Chapter 16 Lilias
Lilias
When there was still no sign of the bird, Lilias went back outside, looking wildly about, her imagination supplying a vivid image of David’s heartbroken face. And was just in time to see a familiar face walking up the garden path.
“Harry!”
She stood stock still as he continued to approach, smiling in a way that made it impossible not to respond, despite her current predicament and panic. It had been a very long time since his last visit, and his previous letter had given no indication that he might come.
When Harry got close enough to speak, she was even gladder still to see him. For there, riding on his shoulder, was Frank.
“Is this chap the infamous Frank, by any chance?” Harry asked.
Lilias’s hands flew to her face. “Oh, yes!” she said with a relieved laugh. “Goodness, look at him. You can’t imagine how pleased I am to see him safe and sound. I left the door open and thought we should never see him again.”
“Looks as if he’s earned his wings,” Harry joked as Frank promptly flew from his shoulder to her own, and Lilias hurried immediately indoors, leaving Harry to follow.
“Shut the door, would you?” she told him.
“Oh, I’ve been in a proper funk, you can’t imagine!
The very first time I’m left in sole charge of the bird, and I manage to lose him.
I’m not sure I’d have been able to face David if you hadn’t found him.
” Frank was cheeping loudly in her ear now, demanding to be fed.
“It wasn’t so much me finding him as him finding me,” Harry said over the noise. “He just flew onto my shoulder.”
As she listened, relief still coursing through her body, Lilias carefully prised the corner of the tin containing the trapped fly open just enough for Frank’s seeking beak to peck at it. Then she went over to Ruth’s cloche hat and placed the bird carefully inside it.
“Golly,” she said, turning to smile at Harry. “You must feel as if you’ve arrived at a crazy house. Do you?”
“A little.” He grinned, his hands in his pockets, and Lilias realised it was the first time they’d been alone together. “But the world’s one big crazy house at the moment. No reason to suppose your little house on the marshes would be any different.”
She smiled at him, feeling oddly foolish, then roused herself.
“Well, listen, we must get you to young David, mustn’t we, since you’ve come all this way?
He’s out for the day with Symonds, my handyman, helping him with some repairs at Lavender Cottage, one of our estate cottages.
Perhaps we could walk down there? It’s only a few miles.
He’ll be so thrilled to see you, but I’m afraid I haven’t got any petrol for the car. Unless you’d like a cup of tea first?”
“A glass of water will do me, thank you.”
“Of course.”
Lilias went to the tap, ran the water until it was cold, and filled a glass. “Here you are.” She handed it to him, noticing how pale his face was as he took it. It looked as if he’d been indoors for a very long time, which was probably the case, with his work.
Harry drank the whole glass of water in one, his Adam’s apple moving in his throat as he did so. Then he put the glass down. “Come on,” he said. “We’d better fetch the boy before the bird gets restless again.”
“Yes, indeed. He’s certainly ready to leave his nest, isn’t he? I can’t believe he just landed on your shoulder like that. After all, it’s not as if he’s met you before.”
“Saint Francis of Hackney, that’s me,” Harry joked, and Lilias laughed as they left the house, this time securing the door firmly behind them.
Compass bounded on ahead, thrilled to be having an extra walk.
It was a glorious morning, and Lilias felt happy as Harry walked along beside her.
And yet she knew politeness dictated she mention subjects that weren’t quite as inspiring as the sun filtering through the trees or the host of butterflies flitting about in the wild campion flowers.
“I was so sorry to hear about the baby. How is Nadine now?”
Harry sighed, as she’d known he would do. He stopped to light a cigarette and inhaled deeply, offering one to her.
“No, thanks. I don’t any longer. Ruth smokes enough for both of us. For the entire village sometimes, actually.”
He smiled briefly at the quip, and they moved on as a large speckled thrush took flight in front of them. “Nadine’s not very good, actually. It hit her very hard. Always wanted a little girl, she has.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Harry took another drag on his cigarette and blew the smoke out on another sigh.
“If you could see her trudging about the house like the life’s been kicked out of her, you’d think me heartless to come up here like this.
But the truth is, it doesn’t do much good even if I am there.
She barely speaks to me, like it’s my fault this happened.
