The Land of Summer

by Charlotte Bingham

  Emmaline sat down slowly, shocked, remembering how frightened she was, and how repulsive the feel of that mouth on hers had suddenly seemed. She looked up at Julius. Was there so much in a kiss? There must be. She had just kissed Julius and it had been different from anyone else’s kiss. It had been the kind of kiss that leads to another and another, the kind of kiss that needs no biology book to explain what might happen next. She frowned. Was this then what love was? She looked up at him in understandable bewilderment.

  ‘What will happen next, Julius?’

  Julius looked away. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, moving towards the drawing-room window. ‘What should happen next is Christmas, but that is not possible now, is it?’

  Emmaline frowned, and then, to the astonishment of both of them, she heard herself say, ‘I do not for the life of me see why not.’

  So Christmas was celebrated in some style at Gorran Lodge, if only for the benefit of Mrs Carew and Agnes, although it seemed to both Julius and Emmaline that, forced as they were to pretend, for their sakes, that it was a joyous time, it was far merrier than they could have thought possible. The roast goose was one that Mrs Carew had fattened herself, the many side dishes were delicious, and even Emmaline, who could not have supposed that after so many shocks she could have swallowed even a mouthful, enjoyed every morsel.

  The following day Julius took his leave of her. ‘You will stay here to get better,’ he said, and it was not a question.

  ‘Yes, Julius.’

  He cleared his throat, one eye on the waiting carriage outside. ‘I have made all the arrangements for my brother to be buried in France, going from here at the first opportunity. He will be buried beside our mother, whose fault it was that he was as he was.’ As Emmaline looked up at him, surprised, he went on ‘I was not expected, you see. My old nurse told me I arrived an hour later, to the great and horrified shock of my mother, who had to go through the same labour again. I do not think, in all candour, that she ever forgave me, nor was she able to share the first love that she had felt with the first son with another.’

  Emmaline went to put a hand on his arm, so affected did she feel by this revelation, but Julius had moved away from her towards the drawing-room door.

  ‘I do not expect you to forgive me for the suffering I have caused you, Emma, but I do so hope that in time you will come to understand that I have been more the victim of sin than the sinner. Goodbye, my Emma.’

  He was gone before she could reply, and for a few seconds she remained where she was before going to the window and watching the carriage leaving the short carriage drive and turning awkwardly into the country road beyond.

  Julius was right. She could not be expected to forgive him. He had made her suffer too much, but in time, if he was right, perhaps he could be expected to receive her understanding?

  A few days later Mrs Carew came to the drawing-room door with an announcement.

  ‘It’s that madman again, Mrs Aubrey. You don’t want him coming in here, do you, my dear? Seeing that he is mad, and come on that dreadful hireling of his too, and unannounced I’ll be bound!’ She frowned at Emmaline, looking more like a member of the Praetorian guard than a housekeeper.

  ‘Oh dear, if he has come to visit, perhaps I had better see him,’ Emmaline said, after a pause, sighing.

  ‘Well, don’t let him tire you. You are tired enough, heaven only knows, my dear, heaven only knows.’

  There was the sound of a scuffle in the hall, as if Mrs Carew was holding back a large dog, and in a moment a dishevelled-looking Bray Ashcombe appeared at the drawing-room door.

  ‘I do declare,’ he said, looking back at the closing door, ‘I do declare that your goodly housekeeper does not think much of me, Emmaline – Mrs Aubrey.’

  He stopped, shocked by Emmaline’s appearance.

  ‘You look dreadful,’ he said tactlessly. ‘Were you made ill over Christmas?’

  ‘No, no, it is not Christmas that has made me ill, Bray,’ Emmaline told him in a weary voice. ‘It is life, my life in particular.’ She indicated for him to sit down. ‘You have always been most sympathetic to my circumstances, and, as it turns out, with good reason.’

  Bray leaned forward to take her hands in his, but Emmaline shook her head.

  ‘No, please, you must understand that there is a certain decorum to be followed. I am a married woman, even if in name only.’

  Bray stared at her, not understanding. ‘There must be something I can do to help you,’ he said in a genuinely compassionate voice.

