The Last Summer

by Judith Kinghorn

  “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.”

  “Good-bye then.”

  “Good-bye.”

  There was an awkward moment as I strode on up the hill, for I realized 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 leaned forward, fiddling with his hands. “You see . . . you see I like you, Clarissa. You’re quite different from 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.”

  He turned, presumably to check my expression. I raised my eyebrows, expectantly.

  “What I mean is . . . you know who you are, what you are; how your life will be. It makes it hard for someone like me. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” I said, emphatically, but I had not a clue.

  “I’m not really worthy of your attention or interest. And I have to remind myself of this all the time. I have to remember who I am and who you are. I have to remember that we will both be moving on . . . in quite different directions.”

  He stopped there, and I waited a moment before I spoke.

  “Well then, let’s be friends again,” I said, and, instinctively, I reached out and placed my hand upon his arm.

  He pulled his arm away. “But this is the crux; this is the problem. I’m not sure that I can be friends with you.”

  “Oh.”

  He ran his hands through his hair. “You see, I find myself . . . I find myself . . .” he went on, falteringly, then sighed.

  “Tom, please. Can’t we be friends? I promise that I shan’t invite you on another walk,” I said. And he laughed.

  “Yes. Yes, let’s be friends again.” He tilted his head, looking at me sideways through a wave of almost black hair.

  “Good, then it’s settled, and you have nothing to fret about—and neither do I.”

  He pulled out his packet of cigarettes and lit one.

  “I’ve missed seeing you,” he said, leaning forward once more. “You weren’t at the last croquet game, and I’ve not seen you for . . .”—he paused—“for a while. Are you well?”

  “Yes, quite well.”

  He turned to me. “You do look well.”

  “Yes, I’m very well.”

  “Perhaps later, if you’d like, we can take a walk—down by the lake.”

  I smiled. It wasn’t exactly begging for forgiveness, but it was enough.

  —

  I had never known my mother to look fretful or to frown. I’d grown up with her telling me “girls who frown shall never wear a crown,” and it was enough, when I was small, for me to run my finger between my eyebrows to check my expression. That summer, whenever I came across my mother standing in contemplative pose, looking out through open windows, I took her hand in mine, assured her that all would be well . . . her roses would survive. But there was a new look in her eyes, the clear line of a frown between her brows, and when she smiled back at me I could see she didn’t quite believe me. At mealtimes, whenever the conversation turned to events taking place in Europe, she’d look at me and give me that same smile. Of course, I’d seen the newspapers, and I’d heard my brothers and my father talking, but the crisis unfolding on another continent was so far from Deyning, so far from our lives.

  Weeks before, the day after Henry returned home from Cambridge, the archduke had been assassinated, and I’d heard him say to Papa, “This’ll surely mean war.” At that time I had no notion of war, or death. God, I believed, created life, all of nature and beauty, and I had faith in Him. I loved Him. My father and brother were speaking of a strange-sounding, almost unpronounceable place, far away from us. These were modern times, civilized times; and wars—at least in my mind—belonged to history.

  But events in Europe and talk of war began to take over all mealtime conversation. I tried to ignore these discussions, for I didn’t understand them, didn’t want to understand them, and they did not belong to summer. Instead, I continued to luxuriate in the reverie of the season. I walked through the walled garden, where even the curls of peeling paint upon the greenhouse door seemed unusually perfect to my eye. And where, inside, the heady aroma of ripening tomatoes and cucumbers fed my senses. I inhabited a profoundly fragrant world, where the scents of jasmine and honeysuckle mixed with sweet geranium, verbena and mint; where the incessant hum of bumblebees serenaded my thoughts and only butterflies caught my eye; where peaches and nectarines grew fat and ripe under a warm English sun. And when I looked out toward the cornfields in the distance, I saw only the glinting color of my future. There would be no war. How could there be? Certainly not in the midst of that summer.

  But the cuckoo had already begun to change his tune, and a sudden, cruel westerly wind had scattered rose hea
ds and petals about the lawns and pathways—like snow in summer. And I began to have the queerest feeling, a slipping-away sort of feeling. As though my material world was as ephemeral as the colors of that season, as though nothing was quite fixed anymore. You see, I wanted time to stand still; I wanted to fasten down those days and harness every color and shape in them.

