The Memory of Lost Senses (15 page)

As Cecily descended the steps leading down to the lawn, she heard the rector say, “Aha, and here she is!” Ahead, under the canvas and seated in a variety of chairs, were the rector, Sonia Brownlow and her sister, Marjorie, Miss Combe, and a bespectacled lady with thinning gray hair and a book in her lap, whom Cecily immediately and instinctively knew to be the lady novelist.

In the center of the huddle, majestically upright and watching Cecily as she crossed the lawn, was an elderly lady in an old-fashioned rigid ensemble of navy blue-and-white-striped silk with lace cuffs, and a broad-brimmed navy blue hat atop a cloud of white hair. She wore an inscrutable expression, her eyes almost closed, her mouth unsmiling. Even if Cecily had not known who she was—and she knew exactly who she was—her eyes would have been drawn to this one person. Wherever she had seen her, whether in some busy city street, on a train, in a painting or photograph, she would have noticed her, been drawn to her. For her presence was compelling, without need of name or identity. Cecily felt a new sense of trepidation.

The rector rose to his feet: “Allow me to introduce you to Miss Cecily Chadwick, ma’am,” he said, with a nod to Cecily and a half-bow toward the lady. And without thinking, completely spontaneously, for she had not planned it, and had never in her life made such a gesture before, Cecily placed one foot forward and lowered her body in a deep curtsy. As soon as she raised her head she caught Sonia’s pinkish smirk, and felt her own face tingle. But the countess’s demeanor shifted; she opened up her bright blue eyes and smiled.

“Cecily. How lovely to meet you. Do sit down, my dear,” she said, gesturing to the empty chair at her side. “I imagine you know everyone here.”

Cecily glanced about and nodded as the others said hello.

“And this is my dear friend, Miss Dorland,” she went on. “Miss Dorland and I grew up together in Rome. Miss Dorland writes novellas,” she added, with a sudden and definite emphasis on the last word.

“Novels,” the bespectacled lady said quietly. “I write novels.” And she smiled at Cecily.

“I thought we’d take tea outside today, Cecily. I do hope it’s not too much for you, dear, this heat.”

“No, no, it’s—”

“One so loathes abandoning summer, peering out at it like a sick child from beyond a window, never being able to step out into this glorious light,” she said, gesturing bejeweled hands upward. And then she tilted her head back, closed her eyes and breathed in deeply.

Cecily watched her. She saw that her skin was tanned, more tanned than anyone else’s she knew, though she had seen people—even women of a similar age—at the fair with that same sort of coloring and had always thought it attractive. But the countess was nothing like any woman at any fair. In fact, the countess was nothing like any other woman. The combination and contrast between the color of her skin, her eyes, and the whiteness of her hair was striking and, despite her age, quite beautiful. In repose, the corners of her mouth slipped downward, lending age and an air of sadness to a face that still had something of the glow of youth about it, in spite of its lines. And that mouth . . . the mouth was—or certainly had been—a very pretty mouth, Cecily thought. But it was impossible to put an age—a definite age—on the lady. To Cecily, the countess appeared settled in that ill-defined place women reach, eventually, sometime after forty. A place her mother had happily, voluntarily—and prematurely—entered; a place where white hair alone did not necessarily denote years. She glanced at the novelist: girlish in demeanor, ancient in looks, she surmised. Confusing. She looked back at the countess: ancient in demeanor, but something still girlish around that mouth, puckering, pursing, smiling and pouting in turn. Then, as though sensing the scrutiny, the countess opened her eyes and turned to Cecily with a curious smile.

“Sunlight!” she said, dramatically. “It’s what feeble bodies crave, what troubled souls hunger for.”

“I just adore sunshine,” said Sonia, emulating the countess and tilting her head upward. “I think it’s perhaps something to do with having been born in the tropics.”

“You should be careful, it can make folk feverish. Look at the deaths in the newspaper, and one here in Linford only last week. It’s taken its toll, that’s for sure,” Miss Combe said, ever the voice of sobriety and caution, and tucking her chin into a froth of lace. “And it’s been proven it can make people go quite mad.”

“It is not the heat which makes one go mad, Miss Combe,” the countess said, “though it is, I grant you, a contributory factor. No, it’s the lack of sleep, the broken nights . . . the nightmares. The lack of peace our consciences need and require in order for us to face each and every new day.”

