Elizabeth and Lily

by Hilary Bailey

  Only a few days earlier, she had come back from France, weary after a long voyage across the Channel on a ship full of wounded soldiers. She had only been at the Regent’s Park flat for an hour when Caroline Stillwell called. Lily’s head was full of the colourless landscape of northern France – the khaki, the mud, the leafless trees. Her inner eye saw face after weary face; she still seemed to hear the sounds of heavy bombardment. She greeted Caroline warily and knew she must defer a desperately needed breakfast, though she had not eaten since the afternoon before. This interview was not one she could have while tucking into eggs and bacon. She asked Caroline, who was dressed in black, to sit down in the drawing room, where a concert piano stood by the long windows overlooking the park. She ordered some coffee and lit a cigarette.

  ‘How are you, Lily?’ asked Caroline.

  ‘I’ve just come back from France by the boat train,’ Lily said.

  ‘I’m sorry to call when you’re tired. This awful war.’

  Lily nodded. ‘I know you’ve come to ask me to give up and go back to Chivering,’ she said.

  ‘The war must end soon, now that the American troops have arrived,’ Caroline said. ‘I think you’ve done enough, Lily. We all admire your efforts, of course we do, but surely it’s time for you to return to Gordon and little Digby. The Earl is very worried, and his health is not good. And Gordon is approaching desperation. We all feel it’s time for you to go back to being a wife. I’m sure you must see that for yourself.’

  ‘I wasn’t happy at Chivering before,’ Lily said bluntly.

  ‘I know it_was difficult for you, especially when Gordon became so withdrawn after his brothers’ deaths. But that’s the past. Lily – we must think of the future.’

  ‘That’s not very easy when you’ve just come back from the Front,’ declared Lily. ‘You don’t know what it’s like over there. It’s a fair impersonation of hell. You and the Earl were among the first to call Lionel and Thomas heroes when they joined up. They were killed within six months of each other. Now you’ve changed your tune, and I’m Supposed to change mine.’

  ‘Your husband has asked you many times, in letters, to return to him. You’ve barely replied.’

  ‘I’m no penman,’ Lily told her.

  Caroline continued: ‘He’s genuinely distressed, Lily. Have you no thought for him? Is war work a sufficiently good excuse for this long separation? Other women do their bit, but they do not desert their husbands and overturn their domestic lives. Nor should they.’

  ‘They’re in munitions factories and driving trains,’ said Lily.

  ‘That kind of woman, yes. And some of them are married. But that’s a temporary measure, which will end when all this is over. I have to say I consider you’re throwing up a smokescreen, Lily. The question is quite plain – will you return to your husband? Do you ever intend to?’

  The maid carne in with the coffee. Lily poured it. She had spent several hours on the ship bringing her home with a boy who had had his leg amputated. He had said he hoped he would die. Lily had tried to help him and in the end the greatest comfort she had been able to give him was to say, bitterly, ‘You think you’ll be a freak, with only one leg? Believe me, after this, half the men in the country will be without legs or arms.’ She handed a cup to Caroline, pale, rigid-faced in her black dress. She was too weary to see that Caroline, calling unexpectedly and finding her exhausted after a journey, ought to have left and come back another time. Or that she had not done so because she was on what was to her an urgent mission. Instead, Lily just became angry.

  ‘I’m not interested in what you’ve got to say,’ she declared. ‘I’ve just come back from a place where men are sitting going mad in mud, with rats and lice, just waiting to run to their deaths. There are young men there who should still be at school lying on stretchers, blind, gassed, waiting to have their arms and legs cut off. You can’t expect me to bother about Gordon who’s sitting there in the country, safe and sound, thinking about himself all the time. Yes – he probably wants me back now, but I don’t know why. Since Digby was born he’s hardly looked at me. It got worse when poor Lionel and Thomas died. I’ve got to be honest, Caroline – I don’t think much of Gordon at the moment. Perhaps he couldn’t fight but he could have done something. And as for you and the Earl, well, you never liked me, you thought I was common and vulgar and not worthy of the Stillwells. Then I had Digby and my value went up, like a cow’s, and you want me back with Gordon to breed another son for you. That’s what all this really boils down to. As for Gordon, he’s just selfish. I didn’t realise before, but you don’t, not while someone’s got everything they want on tap anyway. It’s easy for a man to be pleasant and nice when he’s got all he wants. And Gordon doesn’t want much – enough cash to keep going at Chivering without doing anything, a woman to keep the household cheery and give him the odd cuddle, and, above all, no trouble. And then suddenly trouble comes, and Gordon curls up in his shell and won’t come out. He can’t help it. It’s his nature. But that’s what you’re asking me to go back to.’

