The Forget-Me-Not Sonata

by Santa Montefiore

  ‘Mummy, Mummy, Mummy!’ Alicia shrieked, bounding out of the changing room holding up a large pair of brown pants. ‘Look at these, aren’t they hideous!’

  ‘Oh dear, Brownies are rather grim,’ Dorothy agreed with a smile.

  ‘What are they for?’ Audrey asked, hoping they weren’t underwear.

  ‘They’re for sport, the gels wear them over their knickers so their botties don’t get cold beneath their culottes. One doesn’t want one’s daughters flashing their knickers, does one?’ Alicia put them on her head and skipped back into the changing room, which suddenly resounded with laughter. Audrey wanted to ask what Wellington boots were, and Aertex shirts, but she was reluctant to reveal her ignorance in case she embarrassed her daughters, so she waited until the salesgirl had accompanied Dorothy Stainton-Hughes to the counter with armfuls of clothes before she began at the top of the list – one navy blue Guernsey, whatever that was.

  As a treat Audrey took the twins to Hamleys where she bought them each a toy and watched happily as they ran through the departments gasping in awe at the shelves and shelves of glossy toys and furry animals. They were in high spirits having met Caroline Stainton-Hughes who had told them all about camps, pony rides and the large cedar tree which they were allowed to climb in the summer and whose branches had special names like Lengthies, Bearhug and Cruisies. Audrey recalled the austere grey stone mansion from the brochure Cicely had sent her and wondered whether a place so cold looking could really be so charming. Exhausted after tearing around the toyshop Audrey took them to Fortnum & Mason for tea and immediately thought of Aunt Edna and how much she would have loved it there in such an English tearoom spilling over with scones.

  ‘Caroline says that when you’re new you’re given a shadow,’ said Alicia, shovelling a large piece of sponge cake into her mouth.

  ‘What’s a shadow?’ Audrey asked, glad to be resting her legs and sipping a cup of familiar Earl Grey tea. She smiled at her daughters indulgently, taking pleasure from their excitement.

  ‘An older girl who looks after you for the first term,’ Alicia mumbled through her cake.

  ‘It does sound the most delightful school, doesn’t it?’ said Audrey, trying to be positive, ignoring the tightness in her chest. ‘When Caroline mentioned riding ponies over the hills in the early morning I began to want to go there myself.’

  ‘You’re too old, Mummy,’ Leonora said and laughed.

  ‘I’m afraid I am. Aunt Cicely will be my shadow.’

  ‘What’s she like?’ Leonora asked.

  ‘She’d better be nice seeing as we’re going to spend the holidays with her. I hope she has a big house with a garden. Do you think she has horses and a swimming pool?’

  ‘Well, she’s older than your father and was married for a number of years,’ Audrey began but was interrupted by Leonora who wanted to know if she had children. ‘No, sadly not.’

  ‘Did her husband die?’ Alicia asked without the slightest hint of compassion.

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  Her eyes lit up. ‘What of?’ she demanded, hoping for gory details.

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘I bet it was something gruesome,’ she said, forking another piece of cake into her mouth. ‘People never seem to die painlessly. When I go, I hope I go in my sleep.’

  ‘What an unpleasant conversation, Alicia dear, let’s not talk about such morbid things.’

  ‘Merchi says that death only frightens her because when she passes over into the next world she’ll be faced with her husband and all her lovers and they’ll all fight over her and make a mess of Heaven,’ continued Alicia gleefully.

  ‘That anxiety must keep her very busy,’ Audrey said ironically. ‘You don’t want to listen to Mercedes, she talks a lot of rubbish.’

  ‘I miss Merchi already,’ said Leonora.

  ‘You’ll miss her cooking even more,’ Alicia added with a grin, ‘I imagine school food is horrid.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that, girls, I’ll ask Aunt Cicely to send you food parcels regularly. I don’t want you fading away.’

  ‘So does Aunt Cicely live all by herself?’ Leonora asked in a quiet voice. She was no longer so nervous about Colehurst House but the thought of Aunt Cicely’s large and empty mansion filled her with apprehension. She suddenly missed her home in Hurlingham and felt almost choked with longing.