  I met Tom every evening, on what Mama referred to as my “solitary amble.” And though we now spoke easily with each other, and had learned much of one another’s characters in the preceding weeks, he seemed reluctant to move beyond a certain point. His reticence had made me bolder than I should have been. I knew this, and sometimes, alone in my room, replaying a conversation we’d had in my head, I’d find myself aghast at my own unscripted lines. There had been so many moments when he could have, should have, almost kissed me, I was beginning to wonder if perhaps he had some sort of problem—with me, or with girls. My cousin Edina (named after my mother) had explained to me the previous summer that some men simply aren’t that way inclined. There are some men who prefer men, she’d told me. At that time I’d remained unconvinced; I needed evidence, I said. She’d picked on Broughton as an example, simply because he was, she estimated, over forty, and remained so very unmarried and unattached. And the idea of Broughton falling in love with another man had reduced me to a fit of giggles. But now I wondered if Tom fell into Edina’s disinclined category, for he certainly seemed troubled.

  It had been Edina who, four summers earlier, had educated me on other matters too. Sitting on our own in the summerhouse one afternoon she’d informed me, in her own inimitable way, how babies were conceived and born. We’d both sat in silence for a moment, each of us distracted by the image of any future husband attempting such a gross act upon us. Then, with immeasurable horror, I realized that Papa had done this to Mama—and not once, but four times!

  “Oh my God! Papa . . . Mama . . .”

  “I know. It’s beyond belief, but I had to tell you, Issa. You need to know.”

  “And the baby?” I asked, my hands still over my mouth.

  “The baby grows inside its mother until it’s ready to be born and then . . . are you ready for this? Prepare yourself, please dear . . . it comes out of her bottom, ripping her in two!”

  “Ugh! No . . . but it can’t be so . . . Mama . . . she looks fine.”

  “I know. Mine too. But this is why so many women die, dear. And they bleed for up to ten years afterward. Can you imagine?”

  “No! And I don’t want to.”

  It had been a bittersweet moment in my life, for I’d made up my mind then that I—like Edina—would never have children. But four years had passed since that particular revelation, and now I merely smiled at my remembrance of it. And that twelfth summer, once the best and most cherished, had faded and blurred, fusing with all previous summers into a montage of shapes and colors, scents and sounds: the hot sun upon the unmoving sycamore, the dark coolness of the lawn beneath; the hum and grind of the mowing machine; the glistening water of the lake in the distance; white butterflies on lavender, sweet peas on wicker; sun-bleached red stripes, white lines painted upon green; the hearty clank of a croquet mallet, the soft bounce of a tennis ball upon the grass.

  But summer hadn’t yet ended.

  I sat on the bank, alone, watching them play: Henry and George against Will and Tom. It was always toward the close of day that Henry took his competitive spirit out on to the tennis lawn, and one evening he inadvertently appropriated my rendezvous with Tom by inviting him to make up the numbers for all-male doubles. It was another sweet-smelling, balmy evening, the brightness of the day diffused to a liquid gold and poured out across the trees; everything languid and perfectly still, but for those white-clad figures in front of me. And in that soft westering light, a light tinged with the iridescence of early evening sun, they shone: dazzling, youthful beauty, immortal vigor and vitality.

  Too perfect . . . too perfect.

  Then, as though hearing my doubt, the chime of the church bell in the distance, calling out across the countryside, reverberated through that palette of overlapping color and texture and lullaby sounds. But this time interrupting, discordant, like a call to arms, stirring a sudden pang within me and reminding me once again how fleeting the moment of rapture. I lay back, flat against the earth’s warm surface, listening to its rhythm, the bounce of the ball upon the grass, and those young male voices. I stared up at the empty sky and imagined myself floating up into it, higher and higher, and all the time looking down upon myself and Deyning: smaller and smaller. I could still hear the church bell, hear birds calling out from the tops of the trees, but I could no longer hear the voices from the tennis lawn. They had gone. Evaporated.

  “Were you dozing?” he asked, standing over me.

  I sat up. “No, I don’t think so . . . I’m not sure . . . who won?”

  “Henry, of course.”

  “Henry and George,” I corrected him.

  He sat down on the bank next to me, swatting at the grass with his racquet. He’d wanted to win, I thought.

  “Henry—as I think you already know—rather likes winning. It makes him feel . . . complete.”

