The Edge of the Fall (11 page)

His chair scraped as he stood up too. ‘Celia. Don't.' The people around them were openly staring now, as if Tom and Celia were putting on a play for them.

‘Your mother lied. Why can't you face it?' She turned, hurried to the exit. A waiter, wordlessly, disapprovingly, passed over her coat and hat. She flung them on, ran into the street, turned and hurried away, barely knowing where she was going, but going fast, so that he couldn't catch her.

As she walked out towards the theatres of Shaftesbury Avenue, she saw a cab approaching and ran to catch it. ‘Waterloo, please,' she told the driver. It would eat up practically the rest of her allowance for that week, but she didn't care. She sat back in the coolness of the taxi, stared out of the window, felt hot, red thoughts dash across her mind.

On the next day, she travelled up to London as normal. But at
Waterloo she took another train, didn't head west to Hammersmith, but up again to Covent Garden. She got out at the same station, and walked the same route that she and Tom had taken the night before. At the door to the hotel, she leant against the peeling gold paint and put her hands over her face, let the tears fall.

‘Miss Witt.' Celia looked up into Miss Trammell's face. ‘What exactly is this?'

Celia looked down. The flowers were broken. She'd been shredding them with her hands, not realising. Her mind had been full of Tom and Rudolf and Louisa – it was only a few weeks since she'd seen her cousin. She had forgotten she was even at Miss Trammell's class. She gazed up at the woman's thick glasses, the powder gathering in the creases of her face, the bun at the back of her head that never let a hair go free. ‘I'm sorry, Miss Trammell,' she said. ‘I wasn't thinking.'

‘But this is a whole bunch of flowers that you've spoiled, Miss Witt. Do you not care for beauty?'

‘Of course I do. I just . . .'

‘Miss Witt, perhaps you might come with me,' she said. ‘Let's go to my office. Class, continue. Miss Evans will come in a few moments.'

Celia followed Miss Trammell out of the classroom, head down. Miss Trammell opened the door to her office. ‘Sit down, Celia,' she said, gesturing at a threadbare chair.

Miss Trammell perched behind her desk, steepled her fingers and looked over them like an owl.

‘Miss Witt, is our world really the right fit for you?'

Celia gazed at the mottled wood of the desk.

‘Miss Witt, we would never ask anyone to leave, exactly. But you are hardly happy here, don't you agree?'

Celia nodded.

‘Our strengths are not yours.' Miss Trammell shuffled through a pile of papers. ‘Your results were very poor, half fails and the rest you barely scraped through. This does surprise me. Your
reports from Winterbourne School were really very good. But more importantly, Miss Witt, you do not seem to like it here. I cannot see you've made any friends. And our academy is all about making friends.'

Celia shook her head.

‘You don't stay for any of the social events and I never see you walking with the other girls.'

‘I know. But my father wants me to be here.'

‘Yes, dear. But you don't want to be here, do you?'

‘No.'

‘Well, then, dear, you must work out what you do want. It's very clear that the answer is not studying at our academy.'

‘I could try again!' She couldn't go home and tell Rudolf and Verena that Miss Trammell had sent her home. Rudolf would be so ashamed. If Celia couldn't even make it through a course of flower-arranging and menu-planning, what
could
she do? Verena would weep, she'd have to tell Lady Redroad and people might laugh at them.

Miss Trammell shook her head. ‘Miss Witt. I said to your father when you began – the academy never gives up on a girl. Every girl can be coaxed to bloom. And I've had some challenges over the years! But I'm not in the business of making our ladies actively unhappy. And that's what we seem to make you, Miss Witt.'

‘I'm not.'

Miss Trammell stood up. ‘Miss Witt, I will write to your father about the fees.' She stood up, smiled. ‘I'm sure we can come to some arrangement.'

And then it struck Celia, as Miss Trammell picked up her papers and smiled for her to stand too – she was free. Yes, Rudolf would be angry, but she'd never have to come back.

Celia hurried through Waterloo station, her heart light with her own liberty. She would never have to read notes about flower-arranging on the way home
ever again
. She felt so free, she considered buying chocolate and a newspaper at the stand. The
papers were covered with news about someone who'd fallen off a cliff in Margate. Poor thing. A suicide, she supposed.

She hurried to the train, her mind reeling. She'd travel, see the country, the world! She'd travel the Black Forest and then the rest of Europe. She'd do what she wanted.

At Stoneythorpe, Jennie pulled open the door. Her hair was disarrayed, her face red. ‘Oh, Celia. Your mother's been waiting for you.'

Celia looked at Jennie's face, her swollen eyes.

‘What is it?'

Jennie waved her hand. ‘She's in there.'

Celia ran to the parlour. Verena had her back turned, looking out of the window. ‘I've got to tell you—' Celia began. ‘There's something I must tell you.'

Verena turned and her face was white. ‘She fell.'

‘Who?' asked Celia. ‘Who fell?' But her heart flung itself to the bottom of her body and a voice called out:
Don't listen! Don't hear!

Verena put her hand to Celia's face, but didn't quite touch her skin. Her fingers drifted. ‘It's Louisa, Celia. Louisa's dead.'

SIX

Stoneythorpe, September 1920

Celia

Celia gazed at her mother. ‘What do you mean, dead?' Verena's words seemed like a magic spell, something flying up into the sky. ‘How can she be dead?'

Verena put her hands over her face.

‘I saw her in London just a few weeks ago.' The door of the restaurant, gold paint peeling off the wood.

Verena didn't move. ‘They were in Margate. And she's dead.'

Celia gazed at her. ‘How did it happen?'

‘She fell from a cliff. Arthur was with her.'

‘Where is he?'

