The Last Summer (12 page)

She rose to her feet, came towards me, where I sat on the edge of my bed. ‘You know, you’re infinitely precious to me, and to your father. You’re our only daughter, our baby.’ She stroked my hair. ‘We want nothing but the very best for you, the very best,’ she said, and then she bent down and kissed my head. ‘Now, please tidy yourself up and come down to breakfast.’

And then she disappeared through the door, leaving her words behind her.

Nothing could ever come of it . . . a truly pointless and impossible liaison . . . only lead to heartache – for you and for him . . .

My Dear, no, I do not believe I have been ‘hasty’ in my judgement (of that situation), but there is a war now, and tender hearts – even yrs – are NOT always innocent . . . which is precisely why I intervened. Yrs D

In a matter of days my world changed. And though the sun continued to shine, and the bumblebees and butterflies went about their business, oblivious to world events, the peaches and nectarines in the walled garden went unpicked and began to rot.

Haymakers disappeared from the fields, and the place was eerily quiet, with the air of somewhere after a party has perhaps suddenly and unexpectedly ended. People had gone but an echo of their presence lingered; their voices held in the atmosphere, passed on in the whisper of trees. Croquet mallets lay abandoned by the summerhouse, where Henry and Will had left them after our last game; their tennis racquets out on the veranda, along with Henry’s battered Panama hat and George’s cricket bat. And there, in a jar upon the table, the wild flowers Tom had picked for me in the meadow now drooped forlornly, wilting in the late summer sun. Sometimes I fancied I saw one of them – Tom, Henry, George or Will – out of the corner of my eye, walking across the lawn, towards me. Once I even thought I heard one of them calling out my name, and I called
back across the terrace towards the trees, ‘Hello! I’m here! Where are you?’

I wandered in a daze, unable to comprehend the suddenness of so much departure. I walked along silent pathways, through lines of gigantic petal-less delphiniums and foxgloves, standing shoulder high, erect and perfectly still. They’ll be back soon, I told myself; they’ll all be back soon. Perhaps they’d be back before the end of summer . . . perhaps everyone could come back and we could resume our summer. But I knew, even then, that this was unlikely to happen. Too many had gone for them all to be able to return before the season’s close. It would be autumn, autumn at the earliest, I concluded. And meanwhile, I had an important task to complete.

For my birthday Henry had given me a painter’s case: a small square mahogany box with a brass handle, containing tiny tubes of watercolour, a small bottle for water, a folding palette and three brushes. It was old, second-hand, and I liked that. I liked the thought that it had travelled, been carried about over fields, perhaps beyond England; and the case alone was beautiful, a treasure even without its usefulness. The day after my birthday, Tom had presented me with what at first appeared to be a small leather-bound notebook, a new journal I thought; but it was an artist’s notebook, containing proper watercolour paper. The first thing I paint in it shall be for you, I told him. And it was. I set myself up down at the boathouse one day and, after roughly sketching out the vista immediately ahead of me, more shapes than detail, I christened my new paints. When I showed Papa my effort later that day, in the library, he’d held it upside down and said, ‘Charming, my dear . . . what is it?’

I turned the book the correct way. ‘It’s the lake and the island . . . and that’s the sky,’ I said, pointing to the wash of pink and blue.

‘Hmm, yes . . . now I see. But isn’t it a little
too
blurred?’

I took the book from him. ‘It’s meant to be. It’s impressionistic, Papa.’

I looked back at the painted paper. I’d planned on sending it out to Tom, but now I wondered what he’d see. Would he recognise what I’d tried so hard to capture? Or would he, too, hold it upside down and see only a blurred mess of pale colours?

‘Perhaps you should work on it some more. Add a little more detail . . .’ Papa suggested, smiling at me. And he was right. It needed more work.

‘Yes, I think you’re right . . . it’s much too pale. I need to add darkness . . . give it more depth,’ I said, but he was distracted and had turned back to his map of Europe.

He’d recently pinned the map on the wall above his desk and had it marked with pins and little bits of red and blue ribbon. I suppose he thought he was doing his bit: keeping track, following events. Around the house all anyone spoke of was the war, and now I too was keen to hear about it, to join in. When I left Papa in the library that day I went to the kitchen, where Mabel and Edna sat peeling vegetables at the long pine table. It seemed to me that between them they knew everything, every figure and statistic. And their conversation, so different to the other side of the green baize door, was an endless stream of fascinating detail.

Edna had been with us for years, since before I was born, and Mabel, for at least five years. They were both unmarried and, along with the other female servants, had rooms on the east side of the house, above the kitchen and servants’ hall, looking out over the stable yard. They were both younger than they appeared, and I only knew this because Mama had told me. She’d mentioned that Mabel was, surprisingly,
considerably younger
than Edna. So, I’d estimated, Edna was probably nearer to thirty than forty, despite her matronly appearance, and Mabel – a good few years younger.

I showed them both my painting, asked them what they thought.

‘Oh yes,’ Edna said, squinting at it under the light. ‘It’s pretty . . . very pretty, miss. Is it the lake?’

And I think I yelled, ‘Yes! It is, it’s the lake, and look, that’s the island . . . it’s not finished, of course, still needs more work.’

‘Very atmosphereful. Oh yes, you’re artistic, Miss Clarissa. Always have been. Hasn’t she, Mabel?’

