Lakeland Lily: An emotional tale of love and loss

To my father, he knows why.

Chapter One

1909

‘Lily Thorpe, if you don’t come in this minute I’ll batter your face with a wet kipper. See if I don’t!’

The recipient of this dire warning made no move to respond, for she was entirely engrossed in holding her breath so as not to interrupt what must be the longest kiss on record.

‘That was your mam,’ the boy said at last when nature forced them up for air.

Lily, dizzy from the kiss, swept aside her shining brown hair and laid her cheek upon Dick’s chest with a sigh of blissful contentment. For a long moment she lay listening to the rapid beat of his heart then lifted her face a fraction to give him the full benefit of her bewitching hazel eyes, glowing almost gold with desire, her tip-tilted nose, and the bluntness of a deceptively demure chin which, he claimed, only proved how very stubborn she was. Lily meant to let him see that she would not be averse to the kiss being repeated.

Not, she admitted wryly, that the ash-pit roof from which strings of washing flapped, was the most romantic place in the world to experiment with these delightful new sensations. Situated at the bottom of a yard shared by half a dozen other houses besides her own, shovel-loads of ash from the fire were stored in the pit and used to sweeten the tippler privy next door. But from its roof Lily could see beyond the huddle of narrow streets and overcrowded fishermen’s cottages that made up The Cobbles, as far as the dark green fringe of woodland that cloaked the lower reaches of the Lakeland hills, the bare tops of the more distant peaks, and, if she stood on tiptoe, the glimmer of silver-bright water that was the lake.

Beyond the lake was the world where, one day, Lily meant to be: Rydal and Grasmere to the north, the busy towns of Windermere and Kendal to the south. To the west lay the snow-capped peaks of the Langdales, while to the east were the high fells of Kentmere. These were the limits of Lily’s knowledge. She had never in her life stepped outside the boundaries of Carreckwater, though she took every opportunity to escape the pungent confines of The Cobbles, squashed as it was between Fisher’s Brow and Old Martin’s Yard, far from the more elegant quarters of the small town.

Lily hated The Cobbles and all it stood for. The sweet-sour stink of poverty gave a sense of hopelessness to the tiny overcrowded cottages. Walls ran with damp both inside and out. The alleys were infested with the kind of livestock nobody welcomed, and her mother fought a thankless daily battle against cockroaches. Each night the drunks would noisily roll home and by morning the stink of urine and vomit would be stronger than ever. Lily’s single all-pervading desire was to leave The Cobbles for good.

She dreamed of making her fortune in the neighbouring village of Bowness. Of holding court in her own fine shop, perhaps a draper’s and mantle maker’s, surrounded by silks and satins which she would fashion into much sought-after garments. These dreams made her life tolerable.

But she wasn’t thinking of escape today. Nor had she any wish to stand on the roof and admire the view. She wanted only to melt into Dick Rawlins’s arms, to be caressed by his fevered hands and kissed into submission by his burning lips. How else was she to learn about life if she didn’t experiment a little? She was fifteen, after all.

‘Did you enjoy it?’

‘What?’

‘That French kiss.’

Lily considered for a moment. It had felt a bit awkward at first with his tongue in her mouth, but then something very strange had happened to other parts of her, which she really didn’t like to think about. Mind you, the girls at the fish market had told her nasty things could happen to a girl after certain sorts of kisses. Was this what they meant? She’d hate to have to give up kissing Dick Rawlins. Lily slanted a smile up at him. ‘Happen I need to try it again, before I can decide.’

Taking hold of her shoulders now, Dick rolled her on to her back and, without asking her permission to do so, stretched himself out on top of her.

‘Here, you cheeky tyke, what you up to?’ she demanded, pushing at his chest, though with little conviction.

‘Don’t tell me you don’t like this either?’ He made little movements up and down and even through her cotton frock and thick flannel drawers she was startled to feel his private parts rubbing against her, all hard and alarmingly large. Lily felt her cheeks grow hot and while she knew she should push him off, at the same moment she was too busy examining her own response and finding it entirely fascinating.

