Where Earth Meets Sky

by Annie Murray

  As Piers braked in front of the house, Cosmo leaned down to the window and Lily beamed with joy at the sight of him. He was so lovely, so tall and handsome!

  ‘Well, you’ve made good time,’ he drawled, not looking at Lily and she felt a stab of rejection. It was as if he could never acknowledge her properly or show how much he needed her, especially if there was any other company about. But she knew it was just his way.

  ‘Hello, Cosmo, dear,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, hello, Lily,’ he said offhandedly. ‘I’ll get our man to show you all where your quarters are. There’s an attic where you can go with the children. Mother wired to say she’s on her way up. And you must come and meet Uncle William.’

  William Fairford was about as different from his young brother Charles as it would have been possible to imagine. Lily and Piers were introduced to a short, rotund man dressed in very tightly fitting tweeds, his belly thrusting out dangerously hard at the buttons of his waistcoat. He had a red, jowly face and a great many whiskers protruding from his nose and ears. From under a tweed hat he looked at them with narrowed, sludgy-coloured eyes and said, ‘Hmmm. I didn’t know there were going to be children. Cosmo – you must inform Mrs Rainbow at once. She likes children. And don’t think I want to know anything about anything because I don’t. Good day to you!’ He touched the brim of his cap and sauntered off, tapping the floor with a silver-topped walking cane. ‘See you at dinner time!’ he called over his shoulder.

  Lily watched him in astonishment. Was this really the man Cosmo had spent all his school holidays cared for, or rather ignored, by? He seemed most peculiar and certainly not interested in anyone else around him. How could he be Charles Fairford’s brother? But then Susan Fairford had told her that he had suffered with his nerves as a young man, that he had taken after his peculiar uncle. She still felt indignant on Cosmo’s behalf and exchanged a look with Piers. But then they heard a woman’s voice approaching, talking non-stop before she had even come into view.

  ‘. . . there’s a room up to the right and you’ll find it’s very comfortable and I don’t know how many of you there are and of course we’re not used to visitors here, him being the way he is and no one ever tells me a thing, of course, not a thing . . . Hello, dears – oh, and little ones as well! He never said there’d be children coming! Oh, my word. Well, that’s a treat for us!’

  All this from a very stout woman as she appeared panting in the doorway. She wore an enormous white apron and a startled expression in her watery grey eyes.

  ‘Deary me, it’s a warm one today!’ Her cheeks were very red and she was fanning herself with one hand. ‘I’m Mrs Rainbow and no doubt Cosmo hasn’t done the first thing to make you comfortable, let alone him.’ She flicked her head in the direction of the departed Uncle William, not even trying to disguise her exasperation.

  Within moments they were being shown into rooms where the beds had been made up most efficiently and Mrs Rainbow swiftly settled them in.

  ‘I’ve six of my own, all grown and gone now,’ she said wistfully. ‘And my Herb passed on six years ago . . . Time of your life when your children are young – you never get it back.’ For a moment she looked watery and woeful, but then beamed at Hubert, and Christabel, who was lying on her bed kicking her chubby legs in the air. ‘Oh, and look at you two. Oh, I’m going to like having you here!’

  Lily had been given a room at the opposite end of the house to Piers Larstonbury, a relief as she was glad of a break from his attentions, but she tried to look disappointed when he mentioned it later.

  ‘Never mind, my love, I’ll be with you!’ he whispered to her, and she gave him a smile.

  ‘Has Mrs Rainbow been here for a long time?’ Lily asked Cosmo when they joined him downstairs in the drawing room, from where there came a strong smell of coffee. On a silver tray were laid a coffee pot and cups and a plate of biscuits and iced cakes decorated with diamonds of angelica.

  ‘No – only five or six years,’ Cosmo said, eyeing Hubert and Christabel as they stormed the corridors at high speed in ecstasy at being released from the car. Cosmo looked a bit irritated, but Lily sensed that he also envied them. ‘Before that, when I was at school, it was Mrs Saxsby, and she was an ogre.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Lily laughed at the face he pulled. ‘I remember now. You wrote about her.’

