Chapter 21 Lilias #3
“Thank you.” She took it from him and slipped it on, her attention turning to the problem of how to get her distraught sister home.
“I think it might be best for us to take her to Lavender Cottage for the night,” she said, thinking out loud.
“It’s much closer than Marsh House. David will be all right with Mrs. Symonds, if that’s all right with you? ”
He nodded. “Of course.”
Lilias nodded, too, turning to Ruth. “Come on, Ruthie, dear, I’m afraid you’ll have to make a little effort. But it’s only half a mile or so.”
In the end, Harry half carried Ruth much of the way, supporting her slumped weight with increasing difficulty. At one point Ruth fell asleep completely, and they had to shake her awake.
“Come on, Ruthie, wake up,” Lilias urged her. “It’s not much further.”
“Leave me here,” Ruth said, her voice slurred. “In the bottom of a ditch.”
“Don’t be silly, darling; we aren’t going to do that.”
“Why not? It’s where I jolly well belong without . . . without . . .” And she began to sob again, resisting when Harry began to move forward. “No! I don’t want to go! Leave me, I tell you.” And she slumped to the ground with her face in her hands.
Looking down at her helplessly, Lilias felt like weeping herself.
Adrenaline had got her here, to find Ruth, but now, with her sister not wanting to be saved at all, it was just too much.
Then anger stepped in to give her another shot of strength.
“No!” she cried raggedly. “I won’t leave you.
I won’t. We lost Mummy, then Daddy. Even Compass has run off who knows where.
I can’t lose you too. I won’t lose you too.
You’ve got to make an effort, Ruth. Do you really think Gloria would have wanted you to just roll over and give up the ghost? No, she would not.”
She broke off to wipe her eyes, speaking more gently.
“Ruthie, I know it’s terribly hard, losing her.
You of all people know how well I understand that.
But, tragic as it is, life goes on. And you just have to get on with it.
If you don’t want to do it for yourself, then do it for me.
The cottage is only five minutes away now.
Let me and Harry help you to get there. Please.
” Her voice ended on an emotional croak, and Harry reached out with his free hand to give her arm a comforting squeeze.
“Come on, Ruth,” he said, “let’s get you up. There’s a nice warm bed waiting for you at Lavender Cottage. You heard what Lil said; it’s only a little bit further.”
Lilias smiled, receiving a glow of warmth at his shortening of her name.
She strongly doubted whether the bed would be at all warm, as he’d said.
The exact opposite was, in fact, highly likely, since nobody had slept at the cottage for some months, but Ruth was so inebriated, she was hardly likely to notice.
Harry’s words seemed to have penetrated Ruth’s brain, for somehow he managed to get her to her feet, and together they stumbled along the track to the cottage again, where Lilias retrieved the door key from beneath a plant pot and slotted it into the lock, hurrying inside first to find a candle and matches.
“Just one last effort,” she urged Ruth, lighting the way up the stairs. “One more effort, darling.”
Up on the landing, she opened the door to one of the bedrooms and went over to turn down the covers on the bed. Just as she’d suspected, the sheets were icy to the touch, but also as she had predicted, Ruth collapsed almost immediately onto the bed, oblivious, still wearing Lilias’s coat.
Lilias removed her sister’s shoes and pulled the covers up loosely, and then she and Harry backed out of the room and made their way silently downstairs, the candlelight creating flickering shadows on the wall as they went.
Leading the way to the parlour, Lilias placed the candle into a candlestick and knelt on the hearthrug to set the fire, using the kindling and newspaper Symonds had left ready.
“Here,” said Harry, kneeling down beside her. “Let me do that.”
Lilias smiled properly for the first time since the magic of the dance and Ruth’s collapse. “I don’t mean to offend you, Harry,” she said, “but I have an idea I’ll be much better at making a fire than you.”
He laughed, relaxing back onto his heels. “Here,” he joked, “are you knocking my boy-scouting skills?”
Lilias only smiled in reply, easily coaxing a flame to catch the kindling, then carefully placing two pieces of wood to draw the fire upwards.
“I had to offer, didn’t I?” Harry said. “Wouldn’t have been gentlemanly not to.”
