The Edge of the Fall (8 page)

Celia shook her head. ‘I don't think anyone can help. I just have to get out of here.'

Louisa stood, uncertain at the door. ‘I can try. Why don't you talk to me?'

Celia sat up. And then, to her shame and horror, all the anger came flooding out. ‘How can you help me? You're only a child. There's nothing you can do! Why do you think you can?'

She was shouting at all of them, the whole world, everyone and everything that had been taken from her. But her anger was directed at Louisa. Her cousin stood there, and her lip wobbled. She put the flower on the table by the door, backed out and closed
it behind her. Celia turned to cry, thinking, she saw now, about herself and not Louisa.

Celia meant to apologise to her cousin. Really she did. But instead, that night she told them she had a headache and would eat her meal in her room – and so she wrote a letter to Tom. Even though she knew that she shouldn't. It was all over now. She said to herself sometimes that she hadn't really been in love with him while he was away fighting. She had just
told
herself that she was in love with him. It was just her old life she missed.

Then she listened to the words inside her head and they said,
You love him!
She
was
in love with him. She'd thought once the war was over they could be together, but then he'd told her that Rudolf was his father – that his mother and Rudolf had had an affair when she'd worked at Stoneythorpe – and her heart was filled with anger. Her father would never have done that. Tom was wrong.

He'd been shocked by her horror.
You don't think I'm good enough for your family, is that it?
And then the war ended, and they'd been swept up in the excitement. He'd put his arm around her. They didn't speak of it, but the figure of Rudolf hung between them. The night had been cold, glittering. And yet, in the months afterwards, she thought he went back to how he had been before. He hadn't really forgiven her for being so angry when he said Rudolf was his father.

After the war, he'd left the hospital for a convalescent home by the coast. He wrote to say he was going to London to work, gave no address. She'd written letters to his home, but got no reply.

Finally, a few weeks before, she'd received a letter. Thompson brought it up to her. ‘I don't know who it's from, miss.'

She tore it open. Tom's handwriting.

Meet me by the church at three tomorrow
, he wrote. It looked scrawled, quick. Her heart thumped with anticipation, with the feelings she had spent years trying to control.

The next day, she'd hurried out after prettifying herself. He was standing outside the church, looking up at the sky.

‘Hello, Tom,' she said. He turned around to her, not quite
smiling, she thought, but perhaps the sun was in his eyes. ‘Thanks for asking to meet me. I thought you weren't getting my letters.'

‘My mother sends them on.'

‘It's – nice to see you.' The scars on his face were fading already. His eyes were less bloodshot too. She gazed at his arm. He could probably move that fully as well now, the injuries leaving his body. He looked taller, wider, as if he was making money and lived well. His hair had thickened and grown longer over his ears. The war hung heavy on her, she felt it dragged her around. Not him.

‘And you.'

‘Are you here for long?'

He shook his head. ‘No, not really. Look, Celia, I'm sorry. But, you know, things are different. You mustn't write to me as much as you do. We should be friends, of course. But you need to find other friends. Who are your friends?'

She shook her head, blushing.

‘You need to find some. Celia, you have to leave Stoneythorpe and find friends.'

‘I thought
we
were friends!'

‘We were. But we were children then. You can't rely on me.'

‘You're still angry with me.' She remembered that awful night, Tom saying he knew Rudolf was his father, Celia refusing to believe him.

‘I'm not angry with you. I just think that you need to see that things have changed. I should go. They're waiting for me.'

‘Won't you give me your address in London?' She knew she was begging, asking a man for something he didn't want to give. But she couldn't stop herself. It was her only chance.

He turned away. ‘I'll send it to you. Goodbye, Celia.'

She hadn't heard from Tom since then and she'd resisted writing to him. But here she was now, sitting down with pen in hand for him, trying to forget all her childish dreams about the two of them falling in love and marrying.

Father says I need an occupation. I know it's true. But I don't know what to do
.

She heard his response.
Who are your friends?