  ‘Mrs Rainbow will love you being here,’ Cosmo said. He nodded at the cakes. ‘She likes feeding people. That’s why Uncle’s so stout. Oh!’ He looked out, roused by the engine and sound of gravel crunching outside. ‘Here’s Ironside!’

  Lily found every nerve in her body suddenly on alert, her heart pounding. Any moment, once again, she would have to greet Sam! And now she knew what he thought of her, his anger and disgust with her. Oh, why had she let Piers talk her into coming here?

  They all went out into the sunshine from the cool of the house, to find Sam and Loz pulling up outside, the streamlined silver body of the Heath Flyer looking magnificent on the trailer behind the car. Both Sam and Loz were obviously hot, but they grinned broadly at the sign of the reception party. Cosmo ran forward to meet them, excited as a child.

  And amid all the greetings, Lily stood to one side with the children while Sam worked his way through the handshakes. Mrs Rainbow had appeared again and was exclaiming over the car, and her mouth ran away with her when she saw Sam as well.

  ‘Ooh, aren’t you a good-looking one!’ she said and Lily saw Sam’s smile in reply.

  ‘I’m glad somebody thinks so,’ he quipped.

  At last, very formally, he came forward to shake Lily’s hand.

  ‘How d’you do, Miss Waters?’ he said, his voice cooler than if she had been a stranger he had never met before.

  And while, for the seconds his hand was in hers, she couldn’t help remembering how that same hand had moved lovingly over her bare skin and, aching for the tenderness of it, she said equally coolly, ‘Good morning, Mr Ironside.’

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  While Sam and Loz took the motor from the trailer and made some adjustments to her, Cosmo said he would give Piers, Lily and the children a tour of the estate in Uncle William’s spacious Morris Cowley.

  ‘That’s awfully kind of you, old chap,’ Piers said, ‘but I think I’d like to stay and watch our Flyer being unloaded. I’m most intrigued by the whole thing and I haven’t managed to get down to Brooklands to see her in progress nearly as much as I’d hoped lately. And I can be here to greet your mother when she arrives. Why don’t you take Lily? She’s very keen to see your home.’

  Lily sat in the front beside Cosmo, awed by the sheer size of the estate, which seemed to go on and on across the Warwickshire countryside. She felt so proud sitting next to him, looking at the fields of wheat turning golden in the August sunlight, the gardens and farm cottages and the orchards to one side of the house. What Cosmo most wanted to show her, however, was the driving circuit. The dusty track snaked round a wide area at the far end of the estate, cutting along the side of a hill on a sharp incline.

  ‘My goodness!’ Lily said as he took her along it at high speed. ‘This is steep – oh, do slow down a bit, Cozzy. You’re frightening the children!’ Hubert was clinging to her skirt, his hands clenched into fists.

  ‘You have to go fast to keep up the momentum,’ Cosmo retorted, not slowing down at all. ‘Like the track at Brooklands – remember the slope on that?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lily said sharply, ‘but we’re not racing now.’

  She had expected that alone with her, Cosmo might soften and become his more boyish self, the sweet Cosmo who she loved. But he seemed even more on edge.

  ‘You’ve been doing so well,’ she said trying to appease him. ‘I’m so very proud of you.’

  Since the event at Shelsley Walsh, Cosmo had entered various events at Brooklands and come home in a very respectable time – in one case, in second place. He was riding high and very pleased with himself at the time, but now he seemed morose and unsure.

&nb
sp; Lily watched him as he drove, his expression grim with concentration. He looked forbidding. His face, which she had thought of as distinguished, with its Grecian nose, now seemed hard, his forehead more enlarged as he grew older. In fact, she recognized with a shock that in profile he looked very slightly like his Uncle William. She had never connected Cosmo with this part of the family before. William Fairford was an unbalanced, melancholic fellow. Surely Cosmo was not taking after him?

  ‘Darling,’ she said softly, trying to reach the Cosmo who would respond to her. ‘You’re doing so awfully well.’

  ‘Oh, don’t mumsy me, Lily,’ Cosmo snapped. ‘I’m not your little boy any more.’

  Lily tried not to show how much he had hurt her. She was also trying not to notice how fast he was still driving. She held Hubert’s hand, reassuring him.

