Where Earth Meets Sky

by Annie Murray

  ‘Well, I’m with you for as long as it takes,’ Piers Larstonbury said happily. ‘This has been a great adventure for me, thanks to your skill, the two of you.’ And he raised his glass again, face breaking into a boyish smile. ‘There’ll be setbacks, of course, but it’s all part of the process – eh, Marks?’

  Looking at Piers, sitting there drinking beer with them all in his well-cut clothing, and seeing his kind, courteous way of trying to cheer them all, Lily felt a burst of great gratitude and affection for him. He was a good man, she thought. Such a good man, and she knew he would leave his wife for her in a moment, so devoted was he to her, if she ever showed any inclination to ask. She longed, in that moment, for his goodness to be enough.

  ‘We’d better organize some food for Cozzy,’ Susan said as the meal ended. ‘I’m sure they’ll do a tray or something. Lily, perhaps you’d better take it to him.’

  Sam leaned gently towards her. ‘Perhaps I should go up as well. I haven’t had a chance for a chat with him and I’d like to stop him tearing himself up about it. I know what he’s like.’

  ‘All right,’ Susan said gratefully.

  Sam followed Lily up the stairs with the tray of beef and delicious treacle tart and she was conscious of his presence behind her all the way up. Despite these occasional meetings in the company of others they were still very awkward with each other, as if the air between them vibrated with unspoken emotions that they could not seem to begin on.

  ‘I think it will help if you to talk to him,’ she whispered outside Cosmo’s room. ‘He looks up to you a lot. And he was feeling very wretched about what happened today.’

  ‘He shouldn’t,’ Sam said. ‘It’s all part of it. He was taken bad, that’s all there is to it.’

  Lily gave him a faint smile and went into her own room, whispering, ‘Good luck!’

  She heard Sam’s voice speaking quietly from next door as she folded her clothes away on to the chair and looked for her night things, and she hoped Sam would be able to make a difference to Cosmo’s state of mind. Poor Cozzy, he did get so cast down. So often he still seemed like a little boy to her, except that the saddest thing was that he had somehow seemed more happy and complete when he was four than ever he did now.

  She was about to undress when she heard a tapping on the door, soft but insistent. Sam was outside, his face very grave. For a second he hesitated, then, inclining his head towards the next-door room, he said, ‘I think you’d better come.’

  To her astonishment he took her hand, leading her into Cosmo’s room where he carefully closed the door.

  ‘Prepare yourself, dear,’ he said to her tenderly, and his face was terribly concerned.

  ‘Cozzy?’ Wild with dread, she ran to the bed. He was lying just as she had left him, eyes closed, seemingly asleep. The only thing she saw as different was the glass of water which he had somehow tipped over. Then she saw other things: the paper crumpled in one hand, the white dusting of powder on his upper lip, the blueness of both his lips and the stillness of him that was beyond waking. All these things she took in during those seconds which shook inside her like an earthquake invisible to anyone else.

  She reached out, trembling, to touch Cosmo’s neck, feeling for a pulse of life and hope, but there was nothing. Looking up, her fingertips still pressed to his lifeless flesh, her eyes met Sam’s.

  ‘What’s happened? Oh my God, Sam, what’s he done?’

  Sam looked to Cosmo, then helplessly back at her again. There seemed nothing to say.

  Chapter Seventy

  ‘Cocaine hydrochloride?’ You mean to say that my son has been . . . inhaling this . . . this powder like some sort of poet?’

  They were gathered with the doctor and a policeman in the back room of the Pack Horse. Susan, in her shock and grief, had retreated back into the glassy, commanding woman Sam remembered so disliking in Ambala. She sat up very straight, hands clasped in her lap, giving off an air of superior frostiness. Loz and Piers stood tactfully nearby, as did the owner of the public house, who kept repeating that there had never been a death at the Pack Horse before, not while he was landlord.

  ‘I’m afraid to say, Mrs Fairford,’ the doctor said, ‘that your son appears to have quite a lengthy history of drug addiction, judging by the condition of him.’

