The Land of Summer

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘I had no idea you were not well, Mrs Aubrey,’ Bray said with concern. ‘I trust it is something from which you will soon be recovered?’

  ‘A passing affliction, Mr Ashcombe,’ Emmaline replied. ‘One I am assured will be cured by rest and sea air.’

  ‘Before you go away, Mrs Aubrey,’ Bray said, ‘I wonder whether you would have time to look at these and let me know what you think of them. I’m sure they are the sort of thing that will appeal to you.’

  He handed her a sealed envelope which contained the page pulls of her verses, an enclosure about which, Emmaline devoutly hoped, his muse, Miss Lamb, did not know anything.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Ashcombe,’ she said, putting the envelope safely beside her. ‘I shall look forward to reading these – they are short stories?’

  ‘Indeed, Mrs Aubrey. You will find them most entertaining. And you have not yet told me whether you will be going away for very long?’

  ‘I am to go to Cornwall, Mr Ashcombe, to a house belonging to my husband’s family. It is called Gorran Lodge, somewhere on a place called the Roseland Peninsula,’ Emmaline replied, and immediately wondered why her visitor had changed colour. ‘Now, what is wrong? You look as though you have seen a ghost. Is this the effect Cornwall has on people? If so I think I shall change my mind, and stay at home.’

  ‘Forgive me, Mrs Aubrey,’ Bray said hurriedly, recovering his composure. ‘It – it is just that that is exactly where my – my sister has gone to recuperate. And I have every intention of going down to Cornwall to visit her at Christmas.’

  ‘That really is a coincidence, Mr Ashcombe,’ Emmaline replied, herself considerably heartened by the knowledge that there would be at least one good acquaintance of hers staying not very far from her in the unknown county of Cornwall. ‘Who knows?’ she added. ‘Perhaps we may even meet during the holiday. Now, if you will excuse me, Mr Ashcombe, I am in the middle of preparing to leave.’

  Emmaline rose to show the meeting was at an end, at which both Bray and his companion did the same.

  ‘Just one other thing, Mrs Aubrey, before I take my departure,’ Bray said. ‘These – these stories I have brought for you to read. I hope you do not mind them in proof form – but if you would rather wait, the first copies of the published book should be in the shops in a matter of days.’

  ‘I see,’ Emmaline replied, getting the message. ‘Of course I would eventually like to see the stories in their final form, so perhaps when you come to Cornwall you might bring a copy then – and somehow I am sure we can contrive to make sure I see it.’

  She smiled, and Bray smiled back, taking her words as an invitation to go and visit her on the Roseland Peninsula – which indeed, in view of the time she was probably going to be spending there, was precisely how Emmaline had hoped Mr Ashcombe would take them.

  Chapter Ten

  IT WAS A long and a tiring journey, first by coach from Bamford to Bath and from there by Great Western locomotive to the busy stannary town of Truro, a town which had grown so prosperous from tin and copper mining that in 1877 it had been accorded city status, even though the cathedral was only very recently completed. The journey by rail from Bath to Truro took over six hours, since the train stopped at every station along the line, so to help pass the time Emmaline gave Agnes the reading lesson of her life, before reading out loud to her from the book on Cornwall that Bray Ashcombe had sent up to Park House for Emmaline just before they left.

  ‘It seems it was Truro’s position close to the convergence of the Truro and Fal rivers that made it so important both as a river port and a tin-mining centre, Aggie. That and the fact that it was one of the stannary towns, which I gather means tin had to be brought to the city for official testing and stamping until the last century. Anyway, by all accounts it has been a very prosperous and indeed fashionable town, so we are not going to be stuck away in a totally uncivilised neck of the woods, thanks be.’

  ‘I never been so far from home, madam,’ Agnes said, looking wistfully out of the window as the train slowly passed through a vast cutting made of long unbroken banks of sand and clay. ‘It’s like I imagine a foreign country might be, is this, it really is.’

  ‘It will possibly seem even more foreign once we get into the countryside itself. From what I have seen from our carriage, it is somewhat under-populated. It seems so strange to me to see so few people on stations, or in villages and towns, as you can imagine.’

