by Rosie Alison
She wrote Thomas on bits of paper. She wrote letters which she never sent. She sought scraps of information about him, just to hear his name spoken. Coming from a Yorkshire family, she knew a certain amount about the Ashtons – their house, their hunting, the deaths of his brothers in the war, and his sister in the influenza epidemic. She remembered meeting Claudia Ashton as a child, and the news of her unexpected death had made a deep impression on her, but now that she loved Thomas, the Ashton family griefs swept right through her with a new force. She found herself crying over deaths which had happened a decade before. Thomas was now a figure of great and noble pathos to her.
Soon, she guessed, he would return from Berlin, and she might at least fathom if there was a woman there who held his heart. Meanwhile it was so hard to contain herself. She desperately craved intimacy with this man, and yet he appeared so entirely oblivious to her.
When Thomas did visit London in the summer of 1928, he might never have noticed Elizabeth had it not been for his Foreign-Office friend, Clifford Norton. Bookish, reticent and slightly austere, Norton generally avoided parties, but happened to see Thomas at an art gallery reception to which his wife Peter had dragged him. The pair of diplomats huddled together in one corner, catching up on office news, while Norton’s wife strode around the paintings. Elizabeth was also there, and she saw the two men alone together. Boldly, she walked over to greet Thomas – just for a moment.
Their conversation was cursory, yet Norton divined her interest in Thomas. Through subsequent years, she gathered that Norton never much liked her, such was his habitual protectiveness about his friend. But nevertheless, when Thomas was hurriedly seeking a last-minute partner for a concert, Norton remembered Elizabeth and suggested her.
Two days later, she was sitting beside Thomas at the Wigmore Hall. Four sleek string players bowed and arranged themselves on the small stage, until their leader nodded and Debussy’s plaintive string quartet flowed between them.
It was familiar chamber music of pleasurable melancholy, yet rarely had Thomas found himself so moved; he wondered whether his mysterious elation wasn’t somehow aroused by Elizabeth at his side. He turned to her occasionally, and she returned his glance. Her face was rapt, or so it seemed to him; it moved him not only to hear the music, but also to feel the presence of this intense young woman beside him.
He could not know that she was shaking at his own presence, that her heart was brimming with the bittersweet joy of a long-nurtured infatuation. Whenever he turned his eyes to her, she felt her heart swooping with hope. This is the man I love, the music told her, her quaking body told her. She tried to steady the trembling of her hands.
From the corner of his eye Thomas could glimpse her long neck, the distinct rise of her breasts, her elegant ankles. He observed the way her fine fingers seemed almost to quiver at the music. My mother would appreciate this girl, he thought – then realized that he, too, appreciated her. He was touched by her feminine grace, faint fragrance, and by the lovely responsiveness of her face. He felt proud to be escorting her. More, he felt suddenly at home, as if he were understood and known. Extraordinary, he thought, considering they had barely met properly before.
When they talked in the interval, her conversation resonated with him. Perhaps because she spoke with such tact of his dead sister Claudia, breaking through his usual reserve and allowing them to converse frankly together. He did not guess that Elizabeth had already dreamt her way into his life, that every gesture, every word she uttered was freighted with all those days and nights of private longing. For Thomas, it simply felt as if they had known each other for a long time.
A curiously intense encounter, and oddly tender, he thought, as they listened to the gentle lament of ravel’s string quartet in the second half of the concert.
Later, when he saw her home, Elizabeth ran straight up to her room and closed the door, caught between elation and fear. She knew she wouldn’t be able to let this love go now, because at last she had some hope. She would have to see it through, and suffer for it, if need be.
All that had been eleven years ago. Now, walking through Ashton’s corridors, Elizabeth felt almost protective about her younger self – and the way she had followed her feelings so unconditionally, never stopping to consider where they might lead her.
She paused for a moment in the stone hall, caught by its coppery light. The late afternoon sun was shafting through the hall windows, and she found herself looking upwards, trying to recall the first time she had gazed up into that azure dome as a young woman – with all the excitement and trepidation of her first visit to Ashton. Arriving in her own car, she had driven cautiously up the long white drive, but when the house finally reared up before her, she faltered. Even then, she had wondered if this vast house could ever be her home.
On that first trip, she had arrived in time for a rather confused tea, with many house guests she did not know, and a brief meeting with Thomas’s father, who looked at her with disconcerting directness, while his mother was vague and distracted.
A maid laid out her clothes while she took a bath – that was something new to her. She could remember noticing how the old-fashioned tub was stained with brown streaks from the peaty water. Alone in her room, she dressed with care: she wanted to be elegant but demure. When she pinned up her hair, her hands were clumsy with nerves, and she could not even bear to appraise her own appearance in the mirror. So she just drew her breath and walked carefully down the great mahogany staircase for drinks.
Through the drawing-room doorway, she could just see Thomas beyond, groomed to chilly perfection in his dinner jacket. She felt herself hesitating, but was relieved when he watched her entrance into the room with obvious pleasure; suddenly, she felt more at ease in her long close dress.
But dinner was more of a trial.
