The Edge of the Fall (9 page)

They were all at the front door. She hurried forward. ‘What's going on?' she shouted. No one turned. Someone was crying. The sun was already bright, flaming out. She pushed between Rudolf and Verena. Arthur and Louisa were arm in arm, standing on the driveway. Louisa was wearing her best white gown, her hat awry, huddling her shawl around her.

Arthur looked as if he'd thrown on his clothes.

‘I'm going then!' he said. ‘We're going now. You can come and visit us if you like.'

‘Where are they going?' said Celia, knowing he might chastise her, shout back. ‘Where are you going?' Smithson was sitting on a cart full of boxes. Were those Louisa's
things
? Was that what the noises were last night, them packing up the clothes in boxes?

Arthur looked at her. ‘We're going to London.'

Verena coughed, almost a sob.

Celia stepped forward. ‘What do you mean, you're going to London?'

‘Louisa's always wanted to go to London. So we are.'

‘I have,' Louisa said, so quietly you could barely hear.

The marble was cool on Celia's feet as she moved on to the driveway. ‘Well, then, I'll come too.'

Arthur shook his head. ‘You won't. We're leaving now. We've waited long enough.'

Verena started to cry. Celia put out her hand, reached for Louisa. Her cousin edged back. ‘Stay. Please.'

Arthur seized her arm. ‘We're going. Don't take on so, Mother. We'll come back.' He was moving towards the cart now, laden with boxes. ‘Louisa's young. She needs to see the world, live a little. Not stay cooped up here until she's carted off to some dreary finishing school.'

‘Where will you stay? What about your reputation? You're far too young to go to London! Please, dear, it's not safe there. Stay here, we can make visits there if you like. Go with Celia to the finishing school,' pleaded Verena. She held out her hand. ‘Come inside. Let's discuss it. We can think of a way.'

Louisa drew back.

‘Please don't worry, Aunt. Arthur knows a respectable family with two daughters. I will stay with them,' she said. ‘I'll bring presents when I come back. I promise.' Her lip was quivering. She was wavering now, Celia thought, on the brink of changing her mind, if they prompted her hard enough.

‘Don't go,' said Celia. ‘Come with me instead, to the school that Papa was talking about.'

Arthur reached for Louisa's hand. ‘I'm looking after her. She's safe with me. It's time for her to go out and meet people. You all did.' He turned to Rudolf. ‘You'll send money, won't you? London's expensive.'

‘What about your work, Arthur?' said Rudolf.

‘That will take care of itself.'

‘But Louisa's so young,' Celia broke in.

‘Not much more than you when you ran away to France.'

Celia shook her head. ‘It's not the same.' And it wasn't, not anything like her fleeing into the war, lying about her age.

‘It's more than the same. That's always what you're like, dear sister. One rule for you, another for everybody else.'

‘Please,' said Celia, hearing the begging tone in her voice. ‘When will you come back?'

‘Maybe a month or two. A few weeks. I'll write with our address. Now, we should go.' He pulled Louisa's arm, gently. ‘Let's say goodbye, Louisa.'

Louisa lifted her face. Celia thought she saw a tear, but then in a second it was gone, and her face was flushed, excited. ‘Goodbye, Aunt Verena, Uncle Rudolf.' She looked at Celia. ‘Will you come soon?'

‘Write to me. Please write to me.'

Arthur chivvied Louisa away, almost pulling her in his hurry, helping her up on to the cart. Up there, she turned back, Celia could see, but her face was tiny over the pile of boxes. Celia and her parents stood there, watched them go. Verena held up her hand, waved as Smithson bumped the cart down the driveway.

Rudolf stood at the door and stared after them.

Celia turned to him. ‘You always let him do whatever he wants. Why do you do that?'

Verena wiped her eye with her handkerchief. ‘Who could stop him? Anyway, he will look after Louisa. He's very fond of her, anyone can see that. As soon as they send the address, we can go and see them. You'd like to go out with them, wouldn't you? Have some fun.'

