And he was gone, back into the public house with a slam of the back door, leaving her shocked and trembling in the darkness.
‘Darling – what a wonderful evening! I had to come and at least say goodnight.’
Piers slipped into her room without invitation. He had arranged for them to have separate rooms, trying to be discreet, even if in other respects he was not in the least careful about letting people know she was his mistress.
‘But you’re not undressed yet! Are you all right, my dear?’
With genuine concern he came and sat beside her on the pink flowery eiderdown. Lily had no idea how long she had been sitting there after she came up from her encounter with Sam. She knew she should have gone back to the table, but she simply could not face it.
‘Are you unwell?’ Piers’s slim hand caressed her forehead and Lily suddenly felt like crying. She did feel almost unwell, but she knew there was nothing wrong but an eruption of shock and grief which she could not explain.
‘My dear, you don’t look yourself. Is there anything I can do?’
Lily forced herself to look brightly at him. ‘No – thank you,’ she said quietly. ‘I was just having a few moments of quiet. It’s been such a busy day.’
Piers smiled, his delicate features lighting up boyishly. A lock of his light brown hair lay across his forehead.
‘Hasn’t it just! My goodness – truly splendid. I’ve had my doubts about that Fairford fellow, but he handled the motor marvellously today. And didn’t she go once he got her up to speed! I say, it’s all awfully jolly. And I have you to thank, darling. I feel as if I’ve been given a whole new life – with the motor racing, and you . . .’ His face softened as he turned to her. ‘Above all, you, my dear. You’ve made my life so very happy.’
He drew her to him and kissed her, laying his hand over her left breast with a sigh of pleasure. For a second Lily wanted to resist, to ask him to leave her alone when she felt so raw and sad. But then, as he kissed her, she felt a surge of defiance, an angry passion. Damn Sam Ironside, damn him! Why was she still letting herself tangle her emotions with him when he could come to her and rant at her the way he had without ever truly asking her for the truth or for her side of it? And when, whatever he had felt, she had had to bear and lose his child and had suffered so much more! When all the time, here was this man who did love her and was so very kind to her. As Piers Larstonbury began making love to her, she responded with an angry vigour which he interpreted as passion.
‘Oh, my darling!’ He drew back and looked into her eyes, moved. ‘My fiery girl – you are truly extraordinary.’
He stood up and gently helped her to her feet, removing her diaphanous blouse until she stood in her skirt and camisole. Reverently, Piers lifted the little white garment over her head.
‘My God, you’re so splendid . . .’
She watched his face, his seeming to fall into a trance as he caressed her breasts and saw him with a certain tenderness. He was kind, good to her. Was that not enough?
He managed to contain himself enough to maintain his natural politeness.
‘May I, my dearest? May I stay with you tonight?’
In answer, Lily unfastened her skirt and let it drop to the floor, then pulled back the covers and got into the bed, sitting looking up at him.
‘Oh God,’ he sighed. ‘Those eyes. You beautiful, beautiful girl.’
Lily watched him hurriedly undress until he stood naked, his thin, pale body, for which she always had to overcome a certain revulsion before she could let him touch her. As he came to lie down beside her, she closed her eyes for a second, preparing herself.
‘Come to me, my love,’ he said with reverence, holding out his arms.
His lovemaking was always gentle, never rough or anything but kindly, yet it left her somehow untouched. As his hands moved over her body, stroking her smooth skin, she kissed the soft flesh of his neck, longing to respond without having to pretend, to be moved by more than his kindness to her.
Tonight she felt choked, as if she was so full to the brim with emotion she could not contain it, after Sam’s angry words and all the turbulent feelings she had been pushing down in herself all day. As Piers lay on top of her, moving inside her, speaking gentle endearments to her, without knowing it was going to happen, she began to cry. Soon she could not control it and she was shaking with emotion.