Mabel wiped her hands, took hold of the book and studied it for a moment. She was always more reticent than Edna, and compliments were not easy for her.

‘Yes . . .’ she said, looking up at me with a tight smile. ‘Very good.’

‘Shall I . . . would you like me to paint something for you, Edna?’ I asked, glancing over at her and smiling.

Her face lit up. ‘Ooh, yes, I should say. Yes, I’d like that. I don’t have any paintings, you know? Not one.’

‘I’ll do it then,’ I said. ‘I’ll paint something for you next. But it might be . . . it might be more abstract.’

‘Abstract? That sounds lovely, dear,’ she said, as I took the book from Mabel and sat down at the table.

And as I pondered on my next ‘commission’, they resumed their conversation: the one I’d interrupted when I’d walked into the kitchen.

‘And over twenty more gone last Friday – an’ most of ’em from Monkswood too,’ Edna said, shaking her head. ‘How they’ll cope there now I don’t know . . .’

Monkswood Hall, the estate bordering ours, had twice or even three times as much land, a folly, its own chapel, and at least two farms. It also had three times as many servants. The Hamiltons, who owned it, had made their fortune building ships, and were rumoured to be descendants of Emma Hamilton. This rumour seemed to be confirmed by their choice of name for
their eldest son, Horatio (known to everyone as Harry). And they were obviously fond of alliteration, for the four younger children’s names also began with H: Howard, Helena, Harriett and Hugo. We’d seen quite a bit of the Hamilton children growing up, and I’d attended the last hunt ball at Monkswood with my parents. Like my brothers, all three Hamilton boys had gone off to fight, and I was distracted for a moment by the mention of Monkswood, the memory of that ball, and my dance with Hugo Hamilton.

‘But how many have
we
lost?’ Mabel asked. ‘Got to be pushing a dozen now, countin’ John and Frank, and them boys down at the farm. Mr Broughton says at this rate there’ll just be him and his barra’ left.’

‘John and Frank . . . they’ve gone?’ I repeated.

‘Been gone since a week past Friday, and Frank’s mother – beside herself,’ Mabel replied, staring at me, wide eyed.

‘But . . . but Frank’s not old enough, surely. He’s only a few months older than me . . .’

‘That’s as may be, miss. But them young ’uns always finds a way.’

I thought of Frank, immediately saw his sweet blushing face, and my heart sank. I hadn’t said goodbye to him, or to John. And now they’d gone. I looked to Edna, who smiled back at me. ‘Don’t you fret,’ she said, ‘the Lord’ll keep the good ’uns safe.’

‘My cousin . . . she says we’ll all have to do our bit . . . all have to do more,’ I offered.

Mabel raised her eyebrows. ‘Is that right, miss? Well, there ain’t enough hours in the day to do what I have to do now – let alone
more
.’

Edna shook her head again. ‘Things’ll change, that’s for sure.’

‘And when you think of poor Lottie Baverstock,’ Mabel said, looking up from her work for a moment and out through the
window. ‘Her only just married . . . and him
over there
now.’

‘Well, at least she saw some action!’ Edna said, and they both laughed, then glanced at me and back at each other.

Edna rose to her feet, the bowl of peeled potatoes tucked beneath her bosom. ‘We’ll have to settle for dancing with each other at the harvest festival dance, I reckon. What do you say, Mabel?’ And she wiggled her broad hips as she moved through the scullery door.

Mabel sighed. ‘And there was my Jack about to propose as well.’

‘You’re to be married?’ I asked.

She stared at me. ‘Well, yes, miss . . . eventually.’

Growing up at Deyning, the kitchen had always been a place of extraordinary mystery to me, as well as mouth-watering delights. It was an intoxicating muddle of comforting shapes and smells, manpower and secrets, and I’d longed to taste more. For so many years I’d wanted to be part of that camaraderie, wanted to know where Mabel and Edna and all the others had come from, what their stories were. I wanted to understand their jokes and repartee. But by being there, within the warmth of the old range and their banter, I’d caught a glimpse of something: something quite different to the formality of my parents’ world. They laughed, and loudly, at things I knew they shouldn’t laugh at; they slapped each other’s backs and danced without music; and for a while, at least, they had allowed me to join in: to giggle and sing with them, to eat with my fingers and lick spoons. But latterly these interludes had ceased. And now, it seemed, I was no longer allowed that glimpse.

During those first days and weeks of the war I suppose we were all stunned, all in shock. We’d had no time to think, no time to prepare, and almost immediately, even as we grappled with the very notion of war, the carnage had begun. Each day the ironed print of the newspaper delivered us straight to France,
to strange-sounding, unknown villages; places we’d never heard of, and perhaps would never have known of, but places whose names we’d be unable to forget for the rest of our lives. By the start of September it was estimated that fifteen thousand British troops had already been killed. Fifteen thousand. Wiped out within a month of summer. And I thought once more of those men I’d heard singing on board the train; singing their way to death.

. . . I cannot bear to leave this place, & the not knowing when or if we will return, whether it be months or years (as some now say) breaks my heart, & you know why . . . Today we had the Belgian soldiers (8 of them) here for tea at 3 & afterwards took an excursion through the lanes in the Landau – for what I suspect will be the last time . . . I smiled the whole way, but inside I was screaming.