  ‘I know she’s got dogs, because your father once said that after the death of her husband she filled the house with dogs so that she didn’t feel so alone. I’m sure she has neighbours, though. There are bound to be other children around for you to play with.’ But she wasn’t sure. Cicely lived in the middle of the Dorset countryside and her husband had been a farmer. In her mind she envisaged rolling hills and forests like the landscape she had seen from the train.

  ‘I bet she’s just like Daddy,’ said Leonora in an attempt to make her aunt sound more appealing.

  ‘I bet she is,’ said Audrey encouragingly. But in her mind she imagined a severe woman with a hard face, not unlike Aunt Hilda. To her surprise Aunt Cicely wasn’t at all how they had imagined her to be and neither was her house.

  When Audrey first saw the woman waving frantically at the train from the car park beside the station, she didn’t for one moment imagine that that was Aunt Cicely. Her pale hair was pinned up in a loose bun and wisps of it floated around her face in the wind and caught in her mouth that was open and smiling. She wore wide trousers and a man’s stripy blue shirt. No, Cicely, from what she had heard, was more like her husband, elegant with an old-fashioned air of formality. So Audrey thought no more about the waving woman and turned her attention to finding someone to help unload their suitcases. The train drew into the remote country station that resembled a drawing from one of the children’s books Audrey had grown up with. Bowls of overgrown geraniums hung from the awning and the red-bricked building was weathered and old. Audrey led her children onto the almost deserted platform and summoned a porter who busied himself at once with their luggage. ‘Now where’s Aunt Cicely?’ she muttered. But the station was quiet, only a couple of passengers had got off and an old man who had no train to catch sat passing the time on one of the hard benches beneath the awning. She sighed and bit her lip. Had she got the day wrong? Was Aunt Cicely expecting them at all? Then before she could doubt a moment longer the woman who had been waving from the car park hurried onto the platform in a flurry of leaves and wind.

  ‘Good gracious, I am sorry, Barley’s got an upset stomach. I had to drop him off at the vet for a blood test.’ She embraced Audrey as if she had known her all her life and patted the children on their heads, as if they were dogs. ‘Was your trip over all right? It’s such a long way. You must be exhausted. I’ve had the car cleaned especially, I didn’t think you wanted to be covered in dog hairs on your first day.’ Audrey looked into the feline face of her sister-in-law and felt the colour rise to her cheeks where they burned ferociously. Those pale blue eyes and crooked smile made her head spin. She hadn’t for one moment expected that Cicely might resemble Louis.

  ‘You’re very kind to come and pick us up,’ Audrey stammered for want of anything better to say.

  ‘Don’t be silly, I couldn’t leave you to languish on the platform!’ She gave a soft, gentle laugh and looked down at the twins. ‘So you’re my nieces. I hope you like dogs. I have eight. Well, come along then, we can’t keep them waiting.’ Alicia and Leonora, both overcome by the whirlwind of their aunt’s presence, followed her down the platform in silence.

  ‘Lucky I’ve got a big car,’ she said, lifting the boot of a dusty Volvo so the porter could load the luggage. ‘Goodness me, you have got a lot of things. I suppose you had to buy the dreaded uniform.’

  ‘We had to buy everything,’ Audrey replied, pushing her children towards the back seat.

  ‘Well, they don’t need much when they stay with me, just warm jerseys and socks. I don’t heat the house, except for fires and in the winter it’s damned cold.’ She gla
nced down at the twins and noticed the look of horror on their faces. ‘You can always borrow one of the dogs as a hot water bottle. They’re very happy to lend themselves out when the need is great enough,’ she added and laughed. ‘Right, homeward bound!’

  Audrey climbed into the passenger seat then, noticing something hard beneath her, she leant to one side and removed two large dog biscuits. ‘Don’t worry about them, Audrey, I brought them in case I needed to bribe Barley into the vet’s. Fortunately Hilary Phipps turned up at the appropriate moment with her bitch and Barley was as well behaved as a lamb. He’s always had a bit of a thing about her.’

  ‘She must be a very pretty dog,’ Audrey said, knowing very little about animals.

  ‘Goodness no, a horrid smelly old thing. Barley’s a young man and very picky when it comes to girlfriends. He’s always been a bit in love with Hilary. I don’t imagine she washes very much,’ she added with a wicked grin.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said Audrey in bewilderment. Cicely laughed, a warm, gentle laugh and Audrey thought once again how little like Cecil she was.