‘Arthur won't let me.'

‘He'll come back,' said Verena, speaking quickly because Rudolf wasn't responding, instead staring out at the empty driveway, the sun burning up the horizon. ‘They both will. I'm sure of it.'

FIVE

London, August 1920

Celia

‘Come along now, ladies, pay attention.' Miss Trammell was holding up an iris. ‘Remember the rule. Long-stemmed flowers first. They must form the
centrepiece
of the arrangement.'

Celia gazed at her flower. It was nothing like Miss Trammell's, thin and formless, the stalk so weak it looked about to break. It didn't look like the kind of thing that would stay upright if you placed it in a vase. Miss Trammell was as stiff as a board, she looked like she never even lay down. She would always be upright, her hair in a bun, not a single escaped strand, the blue suit without a crease, her eyes missing nothing behind her glasses. Well, Celia thought to herself, who are you to judge her? You've ended up here, two days a week at the finishing school you said you wouldn't go to.

After class, she walked to the school boarding house in Hammersmith, alone. Emmeline usually said they were too busy for a visit. Celia sat in her room, looked at her notes from the class and thought about Louisa.

After that awful morning in Stoneythorpe, they hadn't heard from Louisa or Arthur for weeks. Finally, Arthur wrote to say that they were living with a woman called Mrs Merling, who had two daughters and had bought Louisa a kitten. He said they'd been to parties. Rudolf sent money. Arthur didn't ask about Celia, she supposed that they didn't want her, thought she was too dull.

Finally, just before Christmas, over three months after they'd left, Arthur agreed that he and Louisa could meet them all in
London. It had been a terrible day, lunch in a grey, chilly restaurant, Louisa quiet and unsmiling, Arthur talking too fast. Rudolf and Verena pretending everything was normal.

Louisa was beautifully dressed in a pale-green gown with a lace layer over the top, a bow around her waist. She had tiny heels on her green shoes, a lace wrap over her shoulders. Her hair was the same but her face was perfectly made-up, bright lipstick on her mouth, her eyes darkened with stuff. She'd got the hang of the new make-up, unlike Celia. She looked so pretty, Celia wanted to reach out and touch her, as if she was art in a museum. But she couldn't say anything, avoided her eyes. Afterwards Mrs Merling had given them tea, showed off her parlour, talked of how well she looked after Louisa.

On Christmas Day, Verena wept, gazing out of the window. She'd bought presents for Louisa, piled them up under their tree. Celia had told her she'd been making a mistake but she too had bought a silver necklace for Louisa in Winchester, wrapped it in tissue paper, kept it in her room, just in case.

Then five months later, as spring was breaking, they'd had a letter from Mrs Merling. Celia had arrived downstairs at Stoneythorpe. Verena was sitting in the breakfast chair, her face white. She was holding a letter.

‘What's wrong, Mama?'

Verena stared up at her.

‘Louisa's gone. Arthur and Louisa have gone. Mrs Merling has written. She said they've gone, there was some sort of incident with the cat. And now they've gone and she doesn't know where.'

Celia patted her hand. ‘I'm sure they've just moved places. They'll write and say where they are.'

Rudolf came to the door. ‘They'll write for money. Or Arthur will.'

‘She's my sister's child,' Verena said. ‘I said I'd look after her, care for her if anything happened. And now I've lost her.'

‘She's with Arthur,' said Rudolph. ‘They can't stay away for ever. Arthur will look after her; he's a good boy.'

‘But what if she goes off on her own? We don't know where
they are. Do you really think Arthur will look after her?' Celia asked. She was beginning to worry, images of Louisa, alone, swirling up in her mind. What if Arthur had left her and she was wandering the streets, no idea where she was?

‘Oh, you know Arthur, Celia. He only
pretends
to be bad. She'll be fine if she's with him,' said Rudolf. ‘It's if she's gone elsewhere, off on her own, that's what Mama is worried about.'

‘I am too!'

Louisa, so young, Arthur gripping her arm on the drive as they prepared to drive away. ‘She's only sixteen!'