  ‘Gordon is your husband. You vowed, if I remember the words correctly, to take him for better or worse,’ Caroline said very coldly.

  ‘I can’t deny it,’ Lily said.

  ‘Of course, you had promised that on a previous occasion and not kept those vows,’ Caroline continued.

  ‘A man who beats you up, spends your money and sleeps with your sister is definitely for worse,’ Lily told her.

  Caroline eyed her frostily and said only, ‘Nevertheless, what I have to say to you, Lily, is that if you do not return to Gordon after his repeated requests for you to do so, then he, we all, will construe it as desertion.’

  Lily burst out laughing. ‘Desertion. I see. We’ve had the sentimental appeals, the reference to sacred vows taken in church, now we’ve got to the law courts.’

  Caroline stood up, pale with rage. ‘Lily, you’ve always been atrocious. You’ve outdone yourself today. I shall take Digby from Chivering. It’s not good enough for the boy to be brought up only by servants. I don’t imagine you’ll object. You’ve never had proper feelings for your child. I’ve done my best and at this moment all I can hope is that I never see you again.’

  ‘The feeling’s mutual,’ Lily cried after her retreating back. She threw a cup at the wall.

  Nevertheless, once Caroline had gone, Lily’s anger disappeared and she flopped down in an armchair, her tired head in her hands. For some reason her mind went back to her brother Eddie, who had died so young, so long ago. Nothing like that would ever happen to Digby. The Stillwells wouldn’t let it. So that was all right. For the rest, they didn’t want her, and she didn’t want them. The whole thing had been a mistake. Jack, poor Jack, had caused it in the first place. Now she’d better put the marriage behind her. She was on her own again. There was a whole new world waiting to begin, for those who remained, when the slaughter stopped.

  She stood up and said aloud, ‘Bugger the Stillwells.’ Then she rang up Sam Stackpoole.

  And now they were waiting for Billy Webber.

  Something about Webber drew waiters after him, like a shoal of fish in a shark’s wake. He was a big man, well over six feet, broad-shouldered, with large hands and feet. His dark suit was very expensive, his shirt very white, his dark hair, slightly long, well barbered. His heavy face was expertly shaved. One waiter pulled out his chair, a second handed him a menu, a third, on his slight nod, poured him a glass from the champagne bottle sitting in its bucket on the table. He sat, sipped, made a face and said in the voice of the East End, ‘God, Sam. This is muck.’ To one of the hovering waiters he said, ‘Take this away and get something better, a lot better, and fast as you like.’ The waiter sped off. He turned his gaze – he had large, clear brown eyes – on Lily. ‘Fancy Sam daring to give you cheap champagne, my dear. You should be drinking distilled diamonds. Sam – you’ve always been a cheapskate.’

  ‘I’m a poor man,’ Sam said, playing up.

  Bil
ly Webber went into a Jewish impersonation. ‘Oi veh. I’m a poor man. Business is terrible.’

  Sam smiled. Lily maintained the impassivity of the beautiful woman. Billy Webber wanted her to look and admire, not join in. The fresh bottle of champagne arrived.

  ‘Oysters,’ commanded Billy, ‘and beefsteak.’ To Lily, he said, ’I’m a growing boy. I need my strength.’ He gave her a radiant smile, innocent as a child’s. Whatever else, Billy had charm. ‘So, Sam – how’s tricks?’ he asked. ‘Still robbing the poor?’

  Sam nodded. ‘I’d rather rob the rich, but the poor are easier.’ The waiter sped to the table with a plate of oysters.

