The Last Summer (6 page)

‘Clarissa?’

I turned to him. He stepped towards me, raised his hand to my brow, where it hovered for a second or two. He ran his finger down the side of my face, along my jaw and on to my neck. I stared back into his dark, solemn eyes, felt my throat tighten.
Kiss me
. He glanced to my mouth, moved his head a little closer. I ran my tongue over my lips, half closed my eyes, waiting. He tilted his head towards me, his lips almost touching my own. Then he stepped back from me.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, looking down at the ground.

I didn’t say anything. What was there for me to say?

‘I’m not sure I
can
be trusted to be alone with you after all,’ he added.

‘Oh, I think you can. In fact, I think you’ve just proved it,’ I said, and walked on towards the lake.

At first I thought he wasn’t going to follow me. He loitered under the tree for a moment or two, and then I heard him: coming through the long grass, purposefully striding.

‘You’ve every right to be angry,’ he began, walking alongside me, ‘and I can only apologise, Clarissa. I’m sorry, truly I am. I didn’t mean to compromise you. It wasn’t my intention to . . .’

I quickened my pace. ‘Tom, please don’t go on so, you’re giving me a headache with all of your apologising.’

‘You’re cross. I knew you were.’

‘I’m not cross. Why should I be cross? You’ve done
nothing
.’

‘But I could have . . . and I very nearly did, which is why you’re quite rightly angry.’

‘I’m
not
angry, Tom; I’m simply a little hot.’

‘Promise me you won’t say anything, Clarissa . . . to your parents, your brothers.’

I stopped. He stopped. I looked at him.

‘Tom,’ I began, about to tell him, assure him that I’d never breathe a word to anyone. What did he take me for? A silly girl who’d go running back to her mama as soon as the first boy made eyes at her? But then I saw his furrowed brow, his dark and anxious eyes, and I caught my breath. I reached out, placed my hand on his arm. ‘Really, it was my fault as much as yours. I encouraged you.’

‘You did no such thing, and now I feel even more wretched if that’s what you think.’

I walked on, slowly, for I wasn’t about to insist that I had encouraged him. My hope had been silent, but nonetheless heart-felt. I knew this and he did not, I reminded myself. I stopped again, and he stopped.

‘Think nothing of it. It’s forgotten already,’ I said, and smiled.

He took hold of my hand. ‘I don’t want you to think of me as some hot-headed lout, Clarissa. I’m well aware that you’re destined for greater things than . . . than me.’

I eased my hand out of his. I knew where we stood was visible from the stable-yard gate. ‘Let’s be friends then, and please believe me when I say the very last thing I think of you as is a lout, hot headed or otherwise.’ And at last that worrisome look melted from his features.

Minutes later, as we sat upon the wooden steps of the boathouse, he asked me my impression of him, his character. ‘But I hardly know you,’ I replied.

‘But you must have an impression by now, and tell me – I’m curious.’

‘Lonely, angry . . . determined,’ I said. They were the three words that sprung to my mind at that moment. He raised an eyebrow, and as he pulled out his cigarettes, I said, ‘So, now I’ve given you three adjectives, can you give me your three of me?’

He lit his cigarette, looking into the distance once more with half-closed eyes, then said, ‘Beautiful, desirable . . . unattainable.’

‘Unattainable?’ I repeated. The first two words had made me smile as he’d said them each in turn, but that last one perplexed me.

He looked down. ‘Well, unattainable to . . . someone such as me.’

I wanted to say, ‘No, no, I’m not, I’m not unattainable.’ But I did nothing, and I said nothing.

‘Strange to think,’ he went on, ‘that by this time next year I’ll have finished my studies, left Oxford . . . probably be living in some rather dismal lodgings in London. And you . . .’ he glanced at me, ‘you may be married, Clarissa, or engaged to be married, at least.’

‘Nothing is certain,’ I said.

‘No, of course, nothing is certain, apart from a chasm which ensures our futures remain quite separate, I think.’ And then he turned to me, once again smiling. ‘Unless, of course, I go into domestic service, and then perhaps our paths may cross.’

I tried to laugh. I knew it was a joke, but I wasn’t altogether happy with his cynicism.

‘None of us knows our destiny,’ I said. ‘And no one knows what the future holds. But I certainly don’t wish to be married. Not yet.’

‘So will you marry for love?’ he asked, sucking out the last dregs of his cigarette.

‘Yes, of course. Why else would one marry?’

He shrugged. ‘Position; to maintain a status quo, perhaps; because one’s parents deem it the right and proper thing to do. And the union of new money and old titles still seems to be very much in vogue.’

I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by that, but his talk of futures being sold off made me feel nervous. I was out of my depth. Politics, social divides and the loveless marriages he alluded to were not my forte.

‘I think there may be a thunderstorm later,’ I said, rising to my feet.

The air was stagnant and feverishly hot in that quiet hollow by the lake, and as I walked along the jetty I could feel the fine white muslin of my blouse sticking to my skin. I longed to be able to take off my shoes and stockings, to walk in bare feet and dip my toes into the cool, clear water. And for a moment, only a moment, I wished he wasn’t there – so that I could remove my shoes, lift my skirt, and dangle my legs over the side of the little pier. I looked out across the water: I could hear a dog barking somewhere in the distance, and someone calling for it; a dragonfly hovered beside me, its wings iridescent in the early evening sun; and below me spiders skimmed across the
lake’s flat surface. A family of moorhens took to the water in front of me: a mother followed by half a dozen red-billed, fluffy black chicks. Late chicks, I thought. And as I watched them, I pondered once more on that word: unattainable. It didn’t matter what he’d meant by it, I concluded, because the other two words I understood perfectly:
beautiful . . . desirable.

