Fallen Skies

by Philippa Gregory

  Stephen turned away and led Lily to the car. She went slowly, unwillingly. As they walked people came towards Lily, ignoring Stephen, to take hold of her hands. Badly dressed women hugged Lily and whispered quick comforting words to her. Men came up and wrung her hand. “One of the best, really one of the best, your ma,” one of them said. One fat woman with her gloves splitting along the seams held Lily and rocked her while the tears coursed down her red cheeks. “Bloody hell, Lil,” she said. “What’ll we do without her?”

  Lily’s composure broke at that. She let out a little cry and flung her arms around the woman’s waist. Her hat fell off and Stephen stooped to pick it up. Lily was at once surrounded by people, men and women muttering, “Poor little duck.” “She looks about done in.” “Such a loss for her.” “Not many girls have a mother like that.”

  “You come home with me,” the big woman said. “I’ve boiled a ham all ready. I thought it was the right thing to do.”

  Stephen stepped forward. “I will take Lily home,” he said pleasantly. “She will be well looked after, I assure you.”

  The woman looked uncertainly at him. “We were going to have a bite to eat. You’re very welcome to come too, Sir.”

  Stephen put his hand out to Lily. “Thank you very much but I think Lily should come home with me and rest.”

  Lily did not obey him as he had expected. She kept her arm around the big woman’s waist and her head laid on the fat shoulder. “I’ll go and have my dinner with Betty. I’ll come home this afternoon.”

  Stephen was too wise to argue. “Of course. I’ll send the car around for you at three, shall I?”

  Lily nodded. “Tell Coventry to come to the shop,” she said.

  Stephen stepped back and let Betty and the rest of them pass. They smelled faintly of mothballs from the Sunday suits. Stephen watched them walk out of the church gate and down the road. Then he went across the road to where Coventry waited with the car.

  “Go and collect Lily from the corner shop at three,” he said. “Drop me at the office now. I might as well do some work for what’s left of the day.”

  • • •

  Lily was glad to be in Betty’s house. Betty had bought a bottle of sweet cheap sherry and everyone drank to Helen’s memory and Betty made a speech reminding everyone of Helen’s generosity with tick, and her fairness. Then the men went out and brought back a jug of beer and they carved the ham and ate it with white bread and butter and wilting tasteless lettuce. Dick Sharp had brought some of his tomatoes from his allotment and they were small and sweet. Lily’s Aunt Mary had made a summer pudding with gooseberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants and a handful of raspberries from her precious raspberry canes. Lily ate well, for the first time in days, and some colour came back into her cheeks.

  “What are you going to do, Lil?” Betty asked, bringing her a strong sweet cup of tea to finish the meal. “The shop’s no good for you, I take it?”

  Lily shook her head. “I’m promised to Stephen Winters,” she said. “The gentleman at the church.”

  “Get away!” Betty was enormously impressed. “Your ma told me about him and I said he’d be up to no good. But she told me he was a real gentleman. Fancy you marrying up, Lily! You’ll be so grand. Here!” she called over to Mary. “Lil’s going to marry that gentleman at the church. Stephen Winters. What d’you think of that!”

  Mary came over and kissed Lily on both cheeks. “Well, that is good news. And there was me, lying awake at nights, worrying what would become of you left all alone in the world while you are set up with a handsome man and a good fortune. He’s a lawyer, didn’t your ma tell me? And a hero too? Didn’t he get a big medal or something in the war?”

  Lily nodded.

  “That’s right,” Betty said. “Helen was telling me. There was a farmhouse which the Jerries had captured and they had killed the women who had been hiding inside it—and done worse to them too. There was a baby there as well—savages they were. That was killed too. But your gentleman rushed up to it, captured it, and killed the Jerries. They gave him a medal.”

  “He never talks about the war,” Lily said.

  “Well, he wouldn’t, would he?” Mary demanded. “That sort never do. It’s the ones who were twenty miles behind the line who won’t stop talking about it, like my George who won it single-handed if you listen to him. But your young man, Lily, why, he’d never say a word.”

