by Lulu Taylor
‘I’ll miss you too.’ The thought of being away from him was agony. She buried her face in his chest, desperate to be close to him. When the taxi arrived and she climbed in, and the driver tucked her bag next to him on the front seat, she felt as though she were leaving her heart behind as Ralph stood on the lawn, wrapped up in his coat, waving at her.
‘Come back as soon as you can!’ he called after her.
‘I will, I will!’ She waved frantically out of the back window, unable to tear her eyes away from him until he finally vanished from sight behind the hedgerows.
The train journey was even more miserable than the ones she remembered from the end of their family holidays. She was leaving behind the man she loved in panic at the state of her mother’s health, the other person she loved most in the world. The telegram said so little, but her father would hardly send for her unless it were serious. Mama had taken many bad turns before now, but she had always pulled through. It chilled her that the summons had come like this. It could only mean that the situation was grave this time.
Oh Mama, she thought, staring out at the bleak wintery landscape flying past the window. What if death finally came to claim her this time? The thought made her chilly with fear and despair. What would happen to the family without Mama? Even though she had lain so ill upstairs, seemingly ineffectual, she’d actually anchored them together. Without her, they would have all fled their father. Her sweetness and love had kept Harry and Gus returning. It had kept Cressida at home, trying to comfort and care for her, and provide a buffer against her father’s bullying ways. If she was no longer there, would they all ricochet off into their own separate worlds?
I can’t bear to lose Mama. But as long as my world contains Ralph, I will survive.
It was late when the cab finally pulled up in front of the Kensington house. Ellen answered the door before she had time to knock – they had been looking out for her. Her father came out of the drawing room, his expression anxious, to greet her with a hug.
‘I’m so glad you’ve come,’ he said. ‘The boys are here too.’
Cressie handed her things to Ellen and went in. Her brothers were sitting by the fire, Harry white-faced and tense as he stared into the flames and Gus nervously twisting his fingers. They looked glad to see her and said their hellos in tones of relief, as if someone had at last arrived who could tell them what to do and how to act.
Cressida turned to her father, sombre in his dark suit, his white hair uncharacteristically mussed about as though he’d been clutching at his head in despair. ‘How is she?’
‘The doctor is with her now. But he has been most grave about Mama’s health. I’m afraid he’s begun to talk in terms of hours rather than days.’
Cressie gasped and seized the back of the sofa for support. ‘Hours! No!’
Her father nodded. He seemed bent over, weakened. ‘Yes, I’m afraid so. She’s sickened considerably. An infection in her lungs, apparently, and she lacks the strength to fight it.’ An agonised look crossed his face and she saw that his fingers were shaking.
She felt fury suddenly surge through her, and wanted to shake him and shout, It’s all very well to be sad now, when it’s too late! It’s all very well to be weak and frightened when she’s almost gone. What about when she was here with us? But she said nothing, just dropped her eyes and tried to absorb the terrible news.
Her mother was upstairs and dying. She might die tonight. She might be living her last few earthly hours and then she would be gone forever. Cressie’s heart hurt at the thought. No, she said to herself desperately. No, no. But she knew that nothing would stop the inexorable move towards her mother leaving them.
They sat down and waited for the doctor to descend, talking quietly as though they might disturb the patient with loud voices. Ellen brought tea but no one drank. The house was full of a grim foreboding, and a louring solemnity.
At last Ellen knocked on the door again and said, ‘The doctor would like you all to come up one by one, Miss Cressida first.’
Cressie looked at the others with frightened eyes, then stood up. ‘Very well,’ she said as bravely as she could. She longed to see her mother and yet she was also afraid that now, so close to death, she would be different. Unrecognisable. Perhaps Cressie would walk into the bedroom and discover that her mother was already gone. She didn’t know what she would do if it was a stranger lying there, dying in her mother’s bed.
She went up the stairs slowly. The doctor was just coming out, looking at the pocket watch he wore on the end of a chain.
