Chapter 20 Lilias #3
“What do you want, Mr. Cook?” she asked, although she already had a very good idea, and was sincerely grateful David was up in his bedroom, out of harm’s way.
Compass was all for escaping through the gap in the door to lunge his teeth into any part of Cook he was able to reach, and Lilias had to try to move him out of the way with her foot. “Compass, get back!”
“I want a word with you about that evacuee boy of yours, laying into my son, that’s what I want,” Cook said unpleasantly, looking at her with his mean, dark gaze. “His looks is ruined, they are.”
Lilias’s foot wasn’t doing a good enough job at keeping Compass in control, so she had to bend down to grab hold of his collar, gazing up at Cook with dislike as she did so.
“I’m certain David would never have laid a finger on your son without the severest provocation,” she said.
Then, over her shoulder she asked, “Ruth, could you come and take the dog, please?”
Ruth came over to pick Compass up, holding on to him firmly and eliciting a scowl from Cook as she did so.
“My boy was only telling the truth. About her and her goings-on,” he said, jabbing a pointed finger in Ruth’s direction.
“What do you mean?” asked Lilias, straightening to glare at him, her heart sinking.
“I saw her,” he said, jabbing the finger again. “In Norwich, near the market. Last Tuesday.”
“Shut the door on the vile man,” Gloria offered from her place at the table, and straightaway Cook craned his neck to look at her, his face instantly acquiring an expression of evil-looking triumph.
“And her!” he said. “Your sister and her”—he turned his gaze in Lilias’s direction once again—“were kissing. Bold as bloody brass. And I don’t mean one of those kisses what you girls give each other all the time, neither: kiss, kiss, bye, darlin’, all that.
I mean that what should be ’tween a girl and a man.
Tongues and everything, I shouldn’t wonder.
And if my son chooses to tell people about it, then it en’t right he gets whacked in the face when he’s just telling what he saw. ”
Oh hell. Surely Ruth hadn’t been so indiscreet? And poor, poor David, having to deal with it. He must have been so bewildered.
Ruth turned away, her face pressed into the dog’s fur, but Cook carried on addressing Gloria.
“I done some digging. Your dad works at Colman’s, don’t he? I reckon he’d be mighty interested to find out what you been up to, you dirty little slut.”
“That’s enough, Mr. Cook!” said Lilias firmly, but when she tried to close the door, Cook shot his boot out to prevent it from closing.
Ruth whirled round, her face red with fury, and Lilias saw she was shaking. “You vile, detestable pig!”
“Don’t, Ruthie,” Lilias said, putting a hand on her sister’s arm, but Ruth shook her restraining hand away and pushed herself towards Cook, Compass struggling and snarling in her arms.
“How dare you have the absolute . . . gall to criticise us when everyone knows your daughter has just given birth to your own child?”
Lilias gasped. Not with shock at what Ruth had said, because the rumour about Jenny Cook’s baby was rife and commonly believed in the village, but because of the look of pure evil hatred which had instantly appeared on Cook’s face.
“You better watch your tongue, missy,” he said, and suddenly he was shouldering his way into the kitchen. “If’n you don’t want it to get hacked off, that is!”
Cook’s presence in the house was too much for Compass to bear, providing him with the impetus to leap from Ruth’s arms and to latch on to Cook’s ankle, his sharp teeth sinking in as he growled and shook his head about, exactly as if he were trying to kill a rabbit.
“Ahh! Get him off me! Get the little fucker off me!”
“Compass!” cried Lilias, pulling at his squirming body. “Let go!”
After more shouting and much tugging, finally the little dog did so, his teeth still bared as Lilias moved him away from the hobbling figure of Cook.
“Little bastard! He comes within an inch of my property, I’ll shoot him. And that applies to you, too, you little hooligan!”
Looking up, Lilias noticed David standing in the kitchen doorway, his face pale and horrified. As she watched, Cook began to advance towards him as if to do him harm.
“You leave him alone!” she shrieked, brandishing the still-snarling dog like a weapon. “Now, get out of my house this instant, or I’ll set the dog on you again.”
Reluctantly, Cook began to back away. “You’ll regret this, missus,” he said. “Do you hear? I’ll get my own back on your family if it’s the last thing I do!”
The second he crossed over the threshold, Lilias slammed the door closed and bolted it. Then she put Compass down and quickly went over to David, all the while the dog barked frantically to get out so he could savage Cook.
