Fallen Skies

by Philippa Gregory

  “He’s not there,” Lily said blankly. “He’s not in the garden. The pram has gone.”

  “Impossible,” Muriel said. “Cook must have brought him in. Or Coventry.”

  Breaking all the rules of proper behaviour, Lily ran down the stairs to the kitchen and burst in without knocking on the baize door. Cook, who was sitting with her feet up on the brass fender before the range and gossiping with Browning, bustled to her feet.

  “Have either of you brought Christopher in?” Lily demanded. “Brought him in from the garden, just now?”

  The two women looked blankly at her. “No, Mrs. Winters,” Browning replied. “He’s having his morning nap.”

  Lily tore past them, wrenched open the back door and went out into the garden. She had a momentary foolish thought that the pram would be there, and Christopher kicking his feet, or starting a protesting wail at the rain. The garden was empty.

  Lily ran to where the pram had been, opposite the little stone seat. The begonias danced and bobbed as the raindrops fell on their petals. Lily looked all around the garden as if the pram could have been mislaid, or pushed out of sight.

  She went to the garden gate which had been banging in the wind. The stone which she had wedged in place had been pushed away by the gate, which clearly had been opened from the outside. There was a deep groove in the earth where the stone had been pushed back. The gate banged as Lily looked at it, uncomprehending.

  She ran to the gate and tore it open. Beyond it was the courtyard, and her car parked neatly to one side; beside it the open garage where the Argyll was kept. She peered into the garage in case someone, some passer-by, had seen the pram in the rain and interferingly pushed it into shelter. The garage was damp and cold and smelled of oil. There was a dark patch on the floor.

  Lily turned away and ran across the little cobbled courtyard. The big double gates to the road stood open, hooked back. Lily took two or three steps, first to the right, and then to the left. Apart from rain, which was coming down harder, dancing on the tarmac, the road was completely empty.

  Nanny Janes under a big dark umbrella with Muriel beside her came out through the garden gate. Lily turned to them a face as blank and white as a lost child.

  “Where is Christopher?” she asked. “What has happened? Where is he?”

  “My dear . . .” Muriel began and then she broke off. She looked at Nanny Janes.

  I think we should return to the house and telephone Mr. Winters,” Nanny Janes said solemnly. “He will decide what should be done next.”

  Without a word Lily turned and ran towards the sea, to The Parade and the promenade. There was no-one in sight. No-one boating on the Canoe Lake, no child lagging behind to rescue a little model boat. Noone feeding the swans. No-one hastily pushing a pram away.

  Lily ran across the little road. There was a man lounging in the small cabin beside the upturned boats. A sign over his head showed the prices for boat hire.

  “Have you seen someone with a pram?” Lily demanded, falling over the words in her anxiety. “Someone pushing a pram away from that house? A dark blue pram? A big pram?”

  “Today?” the man asked.

  Lily stamped her foot in her impatience. “Just now! Just now! A few moments ago!”

  The man shook his head slowly. “I can’t say I have,” he said. “But I wasn’t looking out for anyone. I wasn’t watching in that general direction.”

  Lily swore under her breath and ran towards the seafront and the raised promenade. She climbed the steps and looked along the shingle beach. It was empty. There was no-one strolling near the waves, no-one taking the air. The rain was coming down more heavily, sweeping in great curtains off the sea. In the distance she could see two women running, hand-in-hand, for shelter. But there was no pram, there was no Christopher.

  Lily shaded her eyes against the rain. Looking as carefully as she could in both directions she could see nothing except the rain-washed promenade and the empty beach with waves curling and sucking on the pebbles. The great scuds of rain blew in and blinded her, but Lily stood, straining her eyes to see better until she was certain that the promenade and the lower road were empty.

  She gave a quick decisive nod and ran back towards the house. She turned to the right along The Parade and ran the length of the block before she stopped and stared before her. There were a few detached houses overlooking the strip of grass before the sea. Further down there was a small tennis club with two grass courts empty in the rain. Lily stood still and scanned the road carefully for any movement. There was no-one walking. There was no-one pushing a pram. There was no-one running, with their arms wrapped tightly around them, holding a precious bundle. Whoever had taken Christopher had not gone that way.