Her mother visits on Saturdays too. Me and her have never got on.
Thought I was well out of it, to be honest, and I miss my boy something rotten. ”
“Of course you do. The house must seem so quiet without him. I do hope Nadine gets better soon.”
He shrugged. “No doubt time will sort things out,” he said. “They say it’s a great healer. Anyway, tell me about my boy. What’s he been up to?”
So Lilias described the chores David helped out with, and his ongoing training activities with Compass.
“And is it working? Is he managing to turn Compass into a super obedient dog?”
Lilias smiled. “Now and then. In fact, I often think that dog is quite the actor. He seems to pretend to David he’s absolutely got something, and then he’ll forget all about it as soon as David’s back’s turned.
But I do think he’s become better at recall.
In fact, this is a good place to demonstrate it.
I usually put him on the lead just here because there’s a little mere on the other side of this hedge that’s dangerously deep.
Cows have been known to vanish in it. Compass, come! ”
“A mere?” Harry asked, peering through the hedge.
“A small lake,” Lilias explained, feeling gratified when Compass ran straight to her to have his lead clipped on. “There you are, you see. It’s all down to David’s efforts. Perhaps Compass isn’t such an actor, after all.”
“Good work, Compass.” Harry smiled, bending to pat the dog, and they walked on, Compass promptly letting the side down by pulling like a mad thing on his lead.
“Here, let me handle the beast,” Harry offered, and she gave him the leash, smiling ruefully.
“We haven’t got very far with training him to walk to heel yet.”
“So I see. If I end up in the mere, toss me a lifebelt, would you?”
Lilias laughed. “Will do.”
When the danger had passed and the determined little dog was running free again, Lilias carried on describing David’s life at Marsh House.
“He’s really been getting into his books.
Ruth brought some back from one of her trips into Norwich, and I’ve been helping him to read them.
And, of course, I read to him myself every day. He loves that.”
Harry’s face held a mixture of pleasure and regret. “Sundays after tea; that’s always been my time to read to him. Really miss terrifying the life out of him with the black spot out of Treasure Island, I do.”
“What time is your train back? Perhaps there’ll be time to read to him today.”
“Maybe.”
Harry seemed slightly blue suddenly, and Lilias stayed quiet, respecting his feelings, wondering if she hadn’t gone a bit overboard with her descriptions of David’s idyllic life here.
After all, much as Harry would want his son to be happy, he wouldn’t want to feel he was better off here, away from his family and everything familiar to him.
“You’re very good with him,” Harry said at last. “Did you never want children of your own?”
The question caught Lilias unawares, giving her no opportunity to hide her reactions, and Harry stopped walking to put a hand on her arm. “You lost somebody, didn’t you? Me and my big mouth. I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right,” she said with a brittle smile, walking on.
“I think the war changed life for most of us. I’m hardly unique, am I?
But yes, to answer your question, if my fiancé had lived, I would have liked .
. .” Her voice trailed off, but then she smiled again with determined brightness.
“Then there was Mummy to care for. And Daddy. I was glad to do it. I loved them both very dearly. And I’ve always had my painting. It hasn’t been an empty life at all.”
“When did he die?”
“At Passchendaele. The very first wave. A shell exploded right where he was.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said again.
“It’s all right,” she said, her smile more genuine now, if sad.
“It should be spoken about, shouldn’t it?
Maybe if we hadn’t all tried to stuff the memories of the past away, we wouldn’t be in the mess we are in now.
The dead deserve to be remembered. We were so young when we got engaged, Geoffrey and I, but I did love him so.
I think about him every single day, although I do try to think about all the wonderful things I’ve got, as well, instead of just dwelling on what I’ve lost.”
Harry sighed. “That’s what I try to tell Nadine to do. Not that it does much good. Still, we all have to grieve in our own way, I suppose.”
The conversation had come full circle. “But you could try again for a baby, couldn’t you?” Lilias suggested tentatively. “When Nadine feels a little better?”
“If that day ever comes, yes. But you see, Nadine’s lost two other babies before this one. David was something of a miracle.”
“Goodness, how simply dreadful. So much loss.” Lilias tried and failed to imagine it and wondered whether Nadine’s sour nature was due, in part, to such sad events.