“I’ve been making fires since I was eight or nine,” she told him. “It has nothing to do with gender; I’ve always loved the magic of it. And besides, this war is blurring the boundaries between traditional men’s roles and women’s roles, anyway.”
“Not going to go all preachy on me, are you?” he said, but when she glanced at him, she could tell he was teasing.
“No, don’t worry. I’m not in a preachy mood.”
The flames were licking the logs now, and Lilias sat back with a smile, satisfied the fire had caught.
“Speaking of gender,” Harry said, taking a cigarette from his pocket, “did I hear right back there? Was it a lady your sister is so heartbroken about losing?”
Lilias looked at him, trying to guess whether or not he was shocked. “Yes,” she said, “it was. Gloria. Ruth was completely smitten.”
“I could tell,” he said with a nod. “Well, fancy that. She doesn’t look as if she’d be one for the ladies. Want a cigarette?”
“No, thank you.” She continued to observe him, waiting to see if he had anything more to say on the subject, but he just lit his cigarette and began to smoke it, his gaze turned towards the fire.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” she asked.
“That would be lovely, thank you. I won’t offer to make it; you’ll probably say you’re better than me at that too.”
She smiled. “I wouldn’t presume such a thing. But I do know where everything is, since this is my cottage.”
“True,” he said. “I’ll just have to be waited on, then. I reckon I can live with that.”
When she returned from making the tea, she found him still staring into the fire, his cigarette finished. “I’m afraid there’s no milk,” she said, handing him his cup.
“Oh well, at least it hasn’t got brick dust in it,” he said, taking a sip.
Lilias rejoined him on the hearthrug, enjoying the warmth of the fire after the chilly kitchen. “Have you had lots of cups of tea with brick dust in them during the bombing raids?” she asked.
He nodded. “All the time in the shelters. Either that or soil. The odd spider’s web, even. You learn not to be too fussy.”
She shuddered. “I can’t imagine what it must be like, being shut in like that, listening to the bombing outside. Not knowing if—” She broke off, thinking of Gloria; wondering if death had come quickly, or whether she had been trapped somewhere, her life slipping slowly away.
“You get used to it,” Harry said, breaking into her thoughts. “In a funny kind of a way, you almost enjoy it when there’s brick dust to strain through your teeth. You can think about that instead of the bombs. Anyway, it’s surprising how quickly anything can become normal.”
“Yes.”
There was silence between them for a while, broken only by the crackling of the fire as the flames really took hold of the logs.
“I’m sure your sister will be all right,” Harry told her gently, and a lump immediately rose to Lilias’s throat.
“Oh, I do hope so. It’s so difficult, though, because Ruth isn’t able to be open about her grief.
When my fiancé died, everyone knew about it and sympathised with me.
It isn’t like that for Ruth.” She looked at him.
“You know, Gloria only went to London in the first place to escape the gossips. She and Ruth were seen kissing, you see. Ruth didn’t mind one wit. Just said, ‘Gossips be damned.’”
He smiled. “I can imagine that.”
“Yes. But I suppose Gloria wasn’t made of such strong stuff.”
Lilias sipped her tea and thought of how electrically charged Ruth had been each time she spoke of Gloria; of the glitter in her eyes and the hours she spent on her appearance before she caught the bus to Norwich.
How she could barely eat in her excitement when Gloria had come to tea.
Could it be that her passion had been a little overwhelming?
“I’m horribly afraid Ruth might hold herself responsible for Gloria’s death,” she confessed to Harry, the tears very close again. She put her teacup down on the hearth and reached for a handkerchief from her sleeve. “Oh dear, I am sorry. I don’t normally turn on the waterworks like this.”
Harry gave her hand a little squeeze. “It’s human nature to blame ourselves.
I felt the same way when my mates copped it in the last war, as if I’d somehow conned them out of their lives because I was standing a yard away from where the shell landed.
” He shook his head. “It didn’t make any sense, of course, but sense doesn’t seem to have a lot to do with it when you’re out of your mind with grief. ”
“No.”
Suddenly, there was a sound at the front door, and Lilias got to her feet with a smile, knowing immediately what it was.
“Is it the dog?” Harry asked, watching her. “Would he find you here?”
“Oh, yes. He’d sniff me out wherever I was, that dog.” And as soon as she opened the door, Compass scooted indoors, making a beeline for Harry, who laughed as his face was well and truly licked.
