“But I can’t . . . what can I say?”
“I don’t know,” he replied, smiling at me. “Think of something.”
Then he ran back across the lawn, leaped up the steps and disappeared into the house.
“Clarissa!” Charlie shouted. “Do come along, darling, we’re off to the lake.”
I walked up to the terrace. “I need to put my book away—and fetch my hat . . . you go on,” I said to Charlie.
“I’ll get it for you, dear,” he replied, taking the book from my hand. Minutes later, he was back with my hat. But as we moved along the terrace, a straggling parasol-laden group, I spotted Mrs. Cuthbert, coming through the archway of the walled garden.
“Oh, but there’s Mrs. C. I must go and say hello to her,” I said to Charlie. “I’ll catch up with you.” And before he could say anything, I ran down the bank, my hat flying. “Mrs. Cuthbert! Mrs. Cuthbert! It’s me . . . Clarissa,” I shouted, and I realized I sounded like a child again. She turned to me with a broad smile, put down her trug and stretched out her hands.
“I’m so pleased to see you,” I said, taking her hands in mine.
“Miss Clarissa,” she said, looking me up and down, smiling and nodding her head. “Tom only told me yesterday that you’d be here. How lovely . . . how lovely to see you again, dear. And my, he’s right, you’re more beautiful than ever.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that—a little older, like all of us,” I said.
I wanted to put my arms around her, hug her, but it would have been inappropriate, so I purposefully kept hold of her hands as we spoke.
“It’s wonderful that you’re still here . . . that Deyning’s now Tom’s. You must be so proud of him,” I said.
“Oh yes. Yes, very proud of him, but I was always proud of him, you know that,” she said. “And he’s so happy that you came, that you came back.”
“Yes, I’m pleased that I did. He’s done a wonderful job with the place. And it’s just perfect, perfect you can continue living here.”
“Thirteen years now . . . and over five when the old earl lived here too.”
“Gosh, yes, I’d forgotten about that. But that was before Tom was born, wasn’t it?”
“Oh yes, before Tom came along. And it feels like a few lifetimes ago to me now, miss.”
“I think I know that feeling,” I said.
“And so, you’re all off for a picnic, are you?”
“We are indeed, and I’d better go and catch up. But I hope I might see you later,” I added.
“Well then, why don’t you come and have tea with me? You know I’m in Broughton’s cottage now, don’t you?”
“Yes, Tom mentioned that you didn’t want to move into the main house.”
“No. I like the old cottage. It suits me fine. And he had it all redone for me, you know? New roof, electricity, mains water, a new range . . . even a bathroom.” She laughed, and went on. “And all redecorated as well. He wanted to buy me new furnishings too, but I told him there’s no need. I like my old things . . . I’m attached to them. Oh yes, it suits me fine. But come and see it, come and have a cup of tea and tell me all your news, and about your mother too. I’d like to hear how she is.”
“I’ll do that,” I said, releasing her hands. “I’ll come when we get back from the lake.” And then I turned, picked up my hat, and walked on up the pathway toward the stable yard.
I stood at the gate for a moment, watching them all in the distance: a meandering trail of pale linen and straw hats, following the coterie of servants carrying picnic paraphernalia: umbrellas, rugs and hampers. I contemplated going back inside the house, up to his room, but I wasn’t sure where Mrs. Cuthbert had gone, or who else was still about at the house. So I opened the gate and walked on into the field, following the path the others had cut through the long grass. It felt indescribably good to be back there, looking out across that landscape, and I stopped, put my arms up into the air, and then wrapped them around myself with joy.
“You’re a vision,” he said, appearing by my side, “my perfect vision.”
“Are you happy?”
“Happily tormented,” he replied, looking into the distance, frowning.
We began to walk, and I reached out, brushed his hand with my fingers. I could already see the three boats, slowly moving across the water toward the island.
“Oh God, Clarissa . . . what are we going to do?”
“Enjoy today . . . look forward to tomorrow.”
“Hmm. It’s not enough, I’m afraid. I need more than that.”
“But I don’t think there is more.”
“Yes, there is: there’s you.”