  ‘Oh, there is,’ Emmaline admitted. ‘There is. You can listen to me, be my friend. I am so much in need of friendship. Indeed, if it were not for Mrs Carew here, and my dear little Aggie, and this beautiful place, I think I might have taken my own life, so despairing have I become.’

  ‘But this is terrible—’

  ‘Oh, it is more terrible than I can admit, even to you.’ Emmaline sighed. ‘It all began, you understand, with the misfortune of being the oldest of four sisters. I had an obligation to marry, or rather my father had an obligation to marry me off, and so it seems he did, to Julius Aubrey, and that is how I came to England, and that is the start of all my unhappiness.’ She shook her head suddenly. ‘I cannot tell you more. It is too distressing, and too shaming.’

  She had never looked more ethereal, as if a light breeze would take her off. Bray felt desperate. He was not used to dealing with real emotion, only the poetic variety, and now he was faced with the real thing he wanted to get back on his hireling and gallop off. Instead, he took up the book of poems by a Lady.

  ‘See what you have here? You have a work of great beauty that will be read by many, a work of such beauty that no one who reads this slender volume can ever come away unaffected. You must see.’ He leaned forward, trying to take her hands again, but once again Emmaline rebuffed him. ‘You must see that your suffering has not been for naught. Here is something good that has come out of your misery, here is something deep and true. I have told you – these are enviable. I envy them!’

  Emmaline stared at him. He was such a boy still, so transparent.

  ‘You have been a guiding star to my own creativity, a muse to me these last months. Seeing how much you suffered has deepened me, I am sure of it.’

  Emmaline nodded. It might be true.

  ‘There is something more that could deepen you further, Bray,’ she said in a kindly voice, after a short pause during which he looked at her questioningly. ‘You could marry your “sister” and put her out of your misery. You could marry Arabella, before the birth of your child, and make an honest woman of her. It would be a happy outcome for one of your many muses.’

  Bray stood up, quite put out.

  ‘I, er – I, er – I cannot marry Arabella,’ he said. ‘It would be wrong to marry.’ He walked down the room. ‘After all, if I marry her, she might spend the rest of her life thinking that I married her for the sake of the baby.’

  ‘I can think of many circumstances that would be much worse than that,’ Emmaline told him in a suddenly lightened voice, and then her tone changed, and she too stood up. ‘Can you not understand that all the misery I have suffered comes, as the Bible has so often told us, from the sins of the past? Will you not understand that I am the victim of my husband’s past, of my father’s past, of everything that has gone before, ancient shibboleths to do with the subjection of women, old familial customs to do with traditions that should long have been shaken off? Is Arabella to be spurned and your child not even allowed a baptism because of illegitimacy?’

  Bray sighed long and hard. ‘Must I become a carriage horse? Must I draw the carriage for the rest of my life? Must I give up my muses?’

  Emmaline stared at him. ‘Yes, Bray, I am afraid you must.’ She picked up the book of poetry and flung it into the fire. ‘What is this compared to human life? Nothing!’

  To say that Bray looked as if he had been hit would be to say the least of it, but very shortly afterwards he became Arabella�
��s husband in a short service in a little nearby chapel, and, the union having been blessed, Mrs Carew, Agnes and Emmaline held a small wedding feast for them back at Gorran Lodge. It was a happy occasion, made a great deal happier not long afterwards by the safe delivery of a baby boy, brought into the world by the now sober doctor who had so reluctantly attended Julius’s unmourned dead brother.

  Every morning and every evening Julius looked at Wilkinson with the same pretence of not caring whether or not there was any post from Cornwall, and every evening and every morning Wilkinson looked back at him with the expression of someone who was as bad at hiding that he had bad news for his master.

  ‘Nothing from Cornwall, I don’t suppose, Wilkinson?’

  ‘Nothing from Cornwall, no, sir. But there is a letter from Canada.’

  Julius nodded. His sister. She wrote to him sometimes. It was always the same letter. The weather. The children. Her husband. Or, sometimes, her husband, the children, and the weather. She had not been able to travel to France for any of the family funerals, so now it seemed she was overcome with guilt, and felt that Julius needed cheering up, which he did, but not for the reasons that she imagined.