  ‘That’s my boy,’ Billy agreed, again in a stage-Jew accent. He swallowed a couple of oysters rapidly. ‘So, my dears,’ he said, ‘here we are. I can’t tell you how pleased I am. Lily,’ he bowed slightly, ‘Sam tells me you can change style fast as a tart undressing. Pardon my French. If that’s true, and you can get rid of that music-hall style, then, with your lovely voice and your lovely face, you’ll be an ornament to any club. I think you’ll find it’s the coming thing. The music halls won’t last forever, I can tell you that. And nightclubs isn’t such bloody hard work, either. No touring. No dingy theatrical lodgings and long waits on cold railways platforms. No pantos in Hull. You know the life, Lily. No star, however big, can avoid some of that. I can do better for you. We all know and appreciate what you’ve done for our boys, what you’ve had to put up with. Now it’s time for an easier life – and a bit more fun.’

  Lily smiled. She could understand why Sam was afraid of Billy Webber. He was quick and intelligent, he had grace – and nearly everything about him was profoundly menacing. Billy knew this and made no attempt to hide it.

  She said, ‘The war isn’t over yet, though, is it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t let you go chasing off to the Front every five minutes if you had a contract with me. You could be killed. I hear you were in a bombing raid.’

  ‘You hear a lot,’ Lily said.

  ‘Everything,’ he told her.

  ‘I can believe that.’

  Billy had dispatched the lion’s share of the oysters. Now the steaks arrived. His was gigantic, covering the plate.

  ‘They know me here,’ he said. ‘I love meat. Hate vegetables. They’re weakening. Look at George Bernard Shaw. Nothing but vegetables – how long would he last in the ring with me?’

  ‘Five seconds,’ Sam said.

  Billy ignored him and looked challengingly at Lily. She gazed back steadily. ‘Horrible about Jackie Finlay,’ he said. ‘I was talking to him about a comeback before he went to France. I reckon I could have got that boy under control. He always had what it took – just didn’t work hard enough. You’d know that, Lily.’

  He was studying her for her reaction to Jack’s name. He must already have judged, Lily thought, that she was not exactly a woman happily married to a titled country gentleman. No wonder Sam had confessed he was afraid of Billy. So was she. He was rapidly, like a jungle animal, assessing the competition and preparing to establish his territory – her. He even had to make sure that Jack was eliminated, even though Jack was dead. She wasn’t sure if this was just the instinctive possessiveness of some men where a woman, almost any woman, was concerned, or if he intended to make her his mistress. She might be less afraid if she knew which. Understanding all this in a flash, she gave nothing away. Billy Webber would not respect her if she seemed confused.

  ‘I know what Jack was like,’ she replied steadily.

  ‘You were with him for years.’

  ‘We were married.’

  Billy didn’t like this. Someone else had owned her, publicly and legally.

  ‘Of course you were,’ he replied. ‘I forgot. Then there was that divorce. Fairly sensational, I recall. What about the present Mr Strugnell? There is one, I believe.’

  Lily did not believe he was so uninformed about her circumstances. He would make all her previous relationships seem trivial, more like accidents; the important one was meant to be with him.

  She smiled and replied, ‘I don’t think I’ll be going home just now. Perhaps you’d better give me that job, Mr Webber.’

  ‘Billy. Call me Billy. Let’s start as we mean to go on.’ He smiled at her and patted her hand as it lay on the table. ‘Now, let’s get down to cases. There’s a pianist waiting at the Quartier, my place off Dover Street. A very nice place, select, all in good taste, good bar, dance floor, of course.’

  ‘I’ve been there,’ Lily told him. ‘It’s splendid.’

  ‘I keep a little flat over it, in fact,’ he mentioned. ‘For when I want it.’

  ‘Live over the shop, eh?’ Sam said.

  ‘Best way, my friend. Best way. That way nothing gets out of hand. I don’t like that,’ he said. ‘Liberties getting taken, sticky fingers in the till.’ The menace emerged as he spoke. Then he became affable again. ‘Now, Lily, if you’ve got the time, can we go down there straight away? I’ll introduce you to Mac. He’s an American, up on all the latest. He’s very likeable. He’ll like you. I want you to like him and we’ll all see what you can do.’

  Lily glanced at Sam, who was evidently surprised by the suggestion. Billy had organised an audition without his knowledge.

  ‘Why not?’ Lily said, though she was not sure she wanted to work for Billy. He was dangerous; you didn’t say no to him. He might want her, and she was far from sure she wanted him.