  They were all frozen with shock and as yet Susan was too forbidding to accept comfort. Lily stood next to Sam, who seemed suddenly to be always at her side. She was also too shocked yet to weep. The doctor said that Cosmo must have known that he was taking a huge overdose of cocaine, that he had taken his own life, and she knew that she must have been the last person to speak to him. The memory of Cosmo’s face suddenly made her tremble so that she thought her legs might give way. She groped for a chair and found Sam’s arm holding her up.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, sinking down on to a wooden bench. She looked up at him and then her eyes filled with tears.

  Cosmo’s funeral was held ten days later at the church at Lapsley, the village closest to the Cranbourne estate. There had been an inquest, which confirmed that Cosmo had died by his own hand.

  There were not many at the funeral. Susan’s mother and sister came, as well as Uncle William and some of the estate workers. Lily saw Bernard and Tim there, in their best Sunday suits. Piers Larstonbury drove up with Lily, and Sam came on his own. Loz, he said, regretted that he could not be there: he was needed in Birmingham with his family. Uncle William, no doubt through the prompting of Mrs Rainbow, had invited all who needed to, to sleep overnight at Cranbourne House.

  They all stood in the village church amid the smells of old hymn books and candlewax and sang ‘Abide with Me’ and ‘Lead Us, Heavenly Father, Lead Us’. Lily wept, unable to help herself as she thought of Cosmo’s life, of his little face as she knew him in India, the eager, loving little boy he had been and all that he had become. Piers stood beside her, gently touching her arm at times when her tearfulness overwhelmed her. He understood that her loss of Cosmo in this tragic way was like losing her own son.

  Susan, between her mother and sister, was dry-eyed and brittle, determined, as she said, not to ‘lay all my emotions out in public’. She stood very straight, in her black coat and a wide-brimmed hat with a feather trailing gracefully down to the side, and elegant, high-heeled shoes. No one could get close to her: she had closed off from them all.

  She’s burying the last remaining member of her family, Lily thought. And the memory came to her of them all that day in Mussoorie when they picnicked under the deodars amid the sweeping mountain peaks with their waterfalls and meadows of flowers, when Isadora had been in love with horses and Charles and Susan seemed relaxed together and Cosmo . . . But of course by then the circle had already been broken. Cosmo had been sent away: banished from the family, as it had always felt to him. Her eyes filled with tears again. The poor little mite, she thought. He had never really recovered from that.

  Piers held her arm as they processed out of the church after the coffin. Cosmo was to be buried on the estate, close to the track where he had so loved to drive. Lily and Piers walked behind Susan and her family and Lily knew Sam and some of the other men were walking behind her. She knew with great clarity then that she needed to be walking on Sam’s arm, that that was what was right and that nothing else ever had been or ever would be.

  Once they had left the church she turned, looking for Sam with a sudden desperate need, but he had peeled off and was some distance away among the old graves, as if he needed to be alone. He stood looking across at the elms bordering the field beyond the churchyard, a slender, lonely figure in his dark overcoat, and in that glimpse, amid the desperate sorrow of the day which had somehow made everything clear, Lily knew how much she loved him. She longed to go to him, to pour out everything she felt to him.

  Instead she walked obediently on Piers’s arm to the convoy of cars which would follow the black-plumed horses carrying Cosmo’s body to its resting place at the edge of the fields where he had
reluctantly spent so much of his boyhood.

  Chapter Seventy-One

  It was only once she was in the privacy of her room at Cranbourne that Susan allowed her grief to surface, and then it seemed to come over her with the impact of a heavy blow. Lily was with her as she wept, becoming utterly distraught, and in the end Lily was frightened by the force it. Not knowing what else to do, she went to Mrs Rainbow.

  ‘I’ve been with her for an hour or more,’ she said shakily, ‘and she’s more and more hysterical.’

  ‘I’ll send out for the doctor,’ the housekeeper said. ‘I expect ’e’ll give her a little summat to sedate her.’

  Whatever it was they gave Susan worked very effectively and by nine o’clock that evening she was in a deep sleep. Waiting by her bedside, Lily felt waves of exhaustion rolling over her, but she was not sleepy. She felt as if she needed hours to unwind and to think before she could relax enough.