  ‘How’s my brother?’ she asked as if she were able to read her thoughts. Audrey longed to ask after Louis, but she was afraid her curiosity might give her away. She reassured herself that the moment would come. Talking about her husband only reminded her of the bitterness she felt towards him and she had to muster all her strength to feign enthusiasm.

  They drove down narrow winding lanes overgrown with ferns and dying summer foliage. The gentle autumn sun brushed the tops of the rolling hills and seemed to set the woods on fire. Although it was a clear day there was a distinct chill in the air, a reminder that winter wasn’t far away and Audrey suddenly felt a heavy wave of sadness. In the pause that followed Audrey heard Louis’ voice echo once more across the years, ‘Why do I feel melancholic? . . . Why? . . . Because we can’t hold onto them forever. They’re transient, like a rainbow or a sunset.’ And she suddenly wanted to cry. Whether it was due to the strain of knowing she was only days away from losing her daughters, or because in the face of such beauty she was reminded of her own mortality and the mess she had made of her love, she didn’t know. But at that moment she knew what Louis had meant and what he had feared. Transient, like a rainbow or a sunset. She had given him her love and then taken it away. He had been right not to have trusted her. Her love had proved fickle. She had let him down.

  Chapter 15

  ‘Home sweet home,’ said Cicely as the car drove through a weather-beaten white fence into a cluster of gnarled farm buildings that all looked as if they had gone to seed. The twins sat up in the back seat and squealed in excitement as a pack of dogs ran towards them barking and wagging their tails, jumping up at the doors. Audrey suddenly thought of Cecil and how he would hate the thought of dogs scratching the paintwork of his car. The canine welcome party followed them through another gate into the gravelled driveway of the house.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Audrey gasped, running her eyes over the windswept front of the manor where the green leaves of a wisteria clung to the worn red brick façade and coyly masked the windows like a feather boa on the body of an elegant old dame.

  ‘It belonged to my late husband’s family. Now I care for it as best I can with what little I have. Don’t look too closely or you’ll see all the cracks and the stains. It’s survived four hundred years so I think it’ll take more than my negligence to destroy it now.’

  ‘It’s just lovely.’ Audrey sighed and felt her melancholia subside. ‘It’s such a happy house, I can feel it already. You must love it so much.’

  Cicely smiled at her sister-in-law. ‘I’m so pleased you think so. My parents have been trying to convince me to sell it for years. They don’t understand like you do.’

  ‘Oh, I can tell already. The girls will be very happy here and so shall I.’

  Alicia and Leonora tumbled out of the car and fell to their knees, patting the dogs and giggling loudly as their wet noses and warm tongues tickled their skin. There were two Alsatians, a springer spaniel, a black and white terrier, two brown dogs of no known breed and a fat little sausage dog. Barley the golden retriever was at the vet’s. Cicely had eight dogs in total, all boys and they were her children. She crouched down as they left the twins rolling around on the gravel and surrounded her with their damp fur and heavy breath. She didn’t care that they left testimony of their affection in muddy paw marks all over her pale trousers and shirt. Audrey imagined that she had put on clean clothes especially for their arrival in the same way that she had had the car cleaned, but now they had met, the immaculate veneer would be taken down and normality resumed. She liked Cicely’s normality a lot.

  ‘Come on inside,’ Cicely said, standing up and leading them into the porch. ‘Leave the bags, I’ll get Marcel to bring them in later.’

  ‘Marcel?’ Audrey asked.

  ‘He’s a young painter from France who’s using a room at the top of the house as a studio. He’s wonderfully gifted.’

  ‘What a good idea to rent out a room like that, you’re full of initiative.’

  ‘Yes,’ Cicely replied and her laughter was light with a hint of mischief. She led them into the hall. The wooden floor-boards were covered with threadbare Turkish rugs and a vast display of flowers sat in a brass pot on an old oak table. ‘My one weakness,’ she said, once again reading Audrey’s thoughts. ‘Flowers. I can barely afford to pay the gypsies to cut the grass but I’ll always find money for flowers and plants. They’re beautiful, aren’t they?’

  ‘Lovely.’

  ‘Let’s all go into the kitchen then I can get you something to drink. I have a large chicken for lunch. I hope you like chicken, Panazel killed it this morning.’