  However, Truro itself was busy enough, they noted, as they alighted from the train and searched the long line of carriages waiting outside the station for one bearing the Aubrey crest on its doors.

  Sure enough, near the head of the queue, Agnes soon identified a hansom drawn by a single tired-looking and aged grey gelding which had turned shock white with age, the animal dozing in its shafts with its nosebag still in place while an equally tired-looking coachman sat also half asleep on his box, most of him buried beneath a thick green wool rug.

  Once woken by Agnes and reminded of his task, the driver took his passengers on the last fifteen-mile leg of what turned out finally to be an eleven-hour journey, decanting the two by now utterly exhausted young women at the front door of a house set at the end of a long tree-lined drive at the top of a winding lane that led nowhere else. There was an oil lamp stuck on a pole outside the door, blazing a welcome in the darkness of a moonless night, while Emmaline could hear the pounding of waves on sand far below them, and smell salt on the stiff sea breeze.

  The door was opened to them at last by a large red-cheeked woman with a shock of hair as white as the coat on the carriage horse and a smile as broad as a half-moon.

  ‘Well, you poor dears!’ she exclaimed. ‘You must as be a-cryin’ out aloud for some’at to eat and some’at warm to drink, my poor dears, after your journey – so come you in, come you in and be welcome at Gorran Lodge. We got a fine supper waitin’ on you,’ she continued as she bustled them into a hallway lit by a roaring log fire, the coachman following behind with the luggage. ‘And we got stones in your beds and fresh linen to sleep in so don’t you worry about one more thing now, you hear me? After a journey like that, what you’ll want is some’at good and warm inside of you and somewhere good and warm to rest your heads.’

  In a dark-panelled dining room warmed by yet another roaring fire, blazing with bone-dry whitened logs that had drifted up on sandy beaches, and lit by a dozen thick-waxed candles that stuttered and fluttered and danced in the draughts that sneaked round heavy dark red velvet curtains, Emmaline and Agnes sat and ate a supper of thick pea soup and home-made bread, fresh chicken roasted in butter and herbs with big floury potatoes and large succulent carrots, and the most delicious home-cooked apple pie dotted with thick Cornish cream of which two weary travellers could have dreamed. Across Emmaline’s button-booted feet a large rangy lurcher with a salt-and-pepper coat slept, his tail occasionally flicking and his whiskers twitching as he dreamed, while on Agnes’s knee, out of sight and much to Agnes’s delight, sat a large and deeply contented cat, entirely black except for the very end of its tail, which was as white as if it had just been dipped in a paint pot. Mrs Carew, their welcoming cook and hostess, hovered between the table and her many ovens.

  When they had finally finished their dinner, Emmaline felt as if she must be already a little better, for not only did she feel restored physically, but ever since she had crossed the threshold of Gorran Lodge she had felt better in both her head and her heart, as if a weapon that had been stuck in her side and constantly twisted had been inexplicably removed and the wound miraculously healed.

  ‘Have you always lived in Cornwall, Mrs Carew?’ Emmaline asked as Agnes helped the good lady to clear.

  ‘Always have, never been anywhere else and never want to, my dear, not ever. When you have the good luck to be born in Cornwall, that is where you stay, my dear, and that is God’s own truth.’

  Emmaline stared around at the brass pots hanging on the walls, at the large cream jugs in different sizes range
d across the wooden surfaces, together with the vast cream-coloured baking bowls. From the ceiling hung herbs in bunches, swaying slightly when the draught from the fire made itself felt, or when a larder door was opened as Mrs Carew went to fetch some fresh butter, or some newly prepared dish that had to be put back into one of several ovens.

  Here was a room where fishermen, their wet things removed, could sit and talk of months away at sea, months when they must have dreamed of just such a winter evening when it seemed that neither wind, nor rain, nor storms, could come between them and the joys of home.

