Fallen Skies Read online

  “Hello, my dear,” John said. “I have a message for Rory. Is he there?”

  “He’s upstairs,” Lily said. “He’s a little overtired today. I shouldn’t call him to the phone. Can I take a message? Or do you want to call back at dinner time? He might come down for dinner.”

  John hesitated. “I can ask you to give him a message,” he said. “Just between you and me, my dear, we were both concerned with Stephen’s plan to buy the farm and I’ve sorted it out. The farmer returned Stephen’s note. The sale is cancelled. Just tell Rory that it’s all off, there’s no need for him to worry.”

  He heard Lily’s little sigh of relief. “I’ll tell him,” she said. “You’re an angel, John!”

  He gave a little complacent chuckle. “All in a day’s work!” he said. “We can’t have you worrying! And we couldn’t have had you buried in the country! I don’t know what the boy was thinking of!”

  “He said it reminded him of a place in Belgium,” Lily said. “Somewhere he used to go on leave. I suppose it mattered to him because it was a peaceful place in the middle of war.”

  “Well, for heaven’s sake—it’s peace now, isn’t it?” John exclaimed. “He doesn’t need a refuge now!” He recollected that he was speaking to Stephen’s wife. “I do beg your pardon, my dear. Now, if you can tell Rory that it’s all settled, we’ll say no more about it.”

  “As usual,” Lily said sapiently. “Whenever there’s anything in this house that we don’t like, we say no more about it.”

  In the background John could hear the front door open. “Oh!” Lily said in a quite different voice. “I have to go! I’ll deliver your message! Goodbye now!”

  She put the phone down and faced Stephen as he came heavily into the hall.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” he said with icy courtesy.

  Lily shook her head with a smile. “It was nothing,” she said.

  “Was the message for me? The message you had to deliver?”

  Lily shook her head. “No.”

  “Oh? Is it for my mother?”

  “No.”

  “For Father?”

  Lily glanced around the hall but there was no distraction. “Yes,” she said. “A message for your father.”

  “How odd,” Stephen said. “From my office?”

  Lily nodded. “I’ll go and tell him now,” she said. “He’s not been very well today. He didn’t come out for a walk. If he’s not asleep I’ll tell him now.”

  “I’ll come up with you,” Stephen said pleasantly. He slipped his hand around Lily’s waist and they climbed the stairs together. Lily had a momentary, foolish thought that it was like being under arrest, being marched somewhere. She could not see how to escape giving John Pascoe’s message in front of Stephen and she knew that Stephen would dislike the knowledge that Rory and John had worked together to subvert him.

  Lily tapped softly on Rory’s door, hoping that he would be asleep and there would be no reply.

  “Mmmm!” he called. His voice was strong and clear but the betraying muscles around his lips and mouth and throat would not shape the words he needed.

  Lily opened the door and slipped in, Stephen following.

  Rory smiled at them both but his dark eyes were wary.

  “Good afternoon,” Stephen said genially. “I am sorry to hear you’re off-colour. Perhaps you’ve been overdoing it?”

  Rory shook his head slowly, the muscles in his neck straining with effort. “I’m well,” he said finally.

  “Lily took a phone message for you,” Stephen said. “Didn’t you, Lily?”

  Both men looked at her. Lily flushed as if she were keeping some clandestine secret.

  “John Pascoe telephoned,” she said. She put on her Duchess voice and kept it steady. “He said to tell you not to worry, and that it’s been sorted out.”

  “How very odd!” Stephen said. “What does he mean? D’you know, Father?”

  Rory tried to nod, but the muscle in his jaw started to tremble.

  “He must have said something else, Lily,” Stephen said gently. “What matter was this? What was it all about?” He looked from Lily to his father as if he could not imagine what they were withholding. “You must have a clearer message,” he said. “This is meaningless! I had better phone John back! If my father is worried about something then we had better put his mind properly at rest.”

  Lily and Rory exchanged a trapped look.

  “Unless it is just me who does not understand?” Stephen asked. “Perhaps it is me who is misunderstanding here? Just me who would need a clearer message?”

  Lily shrugged. “I know nothing about it,” she said. “I’m going to change.”

  “It’s about the farm, isn’t it?” Stephen said suddenly. Lily’s guilty face told him at once. “Oh! If that’s what it’s all about then I can tell you all about it. There’s no need for this foolish and childish secrecy. I can tell you all about it.”

  Rory moved his hand in a quietening gesture, as if begging Stephen to stop. Lily said, “It doesn’t matter, Stephen. It was about the farm. It was a message to tell your father that John had cancelled the sale and not to worry. That was all.”

  “Did he tell you how he did it?” Stephen asked. “Or did you all plan it together, perhaps? Perhaps you all got together to work out what you should say? It was really quite brilliant. I congratulate you, all three of you! He told the farmer that I was dotty. From the war. Not fit to take decisions. Probably better off in a home. Perhaps my affairs should be in trust, d’you think? Who cooked that one up? Was it you, Lily?”

  Lily shot an anxious look at Rory and then shook her head. “I didn’t know anything about this,” she said. “I didn’t want to buy the farm and I didn’t want to live there. But I didn’t ask your father or Mr. Pascoe to do anything.”

  Stephen nodded and slid his arm around her waist. Lily stiffened but he drew her to him. “You loyal little darling,” he said softly. “But you have it all the wrong way round. You don’t have to express a wish before someone will grant it for you. You don’t have to fight and struggle and demand to get what you want, my darling! You just have to open those blue eyes of yours and someone will do it for you.”

  Lily let him hold her, but she turned her face away. Stephen looked towards the bed. “And you, Father, what a pair of old rogues you and John are, to be sure! I shall take care never to go against your wishes again! D’you know for a moment then I thought I might live the life I wished? I thought that since I had gone to Ypres, as you wished, and come back against all the odds, and worked in your office for three years, that I might do as I wanted after all this time! But not with you and John at the helm, eh? You run a tight ship, Father, I admire you for it.”

  Rory heard the bitterness in his son’s voice and heaved himself up on one elbow. “Sorry,” he said. “My boy . . .” He reached a hand out towards his son. Rory’s overloaded brain gave him the wrong word, precisely the wrong word for the case. He stretched his hand out further and his eyes looked at Stephen with pity and with love. “Christopher.”

  Stephen gave a low sob of a laugh, turned on his heel and went out of the room. Lily stepped forward and took Rory’s hand. She patted it gently. “Never mind,” she said. “You acted for the best. He’ll get over it. And at least we do have a Christopher now.”

  • • •

  Stephen left early for court the next morning, his wig and his gown in a small bag. Coventry drove him there and parked nearby to wait for him. Lily watched Christopher being wheeled out into the garden and heard Nanny Janes’s heavy tread as she went upstairs to tidy the nursery. She slipped on a jacket and went outside.

  The wind was blowing in off the sea and she could smell the salt in the air. The late summer roses, creamy and thick, were nodding their heads and opening their petals under the warmth of the sun. Bedding plants in scarlet and white blazed in the circular flower bed in the plumb centre of the garden, birds sang loudly, and as Lily sat and rocked the pram and smiled in r