The Last Summer

by Judith Kinghorn

  “Please, do sit down and enjoy your lunch,” I said, as they rose simultaneously to their feet.

  They took their orders from Mr. Broughton—a man whom I’d more than once heard described by Edna, our cook, as a dark horse—and were usually employed in what were still referred to as the “pleasure gardens”: keeping the borders free of bindweed and ivy, cutting back and clipping the many and various shrubs, and attending to the pathways—so easily lost and overgrown. Up a ladder or down on their knees, they were always there, together, always smiling and laughing. Frank, short and squat, with freckles and bright red curls, and John, so immensely tall and gangly, with shorn jet black hair. Even to look at they made a comical pair, and Mama often said they should be on the stage.

  That day, Frank, the same age as me and mad on cricket, blushed to the color of a ripe tomato when I inquired how his team was doing that season, and John said, “He wears the color of ’is ’eart on ’is face, miss,” and then laughed. They had both worked in the gardens at Deyning since they were boys, both been part of every Christmas, birthday and celebration; and each summer, when Deyning played against the village team, Frank had no obvious conflict and always switched allegiance to bowl for Deyning Park.

  The previous summer, when the days had been long, stretching late in to the evening, I’d taken it upon myself to teach Frank to read—and be able to write more than just his name. (Both he and John were too old to have benefited from my father’s founding of the village school. They had, they said, for a while at least, on certain days, walked the three miles to the nearest school, but there were simply too many distractions on their route, and neither of them were suited to being kept indoors.) Each evening, after dinner, I sat with Frank outside on the veranda, teaching him the sounds of letters and familiar words, writing them out for him to copy and practice. I read passages from a few of my favorite books out loud to him, and some poems too. And we made progress. By the end of summer Frank was able to recognize any number of words, and confident enough to attempt the pronunciation of others. With a little help from me, he’d written a letter to his mother, even though she wouldn’t be able to read it, he said; would need someone to read it for her. He joined the local lending library, and I gave him a list of books I thought he might enjoy. Then Mama intervened. She said she thought Frank was becoming a little too attached; that I had done enough, and that it was wrong—and possibly misleading—for me to continue my sponsorship of him. So I told him, reluctantly, that I’d taught him as much as I could, that he’d have to go on alone; go on reading, and continue with books until he could read as well as anyone else.

  “I imagine you’ve both met Mrs. Cuthbert’s son . . .” I said at last, leaning against a warm pane of the greenhouse.

  “Tom?” John replied. “He were just out here, earlier. Weren’t he, Frank?”

  Frank, mouth bulging with bread, glanced up at me, blushing once more, and nodded.

  “Well, he seems like a jolly nice sort,” I said, looking from one to the other, and wondering if either of them knew any more than me. “But such a shame about his father . . .”

  “What’s that then?” John asked.

  “Mr. Cuthbert,” I replied, not sure what else to say.

  “Mr. Cuthbert? Thought he’d been gone long since.”

  “Yes . . . yes, that’s what I meant. Such a shame, for Mrs. Cuthbert I mean, and for Tom. I don’t suppose he ever knew his father . . .”

  John turned to Frank and—in a much quieter voice—said, “Aye, well, plenty like that ’round here.” And they both laughed.

  Finally, late in the afternoon, as I once again halfheartedly perused my father’s bookshelves, I heard footsteps in the marble hallway coming toward the open library door. I grabbed a book, and sat down just in time.

  He closed the door behind him and remained perfectly still for a moment, looking over at me.

  “Oh, hello, Tom,” I said, sounding surprised (even to myself).

  “Hello, Clarissa. I was hoping I might find you here. And what are we reading today?” he asked, walking toward me. “More of the Brontës?”

  I glanced down at the book, noticed it was covered in plain paper, and opened it quickly. “Ha! No, not today,” I said, searching for the title. “No, today I’m quite lost in . . . The Life and Adventures of dear Miss Fanny Hill.”

  “Really?”

  He stood in front of me, his hands in his pockets, a quizzical look upon his face.

