The Edge of the Fall (19 page)

‘Please, Celia.' He held out his hand. ‘Please. Tell him. I can't.'

‘Tomorrow, then? You can go tomorrow, can't you?'

‘I can't. Celia. It's not the right time. Another time.'

‘When? Uncle, when will you?'

He put his head back on his knees. The answer crept around her mind, cold and hard. ‘You're not going to, are you?'

He didn't reply.

‘Don't you know how long he's wanted to find out about you?'

He shook his head. ‘Celia, it was so long ago. Years. I was young. It was a – quick – it meant nothing.'

‘With Mrs Cotton, you mean?'

‘I was young. She was too. It was wrong to do it.'

Celia stood up, losing patience. ‘But you can't change it. He's here. It happened.'

He shook his head. ‘Celia. Please. I can't. I couldn't do it to my family. I need to protect them, don't you see? I need to protect us, the whole family. Rudolf, Verena, all of the de Witts. I am protecting you!'

‘You're a coward.' The words were out before she could stop them. ‘You're a coward to leave him.'

He gazed at her, eyes thick with tears. He opened his mouth, shook his head again. Then he pulled himself straighter. ‘Celia, you are a child. You understand none of this. I know what is best for my family. And it is not this. I would thank you to stop meddling.'

She leapt to her feet. ‘I understand now. I have to go and tell him you won't see him, or even write to him.' She turned, ran down the corridor, stumbling over her gown, tears in rivers down her face. A door opened and slammed behind her. Perhaps Heinrich was going back to his room. Then another voice.

‘Celia!' She turned, and Hilde was coming after her. ‘Don't go!' she said. She was covered in shawls, four or five, swathed around her, as if she'd been in bed with influenza.

Celia gazed at her. ‘I'm sorry, Hilde.'

She shrugged. ‘What do you have to feel sorry about?
You
didn't do anything. I always knew there was something in your house, though. Mother said things.'

‘Tom's a person to be proud of.'

Her face sharpened then, mouth thinned. ‘Well, you would say that, wouldn't you? You're in love with him.'

Celia gazed at her, flushing. ‘I'm not.'

‘Of course you are. Anyone can see that. Don't your family mind?' She pulled the shawls around herself.

‘They don't know.'

‘Really? It's obvious to me.' She slid down the wall, crouching against it. ‘Mind you, I see things other people don't. I saw that you were coming here looking for the old days and we all disappointed you because we were so shabby.'

‘That's not true!'

‘Oh, I could see it. Your face when you saw me was a picture. You corrected it, of course, but it was too late. And it was then that I knew my parents' plan wouldn't work.'

Celia felt her heart sink again. She could hardly bear to ask. ‘What plan?

‘The plan for you and Johann, of course. Surely you knew that?'

‘No.'

‘That you two would get
married
,' she said. ‘You and he, you'd take him back to England, with all your money to look after him. You knew him as he was, you still saw him as a young man. You'd marry him and Uncle Rudolf had the money to look after him.'

‘Oh.' The pieces were falling into place. Uncle Heinrich and Aunt Lotte's effort to make her talk to Johann, leaving them alone together, talking of his achievements.

‘They thought you two were childhood sweethearts. How were they to know that you were sweethearts with the other son?'

‘No.' Heinrich throwing his arms around her at the quay. How
eager he had been to have her to stay. She'd thought it had been because they loved her. Instead, they wanted her to marry Johann.

‘So they brought you all the way here to impress you, spent the last of their savings. They even wanted you to have my room, but Johann protested.'

Celia held her head. ‘Why are you telling me all this?'

‘You should know the truth. Like I did today. It hurts, doesn't it?'

‘Yes,' said Celia. All the letters that Hilde had sent, stacked up in her dressing table at Stoneythorpe, curved handwriting on pale pink paper. Every one of them saying
we need you!

‘I'm sorry, Hilde,' she said. ‘I can't do what you want. I really can't.' She turned on her heel, ran away down the corridor. She looked at her feet, thought of them pounding the floor, over and over, one, two, up, down. If she just looked at them, she thought, watched them, then she would get to Tom and everything would be clear.

TWELVE

Baden Baden, August 1921

Celia

Celia hurried down the stairs, through the lobby and out into the air. It was cool now, early evening. A woman in blue raised an eyebrow at her. Celia realised: she could hardly go to the Belvedere like this. She found her pocket handkerchief and scrubbed at her face, pulled her hair back and made a futile attempt to pin it straight. She should rush on to Tom. Better to tell him, quickly, so they could leave the restaurant, before he'd ordered wine, bread, planned his speech.

She pushed her way gently through the crowds. They were smiling, talking, looking forward, she supposed, to pleasant evenings dining or listening to music, playing cards. Not like her family, Heinrich weeping in a corridor, Lotte lying, not speaking, in her bed. Tom sitting straight in a grand restaurant, waiting. And she – who had come for a holiday to forget – she had blown everything apart. She thought of Johann, out on the terrace every morning, his face turned to the sun. How he stacked up the matchsticks to make buildings. She'd watched him doing that, just yesterday. Heinrich had probably been watching her as she'd gazed, thinking –
nearly there
.

She pushed through, arrived at the glinting gold windows of the Belvedere. A cool-looking waiter met her at the door. ‘Can I help you, fräulein?' he asked.

‘I have a friend here.'

‘Name?' He was staring at her gown, transfixed, she supposed by how creased and dishevelled she'd become.

‘Mr Cotton. An Englishman.'

‘Ah, yes.' He ushered her through. She passed fine ladies at tables, cast her eyes down as she followed. ‘Here, madam.'

She looked up. ‘Hello, Tom.'

