Lakeland Lily Read online

  Lakeland Lily

  Freda Lightfoot

  Magna Large Print Books (1999)

  Tags: Historical Fiction

  * * *

  Synopsis

  Lily Thorpe is a spirited, ambitious fisherman’s daughter, desperate to escape the poverty of her Lakeland home. When the rich Clermont-Read family spoils her plans, Lily embarks on a personal quest for revenge and marries their only son, Bertie, a handsome indolent charmer. Rejected by his family, the young couple soon find themselves battling against the very poverty Lily had hoped to escape... A twist of fate brings her the freedom she craves, but the price Lily must pay is vindictive snobbery from Bertie's mother - as well as another far greater one, finally leading to a passionate affair with Nathan Monroe, a local steam boat captain. Now it is Lily who must protect herself against the threat of vengeance and decide who is more important, her husband or her lover.

  Lakeland Lily

  Freda Lightfoot

  Originally published 1997 by Hodder & Stoughton Ltd. 338 Euston Road, London NW1 3BH

  Copyright © 1997 and 2010 by Freda Lightfoot.

  All rights reserved.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. Nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-0956607348

  Published by Freda Lightfoot 2010

  ‘The new series will be greeted with joy by the thousands of women who enjoy her books.’ Evening Mail, Barrow-in-Furness on Champion Street Market

  ‘You can’t put a price on Freda Lightfoot's stories from Manchester's 1950s Champion Street Market. They bubble with enough life and colour to brighten up the dreariest day and they have characters you can easily take to your heart.’

  The Northern Echo.

  ‘Lightfoot clearly knows her Manchester well’

  Historical Novel Society

  ‘Kitty Little is a charming novel encompassing the provincial theatre of the early 20th century, the horrors of warfare and timeless affairs of the heart.’

  The West Briton

  ‘Another heartwarming tale from a master story-teller.’

  Lancashire Evening Post on For All Our Tomorrows.

  ‘a compelling and fascinating tale’ Middlesborough Evening Gazette on The Favourite Child (In the top 20 of the Sunday Times hardback bestsellers)

  ‘She piles horror on horror - rape, torture, sexual humiliation, incest, suicide - but she keeps you reading!’ Jay Dixon on House of Angels.

  ‘This is a book I couldn’t put down . . . a great read!’

  South Wales Evening Post on The Girl From Poorhouse Lane

  ‘a fascinating, richly detailed setting with a dramatic plot brimming with enough scandal, passion, and danger for a Jackie Collins’ novel.’

  Booklist on Hostage Queen

  ‘A bombshell of an unsuspected secret rounds off a romantic saga narrated with pace and purpose and fuelled by conflict.’ The Keswick Reminder on The Bobbin Girls

  ‘paints a vivid picture of life on the fells during the war. Enhanced by fine historical detail and strong characterisation it is an endearing story...’

  Westmorland Gazette on Luckpenny Land

  ‘An inspiring novel about accepting change and bravely facing the future.’

  The Daily Telegraph on Ruby McBride

  Lily Thorpe is a spirited, ambitious fisherman’s daughter, desperate to escape the poverty of her Lakeland home. When the rich Clermont-Read family spoils her plans, Lily embarks on a personal quest for revenge and marries their only son, Bertie, a handsome indolent charmer. Rejected by his family, the young couple soon find themselves battling against the very poverty Lily had hoped to escape... A twist of fate brings her the freedom she craves, but the price Lily must pay is vindictive snobbery from Bertie's mother - as well as another far greater one, finally leading to a passionate affair with Nathan Monroe, a local steam boat captain. Now it is Lily who must protect herself against the threat of vengeance and decide who is more important, her husband or her lover.

  Acknowledgements

  I am indebted to Diana Matthews of the Windermere Nautical Trust for her assistance with research and for her splendid booklets, Lake Festivals on Windermere and Lake Windermere’s Golden Jubilee. Also to her father, George Pattinson, for his excellent book, The Great Age of Steam on Windermere, which first inspired the idea. Any mistakes or liberties taken for the sake of the story are, of course, my responsibility and not theirs. Last but by no means least, thanks to the steamboat skippers who still operate these wonderful boats from the Steamboat Museum, Windermere, who told me their fascinating history and answered my many questions while I enjoyed several delightful cruises on the lake.

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Now read a sneak preview of The Bobbin Girls

  Also by Freda Lightfoot available as ebooks

  About Freda Lightfoot

  1909

  Chapter One

  ‘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 tiptilted 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 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 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.’ 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 needed 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 themselves! 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 take 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.

  Despite 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 released, 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, felt bound 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 them 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?’

  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 s
omewhere deep in her belly. 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.