“Whitby was founded by the Benedictines,” Thomas’s father told her emphatically over pheasant, “but all the other large abbeys round here – Rievaulx, Jervaulx, Byland, Fountains – were all Cistercian, of course.”
Of course. She knew nothing about Yorkshire monasteries, and soon ached from smiling and nodding at her host, yet still could not spark a single opinion. Perhaps as a consequence of her inadequacy at dinner she barely slept that night. Burying her head in a musty pillow, she wished she could go home.
The next day was even more testing, when Thomas walked her round the house and gardens. She was alone with the man she loved, yet she could hardly muster a thought, a view, a word to say.
“The weather this summer has been so disappointing. Too much rain.”
“In Berlin we have been luckier.”
“I should like to see Berlin.”
“It’s not a beautiful city, but it’s invigorating – they have some inventive new architects working there.”
No invitation to visit him at his embassy. Perhaps he had changed his mind, now he knew that she had nothing to say.
The corridors were long, and rang with the sound of their heels. The Marble Hall echoed with the closing and opening of doors. The paintings looked down at her, and through her, she feared. Thomas, all the while, was charming and considerate, strolling beside her yet holding himself just far enough apart not to graze hands. She enjoyed the easy grace of his walk.
But at lunch, his parents were still remote.
“Cumberland sauce is so refreshing with lamb, don’t you think?” observed Miriam Ashton. “Do you admire Ramsay MacDonald? We are rather fond of him at Ashton, because we feel he understands the land,” she went on, talking past Elizabeth’s shoulder, without apparently expecting a reply.
Afterwards, a drizzle kept Thomas and Elizabeth indoors. They toyed with a jigsaw of a Turner painting in the drawing room until, at last, a wash of pale sunlight spilled through the sombre sky and eased away the rain. Thomas suggested a walk, and led her out along the grass terraces, where the gentle breathing of the trees filled the uneasy gaps in their conversation.
At last Elizabeth began to
feel a little closer to her very formal host. By the gracious Ionic temple, with the river cascading below, she felt Thomas edging towards her.
“What a wonderful view,” she said with plausible conviction, sensing a sudden increase in intensity from Thomas. Short, stiff banalities were all she could offer. Thomas stood very still, and gazed down at the river below.
“It’s my favourite view,” he said with grave passion.
In sudden panic, Elizabeth looked down at the land spread out before them. She understood that he wanted to see if she could love this place too – if it could move her as it did him. The scene meant little to her: it was a blankly beautiful landscape which she could barely register. But as she held her gaze on the view, she sensed Thomas turn his face towards her. She could hear her own heartbeat as she waited, feeling his eyes upon her. Until she turned to look at him.
What she saw made her heart turn over. His eyes were ablaze with anxious hope in the most loving face she had ever seen. He leant forwards, fingers stretching out to hold her shoulders. His taut face came towards her, his eyes piercing her, his mouth opening her lips. They kissed, bodies pressed together. She rested her head against his shoulder and felt herself flow into his embrace. Inside, she was surging like a rip current, a delicious expectation of love flooding through her.
When she dared to meet his eyes once more, he touched her chin with one hand and they held each other’s gaze: they had found each other.
They walked and walked, laughing, kissing, embracing, past the tennis court and the palm court pavilion, past the lake, the sunshine penetrating the gloomy sky in great shafts of gold.
When they returned to the house for tea, a glow of sheer joy glanced off their faces. They tingled with mutual happiness. All those in the drawing room could observe it – Thomas’s father was quietly approving.
Sunday was unhurried. After a service in the chapel, Thomas rowed Elizabeth on the lake. Their fingertips grazed against each other, and they kissed many times. Elizabeth followed Thomas’s distinctly decorous overtures; although she longed to touch him further, she held back.
At last, Thomas invited her to visit him in Berlin. With the promise of a future meeting secured, Elizabeth felt ready to depart. After tea, as she set off on the long drive south, she was relieved to feel all her tension seeping away. There had been enough love for one weekend. She did not want to lose him with too much too soon.
She took with her the memory of Thomas standing on the steps of Ashton Park, his arms raised in a gesture of farewell. He stood there with his shoulders thrown back in an attitude of effortless self-possession. This is my home and hope, his body seemed to say as he waved her off.
Even then, in the moment of her greatest euphoria, Elizabeth had felt a little uneasy. Because she knew that she had reached Thomas by stealth. Without him realizing it, she had orchestrated his emotions. He thought he had wooed her, but she knew better: that she had tricked him into love.
But now, all these years later, she felt a different guilt: that she had pursued Thomas so cannily only to let her love for him leak away.
Sometimes, across the dining room, she would suddenly glimpse Thomas talking to someone, and her heart would turn over at the sight of his smile. And a memory would come back to her of the longing she had known for him before their marriage. But she knew that now it was only a memory of a feeling, not the feeling itself.
13
Anna was finishing her weekly letter home as fast as she could, because she wanted to get to the swing. There was only one swing in the gardens, hanging from aknotty tree by the main lawn. The children were always queuing up for turns, but Annacould see through the library window that it was free right now.
She raced outside and clambered onto the swing seat. There were only ten more minutes before afternoon lessons, so she swung her legs as hard as she could, to get into arhythm. Higher and higher she went, pushing herself through the sky until she was really soaring.
