Wild Lily

by K. M. Peyton

  ‘If we adopt the baby,’ Cedric said hesitantly, ‘we won’t have her on our backs, I hope?’

  ‘I think the law can deal with that, if necessary,’ said Sir Richard.

  ‘You haven’t got to say yes immediately,’ Antony said. ‘It’s not fair that you don’t have time to consider it and all the implications. Money, for example. I haven’t any, only some miserly savings. Maybe the old aunt might leave her some, when she dies. Or my father could resurface? Who knows? But don’t count on it.’

  Cedric said, ‘That doesn’t matter. One more mouth on the farm makes little difference. The extra work will be all Lily’s. And if Lily agrees —’

  ‘I do. I don’t need time to consider it,’ Lily said firmly. ‘Now that Cedric agrees, it’s yes, now.’

  The men could do the paperwork. Lily just felt she wanted to fly away somewhere, laughing, crying, overwhelmed. She went out of the vestry and went into a quiet part of the churchyard, away from the tea party, and sat on a gravestone and wept. Tears of joy for herself, grief for Antony – she had no idea, only aware of emotions almost too great to contain. Meeting Aunt Maud again shortly would calm her down.

  When the men came out she joined them, composed. Cedric wanted to leave straightaway but was over-ruled.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, the godparents have got to put in an appearance! Everyone will be wondering where on earth we’ve all got to as it is.’ Simon was firm, pushing Antony rapidly down the path towards the marquee. ‘You’re not telling Aunt Maud now!’ he said to him.

  ‘No fear! Later, when you’ve all gone. I don’t want to dump you in it. Dynamite, stand clear! Maybe Maureen can do it. I’m a sick man, after all. Mustn’t have too much excitement, the doc says.’

  The tea party was well underway, Aunt Maud holding the fort beside the christening cake. Maureen came to meet them, carrying the baby.

  ‘God, I thought you were never coming!’ she said to Antony. ‘Is it—?’

  ‘Yes, yes, it’s all agreed!’

  ‘Oh, thank God!’

  The guarded face broke into such a smile that the staid, boring nurse for a moment looked like the girl she once had been, like the woman she could have been if life had been kinder to her. Lily warmed to her immediately, holding out her arms for the baby that she was proffering up.

  ‘You are glad for me to have her? I just can’t believe it! I am so happy!’

  ‘Yes, I wanted it. I wanted it so much, for the little thing to have a happy future, not with Aunt Maud. We neither of us thought ahead when Antony wanted to have a child, that she would take over. It didn’t occur to us. As soon as she is weaned, and the paperwork done, you will have her.’

  ‘It will be terrible when she finds out!’

  ‘Yes, but not today! Don’t worry. It’ll be bad enough – her anger about the name! And later, we’ll get that lawyer to tell her. He’s her dear friend, so she tells us, so he can use all his expertise in selling it to her – part of the job. There’s nothing she can do to stop it, he assured us, so you don’t have anything to worry about.’

  ‘Oh, you are so kind!’

  The formalities of the christening party passed Lily by in a dream. The sooty little garden seemed now to be flooded with glorious light. She felt that she was in heaven itself. Seeing the man in the wheelchair, broken and near death, she saw only the old Antony she had loved so dearly, the teasing blue eyes, the tumbled black hair, the cruel tongue that had never professed to love her, but had mocked and laughed and led her on.

  The same spirit would live again in her little girl, Lily Antonia. And when he came to lie beside Helena in the village churchyard she would take him flowers with his daughter, picked from the lakeside, and they would lay some too on Barky’s grave, and see Uncle Squashy and remember all the fun they had and know that they were the lucky ones, for whom the sun was still shining.

  THE 1980s

  APRIL, 1983

  30

  Lily never spoke about the past. Her love for Antony was never to be put into words, only fading gradually during the years into a private, sweet memory, fostered by the presence of the enchanting Antonia. Cedric was an entirely practical man, immune to dreams, wholly taken up, along with his sons, by the running of the farm. He never mentioned nor even thought about the past. He had accepted Antonia as his own daughter and never mentioned otherwise, nor was Antonia ever told otherwise. The boys were the same: she was their sister.