  ‘My husband, God rest his soul, was taken at sea, some ten years ago, and so it was that I came to work for Mr Aubrey senior here. It is a sad fact that I would rather have worked for a family that had made Cornwall their home, but beggars can’t be choosers, and certain it is that widows can’t be either. Now, my dears, would you help yourself to more of my apple pie? There’s cream there, and plenty of it too.’

  Emmaline smiled up at Mrs Carew, and in that moment it seemed to her that the housekeeper was an angel dropped from heaven. The last thing she wanted was another helping of apple pie, but seeing the hope in Mrs Carew’s face she could not disappoint her, even if it meant leaving off her stays the following morning.

  By the time Agnes had helped her undress, both of them concealing yawns, and neither of them able to keep their eyes open, Emmaline knew she was about to fall into probably the deepest sleep she had ever known. It did not seem possible that her life could be transformed in such a short time, in a matter of less than a day, that in that moment of night-time arrival it had seemed to her that all her troubles were not simply forgotten, but quite disappeared.

  She brushed her hair one last time, and then, mindful of nothing but the peace of the house she now found herself in, the sound of the sea almost inaudible in the distance of the night now the tide was running out, and the gentle zephyr that carried on its breath the salty tang of the ocean, she slid down beneath the warm, fresh linen sheets, even as Agnes blew out the candle beside her sweetly smelling bed.

  For a minute or two, as Emmaline lay in the darkness, she thought she had left behind all the anxieties of Park House, the concerns of the town, the disquiet of her mind. Then she suddenly sat up, remembering.

  She had left her precious notebook behind. She leaned forward to light the candle beside her bed, and watched the dancing lights from the small bedroom fire making patterns on the ceiling. Why did it matter that she had left the notebook behind? The poems were copied. It mattered not a whit. Julius would be going away soon, he would not bother to look about the bedroom. Besides, Mrs Graham would have tidied the room, and she knew that it belonged in Emmaline’s desk. She would lock it in there, as always, and place the key in the spills vase by the chimneypiece. Emmaline blew out the candle once more, and settled herself to sleep, comforted by the memory of Mrs Graham’s meticulous habits, convinced that that was what she would do.

  But Mrs Graham had done no such thing. Indeed, since it was the end of the year, Emmaline was hardly gone before the housekeeper began to help Cook to prepare for the many complications that Christmas always brought, not to mention finishing all her own small hand-made gifts in time to post them off to all her nephews and nieces.

  In fact, as always with the departure of the mistress of the house, Emmaline’s absence gave the servants time to catch up on all those other tasks which they had not been able to accomplish in the aftermath of her illness, when their time had been taken up with the comings and goings of bringing and fetching trays, answering doctor’s calls, and other small duties that nevertheless accumulated in such a way as to leave other matters outstanding.

  As for Emmaline, it was understandable that in all the confusions and tribulations, and the turmoil and disorder of the days preceding her departure, she had not noticed that she had dropped the notebook, that no one had picked it up. It was all very understandable, just as it was understandable that in the chaos of packing, of things put in and things put out, of suitcases opened and suitcases shut, no cleaning or dusting had taken place. Mrs Graham judged that the dust and the dirt coming from suitcases stored in attics should be given time to settle, just as the servants needed time to settle once the carriage had finally driven off with the invalid and her maid.

  Besides, in her mind’s eye Emmaline had put away her notebook for the moment, as a pupil once term is over will put away her school books. Writing the poems had been a way of getting her through what had seemed to be the endless maze of her misery. Now that she seemed to have found her way out of that maze to a new country, in a new house, away from Julius and all the torment that lay between them, she never gave it another thought.

  Emmaline’s departure from Park House brought a feeling of relief not just to her, but also to Julius, for it seemed to him that her illness had changed her character. It made him feel guilty to see her so pale and listless, to see how the servants looked at him with accusing eyes as if they blamed him for everything that had happened to her, for her unhappiness, as if they knew that the only happiness that had come into her married life had been brought by them. So with Emmaline no longer present, he fully expected a lifting of his spirits, a diminution of the guilt that washed over him in the presence of the object of his dishonourable behaviour.

