Where Earth Meets Sky

by Annie Murray

  ‘I’d leave tomorrow, if it weren’t that I feel for her.’ She nodded her head towards Muriel McBride’s room next door. ‘It’s taken me a long time to work it out. He’s always so gentle, so solicitous towards her. And whatever she’s done, she’s done it to herself, there’s no doubt. But it’s because of him, I know it!’ Her voice grew passionate. ‘He’s caused it somehow – he helped her to destroy herself and it’s so tragic to watch. She’s even admitted it to me, in a sort of way. But she’s too far gone now to do anything about it.’ Jane wiped her eyes, wearily.

  ‘She did warn me about you, to take care of you, I mean – several times, now I come to think about it.’ Her face darkened. ‘She must have sensed something. The man wants locking up himself, but what can we do? He’s such a smooth-talker, so well thought of. Mind you . . .’ She hesitated, blushing as she looked across at Lily. There was a hint of a smile on her lips.

  ‘What is it?’ Lily asked.

  ‘You should have seen him with that other doctor who was here, McCluskie. Two nights before he went back to Patna or wherever it was, he went missing – all night.’

  ‘Yes – he thought McCluskie was with me,’ Lily said candidly, and saw Jane Brown look really embarrassed. She realized then that even if the nurse had guessed perfectly well the full extent of Ewan McBride’s uses for her, she was certainly not used to talking about such things. ‘Where was he, then?’ she asked.

  ‘In a brothel.’ She brought out the words rather harshly, as if determined not to be coy. ‘They had a very loud argument about it when McCluskie came sloping back in the morning. Dr McBride couldn’t seem to control himself at all. You could hear him all over the house.’ Lily realized she, too, had heard the argument in the distance. ‘That’s the only time I’ve ever known the doctor let rip like that. He always likes to be so in command.’

  There was a pause, then Jane Brown looked across at Lily with a sad puzzlement in her eyes.

  ‘Why have you let him use you like this, Lily? You seem such a strong person.’

  It was Lily’s turn to blush, a deep sense of shame seeming to swamp her. How could she explain that in some way she felt this was what she deserved? But for the first time ever she tried to be frank with this woman who had rescued her.

  ‘I don’t know. I suppose he gave me a good job, security. My own background was rather poor, you see. I’d never been wanted by anyone much, or taken out and about like that before, and it didn’t seem too high a price, not then. I sort of slipped into it without meaning to and couldn’t get out again. I suppose that sounds terrible to you.’

  When she looked up she saw Jane looking at her with real pity in her eyes.

  ‘Not terrible. Just sad. We must get you away from here, Lily. Even Muriel has asked me to get you away from here. I know where you can go – at least for the short term.’

  Before dawn, Jane Brown dressed and they crept back to Lily’s room, where she also pulled some clothes on and packed a small bag of belongings before the two of them quietly let themselves out into the dark street.

  ‘It’s a good distance,’ Jane Brown said. ‘Over towards Happy Valley. We’ll have to wake one of the jhampanis when we get further away from here. But I should be able to get back in good time. Fidelis and I went to school together – only she was called Rosamund then.’

  They found a rickshaw to take them some of the way, and climbed the last mile on foot up to St James’s, where Jane Brown knocked loudly on the heavy convent door. At last a sleepy looking chowkidar appeared and Jane Brown asked for Sister Fidelis.

  ‘Please tell her Miss Brown is here, and it is an emergency.’

  Lily stood feeling very nervous at the idea of rousing the nuns in this awesome-looking place at this time in the morning, but Sister Fidelis appeared, already dressed and carrying an oil lamp, in the light of which she looked remarkably cheerful.

  ‘Miss Waters urgently needs a discreet place to stay,’ Jane Brown told her. Lily blushed, suspecting that Sister Fidelis would immediately jump to the conclusion that she was carrying an illegitimate baby. But the woman’s expression did not change, nor did she ask any questions.

  ‘Come in,’ she said, with a welcoming sweep of her arm. ‘Are you capable of helping with the laundry, d’you think?’

  ‘I’m sure I am,’ Lily said.