“Hear, hear!” boomed Mr. Fox.

Cecily noticed Miss Dorland open the notebook in her lap, lick her pencil, and then scribble something down. She heard Marjorie whisper loudly to Sonia, “That doesn’t make any sense. Why do babies need so much sleep then? Surely they have clear consciences.”

“It’s always so refreshing to have the young amongst us, wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Fox?” the countess continued, ignoring Marjorie and turning to the rector. “One always feels invigorated by their . . . sheer zest and joie de vivre.”

“Ah, yes, indeed, ma’am,” he said, nodding, his eyes fluttering shut.

She turned to Cecily. “So, my dear, do tell me a little more about yourself. I hear that you’ve lived in Bramley all of your life.”

“Yes, that’s right. And in the same house too . . . the place my father built.”

The countess released a short gasp. “Mr. Chadwick, such a talented man!”

“You knew him?”

“No, my dear, sadly I did not. But I’m always impressed by men who build, design or make things. What gifted, talented souls they are, as all artists are. But such a great loss to you and your poor mama . . .” She shuddered. “Oh, to be robbed of a father, that paternal, guiding force, that fountain of knowledge and wisdom. ’Tis arguably the second greatest loss for our sex to endure.”

The countess did not appear to notice Cecily’s blush, or Miss Dorland’s nervous glance toward the rector.

“Yes, indeed,” she continued, “far worse, I think, than the loss of a spouse, a husband, but of course not as great as the loss of a child,” she added quietly. “No, that is the greatest loss for any woman to endure.”

Minutes later, as two maids came across the lawn toward them, carrying the tea paraphernalia, and whilst the others talked amongst themselves, the countess turned to Cecily. For a moment she did not speak, but simply smiled at Cecily, studying her face. Her blue gaze moved across Cecily’s features, her nose, her mouth, then back to her eyes. And it was intoxicating, a scrutiny that made Cecily feel light-headed, quite dizzy. The countess said, “You know, we have the same initials, you and I. The double Cs.” She leaned closer. “My name is Cora, Cora de Chevalier,” she said, lifting her arm, stretching out her hand. On her little finger was a heavy gold ring engraved with two intertwined Cs. “So you see, already, we have a great deal in common.”

As tea was served and sipped, and plates of scones and queen cakes, and shortbread and small triangular sandwiches passed about, the conversation meandered from this to that and back again. There was no sign of Jack, and the countess made no reference to him, offered no apology for his absence. Cecily watched Miss Dorland, noted how quietly she sat. An observer, she concluded. And from time to time she caught the novelist’s eye, and they smiled at each other.

Mr. Fox spoke at some length about Lady Agatha Withenshaw (she had recently donated substantial monies to the clock tower and war widows funds). And then Miss Combe interjected, stretching her neck from a sea of ruffles and white lace to say that Lady Agatha had a vested interest: she was a war widow herself. Mr. Fox smiled, said that was not the point, but then failed to elaborate further, and Miss Combe, glancing away, tucking in an already receding chin, murmured something, and Cecily heard the word “gold digger.”

There were debates on the temperature, reckonings—and a tally—on local deaths the heat had caused, and then discussion of the growing unrest across the country. The countess spoke about the trouble in the Balkans, about Germany’s egotism, and then, shaking her head and genuflecting, said something in French. At which point, Mr. Fox tried to laugh but it came out all wrong, and the countess threw him a withering glance. Cecily made a mental note to read up on foreign news, and to look up the Balkans in the atlas when she returned home. The countess appeared to know about everything: history, art, empires, civilization, science and social order; the future of India, the future of Germany, the future of mankind; and wars. Listening to her, it seemed as though the whole world was in turmoil, standing on the edge of the abyss, looking down into the void. She told Mr. Fox that he and all of England needed to wake up, and Cecily heard Miss Combe gasp. Then she proclaimed that England itself was on the verge of civil war, to which the rector responded with mirth, and teased her, saying, “You have spent too long, ma’am, in countries not your own. We are civilized here.”