I smiled to myself, glanced over to him. He was still on the steps, leaning back, watching me. ‘He desires me,’ I said out loud, as quietly as I could.

There are moments too sublime to be later conjured in words. Standing on the jetty that midsummer evening so long ago, the world was perfect and I felt invincible.

My Darling T, your words made my hands shake, my heart sing out with joy, & I pray that no matter what the future holds those sentiments never change. Yesterday was heavenly, our perfect, perfect time, & I have spent the entire morning quite lost in my dream of it – & you. But today I cannot shirk my responsibilities, and oh how many I suddenly seem to have! In haste . . . YOD

I met Tom the following afternoon at five, though I thought I’d spotted him earlier in the day, in the distance, by the lake, and for a moment I’d panicked, thinking one of us had confused our rendezvous. And later, when I approached the boathouse and couldn’t see him, my heart sank. But he was there, beyond the trees, sitting at the end of the jetty. He stood up as I walked towards him. ‘Shall we take a stroll?’ he asked. ‘It’s much too hot here in the sun.’

We walked slowly across the meadow, cutting a swathe through knee-high grass filled with buttercups, cornflowers, daisies and cow parsley, and continued on – into the next field. At the far side of that field we came to the stile, beyond which lay two paths, one to the farm, the other back down to the lake. From the top of the stile I could see the farmhouse, a perfectly straight silver line rising up into the blue from the chimney on its red tiled roof.

‘Are you going to stay up there for long?’ he asked, squinting up at me.

‘If I jump will you catch me?’

He moved nearer to me. ‘Of course, but I wouldn’t advise it.’

I stayed exactly where I was, my hand to my brow as I surveyed and considered the options. I suggested to him that we follow the path down by the lake rather than take the path to the farm. I remembered a seat there, which Papa had often taken me to when I was younger. As I spoke, I felt something touch my ankle, and I stopped, looked down, and saw him pull away his hand. Then, as he helped me down from the stile, he turned away, as though he couldn’t bear to look at me any more. I began to walk but he didn’t move.

‘Is something the matter?’

‘Let’s not take that path,’ he said. ‘I really should be getting back.’

‘I see. Well then, you go back and I shall continue alone.’

‘No. You can’t possibly walk so far from the house on your own. We need to go back, Clarissa.’

I didn’t say anything. He helped me back over the stile, looking away as I lifted my skirt, and we walked back through the fields in silence. As we neared the house, he said to me, ‘You’re so innocent, Clarissa. Innocent and beautiful, and you know, it’s really not a very safe combination.’

‘Oh. And what do you mean by that?’

‘I mean you really shouldn’t be suggesting we disappear off into the undergrowth on our own.’

I stopped. ‘Ha! I did no such thing. I merely said we should take the path I know, the one I’ve taken with Papa.’

He stopped, closed his eyes for a moment, as though I’d already exasperated him. And right then I felt a little bit furious.

‘It’s perfectly all right, Tom, I can see my way from here,’ I said, and marched on as fast as I could walk through the long grass.

‘Clarissa . . . please, I’m telling you this for your own good,’
he said, catching up with me, and sounding quite cross himself. ‘You need to understand . . . you need to appreciate that . . .’

I stopped again. ‘That
what
, Tom? That you’re afraid you might one day lose control? Chance would be a fine thing!’

He stared at me, his jaw set, chewing his tongue.

‘And I need to tell you,’ I continued, pulling off my hat, ‘that I shan’t be able to meet you again. Ever.’

‘Well, that’s probably a good thing too. We have nothing in common and it seems to me that all these walks you’re so fond of are a completely pointless and time-consuming exercise.’

‘Good. Then we have nothing more to say to each other.’

‘It seems not.’

‘Goodbye then.’

‘Goodbye.’

There was an awkward moment as I strode on up the hill, for I realised he, too, had to walk in that direction, but he hung back and let me walk on alone. When I reached the house I ran through the hallway, up the stairs and into my room. And as I slammed the door of my bedroom, a painted plate my godmother had given me fell from the wall and split in two.

For the next week or so I simmered quietly in a daydream, imagining Tom Cuthbert begging for my forgiveness, his declaration of undying love, and then . . . his kiss. I’d seen him about the place but had managed to avoid him, and once, when Mama invited him to play in a croquet match, I feigned a headache and stayed in my room.

I was sitting on the bench by the ha-ha, my unopened journal on my lap, when he walked up to me, eight days after our fracas. It was a glorious morning with no breath of wind and I’d been sitting there for some time, looking out into the distance, listening to the hum of bumblebees on the lavender close by. Perhaps it was the aroma of the lavender, soothing my senses, making me sleepy, but I felt unusually mellow: quite at peace
with the world. And thus far I’d failed to record anything of the day in my journal.

‘May I sit with you?’ he asked.

I smiled. ‘But of course,’ I replied, looking up at him from under my hat.

He sat down next to me. ‘I need to talk to you.’ He leant forward, fiddling with his hands. ‘You see . . . you see I like you, Clarissa. You’re quite different to anyone I’ve known before, and really . . . well, I didn’t mean those things I said.’

‘No, of course not. And neither did—’

‘Please . . . please hear me out,’ he said. ‘What I was trying – trying very badly – to tell you that day was simply that I find it a little difficult, tricky, with you.’