Where Earth Meets Sky

by Annie Murray

  Your loving son,

  Charles

  There was a large collection of other similar notes, dated over several years, and as Lily read them, seeing the handwriting mature gradually, her eyes filled with tears.

  ‘I felt sick for weeks when they sent me to England,’ Cosmo had once told her. ‘It was that sort of misery that makes you feel as if you have a stone inside you. I thought about running away constantly. But how do you run away all the way back to India?’

  The letters from Cosmo’s father, from a homesick little six-year-old, far away from his parents, his friends and pets, seemed to say so much by saying so little, the ache of it seeping between the lines. She felt very tender towards both father and son. And now Charles Fair-ford, the rather courtly man she remembered, who seemed happier on a horse out in the Indian countryside than anywhere else, had been laid to rest on the battlefields of France.

  Closing the chest, she looked at the garden and was filled with a longing to be out in the night air. Slipping her dressing gown round her and her shoes on, she looked in to check that Hubert and Christabel were sleeping soundly, then crept out and down the long flights of stairs. Remembering her way to the little sitting room where she had sat with Susan that afternoon, she let herself out through the glass doors and into the warm, caressing air.

  The sense of freedom exhilarated her and in the relative cool outside she felt full of life and energy. Following the path round to the back, she felt the brush of lavender against her nightdress, and smelled its scent mingled with roses, then the smell of the grass as she moved across the lawn and stopped to look back at the house. She could not see a light on in any of the rooms. A little bubble of laughter rose in her and she turned and ran lightly across the soft green expanse, feeling she might run and never stop. It felt exciting and free to be out so late.

  At the far end of the long lawn the grass was longer near the trees and she stopped and looked back again. It was a slightly hazy night, but a half moon was visible through a chiffon of cloud. Its faint light showed the lines of the house. She thought she had never been anywhere more beautiful, not since India, and in the warm night she half expected to smell the dung fires and dry earth and scented oils of the Indian darkness. She thought of those sad little children sent away from home, aching for India in the darkness of English winter nights. Cosmo, she realized, knew as little as herself about family life, or how it felt to be loved and secure.

  It did not cross her mind to be afraid to move into the deeper darkness of the trees and she wandered into the longer grass, feeling it tickling her calves. The arching branches above felt benign, like an embrace. She reached out and trailed her hand along one of the tree trunks.

  It was then she realized she was not alone. She heard a sound which she knew was a human voice, even though she heard no words. It came from her left and she turned her head to hear better, her heart bumping harder, although she was not afraid so much as curious. As soon as she heard the voice again she knew whose it was, and her heartbeat accelerated even more. Something deep in her would have recognized Sam’s voice almost anywhere. But who was he talking to? She crept towards the sound.

  Almost immediately she heard a long sighing noise, this time from a woman. Lily’s mind raced. Susan – it had to be Susan Fairford!

  ‘You’ve had a very thin time of it,’ she heard Sam say.

  Lily realized she was quite close to them and she froze, straining to hear, her emotions a mixture of painful jealousy and a kind of triumph. Wasn’t it just like Sam Ironside to be declaring his love for her one day then snuggling up to someone else the next – while he still had a wife at home?

  ‘I’m hardly unique in that,’ Susan said.

  Lily strained to hear. The low, intimate tone to their voices told her that this was more than just a night-time stroll.

  ‘You must have found me very standoffish when we first met,’ Susan was saying.

  There came a low laugh from Sam. ‘I did rather, I’m afraid. But not now.’

  ‘No. I have changed. The war changed me – changed everything. I suppose I was rather insufferable. I was afraid, somehow. I always had the feeling that I was about to be found out in some way. You know – let the side down.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t suppose you ever did that.’

  There was a silence, then Susan Fairford said, ‘Oh, Sam, you’ve been very kind to me.’

  Lily held her breath.

  ‘You lovely, beautiful woman,’ she heard Sam say ardently. ‘God, I never thought I’d be holding you in my arms. Not in a million years.’

  ‘Dear Sam . . .’

  And then there was a silence in which Lily guessed they were kissing, and there came a faint sound, like a sigh of pleasure from Susan.