‘It’s all right, Lil. I won’t do anything to you,’ he grunted against her neck, and the sweat from him flowed inside the collar of her thin frock, leaving it all damp. ‘Not till after we’re wed, anyroad.’ And he chuckled while Lily frowned up at the blue sky above his head and wondered if she dared ask what it was, exactly, that he would do to her then, and how it would feel?

She was no fool, nor entirely ignorant of sexual matters, she told herself. It wasn’t possible to live in these streets and not gain some idea of the goings-on between men and women. But it was a confused and distorted picture, filled with strange fears, whispered rumours, and unexplained gaps in her scanty knowledge. She’d asked her mother once, but Hannah’s cheeks had grown dark red with embarrassment and Lily had wished the words unspoken.

‘Fifteen is too young for such talk. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Lily Thorpe. Go and wash your mouth out this minute.’

Hannah Thorpe was of the opinion that the less her young daughters knew of such matters, the less likely they were to get ‘caught’. By which Lily understood her to mean, with a baby. There were six Thorpe children, including herself, and it was still a mystery to Lily why her mother kept having them when she was so close to exhaustion much of the time. Lily had no intention of ruining her own health with a clutch of children, nor of spending her life washing, caring and cleaning up after them. So she wished to understand how it all came about, desperate to make sure she didn’t fall into the same trap.

‘Too much curiosity in you, girl. A woman makes bairns and a woman brings ’em up. And there are times when they cost her naught but pain and trouble.’

‘Yes, but how? I mean, if they’re such a trouble, why do you keep making more? And why do men keep giving ’em to you?’

‘Because the daft beggars think only of theirselves! Remember that, Lily. Men allus think they’re in charge of everything, but theer’s some things they can’t do. Having a bairn is one of ’em,’ Hannah had said with tart satisfaction, then added with a stern wag of one finger, ‘you tek care what you’re up to, girl, and you’ll be safe. And that’s all I have to say on the matter.’ Thus the mystifying subject was closed, and Lily’s curiosity remained unsatisfied, her thirst for life all the greater.

Which wasn’t to be wondered at since, for all her patched clothes, scuffed boots and underfed immaturity, Lily Thorpe was a sight to see. Her brown hair, which she attempted to screw up into a knot on top of her head, shone with health and vigour, and when she released it, fell into a heavy brown curtain about her shoulders. The whites around the hazel iris of her eyes glowed, the dark lashes curled enticingly, and the expression on her heart-shaped face seemed ever to be filled with impish promise. If there was little femininity to be seen as yet in the curves of chest and hip or the skinny limbs, they would come, given time.

Lily was not unaware of her burgeoning charms and since her mother meant to keep her in ignorance, had to find the answer some other way. Dick, nearly three years older than herself, and therefore with considerably more experience, was in Lily’s opinion the best person to satisfy these strange stirrings deep inside her. Particularly since they meant to marry one day.

They’d been walking out for some months and gone so far as to decide they were desperately in love and, as Dick himself said, ‘meant for each other’.

At first they used to sneak away into the woods where Lily had let Dick kiss her as much as he liked, and once she’d let him touch the bud of her small breast. The experience had been so electrifying it had left her quite breathless and thrown her into a panic. She’d never dared repeat it. There was clearly more to this cuddling lark than she had appreciated.

Since then she had taken care to meet him only in public places. Lolling at the corners of the back street, snatching a bit of gossip in her tea breaks from the fish stall on the market, or this favourite place on the ash-pit roof – near enough to her own house to offer security yet with a sense of privacy. Folk never thought to look up, even as they passed by a few feet below them, and the roof was shielded by taller buildings on each side.

Her thoughts were brought back to the present by the voice calling sharply yet again, ‘Lily!’ But Dick was still talking so she took no notice.

‘I won’t ask you to take ’em off, as many a chap might.’

Lily was shocked into utter silence for a whole half minute. Take off her drawers? The very idea! Her mother had told her quite firmly never to take them off, even in bed, or she’d ‘catch her death’. Lily wore them under an old shirt of her brother’s which she used in lieu of a nightgown. If she could catch a cold in her own bed, to remove them while on the ash-pit roof would be an act of utter recklessness.

‘Why would I want to, you cheeky tyke?’ And Dick laughed softly in her ear.

‘You’re so sweet and funny, Lil, sometimes I could eat you all up.’