‘Ah, good, she wants you,’ he said with small smile when he saw Cressie walking along the corridor. ‘Go in. She’s waiting.’
Cressie pushed open the door and saw the room inside, lit by lamps and almost cosy except for the sour smell of medicine and carbolic. A nurse was moving around quietly by the window, arranging bottles of medicine. The bed, lavishly made up in soft white linen, held her mother, most certainly the same person, except for the thinness of her face and the look of absence that was already creeping over her. She opened her eyes as Cressie came near.
‘My Cressie? Is that you?’ Her voice was creaky, as though it had not been used for a while.
‘Yes, Mama. I’m here.’ She went forward awkwardly, her eyes blurring with tears.
Her mother smiled. ‘Good. Come close. I can’t see you, my darling.’
Cressie sobbed, unable to stop herself. She took the thin hand her mother held out to her.
‘Now, don’t cry,’ said her mother in the same frail voice. ‘I don’t want to see my girl sad. I want to see you smile. Can you try to smile for me? I always loved your smile.’
Cressie tried to smile through her tears, attempting to pull up the corners of her wobbling mouth.
‘Now, that’s better.’ Her mother breathed slowly and deeply as though gathering the strength to speak again. At last she said, ‘My dearest Cressie, I’ve always wanted the best for you. I’d hoped to see you settled before I left you. But I’m so happy about what you told me. That you’re in love. You went away so suddenly . . .’
‘I’m sorry, Mama! I shouldn’t have left you,’ she said in a broken voice. She stroked the hand and kissed it. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Now, now, don’t be sorry. But tell me, were you with him? Your lover?’
Cressie nodded.
‘Good. And he loves you?’
She nodded again and said, ‘Yes. He does.’
Her mother sighed, a small smile on her lips. ‘I’m glad. I don’t want to leave you without knowing you’re loved.’ She breathed with an effort, closing her eyes for a moment, and then said, ‘Is he a good man?’
‘Very good. Kind. Gentle.’
‘Oh Cressie. I’m so happy. Thank you.’
Cressie bit her lip to stop the sobs that wanted to be free.
The cool, thin hand moved slightly in hers and her mother spoke again with an effort. ‘I know you’ll find your path. I want you to be free. Don’t let them keep you here, will you? They’ll want to. Papa will need you. He’ll try and make you stay but you’re not made to be imprisoned like I was.’
‘I’ll try,’ she whispered.
‘You’ll have this burden too – the knowledge that we women have to be stronger than men are, all through our lives. It feels unjust sometimes. But as long as you are loved, cherished and honoured . . . You must get back what you deserve and need. Promise you’ll never forget that.’
Cressie nodded, the world swimming in front of her tear-filled eyes, unable to speak. I am cherished. I am loved. ‘I promise.’
Her mother looked up at her and smiled weakly. ‘I think you need a little ballast against the world. You’ll face challenges the boys will never know. That’s why I want to leave December House to you.’
Cressie stared, surprised. ‘To me?’
Mama nodded. ‘Only to you. Your brothers will be well provided for, and I want the house to be your haven and your possession. You always loved it best a
nyway. This way, you can keep it always.’
‘Thank you, Mama,’ she whispered, deeply touched. The house had felt like hers over the last couple of weeks as she and Ralph had settled in. To know that it now would be her own, even at this dreadful cost, was a small comfort. ‘I promise to look after it.’
‘Kiss me, darling.’
Cressie leaned over and took her frail mother in her arms, feeling her bones through the paper-thin skin, and began to sob in earnest. She kissed her mother’s cheek and held her tightly. ‘Don’t leave us, Mama,’ she begged.
‘My darling, I would do anything to stay with you. But I don’t think I can. And at least there will be no pain.’ The soft voice diminished to a whisper. ‘I’m looking forward to being free of it.’
Cressie wept bitterly and only let go of her mother’s hand when the nurse gently freed it.
