The Edge of the Fall (25 page)

She nodded. ‘That's what your maid said.'

‘I'm sorry there was no one to welcome you.'

She felt the hurt welling up in her again, the memory of her mother's face.

‘Look,' he said. ‘Don't cry. Do you ever play balancing games, dear cousin?'

She shook her head. ‘What do you mean?'

He shrugged. ‘Nothing too complicated. I like to play with fate sometimes. I'il show you. I'm sure you'll enjoy it.' Everything around them was still as he moved forward, edged along to the tree. He jumped up to it, swung on the branch.

She leapt up. ‘You'll fall!' The branch was creaking, thinning. ‘Please, don't!' He swung out further, hands edging along. ‘Arthur! You'll drown!'

He smiled at her.

‘Please!' She threw her hands over her face. ‘I can't look!' Time stood still. She heard a creak, looked up. Arthur had jumped down and he was walking towards her.

He gestured at the stone. ‘May I sit next to you?'

She nodded. ‘You made me afraid.'

‘It was only fun. I like to test life.' He sat on the stone, close to her. She could almost feel the warmth of him through the cloth of his trousers. ‘I'm sorry about your mother,' he said.

She shrugged. ‘Me too.' She knew she should say, ‘It's fine' or, ‘I am feeling better'. But she couldn't. She wanted her mother back, arm around her, together, wearing the dresses of silk and wool and satin that had been strewn around her rooms as the maids packed them up; she wanted to hear her speak, fussing about the garden or the church tea party. Her soul cried out for her mother any moment she let it, so she had to force down the pain all the time, squash it by doing things. Otherwise she'd cry.

He patted her leg. ‘Poor cousin. But I really must say, you have grown up. You were just a little girl. Always running after Celia, trying to be her friend.'

She blushed. ‘I did.'Wait for
me
!'

‘I wouldn't now. She's no fun. Always feeling sorry for herself, wandering around under a cloud. She's never been much fun, if you ask me. I'd stick with me, if I were you.'

‘Thank you.' It was dizzying, really. She hadn't thought that Arthur would even want to be friendly, let alone call her a foreign princess and ask her to stick with him.

He clapped his hands. ‘Now, foreign princess, what would you like to do? Shall I escort you around the grounds? Or would you prefer to stay here?'

‘Maybe we could walk.'
Don't edge out again
, she wanted to say.
Please
.

He stood up. ‘Well, let's walk, Princess Louisa. I shall show you my mother's prized flower beds. She doesn't plant them, of course. She has people to do that.'

‘You don't need to call me princess.'

‘Well, you're practically a princess, if you're the Honourable Miss Deerhurst. And I would like to call you Princess Louisa. As long as you don't mind.'

She shook her head.

‘And we shall keep it between ourselves. I'll call you Princess Louisa in private. The others don't have to know.'

He held out his hand. He took her up, helped her over the stones. She clasped his palm, feeling the warmth of his skin touch hers. They stood under the willow and he asked her about her
mother. She answered his questions briefly, as she'd become used to doing.

‘That's not how you really feel,' he said. ‘Is it? Why do you hide it?'

And then, standing by the tangle of weeds over the moss, she began to talk, the words tumbling out, telling him about her mother twisting and weeping in pain, the nurses who couldn't help, who said they couldn't give her drugs, the doctor who shrugged and said, ‘It's a slow decline.' She had wanted to shout out, ‘It's not slow! It's fast and she's screaming in pain. Make it stop!' The foam coming from her mother's mouth, her sick yellow look. The horrible smell in that room. Her mother begging her, ‘Stay with me,' even though the smell was so awful that Louisa thought it was swamping her. Her mother saying, ‘You still love me, don't you? You don't find me repulsive?' And Louisa nodding and saying, of course I love you, bending down to kiss her, but as she did so closing her eyes, so that the woman she kissed was the mother of her childhood, not the sick animal in the rumpled bed.