  Once she was certain Susan would not stir for some time, she crept from the room, closing the door very softly. She had barely got any distance away when she met Piers in the passage and realized that he had been on his way to her room. Immediately she felt resentful and hemmed in. Poor Piers, how kind and thoughtful he was! But just at present she ached to be alone in order to let the great void of Cosmo’s death open within her. She did not want Piers’s sexual advances, however much they were dressed up as offering comfort.

  ‘Darling,’ he said gently. ‘Oh, my poor little girl, what a tragic time it has been. Come to me, my love.’

  He went to take her in his arms in his kindly way but Lily, though not wanting to hurt him, found she simply could not bear it.

  ‘Piers.’ She stood her ground, resisting him. ‘Dear, would you mind letting me be alone for a time, please? It’s been such a terrible day.’

  ‘Let me come with you, darling girl. I won’t talk, I’ll just be beside you . . .’

  ‘No!’ she said, more adamantly than she really meant to. Trying to soften the message she said, ‘No, Piers. Do go and get some rest. It’s been a very tiring day, but I do just need some time alone tonight. Please don’t worry about me.’

  ‘Of course, my dear.’ She could not tell if his feelings were hurt. He was always so courteous. He kissed her and she watched him go towards his room, turning to raise a hand in affectionate parting to her.

  Lily slipped down the stairs and let herself out into the enclosed garden at the side of the house. It was still warm and that lovely space between the walls seemed to distil the early autumn scents: the velvet sweetness of the last roses on the darkening air mixed with the more pungent smells from the herb garden. It was the time of night when the light is so uncertain that she began to imagine she was seeing shapes moving the other side of the garden, then realized that the dark, moving shadow she had seen was a tabby cat which lived in the wake of Mrs Rainbow, and it came up and miaowed at her.

  ‘I haven’t anything for you,’ she said, bending to stroke it. ‘It isn’t any use carrying on at me like that.’

  She left the walled part of the garden, remembering the loveliness of the smooth expanse of lawn beyond, its scent and the sense of space and freedom it gave her. For the time being her emotion was spent. The day had focused so intensely on Cosmo, on loss and tragedy, that now it was as if her mind had closed down and she could not think, or feel, any more about it. She felt scoured out and blank, needing simply to be quiet and be cradled by the gentle greenness of the place. She bent down and unbuttoned her shoes, slipping them off to feel the cool grass between her toes.

  As she walked she saw another shadow moving where the edge of the lawn met the long grass and margin of trees. This time it was far too big to be a cat and she assumed it was one of the gardeners. She prepared herself to say a polite goodnight, but in a moment she knew who it was and that he had seen her.

  ‘Lily?’

  Sam stepped forward a few paces, then waited as she moved towards him. The memory of hearing him, here in the clearing with Susan, hardened her towards him, made her try to hold aloof from her need of him. Would this be another fight? she wondered. Another time when they just could not say what needed to be said? She stood barely more than a yard away, hardly able to see his expression.

  ‘Last time we were here,’ she said, hardly knowing what would come from her lips, ‘I heard you down here with Susan. You were kissing her, were you not?’

  There was a silence in which the gaze of each of them met somewhere in the dark space between them.

  ‘Lily . . .’ His voice was low and she knew immediately that now nothing would be hidden. ‘You can’t have forgotten. Please tell me you haven’t. I don’t know why you decided not to meet me in Mussoorie. I’ve wondered and agonized about it ever since, about your silence, even after I wrote and wrote. It was so cruel, so impossible to understand . . .’

  ‘You wrote?’ she burst out. ‘You never wrote! I never heard a word from you. And I was . . .’ She stumbled over how to explain about Ewan McBride and the crazed strangeness of those weeks.

  ‘My employer wouldn’t let me out. I couldn’t get to you, I didn’t hear from you . . . I thought you had left without saying goodbye, without trying . . .’

  ‘But you never came! Not a word! I sent notes to the house – nothing back! What was I supposed to think? Lily . . .’ He moved closer, but she stepped back, still terribly afraid of him.

  ‘What about your wife? And what about Susan? What were you doing out here that night, Sam?’