Lily gave him a sidelong glance from her flashing eyes. ‘So long as you take care where you put those wandering hands of yours, you can kiss me as much as you like.’

He accepted the invitation readily, kissing her till her chin was rubbed sore, her jaws ached, and a hot ache grew somewhere deep in her belly. And when he rolled off her with a great grunting sigh, he left her with an unexplained need, like being thirsty on a hot day, though not half so unpleasant. Lily was sorry he’d stopped. She’d enjoyed the weight of Dick’s hard body against hers, the moist excitement of his mouth and his teasing hands. Trust her mother to spoil it, shouting down the yard in that common way.

Propping her chin in her hand, Lily gazed down upon him, seeing how his long lashes lay closed in an adorable crescent on the smooth skin of his cheeks. His fair hair was all tousled and boyish, pale pink lips partly open to reveal the glint of good white teeth, rare in these parts. Oh, how she loved him! The memory of that burning need rose sweet and strong in her, bringing a fresh spurt of pain between her legs. It all felt so shockingly dangerous that Lily deemed it prudent to occupy her mind with other things. She had no intention of getting ‘caught’ and being trapped in The Cobbles forever.

‘Are you going to talk to my dad tomorrow, like you promised?’

‘What about?’ Dick teased, in the kind of voice which meant he knew only too well but wanted to hear her say it. Lily flushed and pretended to slap him.

‘That you want to wed me, soon as we can.’

‘Sooner the better, if you carry on with other chaps the way you were with me just now,’ he said, his face so serious that it took a moment before Lily appreciated he was still teasing her. She tossed back her heavy hair and lifted that stubborn chin.

‘Happen, if you don’t look sharp about it, I’ll change me mind and marry someone richer,’ she told him rather sniffily, as if she had a queue of suitors lining up in her back yard, just waiting for the chance to marry her.

‘Happen there’s more interesting ways of choosing a husband than seeing how much money he makes.’

‘Such as?’

‘The way he kisses for one thing. You still haven’t said if you enjoyed it?’

Lily recognised his sudden vulnerability and laughed at him now, ignoring the question. ‘Oh, there’s so much we could do together, Dick. Go anywhere we want, make our fortunes.’

‘I wouldn’t want to leave the Lakes.’

‘Me neither, but there’s better places to live than this hole. We deserve better, and we could get it. You as the best carpenter in the district, me as a dressmaker.’

‘Nearly a carpenter,’ he reminded her, half laughing at her eagerness. ‘I’ve a few years of learning to do yet. And you haven’t even started.’

‘And whose fault is that? Not mine. Oh, but I mean to! That’s the whole point of you speaking to my dad. Then he’ll see that we mean to stay together, mean to make something of our lives and go up in the world.’ Anxiety crept into her voice now. ‘And he’ll agree to find the money for my apprenticeship, I know he will, if you ask him. Five bob a week I earn helping Mam on the fish stall, most of which she takes back for me keep. And I hate it – all that filleting and gutting. There’s got to be more to life than that. And you and me could be so happy together, Dick.’

He looked vaguely troubled, feeling events rushing away from him. Much as he loved Lily, and he did love her, at barely eighteen he had a long way to go before he could support a wife. He’d really rather enjoy the present. He pulled her close and started to kiss the curve of her throat. He’d heard somewhere that was a sure way to please a woman. And it certainly seemed to work with Lily as she sank weakly against him, opening lips so soft and moist he…

‘Lily!’

‘Oh, lord, there she is again. It’s no good, I’ll have to go.’ Lily sighed with exasperation. She really shouldn’t still be at the beck and call of her mother, not at nearly sixteen.

Then she was pulling away from him, tidying her hair and straightening her skirt, her voice all bossy and anxious.

‘Mam’ll want me to put our Kitty to bed, I expect, or see Emma and Liza wash behind their ears.’ She punched him playfully in the chest. ‘You’re lucky to have no brothers and sisters. And when Dad, Jacob and Matt get back from their afternoon stint at the boatyard, there’ll have to be hot water poured for them to wash, tea brewed and food on the table before they go out on the night fishing. And I’ll have to help make it, waiting hand and foot on me own brothers, for all they’re younger than me, just because they’re male.’