  Unable to bear hearing any more and terribly afraid that they would hear and realize she was there, Lily crept away through the trees, full of a chaos of emotions. The wide lawn, the smell of grass in the night no longer seemed enchanted but soured.

  She clenched her fists, almost bursting with anger and jealousy. You told him to leave you alone! she raged at herself. What do you expect him to do? You don’t want him, you know you don’t. He’s let you down badly enough already. Keep away from him!

  But the pain was almost overwhelming. Hurrying along the lavender-scented path and into the house she was fighting her storm of tears which were only released when she got back to her room. She lay face down on the bed letting the sobs of grief and jealousy and longing begin to break out of her. She knew, with terrible helplessness, how much she loved Sam Ironside, how precious the memory of their love was to her. And when she had been given another chance and he had tried to approach her, she had pushed him away. How he must despise her! And now it was too late. He had given his heart to someone else.

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  The thought of facing them the next morning was terrible. Lily had had no sleep that night and her reflection in the glass was pale and strained.

  ‘I’ll stay with Mrs Rainbow and keep the children out of the way,’ she told Susan.

  There had been much talk of more flying and of putting the Heath Flyer through her paces on the track and Lily knew that at least Sam would be completely absorbed in that.

  ‘Won’t you come out and see Cosmo drive?’ Susan said. ‘Surely the children could come out as well.’ She looked at Lily more closely. ‘Are you feeling all right? You don’t look terribly well.’

  ‘I just seem to be feeling the heat,’ Lily said. ‘Nothing to worry about.’

  Lily spent much of the day with Mrs Rainbow and Christabel, glad of the woman’s cheerful company and to be able to do household tasks rather than be out with all the men and the complications of her heart. She felt overwhelmed with mourning for her love of Sam and did not want Piers Larstonbury anywhere near her, although, to her shame, she knew he genuinely loved her. All this time she had been pretending and the one person she had ever truly loved, whose child she had given life to, she had let slip through her hands through cowardice and pride. Seldom had she spent such a bitter few hours.

  She was out in the walled garden with Christabel and Mrs Rainbow when they heard the shouting.

  Earlier, Cosmo had swept above them, twice, in the little plane.

  ‘Look at that,’ Mrs Rainbow tutted, squinting up as the plane disappeared above the house. ‘Nearly shaving the roof. That boy’s a case, he truly is.’

  When the plane did not reappear they realized that the men were out at the track. And that was the direction from which the estate men came running.

  Mrs Rainbow heard the shouts.

  ‘Summat’s amiss,’ she said to Lily, going to the back door of the kitchen where they had been making tea. ‘That’s Tim and Bernard.’

  ‘Quick!’ Lily heard a deep voice shouting. ‘Fetch us a blanket. There’s been an accident – Master Cosmo!’

  Lily filled with cold dread.

  ‘We need to bring ’im in!’

  ‘But th
ere’s a stretcher – remember?’ Mrs Rainbow had her wits about her. ‘In the outhouse – over there.’

  ‘So there is – come on, Tim!’

  Lily picked up Christabel, who was eating a jam tart, and she and Mrs Rainbow followed them. The men had hauled the old khaki stretcher and poles out of the shed and taken off again along the track. Neither Mrs Rainbow nor Lily could move as fast as them and they were soon left behind. But Lily still ran faster than she could ever have expected carrying the little girl. The track was almost a mile away, along the edge of a wheat field, and in the distance they could see the hill rising up with the track cut into the edge of it.

  ‘Oh, my Lord, I can’t keep this up,’ Mrs Rainbow said, bent over and puce in the face. But Lily ran on, Christabel clinging stickily to her.

  She saw the wreck of the car before making out who was who, the men all gathered round, the silence as she drew nearer. The Flyer was upside down and she could see it was in a dreadful mess. She saw Sam bend over Cosmo, who was lying on the stretcher, then straighten up and say something to Piers Larstonbury, shaking his head. She thought her heart would burst. She could not see Susan, and how was Cosmo? Oh, dear God, let him be all right. Don’t let him be hurt, don’t let him be dead!