‘I don't know. The police are looking for him. Your father's gone with them. They've been here all day, asking about him. Treating me like a criminal. They're coming back tomorrow. Asking so many questions.'

‘I saw stories at the station about a girl who fell from a cliff. Was that Louisa?' The flurry of details screaming out about the death.
Poor thing
, she'd thought.
Poor girl. A suicide
. Louisa, her long fair hair strewn about her as she lay crumpled on the rocks. Louisa in her pale-green tea dress before Christmas, her shoes with the heel.

‘She killed herself?'

‘We don't know. They need to speak to Arthur.'

‘Is he still in Margate?'

Verena shrugged. ‘I don't know. I can't . . .'

‘I saw her. I saw her in London. I told you. I ran after her and
tried to talk to her. She wouldn't talk to me. She said she was fine. She
looked
fine.'

Verena put her head in her hands. ‘Celia. Please stop.'

‘I should have made her come. I should have forced her.' She could have made Tom help her, pull her into a car.

Verena turned away. ‘Rudolf is coming back later. Emmeline is arriving tomorrow. You can ask them. I can't think. I'm going to bed.'

Celia sat in the parlour, staring out of the window. Then she roused herself. She went to find Thompson. ‘I have to go to Margate. She can't be on her own.'

‘Margate? You can't go alone. And there's nothing you can do for her now anyway, miss. I'm sorry.'

‘I have to go. Will you take me to the station?'

He shook his head. ‘They'd never allow it. Wait until Mr de Witt comes home, at least.'

‘I have to go now.'

‘Let's wait until he comes home. He won't be long now.'

She waited in the hall until Rudolf returned, half an hour later. He put down his hat, exhausted, dropped it on the hall table. She begged him to let her leave. ‘You can go tomorrow, Celia,' he said. ‘Stay here for the moment. Your mother needs you.'

‘Louisa needs us. She's there. Alone.'

‘Tomorrow.'

While she waited that night, Celia's mind spooled and shot. She tried to distract it, to force herself to stay calm. She tried to remember happy things. The birth of the twins on Peace Day.

The next morning, she woke to a hammering on the front door. She heard Thompson walk to it across the marble floor. There was a shout of voices, questions. He slammed the door again. But then they were still shouting. ‘Where's Arthur de Witt? Why are you hiding him? Bring him out here!'

She put the pillow over her head, tried not to weep.

‘How could this have happened?' Emmeline was staring at them. She and Mr Janus had hired a driver, hurried down first thing in
the morning. ‘Louisa's dead, Arthur's nowhere to be found and there's all those people from the papers screaming outside. What are we going to do?'

‘Nothing,' said Verena. ‘Arthur will come back. It was a terrible accident.'

‘That lot outside will find new blood,' said Mr Janus.

The police were due to come back again in an hour.

‘How could Arthur have disappeared? How could he have disappeared in the confusion of the fall? That's what the police said, yes?'

‘Do you think he fell too? When nobody was looking?' Celia said.

Rudolf shook his head.

‘Of course not. He's just gone somewhere, stricken with grief,' said Verena.

‘That's quite what happened. He's been driven out of his mind with grief. He loved Louisa.'

‘Maybe he panicked,' said Emmeline, joggling Albert. ‘He always did as a small boy, don't you remember? He'd run away for anything. If anything even got spilt, he'd run away. Even if it wasn't his fault. That's what has happened now. He's run away in a panic.'

They all pondered it: Arthur running away, afraid of being told off for spilt milk.

‘He needs to come back,' said Celia. ‘If he just came back then everything could be sorted out.'

Jennie came into the room. She looked overwhelmed. ‘The men from the papers say if you'll speak to them just once then they'll go.'

Rudolf shook his head. ‘Mr Pemberton said not to speak to them. Tell them to go away.'

Celia watched them, listened to the words, let them run over her head.

They kept running over the next days, when the detective from the police came to talk to her, asked her questions about Louisa, her state of mind, if she'd received any letters from her. They asked her about Arthur, if she knew where he was, over and over. She
described six times, always to different people, her meeting with Louisa in London.
Why didn't you stop her? Why didn't you follow her?

They said they'd write to Tom to find out what he had been doing. They went over and over where she had been on the day Louisa died. Why did she leave the school? She listened, nodded, shook her head. No. I don't know.

‘They think we're hiding him,' said Emmeline, flatly, that evening. ‘They think we know where he is.'

‘Well, do you?' asked Celia, weary after a day of being questioned. ‘Maybe you do. Just tell them.'

‘Don't be stupid.'

Verena was crying. ‘They said terrible things. They asked about Louisa's money, over and over. And what benefit came to Arthur. Awful. I said she was his cousin. He was looking
after
her. That's all.'

‘All the money would have gone to Matthew, we told them that,' said Emmeline, wearily. ‘And then, who knows, probably a cousin on their father's side. The father comes first, doesn't he? But they're obsessed with it.' Mr Pemberton was trying to work out what would happen to the money now. Or even where it was. They needed to see if Louisa had left a will. But the police had said they found nothing in her belongings.

‘Why are you talking about money?'

‘Celia,' said Mr Janus patiently. ‘If the money comes to us, we might be suspects. Don't you see?'

‘What?'

‘That we might be involved in her death. Didn't you say they asked you where you were on the day she died?'

‘Well, I was at the school.'

‘You're the only one of us who was seen in public. Emmeline was at home, so were your mother and father. But still, don't you see? Arthur had nothing to gain from killing her. The money wouldn't come to him – it comes to your parents, if it comes to anybody. So why would he do it?'

She gazed at her parents. ‘No.'

‘I think we're out of suspicion. They know that your father didn't hurry down there to push her off. That would be ridiculous. But watch what you say.'