Dick only laughed, as if he found her vehemence amusing.

‘It’s all right for you. All you need do is wash your hands and take your boots off and your mam’ll have it all done.’

‘You should be making my tea, not my mam. Would you complain then, Lily Thorpe, when it’s me you’re waiting on?’

She pulled a face at him. ‘I said I’d be your wife, not your servant.’

Dick grabbed her tightly round the waist and rolled her over to the very rim of the slate roof, making her squeal with delicious fear and excitement at his complete disregard for their safety. It was perhaps the wildness in him that she loved best. Once, he’d stuck them both into potato barrels and rolled them down Claife Heights. For a dare, he’d said. He’d won, of course. And Lily had been covered in bruises for weeks.

‘Who says there’s a difference? You’ve promised to love me for ever and obey my every demand.’

‘What demands?’

‘These for a start,’ he said, kissing her again and running the palm of his hand right down her thigh to her knees where the hem of her skirt had rucked up.

She yanked it back down to her ankles, cheeks bright. ‘I never promised ’owt o’ t’sort, you cheeky tyke. You made that up.’ But her protests were weak, her teasing eyes enticing, small pink mouth opening and closing in pretend outrage, inviting him to make further onslaughts on her virtue, if he dare.

It would have taken a stronger man than Dick Rawlins to resist. He gave a low growl somewhere deep in his throat. ‘You’re a witch, Lily Thorpe, that’s what you are.’

‘Am I?’ she enquired, with an air of manufactured innocence, and no small degree of pride.

‘Oh, I do love you, Lil. I’ll wait hand and foot on you, if you like.’ And as he reached to kiss her again, Lily’s heart soared with pleasure. He was her man and he loved her. Tied to her mother’s apron strings she might be but these few snatched moments with Dick made a dull life beautiful and exciting.

‘Lily? Are you down there? I’ll not tell you again. If you don’t come in this minute you won’t go to this water carnival you’re so set on. You can stop at home and read what the good Lord has to say on the subject of obedience.’

‘Oh, heck. I’ve done it now. She’s got her puritan voice on.’ Lily was thrusting Dick’s eager hands away, hitching up her long skirts and scrambling down from the roof as fast as she could. She flapped a desperate hand at him. ‘Oh, do go home, Dick. It would be dreadful if I couldn’t go tomorrow. I’ve been so looking forward to it.’

He dropped lightly down beside her but when he would have gathered her in his arms yet again, Lily thrust him away. ‘Get off, go on. You’ve promised to tek me out in a boat tomorrow, remember. And to speak to me dad.’

Snatching her hand, he kissed the back of it. He’d seen a picture in a magazine he’d read at the Working Men’s Institute of a Frenchman doing exactly the same thing, so thought he might as well try it on Lily. He was a great one for showmanship. Made life a bit more interesting, it did. He certainly didn’t care to get too serious about it. Except for Lily. He’d do anything for his lovely Lil. He meant to impress her tomorrow too, with his skill with the oars.

‘I’ll show your dad what a good boatman I am.’ In the hope he’d look kindly upon him when later Dick made his request. Assuming he plucked up the necessary courage.

‘It’s me you have to please, you daft lump. Not me dad.’

Dick wasn’t so sure. He felt sick to his stomach at the thought of facing big Arnold Thorpe. Not a man to mess with, wasn’t Arnie. Everyone knew that. One of the most experienced fishermen on the lake, he was a big brawn of a chap. Loved boxing and cock fighting and would take a gamble on anything that moved, for all he had a wife who was a card-carrying Methodist. Arnie was a hard man, and protective where his family were concerned, Lily in particular.

‘He won’t give his most precious daughter away to any Tom, Dick or Harry, now will he?’ he said, and they both collapsed into a fit of giggles at this old joke between them.

‘Lily! If you don’t come in this minute I’ll come and drag you up this yard by the scruff of your neck!’

Spinning on her heel, Lily ducked beneath the flapping sheets pinned on the washing line and ran, stopping only briefly with her hand on the sneck of the back door. ‘You’ll meet me on the jetty?’