They all took their turn in the sick room. Afterwards, as though she were finally released from her duty, Mama sank into unconsciousness. At three in the morning, when Harry had fallen asleep on the sofa and Cressie was almost asleep herself, the nurse came down to summon them all.
Wide awake now, Cressie went up the stairs behind her father, followed by her brothers. In the sickroom, there was the rattling sound of the last breaths a person would take. Her mother was as white as the linen she lay on, her skin stretched thin over her face. They stood around her bed and looked at her. Papa took her hand, his expression shocked.
‘Priscilla,’ he said in a stricken voice.
Mama did not respond. The ghastly breathing became silent, started again and quietened again. Gradually the gaps between the breaths grew longer. At last, there was no breath at all. Her body relaxed. All pain left her face. Death had released her.
Cressie turned to Harry, who stood beside her, and threw her arms around him, crying, knowing that she had lost something precious and irreplaceable.
‘She is in heaven now,’ her father said solemnly. ‘And earthly woes cannot touch her. We should be happy, children, because she won’t suffer any more.’
Cressie wrote to Ralph to tell him she would stay in London until after the funeral. Then she would return to December House, which had now become hers. Ralph wrote back, sending all his love and comforting her in her sorrow. He missed her desperately but she must not hurry back on his account. He was painting and being looked after by Ursula. He would be fine until she was able to get back to him. She should stay with her family for as long as she needed to.
I long to get back. There’s nothing here for me now.
She clutched his letter to her as though she might be able to absorb something of his essence through it, but it was a miserable replacement for him. Every bit of her body yearned for him. He had awoken her and now she could not put her desires back to sleep. The grief and loss she felt only seemed to intensify them.
The funeral took place less than a week later. The arrangements had been in place for a long while and the service went exactly as Mama had planned. The rawness of Cressie’s sorrow seemed to have passed a little and she was able to feel some gladness that her mother had finally reached the end of a long and painful journey. Her father appeared broken by his loss and leaned on her throughout the day. She stood at his side when they welcomed the mourners into the house for the wake and stayed close by at all times. She knew he was going to resist her leaving but every day that passed away from Ralph was more difficult than the day before. Over the week, he wrote every day, posting a letter in the afternoon that she received the next day by second post. They were long letters, illustrated with pen-and-ink sketches of what he had seen that day that conjured up the house for her: its thick stone walls, the flagged floors, the deep fireplaces and the beamed ceilings. She saw the bleak January garden, bare and lifeless, and the hills rising darkly beyond, their peaks lost in the lowering grey sky. Her body ached for him with a physical hunger and she dreamed of their bed, soft, warm and delicious, rich with kisses and caresses. Her own lonely bed was comfortless without him. When she wept for her mother, she wanted only his arms around her.
Two more days perhaps, and I can go . . . Papa will have to let me. Besides, December House is mine now. He can’t keep me here any more.
But Papa showed every sign that he expected Cressida to remain at home, take Mama’s place and tend to his every need.
Cressie turned the corner into the street where the Fellbridge house stood, grand and imposing in a row of similarly grand and imposing houses. She had been on an errand for Ralph, buying some new brushes he’d asked for in his last letter, and she held the bag in one hand, her umbrella in the other, protection from the icy drizzle that fell miserably over the city. London, she thought, was particularly grim in this relentless drenching mist of rain.
As she neared the house, she saw the front door open and a figure step out of the house. It was a woman, in a long blue mackintosh, a shapeless thing. She was pulling a woollen hat over her hair as she stood for an instant on the steps and glanced up the road, but not in Cressie’s direction. A moment later, she went down the front steps and began hurrying away towards the other end of the street.
Cressie froze at the sight, clenching the umbrella handle as hard as she could, her breath coming in short fast pants.
Catherine!
It was certainly her; there was no mistaking the short dark curls, or the way she held herself.
But what was she doing at my house?
Cressie waited, breathless and shaking, until the figure had disappeared around the corner, and then she dashed along the wet pavement up to the front door and let herself in. Dropping her umbrella on the mat, she pulled off her coat, calling, ‘Papa? Are you here?’