He smiled, his eyes painfully bright. ‘Is he coming behind you?' He was sitting upright, as she'd guessed, his tie straightened, his hair carefully brushed, still slightly damp – he must have washed it in a bathroom. In front of him was a heavy glass, decorated in crystal diamonds, the creamy yellow wine at half mark.

The waiter was still standing by the chair. She scrambled in, untidily, shook her head. The waiter slid a menu in front of her, glided away. ‘I'm sorry, Tom.' A hundred words rushed through her head. Heinrich was ill, she hadn't been able to find him, Lotte was too sick to leave. She shook her head again. ‘He can't come.' The glass in front of her was full of wine. Heinrich's glass.

His face changed, paled. ‘What do you mean, he can't come?'

‘I'm sorry, Tom. He can't come.'

He touched the stem of his wine glass. ‘You couldn't find him?'

‘No. I found him. He wouldn't come.' His eyes were so dark, it was as if the pupils had swallowed them up. ‘I tried.'

‘You tried.' His voice was bitter now, hard as iron. ‘How hard did you try? Did you even tell him?'

‘Of course I did! Tom, I found him. I talked to him. I told him you were waiting.'

And he said no?'

‘He did.'

He picked up the wine out of the cooler beside him, poured more into the glass, his hand quick. ‘This is just like last time. Last time, you didn't want me to be Rudolf's son. You wouldn't allow it. Now it is the same with Heinrich.'

The waiter returned, asked about the food. Tom shook him away. His voice was quick and high, his face red. Hair was falling forward over his forehead.

‘I think you should eat something, Tom. Why not some bread?' She pointed at the basket on the table.

‘You're trying to fob me off with
bread
now. What a joke. Why
can't you just be honest? You don't want me to be a part of your family. You want me to stay a
servant
.'

He hissed out the last word. A plump woman and her husband at the next table turned to stare. Celia turned her head from them. Today the de Witts were a special show, demonstrating family misery for everyone to see. Dozens of people were probably talking about them after the lunchtime argument and Heinrich's weeping in the corridor. Now this, in the Belvedere, the most expensive restaurant in Baden, maybe even the whole of Germany.

‘Honestly, I asked him. I really did. He just wouldn't come. They're upset. It's too soon. They'll come round, I promise. Tom, you should eat something. Really.'

The restaurant circled around them, fifty, maybe sixty people smiling, talking, eating. The plump woman next to them was deep in conversation. The waiters flitted about, cool-faced, carrying plates, taking orders. She looked down at the table, the knife and fork so polished it could reflect her face.

‘I've got the truth,' he said. ‘I don't know why I ever trusted you. Of course you wouldn't let my father see me. You're like the rest of your family. You think you can take people up, use them, but never let them ask anything of you.'

Her heart was beating, circling wildly. Her teeth were shaking. She could feel them in her mouth, jittering and chattering. The tears were starting, hard and sharp behind her eyes. ‘I can't stay,' she said. ‘Really, I am going to go. I'm sorry, Tom. I tried. I really did. You try yourself, if you don't trust me. You go and ask. I did everything. And now you're being cruel.'
You'll try anything, won't you?
echoed in her head. He hated her. She'd tried to help and now everybody hated her.

She moved to stand up. Her heart hurt, crying out as if it were a child's. ‘You're not being fair. I'm sorry, really I am. I tried.'

She pushed her legs out of the chair, turned and walked out of the restaurant, slowly, past the waiters, holding herself straight. As soon as she was outside, she sat down, a few yards from the door, and let the tears fall. People were probably walking past her, respectable people, thinking she was ill, mad even. She didn't care.
She was going to sit here, cry until all the tears were gone – and then what? She supposed she'd have to go back, lie in the bed next to Hilde's, listen to her weep too. She let the tears fall. It was cold on the ground and she knew it must be ten or so by now. Too late. She wouldn't go back right away. She'd stay here until she was sure Hilde was asleep, until she'd cried so much she couldn't cry any more. Then, she thought, then she'd feel better.

There was a cooling of the air above her head. ‘Celia.' She looked up and Tom was standing there, the edges of him shadowy in the darkness. ‘Celia, I'm sorry I was so harsh with you.'

She looked up at him. ‘I asked him.' She tried to breathe, but her voice hiccuped, stumbling. ‘He said no. He told me to stop meddling. I tried everything I could. Really.'

He crouched by her. ‘Don't cry, Celia. I know it's hard.'

‘Maybe tomorrow he'll change his mind.'

He balanced himself on his hand, propped close to her leg. ‘You can't imagine how it hurts. You have a father. You've always had one. He loves you. He'll do anything for you. I find mine and he doesn't want to see me. I thought he would.' His breath smelt sweet, the wine again.

He has had all this time
, she wanted to say.
He knew all this time and he never tried to see you once. Why did you think it would be so different now? Why did I think it would be different?
But she said nothing, looked past him at the beginnings of night time in Baden; two maids walking back from the next hotel, cleaners coming out to scrub at the cobblestones.

‘I'm sorry, Tom. He'll come round.' It felt like a lie, even before she'd said it. ‘The war's been hard on them.'

‘I'll wait, come back another time, talk to him.'

‘At least now you know.'

‘You're right. I do know. And you and I are cousins. Second cousins. Cousins' children.'

‘We are.'

‘What are you doing now?'

‘I don't really want to go back. Not yet. They're upset.' Hilde in the corridor.
It hurts, doesn't it?

‘I suppose they are.'

She hugged her knees. The cleaners were crouching down nearby to scrub at the pavement, slopping buckets with brushes and cloths.

‘I am sorry I was sharp with you. I shouldn't have said those things.'

‘No. You shouldn't have. I was trying to help.'

He put his hand over hers. ‘Are we still friends?' He gave her a slight smile, the smile, she thought, of a man asking for a favour when he knew he was handsome, admired by women. ‘Do you forgive me?'