Papa often said that when he looked at me he saw the perfect vision of my mother. And I never quite knew what he meant by that. For how could anyone be more perfect than Mama? But I was like her, in appearance, at least: I had her coloring, eyes and hair. And, as I’d grown up, others had inevitably commented: Ah, yes, Edina’s daughter through and through. Quite uncanny . . .
As a child, I’d basked in that air of perpetual calm enveloping her, mesmerized by her beauty, the luminosity of her pale skin against her dark chestnut hair, the way she sometimes closed her eyes as she spoke. In the evenings—whenever she and Papa were at home—she’d come to the night nursery and I’d gaze up at her as she read to me: her dark blue eyes following the words on the page; her perfect lips moving with mellifluous sound. She was to me the stuff of fairy tales, the embodiment of all that was good and fine.
The granddaughter of the diplomat and financier Sir Montague Vincent, my mother’s formative years had been divided between the palatial drawing rooms of London and her grandfather’s vast estate in Hampshire. And there, waited on by liveried footmen in powdered wigs, she had spent some of the happiest days of her life. Before her own coming out, her mother had taken her to Paris to be fitted with gowns, a habit she had never outgrown. Each season she returned there—to be fitted with the latest fashions from Worth. Her jewelry drawer, my childhood treasure trove, included cuffs, collars and combs of diamonds, and endless ropes of pearls. She changed three—sometimes even four—times each day, aided by Wilson, her maid, and bathed in rose-scented bathwater. And her bedroom and dressing room—in the French style, all toile de jouy and soft fine lace, and scented with roses and orchids from the hothouse—were to me simply an extension of her.
But Mama had secrets. I could tell. For there was some unfathomable mystery lurking in those benevolent, smiling eyes; and tantalizing but as yet unspoken words on the very edge of her soft tongue. Oh yes, Mama had secrets, and I had had a glimpse of one of them, once, many years before.
“And what are my naughty cherubs up to?” she’d asked, entering her dressing room.
We’d been playing with her jewels. And Georgie had spent a good hour dressing me up as the May Queen, with ropes of pearls around my head, tangled and fastened in my hair with brooches; diamonds galore about my neck and arms; and rings, slipping and sliding off my tiny fingers. He’d put powder and rouge on my face, though, and perhaps thankfully, I hadn’t yet had a chance to check my appearance in the looking glass.
She moved toward me, slowly, and bent down, leveling her face with my own. “This one,” she said, her eyes staring back into mine as she removed a heavy gold ring from the middle finger of my left hand, “is not for playing with.”
“But that’s the King’s ring!” Georgie called out. “And she’s the Queen . . . and she looks so beautiful,” he added, rather appealingly.
She moved away and I watched her slip the King’s ring back into the jewelry drawer, then lock it, and push the key into the top of her dress. It’s a secret, I thought: the King’s ring is Mama’s secret. And I wondered if she’d told Papa. And if she had not, what a perfect secret it was.
When she left us to continue our game, I turned to my brother and put my finger to my lips.
“What?” he whispered. “What is it?”
I shook my head, for if he didn’t know—I couldn’t possibly tell him.
And I never did.
Sometimes I had been allowed to sit quietly and watch my mother prepare for a party or a ball. As she sat at her dressing table, straight-backed and head high, I’d looked on as Wilson brushed and then carefully pinned up Mama’s waist-length hair, Mama lifting and turning her head this way and that, checking her profile, tucking in a curl here and there. I’d watch her select her jewels for the evening, running her fingers over the dark red velvet-lined tray; and though I’d looked for the King’s ring, I’d never again seen it. I’d sat in silence and watched Wilson fasten my mother’s jewels in place, and occasionally my mother would glance at me, my reflection in the looking glass in front of her. She’d tilt her head, smile at me. “These will be yours one day,” she’d say, raising her hand to the gems glinting upon her décolleté. She was to me, then, the personification of romance, a dazzling celebration, like Christmas, and a luxurious gift to us all. But there were so many things, rituals and habits, too plebeian for my mother; for it was not how things were that mattered, but how they appeared. And idolatry such as mine could never be sustained, nor survive what lay ahead.