“Civilized?” she repeated. “Someone once told me England was filled with civilized philistines and cultured barbarians.” She paused, smiling coquettishly, and perhaps more to herself and a memory than to anyone present. “London, I was told—and yes, it was a very long time ago—was a capricious city dressed up in finery, pretending to like art without ever knowing what art is. London, I was told, was a place of ignorant snobbery! No, I’m not sure the English are civilized, not yet, Mr. Fox.”

“I’m afraid I have to disagree,” he replied. “We may have lost some dignity . . . certainly since the eighties and nineties, but this country remains the most civilized of the Western world. Our culture, our manners, our society—and our Empire—are envied the world over.”

“Pffsh,” she cried, with a rapid gesture of her hand. “We
have
lost our dignity, Mr. Fox, and we have lost our way: morally, spiritually and culturally. What made us great has made us arrogant and will surely pull us down. Look at Liverpool, and London for that matter. How can we speak of civilization, what pride can there be in our Empire when people here are starving? Such poverty is the direct result of that insatiable appetite for Empire. Imperialism, profit, expansion—it all comes at a cost. And I have seen the squalid tenements and courts and alleys that are also a part of our Empire, Mr. Fox. They are nothing to be proud of.”

For a moment Cecily wondered if the countess had been poor-peopling, like Sonia’s mother—visiting those desperate families who lived in only one room. She saw Mr. Fox smile, close his eyes, and then heard him say something quietly about history. But the countess interrupted him again, saying that history could never record the truth, or any individual stories. They would be lost, gone forever. It would take an overview, it would generalize, she said, diminishing real stories and identities, personal perspectives, and within them truths, turning triumph, defeat and tragedy into something else: popular entertainment, she suggested.

The rector made no reply, and for a minute or two no one spoke.

Then Miss Combe began: she was considering electricity, canvassing opinion on its safety. Someone had told her that it was not compatible with long hot summers, which seemed prevalent nowadays. (And there was a brief exchange about English summers of the past, whether they had in fact been hotter, longer, better.) Mr. Fox advocated that electricity, the sort that traveled through wires, was quite unnecessary. Wires, he said, were the problem. Wires were not compatible with the British way of life and should not be tolerated. It was the countess’s turn to laugh. And she did. Then she mentioned someone named Marconi, a friend of hers, Cecily presumed. Yes, the rector conceded, the Italians were good with wires. Or rather, that’s what he seemed to be saying.

And thus, like the ebb and flow of waves upon a shore, the tide drifted back to Italy, to Rome. The countess spoke of people whose names Cecily knew she really ought to know, but the countess seemed to know so many. For every name she mentioned was followed swiftly by another, and then another. And Mr. Fox in particular—in fact, alone—turned quite giddy and began to rub his thighs, like one of Cecily’s infant schoolboys when they were allowed to clean the blackboard. And Cecily, embarrassed for him, for a moment distracted by him, missed the beginning of another story: about a doll in Rome, a doll that performed miracles.

“The Piazza d’Ara Coeli,” the countess was saying, “lies at the heart of medieval Rome, close to Monte Palatino and the Roman Forum. Like all piazzas, it has a fountain at its center, and a church: the church of Santa Maria d’Ara Coeli. Situated on the Capitoline hill, overlooking the piazza, it is built upon the site of the ancient Roman Temple of Jupiter, where Augustus heard the sibyl announce the birth of Christ. It houses the Santissimo Bambino, a wooden doll carved from a tree that grew on the Mount of Olives, and said to have been painted by Saint Luke himself. There are many stories about how the Santissimo Bambino found its way to Rome, and each one includes a miracle. Romans believe the doll has divine powers and is able to heal the sick. And, up until quite recently, it was often carried from Maria d’Ara Coeli and transported through the city’s streets in its own carriage—with footmen and priests in attendance—to visit those sick and infirm. In return, grateful Romans continue to bring the Bambino gifts—money, jewels and gold. And each Christmas the children of Rome visit the doll, to sing to it, and offer up prayers and thanks. It is an ugly, macabre thing,” she added, wrinkling her nose. “Though I’ve oft enough prayed to it myself.”

“I was always frightened of it,” the novelist said quietly. “I never liked its face, never liked to look into its eyes.”

“Did it really perform miracles?” Marjorie asked.

But the countess suddenly appeared distracted. She gazed toward some steps at the edge of the lawn, smiling and frowning at the same time, as though she had just noticed an old friend.

Miss Dorland said, “So the Romans believe.”