Wild Lily by K M Peyton Page A

happening.’
    ‘What? Helena coming?’
    ‘Yes. Anything could happen. She won’t know what on earth is going on.’
    ‘She’ll have lots of people to look after her.’
    ‘Hmm.’ Simon obviously wasn’t convinced.
    Having seen the crowd in the kitchen, Lily understood his doubts. ‘We can always bring her back if she’s frightened.’
    ‘Some of us will stay sober, don’t worry,’ Cedric said.
    Lily realized how totally ignorant she was of party behaviour. The nearest she had ever come to a party before was the annual harvest gathering up at the farm, which was a jolly and simple affair where she fitted in. Certainly there was a lot of drinking, and even her father fell over on the way home but that was only funny. It didn’t compare with the lavish expectations that she felt were overcoming her now.
    She went up to the farm to see about the shoes. She didn’t know Cedric’s sisters very well, but his mother was a homely old thing and always friendly and happy to help.
    ‘Just an old pair of sandals, nothing special. I’m not really a guest, just helping out.’
    ‘Make the most of it, my dear. Don’t let that boy put on you, you’re not his servant.’ Mrs Butterworth brought her a selection, mostly quite plain. She tried to make her take the smartest, but Lily chose the oldest and most comfortable.
    ‘I’ll bring them back tomorrow. It’s very kind of you.’
    ‘You can keep that pair. Amelia never wears them now.’
    ‘No. I’ll bring them back.’
    ‘Well, enjoy yourself, and be careful.’
    What did that mean? Lily wondered as she made her way back. The shoes were gloriously light and comfortable. She often went barefoot in the summer, depending where she was working, but these were so lovely that by the time she got back to the grotto she had decided that no, she wouldn’t take them back, not after she had been invited to keep them.
    It was getting hot, not a cloud in the sky. Up at the house, across the lake, she could see that more cars were arriving andfigures were idling on the terrace, some putting up tents in the gardens. Squashy was still over by the boats with Simon and John, whom she knew would take care of him, so she decided to have a last look at the grotto while it was still empty. Tonight it would be very different.
    They had spent so much time bringing it back to its former glory and this was the first time she had stepped into it alone without a bucket and scrubbing brush in her hand. The usual cold hand reached out as she walked along the narrow entrance towards the inner sanctum, but the walls even in the darkness seemed to sparkle as they never had before, and as the great inner cave opened up over her head she gasped at the sight: thousands of little coloured lights had been threaded through the stalactites and were shining now as if they were the stars themselves in the night sky. And the reflections of the lights doubled and trebled through all the convoluted surfaces of the grotto and in the spray of the cascades that tumbled down into great troughs where the stone mermaids and fabled monsters and fishes gambolled, scrubbed clean of green mould by her own hands over several weeks. She had never seen it with the lights turned on, although she had spent many hours there watching Simon and John at work on high ladders borrowed from the farm. A certain amount of daylight came in through cleverly concealed orifices amongst the leaves and verdancy that grew over the roof, but it had only served to fill the haunting space with a grey twilight. Lily had always found the place austere; she could never have imagined how glorious it might be now the lights seemed to laugh and twinkle like amillion friendly eyes: the place was quite transformed. She knew too that later there would be masses of candles, high up on the walls where the boys had made special sconces; they were in place, ready to be lit. Antony said they would warm the place as well as add scent and more light. The