Escape by Moonlight Read Free Page A

brightened by the encounter, Lucy secured the gates and went back to see to the parcels, two crates of hens, a box of herrings and a large bundle of newspapers which had been disgorged from the guard’s van. The carrier with his horse and cart would soon arrive to deliver the goods about the village. And then there were the takings from the ticket office to be totted up and matched against the tickets that had been issued, the weeding to finish, the flower tubs to water and the platform to sweep; and, in between, the dinner to cook and the washing to be mangled and put on the line. None of it, except perhaps adding up the money, needed much thought and she was free to allow her mind to wander. She had a recurring daydream, a fantasy in which Jack de Lacey held her in hisarms and declared his undying love for her, and explained he was still unmarried at twenty-three because he had been waiting for her to grow up. She imagined being kissed by him, being held and caressed, and then the vision faded because she was not at all sure she should allow him to go any further, even in a dream.
    ‘Haven’t you finished that yet?’ her father demanded, toiling up the platform pushing a trolley loaded with Miss de Lacey’s luggage which would have to be sent up to the big house on the carrier’s cart. He was thin as a rake and his uniform hung on him as if it were made for someone several sizes larger, which he had been before her mother left and he had never got around to admitting he had shrunk. Nor would he ever have admitted he was a changed man in other ways. He was irritable and never found anything to smile at and he was so demanding he made Lucy’s life a misery. ‘You’ve got your head in the clouds, as usual.’
    ‘No, Pa, I was thinking about finishing the weeding. I need to keep on top of it.’
    ‘Well, you can do it later. There isn’t another train for an hour, so you can go indoors and get my dinner now.’
    She rose, picked up her basket of weeds, and made her way along the platform to the house. If she were married to Jack de Lacey, there would be no getting of dinners, and even if there were, it would be a pleasure not a chore. For him she would cook beautiful meals and they would eat off the best china and drink wine from crystal glasses. She emptied the weeds onto the compost heap, left the basket, gloves and trowel in an outhouse and went indoors to cook stew and potatoes and jam suet pudding, in an effort to please her father and give him something that would put some weight on him.
    Here, in this small cottage full of reminders of her mother, the dreams stopped; here was reality, the day-to-day grind of work in a house where love had died on the day her mother disappeared, perhaps even before that. Pa said she had upped and left them, but Lucy found that hard to believe. Her mother had been sweet and gentle and loving, even in the face of Pa’s unkindness towards her. She had no idea what had caused her to leave and he wouldn’t say. He wouldn’t talk about his wife at all and he forbade Lucy to mention her name. ‘She’s gone,’ he had said the evening Ma was no longer in the house to put her to bed. ‘An’ she ain’t a-comin’ back. And it’s no good you snivellin’,’ he had added, when her lip trembled and tears filled her eyes. ‘We shall just hev to rub along as best we may.’ Over ten years ago that had been and never a word had they heard from her ma since. Sometimes Lucy thought she would leave home and try to trace her, but she had no idea where to start. Besides, her pa would never let her go.

    ‘Well, how was your holiday?’ Jack asked as they bowled along the familiar lanes, past farms and cottages.
    ‘Fine. Lazy days walking and swimming and playing tennis.’
    ‘Did you meet anyone new?’ He turned in at the gates of Nayton Manor, past the hexagonal gatehouse and up the long curving drive lined with chestnut trees.
    ‘One or two, no one special.’
    ‘No young men to