The Edge of the Fall (3 page)

She saw her cousin sitting, just where Celia liked to, on the mossy stone next to the pond, the willow tree hanging over her. Louisa had always tried to follow Celia and Tom here when she was a child. ‘Wait for me!' she'd cry. They'd hurry on without her. Celia remembered, ashamed, how she'd sent Louisa away, shouted at her to leave.

‘Cousin,' Celia said, hurrying forward. ‘We were looking for you.' Louisa looked at her, her face serene. ‘We were worried about you! We didn't know where you were.'

Louisa shook her head. ‘I'm sorry. I didn't realise. I wanted to walk.' She was three years older than the last time they'd met – at Michael's funeral – Celia reminded herself. She'd been a child then. Now she was handsome, her pale blue eyes light pools in her face, her thick golden hair fluffed around her cheeks. It had been stylishly cut, not so long ago, just past the chin, but the style
was already growing out, strands straggling free. She was tall, just as tall as Celia, but wore it better, graceful where Celia was like a stalking heron, legs poking out of her skirt, stooping to avoid being seen.

Her face was thinner. Celia knew it was misery, loneliness in the curves of her cheeks, shadows under her eyes, but she couldn't stop a flash of jealousy. Louisa had become beautiful. She was wearing a black dress, but it was fashionably short. Louisa, Celia realised, had the looks, the contrast between bright hair and pale skin, to wear the newly stylish colours: yellow, mint, pale blue, delicate and pretty. She felt suddenly conscious of her scruffy jumper, the old fawn skirt, not even her good belt.

‘I'm so sorry about your mother. We thought she was going to get better.'

Louisa shrugged. ‘We all did.' They should have been to visit Aunt Deerhurst. But Louisa's letters had said she was recovering. She'd been lying, of course, Celia knew that. All those stories about the flu had flooded their minds, so that it was the only disease that killed – as long as you didn't have
that
, you'd be fine. Aunt Deerhurst couldn't die of a stomach poisoning. But she did.

Celia resisted the urge to stare at Louisa's beautiful face. She looked like the photographs of Verena as a young girl, before she'd become broken and sad, the days when she had wanted to be a ballerina. Except Louisa had the look of a modern girl, everything but the short hair.

She also tried to push down a creeping sense of possession. The dell was hers, the place she used to guard from others. Louisa would never have been allowed here in the old days. Celia wouldn't have let her.

‘Who else is here?'

Louisa shook her head. ‘No one.'

‘I heard someone here.'

‘Well, there wasn't.'

Celia gazed around. Once, she'd thought of the dell as a magical place, where you could hear voices from lands you'd never see. But all that shimmering stuff was gone now; she was too old for it.
Perhaps, instead, she'd imagined voices, Michael or Tom shouting for her to play with them across the grass. The garden was full of ghosts.

Louisa bowed her eyes. Celia softened. ‘Why don't you come out with me, Louisa? Mama is outside. We have things for tea for you.'

Louisa stared at her.

Celia crouched down, near her. ‘I'm sorry I said that there was someone here. I must have been mistaken. Come out. Mama and Papa are so eager to see you.'

Louisa shook her head. ‘Please. I'll come out later.' She looked down, covering her face with her hair. The light of the willows fell on to the dark mass of it, making patches of red.

Celia's legs were hurting. She'd got it all wrong. Poor Louisa, so unhappy, and she'd started off inventing other voices, only speaking sharply because she felt the dell was hers. And now their guest wouldn't come out.

‘We'll have the tea waiting.' The words sounded weak. Louisa didn't answer. Celia walked out of the dell and into the garden. She looked back and Louisa was still staring into the pond.

She walked slowly to the back of the house, not looking up at it. When she was younger, she'd liked to pick out the windows, admire the light glinting out of them, wonder what was happening in each one. She didn't any more; so many were deserted. Even their old telephone lay untouched, dust piling up over the numbers you might dial. Rudolf used to like new things, order them in from London. She turned up towards the kitchen – then looked again. Her brother was leaning against the kitchen wall, smoking.