“I’m having tea with your mother later,” I said, trying to lighten the conversation.
He turned to me. “Yes, so she said.”
“Ah! Here they are!” I heard Charlie say to Nancy, as we approached them.
“Charlie, my man . . . you take Davina and Nancy in this one,” Tom said, nodding over at a boat sitting in the sunshine at the end of the jetty. “I’ll wait here with Clarissa and Walter for the next one to come back.” And he spoke with such authority that no one, least of all Charlie, would have dared suggest an alternative plan. Nancy shot him a glance, and either he didn’t notice or he chose to ignore it. A few minutes later, with Charlie at the oars, they were off. Davina’s wave and broad smile seemed teasing, but I really didn’t care anymore. We stood side by side watching them move away across the water; then he grabbed my hand and led me up the steps, into the boathouse.
“But they’ll see us, and Walter’s there . . . he’s right there.”
“Clarissa, you more than anyone should know a loyal servant sees and hears nothing,” he said, pressing me against the timber wall. “Let’s not go . . . let’s go back to the house.”
“No, we can’t . . .” I said, closing my eyes, moving my head as he kissed my neck. “We have to go . . .”
But I didn’t want to go to the island either, not with all of them. It was our place; meant only for us. And so we remained there, in the boathouse, for some time, kissing, holding on to each other, staring back into each other’s eyes, unable not to smile. And each long second postponed the agony of letting go, again.
When we finally emerged, Walter was sitting in a boat at the end of the jetty, waiting; the boy who’d helped carry things over to the island and had rowed the boat back—long since disappeared. And so, with his back to Walter and facing me, Tom rowed us across the water. Neither of us uttered a word, and I’m not sure what Walter thought. He’d seen us at the tent the previous evening, been standing guard presumably on Tom’s instruction; and now he’d sat and waited for us to come out of the boathouse. But he was elderly, and I imagine he’d seen it all before a thousand times.
Huddled together on that small island there was no escape, no opportunity to disappear and nowhere to disappear to, other than by boat. So, we sat about in deck chairs and on rugs, and ate and drank, and whiled away a couple of hours. A few, including Davina and Nancy, strolled off beyond the trees. Charlie fell asleep in his deck chair; and lying close to me, on a rug under the shade of a tree, Tom nodded off too. It was peaceful, heavenly really, if there’d only been Tom and me there. But I began to feel slightly claustrophobic, uncomfortable and hot; and I wanted to go back to the house and freshen up before I had tea with Mrs. Cuthbert. So I quietly asked Walter to row me back across the lake.
I hadn’t intended on looking in on his room, I’d already seen it anyway, when he’d shown Charlie and me around the place the previous day. But the door was ajar and it was just too tempting. I walked in, and immediately noticed that his bed was unmade. Shabby, I thought; he needs to have a word with the servants. Then I remembered it was Sunday: most of the servants would have had the day off. I walked over to one of the windows, facing due south, looking out over the terrace and gardens. This had once been Mama’s room, and I smiled at that thought: the thought of Tom Cuthbert inhabiting my mother’s former bedroom
. Out of the window, to the left, was the walled garden, and I wondered if he’d seen me talking to his mother.
I moved away from the window, walked about the room, taking it all in once again and noticing the changes he’d made, and then I wandered through to his dressing room, once Mama’s. I opened the doors of his wardrobes, ran my fingers over the rows of shirts and suits on hangers, and then moved on, to his bathroom. His tennis shorts and shirt lay on the floor, his shaving brush and razor by the basin, a damp towel next to them. And I picked it up and held it to my face for a moment. Then I walked back into the bedroom and sat down upon the bed.
A pile of books lay on a bedside table next to a wireless: The Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T. E. Lawrence; Love Among the Artists by George Bernard Shaw; Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. The latter, at the top of the pile, had what I took to be a bookmark poking out from it, and for some reason I picked it up and opened it. A small, rather badly executed but nonetheless lovely watercolor lay on the page in front of me, and I heard myself gasp. My painting . . . my painting; all these years he’s kept it with him . . .