‘It must have been terrible,' said Arthur. ‘We should have come. My mother should have.'

‘She did.' Verena had come one day, said she'd read to Mama, had sent Louisa downstairs. But then, that evening, she'd gone again. Rudolf needed her, she said she'd come back.

‘Only one day? For her own sister?'

‘She meant to come again but Mama was dead. It only took two weeks. Anyway, it was more than most. Most people wouldn't come near us. They thought they'd catch it. But it's just luck who does and who doesn't.'

‘You were lucky.'

‘I didn't care. I wanted to catch it. I couldn't see why I'd have to stay alive. I drank from the same glass as her, kissed her, lay next to her with my arms around her so she'd sleep. And I still didn't get it. It wasn't fair.'

Arthur squeezed her arm. ‘Don't say such things. You're young and strong and beautiful.'

And then she was crying, more than she had done for weeks,
coughing, the tears slopping down her face, her heart beating hard. He put her arms around her and she clutched him, the words catching in her throat.

‘It's fine,' he said. ‘Don't try to talk.'

But she couldn't help it. The words had to come. They kept pouring out, in between hiccuping sobs. ‘It's not fair. Why do horrible people live and Mama had to die? I hated them, all those people who were alive. I hated myself! I don't understand. Why would God leave me alone?'

He stroked her hair. ‘But you're not alone, my princess. You have me.'

She was laughing at his joke about a bird when there was a woman shouting. ‘Louisa?'

‘That's my sister,' Arthur hissed. ‘I'd better dash. See you in a bit.' He jumped down from the stone, pulled himself up over the wall and was gone.

Celia appeared around the corner. ‘Cousin,' she said, picking her way over the stones. ‘We were looking for you.'

Louisa flushed. Celia sounded cross. She must hate her already. Verena would be even angrier. Mama, her heart called out. She wished she was back at home.

‘We were worried about you! We didn't know where you were.'

She didn't know what to say. She shook her head. ‘I'm sorry. I didn't realise. I wanted to walk.' She didn't know how to answer Celia, didn't know why Celia was so angry. She wished Arthur hadn't clambered over the wall. They didn't want her to be there. She was an orphan, dumped on Stoneythorpe, and Celia was angry with her. It had been the same at school. She kept upsetting and offending people – and now she'd done it with Celia.

Three hours later, they were taking tea with Celia and Verena in the parlour. Rudolf was upstairs resting. Verena was all apologies for having missed her. ‘I feel dreadful!' she said. ‘You being so alone. Thank goodness Arthur was here.'

Louisa looked at Celia but she didn't seem to want to look back.
Her cousin's face was slow, exhausted, she could have been six years older, ten, even fifteen. Louisa couldn't see her as the young girl who had played with Matthew, always rushing ahead, jumping over streams, laughing and racing the boys to the end. When Verena tried to prompt Celia, she stared past them, somewhere at the portraits over the fire. The hour dragged.

‘Well,' said Verena. ‘Let us go and dress for dinner.' They all stood. Celia moved forward to open the door. Arthur was there. He looked past his mother and sister and smiled, straight at her. ‘Princess Louisa,' he mouthed.

And then all through the dinner, that long, interminable dinner, she looked at Arthur, and knew that their legs were close under the table.

Celia was silent, stuck up, Louisa thought, and Rudolf only seemed to care that people were eating. The footmen picked on her, piled up her plate with potatoes swimming in grease, horrible things.
German food
. Even the pudding was heavy; raspberry sponge something or other. She pushed it around her plate.

Louisa thought of her leg, her foot, near to Arthur's. Even though he didn't look at her, she knew he was thinking of her. She could see it in his eyes, a light that fell towards her alone, like sun flashing on the sea.

