Читать книгу Julia Williams 3 Book Bundle - Julia Williams - Страница 17

Summer 1892

Lily – how often Edward would later think of her as she was in those early days of their marriage at Lovelace Cottage, when they had shut the world out – his mother had gone on a trip to London – and they had sent the servants away, and lived for a blissful few days as if they were the only two people left on earth.

Lily, as she lay in their marriage bed, dark hair tumbling all about her, looking at him with those lazy, alluring come-hither eyes. He’d never even known what that meant until now.

Lily, waking up as he flung the shutters wide open to allow a bright summer morning to flood sunlight into their little kingdom.

Lily, protesting about him getting up and leaving the warmth and comfort of their marriage bed. Lily, wanting to always keep him to herself.

Always Lily, laughing, joyous, as they wallowed in the sensuous happiness of being together, alone, with no one but themselves to consider.

In his memory, the sun always shone on those early days of marriage. Every morning they would awaken, and walk down the lane at the end of the garden to fetch milk and eggs from the farmer. Then Lily would make breakfast on the stove, determined to show him that not all domestic skills were beyond her.

Often he sketched her, sitting in the garden, or lying on the grass, staring up at the bright summer sky.

‘Come and join me,’ she’d say. ‘You see the world differently from here.’

And together they would lie and look up at the bright, white clouds scudding across the azure blue sky. Lily seeing all sorts of things in them he could never have imagined. Where he saw soft, rolling shapes, Lily saw castles, animals, witches and princesses. He loved the way she allowed her imagination to transport her somewhere completely different. She had an other-worldly quality that he found entrancing.

At other times they walked down the hill to the brook, and followed it to where it widened to a stream and then a river. There they would picnic underneath an old willow tree, delighting in the freedom of being unchaperoned, and leaning against each other, talking about their plans for the future.

‘We shall have six children,’ declared Lily, ‘three boys and three girls.’

‘When we come back from India,’ promised Edward, who had arranged for them to go on a three-month expedition to Lahore in order to search for exotic plants. ‘We can bring back plants for each of the children we are going to have. I shall build a greenhouse, so we can nurture them.’

‘And plant them in the knot garden,’ said Lily. ‘It will be wonderful, you’ll see.’

Those days seemed endless and gloriously heady, in Edward’s memory, filled with laughter and fun and love. He wished the time could stretch out endlessly, but alas, honeymoons cannot last forever, and all too soon, real life intruded. Work must be done, Lily must become the lady of the house, though he hadn’t quite realized how very ill-suited she was to the task, prone as she was to wandering off into the gardens to smell the roses when she was meant to be telling Cook what to prepare for dinner. Or helplessly looking to him for advice when it came to the servants’ wages. Though she had been brought up to it, Lily simply didn’t possess the right character for the ladylike genteel world she had to inhabit; her spirit was far too free for that. And with his mother away for several months, there was no one for Lily to ask. He knew she chafed at the constrictions of afternoon teas with the neighbours and visits to the poor of the parish. His wild and wandering Lily, tamed and hemmed in by domesticity. He should have known it would lead to trouble.