The paper, once stiff, was now soft and worn like fabric. And it had quite obviously spent a good few years folded and flattened. Now heavily creased, frayed at the edges and torn in the middle, it could have been an antique; an ancient scrap of something perhaps once much larger. But as I sat holding it, looking at it, I remembered each stroke of my brush; and each thought that had accompanied each stroke: Tom.
I placed the paper carefully back inside the book, and the book back on top of the pile. And then I lay back, turned my head, and buried my face in white linen.
Chapter Thirty-two
Mrs. Cuthbert opened the door of her cottage looking quite different and altogether prettier than I’d ever seen her, without any apron, and in a navy-blue jersey dress and triple-strand pearl necklace. “Miss Clarissa,” she said, smiling at me, “this is such a treat for me.” I handed her the flowers I’d picked from the garden and entered the cottage, the place that had once been Broughton’s. It was exactly as I’d imagined, and not dissimilar from her previous cottage, but for the freshness of new fitted carpets and wall coverings. She showed me into her parlor, a cozy, immaculately tidy room, with chairs covered in a familiar floral chintz, and a large dark wooden display cabinet filled with glass and china.
She’d already laid out the tea tray, and as she busied herself in the kitchen, boiling the kettle and filling the pot, I glanced around the room. There were two framed photographs sitting side by side upon the mantelshelf—next to a clock, a bible and a palm cross—both of Tom. One of him aged perhaps eleven or twelve, and the other, taken around the time when I’d first met him, in his uniform. I picked up the photograph of him in uniform and moved over to the window.
“Ah, that’s how you’ll remember him, I expect,” Mrs. Cuthbert said, entering the room and putting down the teapot.
“Yes, exactly like this. He was so handsome . . . still is.”
She came over to where I stood, looked at the photograph with me for a moment, then took it from me and placed it back upon the mantelshelf.
I sat down as she poured out our tea, and then offered me some of her homemade Madeira cake, saying, “Now, I hope you’re not watching your figure. You certainly don’t need to and you always liked that particular one, as I recall. I baked it specially for you.”
We chatted about the old days and she brought me up to speed on the circumstances of those who’d once been a part of Deyning. She kept in touch with almost all of the old staff: told me where they were living, who’d married whom, and who’d had babies. Mr. Broughton still hadn’t married, but had returned to his roots, she said, and I smiled. He was living somewhere in Devon, she thought, but not gardening.
“Not gardening?” I repeated.
“No, teaching, I think. But you know he was from rather a well-to-do family, don’t you?”
I shook my head; I’d had no idea.
“Oh yes,” she said emphatically, “he was a very educated man . . . but a bit of a black sheep,” she added. And I was tempted to tell her that, according to Edna, he’d been more of a dark horse. She went on, told me Edna was still in service, working as cook for the new owners of Monkswood, people who owned a London department store, she thought, but she couldn’t recall which one. But that place had all changed, she said, because the estate had been divided up after old Mr. Hamilton died. And Mabel? Married, mother to three boys, and living in South London.
“And you, no little ones yet?” she asked, her head tilted to one side and smiling.
“No, no little ones, I’m afraid.”
She said nothing, but I sensed she was waiting for me to say something more. Yes, I had a child, your grandchild. But I gave her away one Christmas, many years ago.
“One sometimes thinks life could be better, that the grass is perhaps greener somewhere, but I’m not altogether sure that it is, Mrs. Cuthbert. And really, I consider myself to be lucky, very lucky, with or without children,” I added, looking away and taking a sip of tea.
She asked after Mama, spoke sweetly of my father; said he was “a good man . . . one of the best.”
“But you’ve known such grief,” she said. “To lose two of your brothers . . . and so young,” she shook her head, “so young.”
“We all did,” I said. “They were all too young to die.” I glanced at the bible on her mantelshelf. “But God spared Tom.”
“Yes, he did. He heard my prayers, and there’s never a day goes by that I don’t feel gratitude and thank Him for that.”
Yes, I thought, He kept His side of the bargain; He kept Tom safe.
“And he’s done so terribly well, Mrs. Cuthbert.”
“He was always going to. He’s very bright, you know . . . like his father.”
“Oh?” I said, looking back at her, expectantly.