  ‘Just wait there a moment.’ Sister Fidelis indicated a stiff-backed chair and Lily obediently sat down. She felt suddenly very safe. Sister Fidelis and Jane Brown talked in low voices outside, then Jane came in. Lily stood up.

  ‘I must go back.’ Jane Brown looked deep into Lily’s eyes. ‘You’ll be all right here, for a while. They’ll find you some work. Then you can look for a new appointment somewhere.’

  ‘Thank you so much,’ Lily breathed. She felt tearful, as if that night she had discovered a true friend, then lost her again.

  ‘Let me know how you get on. Sister Fidelis can pass a message on to me.’

  Tears in her eyes, she held out her arms and embraced Lily. ‘I’ll miss you, I truly shall. But you’ll find something better, dear, I know you will. Just be careful of yourself, won’t you?’ And with a kiss on Lily’s cheek she moved away, leaving Lily still trying to thank her, and disappeared out of the convent door into the waning night.

  Sister Fidelis, Lily was to learn, was a continuous ball of energy who ran the school and convent dispensaries and filled in anywhere else she was required on the domestic front. She handed Lily over to a Sister Rosemary, a plump, cheerful woman of about forty who was in charge of the laundry, an immense room with a high, vaulted ceiling at the very back of the convent, where the nuns’ habits and clothing of the girls who boarded were all laundered.

  ‘We could just send everything to the dhobi,’ she told Lily. ‘But we think it’s a good training for some of our girls – and for the young native girls who come in to work here. Some have gone on to work in some quite distinguished families. Now – what we could do with is some help with ironing. You know how?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Lily said.

  ‘No of course about it,’ Sister Rosemary retorted. ‘Let me tell you, there are plenty of young maids in this town who don’t know one end of a flat iron from another.’

  The laundry room was warmed by a huge range at one end, on which several irons were heating at once, and close to which was a large, square table padded and draped in singe-marked sheets. At the far end were the washtubs, where a number of native girls were pounding away with dollies in the steamy heat. They looked curiously at Lily as she passed but did not say anything, though one girl gave a sweet smile. They all seemed to have great respect for Sister Rosemary. Above their heads, clothing hung on drying racks hoisted up near the ceiling, and there were three poles which reached up to the ceiling, each with arms extending out like tree branches, also with items drying on them.

  ‘We have to dry everything in here during the monsoon, but there is a yard out at the back. Most of the bigger things are out on lines at this time of year. Now,’ Sister Rosemary added briskly, ‘let’s get you started. I’ll show you what’s needed with these. They’ve all been starched already.’

  Lily found that her days in the convent were spent quite pleasantly, ironing, often with one or two others, usually native girls of about fourteen years of age, who were respectful and friendly to her, and the day was punctuated by the bell summoning the pupils in and out of their lessons, and by services in the simple chapel. Lily was expected to keep the hours with them, going into the chapel early in the morning, and midday and in the evening.

  She didn’t mind any of this. Though she had never been exposed to religion she found the life a peaceful haven, and liked the flowers and whitewashed walls of the chapel. But as the days went by, the most difficult problem became her getting up in time in the morning. More and more she found herself burdened by an overwhelming sense of exhaustion, which would come over her when she was standing at the ironing table in the oppressive heat. One day s
he fainted, coming round to find that she had banged her head, and that she was sitting on a chair with her head forced down between her knees. She sat up groggily to find Sister Rosemary standing over her, along with a small crowd of the laundry workers.

  ‘Back to work!’ Sister Rosemary urged, clapping her hands and the other girls scattered. Narrowing her eyes appraisingly, she said in a low voice, ‘I think you’d better come outside.’

  Humbly, Lily obeyed. In the yard, strung with washing which flapped gently in the hillside breeze, Sister Rosemary faced her in her black habit, which somehow looked more severe in the open air. ‘It seems you’re not very well. Can you tell me what’s the matter?’

  ‘I don’t know, Sister,’ Lily said miserably. ‘When I first arrived I just thought I had an acid stomach. I’d been in a bit of a state, you see. But it hasn’t gone away. I don’t feel well at all sometimes . . .’