“Hello, boy,” she said to him. “It’s good to see you. Don’t you know you’ve been worrying me sick?”
She fetched a bowl of water, which the dog duly lapped completely dry in record time, slumping straight down afterwards on the hearthrug.
“He looks as if he’s had some adventures,” Harry said.
Lilias pulled a face. “Doesn’t he? Bless him. I tell myself I don’t worry when he disappears, because he always comes back. But it is always a huge relief to see him again. Life would certainly be a lot duller without the boy.”
Compass’s return had lightened the mood somewhat, but as she and Harry sat together, watching the dog settle into a deep sleep, Lilias’s thoughts turned once again to Harry’s imminent departure.
“You will write while you’re away, won’t you?
” she said, her gaze turned towards the sleeping dog.
“Only David and I do rather depend on your letters.” She could feel her face begin to flame as she finished speaking and knew that it had probably been unwise to be so open about her feelings.
In fact, this whole situation was irregular, her being alone with him here like this, but somehow there was an air of recklessness around tonight; no doubt due to the fact that tomorrow he would be gone, off to face who knew what for who knew how long.
Harry’s tone was light. “I’ll probably write even more often,” he teased. “You and David will come to get sick of the sight of my handwriting on your doormat.”
“Never,” she declared, the strength of her voice causing Compass to open one eye to look at them. She lowered her voice. “You write almost as if you’re in the room talking to us. It’s an absolute treat.”
Harry was silent for a moment. Then he told her softly, “It’s a treat for me, being here like this. I’d stay here forever if I could.”
The logs had almost burnt down, and his face was in shadow now, hiding his expression. But he seemed to read her mind. “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I’ve got lots to survive for this time around. David. You. The world as I know it.”
Lilias felt her body begin to tremble. It wasn’t from cold, because the logs had almost finished burning, but a reaction to his having included her in his list of what he had to survive for.
In an attempt to pull herself together, she leant forward to poke the fire with the poker, stirring up sparks that flittered up the chimney, then placed two more logs on the fire.
They caught almost immediately, the new flames strong and sure, giving her courage, and she turned to look at him.
“You jolly well better come back to us, d’you hear?” she said in her sternest voice, and Harry laughed, the sound coming from deep in his chest, as he reached out one hand to touch the back of her neck.
“I’ll do my darndest,” he said, and she closed her eyes, her lips trembling all over again as his fingers began to stroke her neck.
“Lilias . . .”
She opened her eyes half fearfully at his whisper, finding his face close to hers, his gaze focussed on her mouth.
It was the moment to draw away, to use such a censure as “we mustn’t” or “this isn’t right,” yet she did not, and suddenly Harry was kissing her.
Not gently, exploring her lips, but furiously, passionately, as if they were long-term lovers, parted by a six-month break.
As Lilias kissed him back in exactly the same way, there was no space for reason or for caution. Not even to acknowledge a soft whine from Compass or the crackle and spit of the logs on the fire. There was only sensation and longing. A feeling of absolute rightness. Like coming home.
After some time, he drew back and pulled her against him, and they sat together, wrapped in his coat in the dwindling firelight.
“I’ve wanted to do that since the very first day I met you,” he said, and Lilias knew it was true for her also.
“And yet it’s wrong,” she said, but the words felt like something she’d been schooled by habit to say rather than what she truly believed, and she remained close to him, her cheek against his.
“Don’t think of that,” he said, stroking her hair. “War changes everything. It creates the bad, but it also creates the good. This is our good. Let’s just take this night together as a rare and precious gift.”
She nodded, wilfully closing a door on her conscience, and without speaking about it, they both got to their feet and climbed the stairs together, Lilias pausing only to check on Ruth before joining Harry in the second bedroom.
“Is she all right?”
“Yes, fast asleep.”
It seemed so very intimate to be divesting the rest of her clothes in front of him, and she did it quickly, afraid that if she wasn’t quick, the moment would break, her conscience would kick in, as she knew it would inevitably do in the morning.
“You’re so beautiful,” he told her softly when they were in bed, holding her face to kiss her, and as Lilias kissed him back, it started up all over again, the wondrous symphony of their bodies and their hearts in a shared moment of time.