Читать книгу Lily Fairchild - Don Gutteridge - Страница 13

Sometime towards dawn Lily was awakened by a blaze of lightning, followed seconds later by a hard crack of thunder. Then the rain came, first slashing at the dry woods and vulnerable gardens, then easing off to a steady, sustaining downpour. When she arose with the sun, the air was sweet with growth, the earth slaked and grateful.

Hearing Bridie stir restlessly in her room, Lily sat on the cot for a long while letting the infant light brush over her, quicksilvering her skin. She reached into the applewood box below the cot and drew out the leather pouch. The jasper talisman felt cold in her cupped palms. She pressed it tightly, squeezing her eyes shut, and begging the driven thoughts in her mind to seek some shape, some release, some reconciliation. It occurred to her that she might be praying. The talisman grew warm, incarnadine, then seemed to pulse in her grip. “Are you up, dear?”

“Yes, Auntie. You stay put a while. It’s a bit wet for weedin’ right off.”

She heard the creak and shuffle of her aunt rigging her body for the day ahead.

Later, Lily glanced up from her hoeing. Bridie was waving from the yard, something white and fluttering in her hand. When Lily came up to her, she recognized Silas, the butcher’s son.

“He’s brung a note from Alice Templeton,” said Bridie evenly. “Do you want me to read it?”

“Please.”

In a halting voice, Bridie read: “Dear Lily: You are cordially invited to attend the official luncheon for His Royal Highness, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, to be held at the Grand Trunk Hotel at twelve noon, September 13, 1860. Please say you’ll come. Affectionately, Alice Templeton.”

Bridie looked at Lily expectantly. “Sounds like Mrs Templeton would like you there,” she said to fill the silence. Silas nodded.

“Tell her, thanks. But no.”

“You want me to write that?”

“Yes.”

“Lily, love, I think you oughta go. What else isthere?” Bridie said pointedly.

“We got weedin’ to do,” Lily said, and started for the potato patch.

Silas came back two hours later with a second missive. Again Bridie prepared to read the note aloud. Chester, who despite his infirmaties was walking now with two canes, came out to listen.

“This is queer,” Aunt Bridie said. “It says only: ‘Lily dearest: there will be a military escort from London.’ Now what’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means he’s the Prince of Wales,” Chester said. “The heir to the throne.”

“The Englishthrone,” Bridie snapped.

“Now don’t start again, woman, with them radical ideas. I got a bum ticker, you know.”

“An’ how could the world ever forget it?”

“Tell her yes,” Lily said to the startled trio.