  After a solitary dinner that night he retired to his study, where Wilkinson, unprompted, brought him a large brandy and a cigar.

  ‘Ah, thank you, Wilkinson. Put them down there, would you?’

  Wilkinson did as indicated, placing the glass and the ashtray at Julius’s elbow, and cutting the end of the cigar before holding a match for his master.

  ‘Is there anything more, sir?’

  Julius looked up at him briefly. ‘I don’t think so, Wilkinson.’ He stared into the fire, sipping his brandy, and wondering that he could see nothing of interest in the shapes and sparks of the fire. When he was a little boy he had been able to see the universe.

  There was a small silence.

  ‘So I take it that will be all, sir.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course, Wilkinson, unless you can think of something?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Wilkinson made a small bow, and went to the door. As he reached it, Julius turned.

  ‘I don’t suppose they have the telephone in Cornwall yet, do they, Wilkinson?’

  ‘No, I believe they do not, sir. I am sure it will come in time, but Cornwall is rather far away, sir.’

  ‘Yes, it is indeed, another country,’ Julius agreed, wondering why he did not feel the expected relief that Emmaline and Agnes were there, far away, instead of upstairs doing whatever it was that women did when they were in their bedrooms with their maids all the livelong day. ‘So we should not expect to hear from Mrs Aubrey, except by post.’

  ‘No, sir.’ Wilkinson cleared his throat. He was only too glad for the poor young woman’s sake that she was away from Park House at last. ‘Will that be all, sir?’

  ‘Yes, Wilkinson, thank you. Thank you, Wilkinson. Dinner was excellent tonight, please tell Mrs Field.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. Cook will be gratified.’

  Wilkinson closed the door. Cook would not only be gratified, she would be astonished. It was the first time for all too long, she had announced to no one in particular, that all the removes at dinner had not come back down again virtually untouched. Of course it was not true, but it was certainly true that Mrs Aubrey had only a light appetite, and what with Mr Aubrey being away, or in a bad mood, there was no doubt that the food had not been appreciated the way it should.

  In his study Julius sighed, finished his drink, and threw his half-smoked cigar into the fire. It did not taste as it usually did, and it was not bringing him any kind of relief or relaxation. He poured himself another brandy, and started to drink it too fast, realising from the way the windows were rattling that the weather had turned. He put down his drink and, feeling claustrophobic and in need of fresh air, he went to the front door. Pushing i
t open, he stepped outside to see for himself how strongly the winter wind was blowing, and how the rain that had begun to fall had now turned to driven sleet, before shutting himself back in the house and wandering upstairs, where he eventually found himself standing outside Emmaline’s bedroom, staring at the door as if he expected her to be on the other side, or that she would suddenly open it to find him there smelling of brandy and cigars, his hair awry from being outside.

  Afraid that for some unknown reason there might be a servant inside, he knocked on the door before he opened it. So strong was her presence about this part of the house, about the room where she slept, he half expected her to be sitting up in bed, her lustrous brown hair brushed out, outlining her always pale, sad and beautiful face, her hands folded in front of her on her sheets, her eyes holding his as he stood at the door – but the bed was empty, although untidy from the packing and the chaos of departure, a shawl still hanging casually from the bedpost, a hat box on the floor beside it, obviously abandoned at the last minute.

  Candlestick in hand, Julius looked round. It was a gloomy room at the best of times, made gloomier by his father’s refusal to bring either gas or electricity to the upstairs rooms, but somehow her character had coloured and inhabited it, her things set about it as if in defiance of the heavy furniture, the dark red curtains, the endless coverings of chimneypieces and tables that his father and his generation so favoured. Julius wanted to rip everything in the room out and start all over again, make it as she would have surely chosen, light and elegant, with delicate feminine touches.

  He sat down on the bed and draped the shawl around his hands, staring down at it. It was filled with her scent, one she used sparingly but which he now realised had a hint of sophistication in it, as if in Emmaline’s choice of fragrance there was another hidden part of her character that he had never noted, or wanted to note.