That afternoon, I timed my arrival in the library with perfection. And I’d taken a little more time with myself. I’d had Wilson pin up my hair, and wore a favorite blouse: one made from the softest white muslin, with hand-stitched pin-tucks. “You’re a picture, Miss Clarissa, a perfect picture,” Wilson said. “Such a shame there’s no young gentlemen here to admire you.”
Tom was already there, sitting in an armchair, his head bent, reading. And as soon as I entered, he closed his book and stood up.
“I do hope I’m not disturbing you,” I said, standing inside the doorway, unsure of what to do.
“No, no of course not. I was hoping . . . hoping I might see you.”
He remained on his feet, watching me as I ambled my way across the library, glancing to the shelves on my left. I quite wanted him to notice my hair, make a comment, compliment me, but of course he didn’t.
“What are you reading?” I asked, standing opposite him, behind the other chair.
“Something very dull . . . much more dull, I think, than dear Fanny Hill,” he said and smiled.
I looked away.
“It’s a book about the principles of company law, Clarissa. And I’m quite sure you’re not remotely interested in that.”
“Hmm. Yes, that does sound awfully dull. Do you have to read it?”
His smile broadened. “I’m afraid I do, if I’m to pass my exams.”
“Then I’m very pleased I shall never have to take exams.”
“But now you’re here I have a most welcome distraction,” he said, putting the book down on the table beside him.
“Oh,” I replied, not quite sure how to be a welcome distraction, and feeling the distinct pressure to be entertaining. “Well, I suppose we could have a game of cards . . .” I suggested.
He laughed, and I think he thought I was being funny.
“Are you allowed . . . I mean to say, would you care to take a stroll? Perhaps where we walked yesterday?”
I was a little shocked by his boldness, but it had turned into a glorious day and there was no harm in a walk.
We took a different direction to the one we’d taken the previous evening, this time venturing a little farther from the house, down through the meadow known as “lower meadow,” toward the lake. It was my suggestion; I wanted to take him to my favorite place. He told me that he’d been helping out on the farm that morning, had woken early and been there by seven. I didn’t mention that he couldn’t possibly have been there at that hour, that we’d been lying on the lawn together, under the sycamore tree, kissing. But I imagined him walking to the farm in the early-morning sunshine as I’d been lying in my bed, and I wondered if he’d thought of me.
We stopped under the shade of the old chestnut tree.
“There should be a seat here,” he said, staring out toward the lake.
“Exactly, and I’ve told Papa this so many times,” I replied, staring in the same direction. “But he’s promised me faithfully that he’s going to find me an Arabian tent,” I added.
He turned to me. “An Arabian tent?”
“Yes, so that I can sleep outside, under the stars.”
“Would you really like that? Would you not be afraid?”
“Afraid? No, what’s there to be afraid of? An owl, a fox, a badger . . . or perhaps a deer? No, there’s nothing to be afraid of, other than the stars, the universe, and that sense of being infinitesimal . . .”
We stood side by side and the air hummed with the s
ound of summer. If I’d been on my own I’d have lain down upon the dry grass, as I’d done so many times before, squinting up at a mosaic sky through branches; searching for a cloud from which I would be able to see some far-off exotic country. When I was young George had told me that those very wispy, celestial clouds, the ones which appeared to me to have faces, were not really above us, even though they seemed to be so. No, he’d explained, those ones, those particular clouds, floated in the atmosphere hundreds of thousands of miles above another country. “So . . . which country is that one above?” I’d asked, pointing up to the blue yonder. “That one . . . that one,” he’d said, scratching his head, and appearing to work out some immensely complicated mathematical equation, “that one, Issy, is above . . . the Sahara Desert.” It was stupendous that he knew, that he was able to work this out at no more than ten years old; and the fact that I could see the cloud above the Sahara Desert enabled me to look down from it. I’d stare up at the white vapor and I was there. I could see the camels, the Arabian tents pitched next to a palm tree, an oasis.