‘She won't go anywhere without him. And he's so fond of her. They'll come back. We'll hear from them next week,' said Rudolf. ‘They'll need money. They can't just disappear.'

But they waited for word – and no letter came. Arthur sent no demand for money, Louisa didn't write. After a week of Verena weeping, writing letters to anyone she could think of, Rudolf went to speak to Mr Pemberton, the solicitor. He came back, told them that Mr Pemberton knew a company of agents who could look into Louisa's whereabouts. The Merlings said they hadn't been in touch, didn't know where they'd gone. One of the tracers from the agency thought Arthur and Louisa might have gone abroad.

Every day they waited for news, hoping that some information would come through, that one of the tracers would find a clue. Rudolf kept paying the agency, through Mr Pemberton. Verena wept and Celia found herself obsessed with missing persons – how could you just disappear? How could you? But they had. Celia went up to stay with Emmeline and to visit the Merlings, but Mrs Merling maintained she knew nothing.

Rudolf said he felt sure that they weren't in London – the agency would have found them if they were. ‘Mr Pemberton said they must be somewhere else,' he said. ‘Perhaps abroad. We have to wait now until they contact us. We can't do more. It would be a scandal if it got out. We'll have to wait. She's safe with him, after all.'

It had only been a week, they told themselves. Then two. Then three, now six. At night, Celia lay awake and thought of Louisa.
Perhaps she was wearing colours, dancing in Arthur's arms, admired by dozens of men, happy, laughing. She would have forgotten all about them. If she ever gave a thought to Stoneythorpe, it was as somewhere where she'd been unhappy, a dusty house full of memories. Arthur had taken her away, set her free. Celia knew, in her heart, that she'd gone.

Then there was the news in June that Louisa's brother, Cousin Matthew, had died of a fever in Calcutta. The news came to the Deerhurst estate and then to Mr Pemberton. Celia looked at the sofa in the parlour. Matthew had sat there after Michael's funeral, talking about painting. He blurred in her mind, a serious child, then a young man. Dead in India, the firm had written, did not suffer.
He loved the country, worked very hard for us
.

‘We need to tell Louisa,' Celia said. Rudolf redoubled the efforts to find her again. ‘Mr Pemberton thinks some of the money is hers, after all.'

Nothing came back. They couldn't find her. A representative from the company came to meet with Rudolf to talk about the death. He visited Stoneythorpe, stern and upright in black. The company man was very unhappy that Louisa couldn't be found. There was nothing that could be done, Rudolph said. They were trying.

‘You will simply have to wait for her,' Mr Pemberton said.

In July, they travelled to London to meet Emmeline in a hotel and take tea on the day after the twins' first birthday. Mr Janus was away, said Emmeline. She was looking more tired than ever. Albert was huge, the same size as a three-year-old Celia had been smiling at on the train. He was walking, determinedly heading off into the hotel dining room, his strong torso wobbling on two squat legs. ‘I can't believe how quickly the year has gone,' Verena said to Emmeline. ‘He's a little boy now.'

Lily was still tiny but she bounced into Celia's arms as if she knew her, when of course she couldn't really, said Emmeline. ‘You do,' whispered Celia, looking into her eyes. ‘You really do. You know me.' When she held the child close, she still felt her fear.

‘I don't suppose you've heard from Louisa?' Verena said to Emmeline, when she knew, of course, that if Emmeline had she would have said, and anyway, Emmeline hardly went out.

Emmeline leapt up to retrieve Albert, who was crawling under a neighbouring table. He, out of all of them, was the only one who was really at home in the hotel. ‘No, Mama. I wish I had.'

That night, Celia dreamt of Arthur and Louisa, wandering through forests together, hand in hand. She chased after them, shouting for them to wait. Louisa turned, looked at her and laughed. She turned back, walked on.

‘Yes, that's it,' Miss Trammell was saying to the girl at the front. ‘Just there. So the rest of the flowers can bloom out like the sun.'