  Lily turned on her heel and ran back past the house in the opposite direction. There was a baker’s cart going away from the house. Lily ran alongside it and shouted up at the driver. He stopped the horse and stared down at her. She looked wild and dangerous. The rain had plastered her hair to her scalp and she was red and panting from her run. Her eyes were desperate.

  “Have you seen a pram?” Lily demanded. “A blue pram? Just now? Coming from number two?”

  “You’ve never lost your baby?” the man demanded. “What happened?”

  “Have you seen a pram?” Lily repeated, her voice rising higher into a shriek. “Have you seen anyone with a baby?”

  “You wouldn’t think it possible!” the man exclaimed. “Taken from the street, was it?”

  “Please!” Lily said brokenly, and suddenly the tears spilled down her cheeks, hot and salty, unlike the cold sweet rain. “Please just tell me if you have seen anyone.”

  The man shook his head. “No-one,” he said. “You’d better tell the police. Is your husband not at home?”

  Lily shook her head, turned from the cart and ran back to the back gate of the house. Sally was there, standing in the rain, wringing her hands.

  “Mrs. Winters!” she said.

  “Have you found him? Oh Christ! I was so afraid!” Lily demanded, suddenly flooded with gladness. “Where was he? Who found him?”

  Sally shook her head and Lily saw the tears in her eyes. “No!” she said. “Where can he be?”

  Lily shook her head and ran northwards, away from the house to the end of the road. The streets were deserted. The town was quiet, only the rain gurgling in gutters and trickling down drains replied as Lily, suddenly losing control, screamed out, as loud as she could: “Christopher! Christopher! Christopher! Where are you?”

  Sally caught up with her at the corner and took her arm. “Come on, Mrs. Winters,” she said. “Come home. They’ve telephoned for Mr. Stephen. He’ll come as soon as he can. Come home. Your baby’s not here.”

  Lily turned a haggard face to the tweeny. “Then where is he?” she demanded. “Where’s Christopher?” Panic swept over Lily and she twisted and struggled in the woman’s grip. “Christopher! Where is he? Where’s my baby?”

  Sally dragged Lily home. The rain was getting heavier and the thunder rumbled threateningly as they neared the house. The road and the wet-roofed houses were lit by an ominous yellow light. The storm was far out to sea but coming nearer. They could see the crackle of lightning low on the horizon.

  “Oh God!” Lily said. “Where is he?”

  The front door was open and Muriel was standing in the doorway, looking out into the rain.

  “Come in, dear!” she said as soon as she saw Lily. “Come out of the rain, there’s nothing you can do!”

  Lily ran up the steps and took her mother-in-law’s arm in a hard grip. “Why?” she asked. “Why d’you say that?”

  Muriel drew her into the hall, reckless for once of the polished floor and the expensive rugs. “I just mean that you won’t find him running around, dear. Nothing more than that. Try and compose yourself.”

  She turned to Browning. “Take Mrs. Winters upstairs and help her change her dress,” she said. “Lily, you’re wet through.”

 
Lily shook her head impatiently. “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. What can we do?”

  “I’ve telephoned Stephen. A clerk from his office has gone to fetch him from court. He’ll be as quick as he can, I told him it was an emergency. I’ll telephone the police now. I don’t think we should wait for Stephen to arrive.”

  “Phone them!” Lily said. “Phone them!”

  Muriel pulled her into the drawing room and pressed her down into a chair. “Stay here then,” she said. Over her shoulder she spoke to Browning. “Fetch a towel at least for Mrs. Winters to dry her hair. And I think she had better have a glass of something. Fetch her a small glass of brandy from the dining room.”

  Lily shivered convulsively.

  “You’ll catch your death of cold!” Muriel scolded.

  “Phone the police,” Lily said. “Please.”

  “I’ll do it now. But you stay here, inside the house.”