  ‘Especially in the mornings?’ Sister Rosemary enquired coldly. ‘Hence your frequent absence from morning prayer?’

  Lily nodded miserably. There was a pause, Lily sensed, of disbelief.

  ‘Well, don’t you realize what this might mean? Is there any possibility that you are expecting a child?’

  The question was so shaming it felt like being slapped. Lily felt a thick blush spread through her cheeks. Her mind was reeling. Surely it couldn’t be? Dr McBride had assured her he was infertile and she had been with him months with no outcome like this. The only other thing was . . . It had truly not occurred to her until then, so ignorant was she of women’s ways. That night with Sam! Surely it couldn’t be from that. You couldn’t find yourself expecting after one night, could you? Surely that wasn’t possible! But her confused expression must have spoken volumes to Sister Rosemary.

  ‘I see.’ She spoke gravely, and Lily could hear the deep disapproval in her tone. ‘Well, we weren’t told about this, but of course Fidelis has been wondering . . . This changes things, certainly.’ She spoke with cool detachment. ‘You’ll have to stay here for a time, live discreetly. We can see if we can find a home for the child – otherwise it’ll have to go to an orphanage. Once it’s over and done with, you’ll be able to apply for another post.’ Her eyes seemed to bore into Lily. ‘You foolish girl. What a state to get yourself into. I wouldn’t go expecting any sympathy. Now go back to work, while you still can.’

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Lily spent the next few days in a state of shock and anguish. A child! How could she be expecting a child!

  She continued with the struggle of getting up and working in the laundry, but her mind was completely elsewhere. A child – and it had to be Sam’s! All the pain she had been trying to shut out over the past strange weeks came crashing in on her, all the agony of her unanswered questions about Sam. What had he thought that day when she did not come to the Fairfords? Had he tried to contact her? He must have been hurt and angry. Had he sailed back to England possibly hating her for rejecting him and letting him down, perhaps thinking only the worst of her? She had no address for him, and how could she contact him now when she was in this state? The hard truth of the matter hit her with a crushing force. How could she trust Sam either? He had come to her as a married man, on the other side of the world from his family. Had he used her for his own entertainment? What would his reaction be if she ever told him she was carrying his child? Might he simply laugh at her naivety and walk away, back to Helen and his settled, respectable life?

  Pain and anger surged round in her constantly, leaving her exhausted. Yet, at times, especially when she lay at night in the narrow convent bed, she would call to mind Sam’s face, his absorbed, loving expression as he had gazed on her, and she wept with longing at the thought. How could she doubt him? He loved her, she knew it! She was the one who had hurt him and let him down, and she ached for him to be here with her, to pour out to him all that had happened. When morning came, though, and she woke sick and feeling as if she had not even slept, all the doubts crowded in again, accompanied by hard and disquieting certainties: that she was disgraced and carrying a child, that there was no love for her and little help and that, once again, as she had been so often, she was utterly alone.

  She worked mechanically in the laundry, at least grateful for the shelter offered her by the nuns. She knew that they were aware of her state and most of them left her alone, unsure what to say to her. But the one person who was kind was Sister Fidelis. Now and again she would come up and sit in Lily’s room and talk to her. Often she regaled her with stories about her own life and about the order.

  ‘Oh, it was quite a feat getting everything established up here, of course. It was eighty-seven we started up here. The sisters in the early days arrived on bullock carts – you can imagine how long that must have taken, can’t you?’

  Then, after a few stories, she might say suddenly, ‘Now, Lily, don’t fret too much. We’ll make sure you’re all right. And something will come up for you. God always provides – you’ll see. Would you like Jane to come and see you?’

  Lily shook her head. In one way she would very much have liked to see Jane Brown, but she was too ashamed to face anyone else. ‘I just want to be alone,’ she said.