‘Aye, Lily. I will.’ Then Dick blew her a kiss, just to finish the romantic interlude with a suitably extravagant gesture, and swaggered off down the back street, whistling.

The Thorpe family rowed the short half mile in the family fishing boat to where the water carnival was to be held. Arnie and the boys had given it an extra thorough cleaning, and decked it out in ribbons in honour of this special day. All six children, including Lily, were hardly able to sit still for excitement.

The town was humming with people in their best summer dresses. Flags and streamers were everywhere, with much splashing and squealing coming from the lake, everyone enjoying the fun.

Besides the sailing races there were always plenty of games for the children: musical chairs at the water’s edge, balloon bursting, eating buns on cycles, tent pegging and apple bobbing. And Lily didn’t think herself too old for such fun. Not quite yet. For the more adventurous, there would be home-made raft races and lots of other silly water games which resulted in the contestants getting a proper soaking if they were anything like her twin brothers.

Later there might be a sham sea battle with mock explosions and clouds of smoke as if in a real war. Then the winning side would storm on to the other team’s island and everyone would cheer.

Lily knew her father would take part in the fishermen’s boat race, and likely win it as he so often did. And after a picnic tea, which they would take together beneath the trees, they’d loll about and recover from their adventures for a while. Then would follow the grand firework display. It was worth coming to the water carnival for that glory alone.

The uncertain Lakes weather had been known to spoil the day in the past, for all it took place in early summer. Lily was delighted that this particular June day was perfect, with a merry blue sky and hardly a puff of cloud, the striped Egyptian cotton sails of the small boats dazzling in the sun. And when the figure of Dick emerged from a stand of trees a few yards from the water’s edge, Lily’s happiness was complete.

Her three younger sisters, Liza, Emma and Kitty, were running in dizzying circles around Hannah, too excited to keep still. Jacob and Matt, her twelve-year-old brothers, were busy helping her father tie up the boat at the jetty, arguing furiously as their eagerness to escape and savour the delights of the carnival made them clumsy.

‘You’ll ask him now, right away?’ Lily whispered to Dick, and the sight of his death-pale face told its own tale, bringing a giggle bubbling to the surface. ‘He won’t eat you.’ Lily held the certainty of all treasured children that she’d have to commit cold-blooded murder before Arnie Thorpe fell out with his favourite daughter. Dick did not share this somewhat naïve viewpoint.

‘I wouldn’t count on it. I’ll ask if I can take you rowing first.’ This would give him the chance to test Arnold Thorpe’s mood before he put the more important question. Lily pouted, but as her father approached turned it quickly into a smile and gave a furtive nod of agreement, meant only for Dick’s eyes. But Arnie, as he was often heard to remark, hadn’t been born yesterday. If a lad was standing around like a bit of wet waterweed beside his pretty daughter, it wasn’t hard to guess the reason. Still, not a bad lad, Dick Rawlins. And if he was a bit lacking in the brains department, Lily had more than enough to spare for the pair of them.

‘Now then, Dick.’

‘Mr Thorpe.’ Dick swallowed the lump of terror that had lodged in his throat and wiped his hands on the seat of his trousers. The man seemed even bigger than usual, if that were possible. ‘I wondered, happen, if I could take your Lily – if you had no objections like – out on the lake?’

Arnie considered Dick very solemnly for a moment and then looked at his daughter. ‘She’s only just got off it. You’re not taking her home the minute she’s arrived, are you?’

Diverted by this unexpected remark, Dick stood nonplussed, cheeks starting to fire up. It was Lily who saved his embarrassment.

‘He means out in one of the hire boats.’

‘Oh, from the posh new rowing fleet. A fishing boat not good enough for you, is that it?’

‘Stop teasing him, Dad. He’s saved up.’

‘Aye, one shilling and ninepence,’ Dick said, recovering valiantly and puffing out his chest with pride. ‘So I can afford to pay for her.’

Arnie’s blue eyes crinkled at the corners with suppressed laughter. ‘Oh, well then, if thoo’s a rich sort of chap, happen I should drop all opposition. What do you say, Mother?’

‘I say, stop plaguing the poor lad and let everyone enjoy theirselves.’ Then Hannah started handing out small brown-paper packages. ‘Here’s your dinner sandwiches. I doubt we’ll see hide nor hair of you till teatime.’