  “Why so surprised?” I asked, looking up at him, smiling. “I don’t limit myself to just the Brontë sisters, you know.”

  “Clarissa . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Have you actually been reading that book?”

  “Yes . . . yes, indeed I have.” I opened the book at random. “I was somewhere . . . about here . . .” I flicked a page or two. “This page, I think . . . yes, this one. She, no doubt, thought it was time to give up the argument, and that all further defense would be in vain . . .”

  I looked up again, blinking. He sat down in the chair opposite me, leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands in front of him. His shirtsleeves were rolled back and I noticed the dark hair on his forearms.

  “Yes, that’s where I was up to.”

  “Do continue . . . please, read some more,” he said.

  “Are you sure? To be honest I was finding it rather dull.”

  He smiled. “No, please. I’d like to hear you read on.”

  I cleared my throat. “And he, throwing her petticoats over her face . . .”—I paused, slightly confused—“which was now as red as scarlet, discovered . . . a pair of . . .”—I paused again, then continued, slowly, quieter—“stout, plump, substantial thighs . . . and tolerably white; he mounted them round his hips . . .” My mind began to swim, my face grew hot, but I continued, my voice ever quieter. “And coming out with his drawn weapon, stuck it in the cloven spot . . . where he seemed to find a less difficult entrance than perhaps he had flattered himself with . . .”

  I looked up at him, my face stinging. I wasn’t entirely sure if what I’d read was the run-up to a grisly murder or some other act of wickedness. But by Tom’s expression I could hazard a guess. He reached over, eased the book from my hand and closed it.

  “I’m quite certain your father wouldn’t want you to be reading that particular book.”

  “No,” was all I could manage. I felt my lip quiver, and for a moment I thought I might cry.

  “Are you feeling quite all right?” he asked.

  “No, not terribly,” I replied.

  “Come, let’s go outside. You look as though you need some air.” He rose to his feet and walked ahead of me through the library, placing the book upon a shelf without a second glance. I followed him across the hallway and then outside, into the garden. Perhaps he thought I read that sort of book. Perhaps he thought I’d picked it on purpose, wanted to read it to him . . . I stopped, closed my eyes, and shivered.

  “Do you need a shawl or something?” he asked.

  “No, no thank you. I’m fine.”

  We walked in silence across the flagstones, past Mama’s gaudy new swing-chair, down the steps and onto the lawn. It had been another indifferent, overcast day, but now the garden glowed in the warmth of the early-evening sun. We walked under the drooping branches of the sycamore toward the bank of rhododendrons and the ha-ha just beyond.

  “Feeling better?” he asked, turning to me.

  “Mm, slightly,” I said, not looking at him, a hullabaloo of unfamiliar words still echoing in my head.

  I was neither able nor ready to put together a longer sentence. But I was aware that since reading about his drawn weapon . . . in the cloven spot I’d barely uttered a word.

  “There’s a bench over here,” I managed at last. “One can see for miles.”

  “Perfect. All we need is a Singapore Sling,” he said, as we sat down upon the wooden seat.

  “Singapore what?”

  �
��It’s a cocktail, all the rage up at Oxford.” He turned to me, smiling. “Have you ever had a cocktail?”

  “I had a champagne cocktail once . . . at New Year.”

  “And did you enjoy it?”

  “Yes. It made me feel quite . . . in love with life,” I replied, remembering my dance with Billy Robertson, a handsome under-gardener who’d since vanished from my father’s employ.

  He laughed. “Alcohol does that. It loosens folk up, makes them feel freer,” he said, staring into the distance.

  “Are there lots and lots of parties up at Oxford?” I asked, my equilibrium almost restored by the combination of air and conversation.

  “Yes, there are. But I’m neither fashionable enough nor rich enough to be invited to some. And”—he turned to me—“I need to work. I’m not like the other undergraduates who have a private income and are simply there because they have nothing better to do. Or want to have a wild few years before taking over the family estate. I have an opportunity, and I don’t intend to throw it away.”

  “It must be difficult,” I said, not sure what else to say.

  “Difficult?”