  The club, when they reached it, was a house, with a smart striped awning reading ‘Quartier’. At night, Lily knew, men and women in evening dress arrived from late on, after dinner, to dance, drink, flirt and listen to the band. The dance leader at the Quartier at the moment was Dominic Caswell; the singer Florence DuBois, an American.

  They went up the steps, through the door and over thick carpet to the big room beyond.

  The tables round the dance floor, the big marble vases of flowers, the dance floor itself and the stage for the orchestra behind looked abandoned at this hour. At night, with the low lights on, Lily knew, the place would spring to life. There would be music, talk, laughter, dancing.

  The club was empty but for a lone pianist at a large black piano by the dance floor near the stage. Their feet echoed as they approached. The pianist stood up. Billy introduced them. ‘Ellis McCarthy – Mac to you and me.’

  ‘What will you sing?’ asked Mac. He spoke quietly, in an American accent. He seemed knowing but kindly. Lily said, ‘“Some of these Days”,’ and told him the key. ‘Can you?’ she said.

  ‘I could play it in my sleep,’ he told her. ‘In fact, by three in the morning, I do.’

  Lily stood by the piano and sang. She was thirty years old now. Her voice had deepened a little. Her manner, particularly after the years of war, was more grave. She had developed great command and, where once she had tried and succeeded in attracting her audiences, now she usually compelled them effortlessly. Her phrasing, her stagecraft, had become impeccable. As she ceased singing and Mac played the final chords, he smiled up at her. She thanked him. ‘No – I thank you,’ he told her.

  ‘Lovely – wonderful,’ called Billy Webber. ‘But what about something a little more cheerful?’

  Mac struck up the opening bars of’The Dark Town Strutters’ Ball’. It was a question. Lily nodded. She took a breath and launched into it.

  At the end Billy Webber clapped and said, ‘Bravo, Lily. You’re marvellous. Start in a week. Five nights a week. Times to be arranged.’ Then he named a sum which took her breath away. She almost gasped. How much could the place be bringing in, if Billy could afford to pay her that much? She looked at Sam, who said, ‘I’m pleased you’re pleased with Lily – I knew you would be. Shall we discuss details tomorrow?’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Billy. ‘I’ve got to go. Business elsewhere.’ He turned on his heel, turned back and bowed deeply to Lily. ‘Until we meet again,’ he said, and was gone. There was an ambiguity in his final words. Were they a threat or a promise? Lily wonder
ed.

  Mac stood up. He said, ‘I also have to go. It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Miss Strugnell.’

  Lily and Sam were alone now in the empty club. Sam knew what Lily was thinking. ‘I know, I know,’ he said. ‘I told you Billy Webber was intimidating. But the money’s good.’

  Lily shook her head. ‘You saw his attitude. Will he be paying me for singing, or for something else?’

  ‘He’d never force himself on you, Lily,’ said Sam. ‘He’s too proud. You’d have to go to him. You must see that.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lily.

  ‘What worries you is, will you want to?’ Sam said. ‘I think you’ll be tempted. He may not be a good man, but he’s the kind you’re used to. And he’s got charm; even I can see that.’

  ‘But you don’t like him,’ Lily said, for the second time.

  Chapter Forty

  Harry’s leave was in September. Elizabeth too got a week’s leave and they spent it on a farm in Normandy, where small fields had been reaped and the orchards hung heavy with apples.

  Under an apple tree, at midday, where they were sharing bread and cheese and wine, Harry said, ‘It will end now the Americans have joined the war. Will you marry me soon? It would be hard for either of us to marry anyone who hasn’t been out here. There would be too many memories the other person couldn’t share.’

  She looked into his pale, gaunt face. ‘Of course I’ll marry you – why would I want anyone else?’ They kissed and spent the rest of the week in happiness. They had a future now. His proposal, her acceptance, were acts of faith. They had something to look forward to, a new life to make. If they survived. But in November, Harry was posted back to the place of his initiation into warfare, Ypres. And was killed.

  Elizabeth had lived with the fear of this for so long, and had seen so many other deaths, that she went into a cold, tearless despair. Like an automaton, she got up and went on the wards. Then, after three days, she walked out of the hospital gates, through fields, orchards, farmyards, her mind blank but for bitter, searing pain. At dusk, her feet bleeding, she came back and put in her resignation.