‘Four o’clock,’ Arnie said. ‘On the dot. Anyone who’s late will have to suffer the sharp end of my tongue in consequence.’

No one, it was agreed, would risk that.

There were some initial moans and groans as Hannah insisted the two younger girls remain with her and baby Kitty. Jacob and Matthew beat a hasty retreat before anyone should suggest they do likewise.

‘Well, get on with it, lad,’ Arnie chivvied poor Dick. ‘Or them boats’ll all be tekken afore you get theer.’

Thus galvanised into action, Dick and Lily walked sedately away along the shore, a good six inches apart. Only when they turned a corner and believed themselves quite out of sight did they reach for each other’s hands. Arnie and Hannah, peeping at them between the trees, exchanged a smile and did likewise.

Less than ten minutes later Lily was reclining against the red leather cushions in what she considered a suitably ladylike pose. Unlike many of the young men recklessly showing off their inadequate skills to their sweethearts, Dick had handed her in and walked the length of the rowing boat without putting either of them in any danger of capsizing. Now he had a firm grip on the oars, his well-muscled arms flexing beneath his best summer shirt. Some of the toffs wore smart blazers but since Dick did not own such a garment, he’d tucked a neckcloth in the form of a cravat into his shirt collar to mark the occasion, and his one pair of brown boots were polished to a mirror brightness.

The sun was hot, and Lily adjusted her ancient straw bonnet which she hated, despite the new green ribbon trimmings meant to heighten the colour in her hazel eyes. She wished she owned a parasol like the fashionable young ladies and their mamas. These exemplars of loveliness occupied the long narrow steam yachts which sailed majestically up and down the lake; the kind of glorious vessel owned by every rich family who occupied a mansion on the shores of Carreckwater, each vying to outdo the other in opulence and magnificence.

These people had usually made their money from cotton in Lancashire, or shipping in Liverpool, and could afford to display their wealth in the finest teak, pine and oak craft. Far grander than a hired rowing boat, they were sleek and stately with embossed velvet upholstery, walnut panelling, even carpets and white marble wash hand basins. Lily had had glimpses of these wonderful floating palaces when Arnie had been helping out with some refitting. He did occasional work for Hadley’s boatbuilders, which helped to eke out his poor wages from the fishing, and had sneaked her aboard for a peep. The memory of such unbridled elegance had lived in Lily’s mind ever since.

One was approaching even now, sun glinting off its brass fittings, the chatter of genteel voices, merry piping laughter and the chink of china teacups echoing over the lake as the ladies took tea beneath a pretty blue and cream fringed canopy. There was the papa in his top hat, the engineer in his flat cap, and the women with their wide straw hats skewered with giant hat pins so they didn’t blow off in the wind.

Somewhere far away on the shore a band had struck up a jolly tune and a voice was calling passengers to board Lucy Ann, the Public Steamer, smartly decked out with strings of flags, for the next lake cruise to one of the islands or the Fisherman’s Inn for luncheon.

‘All aboard! Next sailing in ten minutes. Hurry along there, please.’

Lily’s lips curved into a contented smile as she watched the jostling crowds in their bright summer dresses, some hurrying to take advantage of this offer, others strolling along the promenade or enjoying the sun on the wooden benches that stood before the Marina Hotel. She was much happier here with Dick, and the steamer already seemed crammed with people.

Emboldened by his success over the boat trip, Dick was saying, ‘So I’ve decided to talk to your father, man to man like, the minute we finish tea and before the fireworks start.’

‘Let’s hope you don’t spark off any fireworks of your own!’ Lily giggled, but for once Dick only looked troubled and paused in his rowing while he considered her quip.

‘What d’you reckon he’ll say then?’

‘Oh, don’t look so worried. He’s in a good mood. And he likes you, I know he does.’

Lily let the fingers of one hand trail in the water as she offered Dick her most radiant smile, hoping he was watching as she pressed her young body back against the cushions. ‘Make sure you tell him we don’t want to wait too long. Next summer would be perfect. I’ll be nearly seventeen by then. And don’t forget to mention our plans. See this frill on my petticoat? I did the crochet trimming myself.’ She twitched up her skirt, managing to reveal a good two inches of slender ankle as well as the prized frill.