  Betty nodded. “It was in all the papers,” she said. “All of them were killed, our boys and the Jerries, everyone except your young gentleman and his batman or whatever they call them.”

  “Coventry?” Lily asked. “Was Coventry there too?”

  Betty nodded. “Is that his name? Your ma looked it up while you were away and she showed it to me, in the papers. Ten of our boys went into the attack on the farmhouse. It was called one of those funny names, Pullyers, something like that. And of the ten, only two came back. They killed all the Germans. But all the women and the baby inside were dead.”

  “Raped, I suppose?” Mary said out of the corner of her mouth.

  “Dreadful,” Betty confirmed. “Raped and stabbed, and the little baby! Stabbed on bayonets where they lay. Devils they are, the Germans. They got all that was coming to them and if I had my way we’d have turned the lot of them over to the Russians. Let ’em sort each other out. Blood-thirsty savages, all of ’em.”

  Lily moved away and looked out through the net curtains to the corner shop opposite where she had spent her childhood. There was an agent’s “To Let” sign up outside.

  “I’ll come over and help you pack up tomorrow,” Betty said behind her. “Past is past, Lil. Your ma wouldn’t want you to grieve.”

  Lily nodded. “I know.”

  “When’s the wedding?” Betty demanded. “Have you set a date?”

  “I only agreed the day before yesterday,” Lily said. “We haven’t decided.”

  “And you live at his house with his mum and dad, do you? That must be cosy.”

  Lily gave a little laugh. The cold silent house was anything but cosy. “It’s all right,” she said. “His father is bedridden. He’s had a stroke. His mother is nice.”

  “She’ll take the place of Helen,” Betty assured her. “A girl your age, about to marry, needs a mother.”

  Lily shook her head. “No-one could take her place.”

  “But she’ll take you around and show you the ropes. You’ll meet their friends and get to know the nobs. And you’ll buy wonderful clothes. I expect you’ll have a proper trousseau and go away!”

  “I expect so.”

  “You don’t look too thrilled,” Mary said, coming up on the other side of Lily. “Are you sure you’re doing the right thing, Lil? Don’t you go rushing into it and making a mistake. They’re one thing when they’re courting and another when they’re married.”

  Lily turned on her that blue blank gaze. “I don’t know,” she said simply. “Ever since Ma died I feel like nothing matters. It doesn’t matter if I marry him or not. It doesn’t matter if I ever sing again or not. Everything I did, really, was to please her. All of my singing, going on tour, getting a job. I wanted her to be proud of me. Now she’s gone I can’t see the point of it. I can’t see the point of anything.”

  Mary and Betty exchanged a glance. “I know it,” Mary said. “That could be me speaking. I lost my mother when I was twenty. The doctors told her it would kill her to have another baby but what could she do? They didn’t tell her how to not get one. They were right. She swelled up when she was six months gone. Kidneys, they said. I thought my world had ended. It took me years and years to get over it.”

  Lily looked at her blankly. “I can’t imagine ever feeling right.”

  “No,” Mary said. “Just get through each day, Lil darling. Just take a day at a time and get through each one.”

  “Could I come and live with you?” Lily asked, turning to Betty. “Just stay here till I get back to work again?”

  “Oh, bless you!” B
etty folded Lily in her arms. “I wish to God I could say yes, but I can’t. There’s my old man coughing his guts up every day and funny in his ways ever since the war, and I’ve got my two big girls at home and four children under five. You could have a couple of nights here, darling, if that’s any help, but you’d have to share a bed with Millie and Clare. I don’t think you’d like it—she brought you up so nice in your ways. And nothing for supper but bread and dripping.”

  “Your ma brought you up too nice,” Mary said. “She brought you up to be a lady. You don’t really know what it’s like, Lil.”

  Lily nodded. “It was just an idea. Seeing the shop made me want to be here again.”

  Mary looked distressed. “I’d offer you a bed with me but you know how George is. And he’s back from prison next weekend.”