  As the days passed, punctuated by the bell-ringing routine of the school, and May arrived, the heat increased, though of course it was a pale shadow of the blistering scorch of the plains. Mussoorie was bathed in sunshine and filling up fast with summer visitors from Delhi and the Punjab. And after a few more weeks had passed, Lily also began to feel better. What was more concerning now was that, instead of feeling ill, she was beginning to notice the swelling of her abdomen. The idea of there being a baby in there didn’t seem real at all and she felt no sense of fellow feeling for it. There were no women around her whom she could confide in, or who had had experience of childbirth, and all she could feel was ignorant and very frightened, despite Sister Fidelis’s assurances that everything would be all right. All she could wonder was what was to become of her.

  Within a few days, however, Sister Fidelis came bouncing into the laundry room in the middle of the morning. Lily, feeling much better now, was able to stand and do the ironing without any sickness or faintness and she was ironing one of the sisters’ robust black habits.

  ‘Lily!’ Sister Fidelis hailed her in bubbly tones. She was a woman incapable of formality, it seemed, and had never called Lily ‘Miss Waters’ the way Sister Rosemary insisted on doing. ‘Could you come outside with me for a moment?’

  Once more, Lily found herself in the drying yard among the lines of washing.

  ‘I have come to offer you an opportunity to go home – if that’s what you would like.’

  Lily stared stupidly at her. ‘Home – what d’you mean?’ For a horrible moment she thought Sister Fidelis meant to the McBride house, that the doctor had come looking for her and softened the nuns with his charms.

  ‘To England, of course! Where else would home be, dear?’ Sister Fidelis chuckled heartily.

  ‘What . . .’ Lily stuttered. ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘A paid passage home on the P&O is what I mean. There’s a family called the Bartletts who come up to Mussoorie regularly every summer and they worship with us. They donate sums of money and so forth.’ She waved a hand as if this was of little consequence. ‘All very good. Their son is almost six years old and they feel it’s high time he was back home at school. Mrs Bartlett happened to mention to me this morning that they’re very concerned at how late they’ve left it and how they want to make sure he is safely accompanied. Well, I thought to myself, Lily has worked with children! What could be more fortunate! All you have to do is accompany young Bartlett – the boy’s name is Eustace – on the P&O and deliver him to Mrs Bartlett’s sister in Leamington Spa. And then you’re free to go. How does that sound?’

  ‘But . . .’ Lily was almost too astonished to speak. ‘That would mean leaving India!’ It was India that felt like home now.

  ‘Well, yes, naturally!’ Sister Fidelis l
aughed at her utter confusion. ‘You weren’t thinking of staying here forever, were you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Lily admitted. ‘I suppose I hadn’t thought. I’ve always liked it here . . .’

  ‘Well – think about it now,’ Sister Fidelis said briskly. ‘I told Mrs Bartlett I had someone in mind, but that I’d have to ask around. I can let her know your reply tomorrow.’

  Lily was thrown into complete turmoil for the rest of the day. She stood moving the heavy flat iron over sheets and starched wimples without even seeing them.

  Leave India! She had taken to the country straight away, had thrived here, and thought to stay, but now everything was different. If she had her child adopted, of course, she could apply for another post as a nanny and start again, closing the door on the past, pretending. That was the most tempting solution. It was what she had done so far. But now life had thrown this choice in her way. If she went back to England, would she see Sam? Immediately she knew the answer to that. It was impossible. He was there with his family and that was where he had chosen to return to. Common sense whispered in her ear, compounding her doubts. If he had known she was carrying a child, might he not have deserted her anyway? That was the way men behaved, wasn’t it? But somehow, even though she couldn’t make sense of all her feelings, she was drawn to going home. She would be near him, at least, in the same country. And she could get a new post with glowing references from the Fairfords. It would be a new start, not in a foreign land this time, but back where she had come from. She knew, with suddenly clarity, that it was what she must do.

  That evening, she told Sister Fidelis that she would accompany Eustace Bartlett on his sea journey home to England.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Birmingham, 1911

  Lily knelt over the pail of filthy water, gasping as the pains tore through her back and abdomen. The scrubbing brush hit the floor with a clatter. Though she could see her breath in the freezing air, she broke out in a sweat. Droplets of it ran down inside her frock. Then she felt a rush of wetness between her legs and realized her underclothes were soaked through. All morning these outbreaks of agony had been coming and going.