Dick was enchanted. He had not, in fact, missed a nuance of these flirtatious gestures and wondered how he would manage to resist this adorable girl for as long as a year. The sun had burnished her brown hair to a glowing chestnut, worn loose to her shoulders beneath the straw bonnet, and on her delicious nose was a scattering of freckles brought out by the sun, that he had a desperate urge to kiss. The outline of her long legs and slender hips, curving enticingly beneath the cream print frock she wore, made his necktie feel suddenly too tight about his throat.

He almost forgot they were in a boat and he was rowing it as his gaze wandered downward to the peaks of her young breasts against the thin fabric. The sight of these wondrous delights put him in such turmoil he very nearly lost all control.

‘By heck, Lily,’ he said, in a small choking voice, ‘you’re a real cracker. I’ll do me best to persuade him, I swear it.’

Thrilled by his ardour, she blew him a kiss, puckering her lips into such a delightful pout that Dick could resist her no longer and the recklessness in him surged to the surface. In the next instant he was on his feet, making the boat rock madly as he reached forward to steal one sweet kiss before rowing her out to Hazel Holme and maybe managing to steal a bit more.

Lily squealed with fear and delight at his daring. ‘You’ll have us over, you daft lump!’

But he only laughed. It was in that moment that he happened to glance up. Something alerted him. A shadow? Someone shouting or dropping a teacup? But it was too late. By then the steam launch was upon them. He could almost see his own slack-jawed surprise as he was catapulted into the air, his ears filled with the terrifying sounds of splintering wood as the slender rowing boat was sliced into two neat halves. And endless screams carried up into the true blue sky.

Chapter Two

‘All my best china broken! Not a single cup left intact. Completely ruined. It really is most dreadfully upsetting.’

Edward Clermont-Read gazed down at his wife with appalled disbelief registering on his usually pleasant, moustachioed face. ‘Nay, Margot, the loss of a young man’s life is worth far more than a few pots.’

‘They weren’t pots, they were the finest bone china. And don’t use such common expressions.’

Edward stood corrected. ‘Even so. That poor young man…’

‘We cannot be blamed.’ The pitch of Margot’s voice rose as she struggled to hold on to her quick-fire temper. ‘He was standing in the boat, like the fool he evidently was. I saw him with my own eyes. If he’d been paying proper attention to what he should have been about, he could easily have got out of the way.’

‘Now don’t get yourself into a lather…’

‘I’m not in a lather!’

‘Well, I’m sure George will be heartened, if a little surprised, that you champion him so adamantly, my love,’ Edward said with some asperity.

‘George?’

‘He’s the best chauffeur-engineer I’ve ever had, and devastated at having caused such a tragedy.’

Since it had never entered his wife’s head to defend the man, a servant after all, who had actually skippered the steam yacht Faith into disaster, Margot opened her mouth to say as much and then snapped it shut again. Edward could be ridiculously egalitarian. He never had managed to shake free from his roots.

She rose with self-conscious elegance from the chaise longue in the drawing room of Barwick House to which she had repaired after the accident and jerked the bell rope that hung by the marble fireplace. ‘I long for a cup of tea now. I’m surprised you didn’t think to order a pot for me when you saw how dreadfully upset I was.’

‘I saw you were concerned for your crockery,’ he said tightly.

Her eyes glinted beneath narrowed lids. ‘Make fun of me if you will, you dreadful man, but that service was especially commissioned and monogrammed with the Faith’s name. It cost a small fortune, and are you not always telling me to watch the pennies, as if we too were st— silly peasants?’ She’d almost said ‘still poor’.

Edward gazed upon his wife in helpless despair. How could he go on loving such a selfish, snobbish creature? Yet he did. He adored her. He loved every hair on her beautiful and expensively coiffured head. Every gesture of her plump, ringed hands. Every movement of the exquisitely gowned and, though she might deny it, increasingly matronly figure. She may no longer be the fresh, slender, eager young girl he had married all those years before, but she had nerves of steel, had been as ambitious as he and as anxious to drag them, step by painful step, up the ladder of success. In short, the best helpmeet a man in his position could have had. He’d been damned lucky to have her and he knew it.