  He turned to me, smiling. “We all like to win.”

  “I’ve never won anything, ever,” I said. “But it doesn’t really matter.”

  “It’s different for you,” he said, looking away and pulling out his packet of cigarettes. “You don’t need to win at anything.”

  “Oh, and you do?”

  He shook his head, raised one side of his mouth. “No, I don’t need to . . . but I want to. All men like to compete, I think, and win. And if I’m to make anything of my life . . .”

  He didn’t finish his sentence and we sat in silence for a few minutes, watching George and William knocking balls about on the tennis lawn below us.

  “The Granvilles . . . all destined for greatness,” he said, wistfully, still staring ahead at my brothers. I said nothing. I watched him once more from the corner of my eye. On the side of his clean-shaven face he’d missed a patch: a few dark hairs, a newly discovered imperfection, lending a perfect vulnerability.

  “No . . . I think you’re the one destined for greatness, Tom.”

  He turned to me, looking into my eyes with that now so familiar solemn, searching gaze. And reflected in those eyes the setting sun, picking out small flecks of gold in brown.

  “I see it in you . . . I see it in you quite clearly,” I added, staring back at him, anchored.

  He glanced down at my hand, resting on the grass. “And of all people . . . of everyone, you’re the one I’d most like to have believe that.”

  My Dearest T, did you really wait ALL night? I feel utterly wretched at the thought, but we are filled to the brim here & it’s quite impossible for me to escape. Please tell me that you understand . . . Yr D

  Chapter Six

  On August the first we enjoyed a heavenly day of croquet, and we had almost a full house. Papa was in London once again, and Mama’s dear friend, and my godmother, Venetia Cooper, had come down for a few days with her son, Jimmy, and Charlie Boyd, another old friend of Henry’s from his school days. All four of my cousins—Edina, Lucy, Archie and Johnnie—were with us for the week, along with their mama, my mother’s sister, Maude. And William, too, had a couple of friends staying. For me, everything was as it had always been, only better, because Tom was now with us. If only Henry and some of the others hadn’t been so determined to talk about the possibility of war.

  It was toward the end of the day when I yelled across the croquet lawn at Henry and Tom, “Please do stop discussing politics! You’re spoiling our game!” And when I shouted that line at them for a second time, Henry immediately threw down his mallet and said, “Someone please help me throw my baby sister into the lake and then we can all have some peace!”

  I saw him striding across the lawn toward me and I screamed, dropped my mallet and took off toward the woods. I heard Edina and Lucy shrieking, the boys
cheering, and as I raced through the ferns, with Henry hot on my tail, I lost my shoe, tripped and fell.

  “Please don’t, Henry! Please don’t!”

  He laughed. “Oh, for goodness sake, Issa, do get up. Look at the state of you.”

  I could barely breathe. “I can’t,” I gasped. “I’ve hurt my ankle.”

  As Henry shook his head and walked away, Tom appeared, holding my shoe. He bent down. “Which ankle?” he asked.

  “The left.”

  He placed his hand over my white stocking. “Here?”

  I shook my head.

  He moved his hand up over my ankle. “Here?”

  “Yes . . . yes there,” I replied, wiping away a tear.

  “Are you able to stand?”

  He took my hand and I let him pull me up. I stood on one foot as he slipped his arm about my waist. “Hold on to me,” he said. I put my arm around his shoulder and tried to walk, but it was too painful and I cried out. “There’s only one thing for it, I’m afraid. I shall have to carry you.” He handed me my shoe, and then picked me up just as though I were a small child.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, as he strode back through the ferns toward the croquet lawn.

  “Don’t be sorry. Henry shouldn’t have chased you like that. Anyway, I get the chance to have you in my arms,” he replied, glancing down at me, smiling.

  When we emerged from the woods Edina and Lucy came rushing over from the boys, who were standing in a huddle on the lawn with Henry.

  Edina said, “Oh, darling! Are you very badly hurt?”

  “She’s twisted her ankle,” Tom replied, in a perfectly calm and assured voice, and Edina looked up at me, raised her eyebrows, and smiled.

  Then Will, George, Archie and all the others were around us, all wishing to look at my injured ankle. But Tom didn’t stop. He continued walking across the lawn, then up the steps, onto the terrace, where my mother sat with Maude. When Mama saw us she stood up.