I heard Tom’s voice. “So, is this where you like to come?” But I was adrift; lost in a blissful trance and unable to come back to now, unable to answer. As though the universe for a moment held me to it, and that feeling of oneness—complete connectedness—had locked me in.
“Clarissa?”
I turned to him. He stepped toward me, raised his hand to my brow, where it hovered for a second or two. He ran his finger down the side of my face, along my jaw and onto my neck. I stared back into his dark, solemn eyes, felt my throat tighten. Kiss me. He glanced to my mouth, moved his head a little closer. I ran my tongue over my lips, half closed my eyes, waiting. He tilted his head toward me, his lips almost touching my own. Then he stepped back from me.
“I’m sorry, he said, looking down at the ground.
I didn’t say anything. What was there for me to say?
“I’m not sure I can be trusted to be alone with you after all,” he added.
“Oh, I think you can. In fact, I think you’ve just proved it,” I said, and walked on toward the lake.
At first I thought he wasn’t going to follow me. He loitered under the tree for a moment or two, and then I heard him: coming through the long grass, purposefully striding.
“You’ve every right to be angry,” he began, walking alongside me, “and I can only apologize, Clarissa. I’m sorry, truly I am. I didn’t mean to compromise you. It wasn’t my intention to . . .”
I quickened my pace. “Tom, please don’t go on so. You’re giving me a headache with all of your apologizing.”
“You’re cross. I knew you were.”
“I’m not cross. Why should I be cross? You’ve done nothing.”
“But I could have . . . and I very nearly did, which is why you’re quite rightly angry.”
“I’m not angry, Tom; I’m simply a little hot.”
“Promise me you won’t say anything, Clarissa . . . to your parents, your brothers.”
I stopped. He stopped. I looked at him.
“Tom,” I began, about to tell him, assure him, that I’d never breathe a word to anyone. What did he take me for? A silly girl who’d go running back to her mama as soon as the first boy made eyes at her? But then I saw his furrowed brow, his dark and anxious eyes, and I caught my breath. I reached out, placed my hand on his arm. “Really, it was my fault as much as yours. I encouraged you.”
“You did no such thing, and now I feel even more wretched if that’s what you think.”
I walked on, slowly, for I wasn’t about to insist that I had encouraged him. My hope had been silent, but nonetheless heartfelt. I knew this and he did not, I reminded myself. I stopped again, and he stopped.
“Think nothing of it. It’s forgotten already,” I said, and smiled.
He took hold of my hand. “I don’t want you to think of me as some hot-headed lout, Clarissa. I’m well aware that you’re destined for greater things than . . . than me.”
I eased my hand out of his. I knew where we stood was visible from the stable-yard gate. “Let’s be friends then, and please believe me when I say the very last thing I think of you as is a lout, hot-headed or otherwise.” And at last that worrisome look melted from his features.
Minutes later, as we sat upon the wooden steps of the boathouse, he asked me my impression of him, his character. “But I hardly know you,” I replied.
“But you must have an impression by now, and tell me—I’m curious.”
“Lonely, angry . . . determined,” I said. They were the three words that sprung to my mind at that moment. He raised an eyebrow, and as he pulled out his cigarettes, I said, “So, now I’ve given you three adjectives, can you give me your three of me?”
He lit his cigarette, looking into the distance once more with half-closed eyes, then said, “Beautiful, desirable . . . unattainable.”
“Unattainable?” I repeated. The first two words had made me smile as he’d said them each in turn, but that last one perplexed me.
He looked down. “Well, unattainable to . . . someone such as me.”
I wanted to say, “No, no, I’m not, I’m not unattainable.” But I did nothing, and I said nothing.
“Strange to think,” he went on, “that by this time next year I’ll have finished my studies, left Oxford . . . probably be living in some rather dismal lodgings in London. And you . . .”—he glanced at me—“you may be married, Clarissa, or engaged to be married, at least.”
