in the glow of Sam’s presence, feeling that she had never been so happy before.

‘You’re starting to get more roses in your cheeks, Lily,’ Susan Fairford remarked a couple of days later as they sat looking out over a breathtaking view of peaks and piled clouds, the sun slanting along the steep green valley. For all the outings and trips the Fairfords took that week, they sent invitation to Lily. Taking the Daimler some way out of town, they drank in the beauty of the Himalayan countryside and picnicked surrounded by its icy streams, its trees and flowers.

The men had gone off for a stroll to keep Isadora happy and the two women were sitting after tiffin, relaxing together. ‘You looked really pale and under the weather when we first arrived.’

Lily smiled. She
was
feeling better, but the smile was also one of fondness towards Susan Fairford. Remembering the tense, snobbish woman she had first met in Ambala, she could see what a softening there had been. She knew Sam was still not sure about Susan Fairford. She was less relaxed when he was present, of course, and he tended to read class superiority into everything she said and be needled by it, but Lily had grown closer to her and to respect the struggles of her life. Just because the family had money and class, she knew, it did not always mean happiness.

‘Yes – all this lovely fresh air. And your picnics. The McBrides’ food is much more basic, though I’ve done my best to make it at least more tasty.’

‘I’m sure you have – you’re very capable.’ Susan Fairford looked at Lily closely, with a slight frown. ‘And, of course, even more lovely to look at than I remembered.’

Lily blushed under this close scrutiny.

‘But I worry for you,’ her old mistress went on. ‘It’s him, isn’t it – Sam Ironside – who’s put the colour in your cheeks?’

Lily looked down, not meeting her eyes, her blush deepening, but she said nothing, hoping Susan could not see her confusion.

‘Lily?’ Susan persisted gently. ‘Oh dear, I do remember you were both a little involved with each other last time he was here, but all that was such a time ago and it must be over now, surely?’

Lily found the courage to look up into Susan’s blue eyes and nodded. ‘Oh yes,’ she said lightly. ‘Completely.’