Feeling her moving under him excited Piers further and he thrust into her harder and faster, so aroused that he did not notice at first that she was weeping. It was only after he had cried out as he reached his climax and lay panting on top of her that she began to cry aloud, the sobs tearing out of her, beyond anything she could quieten or even understand. She wept as if for a heart broken long ago, sobbing and mewling like a small child and she could not help herself.
‘Lily – oh, Lily, my love, what is it?’ Piers leaped up, disturbed by the violence of her crying, his face full of concern. But she could not answer, could only cling to him and weep all the more, feeling she had gone right down into a dark place which she would take time to come back from. Her eyes squeezed tightly closed as she clung to him, wanting to be held tightly herself.
And he did hold her, not knowing what else to do. ‘There, there,’ he whispered, as if to a small child. ‘It’s all right, my darling, it’s all right.’
When she was calmer he said anxiously, ‘Did I hurt you? I should hate to hurt you.’
‘No, you didn’t, it’s not that.’ Lily felt suddenly overwhelmed with tiredness.
‘Then, for goodness sake, what is it? You sounded in such distress!’
Lily couldn’t begin to explain, even to herself, about feelings that seemed to come from somewhere so long ago, from a time when she was tiny and couldn’t remember. And she certainly couldn’t explain about Sam.
‘Just let me sleep,’ she murmured.
Piers held her close to him and stroked her hair. ‘Yes, my darling, you sleep.’
The last thing she felt was his kiss on her cheek.
Sam stormed back into the Pack Horse after his tirade at Lily, quivering with fury. The passage, where he stood for a time to calm himself, smelled of stale beer and cigarette smoke. A burst of laughter came through a door which opened and closed nearby. His rage soon drained away into misery.
What have I done? Oh God, why on earth did I speak to her like that?
All these weeks he’d waited to be able to talk to her and when he did, all he had managed was to insult her. Why would she want to have anything to do with him now, after that? The thought was unbearable. He considered going back out to try again, to pour out the words of hurt and longing and adoration he felt for her, but then her rejection of him ignited his fury again. She had betrayed him in India, and she would only betray him again!
Defiant once more, he went back to the room where they had dined to find that the meal had broken up. Loz and Mary were just shepherding their sons up to bed.
‘Night, Sam,’ Loz said, pink-cheeked. ‘S’been a great day.’
Sam said his goodnights to Loz and Mary. He saw that Cosmo was being helped to his feet by Piers Larstonbury, and was evidently the worse for drink.
Silly sod
, Sam thought savagely.
Given every bloody chance in the world and look at the state of him.
Cosmo seemed to him like a child, spoilt and petulant. But he could handle a motor all right, there was no denying that. It was as if it was in the blood.
Piers and Cosmo disappeared after their goodnights and the one person left in the room, looking unsure what to do, was Susan Fairford.
Sam was reluctant to go up to bed. He couldn’t stand the thought of lying there, full of grief and jealousy as he thought of Lily with Piers Larstonbury. He wanted some company and sensed that Susan did as well.
‘Would you like a nightcap?’
Susan gave a faint smile, looking relieved. ‘That would be very pleasant. I don’t feel quite ready to turn in.’
He fetched them each a small brandy, enjoying the sight of the warm-coloured liquid in the globular glasses. The two of them sat at one end of the long table. Somehow, since the war there was an ease between them.
‘He did well today,’ Sam said.
‘Yes.’ She smiled, knowing he meant Cosmo, and he could see the pride and relief, though there was always sadness just behind her social face. Sam felt a twinge of tenderness for her.
‘He wants you all to go and stay at Cranbourne, you know, and put the motor through its paces there. I suppose he’s always wanted someone to play with up there!’ She smiled sadly. ‘He has all his toys, but no playmates.’
There was a pause, while Susan sat leaning forwards, turning her glass round and round on the table.