  Dining alone, night after night, having to appreciate Cook’s efforts, going to his club some nights, drinking more than was good for him. It had been the same for weeks now. At least the weather was getting better. He stared out of the window. And Ralph was more than happy with the orders coming in from America, and the Parhams were more than happy with the state visit of the Queen, and she had been more than gracious about the improvements to Hartley. All in all, he should have been a happy man, but a lovesick lonely man was not a happy man, and he was all of that, and everyone around him knew it.

  If only she would write to him, let him know something of how she was feeling, how she was going on, but he heard only from Mrs Carew, and her letters were about as illuminating as those of his sister.

  Mrs Aubrey was going along very well. The spring weather was warm. Agnes was going along very well. She had made a cake for Easter, which being that it was so early this year they had celebrated with spring lamb, and all the daffodils were out.

  Julius found he was treasuring Mrs Carew’s letters with the same assiduousness with which he might have cherished the letters of his beloved Emma, if she had written to him.

  How the days dragged, when he was not at business, and the nights when he was not at his club. He occupied himself at these times with reorganising the house, banishing all the paintings that had been his father’s, repainting the drawing room in Emmaline’s chosen apricot, watching the eight coats of paint being put on, as if he was a little boy again and fascinated by workmen, talking to the painter all the time as he watched him, as lonely people do.

  ‘It will take time, sir,’ Mrs Graham told him, once or twice, and they both knew what she was referring to. ‘Time is the great healer.’

  But time had not healed Julius of his love for his Emma, so why, he wondered, should it bring her back to him?

  And then one day just as he had returned to Park Lodge resolved to sell the place, to start all over again in some out-of-town country house where he would have no memory of anything except the present, Wilkinson presented him with a letter, and it was from Cornwall.

  Wilkinson immediately plunged down to the basement with the news.

  ‘Well, thank the Lord for that,’ Mrs Graham exclaimed as she sat at the top of the servants’ table serving soup, and Mr Wilkinson took his place at the bottom of the table opposite her. ‘Any more misery upstairs and I was about to hand in my notice.’

  She had hardly finished speaking when a voice bellowed downstairs.

  ‘Wilkinson! Wilkinson! Come up here at once!’

  Wilkinson stood up, reluctantly, his napkin tucked into his collar, and ran up the servants’ stairs to the hall.

  Julius was standing in the hall. His face was alight with emotion.

  ‘Wilkinson, she is coming home! She is coming back, for her birthday! June,’ he said distractedly. ‘Her birthday is in June. The roses will be out. We must start at once, to make everything as beautiful as is perfectly possible for her!’

  Wilkinson was at pains not to look moved by the news.

  ‘Very well, sir, but might I first finish my soup?’

  Everything that was ever known to be a favourite of Emmaline’s now came into play. Her favourite colours for the bedroom. (Her favourite colour in the drawing room was already present.) Her favourite scents, her favourite flowers – white roses – her favourite books of poetry, sent in by Mr Hunt of course. Miss Lamb, no longer a muse to poets, but a publisher’s wife, brought the books in specially, and set them about Emmaline’s bedroom with a reverence that was most speaking.

  ‘This is particularly her favourite,’ she told an attentive Julius.

  Julius opened the slim volume by a Lady, and then quickly shut it. He knew those verses all too well.

  ‘I will put that downstairs,’ he said. ‘On the centre table in the drawing room. They are very beautiful, too beautiful to leave up here.’

  The new Mrs Tully nodded. ‘I am so glad you think that,’ she told him. ‘I have learned some of them by heart. They speak so movingly of the human condition.’

  Julius moved quickly away. There was still so much to do. The musicians to be hired, her favourite music to be played, the drawing-room furniture to be set about in such a way that dancing could happen quite naturally after a splendid dinner set about with her favourite dishes.

  And then there was the new worry. Would her carriage arrive on time? Would the train bringing her from Cornwall crash? Would she be quite well?

  ‘Dresses! What dresses does she like?’