  Lily nodded. Muriel left the room and Lily listened to her painstaking request to the operator to put her through to the local police station, and then her inquiry being passed from whoever answered the phone, to the sergeant on duty, and then to an inspector. Finally Muriel came back into the room.

  “They’re sending someone round at once,” she said.

  Browning and Sally came in together. Sally handed Lily the towel and she sat holding it crumpled in her lap, her hair dripping cold water down her neck. Browning handed her the glass of brandy. Lily sipped at it but did not feel the burning warmth.

  “I’ll phone Charlie,” she said quietly.

  “Won’t he have left?” Muriel asked. “Wasn’t he going to London today?”

  Lily’s face quivered. “I forgot,” she said. “He’ll have gone already.”

  The four women waited in silence.

  “I do think Stephen might have come home by now!” Muriel exclaimed impatiently. She went to the window to look out. The rain was beating against the panes. On the seaward side of the octagonal tower the view was blurred by the flow of the rainwater.

  “I should tell Rory,” Muriel said. But she made no move to go upstairs.

  “Where’s Nanny Janes?” Lily suddenly demanded. “Where is she?”

  “In the nursery,” Sally volunteered. “She’s having a tidy up.”

  Lily looked blank for a moment and then she laughed, a thin frightening laugh. “A tidy up!” she exclaimed. “She leaves my son in the garden and someone steals him and she goes and has a tidy up!”

  She laughed again, louder and harsher, and then a gale of laughter took her and swept her and she was screaming with laughter, helpless with hysterical mirth.

  Muriel shook her shoulder. “Lily, stop it!” she commanded.

  Lily shrieked, shaking her head and then put her hands to her head and pulled at her wet hair. Her voice rose higher and higher.

  “Stop it!” Muriel exclaimed. “Stop it!”

  Lily’s scream went on, she glared up at Muriel dry-eyed, shaking and screaming.

  Muriel drew her hand back and slapped Lily hard across the face. Lily’s scream was cut short. She recoiled from the blow and hunched herself into the chair, staring at Muriel.

  “You do no good to give way,” Muriel said. “Try and remember your position. Your husband will be here soon. The police will be here soon. This is no time to exercise your emotions.”

  Lily shrank even smaller into the chair. She was trembling violently from cold and from distress. Muriel’s face was unyielding.

  “Go to your room and change your dress,” she said sternly. “It helps no-one for you to over-dramatize the situation like this.”

  Sally moved to help her and Lily rose from her chair mechanically, taking her arm. The tweeny guided her from the room and took her upstairs. Muriel followed. She watched Lily’s feet going up the stairs ahead of her. One of the straps at the back of her dainty shoes had cut into her heel during her panic-stricken run up and down the seafront and she was bleeding. She had not even noticed. A few drops of blood, like the spoor of a mortally wounded animal, followed her up the stairs.

  “When you have brought Mrs. Winters back to the drawing room, take a cloth and mop the hall and the stair carpet,” Muriel said to Sally. “You must use salt and cold water on the bloodstains or they will never come out.”

  She stopped at Rory’s door as the two younger women continued up the stairs to Lily’s bedroom.

  Rory was sitting up in his chair at the window, watching the rain. He turned his head as Muriel came in, and looked at her anxiously.

  Muriel went to his side and took his hand.

  “Lily?” he said. “Scream.”

  Muriel’s face suddenly lost its hardness and she knelt at Rory’s chair and buried her head into his arm. “It’s Christopher,” she said, as she had once said years ago when the telegram boy had come whistling down the street. “It’s Christopher. Someone has taken him from the garden. The baby’s gone.”

  Rory was so still that she looked up, fearful that he would have another stroke at the news. His mouth was working.

  “How long?” he asked.

  “Less than an hour,” Muriel said. “Lily went to fetch him in when it started raining.” Already it seemed as if days had passed. Already Lily’s casual stroll to the garden to fetch her son seemed like a snapshot from an older, easier time. “The pram was gone and the baby.”

  “Police?”

  “They’re coming.”

  “Stephen?”

  “He’s at court today. I telephoned the office and spoke to John. He’s sent a man round to court to fetch Stephen out. Coventry was waiting there. He’ll bring him home.”