  ‘All right. But you are doing so very well.’

  ‘We’ll see, won’t we?’ he said grimly.

  After that she was silent, trying to understand him, and why, when he was surrounded by so much wealth and now he was doing all the things he had always wanted to and doing them so well, his mood seemed to have such an edge of despair.

  Once they got back, Susan Fairford had arrived and she greeted Lily affectionately.

  Mrs Rainbow had set out an impressive meal of cheeses and cold meats and pickle on the long, gleaming dining table and Lily felt the weight of silver cutlery in her hands. There was a silver tureen of creamy watercress soup and they all ate ravenously. The men all stuck together, talking motor cars and aeroplanes, and she heard Cosmo promise to take the others up in it over the weekend. Lily stayed at the other end of the table from Sam and the others, but she was acutely aware of his presence as he sat talking with Piers Larstonbury. She could see from the tensed hunch of his shoulders that he was not entirely comfortable in these surroundings. Sam had always had a chip on his shoulder about wealthy people. Toffs, she could hear him saying. Another thing they had had in common, not being sure where they fitted in. His eyes met hers along the table, just once, a deep look when he thought she was not aware, but as soon as her gaze met his he looked away.

  She spent the afternoon with Susan Fairford, who was very tired, and the children, who had a nap and then were taken off for some of the afternoon by Mrs Rainbow, who seemed to be on pins to get her hands on them.

  The two women sat in an exquisitely decorated sitting room which Susan said was barely ever used. The room looked out to the flower garden at the side of the house through long glass doors edged with cream muslin curtains, delicately embroidered with pink and gold flowers. Susan eased the doors open and they sat on comfortable chintz-covered chairs on either side of a marble fireplace, enjoying the faint breeze in an otherwise baking afternoon. Susan kicked off her shoes and at her invitation, Lily did the same, stretching out in the chair and luxuriating in the feel of the thick Chinese rug under her stockinged toes.

  They talked idly in the heat, dozing for a while, and at four o’clock Mrs Rainbow brought in a tray of tea, accompanied by Hubert and Christabel, both looking unmistakably floury.

  ‘Look what we made!’

  Hubert was proudly holding a plate of jam tarts.

  ‘Oh, how delicious, dear!’ Lily cried, smiling at the child’s proud face. ‘Thank you so much, Mrs Rainbow.’

  ‘Shall I take them out to the garden for a while?’ Mrs Rainbow said.

  ‘Well – yes, if you’d like to!’ Lily was delighted.

  ‘Ooh – it’s a treat. Come along, ’ubert, Christabel! I’ve got summat to show you.’

  Susan smiled wistfully after her. ‘She misses her brood.’ Then, suddenly, she said, ‘Sam Ironside has come a long way since he first arrived in India, hasn’t he?’

  Startled to hear his name mentioned, Lily found herself blushing.

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed, trying to sound neutral. ‘I suppose he has.’

  ‘I realize I know so very little about him. I suppose I never cared to ask before.’

  Lily could not think of anything safe to say in reply. In the pause which followed, they heard a dove calling from the roof in the hot, sleepy afternoon, accompanied by the distant hum of an engine.

  ‘He was rather sweet on you at one time, wasn’t he?’ Susan rearranged the skirt of her pretty floral dress. ‘I suppose that’s all over with by now?’

  ‘Oh – yes,’ Lily said lightly.

  ‘And he’s not really in the same class as the major, is he?’

  Lily blushed, full of confusion. Her relations with Sam Ironside and Piers Larstonbury were both things she felt quite unable to talk about, but as she sought desperately to think of a way of changing the subject, Susan raised a finger and said, ‘What’s that noise?’

  The sound was growing louder and the two of them got up and went to the doors. The scent of honeysuckle and lavender wafted from the warm garden. Against the mellow stone nearby grew a profusion of sweet-smelling yellow climbing roses.

  Susan, looking a thin, girlish figure, put a hand to her forehead and squinted upwards.

  ‘Oh Lord – it’s Cosmo. He must be taking someone up. Oh dear, I do so worry about him . . . He can fly as well as he can drive, but all the same . . .’