  ‘What’s happened?’ she shouted. ‘Cosmo – is he all right?’

  She saw Susan then, behind Sam, squatting down beside the stretcher by the crumpled silver wreckage of the car. Sam’s face turned towards her, and Loz’s. Both of them looked stunned and grim.

  And then, on the stretcher she saw Cosmo struggling to sit up and her whole being leaped with relief.

  ‘Cosmo!’ It was as if she was the only person who could speak. Everyone else was shocked into silence. Lily put Christabel down and tore across to him.

  ‘I’m all right,’ Cosmo snapped furiously. He had a great discoloured bump on the side of his head. He sat with his knees slightly bent, arms hanging limply and he was shaking uncontrollably.

  ‘What happened?’ She turned wildly to Sam.

  Sam shrugged, not seeming to trust himself to speak.

  Loz was less reserved. ‘The stupid bugger turned the car over, that’s what. And look at it – weeks of work and he goes and wrecks it . . .’ He punched the air in miserable frustration and stormed off. Lily could see he was fighting tears of anger and disappointment.

  ‘Never mind,’ Piers Larstonbury was saying soothingly. ‘We can get her fixed – improve her, even. Thank heavens you’re all right, Cosmo.’

  Susan turned to Lily with a stricken expression. ‘He was going too fast – far too fast. Oh, darling, why did you have to . . . ?’ She was stroking Cosmo’s hair as if he were a small child and he shook her off and got groggily to his feet.

  ‘It was an accident,’ he shouted, furiously. ‘I didn’t mean to turn it over. D’you think I meant to make a mess of it? Now just bloody well leave me alone, all of you.’

  ‘You should come back to the house and get some attention, Master Cosmo,’ Bernard, the older of the two men, said. He seemed to be the only one Cosmo would listen to. ‘Come along now.’

  Cosmo was swaying and clearly faint and he agreed then to get back on the stretcher and for the men to carry him to the house. As they set off along the border of the field, Piers came and in front of everyone put his arm protectively round Lily’s shoulders. Lily was so caught up in Cosmo, in the simple relief that he was alive, that she burst into tears. Susan put her hands over her face.

  ‘Oh, dear God,’ she wept. ‘Oh, my boy.’

  And through her tears, Lily saw Sam go to her and take her by the arm to lead her back to the house. She stood, with Piers’s arm round her, watching them go.

  The doctor was called out to Cosmo, and he was pronounced to have severe bruising to the head and three cracked ribs.

  ‘You obviously have the good fortune of a cat,’ the doctor said. ‘That’s certainly one of your lives crossed off the list, young man.’

  After the initial shock, having seen the crushed state of the car, it began to sink into everyone just how lucky Cosmo had been.

  ‘A quite astonishing escape,’ Piers said as they sat at teatime, eating Mrs Rainbow’s fruit scones.

  Lily felt sick, terribly anxious about Cosmo and finding the presence of Susan and Sam almost unbearable. Sam avoided her eyes, talking to anyone but her, and Lily had to struggle with her sense of betrayal by Susan. But she had told Sam to leave her alone, hadn’t she? What else was he supposed to think?

  Now the weekend was almost over, they were all making preparations to leave, and Lily knew she had to see Cosmo. She asked Mrs Rainbow to show her to his room at the other end of the house. Lily was taken aback by the bleakness of the place, furnished with only the bed, a chair and a chest of drawers on the bare, polished boards. She had expected a room littered with the remains of a childhood spent here, whereas it looked more like the sort of cell one might expect for a monk. But then, she reminded herself, Cosmo was not here permanently and never had been. He had never belonged here.

  Cosmo was stretched out in bed looking very pale and limp. His bright hair was plastered to his temples, the bruising was beginning to come out on his face and he was obviously in a lot of pain from his ribs.

  ‘Hello, dear.’ She moved some of the clothing from the chair beside the bed, and sat down. ‘How are you, Cozzy?’

  His eyes were half open and he seemed very sleepy.

  ‘My ribs . . . Hellish . . . Hurts to breathe . . .’

  Lily reached out to caress his forehead and Cosmo flinched, giving a gasp which made him moan with pain.