  Rory’s hands and arms gave a deep shuddering tremor and were still.

  Muriel sat back on her heels and smoothed the skin of her cheekbones and under her eyes. “No point giving way now,” she said sharply to herself. “I shall have to set Lily an example. No hysterics, no tantrums, no tears.”

  Rory looked at her with pity in his face.

  Muriel rose to her feet. “I shall keep you informed,” she said coldly, as if he were an importunate stranger and not her husband, and the grandfather of a lost child. “I shall go downstairs now and meet the police. I shall stress that this is a matter of the utmost urgency. I shall hold the fort until Stephen gets home.”

  She nodded determinedly and then went towards the door.

  “Muriel!” Rory found the name in time to call her.

  She turned and waited.

  “Be gentle to Lily,” he said clearly.

  Muriel hunched her shoulder. “She will have to learn to draw on inner reserves,” she said. “She may not have been born and bred a lady but she has to live like one now. She will have to learn to rise to a crisis, not collapse at the first hint of distress.”

  Rory hesitated, but then the doorbell rang.

  “Excuse me,” Muriel said with infinite courtesy. “I imagine that is the police now.”

  She closed the door quietly behind her and went to the stairs. The bedroom door above slammed and Lily came pattering down the stairs, her hair damp and dishevelled, barefoot, her legs bare. Muriel barred the way.

  “I shall deal with the police until you are properly dressed,” she said determinedly.

  Lily ran against her, and pushed her with her hands. “I’m going down,” she said fiercely.

  She ducked under Muriel’s outstretched arm and fled down the stairs. She nearly fell at the foot of the staircase but the police sergeant, who was standing at the bottom, caught her as she tripped.

  “Have you heard anything?” she demanded.

  Muriel, following more slowly, looked at the three men. There was an older man in civilian clothes, the inspector. There were two uniformed policemen with him, the sergeant and a constable who stood at the door. The older man replied, “Nothing, Miss. We came at once. I am Inspector Walker, and this is Sergeant Watts. You are?”

  “He’s my baby,” Lily said distractedly. “Have you started searching
for him?”

  “I will alert all officers when I have taken a description,” the inspector said. “I need your help for that, Madam. Try to be calm.”

  Muriel spoke from halfway up the stairs. “You must excuse my daughter-in-law,” she said coldly. “She is overwrought. Browning, show the officers into the dining room.”

  The parlourmaid led the way into the dining room. Lily followed them, Muriel coming after. They took seats around the table as if a meal might be served.

  “Please look for him at once,” Lily said urgently. “He was wearing a white embroidered smock and he has a blue pram. A big blue pram. He can’t be far away, it’s only just happened. If we all went and looked now . . .”

  The sergeant took out a notepad. Muriel took a seat at the head of the table.

  The inspector looked at her. “May I have your name, Madam?”

  “I am Mrs. Rory Winters,” she said. “This is my daughter-in-law, Mrs. Stephen Winters. The missing child is my grandson, Christopher, a baby of four months.”

  She spoke slowly, waiting for the sergeant to write everything down. “My son, Mr. Stephen Winters, is a lawyer. He is at court at the moment. I trust he has been alerted and is on his way home.”

  “I know Mr. Winters,” the inspector said. “And I know his father, of course.”

  “Please,” Lily interrupted. “When will you start looking for him?”

  The inspector turned to her with some sympathy. “As soon as I know the picture I shall inform the local force and all neighbouring police forces,” he said gently. “You tell me: what does the baby look like?”

  “He’s very beautiful,” Lily said. “He has fair hair. It’s growing in little curls. He has deep blue eyes. He’s very placid. He smiles and laughs all the time.” She started choking on a sob and found she could not speak. She shook her head dumbly at the inspector. “It’s nearly time for his feed,” she said. “How will they know what to feed him?”

  “We’ll get him back for you,” the inspector said. “Now tell me again what he was wearing.”

  “A little white smock,” Lily said carefully. “Embroidered with smocking stitch at the front with white. His initials CCW on the left-hand hem.”