‘Here,’ came a voice from the drawing room.
Cressie hurried in and came to a dead stop as she saw her father standing in front of the fireplace, staring up at the mantel. There, propped in front of the mirror, was the portrait of her. She gasped to see it. It seemed to come from another lifetime, that luminous image of her sitting in the Blackheath studio, the light falling upon her from the arched window. She remembered the view of the church, the shaggy garden with its tribe of birds, the ragged shrubbery. The portrait had caught her exactly but in a moment of unusual perfection: her hair glistening with reddish lights (she remembered Catherine’s tender touch as she’d lifted strands of hair into position), her skin dewy, her eyes deep and thoughtful. The pearls around her neck glimmered, and the white shirt flattered her, giving her a buccaneering edge that countered the feminine softness of her face. She remembered that the shirt contained a body that was partly hers, and partly Catherine’s. But there was something in the portrait she hadn’t seen before. Her right hand now held what looked like a silk scarf, in that bright, vibrant blue she had seen so often.
She heard Catherine’s voice in her mind: That’s my blue. My special colour. I mix it for him and he puts it into every painting.
There it was now, a blue scarf in her hand that was most certainly not there before. And as she gazed at it in horror, she noticed that it was speckled with dark red spots that looked like flecks of blood.
‘It’s very fine,’ her father said, turning to her with a smile, the first she’d seen since Mama died. ‘Few was right, the boy is talented. I like it enormously; he’s caught you just as I see you. What do you think?’
‘Very good.’ Her voice was light and airy as she fought for breath. ‘Yes. I’m glad it’s finished at last.’
‘No frame yet,’ her father said. ‘The young lady said she would send me some recommendations for framers. But she thought I would like to have the portrait now. And of course, she wanted me to settle the bill. I was happy to. I like the painting immensely. Perhaps you would like to find a framer, Cressida. I know you’re talking about going back to Cumbria, but surely a few more days—’
She interrupted. ‘Papa, the young woman . . . Mrs Few. Did she ask after me?’
‘Of course. She expressed her condolences for our loss
– she’d read about it in The Times apparently – and said that she quite understood why you hadn’t been in touch with them lately.’
‘Did she . . .’ Cressie’s hands were shaking. ‘Did she ask where I am? How she might see me?’
‘Yes,’ her father said. ‘But I told her that you weren’t likely to be here for much longer as you intended to continue your holiday in order to recover from recent events.’
Recent events . . . as though losing Mama is like a dose of flu.
‘But’ – she tried to hide the desperation in her voice – ‘did you tell her where I’m going?’
Her father frowned, hooking his thumbs in his waistcoat pocket. ‘Do you know, I can’t remember. She did say how much she loved the Cumbrian scenery, so perhaps I did. Did we mention the house? I can’t say I quite recall. What does it matter? Perhaps she wishes to write to you there, a letter of sympathy or some such.’
She wanted to howl with frustration and make him remember. I have to know what she knows! But if I can’t . . . ‘Papa, I have to leave today, I’m awfully sorry. I must get back.’
‘Today?’ Her father look startled. ‘What on earth is the rush, Cressida? Leave today to get back to that empty place in the middle of nowhere? I simply do not understand.’
‘Please, Papa, I feel the strain of losing Mama, everything that happened last year . . . I need the peace and calm to recover, just as you said. You know that.’ She tried to damp down the urgency in her voice but with every second that passed, the greater her need to get back to Ralph became. Catherine knew, she was sure of it. It was a question of what she did with the knowledge. And Ralph and Cressie had to be together to face her, there was no doubt about it.
Her father sighed. ‘Very well. I can’t keep you here forever, I know that. But I insist that you stay for lunch. The Gladwells are coming and I need you here. Perhaps you could go tomorrow.’
‘Today,’ Cressie said simply. ‘After lunch if I must. But I’ll leave today.’