And then she wrote to Jonathan Corrigan in New York, even though she knew she shouldn't, that he'd write back, wonder how she was, ask her to come and see him, that she'd be giving him some sort of small hope when she was only in love with Tom. She felt ashamed of herself, sealing it up to send.

Next morning, she put the letters to Tom and Jonathan on the table to be sent, came down to breakfast and Louisa was there with Verena and Rudolf. Arthur had left early, they said, business. She gave Louisa a smile and her cousin smiled back, shyly. She must have forgiven her, Celia thought. She'd apologise properly later.

‘Now, you two,' Rudolf said. ‘I've got an idea. I have been looking into finishing schools. I think it would benefit both of you to go.'

‘No!' said Celia, just as Louisa said, ‘Yes!'

Rudolf raised his eyebrow. Verena started talking about flower-arranging and learning to be a lady. ‘There are a few excellent ones I have read of in London,' she said. ‘But Miss Trammell's is the best.'

‘Those places teach you how to get a husband,' Celia said hotly. ‘I don't want a husband.'

‘I'd love to go,' said Louisa. ‘Some of the girls at school were talking about going to that sort of thing. But Mama didn't believe in too much education, you know.'

Celia looked sideways at Louisa. Perhaps this would be the way to speak to her cousin, they could really talk on the train back and forth. She looked at Rudolf. ‘What does this school involve? Do we have to go every day?'

‘Not every day, no. Two days a week. You'd stay in London. And as for Lady Deerhurst's thoughts, things have changed,' said Rudolf. ‘Girls need education.'

‘Is table-arranging education?' Celia knew: she was too clumsy for it, too lanky.

Rudolf picked up his knife. ‘They are about teaching you to be
rounded
. It would be good for you, Celia.'

‘I don't want to go,' said Celia. Everything anyone said made
her jumpy, she wanted to shift places and move, not sit still. How could they, she thought, sit still, talk of scones or flowers or the rest of it? People had been dying. ‘I wish I could travel instead.'

Louisa gazed at her, wide-eyed. ‘Where will you go?'

Celia shook her head. And then, speaking before she even realised what she was saying, the words were out. ‘Germany.

‘Germany,' she repeated, and sat up, looking at Rudolf. ‘I would like to go to the Black Forest.' Those childhood days with her cousins Johann and Hilde, swimming in the streams, eating bread and cheese at Aunt Lotte's heavy table, Uncle Heinrich, Rudolf's cousin, carving trinkets out of wood. The house had been her father's family summer home, when he'd been a boy, when he and Heinrich had played there together.

Rudolf dropped his knife to his plate. It clattered. ‘It's hardly a place for a holiday.'

‘I mean it, Papa. Like we used to do, before the war. You always said we could visit our cousins, once everything was over.'

Verena coughed. Rudolf straightened up. ‘Yes, well, you were a child then. I hardly think they're in a fit state to receive you. There's no money.' They'd received three letters since the end of the war. Johann had come back injured and they'd lost half their money in a war investment scheme.

‘Your cousin was on the
other side
,' said Louisa.

‘Maybe they'd feel better if I went. I could take them things from here. I want to go. Then, on the way back, I might go to the battlefields of France. I've read a lot about the tours they run there.'

‘Why anyone would want to go to the battlefields, I don't know,' said Rudolf. ‘Why can't they leave the past in the past?'

‘I don't think it's wise,' said Verena. ‘I don't think anyone is travelling to Germany these days. Is it even possible, husband?'

‘I believe people are travelling on business. So she could . . . But no. It might be dangerous.'

‘They'd think I was German.'

Rudolf shook his head. ‘You can barely speak it.'

‘I can. Well enough. Anyway, I'd be with Hilde and Johann. So no one would know about me.'

Rudolf shook his head again. ‘Impossible.'

Celia stood up. ‘You know, I'm nearly twenty-one now. I can go if I want to. You can't prevent me.'

She looked down at her mother and father. They seemed – suddenly – very small.

‘No,' said Rudolf. ‘We can't. But we don't have to pay for you. Celia, your cousin needs you to stay with her. The Black Forest we can think about later. When the political situation is settled.'