Not once had she complained, no matter how hard he’d had to work, however many long hours he’d put in at the warehouse. There’d been times when they’d wondered if his freight business would survive a harsh winter or a particularly bad debtor. Yet not for a moment had she doubted his ability to succeed; never been anything but impeccably dressed and, in his eyes at least, gloriously beautiful.

Building this fine house on the shores of Carreckwater had been the pinnacle of their joint achievement. It proved they’d arrived. They’d often rented a place on the lake, as was fashionable, for the entire summer, but now that they owned their own small mansion, Edward didn’t mind in the least commuting to Manchester from Windermere every Monday morning when he could return each Friday to this proof of his success.

So if his wife was now hell-bent on being accepted into the highest echelons of society which Carreckwater, and the County, had to offer, could he blame her?

Dear Margot would permit nothing to stand in her way, certainly not a distinct lack of return invitations from the local arbiters of social acceptability.

The Faith, now sadly battered, had been the key meant to open many doors, since it admitted them as members of the exclusive Carreckwater Yacht Club. Edward was even considering sponsoring a prize himself at next year’s regatta.

He had taken great pleasure in designing the craft and believed it to be a fine vessel, if he said so himself. Not a steamer on the lake possessed a taller mast, even if he rarely ran a sail up it. But then, he knew a thing or two about boats. They’d been his passion for years. He also owned a neat little launch in Liverpool, and was considering buying himself a small sailing yacht on the Isle of Wight one of these days, exactly as Ferguson-Walsh had done.

He’d naturally left Margot to choose the furnishings and fittings: blue leather upholstery, blue and cream silk panelling, and all the tasteful folderols considered essential for gracious living aboard a yacht.

He watched her now, pacing her drawing room, fretfully folding and unfolding her hands, and knew it wasn’t so much the china which bothered her as her injured pride. Margot cared deeply what other folk thought of her. Too much so, in fact. And if the Gowdrys, the Dunstons, and most of all the Mrs Lindens of this world should decide that it was the Clermont-Read’s vessel which had breached the unwritten code of the lake and caused the terrible tragedy, all hope of attaining the status Margot craved, not to mention a suitable catch for her wilful daughter, would be gone. Even now he could hear the two of them discussing the effect of the tragedy upon their social lives.

‘We really haven’t time to sit here endlessly talking round the subject,’ Margot was saying. ‘We’re expected for lunch with the Ferguson-Walshes.’

‘Damn it, Maggie, we can’t go out to eat ham and fancy salads with the Ferguson-Walshes as if naught has happened.’

‘Don’t be coarse, Edward. We can’t let them down. It wouldn’t be polite. And don’t call me Maggie.’

‘There might have to be an enquiry,’ he said, desperate to escape this particular duty. He couldn’t abide Clive Ferguson-Walsh, for all he strove to match his wealth. The man thought he owned the town just because he was a J.P. and had been mayor more times than any other member of the town council.

Margot stared at him. ‘Enquiry? What are you talking about?’

‘I’m saying there’ll no doubt be an enquiry.’ Once having got the idea into his head he was reluctant to let it go, though privately Edward doubted anyone would have the nerve to tackle him on the subject when it came to the point. He may not yet have reached Ferguson-Walsh’s stature but nevertheless was recognised as a man of substance these days. But if he could use the threat gently to browbeat his wife into obedience for once, he would do so.

‘What sort of an enquiry?’ Anxiety sharpened her features and she looked, in that moment, all of her forty-three years.

‘To see who was at fault. We’ll have to stop in. The police may call.’

‘Police? In my house?’

‘In any case, we’d be best to lie low for a day or two. Out of respect.’ Edward moved to his humidor and, lifting the lid, took his time selecting, sniffing and rolling a cigar between thumb and forefinger while his wife and daughter struggled to curb disappointment and mounting hysteria as all their plans fell about their heads.

‘We have the firework party tonight…’

Edward frowned. ‘I don’t believe you’re listening to a word I say, the pair of you. I reckon I’m still master in my own house, and I say it wouldn’t be right.’

Selene got shakily to her feet, and her voice when she found it was oddly shrill. ‘But what about the ball