  Aunt Maud was dead, no word ever came from Maureen, and there was no one save Lily who remembered the child’s real father, though Antonia’s looks reminded her everyday: she was his image. Lily wondered sometimes if any of the very old people in the village had noticed, but no one said anything, and now they were all dead.

  Life was a throw of the dice, Lily thought, unpredictable, and now she was old she felt surprise at how all the excitements in her life had happened in her youth and since the arrival of Antonia in the family nothing exciting had ever happened again. It was only Antony who had shown her what life could be. And what had happened to him, self-inflicted, was too sad to dwell on.

  Life in the farmhouse was quiet. Cedric, now bent and arthritic in his late seventies, was still out on the land all day, working with his two elder sons. Freddie the youngest had eschewed farming and emigrated to Australia, from where he was always writing letters trying to persuade his parents to join him. Cedric threw the letters in the fire with a snort of derision. Lily did not like the sound of Australia, so did not argue. Her horizons, she knew, were pathetically narrow, scarcely ever leaving the Lockwood estate where she had been born, but she had never hankered for other places. She was content, and her main happiness in life had been brought to her by Antonia.

  Antonia had spent her childhood just as Lily had, playing round the estate with her brothers and with the children of Lockwood Hall, falling in love with the eldest son and – unlike Lily – marrying him. No cloud had ever drifted across Antonia’s sky. Antonia now lived in Lockwood Hall with her husband Peter, her architect father-in-law having built himself a new house in Guildford, and Lily could see her every day if she wished. Antonia had not yet had any children, Lily thought by design, as she and Peter had a very busy social life, travelled abroad a lot and never showed any signs of regret over lack of a family. There were enough grandchildren around as it was, with her boys’ children, and Cedric’s sisters’ children providing enough to make a whole Young Farmers club between them, and Lily got their names muddled up, but always had cake and biscuits at the ready for the frequent visitations.

  Lily, heading into the second half of her seventies, was prepared to sink into a contented dotage, feeling her life’s work was done. Not that she was incapacitated or ill, just getting a bit tired. She liked to walk down to the lake when she was free and sit by the little inlet where Helena’s body had once floated and let her thoughts go back over her strange, beleaguered childhood: the burden of Squashy and her old father and the fun before Helena’s death.

  She often thought that Antonia should know the truth, but loyalty to Cedric stopped her saying anything. He had been so totally forgiving of all her idiocies and quite happily acknowledged his second place in his wife’s affections, a kindness Lily could not despoil. Their marriage had been very successful, no need to stir things. She could keep her fantasies to herself. Her sweetest fantasy was that Antonia had been born to her, not Maureen. Sometimes she could almost believe it, remembering the night she had lain with Antony, even remembering that strange dream in which she had borne the little blonde baby Rose. What had that been all about? But Antonia had no trace of Maureen in her nature. Strangely, Antonia had feelings and character far more in tune with herself than with her birth mother.

  Antonia was very kind to her now that she was getting old, and never disparaged her in the way of many young people in their attitude to the elderly. Lily never trespassed on the couple’s privacy in their elegant home, but Antonia came across to the farm often with flowers from the
restored gardens and tales of their doings. Like his father, Peter was an architect, a large cheerful man with a successful practice, and the pair had many friends from the profession whom they often entertained. Their life was so different from Lily’s and Lily, without envy, loved to hear Antonia’s stories of domestic life in smart circles, a world away from her own in spite of the fact that scarcely a stone’s throw separated the farm from the Hall. Nothing had really changed in the Butterworth kitchen since the days she had helped old Mrs Butterworth – Cedric’s mother – when she had been dying. It was still a mess, the same table now, although well-scrubbed, pitted with wear, the same motley dogs wandering through, the same smell of fruit cake baking to stave off the pangs of hunger farmers seemed to suffer from between proper meals.