‘I do so worry about him.’ She frowned. ‘He’s had so little family – and no father now. Charles would have taken him in hand, been able to show him what to do, had he lived. But Cosmo was so anti everything – the army, India . . . I mean, he says he was incredibly homesick for India when we first sent him to school, and then it wore off. Of course, he hadn’t lived in India since he was five: he certainly didn’t want to go back and join the army there like Charles.’ She looked up at Sam with tears in her eyes. ‘You know, I don’t think Cosmo has ever known what it
means
to be happy.’
Sam looked into her pretty, tired face. ‘Have you?’
‘
Yes
. . . Well . . .’ She hesitated, considering. I’ve never really thought . . . But yes, I have known happiness. When Charles and I were first married. I loved him, you see – far more than he loved me, I realize . . .’
Sam thought of the Charles Fairford he had seen on the open roads of India, the adventurer, always seeking the distant horizon, and so very happy in the company of men, and he saw that to correct her would be an untruth, and she would know it to be.
‘I did like India at first. It was an adventure and, of course, Charles was so wealthy and so well thought of. And he was always kind to me. It was one of his great qualities. That’s something I realize, from the war, I suppose: even with all the awfulness of things, there is a lot of kindness in the world.’
Her face crumpled for a moment, but she held back her tears. Sam resisted an impulse to lay his hand on her shoulder, to give comfort.
‘I was married at eighteen and I was truly happy for, let’s say, two years. I had gone up in the world: my family are in trade, you see, not like the marvellous Fairfords. But my people sent my brother to Eton and that’s how I met Charles, at prize-givings and concerts and so on. Lewis, my brother, and Charles were good friends. They were in the cricket team. Anyway, that’s how it happened. I suppose I was just a reasonably suitable, jolly sort of girl . . .’
‘And very pretty,’ Sam interrupted.
Susan blushed girlishly for a moment. ‘Yes, well that always helps. Anyway, Charles’s family wanted him to marry so I was sent out after he’d gone to Meerut. I wasn’t part of the fishing fleet – we were already engaged, from a distance.’
She took a sip of brandy. ‘We were married in Meerut, and at first I found it all exciting. You know what India’s like. In some ways we had it so easy out there, our life of luxury. It was rotten for the young BORs
1
who weren’t married – dreadfully lonely. We used to have some of them round for tea and so on. But of course there’s all the social life, and the colour and it’s all so exotic and different. And I was madly in love with Charles. I thought he was the most amazing man I’d ever met. And he was, I suppose. But then we had Isadora. I felt dreadfully ill through most of the pregnancy and then she was . . . Well, you remember how she was . . . And it was as if everything went bad on me. I started to loathe the place. I was afraid, I suppose, as if India had cursed me in some way. Even when Cozzy arrived and he was so lovely I couldn’t rid myself of a feeling of doom and dread, all the time, that something simply awful would happen to him. Very foolish really. But . . .’ Another sip of her drink. ‘In the end perhaps not entirely misplaced.’
‘You’ve had a very sad time,’ Sam observed. She seemed so different now, from the frosty young woman he had known in Ambala.
‘And you?’ She turned to look at him and gave a faint smile. ‘How odd, that we should be here like this.’
‘My life’s been all right,’ Sam said. He thought guiltily of Helen, of little Joe. His heart ached. There must be more to love, to life. And he knew there was, but it was cut off from him. He thought of Lily, of what he had said to her and for a second he almost felt like weeping. God, he thought, it’s been a long day. I’m more tired than I realized.
He felt he should say something. There was an atmosphere of intimacy between them and he did not want to lose it.
‘I suppose the war changed everything,’ he said.
Susan nodded gravely. He knew what losses she had endured. ‘Yes, everything’s shifted somehow. We are not who we were before.’
They were sitting close together and she smiled wistfully into his face.
Without knowing he was going to do it, Sam leaned forward and kissed her. At first he kissed her cheek, but she held his gaze, her face turned up to him, and in the privacy of the quiet back room he kissed her on the lips, holding her slender frame briefly in his arms. He felt her gently kiss him back.