Wild Lily by K M Peyton Read Free Book Online

and hearty son like Cedric.
    ‘All my schoolfriends will come to the party and Helena will be queen. That’s the idea.’
    ‘Can I come?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And Squashy?’
    ‘Yes.’
    If all his schoolfriends were coming, Lily thought that she and Squashy would melt into the crowd and not be noticed – what a relief! Her contact with Antony’s Eton friends in the past had not endeared them to her. None of them had treated her like a human being. That’s why she loved Antony so; in spite of all the teasing she knew he respected her.
    ‘Will you ask Melanie Marsden?’
    ‘Yes, of course.’
    ‘I hate you.’
    He laughed.
    The punt approached the high rocks of the grotto and the boys paddled for the opening of the tunnel between them. The water was too deep for the quant and went dark as the punt drifted into the shadow of the overhanging trees. It was cold suddenly to Lily’s hands, and she withdrew them and sat up with a shiver. It was creepy, this approach, no sun ever penetrating this entrance. She had never come by boat before. The sun shone on the other side.
    The punt scrunched up against the landing and they all piled out. Squashy tied the mooring rope onto a tree trunk and Barky peed on it. They all laughed.
    ‘Bags you cast off, Squashy!’
    ‘I don’t want to go in.’
    ‘You needn’t, Squashy,’ Lily said quickly. ‘You can wait here in the sun. Look after the boat.’
    ‘Yes, we’d rather.’ Squashy sat down on the landing with hisarm round Barky, and Antony fished for the key in his pocket and unlocked the grille.
    The boys had brought torches so the entrance was well lit by the stabbing beams, a large arched cave quite high at the front, lined entirely with silver shells that twinkled in the torchlight. From the roof stalactites hung down, spearlike, also glistening with that looked like pearls, and on one wall water ran down into a large basin where stone mermaids lay intertwined round the rim.
    The sound of the dropping water was magnified by the acoustics and echoes, it seemed, from a far distance.
    Antony’s torch picked out the opening of a passage at the back of the cave. ‘This is the way.’
    Lily wished she was out in the sunshine with Squashy and Barky, but she hadn’t the courage to back out in front of the boys who were pressing eagerly into what looked to Lily like the entrance into Hades. It did in fact run downhill. Are we under the lake, she wondered, where the water was so deep and dark and creepy? It was all she could do to force her steps to follow them. The gritty silver walls grazed her arms; she kept her eyes on the rays of the torchlight ahead of her.
    The passage opened out into what was obviously the heart of the grotto, a large round room positively glittering with the silver shells that covered every bit of rock and all the ornate fountains and niches that lined the walls. Strange stone statues leered from the niches, half-saint, half-monster, with gargoyle faces, swathed in cloaks of coloured stones and with hollow eyes that stared unseeing at this crude invasion. Morefountains played against the walls and fell into basins, again occupied by mermaids and grotesque fish. The torches flashed here and there making the figures seem to move, coming forwards and retreating into darkness, and the hollow noise of the falling water drowned their voices which – Lily was pleased to note – were stifled with unease.
    Only Antony was his ebullient self. ‘This will be the party room, lit by masses of candles. Just think of it – the look, all glittering and the food laid out and lots to drink, and then – a summer’s night – swimming in the lake, lying in the punts looking at the stars. We’ll choose the full moon nearest the longest day …’
    ‘Does your father know your plans?’
    ‘No, of course not. He’s going to be in South America.’
    ‘How will you pay for it?’
    ‘On his account. He won’t notice.’
    ‘Crikey,’ said John.
    Lily noticed that