  ‘I love it in here,’ Antonia declared. ‘So comfortable. Architects like to impress – it does get boring sometimes.’

  ‘Ah, but your place is beautiful!’

  ‘Yes, but – you know what I mean. No complaints! I just love coming home here.’

  Antonia settled herself in Cedric’s comfortable chair while Lily put the kettle on. Antonia was approaching her late-thirties and age seemed to have emphasized her beauty rather than detracted, her untamed black curls without yet a hint of grey, the eyes still with the sudden flash of laughing blue that was so reminiscent of her father. It often seemed magical to Lily that Antonia was so much in the image of Antony, a likeness so rare. None of her own boys were anything as like their father as was Antonia. None of Simon’s girls had had a close likeness to either Simon or Melanie. Cedric had remarked once on Antonia’s likeness to Antony, but only the once, with no sign of irritation, just mild surprise. Lily thought of it as God’s gift to herself, to make up for denying her Antony’s love.

  He was still there for her, in her head, laughing in Antony’s old way.

  ‘Peter said there was a charity stall outside Guildford station last night with some old bat trying to get people to sign up for making a parachute jump for charity. Your friends promise to pay money to this charity if you are brave enough to make the jump. So when lots of people have promised you feel honour-bound to do it, so all that money goes to charity. Peter thought it was a really weird idea. He said he would rather put his head on the railway track than jump out of an aeroplane. A better way to die.’

  Lily opened her mouth to make an exclamation of protest, but caught herself up just in time before she said anything stupid. But Antonia’s words sent such a sudden frisson of shock and longing through her body that she found it hard to hide her expression, and turned hastily back to the kettle, away from Antonia. Reaching for the teacups she saw that her hands were shaking.

  ‘I told him what a coward he was and he laughed and said, “You do it then!” but I must say it doesn’t really appeal. All right floating down perhaps, but the thought of having to make yourself jump – I don’t think I could do it.’

  It was all Lily could do to stop herself from bursting out with a diatribe on the amazing feelings a parachute jump induced and that it was the most wonderful and marvellous and mind-blowing experience of a lifetime, but her self-control won over her excitement, and she just mumbled something about Peter being quite sensible: it was a bit much a charity asking someone to do such an outrageous thing.

  ‘Yes,’ Antonia agreed. ‘After all, if your aeroplane is on fire it would be brilliant, but just to do it for fun seems a bit odd. I wonder if they get many takers?’

  When she had gone Lily sat down and found herself trembling and close to tears. The memory that she had blocked for so long – of seeing Antony hurtle past her on that last jump – came back to her with such needling pain that she almost cried out. Antonia’s careless words had opened a wound so deep that she had forgotten it existed. In the evening, Cedric asked her if she was ill: she was so withdrawn and touchy. It was so unlike him to remark on her demeanour that she said yes, she thought she must be sickening for something – how else could she explain it? – so he made her a hot toddy and tucked her into bed.

  But the idea of the parachute jump stayed with her and she made a special visit into Guildford to find out more about the offer. Nobody said you had to be under eighty, only that you had to be over eighteen. The more she thought about it the more enticing the offer became – to do it again! Float down through the sky without any troubles this time, her mind perfectly attuned to absorbing every nuance of the beauty, the silence, the magic that she still remembered – to do it again!

  Not to tell anyone. They wouldn’t let her. They would say she was an idiot. She could just see the boys jeering, and Antonia shocked and fussing and Cedric …

  Impossible. But did she have to tell anyone? She came and went as she pleased, after all, and why did she have to tell anyone? She could do it and no one need ever know. She went home with the details and decided to put it out of her mind.

  But it wouldn’t go.

  She decided not to mention it to Cedric, for she thought he would fuss, be bound to tell her she was too old. They rarely had serious conversations, only stuff about cows and the grandchildren and weather. They had grown together, Lily thought, like a pair of old socks, comfortable and hard-wearing. She knew she loved him, even if he had no time for cuddles and sweet words. But she wasn’t going to risk telling him about her idea. It was warm and throbbing inside her. She must do it!