“Yes, like his father . . .” she repeated, glancing away. Then she turned to face me and added, “And now—at last—he’s to be married!”
“Yes indeed,” I said, trying to smile. “It’s lovely news. You must be pleased, excited.”
“Oh yes, I am. It’s not right for him to be on his own . . . not now, not after all these years. He needs to . . .” She looked away and shook her head. “He needs to move on with his life . . . have a wife, a family . . . a proper home.”
“Of course.”
She began fiddling with the brocade trim on the arm of her chair. “I want to see him settled. I won’t be here forever . . . and I’d like to see him happy. We can’t always have what we want in life . . . no matter how much money we have. And money isn’t everything. It doesn’t buy happiness, as he’s discovered.” She looked across at me. “And I’m sure you’d like to see him settled and happy too . . .”
I heard a latch drop and he appeared, standing in the doorway, smiling.
“Well, this is rather nice,” he said.
He moved toward his mother, bent down and kissed her cheek. He towered over her, over us both, his head grazing the ceiling. And it was queer to think he’d once inhabited such a small space, for Mrs. Cuthbert’s previous cottage had certainly been no bigger, and very possibly smaller. He picked up a slice of cake, pushed it into his mouth whole. “Mm, that’s good,” he said, and sat down upon the arm of my chair. Then, in front of his mother—as she looked on, smiling at us—he lifted his hand and stroked my hair. I looked down at the floor, astonished, embarrassed; unsure what to do.
“I’ll go and make a fresh pot,” Mrs. Cuthbert said, rising to her feet.
“Why on earth did you do that?” I whispered, as the door closed.
He smiled at me. “Do what?”
“Touch me like that . . . in front of your mother?”
“Why not? She knows. She knows everything . . . well, almost everything,” he replied, standing up and pulling out his packet of cigarettes.
“No, please, please don’t say that. She can’t—she mustn’t . . .”
“Oh, for God’s sake, she’s not going to say anything, tell anyone. She’s known for years.”
“Known what for years?”
He lit his cigarette and sat down on the floor by my feet. He felt so comfortable there, in that cottage, I could tell. He reached up, took hold of my hand.
“You mustn’t fret. She’s my mother, not some stranger. She loves me . . . wants for me whatever I want, whatever makes me happy.”
I whispered, “She wants you settled and married, Tom.”
He squeezed my hand, turned to look up at me.
“I can’t . . . I can’t . . .” I said.
“Can’t what, Clarissa? Can’t allow me to touch you in front of her? Can’t bear me to love you in front of anyone? Is that it?”
“No . . . no,” I said, but I knew how it sounded; how he was making it sound. “You don’t understand, we’ve just been talking about—”
“If she was Lady Cuthbert would that make it any easier for you?”
“No! That’s not fair, Tom . . . that’s not the point at all, and you know it.”
“Then prove it to me. Prove to me that you can at least allow me this sanctuary . . . that I can be myself with you here.”
When the door opened and his mother walked back into the room, we may as well have been making love; we were making love. I pulled my hand away swiftly. It was an automatic response, spontaneous, and without thought. I’d have done the same regardless of where I was, whoever I was with, but I knew and felt Tom’s reaction. His intake of breath, his sudden pulling away from me was all part of a chain reaction and no matter what I did or what I said, I couldn’t undo that.
We sat there, in Tom’s mother’s parlor, for a full five minutes without speaking, like a couple who’d had a row—which we were, and had had—as she poured fresh tea, cut Tom another slice of cake and then returned to the kitchen for another plate. I wanted to say something; I wanted to prove to Tom that it wasn’t the way he thought. I wanted to say, “Mrs. Cuthbert, I love your son as much as I love life itself.” But I didn’t. I sat there, frozen, sipping tea, with Tom on the floor, sprawled out like a child at my feet. I wanted to reach out and touch him, but I couldn’t do it. Everything I was, everything my upbringing had taught me came together in those few minutes: I was Clarissa Granville once more; taking tea with our former housekeeper. I couldn’t let it go, you see. I couldn’t reinvent myself in minutes.
The Last Summer Page 29