  “Yes, difficult for you—if you feel excluded or perhaps on the outside of something.”

  “Clarissa, you are sweet. But I’m not remotely bothered about parties or socializing.”

  “I think all Henry does is gallivant about—attending parties . . . and womanize,” I added, borrowing one of Mama’s words.

  “Well, it’s different for him. Look at this,” he said, gesturing at everything in front of us. “All this will be his one day. Whereas I”—and he turned to me again—“I shall inherit a shoebox of mementos, if I’m lucky.”

  “But you may be like Papa . . . you might make a fortune.”

  “Yes, I intend to do that. But what about you, Clarissa? You may be married, and to an earl—or even a duke—by this time next year.”

  I tried to laugh. “I hope not. I don’t wish to be married too soon. And I’m not sure I want to be married to either a duke or an earl.”

  “Perhaps not, but your parents may.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a packet of cigarettes and offered me one.

  “No, thank you. I don’t.”

  I watched him light his cigarette, draw heavily on it, sucking in his cheeks.

  “I hope they want me to be happy more than anything else,” I said. “And I intend to be ferociously happy.”

  He made no reply. But I watched him from the corner of my eye as he smoked his cigarette, staring into the distance through half-closed eyes, and I wondered what he was thinking. I longed to know his thoughts. I longed to know him. And, though it was much too warm an evening to be sitting outside in the sun, I didn’t want that moment to end.

  I noticed the tiny beads of perspiration glistening on the temple of his brow, above his mouth; the damp indigo patch under his arm. I watched him as he placed his lips around the cigarette, inhaled, and then blew a series of smoke rings into the sultry evening air. I fiddled with the lace on the ruffle of my high-necked blouse, pushed my fingers underneath the fabric onto my own hot skin; and I wished I’d done as Mama had repeatedly told me and worn my hair up.

  “We’d better go. Your brothers will probably be back by now and no doubt wondering where you are,” he said, flicking his cigarette over the ha-ha.

  “I don’t think so. They’re not remotely interested in where I am. No one ever is.”

  He turned toward me. “If you were mine—I mean, if you were my sister—I’d be interested, and I don’t suppose I’d be too happy to know you were idling with the housekeeper’s son.”

  “It’s up to me who I choose to idle with,” I said, staring back at him, our eyes inches apart. I saw him glance to my lips, then back to my eyes, then back to my lips. Kiss me. Kiss me now, I begged silently.

  He raised his hand to my face—as though about to touch it; then, in one swift movement, pulled away. “You know, you’re quite dangerously beautiful, Clarissa Granville. Just as well you’re kept locked away here,” he said, and rose to his feet. “Come. I should take you back.”

  “But it’s not late. I don’t need to go back, not yet.”

  “I need to get back.”

  “Why? Will your mother be worried?”

  “Clarissa . . . it’s not right for us to stay out here—alone.”

  “Why ever not? What’s going to happen? I hardly think you’re about to seduce me, Mr. Cuthbert. No, I feel quite safe here with you.”

  “Aha! But perhaps you shouldn’t.”

  “Why? Do you plan on seducing me?” I asked, rising to my feet, looking back at him, into his eyes. “If so, do please tell me—as I’d like a moment to prepare.”

  He pulled me to him. “You really shouldn’t say such things . . . you’ve no idea . . . have you?”

  He held me tightly; his mouth so close I could feel the heat of his breath in short sharp bursts upon my face.

  “No idea of what?” I asked, watching his eyes on my lips.

  Kiss me. Kiss me now.

  “No idea,” he repeated, turning his face away, releasing his grip. He stepped back from me, thrust his hands into his pockets and looked up at the sky with a groan.

  “I’m sorry . . .”

  He sighed, turned to face me. “What are you sorry for? You’ve no reason to apologize. Come, let’s walk back,” he added, smiling at me once more.

  We began to walk across the lawn in the direction of the house. “I’m sorry if . . . if I’ve made you feel uncomfortable in some way,” I said. “I’m afraid my brothers’ teasing has probably blunted my sensibilities . . . made me too flippant.”