  The next day she went down to the organizing office in Guildford to sign up, but they said kindly, ‘You’re too old, dear. No one over sixty, and I think you’re older than that.’

  ‘But I’m fit, and I’ve done it before. You must take me!’

  ‘We can’t go against the rules, I’m afraid.’

  For some reason it had never occurred to Lily that this might happen. But when they were so adamant she realized that she had been so carried away with the idea that she had not given it a sensible scrutiny. Of course she was too old, that’s why she was keeping it a secret from her family.

  They would all have said the same. But slowly it occurred to her that she could still do it without the help of the charity people: she had her own money, so she could surely get someone from Brooklands to take her up privately, provide the parachute and help her make the jump?

  One day when Cedric had gone to the cattle market she borrowed one of the boys’ bikes and cycled to Brooklands. It nearly killed her, never having bicycled further than the village, and she had to go to the cafe for a cup of tea to recover. Although the building had undergone a refurbishment and now looked quite different, it was the same place where, once, Antony had been a waiter, where Clarence had revived her with brandy after that terrible day … she found the memories flooding back, shaking her: she almost expected Antony to appear, laughing, undamaged, young, gorgeous … oh God, how her hands were shaking! She was crazy to be thinking that she could do this thing.

  ‘Is madam well? Can I help you?’

  She looked up to a find a suave young man in a waiter’s uniform eyeing her anxiously. She saw herself as he was seeing her: an ignorant, badly-dressed countrywoman having a bad turn, out of her milieu, about to be a nuisance … God help us, have hysterics! She took a great breath and eyed him fiercely.

  ‘No. I’m perfectly all right. I’m here to make enquiries about making a parachute jump. Perhaps you can help me with that?’

  ‘For yourself, madam?’ And he laughed.

  Lily sprang to her feet, eyes blazing. ‘Yes, for myself! Before I die! Because I’ve done it before, several times, and I don’t know why you find that so amusing? Why do you laugh? Have you no manners? As you offered to help me, yes, find me someone who can provide the service I’m looking for. For that I shall be much obliged.’

  Was this herself talking? She could not believe it. She had leaped off her seat and was standing here feeling about ten feet tall, her lethargy completely dissolved, an amazing resolve flooding her.

  The young man stepped back, embarrassed colour flooding his young cheeks. ‘Please, I�
�m sorry! Forgive me. I didn’t mean—’

  ‘Well, make amends, and find me someone who knows about parachute jumping.’

  ‘Yes, ma’m, of course. I will make enquiries.’

  He hurried away and Lily sat down again, feeling the sparks still jumping in her breast. It was like old times, when the young blood had coursed and thrills had overwhelmed her. Good and bad, she had lived once! So she would again! All her strength seemed to be flooding back, excitement catching hold.

  Of course it was not straightforward, but as Lily devoted herself secretly to fulfilling this mad ambition, she did a few days later receive a letter from a pilot from Brooklands who specialized in parachute jumping and was willing to take her up for a jump for a modest sum, modest in respect of her advanced years and his great admiration for her spirit. She read this with amusement. She arranged to meet him (on another cattle market day) to discuss business.

  She made another crucifying bicycle ride to Brooklands and was introduced to her saviour by the same young man whom she had so embarrassed on her first visit.

  The willing pilot was fiftyish, lithe and personable. He had a slight American accent and said he had been brought up over there.

  ‘They’re really keen on it in the States. Big exhibitions, people love it, all clamouring to have a go. It doesn’t seem to have taken off here in the same way, but perhaps it’s coming.’

  ‘If you’ve never tried it, I suppose you can’t guess.’

  ‘It’s something else,’ he said simply. ‘The feeling. Indescribable.’

  ‘Oh, I know, I know! That’s why I want to do it again. One last time! They won’t have me on the charity jump – too old, they said. I said I’ve done it before, I know all about it, but they said it was against the rules.’