‘Arthur! I didn't realise you were back from work.'

He blew out a ring. ‘I just arrived. Finished early. What are you doing out here?' He looked smart in his suit. He was working hard, Celia knew, earning money for his businesses at his office in Winchester, some sort of property investment, he said. He was even looking after what was left of de Witt Meats – although they'd renamed it Winter Meats so as not to lose any more customers. He'd got back some contracts with pie factories, and
some of the big farmers who used to supply were breeding good livestock again (although at huge prices; it was a seller's market these days). Arthur said he might be able to make it successful once more. With the new world upon them, men who went anywhere to work, he said, they'd need meat.

Lots of people would tell her how lucky she was to have a brother like him (how lucky, really, to have a brother at
all
), kind, hardworking. Looking after the business, which was more than she was doing. And he was handsome – too handsome, maybe – tall and thin with his thick hair curling over his forehead, so dark it would surely never go grey. Green eyes that shone out at you, made you feel you were the only one he was speaking to.

She was the plain one in the family, the disappointment hanging behind three good-looking siblings. Michael was dead, Emmeline didn't care about looks any more and so that only left Arthur.
It means nothing
, she wanted to say. To shake the truth into them.
His beauty doesn't make him kind
. He'd left them all, stayed in Paris, not even coming back when they'd written to him about Michael's death.
Don't trust him
, she wanted to say. But instead, she smiled, stayed quiet.
It's wrong to bear grudges
, she thought.

‘I was looking for Louisa. We got back so late that we missed her. And now she's run to the pond by the tree – you know – and she won't come out.' She tried to stop the tears pricking at the back of her eyes. ‘I wanted to make everything nice for her.'

Arthur stubbed out his cigarette, moved forward to pat her on the shoulder. ‘Poor Ceels. So she's refusing to come.'

Celia felt a tear trickle over her cheek.
Stop it
, she said to herself. It came again. ‘Mama was worried about her but we were late back from town. She wouldn't even come to find her. She sent me. And I got it wrong.'

Arthur patted Celia again. ‘Listen, why don't I go and try to smoke her out. I'll tell her they're making tea. I'll have a go.'

‘Would you really?'

He flashed her a grin. ‘Of course. Anything for my little sister. You go and get them set for tea. I'll bring her in.' He spoke, Celia thought briefly, as if Louisa was a fish. Then she told herself that
she was being ungrateful. He strode off down the garden. She ran into the kitchen.

‘Let's put the tea out,' she said to Jennie. ‘Louisa's coming in with Arthur.' She ran out to the hall for her mother. Verena was coming in, hobbling, stooped as ever. You're not an old woman, Celia wanted to cry. She was only fifty; the Pankhursts were fifty and look at them. But Verena was like an actress playing a role, ridiculously bent over, creeping across the stage, wrapped in shawls, her face sunken in. Louisa had all her beauty now. Verena's eyes had lost their colour, seemed barely grey.

‘Did you find her?'

‘I did. Arthur's going to get her, though.'

Verena nodded, didn't question it as Celia thought she might. ‘Louisa always adored Arthur when she was a little girl.'

Celia nodded, went back to the kitchen, Jennie and the tea tray. Jennie, Thompson and Smithson were the only servants left from the old days. Smithson had come back from Mesopotamia, sad and angry, not relieved as Celia thought he might be. He and Jennie were planning to marry in September, so they must be happy, surely.

Jennie was talking about how it was good for Celia to have someone young in the house again. Celia nodded. She couldn't remember Arthur and Louisa together. She remembered Louisa always chasing after her and Tom, not Arthur. He was never even there. She put the plate of cake on to the tray, passed it to Jennie to carry in. They walked into the parlour together, Celia behind. Over Jennie's shoulder, she saw Louisa, flushed and happy on the sofa, sitting between Arthur and Verena. She was laughing. Verena was patting her knee.