  “No,” Lily said. “It wouldn’t work.”

  “Don’t look back,” Betty said. “You’ve got your whole life to look forward to. A nice place to live and a gentleman. You’re better away from here, Lil. Your ma was one of the best but she was never really happy here. She wanted better than this for you. She’d want you well married and away from here.”

  Lily turned her large-eyed look on her. “Are you sure?” she asked urgently. “Are you sure she’d want me to marry him? She always told me not to marry young, to work at my career. But then she was there to care for me. What d’you think she’d tell me to do now?”

  Betty and Mary exchanged one anxious glance. It was clear to them that Lily was incapable of running her own life, and there was no-one in the world to take care of her.

  “She’d say marry him,” Betty said determinedly. “Any mother would. The stage is no life for you, Lil, when you’ve not got her and the shop to fall back on. She wanted you to get ahead but she thought she’d always be there when you were out of work. Now she’s gone you have to look after yourself. Marry him, Lil. He’s a gentleman and he’ll keep you handsome. Your ma would tell you the same if she was here. I know she would. And I’m telling you—and I loved your ma like she was my own sister. Marry your gentleman, Lil. There’s nothing else for you to do.”

  Lily nodded. She looked grim rather than relieved. “I s’pose I’ll have to, then,” she said.

  Mary slid an arm around her waist and hugged her. “It’s your only choice,” she said. “And there’s very few marriages start as well. You’ll get accustomed to his ways, and you’ll never want for anything. He’s head over heels for you, and when you’re feeling better about your ma you’ll be glad to be a married woman and have a nice home.”

  Lily nodded. “I will, then,” she said.

  • • •

  Coventry was outside the corner shop promptly at three and took Lily straight home. Stephen was still at the office but Muriel had ordered afternoon tea in the drawing room at a quarter to four. Lily went upstairs to take off her hat and called in to Rory Winters’s room on her way down to the drawing room.

  The room was shady, the curtains had been drawn for his afternoon sleep, but Lily could see his eyes were open. “Shall I open the curtains?” she asked.

  They were on cords and swished back easily when she pulled the heavy knobs. Golden sunlight spilled into the room. Lily looked out from the tower window over the Canoe Lake where people boated in little rowboats. Beyond them was the seafront road and the sea wall. The tide was out and there was a long smooth stretch of sand busy with children building castles and spooning fishing nets into the shallows. It was Alexandra Rose Day and Lily could see a long-skirted woman in a picture hat with a tray half-full of wilting roses walking slowly down the promenade.

  “It’s a lovely day,” Lily said. “It really couldn’t be nicer.” She came away from the window and stood at the foot of the bed. “Perhaps we should see if you couldn’t get into a wheelchair. I could wheel you along the front and you could see the sea and the children playing. We could go along to the pier. You’d like that, I expect.”

  Rory Winters’s twisted face was still. His dark eyes watched her intelligently like a man peeping through thick prison bars.

  “We’ll have to find things to do,” Lily said. “You and me. Both of us in this house with nothing to do and no feelings in us. Perhaps we could walk by the sea.”

  13

  STEPHEN HAD DECIDED THAT they should be married at the register office by special licence. By these means he overruled his mother’s objections that Lily could hardly have a full formal white wedding in church while she was in mourning, and that waiting for the correct six months was clearly impossible while Lily was living in the same house.

  Muriel took coffee with Jane Dent, Sarah’s mother. “It seems so rushed. But when I say anything to Stephen he’s so impatient with me.”

  “You would think she would want some time to get her things together,” Jane suggested.

  Muriel sighed. “What things? I mean, what things? She brought all her clothes from her mother’s house in one suitcase. If she’s to have any trousseau at all Stephen will have to buy it. And I will have to shop for it with her.”

  “Can’t she be trusted?”

  “The only mercy, as far as I can see, is that she does have excellent taste. Whatever her mother was, she gave the girl as good a start in life as she could manage. No Portsmouth accent, thank God. She sent her to acting classes and they cured that. And she carries herself like a lady because of all the dancing classes.”