  ‘Don’t!’

  ‘Sorry, dear – you know I’d never hurt you. I was trying to make you feel better.’ Frowning, she looked at the swollen lump on the left of his forehead, then, unable to help it, burst out with, ‘Oh, Cozzy! How could you be so silly and reckless? Think what might have happened! You could have hurt yourself so dreadfully – and you’re lucky not to be dead.’

  Cosmo’s eyes opened wide suddenly, and in bursts of pained speech he said, ‘Am I? Ironside . . . I’ve let him down. All of them. I’m no good to anyone . . .’

  ‘Cozzy!’ Anguished by his suffering she went to stroke him again but he turned his head away.

  ‘Don’t baby me!’

  ‘I’m sorry, dear. But I hate to see you like this. Don’t take everything so badly! It was an accident. You’ve done everything so well up until now – remember all the other times? All the successes you’ve had? Don’t let this one cloud everything else.’

  ‘But I’ve wrecked the car! Completely smashed it! Ironside and Marks will never forgive me.’

  Lily thought of the expression of utter fury she had seen on Loz Marks’s face and was filled with a sense of dread for Cosmo. Perhaps Piers would want to find another driver.

  ‘It’ll be all right, darling,’ she said, wanting to pour her love over him as she had always done, to make him feel better. ‘I’ll talk to Piers – we’ll see that it’s all right.’

  ‘Oh God!’ Cosmo cried, with such force she thought he was about to launch himself off the bed. ‘Can’t you stop interfering, Lily? Everything has to come from you, doesn’t it? You can’t let me do one thing for myself. You swamp me and make me feel completely useless. Oh, just leave me alone, woman. I’m useless to everyone – just let me face the fact on my own!’

  He turned away from her and Lily could see that there was nothing she could say to bring him back to her. She stood up, knowing that he was in one of his dramatic moods, but she was very hurt nevertheless.

  ‘Well, I hope you feel better soon,’ she said, trying to keep her pain and anger from her voice. ‘Next time I see you perhaps you’ll be feeling a little more forthcoming – and grateful for everything that’s been done for you.’

  Cosmo did not respond or open his eyes, and angry as she was with him, she was frightened by the expression of utter wretchedness on his face.

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  �
��We’ve got to get shot of him – he’s a drunk and a fool and there’s no telling what he’ll do next!’

  There was silence. The two of them were in the work shed at Brooklands and Sam was bent over the engine of the Heath Flyer.

  ‘Sam!’

  Sam straightened up, his expression grim. They had come back from Cranbourne the day before, very late, and he knew Loz had been working up to this.

  ‘You know I’m right. You’re all pandering to that spoilt brat because you’re afraid to say no. He’s no good – he’s a bloody menace. That Larstonbury fellow can afford to hire any driver he wants, we’ve built him a bloody good motor and here we are risking it with that halfwit Fairford, who can’t get through a morning without sucking at a Scotch bottle like a . . . a baby. Christ, what a shower! I’ve never seen anything so ridiculous. And you just take it all. “Yes, Major Larstonbury, no, Major Larstonbury, three bags full, Major Larstonbury.”’

  ‘No, I don’t!’ Sam’s temper began to flare now. ‘But he’s the one with the money. If he pulls out on us we’ve nothing!’

  Sam found he was shouting. He knew this was only part of the story, but he couldn’t put into words the confusion of emotions he felt. He had to put up with Cosmo because of the money, it was true, but if he had gone to Piers Larstonbury and suggested they take on a different driver, he knew Piers would listen, even despite the fact the man was clearly helping Cosmo to please Lily. But there was also his old loyalty to Cosmo’s father Charles, to the new, tender emotions he felt towards Susan Fairford, and because . . . Lily, there was always Lily, and her devotion to Cosmo – and because he felt as if he was going to explode with all the conflict and muddle inside him. He was still haunted by the wail he had heard Lily let out when she saw Cosmo lying on the stretcher. Her anguish had pierced deep into his heart and his first impulse had been to run and take her in his arms.

  They had brought the car back on the trailer to Brooklands with full encouragement from Piers Larstonbury to get her roadworthy again.