  ‘What, really killed a chicken?’ Alicia asked, skipping after her up the corridor.

  ‘Well, I do hope so, otherwise it’ll jump out of the oven and run away.’

  ‘What a funny name,’ said Leonora.

  ‘Panazel?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Gypsies always have funny names,’ said Cicely, entering the kitchen and switching on the light. ‘Panazel has a little boy about your age,’ she added frowning. ‘But he’s a rather unpleasant little boy.’

  ‘What’s his name?’ Leonora asked, patting one of the Alsatians.

  ‘Florien.’

  ‘That’s a nice name,’ she said and smiled.

  ‘Far too nice for him, if you ask me.’

  ‘Do they live in caravans like in the storybooks?’ Alicia asked, pulling herself up onto one of the stools that stood near the Aga.

  ‘They are traditional Romany gypsies, so they do. Beautiful, brightly coloured caravans with pretty piebald ponies. Don’t ask me how they wash, though. They look pretty clean and don’t smell, which is a blessing, don’t you think? Nowadays you get horrid people in vans who sit on your land and refuse to get off, leaving litter all over the place. They do smell. Very unpleasant. I let Panazel and his family sit on my land in exchange for some gardening . . .’

  ‘And chicken killing,’ Alicia added with a grin.

  ‘And chicken killing,’ repeated Cicely, pulling some glasses out of the cupboard. In tune with the rest of the cluttered kitchen each glass was different and one was chipped.

  ‘I’d hate to see a chicken being killed,’ said Leonora, wincing at the thought and looking to her mother for encouragement.

  ‘Oh, I’d love to,’ Alicia cried. ‘Can I?’

  ‘Really, Alicia, I don’t think you would,’ interrupted Audrey, wondering where her daughter’s fascination with death came from.

  ‘I’m sure Panazel will be delighted with the company. You can help him sweep the leaves off the lawn as well if you’re feeling energetic.’

  Alicia screwed up her nose. ‘I’ll be exhausted after killing a chicken, I doubt I’ll have the energy.’

  Cicely laughed and poured iced lemon into the glasses.

  ‘Can we see the gypsies after lunch?’ Leonora asked. ‘I’ve never seen a re
al gypsy.’

  ‘Of course you can.’

  ‘Does Panazel have a wife?’ Audrey asked, watching the dogs begin to circle the kitchen like hungry sharks.

  ‘Yes, she’s called Masha and she cooks the most delicious fruit cakes. I’ll bring one out for tea because Marcel loves them as well.’ She paused and looked into the half-distance with misty eyes. ‘J’adore les gateaux, mon amour,’ she muttered to herself in a very bad French accent.

  ‘I thought gypsies were meant to have hundreds of children,’ said Audrey, taking the glass of iced lemon that Cicely offered her when she focused once again.

  ‘They have an elder daughter called Ravena who insists on reading people’s fortunes. She says she inherited the gift from her grandmother, but they all say that, don’t they?’ Cicely fell into the armchair and sipped from her glass.

  ‘Has she ever read yours?’ Alicia asked.

  ‘Yes, lots of times and she’s never got anything right. Still, I pay her, poor thing, she has to live. She washes up from time to time, but she frightens the dogs so I don’t like to have her in the house much.’

  ‘They look like they’re hungry,’ said Leonora, patting one of the Alsatians that nudged his nose against her elbow.

  ‘What do they eat?’ Alicia asked. ‘They must eat a lot.’

  ‘They do. I know, why don’t you two help me feed them. After all, you’d better get used to it, it’ll be one of your chores. You must pay your way the same as the gypsies.’ She then smiled at them broadly and Audrey felt her heart flip over. When Cicely smiled like that she enchanted, just like Louis.

  While Cicely and the twins filled eight large metal bowls with dog food, chattering happily as if they had known each other all their lives, Audrey sat and watched Cicely’s face, more beautiful than that of either of her brothers. Her eyes were the same blue but they were set wide apart and slanted like a cat’s. Her nose was long and straight like Cecil’s but her mouth was the same as Louis’, large and sensual and full of expression. When Marcel entered the kitchen Audrey was left in no doubt about the nature of their relationship for her lips curled up at the corners in the same way that Louis’ had when he had first smiled at her.