‘Louisa can go to finishing school alone,' said Celia.

‘No, she can't. She's too young. You must go too.'

Celia looked at them both, her cousin and her father. Perhaps it was the answer, her possibility of reaching Louisa, befriending her. ‘Alright,' she said. ‘I'll go.' She snaked her hand across to Louisa's. ‘We can go together.'

Verena passed over the prospectus for Miss Trammell's Finishing College. Flower-arranging. Dancing. Dining. Etiquette. Embroidery. Louisa put out a finger, traced the outline of a picture of a girl holding a flower.

But then Arthur came home. Verena told him the plan over dinner that night.

Arthur snorted, threw down his knife. ‘Ridiculous. Have you asked Louisa if this is what she wants?'

‘Of course she wants to,' said Rudolf, drinking quickly from his glass. ‘Verena's poor sister would have wanted us to do our best for Louisa. And Miss Trammell's is an excellent establishment.'

‘She doesn't want to. Can't you see?'

Louisa was looking at her plate.

‘She does!' said Celia. ‘You think no one would want to be with anyone but you.'

Arthur stood up, threw back his chair. ‘Get up, Louisa!' He walked around the table, stood behind her. ‘Tell them! You don't want to go to this stupid school.'

She looked up at him, her eyes fluttering rapidly. ‘I'd like to go to London. I told you.'

‘Then you should go to London proper. Not flower-arranging in some place full of silly girls.'

‘Now—' Verena began.

But Celia had already stood up. ‘Why can't you stop it? Why can't you let her make up her own mind? Why have you got to be in charge?'

Arthur turned on her. ‘Rather than you? Is that what you mean? You just want to have everyone to yourself. And you do it by getting your claws in and hanging on tight. No one wants you otherwise.'

Celia fell back. The cold water of his words hit her face. Verena leapt up. Rudolf was saying something. And then Louisa was standing. They all stopped, stared at her. She gazed back – for a moment. Then she turned, ran from the room.

Arthur slammed out of the door after her.

‘Don't let him
follow
her,' Celia said.

Verena shook her head. ‘I'll go. I'll go and find her.'

Celia stared at the door. ‘What happened?' she said to Rudolf.

He shook his head. ‘Who knows? Anyway, you can start as soon as I pay the fees, I think.' He was going to do it, she realised. He was going to ignore the awful words Arthur had said to her. Just like her parents always did.

‘I'm too old for finishing school.'

‘You will be company for Louisa. And that's what she needs.' He turned away, walking slowly to his study.

Celia turned to look out at the garden. A match shone against the darkness. Arthur was smoking out there. She wanted to go to Louisa's bedroom, knock on the door. She could apologise for being unfair and shouting last night. But Verena was in there. She'd wait.

She sat down at her desk. She barely used it these days, the thing was so small and rickety. Rudolf had bought it for her thirteenth birthday; pink and white, painted with flowers. She'd written at it, dreaming about her future, all the things she might do, the potential the teachers said she had. She wondered what any of
the girls from Winterbourne were doing now. What was there to do? Maybe they were dreaming of their fiancés, stuck at home too.

She picked up her pen and began writing to Hilde.
It is some time since I last wrote
, she started, then stopped. How was that an explanation? I can't write, she wanted to say, I don't want to write to anybody.

She tried again. And then again, once again, until she had a full sentence.
Things have changed. I wish I could come to see you. Papa said I might. Is there anything you'd like from England?

She thought of Tom, couldn't help her mind reeling back. Don't write to him again, she said to herself. Don't! The house creaked around her, floorboards shaking. Surely it was noisier than normal? She put it down to her guilty heart.

Celia couldn't sleep at first and then woke repeatedly all night, jolted out of sleep as if there had been a loud noise – but the house was silent.

She woke to shouts. The light was bright through the curtains. She buried her head in the pillow, but the noises were too loud. She pulled on her shawl, poked her head out. Arthur was shouting something. She heard Verena's voice begging him to stop. She ran down the stairs, hearing the voices rise.