  “No tendency to staginess?”

  “She’s just crushed,” Muriel said. “I can’t help but feel for her, even if I’d rather she’d never have been born. She goes around the house like a little white ghost. Stephen tells her what they are going to do and she just nods like a little doll. She’s in no fit state to marry. She’s in no fit state to take any decision. But if they don’t marry what on earth can be done?”

  “Can’t you ship her off to friends? Family? She must have cousins or someone.”

  “The mother seems to have been one of only two, and both her brother and Lily’s father died in the war. Lily has friends in Highland Road.”

  Jane gave a little ripple of horrified laughter.

  “Exactly. And nowhere suitable for her to stay. She really is utterly alone in the world and she is very young. I can see that Stephen feels we should care for her.”

  “Is it just chivalry then?”

  Muriel shook her head. “Not Stephen. If it had been Christopher now . . .” She broke off. She still could not mention her first son’s name without the weight of her grief silencing her. “Christopher was the one for chivalry,” she said, recovering. “He was always rescuing things. Wounded seagulls, stray dogs, he brought a cat home once, I remember . . .” She broke off once more. The picture of Christopher’s bright face above a mottled tabby kitten was unbearably vivid. “Not Stephen. He’s far too hard-headed. If he says he loves her and wants her to be his wife then I can’t argue with him.”

  “And is she happy that you should live all together in the same house?”

  Muriel shrugged. “She’s never expressed an opinion on the matter one way or another as far as I know. Stephen seems to think there is no difficulty. If he wants to buy them a house then of course he has the funds to do so. But she fits very well into our lives. She sits with Rory, you know, every morning.”

  Jane poured another cup of coffee into the delicate china cup. “Honestly, my dear, if she had come from a good family I would be congratulating you. There aren’t many girls today who would tolerate living with their in-laws. Let alone sitting in a sickroom.”

  Muriel nodded. “I suppose so. And no-one cares as much about families as they did before the war. Everything is changed. But you know, Jane, I wanted a lively girl. I wanted someone who would bring a little life into the house. Not parties all night of course, nothing fast. But I wanted a girl who would bring a little fun into Stephen’s life. In the evenings it’s like drinking coffee in a library. It’s totally silent. Stephen reads the paper and Lily sits in the window seat with th
e curtain half-open and looks out at the sea.”

  “When they’re married it’ll be different,” Jane said comfortingly. “And when you have a little grandchild there will be enough noise in the house then, I should think!”

  Muriel’s face lit up. “That’s what we need,” she said. “A child in the house again.”

  “It’s only a matter of time. And that will take her mind off the loss of her mother.”

  Muriel nodded. “A grandson,” she said wistfully. “A little boy like Christopher. He was such a perfect baby. D’you remember how fair he was? He had blond curls from birth. Lily is fair, she might well have a fair-headed boy.”

  “Bring her to tea,” Jane said. “If she chooses not to be in mourning she might as well be out and about. She can meet Sarah. Bring her on one of my days. Bring her this Thursday.”

  “Thank you, I will.” Muriel hesitated. “And you will keep this between you and me, won’t you, dear? I shouldn’t like it to get around that I’m not especially thrilled with Stephen’s choice. And I’d rather no-one knew about the corner shop. I tell anyone who asks that her parents had a small retail business. It’s not a lie but it sounds better, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, trust me! I shan’t tell a soul!”

  “No,” Muriel said uncertainly, knowing she had been indiscreet. “Heavens, is that the time? I must go, Coventry will be waiting.”

  “Oh, do you have him still? I’d have thought you’d have got rid of him by now. It must be so inconvenient having a mute for a chauffeur.”

  “Stephen would never let him go.”

  Jane rang the bell and waited. Then she rang again, louder and more impatiently. “I don’t think anyone ever imagined what the war would do to girls,” she said irritably. “During the war I couldn’t get a girl to work in the house for love nor money because they all wanted to work in the dockyard or be landgirls, and now they charge the earth, they want countless days off and they simply don’t know their jobs.”