Celia was caught again by a swift jealousy. It was ridiculous, unreasonable, she knew, but she couldn't help it. It flooded around her, strengthening, growing as she passed out the plates, then the cake. Jennie served tea, offering the stuff to Arthur as he told another joke and Louisa laughed, then even Verena was giggling. Celia sat back in the chair with her cup, watched them, silently. They were all in a castle and she was on the other side.

*

Over the next few days, Celia tried again with Louisa. But whatever she said seemed always to be the wrong thing. Only Arthur could make Louisa laugh. She heard the two of them walking together, laughing as they passed her room, talking loudly in the hall while she was in the study. Laughing, always laughing.
I thought you were sad!
Celia said to herself.
I was going to make you feel better!

But instead, it was Arthur doing everything she had planned to do – playing cards with Louisa, talking about books, walking around the gardens with her.
I came back to live here because of you
, she wanted to say. Which wasn't true at all, or at least only part true; she'd come back for Louisa, but there was nowhere else for her to go. She couldn't stay in London at Emmeline's any more, not now she was pregnant. Mr Janus, Emmeline's husband, said he had work to do, meetings, and there was no space. Celia knew his meetings well enough, turning the system upside down, making the poor rich; he'd said his work was more important than ever, now the war was over. And on leaving London Celia thought about how she would have Louisa. But she didn't.

She tried to join in. When she heard them talking in the parlour, she walked in and smiled. They fell silent, looked at her awkwardly. At the dinner table, she tried to talk to Louisa about Emmeline's pregnancy, told her about the time Stoneythorpe was a hospital. Louisa nodded, added polite words, didn't ask anything. When Arthur was deep in conversation with Rudolf about a business matter, Celia went one further, started talking a little about her time in France driving an ambulance, after running away there in the middle of the war.

She tried to tell Louisa how dreadful it had been. Louisa only nodded.
I'm telling you this!
Celia wanted to cry out.
I haven't told anyone else. Can't you see?

She talked about the ambulance training in the girls' school in Aldershot. Louisa stared at her plate. Celia knew she wasn't interested, but she kept pressing, despite herself.

That night, after everyone had taken coffee in the parlour, after
Verena and Rudolf had yawned and gone up as they always did, talking about putting out the fire, Celia didn't follow them. She waited. Arthur lit a cigarette. He winked at Celia. ‘Mama will never smell it.'

Celia ignored him. She leant across to Louisa. ‘It must have been terrible to lose your mother,' she said, the words tumbling out fast. ‘Poor Lady Deerhurst. So sad.'

Louisa turned and fixed her cool blue eyes on Celia. She nodded.

‘I'm so sorry,' Celia kept on, emboldened. ‘With you nursing her so much. It was wonderful you were there for her. It must have been very hard.'

Louisa nodded. Celia thought she saw a tear glitter in her eye.

‘You can talk to me about it, you know. I'd love to, if you wanted to. Not if you didn't, of course. But we could talk about it. Go into town maybe for tea.' Celia could see Louisa's face changing, the eyes opening, her body turning towards her, just a little.

Arthur stood up, came closer. ‘I'm taking Louisa to town for tea,' he said. ‘Next week. Aren't I, Louisa?'

Louisa nodded. And then the opening, the ray that Celia had seen in Louisa's face, moved together, closed up. ‘Yes,' she said. ‘And thank you, Celia. But Arthur has told me to write it all down. He says that's the way to feel better.'

Arthur seated himself in between Celia and Louisa. ‘It is. I know. Writing it down, first.' He shrugged. ‘Aren't you tired, Celia? Surely you want to go to bed.'

Celia stared at the fire, burning down, sparks glinting over the wood. She nodded, rose, went out, closed the door behind her. She walked up the stairs and heard Arthur laugh.

TWO