  Shading her eyes, Lily looked up into the soaring blue and saw the tiny white plane scratching its way across. Who had Cosmo taken up? Sam? . . . tell me who that woman was in Mussoorie who told me she loved me . . . His words throbbed through her.

  ‘They all love machines so much, don’t they?’ Susan said. ‘Come along – let’s go and see them land.’

  They hurried, shoeless, following the plane with their eyes, out towards the wide hayfield at some distance from the house, where they found Mrs Rainbow and the children all staring upwards at the circling plane. Sam and Loz were nowhere to be seen.

  As they reached the place where the children were standing, the plane landed bumpily in one corner of the field and Cosmo and Piers Larstonbury opened up the cockpit, Piers laughing with pleasure. Lily had never seen him so animated.

  ‘My word, it’s just astonishing!’ he cried, leaping down, running unguardedly to her and flinging his arms round her. ‘Darling, it’s the most astounding experience!’

  Lily looked across to see Susan watching, and knew that whatever Susan had been guessing, she had now had her thoughts confirmed.

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  By the end of the afternoon, Lily was wishing she had never come to Cranbourne House.

  She had wanted to see Cosmo’s home, his inheritance, but being near to Sam was a torment. She felt raw and sad, and that she had been wrong in rejecting his attempt to talk to her. But now it felt too late. Sam simply behaved as if she wasn’t there.

  ‘I think I’ll have an early night,’ she told Piers Larstonbury that evening, after Mrs Rainbow had served them a sumptuous meal of roast pork and a huge syrup pudding. Uncle William, it appeared, liked the best of solid, traditional food and nothing fancy, although he did not eat with them but took all his meals on his own.

  Piers was about to join the other men in the smoking room and Lily caught him before he disappeared across the panelled hall.

  ‘All right, my dear,’ he said, mellowed with drink and the plentiful food. Moving closer to her, he whispered, ‘I’ll come to you later, darling one.’

  Lily nodded, but kept her eyes cast down.

  She lay in her bedroom at the top of the house. The children were in the next room, which had once been the nursery, Mrs Rainbow had told her. The window was open but it was stiflingly hot. She had nothing on but her bloomers and a camisole, but it still felt stuffy and unbearable. For a while she managed to doze, but then woke with a start, drenched in perspiration. Sitting up, she looked out at the dark garden. The house was quiet. She hoped that Piers had been well plied with brandy so that he had gone to his room and fallen fast asleep. Please, she thought, don’t let him come in here tonight! All she wanted was to be alone.

  The night air smelled delicious and she
leaned out of the casement window for a while, the air cooling her. Her room was at the back of the house, facing over the lawn, edged with trees. She could smell the sweet scent of cut grass where the men had been scything that evening.

  Lighting a candle, she moved restlessly about the room. On the floor to the left of the window was a small wooden trunk and out of curiosity she lifted the lid, wondering if it contained more toys for Hubert and Christabel to entertain themselves with.

  The box smelled strongly of wood polish and camphor. On the top, inside, there was a limp rag doll, not a girl doll, but one made to resemble a soldier, with a helmet and faded scarlet jacket. The face had fierce, staring eyes drawn on in ink and a curling moustache of black wool. She thought it didn’t look a very comforting sort of toy. Surely it had not been Cosmo’s? She did not remember ever having seen it before.

  Underneath there were various little boxes and she opened the top one, which was wooden and full of tin soldiers rather like the rag doll soldier. So there were toys! The next was a box made of faded white card decorated with a painted garland of mauve flowers. Inside, she found a collection of old letters, the paper yellowed and barely holding together on some of the folds. Carefully she picked up the top letter and opened it, seeing a short, blotchy note in childish handwriting, with several crossings out. It was addressed from his prep school and dated December 1887.

  Dear Mother and Father,

  I am doing very well and I hope you are to. I have got better from my cold and also the chilblains on my toes are not hurting eny more. It is still very cold. We are learning to play rugby. Please write and tell me more about Haroon’s pups and about Arsalan.

  We are singing carols and getting ready for Chrismas.

  I hope you have a happy and holy Chrismas.