  He stared distractedly at Mrs Graham, who was trying not to look tired out with his endless flustering.

  ‘Leave that to me, sir. Mrs Shannon helped her with everything before the wedding. I am sure she will be of a great assistance now.’

  * * *

  Mrs Shannon could not wait to be of assistance. Together with Mrs Graham, she sent for the top dressmakers and their models, and for several afternoons the good ladies were shown the most fashionable day gowns and evening gowns of the season, the most delicious-looking confections produced for their delectation. Gowns of silk and lace, the cut of which were positively faint-inducing.

  ‘I don’t know what it is but I have only to see such beautiful gowns and I feel in need of sal volatile,’ Mrs Shannon confessed.

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ Mrs Graham agreed, and having made a list of the chosen gowns, and their prices, she presented them to her master.

  Julius gave the list a peremptory glance, hardly taking in anything, so distracted was he by choosing Emmaline’s favourite music with the leading musician.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course, have them all sent up.’

  ‘All, sir?’ Mrs Graham asked, astonished.

  ‘Yes, of course, all of them.’

  There was a short pause.

  ‘But is there room upstairs, sir?’

  Julius looked at her. ‘Well, if not, we will just have to make room, Mrs Graham. Mrs Aubrey must have everything. Everything!’

  He went back to choosing music with the musician, and having done so he hurried out to the telephone room to telephone through to the jeweller that Ralph had recommended. And so to Park House came the jeweller with his large leather boxes, and Julius who had impeccable taste chose a sapphire and diamond set to go with Emmaline’s eyes, and that was all before he ordered her a new carriage and a matching pair of greys to pull it.

  ‘It will be a motorised vehicle soon, mark my words,’ Wilkinson opined, trying to look disapproving, while all around him flew in every direction to make ready for the great arrival.

  Emmaline was now not just healthy, she was blooming. The Cornish spring coming early as it did, as early as the weather in the south of France, and quite as clement, had meant that her skin had taken on the colour of a peach, and her figure had filled out m
ost becomingly – a fact which in view of all the new gowns gave Mrs Graham a momentary attack of nerves, which fortunately proved to be unnecessary, for as it transpired she had only regained her weight.

  ‘Julius.’

  Emmaline looked round at all the smiling faces. It had been a long journey, broken by an overnight stay, arranged by Julius, so that she could arrive as he called it ‘bandbox fresh’.

  ‘Emma.’

  Now it was Julius who was the pale one as he showed her round all the alterations, and took her upstairs to see all that he had accomplished there, before leaving her to choose a dress to go with the birthday necklace, which he presented to her with a shy bow, and for which he received a long and quite public kiss.

  Julius tore himself away from her to make sure of all the arrangements, and then leapt up the stairs to his dressing room, no longer the gloomy place it had once been, with Wilkinson in attendance to help him do up his white tie, and pull on his tail coat, for his nerves were such that he could hardly brush his hair with his silver brushes, his hands were trembling so much. Eventually he emerged, thankfully before Emmaline, only to rush downstairs again so that he and Wilkinson could make sure that everything was as it should be.

  Emmaline had been truly shocked by the changes in the house, so much so that it was a few minutes before she could say what she felt, which was that everything was more beautiful than ever. Agnes finished dressing her hair, did up the sapphire necklace and stood back to admire the deep blue and silver of her evening gown, which with its back interest and its flounces showed off Emmaline’s graceful figure.

  ‘You have never looked lovelier, Mrs Aubrey,’ Agnes told her, sighing.

  It was no good pretending, as they both stood looking at her reflection in the cheval mirror, that there weren’t tears in their eyes, for both mistress and maid were all too aware that they had come on a long journey together.

  Julius was standing at the bottom of the stairs waiting for Emmaline, with the servants behind him, as he had requested. They all clapped their hands as their mistress descended the stairs, and the musicians struck up the first of many of Emmaline’s favourite songs. It was a magical moment and they all knew it, but there was something more to come, something which Emmaline herself had requested in the letter to her dearest Julius in which she asked not only that they put the past behind them, but that they came into the present together.