  At the edge of the lawn, he stopped, looked down at the grass. “Perhaps I’ll see you tomorrow . . .”

  “Yes, perhaps,” I replied, glancing away, toward the lake in the distance.

  “I still need to look up a few books in your father’s library . . .”

  “Of course.”

  “Perhaps, later in the day . . . around four.”

  I turned to him. “Yes, around four. I’m sure that will be fine.”

  He smiled, and as he began to move away—walking backward—he said, “Oh, and Clarissa, promise me one thing . . .”

  “What’s that?” I asked, intrigued.

  “Promise me you won’t read another word of that book.”

  I laughed. “Of course not. I promise.”

  And then I went inside, to the library, pulled out the book and took it up to my room.

  Chapter Four

  I awoke early the following morning: catapulted back to my bed from Tom Cuthbert’s arms. We’d been lying in an exotically decorated open-sided tent, on the lawn, under the sycamore tree. “Clarissa . . . Clarissa,” he’d repeated, holding me tightly, gazing into my eyes. Then he’d kissed me, and the passion of his kiss had woken me. I closed my eyes and returned there, to languish once more in his arms. But as I felt his hands move over my body, I realized my state of dishabille; for I was in nothing more than my flimsy summer nightgown, which he appeared to have unbuttoned. And I leaped from my bed, still breathless and hot from that imagined kiss.

  I was distracted over breakfast, and Mama, too, was unusually silent. She liked to check the menu for dinner each morning and almost always read it out loud, but not today. I stood by the sideboard, staring down at my reflection in a polished silver lid. Perhaps I should wear my hair up . . . As I lifted the lid from a dish of deviled kidneys, my mother sighed, loudly, and then informed me that she was going out to make calls later that afternoon. Did I wish to accompany her?

  “Would you mind if I didn’t today? I’m quite lost in my book . . . and determined to finish it this afternoon.”

  I sat down at the table next to her.

  “Very well, but I think you should stay inside, out of the sun. And please do something with your hair, Clarissa,” she said, and then she rose to her feet and left the room.

  I was relieved she appeared so preoccupied,
and I presumed she must be tired, for she’d returned home from London very late the previous evening. I’d been in my bed, reading, but when I’d heard her arrive back I’d gone to see her, in her dressing room. She’d been in one of her dreamy moods, and told me that she’d seen the most beautiful painting she’d ever seen in her life, at a gallery in London.

  “But I thought you went to a horticultural exhibition . . .”

  “Oh . . . no,” she said, turning to me. “I left Broughton to do that. I met Venetia and we went to a gallery . . . and then out to dinner.”

  Later that day, as I watched her disappear down the driveway, I thought how remarkably brave and independent she was. Unwavering and indefatigable in her commitment to her many causes, she was happy to travel about the locality on her own in the dogcart; visiting people, delivering food parcels—eggs, butter, fruit and vegetables from the farm—ministering to those sick and needy, and attending to her many and various charitable causes. There seemed to be an inexhaustible list of charities with which she was affiliated, from the NSPCC to the League of Pity and the Mothers’ Union; she attended drawing room meetings, and sat on the council of the Primrose League, in my mind something to do with gardening: her one true passion.

  Mama was obsessed with her garden, and not only in summer, but all year round. There was always something to be done, always something requiring her attention. In early summer her roses and peonies, in particular, inevitably scooped her a few first prizes at local flower shows. But sometimes she traveled further afield—to more out-of-the-way places, in order to exhibit a vividly colored orchid from the hothouse, or a new hybrid tea rose. She’d return from these trips with a ribbon or rosette, reinvigorated, and quite obviously elated.

  I wondered if I’d be like Mama one day: as poised and controlled, as elegant. She seemed to me to inhabit an aura of ineffable loveliness, gliding about the place in a cloud of tuberose, exuding a soporific maternal balm upon our senses. Taller than most other women, she held her head high, for good posture and manners were, she said, the surest and most important indicator of character. She abhorred raised voices, or aggression of any kind, and had no time for wanton displays of emotion, or what she deemed self-indulgent outbursts.