Speed bonny boat like a bird on the wing…
She liked to sing her own private songs on the swing, songs her mother could play on the piano at home. But after awhile, she just let the swing’s momentum take her – watching the sky race towards her until she was dizzy, then leaning back to feel the breeze rushing through her hair.
It was only as she slowed down that she noticed an unexpected sound. a subtle shaking, arustling whisper, but musical too, like wind chimes. She jumped off the swing and followed the sound, skirting the woods to the grass terrace beyond – until she arrived at the source of the rustling. a cluster of slender trees with light bark. And small tremulous leaves – some still silvery-green, others turning autumnyellow.
They must be the aspen trees, thought Anna. Quivering trees which could play their own music. She tucked a few aspen leaves into her tunic pocket and ran back to her lessons.
Only yesterday, Miss Weir had taken them outside to collect autumn leaves for their nature diaries. Oaks, elms, sycamores, silver birches. Mr Ashton had greeted them in the Marble Hall as they returned to their classroom.
“Did you find anything interesting?”
Annapaused to show him her pressed leaves.
“Ah, but have you found the aspens yet?” he asked her lightly.
“No, sir, what are they?”
“The most unusual trees in the park, slender and silvergreen. When the wind blows through their leaves, they make their own special music. They sing.”
“Where can I find them?”
“Listen for them. Wait for a windy day, and you’ll hear them.”
“Come along, Anna…” Miss Weir called after her, and Annajoined her class, wondering if he was making it up.
But now she had the leaves to show him. She waited until the end of her Latin lesson, a quiet moment when everyone was scattering for tea.
“Here they are, sir. Aspen leaves.”
He was delighted with her find; she could see that, so she gave him some leaves.
“How did you find them so quickly, Anna?”
“I listened, just like you said.”
“that aspen grove was a favourite place of mine, when I was your age. But not many people ever notice it, so you should keep it to yourself,” he said with a smile, wheeling himself off.
Anna went back to her desk, and proudly stowed away the one leaf she had kept. If she ever wanted to get away from the other children, she had her own place to go now.
14
That evening, sitting with Elizabeth in the drawing room, Thomas felt something in his pocket. The aspen leaves; he put them on aside table.
“Collecting leaves?” asked his wife.
“Just a gift from one of the children.”
“you are popular these days,” came Elizabeth’s tart reply, as she rose to fetch an ashtray. Instantly, she regretted her tone; sometimes, she disliked her husband just for the acid he drew from her.
Thomas let the barb pass, and returned his eyes to his book, a Henry James novel. But it required concentration, and Thomas’s mind was wandering, following his wife as she walked about the room.
The ongoing erosion of their marriage was subtly cumulative, he felt, but turned on a series of failed moments which might perhaps have been different. For which he was to blame as much as her. There had been so many times when he might have reached out to Elizabeth and stroked her cheek, or caught her eye and touched her heart. But too often he would neither look at her, nor hear her silent calls; instead, he resisted her romantic gestures because he felt too foolish, in his condition, to be a lover.
Thomas knew that he had too often shut his own door on her.
Just as he was doing now, sitting in the drawing room while Elizabeth talked to her mother on the telephone. He watched her and saw that she was lovely. His wife. She put down the telephone.
“Elizabeth?”
She looked over to him, open for a moment. Too long he paused.
“Is your mother well?”
“Yes, quite we
ll.”
“I’m glad.”
He hesitated. She waited for more words, but none came. He wheeled himself away to the bookcase, feigning interest in a set of French classics.
Why could he not tell her she was beautiful? Had his disability crippled his tongue too?
He leafed through a book which meant nothing to him. She walked past him, and out of the room. Ashton was a house where you could avoid each other’s silences by simply going to another room, another floor.
She went to sit on her own in their bedroom, with a drink.
Thomas picked up his novel again. Most of the time now, he had his own strategies for contentment: music, reading, listening to the wireless. But sometimes he allowed himself to recognize the acute compromises of his marriage. Two damaged people together, barely speaking.
He had hoped that this school initiative might rekindle their warmth, but perhaps it was just another false dawn. Any spontaneous intimacy seemed to elude them both at the moment. There was always that distance in her eyes. In his eyes, too.
He knew his disability had short-changed her, but he sensed other patterns at play too. As long as he could remember, he had always been straining to know how to love. He couldn’t say whether it was his stiff upbringing or his siblings’ deaths which had cauterized his feelings, but he knew there remained something remote about his heart.
He could recall Norton reassuring him that he was a natural diplomat when he first joined the Foreign Office, “because you can see all sides, while taking none,” he had said, as if fence-sitting was a virtue. Yet Thomas was wary of his own detachment.
He thought back to his younger self, arriving at Oxford and meeting girls for the first time. He could remember music drifting through the college quads on Saturday nights, and summer parties in damp sunlit gardens. He had worn the new clothes, baggy trousers, patterned jerseys. Modern girls had arrived, smoking cigarettes and asking to dance. But his heart had remained untouched by anyone at that time: all the girls had seemed like strangers to him.