Somehow, Lilias managed to speak gently. “Are you all right, David? I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there.”
Though he nodded, his face was white, and Lilias wasn’t convinced, especially when his wide-eyed gaze travelled to where Ruth was standing close to Gloria’s side, holding her hand.
“He won’t shoot you, David,” Ruth said, her voice artificially bright. “Don’t worry.”
“No,” agreed Lilias. “He won’t. Nor Compass. We shall make sure about that. Now, come and have some tea with us. You haven’t eaten yet, and there are rock cakes.”
David allowed Lilias to lead him to the table but made no move to eat the food she placed in front of him, saying only, “I’m not hungry,” and refusing to make eye contact with any of them, especially Ruth and Gloria.
After a while, Gloria got to her feet. “Well,” she said. “It’s been very . . . er, interesting, but I think I’ll be getting back to Norwich now, if that’s all right with everybody.”
Ruth looked devastated. “Oh,” she said. “Already? But you’ve only been here an hour or so.”
“It’s all that drama, I think. It’s fair exhausted me, it has.” And Gloria stood up and reached for her hat, beginning to pin it on to her head.
A few days later, Lilias was chatting to David in the kitchen while he played with his toy boats in the tin bath when Ruth returned from a trip to Norwich.
David seemed a little improved, but she hadn’t sent him back to school and wasn’t sure she would ever do so.
So when Ruth slammed into the house in a high dudgeon, Lilias looked up warily.
“I hate Percy Cook!” Ruth declared, unpinning her hat and tossing it onto the dresser. “I bloody hate him!”
“Hush, Ruthie, darling,” Lilias shushed her, indicating David. “What has he done now?”
“His antics have scared Gloria off, that’s what! She’s hightailed it down to London, and her old bag of a mother won’t give me her address.”
Aware of David’s interest in the conversation, Lilias chose not to point out to her sister that had Gloria wanted Ruth to know her whereabouts, she would surely have shared them.
She frowned, worried for her sister. Ruth loved Gloria so very much.
But did Gloria really feel the same way?
There hadn’t been enough time to form an opinion about it over the short, drama-filled tea, although Gloria had struck Lilias as a rather light-hearted person, the sort who didn’t want to take life too seriously.
It was possible that Ruth and her grand passion could prove to be a tad too much for her, especially if there was a hint of trouble associated with it.
“Time to get out of the bath now, David,” she said, holding up the towel for him. “This water’s gone quite cold.”
Obedient as ever, the boy did as she asked, and Lilias wrapped the towel around him. “Get yourself dry and put your pyjamas on, and then I’ll get you some supper.”
“Yes, Auntie Lilias.”
While he was thus occupied, Lilias put her arm through Ruth’s and drew her across the room.
“Has Gloria mentioned any friends in London she might have gone to?”
Ruth frowned, thinking about it. “I don’t think so.
But we do have a mutual friend, Tig. She often travels to London on business.
Perhaps she knows where Gloria’s gone. Oh, thank you, Lily!
I shall write to Tig this instant.” Ruth seized Lilias by the arm and pulled her close to give her a smacker of a kiss on the cheek.
Lilias laughed, then shook her head, watching Ruth sweep from the room with a renewed sense of purpose.
Her sister really was rather a mercurial person, but then, she always had been that way, even as a small child.
But the next morning, before Ruth’s letter to Tig could be posted, there was a knock at the door. Lilias went to answer it, hoping against hope it wasn’t Percy Cook back to cause more trouble. But it wasn’t Percy Cook. It was the telegraph boy.
“Telegram for you, miss,” the boy said.
Lilias, who wanted very much to slam the door in the boy’s face, found herself taking it from him instead, saying, “Thank you so much.”
But after she had closed the front door again, she had to lean back against it for a moment to try to control her breathing.
The telegram was addressed to Ruth, and it was almost certainly bad news, because telegrams were almost always bad news these days.
And Lilias had a strong sense of foreboding about what this one was going to say.
She was soon proved right. For, as soon as she had collected herself sufficiently to find her sister to give it to her, and Ruth had slashed the envelope open with her finger, Lilias’s very worst suspicions were confirmed.
Regret to inform you Gloria killed in air raid on Friday last. So sorry. Will write soon. Tig.