We That Are Left
Page 46
She turned the envelope over, running her finger over its sealed edge. Mrs Edward Campbell Lowe. The last time they had seen one another, not one of those names had been hers. Very slowly she reached into the writing case, slid the silver letter opener from its leather pocket, and inserted it under the flap of the envelope. The paper sighed as she cut it. Inside was a single sheet of paper. Her fingers trembled as she drew it out.
My dear M,
I hope this letter finds you well.
The letter was very short. Maribel read it through three times, holding the paper with the tips of her fingers as though she meant to tear it in two.
I shall be in London at the end of May and would be most grateful if you would consent to see me. I would not ask if it were not of the greatest importance. Naturally you may be assured of my utmost discretion. I shall write again when I know my arrangements.
Your affectionate mother
Maribel looked at the letter for a long time. Then, returning it to its envelope, she slid it once more beneath the unused envelopes in her writing case. On the mantelpiece the clock struck the hour. She should bathe or she would be late for dinner.
Instead she sat on the window seat, looking out over the garden. The rain had stopped at last and the evening light was as pale and new as the inside of a shell. Somewhere a pigeon cooed. She fumbled her cigarette case from her pocket and snapped it open. The symmetry of the white cylinders, the way in which they fitted precisely into the silver case, was soothing somehow, a refutation of human error. Maribel had her cigarettes rolled for her at Benson & Hedges in Old Bond Street and sent over in packages of one hundred. Mr Hedges boasted to his customers that his rollers were the most dextrous in London, that they could produce forty immaculate cigarettes in a single minute. Maribel had never been able to imagine that. Her fingers shook as she set a cigarette between her lips, struck a match. She smoked fiercely, her shoulders hunched, drawing the smoke into her skull. When the smouldering tobacco threatened her fingers she used the stub to light another.
She would have to tell Edward, of course. She could not meet her mother without telling Edward. And if she refused to meet her? She was not sure that she could make that decision without him either. She had told him a little of her family at the very beginning, of course, recounted foolish stories from her childhood as everyone did, but they were few and quickly forgotten. By that time the past was ancient history and dull history at that. It had nothing to do with her, with what she had become. She was a different person by then.
When other people enquired about her name or her family or remarked upon her unusual accent, she only shrugged and offered the briefest of explanations. Maria Isabel Constanza de la Flamandière was such a mouthful that she had always been known simply as Maribel. The only child of a French father and a Spanish mother, she had spent her girlhood in Chile where she had spoken both languages, French in conversation with her parents, a clumsy local version of her mother’s tongue with the servants and shopkeepers. At the age of twelve she had been sent to live with her father’s sister in Paris, where she attended a convent school which she disliked. In Paris she had met Edward. That was that, the extent of her history. Even the most persistent of questioners could not draw her further.
The story of her chance encounter with Edward was, by contrast, well known to everyone in their circle. One sunny May afternoon, aged only just eighteen, she had been walking in the Champs-Elysées when she was almost knocked off her feet by an unruly black horse. Its handsome rider had dismounted to beg her forgiveness and, in the sweet breathlessness of those first moments, their lives had been altered for ever. The daze of that Parisian afternoon had intensified into an impassioned courtship, conducted in secret, and then an elopement. Five weeks later in London she and Edward had been married.
They had honeymooned in Texas and in Mexico. Back in London with an eavesdropping servant to consider, they never talked of her family again. She had never confessed to Edward that, on their return from America, she had written a letter to her mother. She could think of no way to tell him, no explanation for her recklessness. At the time she had not concerned herself with reasons. When she had unpacked their boxes and discovered the notices of their wedding, cut from the London newspapers and sent to them by Edward’s mother, she had folded them into a single sheet of writing paper on which she had scribbled a short note.
Mother,
Given the circumstances of our parting I thought you would be glad to know that, despite your steadfast belief that I would disgrace you, I am now married. We are currently resident at the above address in London, although we travel tomorrow to the family seat in Scotland. How provoking for you that you will not be able to boast about it. I would ask you not to reply to this letter but I should not wish you to worry unnecessarily.
M
She had posted the letter before she had had time to think better of it. That had been nearly ten years ago. Her mother had respected her wishes. She had not replied. Maribel had known that she would not. No doubt that was why she had risked writing in the first place, because there was no danger of the consequences. Her mother was a woman of irreproachable respectability whose abhorrence of scandal was as vital in her as blood. In ten years she had not written so much as a postcard.
And now, out of the blue, this. Her mother disliked travelling. She would not make the journey to London unless her business was urgent. As for her suggestion that they meet, it was frankly inexplicable. What was so important that it could not be said in a letter?
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About the Author
CLARE CLARK is the author of four novels, including The Great Stink, which was long-listed for the Orange Prize and named a Washington Post Best Book of the Year, and Savage Lands, also long-listed for the Orange Prize. Her work has been translated into six languages. She lives in London.
Learn more at www.clareclark.net