  ‘Oh God, Lily . . .’ Sam made a despairing sound. ‘Susan was . . . We just . . . I don’t know. We were both lonely, taking comfort in each other for a few moments. It was no more than that. I like her – I never thought I’d say that, for a start! And I feel for her. She’s had a rough ride. But we don’t want each other, not really – you must know that! I’m not her sort – wrong sort of class altogether. When we came across each other in France, in that hospital, after the captain had been killed, it sort of ironed things out, made us more equal, and I liked her better . . . But that night here – it was just a thing of the moment . . .’

  ‘And your wife?’

  Sam sighed. ‘I married Helen when we were far too young. Even back then I knew I’d made a dreadful mistake, that first time in Ambala, when I’d met you . . . I didn’t know, not before then, what it could be like. I got married, thinking that was the done thing, and soon there was a baby on the way. But that second time, in the hills – God help me, if you’d turned up that night, I would have left her and stayed with you. I’m not proud of that, but that was how it was – how it is. You’re the one, Lily. There’s never been anyone anything like you – nothing’s touched it. That week in Mussoorie . . .’ He paused, shaking his head.

  ‘God, woman, I was ill when I got home to England, just being without you, thinking I’d never see you again and never understanding why you . . . I suppose I was pining for you. I was thin as a railing . . .’ He looked up at her. ‘But you weren’t there, you didn’t want me. You’d made that clear enough. And I had to go on and do the decent thing for Helen and find other things to occupy me – to console me . . .’

  Lily stood quite still, letting the wonder of his words sink into her.

  ‘What about Piers?’ he said miserably. ‘He’s married as well.’

  ‘They’re only married under the law,’ Lily said. ‘There doesn’t seem to be anything else left.’

  ‘He’s a thoroughly decent man, Lily, and a wealthy one. Do you love him?’

  ‘No,’ she said simply. ‘I don’t.’

  He waited a long interval for her to find words, until at last she spoke into the darkness.

  ‘Sam, I’ve been and I’ve done a lot of things I’m ashamed of. I’ve been what people – what men, especially – have wanted me to be. You’ve probably heard things about me which must disgust you. I’ve been Piers’s mistress – for a living, yes, for money when you come down to it, almost like a woman of the streets only more respectable,
of course – because I couldn’t seem to find any other way to be. I forced myself not to remember you and how it was in Ambala and in Mussoorie because I didn’t think I could ever have that again, not with anyone. It frightens me even saying anything now . . . And after you’d gone . . . Oh, Sam . . .’

  As the memories came she started to weep, but he did not dare move forward to touch her yet.

  ‘You left me your child . . . When you left I was . . . I was . . .’ The sobs interrupted. ‘I was expecting and I didn’t know what to do. I knew you didn’t want me. I went to the nuns on the mountain . . .’

  She told him then, about the laundry and the Bethel Home and about walking out that winter morning and shutting away any thoughts of their baby, of closing her heart down and training it to be a cool, calculating place where there were exchanges and bartering of services but no love. As she talked she realized gradually that he was weeping as well.

  ‘Our child,’ he said, wiping his eyes. ‘Was it a boy or a girl?’

  ‘A little girl,’ Lily told him. ‘I called her Victoria.’

  The tears came then, a crying like none she had ever managed for the grief of Mussoorie, for Victoria, or now for Cosmo, the pain of it all tearing at her inside until she was on her knees, felled by it. Moments later she realized that Sam had come to kneel beside her, holding her head close to his warm chest, saying soft, loving words of comfort while he cried with her.

  When she was a little calmer they stood up and held each other close, not speaking for a long time, as the darkness thickened and a night bird shrieked somewhere in the distance. And his body felt so familiar, so lovely against her and she breathed in the smell of him. Their lips found each other’s and she remembered the feel of his kisses and the tears ran down her cheeks again at the joy of the memory.

  ‘God,’ Sam said, awed, ‘I’ve found you again. Lily – my Lily.’ He looked down into her eyes. ‘I thought life was going to be the same now until I died, or Helen did. That there’d be nothing, no love. Nothing real that I could call mine.’