SIXTEEN

Stoneythorpe, May 1919

Louisa

Louisa lay in bed, heart filled with fear. Every noise in the place had seemed so strange. Jennie had only departed a few minutes before, after putting out the lamp, and every scrap of Louisa wanted to cry out, ask the girl to come back. But then what if Jennie laughed at her, told her she was a silly, foolish girl? She probably would, that serving girl, the one who had rushed her forward, heels clicking, hurrying, back straight, every step complaining that Louisa had arrived at the wrong time, too early, spoiled everyone's plans.

After ten minutes, she couldn't stand it any more. She cried for the maid, her voice coming out too quiet, barely reaching through the walls. She tried again. The words only came back to her, mocking. Then there was a rustle from somewhere. She sat up, heart thumping. Something behind the curtain, the thick, pink curtain. She stared at it, the material rippling in the pale light from the night. She flung herself out of bed and ran for the door. Pulling at the handle, she opened it and burst into the corridor, slamming the door behind her.

‘Cousin?' It was Arthur in the corridor, no doubt heading to his own room. Are you alright?'

‘Yes!' Her voice came out tiny and high. She blushed at her own childishness, hated herself. ‘I'm afraid,' she said. ‘There are noises. I keep thinking someone's in here.'

‘I know,' he said. ‘The first night in a new house. Everything seems odd.' She stood for a while, gazing at him. He looked back,
the whites of his eyes large. Then he stepped forward. ‘Don't be afraid. Listen, why don't I stand out here. I will stand by the door, until morning, and so if anyone comes towards your room, they'll have me to deal with first.'

‘Would you do that?' She knew she should say,
no, I will be fine, thank you for offering
, but she couldn't.

‘For you, cousin. Now, go to sleep. I will go when the sun comes up and you probably won't even notice.'

She turned back into her room, lay down, pushed her face into her pillow, her heart pounding. In less than a minute she felt sleep overtake her, the edge of it rising up in her mind, high, so that she knew she wanted to fall.

In the morning, Jennie came to wake her at eight. Arthur wasn't at breakfast, had gone to town for business. She sat with her aunt in the parlour but her eyes were closing by mid-morning.

‘Poor girl is exhausted after all that illness,' she heard Aunt Verena say. Celia didn't reply. Louisa kept her eyes closed, heard them talking, Verena praised Arthur for looking after the business. Celia said nothing. Louisa lay there, thought of Arthur standing outside her bedroom door, keeping watch while she slept.

Arthur really was a friend. In the days that followed, he talked to her, asked her about her mother, said that she mustn't try to push down her feelings but express them – because she was in pain for her mother and that was all that mattered. ‘It will get better in time,' he said. ‘You'll love her still, but it won't hurt. You tell me about it. It's not good to keep your sadness to yourself.'

And, even more, he seemed to like her. He said that she made him laugh, he told her that he was weary of practised girls who seemed to know everything. ‘You jump at the world with innocence,' he said. ‘That's so charming.'

By herself, she was sad and alone. She spent days sitting in the garden, the sun burning her hair as the hours crept by, telling herself what she'd read so many times: you'll feel better in time.
How much time?
she wanted to cry at the sky. She thought of her
mother before she went to sleep, and as soon as she woke up, her mother was there, standing over her.

But to Arthur, she saw, she was fun, he said she reminded him of light. ‘Everything in this house has been so heavy,' he said. ‘They're so dreary here. You're far too young to be cooped up.'

‘I don't feel young,' she said.

‘You're so charming,' he said, ruffling her hair. ‘So sweet.' Her mother had been wrong about Arthur. She'd said he was wasteful, worried his parents. But he was kind, looked after them all. He oversaw the house, dealt with the business, allowed Rudolf to say it was still him at the top, when he was old – and nervous too. At the dinner table, her uncle shook, the cutlery tapped the table, jiggling in his hands. She supposed he was remembering his time in prison. Arthur looked after everyone.

And then, one morning in July, she woke up and it wasn't until after breakfast that she realised she hadn't thought about Mama at all. She'd woken up and thought about being hungry instead. She tried to hear her mother's voice in her mind. It was far away. ‘She's gone further back,' she said to Arthur.