“Nothing is certain,” I said.
“No, of course, nothing is certain, apart from a chasm which ensures our futures remain quite separate, I think.” And then he turned to me, once again smiling. “Unless, of course, I go into domestic service, and then perhaps our paths may cross.”
I tried to laugh. I knew it was a joke, but I wasn’t altogether happy with his cynicism.
“None of us knows our destiny,” I said. “And no one knows what the future holds. But I certainly don’t wish to be married. Not yet.”
“So will you marry for love?” he asked, sucking out the last dregs of his cigarette.
“Yes, of course. Why else would one marry?”
He shrugged. “Position; to maintain a status quo, perhaps; because one’s parents deem it the right and proper thing to do. And the union of new money and old titles still seems to be very much in vogue.”
I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by that, but his talk of futures being sold off made me feel nervous. I was out of my depth. Politics, social divides and the loveless marriages he alluded to were not my forte.
“I think there may be a thunderstorm later,” I said, rising to my feet.
The air was stagnant and feverishly hot in that quiet hollow by the lake, and as I walked along the jetty I could feel the fine white muslin of my blouse sticking to my skin. I longed to be able to take off my shoes and stockings, to walk in bare feet and dip my toes into the cool, clear water. And for a moment, only a moment, I wished he wasn’t there—so that I could remove my shoes, lift my skirt, and dangle my legs over the side of the little pier. I looked out across the water: I could hear a dog barking somewhere in the distance, and someone calling for it; a dragonfly hovered beside me, its wings iridescent in the early evening sun; and below me spiders skimmed across the lake’s flat surface. A family of moorhens took to the water in front of me: a mother followed by half a dozen red-billed, fluffy black chicks. Late chicks, I thought. And as I watched them, I pondered once more on that word: unattainable. It didn’t matter what he’d meant by it, I concluded, because the other two words I understood perfectly: beautiful . . . desirable.
I smiled to myself, glanced over to him. He was still on the steps, leaning back, watching me. “He desires me,” I said out loud, as quietly as I could.
There are moments too sublime to be later conjured in words. Standing on the jetty that midsummer evening so long ago, the world was perfect and I felt invincible.
My Darling T, your words mad
e my hands shake, my heart sing out with joy, & I pray that no matter what the future holds those sentiments never change. Yesterday was heavenly, our perfect, perfect time, & I have spent the entire morning quite lost in my dream of it—& you. But today I cannot shirk my responsibilities, and oh how many I suddenly seem to have! In haste . . . YOD
Chapter Five
I met Tom the following afternoon at five, though I thought I’d spotted him earlier in the day, in the distance, by the lake, and for a moment I’d panicked, thinking one of us had confused our rendezvous. And later, when I approached the boathouse and couldn’t see him, my heart sank. But he was there, beyond the trees, sitting at the end of the jetty. He stood up as I walked toward him. “Shall we take a stroll?” he asked. “It’s much too hot here in the sun.”
We walked slowly across the meadow, cutting a swath through knee-high grass filled with buttercups, cornflowers, daisies and cow parsley, and continued on—into the next field. At the far side of that field we came to the stile, beyond which lay two paths, one to the farm, the other back down to the lake. From the top of the stile I could see the farmhouse, a perfectly straight silver line rising up into the blue from the chimney on its red-tiled roof.
“Are you going to stay up there for long?” he asked, squinting up at me.
“If I jump will you catch me?”
He moved nearer to me. “Of course, but I wouldn’t advise it.”
I stayed exactly where I was, my hand to my brow as I surveyed and considered the options. I suggested to him that we follow the path down by the lake rather than take the path to the farm. I remembered a seat there, which Papa had often taken me to when I was younger. As I spoke, I felt something touch my ankle, and I stopped, looked down, and saw him pull away his hand. Then, as he helped me down from the stile, he turned away, as though he couldn’t bear to look at me anymore. I began to walk but he didn’t move.
The Last Summer Page 4